Assassin's Creed Shadows, Atomfall, GDC's Best Games

you everybody welcome to a new episode of the min max show place about games friends getting better my name is ben hansen apologies for the delay with this episode going up but we had gdc to come back from and we're gonna be talking about that talking all about that in the back half of the episode but before that we have jeff marquiafava here

That's me. We have Leo Vader here. Now it's time for some gold dang content. Games, games, games, games, games. And we have Charles Hart returning once again. Yeah, and you get some gosh darn Charles. Thank you for being here, Charles Hart. Charles Hart, you might recognize him from... The famous retweeting of some sort of blue sky posts from Game Informer teasing something happening March 25th? That couldn't be right.

I don't know. I was just so excited about March 25th, I thought it would be cool if people looked in on that day, but I don't really know anything else. Yeah, it's his cousin's birthday. He always kind of freaks out about it. We're going to be talking about Assassin's Creed Shadows on this here podcast. It's been in the works for a heck of a long time. Let's unpack it. Talking Atomfall? I'm very curious about this one. Talking Fragpunk? Talking Rainbow Six Siege?

All of Leo's favorites. And then we have Hayley McClain and Sarah Pozorski joining the show. And we are going to be unpacking our thoughts on GDC, some games that we played at GDC. And then, of course, answering wonderful questions. submitted by the community over there on Patreon in the back half of the show. I'm excited for this episode. There's a lot to get to. How are you feeling, Leo? Great. Every game I was like, I have a lot to say about this. I'm not just going to show up.

I've got takes. Oh, Jesus. All right. Assassin's Creed Shadows. I am curious where everybody's at. And Charles, jump on in because I feel like the first time you're on the podcast is when we're covering Assassin's Creed Barrage, right? That's true. I'll do a leap of faith in and just, I'm like seven hours in. Okay. So I've only played, I played as Yasuke in the beginning, but I haven't.

gotten him back yet yes that's where a lot of people are at I think because it turns out the game that's built on hey you're in feudal Japan and you're kind of alternating between these two characters choose which one you want to bring on a mission it's like Oh no, for the first big chunk of the game, you're now way, which is fine, but it's interesting how it's just completely the opposite of everything they kind of build this game as for years. Yeah.

I do wonder, though, if people would default towards a more combat focused Yasuke if they weren't forced to learn the stealth part. Which is interesting. I wonder if that's part of the goal. That in an Assassin's Creed game, it's like, we need to make sure that they came and bought an Assassin's Creed game for the stealth assassinating. Right. It seems relevant. Let's see. I am early on in Assassin's Creed Shadows myself, but Leo, how much time have you put in the-

this thing six hours so right around the same place okay and then jeff um is the powerhouse here so far uh 25 hours and it was probably 20 hours when i finally unlocked Yeah, I was skating. Now I can switch between them, whoever I wanted to. Don't expect it to be 20 hours because I was doing other stuff during that. Cooking dinners. It's a hike. Yeah, awesome. Jeff, I'm...

As the expert here, what's your high-level take for Assassin's Creed Shadows? Just to build it up, this may be the game that all of Ubisoft is hinging on at this point. And it's a game that people have screamed about. I mean, I remember doing...

cover stories for Game Informer for Assassin's Creed back with Revelations. And even for that, all the comments were like, okay, Assassin's Creed, let me know when you get to ancient Japan. Go to Japan, you idiots. And now in 2025, they're here. There's a lot riding on it. And Jeff Lump's take is... It's really good. I think it might be the best playing Assassin's Creed game, but it's still a Ubisoft game.

The classic. For better and for worse. Just speaking to that point of people have been waiting for this forever. I do feel like it is unfortunate. That they waited so long and that Ghost of Tsushima came out because Ghost of Tsushima is one classy game and like, you know, really, really both into like the history of Japan and also... you know, influenced by Hurosawa films and kind of all that classic stuff. And this feels more like it was influenced by like the Japanese parts of Kill Bill.

They do pull in history and those kind of things, but it's a Ubisoft game, and there's just kind of... Not the same level of deference and classiness, I'm going to say. That's interesting. There are like, you know, contemporary Japanese rock songs in cut scenes and stuff. Really?

Yeah, which I honestly is one of, I think, the coolest things about it. It's taking a weird angle that makes me stop and consider it. Because, yeah, Ghost of Tsushima definitely ate this game's launch in a big way. That is interesting. Even like, you know, I wonder if it's...

factoring in, tying in, when I started up this game, it was a moment of like, oh yeah, the animus stuff, the modern day stuff. And it's just like a light tease at the beginning of the game. It was enough to make me go like, oh yeah, in the years of this game's development, I...

hadn't even considered what the quote modern day context was for everything and why and how you're going to be jumping between these two characters. But it seems like light tease at the beginning to say, we'll get back to you later. And now please go enjoy Japan. But Charles. Yeah. You played through every Assassin's Creed game before Mirage came out. Most of them. I didn't...

I didn't truck through. I didn't I didn't get to Valhalla at all. And I didn't beat Odyssey. Oh, like the big chunky ones I didn't do, but I did all the older ones. So the first thing I did is I went in the settings and I turned on. like instant assassination. You can just set it. So if you're in stealth mode, you can assassinate anyone instead of it mattering what level they are. Because I was like, I, that's just what I'm used to. I've always preferred.

that i like the fact that i'm so sneaky i can kill anyone by stinging up on them that just feels more realistic to me but also it doesn't it doesn't really break the game because if you jump in an area where like everyone's 20 levels higher than you, and you assassinate the big guy, everyone else will still kill you really quick. So it just changes the flavor of it a little bit. So I did that, and it has improved my...

stance on it. Just because it makes you feel like it's an old Assassin's Creed game? yeah or just that i'm an i don't know if you stab people they die sometimes rpgs get confused about that i was like well your sword wasn't sharp enough it's like nah i stabbed you so you should die that's that's how this should work here um i have been Most, I like all the visuals and stuff. I generally like the gameplay. My main holdup so far is there's a lot of dialogue and a lot of the...

like out of big cut scene conversations are like very stiff to me. I don't know if other people have thought this, but there's like long pauses between sentences and people have very like robotic, uh, like reaction a reaction b to certain things that people say um and whenever i'm in i was just in a mission that was a lot of talking and you're like getting ready for a tea ceremony and i was like i'm not really interested in this and i was

Kind of putting me off, but it's a really long game, so I'm not expecting that one mission to reflect the whole thing, but the pace of it is very slow. Interesting. Yeah, I immediately put it in Japanese, so maybe that...

kind of stiffness is less apparent to me. I heard there was other complaints about kind of the English VO, but it feels like it's just so much cooler. I think it's a sophisticated choice if you play in Japanese and especially in the beginning where like, you know, you got Portuguese and Japanese all swirling together. It's a cool mix to get out of the gate with. Leo? What? What do you think of The Destiny's Great Shadows, man?

Um, I'm pretty mid on it at the moment. I do agree it is one of the better playing Assassin's Creed's, but that is just... below the bar of where we've come with other games to me just the the portion of time you're playing this and trying to do something and something different happens and you're frustrated and and you die or you don't die but it just doesn't feel like your fault whatever happened that's just plain

a bigger part of this than most games I play. You just feel that emotion more. So, I mean, remember in the preview, you're talking about just like the parkour is still not good. It's just, you're sticking to the wrong things. You're trying to go over here and your body's doing this, even though you're fully in control. It just never quite is. locking you in to having full control like you'd expect if you're inside of an animus exactly the the way jeffman was like

it's one of the better playing Assassin's Creed games, but it's still a Ubisoft game, was kind of like, this is the best meal I've ever had at an Applebee's. It's like the thing of like, oh, it's really great, but also like, this is where we are. So like, understand. what I'm comparing it to. But I think if you say the U word at this point, like it's a Ubisoft game, that is just...

I mean, how many years have we been doing this now? It's just an idea of like, OK, open world bloat of icons. We got it. But they're trying to. I feel like they've been trying for five years now of trying to shake that up. And it seems like they're doing more of that this time around than ever of having you go around and explore the environment yourself. Right. Just showing like points of interest, kind of state of the case style. Yeah. So.

So that is on my list of big things that I don't like about this one. The whole, like, we want you to discover your objectives is a... Great goal for many different types of games, but their sole way of doing that is go to this objective, but we're not going to tell you where the objective is. And so like, we'll give you a couple of directions, like it's in this prefecture and then it's, you know.

west of kyoto and it's kind of by a pond and figure out where that is and and they have a scouting mechanic where you can send out scouts to kind of narrow that down but even when you get to a place like i streamed for like an hour and a half yesterday yeah and the the longest like chunk that I spent was looking for a dog at, at the fricking cemetery where you're just supposed to pet a dog. That was, that was the goal, but you get there and it's just like a big blue circle and it's like,

Look around for where the dog is. And it's like, it says it's by a grave and there's a grave right there and it's not there. Yes. There was a cat there, which was very confusing. And I kept coming back to that cat. This does not, this does not count. This is the wrong animal. But it's like every single objective is a go and try and figure out where this thing is.

And it feels like there's no point to it other than we're just kind of artificially lengthening what these missions are. Like, it is the wrong type of discoverability. Well, I mean, the point is they want you to... pay attention to the world and not a map. I mean, that's, it's not a matter of padding out playtime. I don't know if it works though. I don't know if I have fun doing that, even though ostensibly I should for what I like in games.

It's just it's not like I'm following clues by being observant. It's like I'm running around until I get lucky is how it feels every time. Otherwise, you can use scouts to scout it out. But early in the game, you have so few that it's a very precious resource. And that feels kind of. uh hampered at the start what about that uh the pathfinder mode

Do you all experiment with that where it's basically like a little dead space? Like marker on the ground to tell you exactly where to go? Is it only during missions? It brings you to the sphere to search in. It doesn't bring you right to it. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, it... it writes out a little path for you, which is fine, I guess, helpful. The other...

I do like a lot of the game. I have been enjoying it a lot. I am used to that kind of like middling parkour where sometimes you grab onto the wrong place. I have... Like, it is the best, smoothest version of that, even though it is still imperfect. But, like, one of the other big stumbling blocks that I have that we can get out of the way is just, like, the whole...

The skill tree system and it being based on knowledge points is just kind of a big bummer. Like, you are leveling up normally as you play.

uh you are you actually get a ton of skill points like the first hour i played i was like man they are really not giving me a lot of skill points it seemed like it was going to be stingy and then once you start doing main missions like they just shower you with points but the problem is is that That in order to get to the higher tiers of skills that you can purchase with those skill points, you have to do these knowledge side missions.

universally are just not interesting at all and just like the busiest you know like fetch quest kind of busy work that there is like you a lot of them are you go to a shrine you you like discover a shrine And then you either need to like pray in three locations, which is just going up and pressing the pray button to pray there three times. Or it's you go there and you have to find three lost pages, which you just kind of.

use your little inspection button and you look for a white dot and then you go there and you press a button and you get it and you have to do them because each level you need 10 of these knowledge points in order to just unlock the next a tier of skills and it's it's just like i don't know why they did it and it's they're just not if they were if they were actually interesting or if they had more you know actual history of japan or whatever

layered into it or something, maybe it would be more interesting. But they are just a bummer that slows down your progress. um for unlocking skills there's a lot of them too i think that's the that's like if it was due two of those to level up that's fine but like getting from level one to level two even is like eight uh-huh yeah and i think it's it's 10 after that for yeah

for the next couple at least. And my goals so often in these games, like, you know, I love to have self-driven goals in games and that's not necessary. but a goal I care about. In this game, I feel like you have a million goals, including a bunch of things on the skill tree you want to get to, and they all feel so, so far away, and the hurdles between you and them...

I just don't look forward to doing. I feel like so much of this game is galloping through open space to get to a place where you follow for five minutes or eavesdrop, which is what the series has always been. And no one has wanted it to be. And yet here it is still.

clearing outposts and stuff that is fun and that has not been that big a part of it so far yeah the yeah so and and like the the other thing about the knowledge points i could i could deal with the fact that they're busy work but sometimes like

I had a long stretch where I just didn't have any knowledge points on my map that I could go to in the first place. Like you kind of you have to go out of your way to go to question marks and then you kind of have to just hope that they are a shrine or something that will have one of these.

opportunities in there and I don't know if they gate it kind of in the early hours in terms of like how many you're going to have because once I got Yasuke like a bunch more showed up because he has his own ones to do um but yeah that sucks and Leo you are speaking to me with the, with my other main criticism of the game, which is that world is super big as they always are. Some like sometimes.

