TGI 688 - Finesse Your Sandwich

And apply that to a completely different genre and feel as though like, oh, I remember that from Vampire Survivors. Uh it's weird, but but because because they did just that. Like you're playing through vampire crawlers, and if you played enough vampire survivors, you recognize The heroes, you recognize the attacks, the cards, uh, the enemies, the locations, the music. It's almost like Vampire Survivors is a genre.

And we'll get back to the actual game, but I think this is a funny story. Ashley w walks in and she's I I was listening to the morning stream and I was listening to the Wendy segment where sh she does the like therapy talk and it was it was an interesting conversation. It so I always tune in on on the Thursday episodes.

And Ashley comes in and she says, like, Oh, uh, what are you listening to? It sounds like an interesting conversation. It's like, Oh, it's uh in the morning stream. It's like, oh, what are they talking about? And I'm like, um, I actually don't know.

And you're moving it's old school, so the the dungeon's set up in a way where it's like you get a map and it's uh it's grid base, so you're moving with either WASD or the controller or the arrow keys. And you're you're it's tank controls. So you move forward, you can move right, you can move left, you can move back, you can you can pivot, you can turn.

And then there are enemies that you come across. And when you fight an enemy and you defeat that enemy and level up, uh, you then get a choice of cards that will pop up. And I believe those cards are set to the crawler you've chosen. So you're getting cards related to your deck.

Um you are limited by the mana you have. Uh you start out with two and cards have a power ability uh mana cost of like zero, one, two, three, up to I've only seen up to four, I think.

Uh so you can start with that, Johnson.

and the tool tips and stuff. Uh but yeah, like you're getting XP as you defeat enemies. All the enemies are like zoomed in version of the art from I I'm assuming it's redone art, but it's really interesting how it feels like it's the art from Vampire Survivors, which were like little small two D pixel art and now they're like sort of fa in your face character art and and uh enemies.

But yeah, super satisfying. You're working your way through these dungeons and they're all based on levels from the original game. And I think I've progressed through maybe ten ten or so sort of levels. certain areas will have multiple levels and there's a boss at the end and you and it will have specific mechanics that you have to sort of outwit and Um yeah, it's super satisfying. Plenty of stuff to unlock, plenty of stuff to buy with the gold you're earning.

Um just like Vampire Survivors, all the sounds for leveling up and opening chests, it's just super satisfying and rewarding. Again, probably why I couldn't hear my background.

to a lot of the stuff that we're talking about tonight and what other people are talking about. It's it's a safe bet. You might want to hold off or, you know, pause on this one because again it's It's it's a satisfying experience, but if you We we've talked about this before where like I'm into completing games, I'm into narrative games, but sometimes there's a title that comes along that

Sort of fits in, doesn't fit into that category, but is still a very fun experience. But I feel like with vampire crawlers, when I'm done with it, I can stop playing. Like I can just like, okay, I'm I'm done. Similar to vampire survivors, okay, I've I've Played X amount of hours of this, I've had my fill back on the shelf, you go, maybe I'll come back for DLC or something.

Uh that does require willpower to walk away. I know not everybody has that, but maybe if you get 161 achievements, you'll be able to walk away. Has Matt been able to walk away? Like he's not like fully like this isn't his part-time job now, like he's good?

Uh the cards can have gems slot slotted into them. Um I thought it was very cool one of the gems was like a minus one mana card, but then you can apply it to a zero mana cost card to get a minus one. So not only can you start your combo even earlier, but you can gain mana by playing that minus one. costed card and is like, whoa, that it's so cool that that works. Like you'd think they'd limit you, like, no, you can't

sometimes two or three times a hand, it'd just be repetitive. Like I I fully expected Ashley to come in the room as like, can you

Um I started playing this at like seven PM and had every intention of going to bed at like nine and didn't even realize the time that had flown by. And could have kept going, but was trying to be a responsible adult who had a two year old and work in the morning. So uh but I played Masters of Albion. And uh this game I can't even really describe what genre it is because it has like a little bit of everything. It's a really cool

kind of mishmash of mechanics that goes everywhere from like god game down to like dungeon crawling adventurer and then like everything in between. There's actually like the different zoom levels on the map. will say like basically like God mode and then exploration and economics and then, you know, like it's really cool. So Masters of Albion, it basically like and I don't I don't think because this is from Peter Molyneux but not from like the makers of Fable, not under the Fable license.

It has all of the like humor trappings of that world. And yeah, like I don't know. I it's so hard to describe, but You have your kind of like god mode and you are essentially like the the god hand. You have a tech tree that gives you different powers to do with that hand. And then at like the God mode type level, you are setting up different towns and then almost

playing like a tower defense kind of a of a game because you have like a day-night cycle. Every day you do kind of your economy things and then all your workers go to bed and at night you have to defend. against uh zombies, basically. And each night gets harder and harder. Um more zombies show up. They have different health pools, everything else. So

You're defending against your moving your heroes around. You're building, you know, like ballista and stuff. And the whole point is to try to defend your body because at the very beginning of the game, you as like the main character get take the throne and then are like shackled into it and your hand gets cut off and that becomes the god hand and you kind of like ascend. So the whole point is you have to defend your body which is shackled to the throne, otherwise you lose.

'Cause the zombies will kill you. So that's like one part of the gameplay is like the the kind of like tower defense-ish type stuff. Then during the day you've got your like economic stuff. So each town has a different like specialty in terms of what they uh produce and what they make. So the first town that you get has uh like wheat fields. So you do like a farming thing. And you fulfill orders. So orders will come in for different types of food and they have this is like your

mini game within a mini game almost'cause you have the economic game, which is basically like making sure that you're harvesting enough resources and moving it through the like supply chain. So You harvest wheat, the wheat becomes flour, the flour goes into the factory, the factory makes the food for the order, right? But you this little like food mini game that you do, you have to take a look at the order and it'll say like

I want a basic sandwich um that is like low cost or something like that. And then so you have to choose the ingredients for the sandwich and it's everything from like moldy bread to like normal bread to like full loaf to all like all the way up through. You have to decide like what you're gonna give the person to fulfill their order.

And then you like make it and give it give them like a sample and then there's this little thing where they like eat the thing and then little like happy faces or frowny faces pop up around them. And you have to try to like min max the order. To try to get like a ten out of ten score.

So after you've done that, then you go back to like your economy and you have to farm the wheat and do the flour and then everything else to make however many of those like however many of that recipe you've created. to fulfill the order. So it's like there's tower defense. There's kind of like economic management and like city building. There's this little mini game of this order fulfill order fulfillment stuff. And then you can also go like

Now I'm struggling to remember if it was first person or third person. I think it's third person. But basically like you give up your god hand and possess your hero and that lets you like run around The world from that like hero's perspective and go places that your hand can't go. And then so you can explore.

other areas that you haven't maybe like taken over yet and revealed and removed the fog of war and stuff like that. And then as you're playing as the hero, that's when like you can find caves and go into these dungeons and It's just it has a like a little bit of everything and there's no kind of punishment if you only want to play one type of game.

So if you want to go like all in on the like food mini game, you can do that. You can sit and finesse your sandwich for 45 minutes if you want to. Or you can go.

All of those systems are very simplistic when you first start, but then as you go, like there's a tech tree for the like the food mini game. There's a tech tree for like it kind of expands over time. So what becomes like you interact with the interface in the same way for the food as you do for like armor and for weapons and so Once you unlock like the weaponsmith, you'll get a whole bunch of different like blades.

And pommels and handles and all the rest of it. And you have to like build your weapons from those pieces. Again, to fulfill orders, but also to outfit your heroes. And then you get the armor smith. And that's even more complicated and takes more resources. And then as you fulfill orders, as you, you know, grow your relationships with the people who are putting in orders, who in a lot of cases are like either um like residents of the surrounding area or their lords or their royalty.

There's like different levels of orders you can get basically with different like priorities and stuff and different um expectations, I guess. Because the peasants, they don't need the fancy stuff. They just wanna live. But you can't feed rat to a royal. They'll get real mad. Yes, rat is is an is a an ingredient in that's available to you to make your food.