That's cool. Like when you climb up onto a, you know, eagle's nest or whatever, and it zooms way out and you are like this tiny speck. in the middle of a forest and there are hundreds of trees you know it's gorgeous and it's really selling the idea of how big this world is but you just spend so much stinking time Running from one objective to another one that's a thousand meters away just through like dead space. Like if like they really want you to take the roads when you're going to your.

next objective because if you decide like well i'm going to cut through this forest instead like you are not going to see anything in that forest that you can interact with at all it's just like dead force no enemies no you know like here's a treasure chest that you can get or here's you know like some other little thing that you can interact with like it is mostly just completely dead you are just running for you know two minutes

to get to the next, next objective. And it is, it's, it's been a real bummer and it's in, it's in a real contrast. to, you know, like some other open world-ish type games like Avowed and Internal Strands that have come out recently that have like really focused down their game worlds where it's like...

You walk in any direction for 20 seconds and you find something interesting in Avowed that you can interact with or, you know, a chest that you can find to loot or whatever. And it makes you feel like you are actually. have fun things to do and i and in this game like i would love to see a heat map of just like the entire world of this of this world versus like where content actually is to interact with

Don't you think – I mean they're kind of screwed though because you can't have like an amusement park version of Japan. Like a lot of people, if they want feudal Japan, they want to ride their horse through rolling green hills without having people pop out and be like – Over here. Side quest over here. I think there's a treasure jingle over here. But I would also like to do stuff. And like, when I want to go on a mission and I...

I want to have fun on a mission and be an assassin. I don't want to have to ride a horse for five minutes to get there with nothing going on in between. What do you want to have happen if you're running a horse for Nick's objective? Like they need to... Like Red Dead Redemption 2 kind of goes for the...

same thing of the tone of being there and the long rides between places and even when nothing happens there is the sense that anything could happen and you need that the dynamic events that that game brought i think really are forever underrated for how much it brought that to life and made it uh fun to be galloping from objective to objective yeah and this having nothing like that besides like little fights between two other factions where there's like not any reward for

beating them besides xp it's it's like there are things going on and you don't know whether you should do them because they're not very rewarding or interesting yeah I like the stealth in this game a lot for a series that people have been like, oh, it's going away from stealth. It's getting more focused on other things. I do like coming into this playing as Naue and...

specifically feeling like I can do things I can't do in other games because of the shadows. It's in the name, but the shadows are so cool. Like if you go somewhere at night, um there's a whole thing where like when you press the stealth button and you're in like tall grass you have like the little white outline of like oh you're basically invisible right now if you go somewhere at night

all over when there is a shadow and you're stealth you're like not visible to people so there's like a whole new dynamic to like i'm gonna go in this room and extinguish this candle and then no one will be able to see me kill these people right um and then also the the fact that They've got like the paper doors and you can see people's shadows through them. Like you can kill people through those walls, but also it's just like.

uh you don't always need to rely on like eagle vision or like tagging people from a point because it's like well i can see the people in there just because of the literal design of these buildings ancient japanese doors it's like everybody had detective vision all the time it's pretty cool um And also just ways of like... I mean, the fact that the doors are... In other games, you would open like a...

creaky door. They need to have a sound effect for the door, but it'd be like, oh, this feels weird to open the door and assume no one's going to hear it. These are much quieter, so that helps my immersion. You can also go under buildings a lot, so it's not just... You got to be on top and then find a place to drop down. You can be on the ground level and sneak around underneath. The going prone thing adds a lot. Adds a lot of different routes and yeah.

So as someone who's played a lot of Assassin's Creed stealth sequences, I appreciate I think I think a stealth game is only as good as the tools you're given to navigate that stealth. And like just having a crouch button or just knowing that like I can avoid people's gaze like isn't enough for it to be fun. And I feel like I have a lot of.

tools that i can use here that has made me like a lot yeah it's interesting i like the feeling of going up to a candle and like extinguishing the light and kind of sneaking around in the darkness but then there are times where i'm like

Wait, I can't interact with this light? Is this one of those lights that I can throw my kunai at? It's like there's multiple different light sources, right? Like manually extinguish, throw a kunai to extinguish, or can't do anything with it. It's like, which light are you that I'm looking at at the moment? It's a little funky. Definitely. Yeah. I was going to say this is this is the first Assassin's Creed game where like.

stealth is a really viable option and it's it's a it's a very good stealth game just in terms of normal games no no ubisoft caveats on that one like i think the stealth feels really good i think as Like, the positive side to this being, like, a giant massive game like all Ubisoft games, I think the loot system works really well, and the weapon...

The weapon systems, once you start getting legendary weapons and you upgrade your home base a little bit, you can start putting engravings on it that, like, give additional abilities and stuff. And you can, like, really start building out your character. I have built out my character. to make kunai's as deadly as possible and i'm just whipping those at bad guys all the time and it feels even better you know like so i i really enjoy the stealth i really enjoy the basic combat too um

I was very skeptical going in about whether Yasuke was going to be fun to play with. And it has been a lot more exciting than those demos that we watched originally. uh made it seem like it was going to be i think it stands up as an action game as well and yeah he's got like that i mean i'm enjoying all of the combat It is just kind of getting to those things. Also, like the castles in this game are so insane. They're basically like bandit camps in every other Ubisoft.

game except it's basically an entire town and like there are times when there are just dozens of people that you're like sneaking you're assassinating constantly you know you're trying to find the daisho and it's it's like they are so much fun to like I will go in and I will spend a half an hour just clearing out a castle. And that is just super satisfying. You get super good loot at the end of it. Each die show that you kill also gives you a mastery point for your skill trees.

There is really good stuff in here. It's just kind of like a scattershot across this huge world and all the systems that Ubisoft loves packing into these. Yeah. and on the combat to get to it for sure and on the combat and stealth the animations are stellar and there's a ton of them and they flow together really well

Like just the look of you pulling something off is really strong for sure. Especially like prone assassinations where you're crawling and you pull them down, you get up to stab them and then you get back to prone.

That feels really great. Yeah, I love that the power dash you get in the beginning with Yasuke, just like that, ah, charge forward and stuff. Even just him sprinting through doors is always funny. Feels like it's never quite fast enough of a sprint, but it's like, oh no, okay, he's still just busting through, apparently, every single door around.

satisfying in a strange way yeah like if in a spider-man game they're like what if you could just also play as the hulk sometimes you can just run and he can smash stuff and you don't have to be sneaky about it and it's like that is actually satisfying yeah Totally. On the light thing too, there's like dynamic weather, which is cool. I was taking on a big base and having trouble with it and then it started like thunderstorming.

which made so much more cover for me to move around. And I was like, I need to do as much as possible before this storm is over because it's going to be easier. And little moments like that. that felt dynamic and cool. And there's like seasons in this game that are somehow not story bound. They're dynamic, which is really interesting. Oh, and it's already kind of shifted seasons, even just seven hours in like that? A couple of times. Yeah. It's pretty regular. Yeah.

It's probably been like 10 years in my game at this point. Often the seasons change. It functions as like restoring your base resources, your scouts and stuff. They go out and do the things you assign them to do. They bring back the resources you got and then they reset for the new season. Okay.

And enemies come back too and stuff like that. Okay, it's the Blood Moon and Zelda. Just a big reset for the entire world. I got it. What's up with the, on the simplest level, like the launcher for this game? I'm playing on Xbox. And it's like, it boots up, I don't know what it's like on PC, Leo, but it boots up just like a launcher with every kind of RPG version of Assassin's Creed. Right. I was like, oh, do you want to boot up? Yep.

Valhalla, you want to boot up Odyssey? Is this what's left of that Assassin's Creed Infinity push that they had, which seems like it was going to be a big hub thing, and then this game was going to be the first in that series, and now is it just this little launcher where they try to push you to... check out the other games and buy them? I guess. I don't even know if you can boot those up from there if you have them installed.

well yeah i i it booted up there and i was really confused and i was like is this like a because sometimes there's like little databases in the games right right you'll be playing you know like black flag and it's like altair was a famous assassin once if you want gonna click this and learn about him so I thought it was gonna be that and I clicked like

You know, the Origins Bayek page is like, do you want to play Assassin's Creed Origins right now? Yeah. Oh, what? No. Why do I want to do that? Why are you giving me that option? You think someone's going to buy, I guess maybe if you get like Ubisoft Plus or whatever.

And then you start Assassin's Creed Shallows, you're like, but the Vikings look cool, though. What if I just pivoted and did that intro instead? I'll come back 100 hours later, I guess. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's probably as simple as just, I don't know, Call of Duty does it. It's the biggest game in the world.

Yeah. Do people like it? No, I don't think so. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, it's an odd move. Joe Hello in the backstage past chat says you can launch them straight from there if you've got them installed. Oh, interesting. So, I mean, is it for people that... loved odyssey and valhalla both those games sold very well clearly there's an audience out there that wants that type of game like if you are somebody who loved valhalla in particular

Or jumping into this, is it going to be like, great, more of that in a different setting with some new twists at the end? Or you think still it might be just five years later, people are going to be like, no, I don't know about Assassin's Creed anymore. I can't remember how much... like boat stuff there was in Valhalla. Like this, this feels despite all our complaints, this feels more concentrated in terms of just like you are roaming around one countryside.

to these different towns and stuff. That feels a little more focused to me, at least compared to Odyssey, which is the one that I played much more of. Yeah. But yeah, if... If you like Assassin's Creed or have liked Assassin's Creed at any point, I think check this one out. It plays it plays the best. You know, I the story is fine for me. Like. I'm I might not I'm not as big of a fan of any of the characters either. But like it is it is a simple setup of like here are these 10 or 12 or whatever.

Super powerful people that you have to hunt down and assassinate as a tale of revenge. And that works for me because I'm I'm a simple person. But it's like and then and then you you, you know. You discover many other circles of people that need assassinating, and there's plenty of assassinating to go around. And that aspect of it is fine. If you are an Assassin's Creed fan, that is what it is serving up.

with the best gameplay of Assassin's Creed that they've managed so far. So, you know, and if you're a big fan of Assassin's Creed, you're probably used to the bloat and used to... taking a long time to get to your next objective and all those kind of complaints that we had. And if you're not, maybe just boot up one of the last few that you didn't beat and play it for a few hours and your age will be scratched. That's true.

Yeah. I mean, Charles, do you think you're going to see your way through this entire game? Do you feel like the need to be up to date on Assassin's Creed? I mean, we'll see how long it... holds me there's some some of these games it gets to the point where like uh you just keep unlocking new stuff and i'm kind of like i just want to finish the story for the sake of i'm very much like let me finish the story

real quick, and then if I want to hang around and do the whole world, I'll do that. Sometimes it's like, well, you can do this next thing, but you're going to have to do a bunch of side stuff or whatever. So I'll see how the pace goes. It seems like a very... slow-paced game. Like, it seems like it wants you to take your time and go through everything.

Um, and I don't know if I'm the person to match that pace, but I know there are some people that are like, this is the only game I want to play for the next two, three months and that's fine. And it's kind of built for that kind of like long-term investment. Yeah, I think it is great for those kind of fans. And I question, like, is that the main Assassin's Creed player nowadays? Maybe it is. But, like, you know, they've been struggling to find...

a bigger audience, I guess, Ubisoft has in, like, they need a big hit at this point. I mean, Valhalla knocked it out of the park, but yeah. Yeah, I don't know if, like... You know, maybe that is the person now and they and they are ready and willing to invest 100 hours into fully exploring this game, which, you know.

I don't fault anyone for. And if I was going to play an Assassin's Creed game that much, this would be the one like I am. I'm still very much enjoying it after 25 hours. I want to continue playing it. It's just like. you like i think you are you are best um best suited going into this if you just kind of wander around and you aren't committed to like hey let's do the main missions like you are you are going to run into

some kind of growing pains in terms of leveling your character. And you're just going to be spending a lot of time running from one point. It's better, like, go to an area, just kind of do the little things that are around it and kind of... you know, wander around the countryside that way, I think you'll have more fun. I mean, I feel like the best chance it has is it's launching at a pretty good time.

I feel like there's some, you know, Xbox games, Xbox promoted games, at least launching in like, what, later April and stuff. But we got a little bit of a gap here, I think. Like, you know, maybe people are kind of finishing up with Monster Hunter, unless you're a real sicko looking.

Coastaloon or Jacob Geller. But I feel like, you know, they nailed the window. I'm just curious to see if people will show up in a big way to kind of give it that sales boost. But Leo, you're probably done. I feel pretty done. Yeah. It's...

I've played games like it a lot, and for the marginal ways it improves, it's hard to still get excited about. It feels like work playing it and doing the objectives. It feels like... obligation I know the part where you're like well obviously you know taking out an encampment is still fun like I'm at a point where even early on it's like take out this castle encampment I'm like I

I don't even want to do this. I feel like I got zero enthusiasm for this style of game, unless maybe Yotei can really grab me. You never know. Assassin's Creed Shadows, everybody. Let us know what you think in the comments. Charles, what do we matter? It's the people out there. That's right. We're just a couple of guys. Just a couple of guys with silly voices. Green Chef, everybody. Check it out. Green Chef, do you know this, Charles?