Um, but yeah, so like all of these systems kind of work within each other and it allows you to focus on whatever kind of thing you want to do because there are a lot of Like

the core pieces and you can just kind of like pull them out onto the map and it'll like snap over to the building it belongs to. So like you you can Be very meticulous about all of all of your placement, about what your buildings look like, about like even what roofing style you choose. Like you can get way into that, or you can just take the bare necessities, snap them on the building and move on. So you can this is how it kind of feels in every single

part of the game. It's almost like a larger game full of a bunch of mini games. But they all feed into each other in a really interesting way. And you can go deep on the stuff you want to go deep on, but you can not pay too much attention to some of the other things. And you're never really all that punished. Which is also a little bit of my critique almost. And I don't know if it's because I think I'm on day ten now. And like so that's like um I've done nine days, nine nights I'm on day ten.

And so I'm th and I think I've unlocked I've unlocked two towns and a bit of like the surrounding countryside. And so far it hasn't been punishing enough for me to like to lose because if you like lose your town to the to the zombies. then you have to start the day all over again. Which is also kind of nice that there is a start the day all over again mechanic. But it does still feel like uh there's a lot of tutorial stuff that's kind of going on.

And that they're ramping up the difficulty of a lot of these systems. So I'm not sure if that's what's going on or if This is how the game is gonna work once you kind of get a little bit more freedom. I mean, there might be these tutorial esque quests that are available the whole time. I'm not sure. Again, I'm not that that far along.

But as of right now, there's kind of like there's a clock that counts up to noon every day. And then the clock just kind of stops. So it never forces you into night until you're ready. And so there have been some days that I probably played for a good forty five minutes to an hour. And that's because in your first town, one of the tech tree options is to, I think, um get a building that allows you to like water your crop.

And so you have an essentially, as long as you wait long enough, you have an infinite supply of wheat on any given day, because normally before you unlock that, you have a finite supply. Once you get it, that's it. Nothing else grows to the day. You have to wait until it it restocks overnight, basically. But yeah. So once I unlock this water building, I was like, I could just sit here and fulfill food orders. Forever and never go into the night phase.

So I'm like, I don't know if that's by design or something that's gonna change later because it seems really weird that it would never like kick you into the tower defense part, right? Like it would never force you to advance. It feels like you can just keep going forever in the same day. And I don't know if in the end that will be a good design choice. Does that make sense? Like I feel like there should be some pressure so that you have to make meaningful decisions.

As far as I know, orders will keep coming. Um, it's just a matter of like, do you wanna sit there for three minutes and wait until your wheat field regrows or do you wanna move the game along? Then there's that make it nighttime button. Um, but yeah, I did think it was really weird how it's like, why would you bother with a clock at all if it's gonna like start at six AM, go to noon and then like basically stop? So

It was it's an interesting choice. And like I say, it might be because they don't want to force me into nighttime. this early in the game,'cause it is a very extensive map. Like I say, I've played like I played five hours straight last night and I've only unlocked two towns. There's still so much more of the map that I can unlock and build and control.

But uh yeah, I've only unlocked the first two so far. But it feels like maybe I'm still At least if not in the tutorial, I'm like tutorial adjacent. So yeah, it's quite possible that eventually they'll take those training wheels off. I don't know. Something is supposed to happen on night eleven. I was warned on like night two of it.

I needed to like pick a pick a strategy because something was coming on night eleven. So I'm almost there. Yeah. And it might be that once night eleven happens, whatever that is, that then the training wheels are off and things just kinda go from there. I don't know, but I'll I'll fill you in next week. But I like I can't I just can't get over how much I'm enjoying this game.

There's even, like I said, the the kind of like fable-esque humor because like as you're walking around as your hero, there are like gargoyle statues hidden around the map that will just like taunt you. And like laugh at you until you find them and just

But when you transition uh to taking over the hero and going down into the uh I think sim games have this issue too, where it's like a top level, but then when you zoom in and you try to go at the ground level, there's like

there's some disconnect there and the controls might not be as snappy and do you feel like the third person mode and it's also early access so it can be forgiven, but do you feel like when you go into controlling a singular hero and you go into combat, does that feel as satisfying as The God hand mode or is it still need work?

You go and you build your armor and your weapons in your town and then you equip them on your hero, but the actual combat is very much like just swing the weapon, swing the weapon, swing the weapon. Like there is nothing like crazy or necessarily interesting about the combat. As the as the hero character so far, anyways, again, I think I only just unlocked my so I had like a kind of I think it's the warrior or the berserker, I don't remember which one you get first. Um

But um yeah, like I see what you're saying and I understand the concern. I've been surprised, if anything, how fleshed out and satisfying each of those systems are. Like There were times when I was playing last night that I was super obsessed about what I was gonna put in the sandwich because again, as the game goes on, the complexity goes up and like you start making pies and cakes and sometimes they'll say like

I need a cake and it needs to be big and it needs to be sweet. And if there's any hint of anything healthy in here, then I'm gonna hate it. But then it you have to get it to a certain like quality level and you may not have enough ingredients to get it to that certain quality level without, you know, the

adding fruit or something and that might turn them right off. So There were times when I would go like deep into that system and kind of get lost a little bit and then come out of it and be like, Oh yeah, okay, now I got to do all my farming and make enough of like stuff to feed into the cake thing and, you know, I'm gonna have to go

exploring with my hero because you find things. Like you find like chests and stuff out on the landscape. And those can have like new ingredients, new recipes, like all that kind of stuff in them as well. So the the systems kind of feel like they interact with each other really well, they're not fully contained with no um no impact on the other parts of the game, if that makes sense. So

Like you get specific currencies for completing specific things, but over the course of a day you will earn all of the currencies. So yeah, I don't know. Like with the exception of the combat not necessarily being as satisfying when you're playing as the hero. Um, I think everything else seems like they put a lot of thought into how these things were going to work together and made it.

feel meaningful and make it feel like the natural progression. Like you start in doing one thing and then that will lead you into another system, which will lead you into another system and so on. So yeah, like I think they put a lot of thought into it and it's been very satisfying and easy to move between them. And I think that like you're right, not every system is going to

appeal to every person who picks this game up, but I think there's something in it for everyone. And so far it hasn't been really punishing if there's been a system that I don't want to engage with as much. Like I've hardly engaged at all with the armor system.

Because my like mining town was the second one for me to unlock and I haven't really upgraded a whole bunch of stuff over there yet. So I haven't really done a lot of stuff with armor, but that hasn't really punished me that much. Like my heroes take a lot of damage overnight, but you have your god hand and you kinda like back them up and you have cool like lightning powers or fireballs and you know, you you really get to uh

interact with the combat in multiple ways and kind of like support the system, or you can choose to possess your hero and fight it out through the night. Or you can switch back and forth and it doesn't really matter. You can like move your ballistas around if you've got different like spawn points that you need to to cover. Like it it is very uh

It's very interesting and flexible. And I think like that could be good or bad, right? Because flexibility allows more people to potentially engage with your game. But at the same time, like the flexibility means maybe there's not enough state. So that's a fine balance that they're gonna have to come to. But again, like you said, it's early access. So this stuff could change over time. What they've got so far.

Pretty polished. I personally haven't had any issues with like glitches or crashes or anything like that. So It's it's pretty polished for an early access title and it's really well thought out. So I can I really can't recommend it enough. Like I say, I lost five hours to it last night and could have kept going. It has that like just one more cycle feel to it that I haven't found in a game in a long time. So I very much enjoyed it.

Genres and mechanics. I I just assumed it was a follow-up to what he was known for previous to Fable, which was uh uh the black and white games, where you it was it was a god game where you would you were the god and you kind of built up your civilization and it was more of like a s a Civ God game. This sounds more of like that plus Tower Defense plus order management and and and again, it's it's in early access. They're talking about it being a twelve month period. It's a great opportunity to

focus in on the systems, you know, iterate on them, tweak them, make them more interesting, uh, and and build upon them. So it's it's the perfect early access sort of experiment. I'm not experiment. This is a game that will hopefully hit one point oh but but it's the perfect use case for early access because you're like, okay, here's the systems we're thinking about.

play through them, offer your feedback, like we're listening. We can it sounds like they've got a great foundation, but there's obviously room for improvement. So uh it's exciting.