Green Chef? Yeah, that's right. You've heard of Orange Superman, but Green Chef is the number one meal kit for clean eating. I did think this was a game. Not the Tide Pods you're talking about, Jeff. This is good old-fashioned clean eating, delivering pre-portioned and prepped quality whole foods with limited processed ingredients. Green Chef sends organic, fresh produce, responsibly sourced proteins, and chef-designed recipes in...

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Whichever brands you like with the discount that we provide here. So if you like convenient food showing up to your house, just pick one. Just pick one that better aligns with you. But Green Chef, fresh, good food right to your gosh darn door. This year, they say you can...

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Pre-portioned ingredients, there's less prep and less mess and more time to savor delicious restaurant quality meals. Jeffem, spend less time cooking, spend more time savoring. That's what life should be about, man. You can set your health...

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are lower in saturated fat and come in under 700 calories per serving. Get Leo's gross bananas out of here with, of course, Green Chef. This could be you. You could have one of these. That's right. Thrive all year with clean, easy meals from Green Chef. Go to greenchef.com. minmaxfree and use code minmaxfree to get started with free salads for two months

plus 50% off your first box. That's a pretty gosh darn good meal. If you want healthy food, not sure where to get it, you can look into Green Chef here. You go to greenchef.com slash minmaxfree. Use that code, it's in the description, minmaxfree. free salads for two months plus 50% off your first box. Not a bad deal from Green Chef here. And thank you for supporting in Max. All right. This next game I'm very curious about. I have not started this one.

This is a game called Atomfall. Wild situation where this is, of course, from Rebellion over there in England. UK, at least. I forget the exact location. But the developers of Sniper Elite. and if you remember they just released that kind of standalone smaller the sniper elite equivalent of miles morales came out earlier this year and remember we were talking about like how is it possible because they also have this big new ambitious ip called atomfall releasing

And now Adam Fall is out and about. It is the easy shorthand is people are like, oh, it's kind of a Fallout style thing. It's 1960s post-apocalyptic world, but maybe more survival focused. Then Fallout. I like all these ingredients. And Leo, how is the recipe? Um, I'm liking it so far. Okay.

It's very different from Sniper Elite. I feel like the answer to the question we're asking of how are they doing this is they didn't put a ton of effort into that spinoff and they put a ton of effort into this. Because it's a very new thing with a lot of interesting ideas. And you know I love those. Very buggy.

Kind of dated visually, maybe? Not that that's a big deal. But like the ideas are really strong and they present themselves immediately of like, really? It's going to be like this. What is that? It's very survival focused. So when you're in the menus, it doesn't pause. It is constantly, you're expecting it to give you things it doesn't give you. Like when you start doing combat, you're like, okay, how do I block? Oh, there's no block. Okay, then how do I dodge?

Oh, there's no dodge. And that's maybe because you are meant to get hurt and meant to spend resources on getting your health back. There's ammo scarcity and it's all about managing these things and crafting and getting new crafting recipes. And you'll get a bunch of old guns that you don't need. And you'll go, okay, how do I break these down for materials? Maybe I have to wait for a workbench. And there are none. And you get to a trader.

And you go, oh, I can barter with this trader. What do I get? What's the currency? Oh, there is none. And there's a literal barter system where you just, the junk you use has one purpose if you don't want it. It is to bring up your side of the barter.

And everything has kind of a behind the scenes value. So like something you want has a high value and you toy with maybe I give them this really valuable thing that'll bring it to be an equitable deal that they'll want to do. Like committing that hard.

to having no currency committing to having no blocking or dodging those are this game is full of ideas like that that it believes in it almost is taken more from like a stalker or something than from like a fallout that's cool yeah stalker vibes for sure I brought a...

I want to say it was called like a combat stim. I like picked it up. I hadn't used it. And there was a trader and they were a baker. And I was like, yeah, I need my weapons, but you can have the combat stim. How much bread is this worth? One bread. Two bread. Three.

all every bread and pastry you own and you could still give me more if you had more and i took it because i was like i don't know what this comment would do but it's like good to know i guess this is a valuable thing in the world it's worth 20 bread yeah it It's also dependent on the merchant that you're doing it with. Like each one has preferences for what they really want or what they just don't value at all. Yeah, I was I was going to echo what Leo said, which is that like.

It's pretty unpolished. It's kind of uneven. It's a little janky. Doesn't look the best. But it is wholly unique. And it has really been grabbing me as well. I'm about 15 hours in now. And like... One of the things that I really, really like to contrast to Shadows is like this game also puts a high price on discoverability.

And like, they want you to figure out your objectives, but unlike shadows where it's just like, Hey, kind of go to this place and then wander around and look for what you're doing. Like. All of your objectives, you're kind of figuring out organically from talking to people. Sometimes you like you can you can there like each dialogue option has like.

an an attribute like prying or you're desperate or you know like you're being blunt or whatever like you can get more information out of people all of the you know notes and like Entry, you know, journal entries and things that you're finding around the world are kind of giving you leads like you never have an objective, so to speak, but you have all these different leads that you're.

that you're going through and trying to figure out in, in terms of like basic premise of the game that, that we should. that we should mention is like, it's not actually post apocalyptic, but it's like, there was this, this weird re like science facility in this area in England. And something bad happened there and like it infected kind of the entire area. And so the like the British government just built a big wall around it. And everybody who's inside is just stuck in there.

and like you wake up in there and you have no idea who you are but like a scientist you know a scientist is there with you when you wake up and he's like hey you have to get to the interchange you have to get out of here and you have to let everybody know what the truth is

And like that is your one overarching goal throughout the entire game. But you don't know where the interchange is. You don't know what the truth is that you're supposed to be getting out. And you're just piecing all of those things together. With every interaction that you have with people, everybody usually has something that they want to find out or something that they need to be done. And you're just kind of like...

going around and piecing all of these things together. And Rebellion did a really good job of weaving together the different zones that you go to, weaving together the information and like the key items that you're getting in all these different places. And like... Building it out so that you feel like you are figuring this out as you go in a way that most games just do not get. I love that.

I was thinking of what Janet said about avowed having weak sight lines because this I feel like is more what she wanted where it is really you are. spotting something and going and checking it out or again like shadows it tells you go talk to uh the baker and you go find the district with shops and you pick out the one that says baker on the front and you go inside like there's a bit more

It feels a bit more in my hands, I guess. But I also want to say, you know, unpolished is accurate in terms of bugs. They are pretty present. You will see enemies... glitch up ladders and it will take you out of it pretty often so far. But it is also really streamlined. I think for a survival game, especially one that doesn't pause when you're in menus, like it's supposed to be a bit more hardcore, a bit more every little thing matters.

It is really player friendly tools like the metal detector is just you walk in an area, you hear the ping and you press a button to take it out. There's no pouring through the inventory for things like that unless it's like.

Part of the gameplay that it's hard to get to, that it takes time to go back and take the combat stem when you're mid-combat, it's very, I think, thoughtfully designed that way. Also, in terms of being really... thoughtful and friendly like this game has some of the best like difficulty levels like you can go in and you can you can customize the when when you choose how you want to play at the beginning It's basically just giving you, like, different profiles that balance the combat, like...

survival aspects and the exploration and like but if you go into the advanced options which you can do at any time while you're playing they break all of those down into like so many different difficulty levels that you can like All of the combat you can customize, like how fast enemies will see you, how fast they'll stop searching for you. Whether sprinting takes stamina or raises your heart rate.

Like I know some people don't like that at all. And you can just flip that up. Rebellion has always been great at that. They should definitely get their flowers. What are you guys, what settings did you guys pick? So I haven't talked to it all. I just want to say I'm two hours in. I don't really like it.

I was curious how far you're in and what What did you just go with the rec? I just clicked the recommended at the start and which is the second highest There's five difficulties and it says the second highest is the canon way to play it. I just have that going to okay it yeah it is it is very challenging like that i ended up um I ended up going in and changing a bunch of stuff. I dropped the combat down to assisted, which is the lowest and the easiest. Because I was like, I'm like...

I'm dying a lot. There are some like zombie type enemies and they are just tanks and they are made to not really like you shouldn't really be fighting them. in at least in like the beginning hours because as soon as one of them hears you all of them in an area will come at you and like and they they do tons of damage so when i switch to assisted like they still when they hit you

they still take off like three-fourths of your health. It's just that, like, enemies are easier to drop with your own weapons and things. And so, like, I have... Like now I can go into an outlaw camp and if all the outlaws start coming at me, I've also upgraded all my weapons. So like I can, I can actually play it more like a first person shooter than strictly a survival game.

But it seems like one of those games that you want to be kind of scared of. It feels like playing Last of Us on Easy. You want to be tense, I think, as you're going through this world, right? I want it to be fun. though interesting i want to have fun and and it it is still it is still tense there are like there are some there is a there is a stronger type of um zombie enemy where it was like i had to shoot one of them in the face

point blank with a shotgun three times in order to drop them. And so like, and so I also, I also went in and I, and I adjusted like the, how much loot there is in the world because it's like, I don't. I really don't like survival games where I have to use half my ammunition to take down one enemy.

And then I feel like I've just wasted all my ammunition and I have to scrounge it back up. So like things are more plentiful in the way that I'm playing. And I love that they give you those options and hasn't really detracted from the things that I like, which is, you know, like.

Figuring out the story stuff. An additional thing about, like, the story part, like, and the discoverability of it is that, like, you are trying to get out, but you meet... multiple people who are like hey if you help me with this like i think i can get us out like i have like three different basic you know like avenues of escape that i am investigating and that i am like putting resources into

And I'm assuming like most of them just aren't going to work and like things are going to fall apart at some point with them. But like, I genuinely don't know which way I should be doing it. And I'm just kind of discovering it as I'm going along. And that is super cool.

Yeah. So, lovable clunker. This is the large bucket, except for Charles. That's a good way to put it. So, I have been finding it... frustrating and maybe i just need to turn the difficulty down just playing in the normal difficulty setting uh there's a thing where when you're playing a game and you encounter an obstacle and you're like okay i can feel that the game is telling me

don't do this right now because it's too hard where i was just walking in direction and then it's like hey there's five enemies here i found one shotgun i have two bullets i have no other weapons five guys they kill me in one to two hits

I shouldn't be going over there. But then it's like, well, the objective's in that direction, so I'm not really sure what to do. I can try sneaking past them, but this is not a very good... stealth game unless you unlock better stealth stuff later where people see you really fast there's not like and really far we have to avoid them yeah really far away i mean i didn't i had to go in the tutorials and find out the tool you have to avoid them is walking away

If you make distance without a weapon, the bar goes down and they don't attack you. so yes but then so in this instance when i was playing i was like i need to go that way though so i don't know how to i ended up taking a really long way around and i figured it out i died a bunch but um it that that level of

combat difficulty was frustrating to me and it didn't really ease me into it all. I understand. I like being scared of enemies. Like I should be scared of enemies. I just, uh, there's a part where you go into like the interchange. It's like a big.

vault-esque structure and as you're leaving a bunch of guys come in there's only one exit and so i spent like half an hour dying and trying to be like i'll try to sprint past it's like i wasn't sprinting fast enough and they shot me twice so i died going to loop around the side and like I eventually figured all these things out I think I'm going to go back in and turn the difficulty down because it just wasn't very that part wasn't very fun for me there's also like the first main

So I do appreciate that when you get close to a hostile person or a potentially hostile person, they're like, hey, I might fight you if you don't back off and put your weapons away. In the town, that's literally every guard. If you get within a few feet of them, they're like...

I like that about the game. They're so on edge, they'll shoot you if you stay near them for too long. But you also can't talk to many people outside. You have to go inside buildings to find quests and things. A lot of loading screens. It felt kind of lonely and empty despite there being people around. I would be like, oh, this is a person and I can see them doing something on the dock. What's their deal? It's like, oh, they don't have a name. And they're like, why are you looking at me?

And when you load into the world and you're like an amnesiac, you don't know what's going on. The first instinct for me as a player is like, I want to talk to people and learn as much about the strange world as I can. There's just like a few instances like that where it's like my instincts with playing games are telling me to do this. And if not that, then this. And if not that, then this. And...

having to kind of circumvent my way around and eventually maybe find something that works. But maybe I just think the combat's too hard. Encounters are resources versus...

the amount of people there are so far. That's how it feels. It's like a resource check. And that's maybe just an excuse for clunky combat or combat where you don't have that many options. But for me, it is like the encounters have felt exciting. And one example is... in a building i was just looting one small difference this game has is that the gangs are like roving around

You're not just going to an outpost where a gang is hiding out. Gangs are have their kind of patrol routes. And I was in a building exploring one and I heard whistling from outside.