Constructive feedback. So like and they talk about all the things that they've been addressing and stuff. So again, it is early access. It's gonna have some glitches. I haven't experienced any of the things that the people in the comments are talking about. So you know, it's possible that those, you know, day one, day two patches fixed a lot of the stuff before I got my hands on it. So uh yeah, but I mean I do recommend it.

So far it's been a ton of fun. It is currently 35 Canadian on oh no wait, that's a bundle. Hang on. Uh it is currently Uh twenty six ninety nine Canadian right now. So probably twenty twenty ish American, yeah, to jump in. And like I say, I think it's really fun. I think there's something for everyone in here and uh it's got that fable style humor.

a a franchise completely died and came back. It can be maybe it maybe it took a long vacation, you know? So we're stretching the idea of

Uh also there was some calls in our Discord for our next game club. So it's actually been about a year since the last one that we did, which was uh Twilight Princess. So If you've got suggestions, then we're gonna put up a po well, there is a post for any suggestions, but if you've got something you're interested in and you want to potentially lead

then uh let us know because we would love to get game club going again. We just need the right host and the right game. So yeah, we're putting out the call. If anyone wants to get uh to resurrect the TGI Game Club, then uh please do let us know, give us suggestions and let us know if there's anything that you would like to lead. Again, do that over at tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. That brings us to the news this week. Uh we're getting uh black flag. We got more information about the

I guess uh we I think we're safe to call this a remake, right? This isn't a remaster. This is a reimagining almost of everything that was black flag. So I'm really stoked. I feel like Black Flag is the first Assassin's Creed that I really like dug into and played nonstop start to finish. Um I had tried the previous uh'cause I think Black Flag was four, right?

Stuff that didn't that wouldn't work in a modern context. Like we're just past the point of I think they specifically mention like some of the tailings slash stealth missions.

And I think this is the right w this is like the immediate one. This is like the Final Fantasy Seven of Assassin's Creed that like everybody's like Yeah.

And I think I had this with Final Fantasy Seven as well. Even though I never played the original, I knew of it. And seeing it remade so faithfully is like there's that weird disconnect slash uncanny valley of like that's not what Assassin's Creed black flag looks like. But I'm looking at it and I'm seeing it. Is this is this trickery? I don't know.

weird story stuff. Um I've always found it really difficult to keep track of what's going on like in the real world. I always felt like the um I g the flashbacks, I guess, like when you go into the animus or whatever it's called, um the like main story of the game was always really well done.

And then they'd go like out into modern times and try to explain what the fuck was going on and it was just like you should have not explained it. Just put us in this weird like machine and let us go back to in the past and leave it at that. But Yeah. I'm sure it's gonna have all of that crazy storytelling as well, obviously, so Yeah, maybe it'll be a good like reminder, but yeah, the stuff that's going on in present day in Assassin's Creed is always really weird.

took the historical accuracy and then applied it to like an educational side. So like recreating I think when is it Notre Dame had burned or something. There was a place in France that had burned and was damaged and then I think Ubisoft made Unity education mode uh available for free to s so you could tour it'cause they had done so much work to like painstakingly recreate it.

Talking about like the future of Xbox, they asked pointed questions about exclusivity, and they just said that. They're taking their time considering future strategy and no announcement was coming. So they didn't even say like which way they were leaning. It's crazy. And the sentences coming out of this team are ridiculous.

So I just I don't know. Like like we'll take a data driven approach and a strategic d driven approach and then we'll look at our principles and we'll make some calls. Oh fuck off. That is so much nothing. It's ridiculous.

Plenty of buzzwords in here. And I've seen this before where

My first thought was that they are no longer going to make things exclusive because that kind of seems like the way that they've been going. And so reevaluating exclusivity, I took to mean that they are reevaluating their exclusive titles. For wide release day one. Like that's how I read it.

And then I was reading like the articles and stuff and they were talking about the other way about how, you know, people have been or like had said that the reason that they're not as invested in the Xbox platform is because there are less exclusives. Which would then lead you to think that Microsoft is thinking about pulling back on its on its wide releases and and making things more exclusive.

But because they've just said reevaluating exclusivity, no one knows, including Microsoft, what any of this means. Like it just. It allows you to kind of like project your own hopes onto what it is that they've said or announced, if you can even call any of this an announcement or a strategy. You can kind of like read your own biases into it and then get behind it because they haven't actually said anything with any of these statements.

So I get it from a marketing perspective where they're like if we keep it as vague as possible, people will hear what they want to hear and they'll stay behind the Xbox brand. I don't know if they realize how few people are actually behind the Xbox brand right now because I don't think there are very many people at all who are excited about what Xbox is doing.

console platform. But you're right. Like you read through this and I think you and I both came to different conclusions. Yeah. Based on what we think is the right business sense, but also what is is the path they've been taking recently and I think This is a scenario where they're saying all this stuff to and it's all a a big sort of promise of of what Project Helix might be, which is their console slash PC hybrid, their next generation console.

And I was saying to you, it's like, it's weird. If you were wind six years, if you had told me like you're not even gonna be considering an Xbox for the next generation of consoles, um That'd be kinda wild because I think when Xbox One ended, that was a tough generation for Xbox, but they were able to

through an injection of a large amount of money from from Microsoft, build out this Game Pass idea, and that was but that was something they actioned on Xbox One and promised to continue with the Series X. And said basically like, hey, like this is gonna be the first full console generation with Game Pass. It's gonna be great. And it just wasn't sustainable and and it kinda fell off the rails near the end with the price increase and then a price decrease. Um and I just I don't know what

Like, I don't really know what any of this means and we won't know what it means until it launches, until we have concrete launch details. And I think this whole thing boils down to is like they don't know the final plan is yet. It it looks like they have pieces of what they might want to look at, you know, hybrid console, bringing more competition to their console with other stores and markets. and ability to play games, whether you purchase them through

Steam or Xbox or Epic. Uh I think that as a concept is really interesting and if they can consolify it enough, that can work. But It's just it's the uncertainty. Like you and I as uh gamers that are connected to the industry, like we understand that it's been a rough couple years for Xbox. I wonder if the general public have that perception as well. I'd be really curious. I I don't know. Um our community is is is also very connected to the industry.

uh like I think the Nintendo has done a really good job. Like I understand the general perception of of you know nint Nintendo stuff because the Switch was just so successful and people saw it as like this somewhat of a perfect console for the everyday gamer to pick up play Nintendo games and indies and all that.

And it's it's widespread. But I don't think the Xbox ever got there. PlayStation five and the Nintendo Switch, of course they did, but I don't know if the Xbox really escaped that like third place recognition. Like I think they fell pretty far down the list, uh, this generation.

being a gaming PC console. And a lot of the language we've seen come out of Steam is a lot of the stuff that now we're seeing come out of Xbox where maybe they're not trying to compete with like Nintendo and Sony anymore. Maybe they're trying to, you know, go up a tier and and be more like a PC. I don't know. Um, I don't know if they know again because of all this marketing speak. So it'll be interesting to see what actually comes of this because there's also been talk about

you know, focusing on daily active users as their measure of success. So Yeah, I don't know. There's there's lots going on here, but also nothing going on here. And I I find that a little bit frustrating is that, you know, I think we would have liked a little bit more direction. by this point, and it's really just feeling a little bit like excuses, like in in some of the follow up interviews. She's talking about like it's only been two months and you know like

Other people were given decades to make these decisions and I wanna th I'm like, okay, but like i are you gonna wait ten years to do something? I don't know. Like, yeah, like I like I say, I think um It's it's good to take the time to make a good to make the proper decision, right? Like that that is that is good leadership and management.