And I heard footsteps and it was like, OK, there's a group surrounding the building right now and there's no detective vision or anything. I have to be like cautiously peeking out of the windows and I peek out of one. I see them and they see me and the bar starts to fill. And it's like in this situation, I can't run away and let the bar.

go down because they're like totally surrounding the building. And one of them is coming inside and having to make those decisions and not really stealth around, but like sneak until you can start it in a way that's advantageous to you of getting a good heavy hit in with the cricket bat.

Yeah, that stuff has felt thrilling if because I am getting my ass kicked. Yeah, it's fun to see a studio like Rebellion get to... take a swing like this you know they're probably so pent up they've made so many sniper elite games how many times can we shoot hitler we got the idea we got the idea and then so like push so hard even it's uneven at times it's cool to see a team

take a stab at new IP like this, I guess, as a lot of energy in there. To make BBC's Fallout. Right. Yeah, exactly. Or BBC's Stalker. It is very much Stalker-lite. But I'm interested in the mystery so far. Jeff, I mean... You like Shadows more than this, just to make everything a gross comparison? Well, the past couple nights, I've been playing Atomfall. I stopped playing Shadows because this one has really...

Like, I'm really interested. I want to find out what the secrets are. And another comparison, not that we need to complain about Shadows anymore, but this is another one in that about vein of, like, much smaller zone. If you walk around the perimeter, like you are finding something interesting or something different every...

you know, 10 seconds as you're going around. And like that, the first zone that I started, like the game started a little colder for me and I was, I was less interested because that first zone didn't seem really interested. It wasn't until I got to the village that I was like, Oh,

This is really interesting. But I have since gone back to that one and spent more time just kind of exploring and going around. And there has been so much interesting, weird, unique stuff that I found in there that like it. It is really charming me at this point. Yeah, right on. And I want to keep playing it. But part of that, again, is that I was able to customize the combat.

to my difficulty liking and the survivability aspects and all of those kinds of things. And so I've got it in a position where it's easier for me and, and that kind of doesn't get in the way as much anymore. It presents what's interesting about it very quickly, which I respect it for, for sure. Even Avowed, which I love. My friend put six hours in and then was like, I officially don't like this, but we're outside the Steam refund window or whatever. This is like...

You know what it is and you know whether you like it pretty quickly. Right. Adam Fall. A-T-O-M. Out on everything except for Switch. Even like last gen and stuff for Adam Fall here. Okay, real quick, Leo. There's a game called Fragpunk. Fragpunk? I talk about this game for long or not at all. Sarah's sending me hateful messages because she's ready in the wings to clap in, which is the only reason. So free to play.

First-person game, card-based, which, again, what is that other game you love that's also like this? Friends vs. Friends. Friends vs. Friends. I got mad at this game on a reveal because it felt like a rip-off, but it's a very different implementation of the card stuff.

OK, friends versus friends is like you're you have a hand and you're playing it throughout the round so you can counterplay live and you can build synergies and hold on to cards. This game, it pulls cards from all your decks in the standard mode, which is a Valorant type shooter.

you are voting you're essentially your team has a finite resource that you can earn in various ways that you use to vote to get cards that change the match for everyone and you can see not what the other people pick right away but what they have access to and you can kind of go they're probably going to go for this one and we can counterpick that one example is there's a card that turns the map into

covered in ice and you can slide around super far and you're like oh my god we have the they can't slide but we can card we have to play that because they're definitely going to play that and then like guessing right feels great yeah doing those those good counters and there's they're mostly smaller ones mostly big head mode is also in this like friends versus friends marginal increases to health and healing and stuff and there's also big ones like melee only this round

which they then counterpicked by picking double jump, which let them dodge us better and get cheeky hits in. That's cool. Those kind of interactions are fun, but I'm just not a Valorant Counter-Strike shooter lover. And I wish this was that stuff. The stuff that's cool about it was attached to a different game. There are different game modes. There's team deathmatch and stuff, but it's still like super quick time to kill super weapons that are super similar to each other abilities that I are.

detect in a small range or throw a smoke grenade stuff that doesn't really get me excited but we don't need to talk about this game much at all but there's one thing I do want to talk about which is The tiebreaker, it's first to four. If you tie at three, a duel starts and it presents each team with five slots and each person picks theirs.

I want to go first. I want to go last or whatever. Oh. And it's a series of 1v1s on a small map. Excellent. So there's all this back and forth of like, oh, this person's kicking our asses. But now the third round end, it's still the first.

person on the other team but they've spent all their resources and so we finally take them back health is persistent between rounds so you kind of chip away at people and then like you get a a series of wins in the 1v1s and it's like it's like we talk about trek to shrek how good uh you know, highlighting players is putting the spotlight on individual people to have their moment. Like we got a lot of duels.

And they were the best part. I wanted a dual only mode for sure. Those were really exciting. That sounds like a really fun idea for sure. It seems like it's doing well on Steam. It's free to play, but it's got like a ton of reviews. Do you think it's going to stick around, Fragpunk?

Maybe it's net ease. So it's surprisingly high production value on the menu animations and everything. And there's a million currencies and you're either watching the video and you're seeing gameplay or you can close your eyes and imagine exactly what it looks like. And maybe that will help it be successful. There you go. Valorant with cards. Also, Leo, on the competitive scene, Rainbow Six Siege X.

So Rainbow Six Siege, one of your favorite games of all time, it hit the 10-year mark. And so Ubisoft just kind of, what's the word? Re... building it revamping it revitalizing it uh this is siege 2.0 but it's a 10.0 revitalizing revitalizing i daydreamed about it being siege 2.0 that's that's not what it is okay

It's reworked audio system, which is so important in that game for sure. That's like a big deal to have audio be more reliable, especially between floors has been a problem for 10 years. And they're finally addressing that in a way I only played for a few hours, but it seems better, but it's hard to really say. So like proximity audio, just making it more realistic for what you can hear in your house while you're playing Rainbow Six. Yeah, right.

And it's coming with this new mode that is, of course, called Dual Front. That is one big map that only works for that mode that will change each season. That is a bit more Battlefield Rush.

pushing through each objective to get to the next one so you're doing a minor a mini siege objective, planting and defending the plant, and then you move on to the next objective, but it's six players instead of five, and you're kind of dividing up, like, let's have two people defend and four push this objective really hard.

Oh, this is a good time for us all to work together on this thing. Oh, we should have one person head out and do the side objective that gives us a little bonus because I don't think they're focusing on it. It's a unique take on Siege that way, especially when you're trying to do comms between like...

multiple different fights happening across the whole map it makes call outs really different but uh in general i don't think that mode is going to be like super game changer my friends are going to only play that it's more like when we have one too many people to play 5v5 siege will have something to do. I mean, do you think, is this really revamping your interest in the game? Do you feel like you're renewed? Is the community psyched about all these little things? Um, I am...

my interest is renewed because in advance of this, I got my friends together and like, I want to refresh myself on siege and we've had such a great time. Oh yeah. Going back into it. It's, it still feels so good and so unique if it's, if looking. pretty dated and this not making it look any less dated at all all these years later and yeah again i wanted it to be kind of a ground up rebuild let's make it look nice and run great

And it is not any different in that respect, at least as far as I can tell. There's other small changes like... destructible stuff on maps like shoot a fire extinguisher and smoke comes out shoot a fuel line and fire comes out and then it explodes

Things like that, that in a systems focused game like Siege are going to have a lot of implications, a lot of different ways they can go. Yeah. And that's exciting. And they're different enough that they have to rework every map and they are reworking them visually too, to look nicer. The maps will look nicer. And so they're like starting Siege X, going back down to five maps, and then they're adding three reworked ones each season.

So that's kind of exciting too. Like starting back from basics, this game that's gotten so huge and so many things in it and it's all about learning the maps and there's so many for a new player to learn. We still haven't learned the newest one they added, which was like years ago at this point. So going back to...

maps we understand or are learning at the same pace as other players like that's a really exciting reason for us to get back into it at this juncture yeah totally well hey rainbow six siege x everybody still relevant as ever uh Charles Hart, as relevant as can be, how are you feeling at this point in your life, man? Just my whole life? Yeah. Good. Good life. Chilling. Got a new camera. Got LEDs. So, you know.

Fun retweets. Fun retweets. Cool. Right on. Excited for next week. Excited for next week. What a great note to end on. Thank you for joining us again for a little tease. Of Charles Hart. And Jeff, thank you. Do you two want to clap out? But Charles, you're welcome to scream about anything you want to before you clap out. I don't know what you're talking about next, but I hope I can say, gosh, that's cool.

Yeah. Haley, McLean, welcome to the show. Thank you. Hi. Finally, we have Sarah Podzorski here. Welcome to the show. Hello. Remember when you said my claps weren't good enough at GDC? Well, here's the thing. Give her a clap for the sake of mic syncing when we're doing the travelog. Give me one strong clap. And Sarah's like...

And then Hayley comes in. That's what it sounds like. Then Hayley comes in with like a Hulk clap, like boosh, and everyone would fly into the background. Like now that I can find in a wave form. That's really all I care about. Yeah.

Yeah, we're definitely burned out from all hanging out together for the first half of this week here at GDC. I'm not burned out. I'm recharged after hanging out with you guys. I am too. I'm just trying to be cool and pretend like I didn't actually like seeing you guys for several days.

I'll plug with you. GDC, Sarah, Haley is a pro at this point. I mean, how many GDCs have you been to in the last four years, Haley? Most of them? Three, yeah. Okay. And then, yeah, I've been going, I went once with... Game Informer, maybe choice with Game Informer. And then since 2021, I've gotten to all these GDCs. And then, Sarah, you went way back in the pre-COVID era. 2016. Okay. Wow. I was a college student.

Yep. Senior in college. I was like, let me go to this. I got a grant to go, I think. I was like, let me go to this GDC thing and see if I can find a job.

don't go to gc to look for a job i cannot recommend it less i mean did you it seems just uncomfortable to bring up like by the way i can do like everyone there is there because like they have jobs and they talk to each other about their jobs so like not really like a a hot unless you're like really high level not really like a beginner's market is what i would call gdc yeah it's a tough

zone to scramble in. You know, there's a lot of things that are fascinating about GDC, which by the way, if you don't know, it's the Game Developers Conference every year in San Francisco. There's a bunch of panels.

where game developers kind of share their stories, share some technical details. It's delightfully nerdy at times. We'll be talking about panels and other GDC highlights along with Jenna Garcia on the next episode of Bonus Pod, which is the Patreon exclusive podcast. You can unlock that if you support.

at the $5 tier on Patreon. But yeah, overall, it's just, it's a lot of the game industry converging in San Francisco and it's lovely. Shout out to everybody who said hi. It was very sweet. Everybody who was like- Which was a lot of people.

I will say, I feel like if I hadn't gone with Ben Hanson, I probably would have had a way different experience because he was getting stopped every like five minutes. But also plenty of people who are like, Pew Pew Bang rules. Yeah. I mean, true, but I like the min-max meetup, you know, but like...

Ben just, like, knows everybody. He knows everybody. That's a stretch. He's that girl in Devil Wears Prada who whispers in your ear, like, that's the founder of Guerrilla Games. He literally did that to me multiple times. He, like, introduced me to someone. And then we'd walk away and he'd be like, by the way, Sarah, that was someone really important. Well, and you blew it.

Yeah, you f***ed up. No, it was specifically, I mean, it was at that indie meetup. We were talking to this guy and showing off his wonderful game, of course, Linked. And then, you know, the fun thing is, like, introducing Sarah is like, oh, you know, she's with MinMax. Also, she worked on Fields of Mystria.

And like, we can get into that, Sarah. I think that reaction was interesting from different people throughout the way. But then like, you know, we walked back into the room to put mics on to the travelogue. And I was like, Sarah, you know who that was? She's like, I have no idea. I was like, that was Max Spielberg. That was Steven Spielberg's son. And Sarah melted down like, oh, I was.

just talking to him like a random a-hole I didn't know it was Max Spielberg good lord but you probably came across as charmingly effortless because you weren't reading into the I didn't know yeah it's perfect I mean but you said that it was interesting to try and gauge people's reaction Cause some people really pop for like fields of mystery. And so other people were like, okay, that sounds like a neat name for a thing. I don't know.

yeah it's in that weird area where like if you tell other developers or like indie devs they like absolutely know fields of mystery and they're like oh my god like i love that game you're doing such a good job but then when you go up to like games media Specifically, you'll be like Fields of Mysteria. And they go, oh. And you can just see the look on their face and they've never heard of it. And I'll try to describe it to jog their memory. And they're like, mm-hmm.

I'll look it up, and I'm like, okay, well, don't bother. We don't want you to play a good game after all. I'm trying to remember what your action was, but when we were getting coffee on the last day, I saw Derek Yu.

Leo, your beloved UFO 50 and Spelunky designer, he's standing up to the side. He's like, hey, Derek, just want to say hey real quick. And I was like, oh, I'm going to wow him with my deep cut. I'm like, I love your game, your tabletop game, Time Barons. That's like one of my favorite tabletop games of all time.

And he's like, oh, that's bizarre. The co-creator of Time Burns is John, who's right there in line, who also made Party House and stuff. And he's like, oh, my God. It's very exciting. But I think they did.

recognize Fields of Mystery. When I introduced you for that Fields of Mystery at Cred, they were like, oh yeah, Fields of Mystery, right on. It's like, you got Derek, you, and John on your side here, Sarah. Not bad. I mean, I think that's like, we're all in the Steam store together. Right. And like, you know who else is like...

doing well in the steam store and you like pay attention to these kinds of things. Yeah. Um, so yeah, you're checking the front page a lot. I'm sure. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, what'd you think about overall experience or how'd you, how'd you find it? I, I really liked it. I have been a GDC hater for so long.

But it was genuinely so nice to get to talk to people who want to talk to me about my job and want me to tell them about my job and like ask my opinion on things. And I'm like, wow, this is actually really nice. I'm like, I don't really get this because I work. like by myself out of an attic like it's nice to like connect with people um and just feel like valued i guess

Yeah. So suddenly big fan of GDC. Because you get to be a little bit of an expert there, you know, instead of just going in and maybe begging people for jobs to be like, OK, people, maybe I can help some other people with things I've learned about marketing fields of mystery at this point. Yeah. Yeah. And you did a whole Gosh Iron panel along with other folks. Yes. Yeah, that was wild. I got added to the panel like a month before GDC. So around like...

February-ish, early February, they were like, hey, Sarah, like we were originally doing two people. We want to open it to four people. You're one of them. The panel's about like indie game marketing and how to help indie game strategize marketing when they're launching because that's kind of like a week. for them and I was like yeah okay sure like would love to join and then like we did a bunch of prep for it we wrote a bunch of notes for it and then I get to like GDC and like I was so nervous

I was so nervous to do it, and everyone kept asking me about it. And the worst thing, are you nervous about your panel? Are you nervous about your panel? Well, I am now. Yeah, no, I literally, I am in a waking nightmare about this panel, right? Not bad for asking you that.

Yeah, thanks for reminding me. And just to shout out the other people who are on the panel, Meredith Hall from Summerfall Studios and Dana Trebella from Spoken Meal Strategy. We were supposed to have Jenny Windham, but she had like an emergency right before GDC.

So we're down a person, so it's already pretty stressful. You know, it was Tuesday at 4 p.m., so I kind of had to sit with it. I was like, okay, well, like, how bad could it be, right? Like, how bad? I show up, we show up 20 minutes early to the panel. Our rooms are mixed up. It's us and this other speaker. It's like the indie soapbox. And they don't know who's supposed to be in what room. Oh, no. So there's like people in both rooms. There's a line out the door.

and i'm like okay i have to i have to like i just wanted to sit quietly review my notes like get my laptop set up like this is really not it's not great like the staff was really great they were like stand here so we don't lose you And the people are like, there's like a huge line. And I'm like, who's that line for? Like, but not be for us. But they got the rooms all figured out. But then we walk into our room.

Literally, we walk into the room and this is like what you have nightmares about. Like the person goes, okay, like this panel is no longer indie soapbox. It's indie like hitting the bullseye. everybody in the room stands up and leaves. And I'm literally standing there with Meredith, and I'm like, well, like, I mean, like, this literally can't get any worse, like, emotionally for us.

Like there's nowhere to go but up. Were they booing you as they walked out of the room? Yes. I was like, you guys don't want to know about indie marketing? So they swap the rooms around. We only have like a few seconds to like get situated with everything. I saw, let's see, like Haley, Janet, Isaiah in the front row. They were front row for me. So I felt a lot better about that. And the room did fill up again. I was impressed. We had like a pretty full room. A lot of questions too.

Yeah, and then we did the talk. I think I did really well. I didn't really have my notes because my laptop was commandeered. So I was just sitting there with like a notebook going off of that and I blacked out. Yeah, that happens. And then suddenly it was over and we had, yeah, like 15 minutes and unlimited questions, like so many questions. That's got to be nice. I feel like questions, it's got to be a less...

I don't know, a more casual environment. You actually get to figure out what people want. And also it feels a little more like podcasting than standing in front of people and giving a presentation or something, you know?

Yeah, it is. And it's nice because we had such a range of, like, experiences on the panel that there wasn't, like, a single question we just, like, couldn't answer. Right. But yeah, I think we did, like... really really really well like the sound guy came up to me afterwards the sound guy and he was like

oh, like, you guys did, like, a really good job. And I'm like, okay. I was like, oh, I bet you say that to everyone. And he just looks me dead in the eye, like, this is a super serious, like, old man. And he goes, no. Some of them are really awful. And I'm like, oh, okay. Oh, thank you. for the compliment nice awesome yeah Sarah have you uh public like done public speaking like that before you were great no I

Well, I remember what was that? The glitch con. I did talk in college, but like, I don't think you can compare that to like. us speaking at a convention you know you know what i noticed about you sarah was you seemed very calm and and your podcast i think you speaking on podcast helps because not only did you remember what to say is and you'd always end on like a little joke or something which most people can't even remember what to say

but you knew what to say and also you were funny so it was like immediately like easier to remember what you were talking about and stuff like that yeah like when they peter out you like when they peter out and uh yeah yeah Yeah, that's it. Something like that. Yeah, I did way, like, when I first spoke, I was like, okay, my voice is strong. It's not shaking. Perfect. I think I did really well. I think I was possessed by the spirit of something.

And then I blacked out and it was over and everybody was really impressed with me. That's awesome. It was very satisfying to go from like you being worried about it and then seeing you after and you're being like, oh, we killed it. I killed it. It was really good. It's like, well, that is so sweet to hear. We literally could not like extract ourselves at the end.

wanted to talk to us. And lift you up over there. I had like a line. Yeah, I was like, okay, I need to like go places. And now you're addicted to the GDC lifestyle. So honest to God, I messaged Haley and I was like, if you do a talk, can I be your moderator? I'll do it again. I'll do it. I'll do it again. Oh, interesting. I got a taste for it now. That's sweet. Haley, good time at GDC. Found a bunch of legal clients. I know you have kind of dual role.

thing which is funky yeah dual role but symbiotic two roles like it kind of was like gdc on easy mode for both things because it was like i want to see games for min max purposes And then the games I want to see for Mimics purposes are like ideal potential clients. So I was just like...

Hang out with them, play their game. I had a couple appointments, but most of the time it was just like seeing the games at like the Xbox mixer or the Uber PR thing or, you know, whatever event that's going on where you can just kind of walk around the room, but always ending it on. And yeah, you know, sidebar. I'm also.

lawyer here's my card if you ever need any help um and they were they'd always just be like oh my god yes actually or yeah i'll look into it i'll contact you what was really fun was i had a couple appointments essentially where there was downtime while they were setting up the demo or something like that and um i was like well while you're just like getting that ready like if you have any questions i can give you free legal information right now if you want and they were just like

actually yeah and they like had a bunch of music licensing questions so i just like answered a bunch of those like while they were setting up the demo i was like this is perfect they get free information i get to play their game and then you know if they don't become a client down the road i'm not bothered either way like you know if they

totally free to do whatever they want. But it's nice to know that maybe in like two years or something, they'll say, I think we need a lawyer now. Who was that girl? Oh yeah. Haley. You know, you don't really expect like to come home to a bunch of emails. It's more of just like, Being the presence in that industry that they might need eventually in the future, because I get clients from last GDC.

like, during the year, even. People just kind of remember you. Right, right. And to be clear, we talked about it before, but, I mean, Hayley either discloses she worked on these games or she's silent about these games on the podcast. Or I will never talk about it. Right. Because, yeah. If you notice, she's been silent. Right, it's a fucking...

thing it's like an nda on steroids like if i breach that it's like the worst of the worst kind of thing so if i'm ever being silent don't read into it there you go i gotta say it is really um It's comforting to travel around GDC with you too. Like Janet was there as well, like not with MinMax. And so it was kind of letting her do her own thing with Isaiah for their podcast. It was really satisfying to like walk around with you too because I felt like...

Okay, no matter what, I feel like I have a cool in with developers. It's good to be like, oh, hey, we're all with MinMax, but like, but Fields of Mysteria and Video Game IP Lawyer, you know, people like, surely that web of like media versus hit indie game versus... pretty novel legal access. Like, okay, we could...

Maybe make people smile a little bit more. We were walking around with a little juice. Just looking for smiles. Just looking for smiles, Leo. You know what it's like. Power duo and Ben is there too. Love that. And some geeks said, I like your podcast. So that's not worth nothing. No, speaking of geeks. You do give the assistant on Veep. Yes, yes, exactly. But yeah, shout out to everybody who came out to the...

community meetup. We had that at the Tempest. Shout out to Tony and everybody there for lining it up. Karen behind the bar for doing a great job for arranging everything there. That was very...

Very sweet and fun to have everybody swing by and have some developers swing by. It's fun to, like, you know, at a certain point, like, pull Sarah aside. Sarah, I really want you to meet this guy. He was a lead designer for Final Fantasy XV, and he'd be delighted, along with his wife, if you could speak Japanese with him a little bit. And there's a very loud bar and it's like glanced over at a certain point. And I saw Sarah like...

getting his wife's business card in a very Japanese way looking at it. I'm like, yes, Sarah, pulling like the big Japanese Hail Mary business card look. We got a pro in our midst. But yeah, shout out to everybody who came out for that meetup on Monday. It was delightful. I got to meet Sam Lake. I got to meet Sam Lake. How was that? It was so fun. Jill Grote was such a wing woman. She was the bomb. We were at the IGF mixer thing, Independent Game Awards mixer. And...

it was like a VIP thing before where everyone's just kind of like walking around. I got to hang out with Daniel Bloodworth a lot there too. That was nice. I saw some clients who were up for awards. So that was cool too. But then I was talking to Jill and I'd seen on Blue Sky that Sam was there and he like posted a selfie. I was like, you know who else is here? Sam Lake. And she goes, he's right there. And I look to my right. He's like five feet away from me.

And I was like, oh, my God. I was like, I want to go say hi. I need to go say hi. I'll regret it if I don't. And she's like, I can go over with you. I was like, you are such a bro. I would love it if you came over with me. And he was really sweet. I just said, love your games. I think you're great. I'm a really big fan of Remedy.

love what you're doing and he was really sweet he was there to get um a lifetime achievement award yeah so that's why he was there and uh he said he had just flown in he was 33 hours without sleep And I was like, I get the hint, no dancing. Jill was like, no dancing tonight, right? He's like, no dancing. Then we kind of left him alone. I wanted to be like, okay, have a good night. I was like, you know, that's all. But that was it. And then I was just like, yeet!

it was so fun it was so cool to see him in person Baldur's Gate guy who after you met Sam Lake I liked seeing I liked meeting Sven last year I got to talk to Sven more last year like Sam Lake was like he actually was alone over in the corner which I thought was crazy that's why I was sort of So like not intimidated to go say hi. He was with one other person.

but uh sven was at that xbox and yeah so we got to at least i mean you literally walked up you were like have you met hayley and he was just like hi like you shoved me into which i appreciate yeah I would have done it. How were the awards overall? Did you have thoughts on what one game of the year? They were great. I mean, Bellatro, let's go Bellatro, which is my client, disclaimer. But yeah, they won quite a lot of awards.

Something else that's fun is... Hang on, let me stop you right there. You don't need to go into secret information if you're like high-fiving local thunk behind the scenes and stuff because he wants to say secret anonymous. But when a game that you signed legal paperwork for wins game of the year...

Does anyone come up and say, hey, come have a drink with us after the show? Or is it just you get to be in the distance feeling happy for yourself? I get to be in the distance feeling happy. And that feels right. I didn't do anything to help make the launch trophy successful. I quite literally just did a legal service for that. You know, that's just, I'm just excited that, that it's.

it's happening to such a humble and nice person who cares a lot about the indie industry like that's what makes me really happy and i can attest that that they really are like that they are Super humble, super chill, just wants to see other people buy more indie games. So it's fun to see that win that. And, you know, even looking what I was talking to my boss about was like the indie debut section.

three out of the five indie debut nominees we like we did the publishing agreement for whoa that's like that feels great like it's just cool to be like in that scene i guess in a unique way like not at all i don't want to even think about being credited to success of any of those people

I think they're all just amazing, but it's fun to just like feel proud for them, I guess. And just be like, yay, good job. And just be excited. Yeah, for sure. It'd be like helping them be treated fairly. Yeah, exactly.

that's very important make sure they get money and they can you know the next 10 years of their life are good and not bad even though they found the success which seems very important to the health of the game industry so I'm not saying you're solely responsible but don't try and be like I just did a little something something. It seems like a crucial part of the business of games here. Leo, do you know who I got to meet during GDC? Who? The most important cameo of all. Not Mario.