Um, recognizing that also you have to make a decision and you have to give people something. You can't just say, We're working on it, we're working on it, have a bunch of marketing words and then not actually follow through and do anything. So Yeah. We'll we'll see what happens and we'll keep you guys up to date if there's anything actually worth covering. But uh yeah, speaking of steam, we did get more information about the steam controller.

including money and it's a lot So a hundred and fifty bucks uh for us up here in Canada for the steam controller and It will be available uh imminently. It's uh I guess May fourth, so that's what, next week? Already? Yeah, next Monday. Monday. Yeah. Just under a week. Yeah. May fourth is is a week away basically. So are are you gonna be picking up one of these?

purchasing something that is going to take another piece of hardware that works perfectly. My 8-bit dough ultimate controller with dock that's either plugged into the Steam Deck dock or my uh PC. I pick it up, it connects instantly, it works, it's perfect, it's got the Xbox level of buttons that you need, and it plays all the games I needed to play. So If I were to purchase this, I'd I'd have to shelve a perfectly good controller. So I'm

I don't think I don't think I would play a game that didn't have controller support. Uh I think I think of specific titles It's probably like card based games or like, you know, simple mechanic type games, but I'm not gonna be playing like a Civ Seven with a controller.

I grip real hard when I'm getting frustrated and always push buttons I don't mean to push. So get them off my grips. I need those for rage.

Uh yeah, I I do hear you on that. Like I think they even detailed some other stuff like um they were talking about the uh the grip detection. So if you if you move your fingers off the grip, it will it it it can detect that as an input.

super interesting, but again, the examples that they gave, like one of the examples like, oh, you can treat it, use it with the gyro and treat it like a like a ratchet style. So that when you move the controller to the right And then and that move that is triggered as an input, but then you take your hand off the grip. It can freeze the gy gyro and then you you move the controller back and then you can put your grip back on and and treat it as your a wrench, but like why would you

I'm not joking. It was an exploration of all the Steam Deck functionality and it was a really cool experience. Like it was a good and it was free. They did it right. They bundled it. They gave it to you for free. You just bought a thousand dollar Steam Deck.

And I I just love and have always loved the way the Xbox controller fits in my hand. And the steam controller seems like one I would like because I do like a heavier, bigger controller. But uh I just yeah, like I love my Xbox controller and I'm using it on my PC exclusively. So like it still works until it stops working. I'm probably gonna use it.

And and that's all through the Steam input layer that they've built. So it's just a different environment. I think this controller will do well, but as we were talking about before the show, we were kind of going over the news, it's like If you wanted to, you could go buy like four or five eight bit dough controllers to to add your collection and still be under this cost.

And have some really great controllers. It's like, man, I want a Nintendo variation, and this time I want the you know, a Genesis variation, and oh let's go Xbox, let's get a doct mode. There's so many options for controllers and this is definitely probably like gonna be a top tier PC offering for controller wise. But even eight bit do is starting to offer some of that stuff. Like controllers are just such a big market right now. So um Yeah, I don't know I like I don't know if it's price or

But it really does come down to like, you know, do I have a hundred and fifty dollars to spend on something that's neat? It's like

I've play I've I've held in my hands at at uh test demo station. It it feels like a next generation Nintendo Pro Controller. It's got those backpedals. It feels really good, but I have pro controllers at work and it's and that's I just couldn't I couldn't, uh... Couldn't yeah, couldn't make that purchase. So yeah, down the road, maybe we get a Zelda one, 100%. Like we'll have that conversation.

It looks like a solid product. I think it'll do really well. Like I think Steam is in a different sort of realm now, hardware wise, as compared to where they were ten years ago. So this is gonna do fine.

whether the steam machine launches like th I think they've come out and said the steam machine will launch when we're comfortable with the price that we have to charge. And and basically what that boils down to is Components are too expensive and we would have to overprice this machine than we were originally comfortable. Uh doing. I think a hundred and fifty bucks Canadian for the steam controller.

That price is higher than I'm willing was willing to spend. I was hoping for something closer to like, you know, 100, 125, but this isn't this is I think this is a a solid price for all the features you're getting. Whether you're gonna use all those features is

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