MeUndies everywhere! My underwear that I wore every day at GDC, and I gotta say, Leo, I met them, and it was good, buddy. When you and I went, you were a commando the whole time. That's exactly right, but MeUndies comes in, they say, hey... Treat yourself, everybody. You can wear comfortable underwear. Genuinely, before MeUndies came into my life, MeUndies, MeUndies, MeUndies, I didn't value... Good underwear in any way It was the last thing

I would think of is like, I don't know. I guess I need underwear technically, but it's like, wait, underwear can like feel good on your body. Genuinely not something I considered. And so I know there's listeners out there like me who also have never considered such a thing. So you can check out me on days. They got. style for everyone. They have versatile loungewear, unmatched comfort, they're responsibly sourced, and they have a problem-free philosophy.

Good things come in big packages is what they says. Okay, MeUndies, come on, buddy. You get 20% off your first order plus free shipping on orders of $75 or more at MeUndies.com slash MinMax. Enter promo code MinMax. That is MeUndies.com. code minmax for 20% off. Me undies. comfort from the outside in. Treat yourself, everybody. It's not super expensive. Buy nice underwear, guys and girls and everybody within the sound of my voice. Buy nice underwear. There's a link in the description.

if you'd like it. Do they have OG proof for gamers? Do they have what? Wedgie proof for gamers. How dare you, Hayley? Ben, we need to discuss the way you travel because you don't have to travel like this. What is your problem with my traveling philosophy? It's a bit of a problem for you, philosophy. It is, Ben.

If I may. 80% of it's a steam deck. Let's hear Sarah's side first. No, I'm going to tell you setting up how we get to this, which is traveling with Sarah, we sit down at the Minneapolis airport, and I unzip my bag. like a gentleman so that I can grab my Steam Deck and play a cool Star of Providence sitting there at the airport or whatever.

And Sarah, meanwhile, nosy Nancy, peering into my personal bag to apparently review my me-undies and everything else her greedy eyes touch. And then the scoff, once she looked at my bag, was damn- It's hanging on by a literal thread. The bag is old, but it's rugged. It's time and world test is there. That's what you want. And then I love how it's like most of the bag was the steam deck. Like you had more.

like steam deck camera you had laptop you had more things in there that weren't personal belongings like clothes underwear shampoo we were gonna be there for two and a half days i'm not dressing an army i need like two pairs of pants what else is going on yeah the level when you got to like you are the kind of

Freak, you're the type of ape who doesn't even bring his own shampoo. It's like, that's what the hotel is for. I was at the same hotel with you. That shampoo smelled like straight up chemicals. It smelled awful. You're telling me you used that all week?

It's not gonna poison you. Leo, will you get my bag here? It's not gross. It's soapy crap. It's fine. It's kind of gross. You can't get Leo's opinion. You know what people do with those bottles? The shampoo. So you're just assuming everybody shoved those bottles up their butt?

i just i remember i didn't bring conditioner because i don't like to condition my hair because it gets greasy super fast i was like i'll see what their conditioner smells like i squirted a little on my finger and i smelled it and i immediately went

it off my finger i wasn't using that so you just don't want your hair to smell weird from the shampoo that's the yeah and it probably sucks it probably would damage your hair because it's probably like they probably take all the bottles important to one big bottle at the end of the week

It's not like tar. It's not acid. It's just a slightly inferior product maybe for two days. I just don't trust people because these weren't the kind of bottles that they like the little ones that only get like one time use. This was like a bottle that they're clearly refilling. because it was like glued to the wall and like had a lock on it. Yeah, you know what people are doing with that?

Someone could be sticking their lips on it and sucking it off in the freaking shower. I should get so lucky as to have shampoo that's sucked off in a shower. Chat is getting my back. 100% of people say... Did you use the shampoo or did you not use shampoo for those two and a half days? No, I used shampoo. Yeah, I'll use...

I can tell your hair's really lacking body and volume. We can see the stink lines. Your face when I said that was so sad i really felt bad i'm a light packer too maybe it's something about being one of us guys but it's like

Streamlining my trip as much as possible for sure. What's the minimum amount of clothes I can get away with and not be stinky? And it's more important for me to bring a scent to wear than like a shower product to make me smell good, I find. Did either of you notice that I smelled funky the entire trip? No. Exactly my point. Sarah's not making a facial expression in any way. Sarah was closer to you on the planes and stuff. Any stink?

Well, we didn't sit on the plane going home, so I couldn't really tell you. That's right, that's really what I was like, peak stink. Did you guys have separate seating for the plane ride? They separated us for our own good. We needed to. We were going to attack each other on the flight back. But we were texting about...

a text watch along for Mufasa, the Lion King, which was, I gotta say, Sarah, so if you're watching the Travlog, which by the way, we made a GDC Travlog, which is hopefully releasing this Monday. If you're at the $10 tier, you get the extended version, which is going to be about six hours long, showing off our entire trip to GDC. But it's not so much a travelogue as it is just one long max spoilers about the film Mufasa the Lion King, because...

I think that trip started out on the perfect note, Sarah, of us finding our Venn diagram of movies we kind of wanted to watch but also wanted to make fun of. And like having one earbud in and then the other one just like out.

so we could just make fun of Mufasa the Lion King. This is the perfect note to kick off the trip with Sarah on. It's just dunking on Mufasa for two hours. It's perfect. So thank you for that gift, Sarah. And then you get to watch it again while our plane failed to land. Because... Because, Leo, I thought it'd be funny. You watched it.

Yeah, I thought it'd be funny because we had like a little bit of time left in the flight. And so Sarah was like reading a book or something sophisticated, writing the next great American novel or something. And I'm like, oh, won't this be funny? I'm just going to quietly put on this movie that Sarah hated one more time on my headset.

And then I was laughing to myself at how funny this joke was of just playing that movie again. And Sarah never reacted, never glanced up at the screen one foot away from her playing a movie she didn't like. Like, eventually, at the end, it was no longer funny. I stopped giggling and then I'm just straight up watching Mufasa again.

And then Sarah, after we landed, looks over and she's like, why are you watching it again? I was expecting a bigger reaction from you on that one, Sarah. That is a classic bit. But ironically, the book I was reading was titled I Who Have Never Known Men. And it's about a world without men. It was weird. You were lost in it. I can't imagine. It was weird in the travelogue how much lying kept coming up. It might come up later in this episode, I swear unprompted. I wrote...

might get a load of this before we watch Mufasa. But also, like, on the GDC... show floor they had like a big list of like here's all the nes games that were lost that weren't released right and so we did like a big random thing like okay bam just like spinning the globe and putting your finger on it and stopping at a spot

I did that and my finger happened to land on the Lion King game for NES. And in the Travel X there, I think you're even like, you're like, okay, you forced that. I'm like, no, it was entirely random. It was a wild wing out of the hundreds of games. I chose the Lion King, the movie we've been talking about for two years. Two days straight. Anyways, good times. We played some games there. A handful of games here and there. Did you make it through the full demo for To a T, Hayley? Uh...

Yeah, I think so. Maybe there was... I kind of felt bad. It was quite a long demo. I was sitting there for, what, 10, 15 minutes or something? There was a line forming behind you. I could feel like people forming behind me, so I felt... I played... that long and then i was like i'll let somebody else have a try but yeah no yeah i liked it so this is from the creator of katamari uh kaita takahishi

Takahashi, forgive me for the pronunciation, but the creator of Katamari, Damacy, it is his new game with Annapurna publishing it, and it's called Tuati. It is, believe it or not, it's charming as all hell. It's so charming. It's very cute. The premise is you play as a kid named Teen, just a default name is Teen, and the kid is stuck permanently in a T-pose.

And so they can never put their arms down from being just out as a T-pose. Lazy doves. And then the game is just you quietly going about your life. I mean, to call it an adventure game is even... overly simplistic it's a vibes game yeah like oh dada or wadham like they also made like those kind of games where it's like

This is pretty to look at, and it's just a thing to go through. I don't know, which I love games like that. I love it. It's a funky one. I got to play in front of the creator here when I was at the Xbox. And he watched me play through that whole demo. And it's weird when you're...

you know being watched by a developer when it's like a really intense complicated game you think you're getting something wrong but it's also just weird when it's such like a lighthearted breezy game it's like okay the puzzle is move your arms so that you can turn the sink on and

gently brush your own teeth right and just to have him like staring at me and chuckling every time i would mess up it was a it was an intense weird environment here but i'm curious at the end of the demo uh haley which maybe you didn't get to like it teases The idea that the teen character gets some sort of superpower at the end where they can turn into like a whirlwind.

and like fly around and suck things up so I'm curious if like that's going to be kind of the main thrust of the game or if it is going to be just a physics based thing I don't know I don't know yeah because if it's just like going through the life as somebody in a T-pose, the entire game might get a little bit dry, but cute, whimsical, the musical sequences are, like, really fun and silly.

So that was a highlight there. What I didn't clock until I was kind of actually playing it was this is totally like a commentary on like disability as well.

Like, which is really nice. It's just like, here is a kid who has a disability, who has like a dog that helps them do everyday tasks, which I'm sure a lot of kids out there are like that too. And it's just like... everything's positive about they're never like oh my gosh i'm so hindered you just have to do the thing the way that they the kid has to do it like they're in a t-pose that's the way they have to do it so you do it and they're never just like upset about it

or angry or frustrated they're just like i brushed my teeth and then you go do the next thing i was like this is kind of really positive and nice without even having to like talk about the subject matter it's about which i didn't clock just from looking at trailers Yeah, for sure. It said in collaboration with AbleGamers at the end of the trailer. Oh, very cool. So May 28th is when Tua T is coming out and talking to Kaito a little bit about it.

And him just being like, you know, I was like, hey, how are you feeling? He's like, oh, we're extremely nervous about this game launch. Like, this is such a feel-good game. Like, this is going to be met with such a warm embrace. There's no reason to be worried about it. And not in a negative way, but it was the complete opposite of I talked to a developer who's working on that game called Blueprints.

which is coming out April 10th. If you don't remember this, it's like you're in this mansion, kind of puzzle adventure style thing as you're kind of uncovering secrets of a mansion. And it's funny because...

We heard from maybe some people who had played Blueprints that they're like, oh my God, in a good way. And then it was nice. I heard a lot of people bring this game up. Yeah. And then, so keep it on your radar, everybody. Especially if you like stuff like Outer Wilds is an interesting comparison. But then talking to... to one developer who's working on blueprints at the IGF Pavilion. I was like, how are you guys feeling about the launch coming up soon? He's like,

really, really, really good. He's like, we are sitting back pretty. Again, not in a crappy, cocky, horrible way, but he's like, he's like, you know, the original creator made blueprints. And he finished it in like 2016 or 2015 and then brought on like a whole different team to like iterate on everything and build on everything that they built and finalized back then. So it's just been.

Like a decade of like boiling this down to now the point that's like, we know this is going to be perfect. Launch a game when you're actually done with the game and like, you're like, I can't improve on this at all. Yep. That's, that's what Blueprints is doing. So look forward to that one coming up April 10th.

We'll be talking about it here. Looks super cool. It does seem cool. Let's see. What else did you play that you like, Taylor? Anything you want to highlight? Yeah, I like Detective Dotson. We've got Dotson here. Sarah and I both played that. It's very charmingly, it looks very charming. We talked to one of the devs while we were playing it. He loves Sarah and I because we just kept going, oh, ooh.

and he was like you guys are great this is awesome it's um just like a puzzle game uh where you're essentially collecting evidence and information to figure out certain like mysteries that are afoot kind of thing but i think the visual uh look of this was really striking it's like the 2d sprites in the 3d also sprite-ish world there's like a lot of depth of view so like you know things in the furthest of the back move slower so that you

feel like it's a real 3d space and uh I don't yeah the developer was you know he's he's from India and he was just kind of saying like he wants more games that represent India in like a cool interesting positive way And, um, he, we couldn't see it, but he was like, Oh, everything that's written here is like, it's a little joke and stuff like that, which Sarah and I couldn't clock. So you don't read that, but you know, it's fun. It's fun that that.

type of gamers getting marketed to with a cool game like this. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the developer was there in the past when they were showing off. Oh my god, what is the cooking game? That was really good. Vemba, yes. He was hoping to show off Vemba in the past. Oh, was he? Yeah, that's cool. He's showing off Detective Dotson with their own game. But Detective Dotson is the name of that thing. I played a Hurdling. Do you remember this game?

You're a little shepherd. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's from the creators of the far series, like far changing tides and far loan sales that Kyle was always really hot on. But yeah, the studio is called Okomotive and they're from Switzerland. But Panic is publishing this one. Panic, they said, like, it's the biggest game we've ever published. And so it's a funky thing where you're herding these giant furry beasts.

Starting out in a city, kind of recruiting them, then you get out into the great wilderness and then you're hurting them. to a mountain is the idea. But the part I didn't really clock until I was playing it was like, you can name all of the beasts as you recruit them and you can like pet them as they go along and you recruit more and stuff like that. But a big part of the game is trying to...

keep them safe and so it's going to be brutal because giant like eagles can come down and just grab them and fly away or they can they can die in other ways so it's going to be one of those games that you see it's like oh that's a cute game you're hurting big fuzzy things

Yeah, but you're going to be connected to these big fuzzy things and then they're going to be dying left and right. But it's going to be fun to have that feeling of like, oh, I've had that big guy since the start and he's still around and Eagle hasn't taken him out, you know, as we're trying to make our way across the plane. So it seems really cool.

I'm going to get mostly invested in those little guys for sure. Hurdling coming out summer 2025. They haven't gotten more specific yet. We also play that funky game that was at State of Play called Dreams of Another. Oh, yeah. This was at the Day of the Devs thing. But this is from Q Games, technically a pixel junk joint, which talking to them, like, what makes it pixel junk? But pixel junk isn't in the name. And their angle is that any game, I think this is what they're saying, any game that...

is not like a contract game, but a game that's fully developed by Q Games. They're calling a pixel junk game now internally, even though it doesn't have it in the title anymore like they used to. But Dreams of Another, it's the one that... Strangely enough, looks a lot like a Dreams game. Kind of that fuzzy art style.

um and it's third person and you're revealing the world by shooting it with a gun which is the weird discordant element is this like this peaceful looking game very artsy fartsy and then you're revealing the story by just shooting everything around you and uncovering like characters and clues as you're trying to piece together.

what's happening. So kind of unfinished swan vibes, I guess, for slowly uncovering the world around you. But yeah, Haley and I both have the experience of like in a short demo. Both of us are like, I just want to shoot everything. Like, it's just such a simple mechanic of, like, I want to clear out this entire room just to make sure that I get every ounce of story here. Because just shooting everything in sight, yeah, it's like a power wash simulator.

level of satisfaction that I wasn't expecting from Dreams of Another there. Another one that I liked was we went to an indie event and... Mike Futter, formerly of Game Informer there, he was like, hey, there's this competitive match three game that seems pretty good.

And so we eventually uncovered it, and then Sarah and I went 1v1. And then the internet cut out because Sarah was losing, which was pretty convenient. I was actually winning, and that's why the internet cut out, I think. That's not exactly how I remember it, Sarah. But this is called Rise of Elements, which is very up.

my alley where it's you know competitive bejeweled they compared it a lot to puzzle quest naturally because you have like different attacks and stuff you're matching different sword icons to do bigger attacks and unlocking new abilities and stuff like that but like the art director was formerly an art director at Riot working on League and stuff. So it looks really nice. And I just love the idea of a team going all in on like a tight, competitive match three online play.

but no free-to-play nonsense, at least that we saw. I can't imagine they're going to pack that in. It seems like they want kind of the purity of just having a good competitive match three. But I know they've kick-started it, and I think they could use some more funding is the way they're explaining it, but Rise of Elements. is the name of that game from Wicked Fox Games. I thought it was pretty cool.

Nice. Yeah. We'll be talking more about GDC next episode of Bonus Pod. You can unlock it by supporting us on Patreon at the $5 tier if you want to get behind the scenes even more on everything going on there. But Leo, do you know how this whole thing operates?

I have always wondered. I will tell you exactly how this thing operates. It operates because of people going to patreon.com slash minmax with two N's jumping in at any tier. And I'm talking about the people. When I say the people, I'm talking about people like Alfred. Jared S jumped in at the $5 tier, unlocked that bonus podcast feed, which has bonus pod and a bunch of podcast versions of The Deepest Dives, early ad-free access to The Minmax Show, a bunch of other stuff like that. We have Jorby.

Related to Orbi, you tell me. They just jumped in at the $2 tier, got access to the Discord. They can submit questions for the podcast, submit comments for The Deepest Dive. Ton of other benefits there. So shout out to everybody jumping in. People drop out every day. So this is how we stick around. So thank you, everybody. I love you, Jorby.

I don't know, that's a little far. We don't really love you, but we appreciate you, Jorby. I love you, Jorby. Okay, but we just appreciate you, though, by and large. Appreciate you, Jorby. Okay. I love you, Jorby. Okay, come on, everybody. It's a gentle like at most. Shout out to some of our biggest supporters. I'm talking about people like...

im8bit who we saw at uh gdc they have a big old in-person store there which is cool but then also i saw the you know co-founders of im8bit on the sidewalk and i got to thank him again real quick uh but shout out to im8bit they want everybody to know about Persona 3, specifically the vinyl soundtrack to Persona 3, which is so damn good, which you can get in their wonderful online store along with a ton of other great video game vinyls and a ton of other great video game

Merch, I suppose, is the overall umbrella term, but you can get the Persona 3 Reload Episode Aegis vinyl soundtrack there as well. Check it out. You'll find something that you will love in iMateBit's wonderful online store. We guarantee it. And you should, of course, help support iMateBit because they support the Midmax community in a big way by shipping out a prize each and every week to whoever submits the best question.

on Patreon. I hope Jorby gets it. Guys, stop talking about Jorby for once. Did they write in with a question today? Jorby? I hope so. There's no Jorby to be seen. They just joined. They gotta get their sea legs in the back end there. But this week, whoever's the best question wins the Cuphead Show double vinyl album. Thanks to I Made Bit. And so you can go check out everything at I Made Bit's wonderful online store. Use the promo code GREENMACHINE.

Green Machine for 10% off of everything under $100, except for the Persona vinyls. Other than that, 10% off of everything under $100. Use that promo code, Green Machine. Keep IM8Bit around, because they rule, as we saw in person at JDC. All right, here we go. Ready for these? I said, are we ready for these, Leo? Yeah. Jorby likes them. That's right.

Darthbane79 writes in. They say, hello, Midmaxers. Seems like all of you have traveled together one way or another. So my question is, how would you rank the best travel buddies among the cohorts? I'm guessing Kyle's at the bottom of the list since he doesn't like to travel.

Yeah, I guess if we did drag him out, he would be the most miserable. Yeah, he'd be like spitting in our food, probably hissing at strangers. I traveled with him on the Spider-Man trip at Game Inform Room. And how was it? Yeah, where would you rank him? I don't remember it one way or the other. Right in the middle. Which is a good sign. Yeah, I traveled with them a couple times. I remember...

Nice lunches and stuff, yeah, but not snoring or whatever. Yeah, yeah. He definitely has the feeling of, I want to go home right now, but politely, I think is the way I would describe traveling with Kyle. That's almost more anxiety-inducing, though, because then I really don't want to.

I want to displease him by dragging out the trip. Yeah. Well, we're going home no matter what. You can't delay the flight if you wanted to, Haley. I have a tough time with this question. It's lovely traveling with all y'all who have traveled with so far, but like...

compared to the Game Informer experience, I feel like I just can't get a read on traveling with people because Game Informer, it was like make or break because you had to sleep in the same hotel room with all these gentlemen. And so it would just be a matter of who's the loudest snorer.

at Game Informer, which obviously was Matt Miller and Adam Beesner. And it was a matter of just like, hey, Ben Reeves put up some serious decibels as well. He fought for it. He fought for it. There's no doubt about it. He brought earplugs for me. Oh, that's what he's self-conscious about. That is nice. But compared to sleeping in the same hotel room, it's like, I don't know, we just get some lunch and have some drinks. This is...

This is so much easier. So my ranking is Haley is definitely at the top. Okay. Just because like, she's always got a great attitude. She's like very chill, very low key, but like also not afraid to call the Uber. which this is what i find with groups is like you need someone who's gonna like spearhead calling the uber and calling the next like destination right uh then it's leo because leo is also very chill very vibey very vibe space like just up for whatever

Ben, you're third? Rude. Only because you kept making me get up early. I kept making you get up early? Yeah. Yeah. It was like, what time do we want to wake up in the morning? And then you're like, eight? 8.15? 8? Which is 10.15 according to your body's rhythm with the time zone change? Yeah, but that was when our flight landed at midnight. I'm sorry for wanting to attend GDC by going to GDC. I remember so I said...

I want to get a coffee in the morning. You're like, you're going to have to get a 20 minutes. Every single morning I was like, I had in my schedule, like Sarah gets a little coffee and like decompresses and like gets ready for her day. Didn't exist. No such thing as a little coffee. Ben drinks decaf coffee, which honestly. I feel like I should put him in fifth place if I had anyone to put him below. Because what the hell is that? Who does that? I also ordered every Uber when we were together.

You did. You did. There you go. So? And, yeah. So I will say it was nice as someone, me, who, like, I got into follower mode because I was so burnt out. I just kind of followed Ben around after a certain point. Didn't ask questions. Just got in every Uber.

With Ben, you're in safe hands for sure. Yeah. Thank you. No situation will be awkward. At worst, you will be watching him handle it. Oh, that's interesting. You always got to lead the combos and just point to us and be like, they're cool too. And I'd be like...

And then you finish the conversation, which was nice. You're good at bringing people in and you want to do that, but it's like you can handle it yourself too. Oh, that's nice. When I'm not in the mood to. Right, I got it. Hayley's number one, I will say. Yeah, I get it.

giving you nice compliments. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, yeah, that's nice. It was a Haley, wonderful travel partner, always delightful. There was one beat when we were doing a bit in the travelogue that everyone was angry about doing, and I was thinking about it in retrospect.

Everyone was getting a little on edge end of the last day. And then Haley's like, let's have a competition to see who can kick the highest. And then it turned into a very fun competition to see who can kick the highest. I was like, thank God Haley throws out that Hail Mary to break this tension of we think this is a dumb idea, Ben. We don't want to do this for the Trevlog.

I got a spike of hyperness. Might as well act on this. I appreciate that. But also, you know, Haley, obviously, number one travel partner at the same time. Sarah. The tension of thinking Haley had died at a certain point. She did cause us the most stress when she disappeared off the face of the map. A little stressful, Haley. We thought that she had died, but she was just in the bathroom.

What's the difference? I did a loop of that PR event. And then I immediately got sucked into it. You know how they say, oh, press. And they come right over and bring you over to their terminal, which is fair enough. So I started doing that. And then I stood up. I looked down three missed calls from Sarah. I was like, oh, crud. And then I said, you guys were like, we're downstairs. What the hell? And I said, I'm upstairs.

And then I stood by the elevator and I was like, oh, I have to pee. I might as well go pee because it's right here. When pee came out, it looked like I had just been in the dumper the whole time. There's no evidence you wore it. Meanwhile, we were like running through the streets of San Francisco at 1045 at night.

because I think I'm going to find Hayley in a back alley. They thought upstairs meant heaven. Velta says, what's your favorite part of getting to do outings where folks in the mid-max cohort get to hang out together in person? Do nude dynamics emerge? Nude? Dynamics. All do dynamics. Only if you have to split them. That's a great way of describing them. Yeah, do dynamics. It's more physical comedy. It's nice outside of the realm of just the Discord. Yeah, kicking contests. I know.

apparently Sarah wanted to spit in my face but I was delighted every morning like sitting in the hotel and having like Sarah come down the stairs and it was like just making like good physical jokes of like Sarah jump down the stairs jump jump jump up the balcony good physical

comedy bits with cohorts i very much appreciate it you can only get traveling this way you know i mean it always hits different to hang out with people in person and like y'all are fun so like it's just fun like i went to gdc solo style three years ago.

And the amount of more fun it is just to have, like, the check-ins with y'all is, like, times a million more fun. It's definitely work. There's a lot to do. But it also has, like, the benefits of a retreat. Like, the camaraderie, the banter that builds. Yeah. Just, like...

It's like jumping ahead a few months in your relationship, I feel like. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. It's like triple XP weekend. Totally. I really just feel this. I don't know if you have this, Leah, or anybody else, but...

There's a part of me that's like, oh, damn it. That was like the best joke of the entire trip that Sarah just lobbed and it wasn't in the travelogue. I feel every time we have a great time and it's on the travelogue, I'm like, we're stealing from the community right now because, you know, I really enjoyed like, you know, Sarah and I had a lovely final.

lunch at the airport and say, oh, it was a good chat, you know? But I was like, God, should we have recorded that entire thing for the community? We would have been 20% less frank about our thoughts on situations. But, you know, it's always that balance, you know?

It's leveling it up so that when you guys podcast together, you're closer friends. And then that is better. Totally. The vibes of the whole trip are boosted by the conversation, including what you record later. Like, I think that's how you have to see it is. Right, right, right. It's all building it better. And that's why Sarah's been so nice to me on this podcast so far. Is that the conclusion? Absolutely. Okay, cool. I'm glad the way that worked out.

Let's see. Brent Carroll says, what, if anything, did you see here at GDC that got you most excited for the future of gaming? In general, just that, like, this is kind of a cop-out answer because I don't have a specific thing. Being in a room with only developers is so it like has recharged me after like everything being a controversy these days. Everyone's got to say, oh, but this, this, this, that. Oh, you woke, whatever. It's like.

You're just in the room with the people that make the games. They love to do it. That's why they're still here. They wouldn't be here if they didn't get paid or if they didn't love it because they're getting paid so bad. They're getting laid off all over the place.

I think I love seeing them also get recharged and it like recharges me. Like seeing them network and like, oh, you're this person who did that. Like Sarah, when I walked up to you and that other woman was like asking you for tips and you were like, oh, just shoot me an email. I'll give you the tips. blah blah I was like oh like that just is so nice it's just the best part of game development is like that part with like everyone being very camaraderie and

and like getting along or whatever, I truly felt my like gamer hate battery, like getting depleted. Right. Exactly. It was just like nice and refreshing. I know. I feel like I'm always getting worn down. Like. Just seeing like, oh, this game is woke, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like it feels so exhausting having to like wade through that criticism that when you get to like GDC and it's...

Just game developers, people who have dedicated their life to the same thing you dedicate your life to, you're like, oh, none of that is here, basically. Only positive, good vibes, and everybody wants everyone to succeed. Yeah, for sure.

A sharing of information. It's very sweet. Luca Alberti says, hey, Minimix crew, this week is all about the good vibes of GDC. Oh, that's part of the podcast, too. In your experience, who is the industry member you met that had you go, oh, yeah, they're a great person?

It is funny, you know, I do like so many people in the game industry. Most everybody, right? But it is funny, like, when people report back and people, they'd be like, they were so nice. Like, I hear this all the time about, like... I was, you know, from podcasts, like I was in the audience for SNL 50 and I met Mick Jagger and he was so nice. Well, yeah, at like a special event, at an awards show, everyone's in a good mood. Yeah, of course. Come on, man. But no, that said, almost.

basically everybody in the game industry is nice. It's very rare that I'm like, I really want to talk to that person. But I don't know, somebody to jump out for you as being exceptionally nice that you've met or taller or shorter than you expected or some good stuff like that.

I mean, I knew Sam Lake was going to be nice, and he was, so that's not a very good answer. He was shorter than me, which was cute. I was like, oh, Sam, what? I almost asked about that. You can put him in your pocket. Oh, that's perfect. He's just such a sweet man, lovely.

man i got to meet some of my clients in person oh this is why i wanted this okay yeah i got to meet some of my clients in person which was fantastic and it's just like like because you can't really be i when i when i practice law i'm not very like i'm formal in like the law application but like when i talk to them it's just like

I always open my calls with what are you playing? Like, you know, trying to be informal, whatever. Without the biller being on, I don't start the biller until we're actually talking real law stuff. So ethical. So ethical. And I know some lawyers who leave it on when they go to the bathroom and stuff. Yuck. Disgusting. I'm still thinking about it while I'm in the bathroom.

Like, well, that's effed up. You're an asshole. Anyways, back to what I was saying. But like, it's even like being with you guys in person, like it hits so different to like be in person with them in a room and realize like, because game devs are also like that type of people that like to joke around and have fun. and like are good with bits and like wanted to just like be fun with you so I had several meetings where it was like my first time meeting them in person

And just being like, oh, they're funny and easy to talk to. And I want to go have a drink with them and get to know them on a friend level, not just work. That was really rewarding because a lot of them are based in Vancouver, so it's not that far for them to go. up to california for it yeah yeah so that was fun that's nice yeah it's um we got to meet ellie joy panic

who was on the podcast, uh, just once maybe. Um, but yeah, it's fun to just like see her in the distance. I go, I think that's Ellie joy panic. And it's, it is, it is weird. People say it to me all the time. I'm just like, Oh my God, like you. not on a screen you look so different right but it is funny just to try and like gauge like oh my god just seeing people's faces in 3d still freaks me out there's so much detail on everybody here um this is

Leo, you can cut me off if this is the most boring answer possible. But in terms of people who are impressive, Greg Miller certainly gets enough attention. But I do really appreciate it. it always feels like he's hosting a party in whatever room he's in. You know, like, I think he does a really good job. He's always like, hey, good to see you. Like, he knows that it's a big deal for people to interact with him.

And he always has a nice positive energy. Like we went to the kind of funny office and he was like sprinting into the studio to record something, but still was very sweet and screaming to the travelogue, like support me next on Patreon. Like just, just that level of niceness. I don't want to take for granted. You know, it's, it's a, it's a kind move. It's kind of kind.

is how I describe them overall. And when you're vlogging around and stuff, he's like instantly on. He's like always on. So he's just in bit mode when you start recording him randomly at whatever event. Yeah. Yeah. One of those people. For sure.

Also shout out Caspian Whistler, who makes the magazine a profound waste of time. We met him in the press room. I think he came up and said hi to us. And then he's like, oh, I make my own magazine. It's a little bit like Game Informer, but it releases like once a year. It's like, oh, okay, cool.

And then he whipped out a couple copies and Sarah and Haley and I were like, this is the most beautiful magazine we've ever seen in our lives. We sat down and just like was reading it. It was so good. Yeah, yeah. We missed several panels, but we had to read through all the issues. But a profound waste of time if you want to check.

that out it's super cool so cool um let's see adam castellanos says what is the most interesting indie game in everybody's steam wish list oh i love this do you guys um building relationships remember that oh i love that Is that the one where you have sex with houses or something? You are a house. So it's okay. Okay, cool, cool, cool. I don't got a wish list. How many wish lists do you have? I have like over a hundred. It's not my release date and then the unreleased ones are at the top.

Mine is Bugaboo Pocket. So it's called Bugaboo Pocket. It's sort of like a Tamagotchi, but you have a bug. And you sort of raise it that way. It's a virtual pet game with little tiny bugs and you raise it from larva throughout their cycle. And you can play games with them and feed them food and stuff. But I'm excited for it.

Mine is Screen Bound, that game where you're holding like a little Game Boy in front of you, but it's all actually controlling what you do in the 3D world. Oh, right, right. That game looks trippy as hell. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that one. That was a good way to keep track of all that for sure.

Uh, John Filippo Wicks, sorry, I'm butchering it. As my Steam name can't be passed, as my Steam library can't be passed on to my son, the correct thing to do is to set up an account for my two-year-old and then buy games on that account in case someday he wants to play them, right? Do you feel like you own your Steam games? You just have to make a password for them. But I thought it was an interesting question. So he's wondering, yeah, do you feel like you own your Steam games at this point?

You have a license to your Steam games. Okay. And enough I've gotten delisted that I still have access to that I have some confidence. I don't know if there's any I can't redownload and replay. I'm sure there is. What about in 35 years? So Haley, how does that work with the kid thing? There's like the family sharing thing that they've revamped. So in theory, you could just share your account with his. So that would all be fine. But then his kids. Just give him the password.

I don't get this question. Just have a log in. It's got naughty words in it. Oh, you don't want to see all your games. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. That's what this question's about. Yeah. I secretly dislike my only son to exclamation point is his password. So I don't think, I don't think it's going to work.

But like I know when people draft like wills and stuff, they include papers of every password for every subscription service they have, which is a very common new thing. So that when someone passes away, you can go and like cancel slash take over their accounts. I do. Yeah. Motive for murder.

Yeah, kill someone for their Steam library. You'd have to be close enough to get the papers after they die. The perfect murder. The best Patreon member east of the Mississippi asks, So what's happening March 25th with Game Informer? What a wonderful question. Is that Jorby? No, this isn't Jorby. I'm sorry. Although, maybe it's code for Jorby because it just says the best Patreon member east of the Mississippi. If you didn't see, we teased it earlier with Charles Hart, but...

Game Informer on Blue Sky and Twitter and YouTube posted a message that was basically, tune in March 25th. Something might be happening March 25th. It was very flattering and confusing to see. like the Resetera thread.

Where there's so many guests that are like, I think MinMax bought Game Informer. I think they've revived Game Informer. What do you think is going on here financially? What do you think is happening? I'm flattered that you think that's a conceivable option. What an insult to Game Informer. former Franklin but no we're in the loop but we're not involved and yeah you should be optimistic there are posts on social media that they're not following GameStop anymore

on their socials. So I'm reporting those posts. Okay. March 25th is the GameStop Q4 earnings. Did you guys see that? Yes. Perfect. That's amazing. But, yeah, also people in the Discord were like, oh, you teased. You had another celebration of Game Informer piece of content you were working on. That was kind of like a larger documentary. Not about the full history of Game Informer, but it touches on the history of Game Informer in a unique way.

And people are like, oh, he's probably holding back for whatever this is. No, it's just a big project and I haven't had the time to do it. So it's not connected. I can't believe it took you so long. Like, now they're already teasing new stuff that you have to add. I know. I know. It's going to be fun. But March 25th, everybody, maybe we'll talk about it in the future. Graham Gilmore says, hey, can you guess the game from the back of the box quotes? This sounds familiar. These are all...

off PS4 or PS5 cases, but most of them are multi-platform, but not all of them. Okay, so back-of-the-box quotes. I don't know what you'd call it, some sort of back-of-the-box trivia situation. Okay, what game is this? Travel Beyond Fantasy. Forspoken? Very good, but no, this is a Haley jam. Sarah liked the game too. But can fantasy ever impact reality is what I'm wondering. Oh, I wonder.

Politically. Oh. This is like making it worse. Metaphoric Fantasia. All right. All right. Haley, I think this is a favorite of yours. The world doesn't need a hero. It needs a professional. Oh, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney? Oh, interesting. No, this is like, it's a big game from 2015 where I guess the main character has an occupation where they travel the world and help people with their occupation.

And I love it? You love it, and the main character is hunky, I think, and he has a deep, good voice. And he's like, I like this tub. Oh, The Witcher? Yeah, obviously it's The Witcher 3. What was not clear about those clues? I feel like you're undoing all the goodwill we built up at GDC together with this, in a way, Ben.

Hey, Clayton Carroll wrote in. They say, hey, Minbang. That doesn't sound right. Oh, no. I love taking screenshots in games. I like to think that I may have one of the largest screenshot repositories in the world for games I've played. I love to capture moments of beauty, important story beats or oddities. A total rough count of screenshots I have is around...

235,000 screenshots. Oh my god, that's so much more than I thought. Which is around 1.5 terabytes of screenshots. My question is, as long as it's not hurting someone or causing me financial problems, is this a problem or a passion? no i love it it's like you're a traveler while you're gaming that's super cool it's like you're on vacation

I only take screenshots on the Switch just because it's so easy. Everything else, I'm like, eh. I don't really have a big library anywhere else. The real question, yeah, is are you going into each and every system, downloading those photos, and then putting them on a hard drive somewhere? Because that is actually more impressive. because I hate getting photos off like PlayStation or like Switch. Mm-hmm.

oh my god i meant to mention ben last week you were getting on jeff for using what social media to like save his oh his youtube channel to save his videos i have before i was on min max like in between the internship whatever i used to use my Twitter to move like images so I could use them in my in my like guides and stuff that I would I would post it and I deleted as fast as I could just because it was the simplest thing and you always

caught me you were like the only one who'd be like why lol nice pic or something like a picture of a minecraft seed because i was doing like best minecraft seed guide or something and you'd be like love this one what i was doing i was like damn it delete your account delete your account there's a lot of that stuff yeah i need to fix that it's like you know the other day i was i just saw polygon post like this tweet that was like

The best places to buy Assassin's Creed Shadows. I was like, that's a stupid tweet. And I responded to that. I'm like, you know, what am I doing by being like... Take this gaming outlet. This is a dumb tweet. I was like excited with being smoky. Who are you getting in a fight with repeatedly for like posting spoilers? Was that for Game of Thrones? What was that for? IGN. IGN and GameSpot were abysmal.

You were getting into verbal fights on, not verbal, but you were yelling at them on the internet because they kept spoiling things like movies. That's vigilante stuff. People like us need to see someone fighting for that. Yeah, I guess so.

Tokyo Game Life writes in, they say, I was reading a developer interview about Donkey Kong on the Game Boy when my wife locked in and asked if I was busy. My question for MinMax is, yes, I'm reading about Donkey Kong. Is that an appropriate answer to, are you busy? Not to your wife. Not to your wife. You got to drop that DK if your wife comes in. Everyone knows that. Come on.

Joshua Caleb writes in, Sarah and Haley talking about Playmobil's Laura's Happy Adventure on the latest episode of Pew Pew Bang was an absolute brain blast. And it was developed by Ubisoft Montreal? Weird. They say you're not a true gamer if you didn't play Laura's Happy Adventure. You haven't played that? And you think you understand the origins of Assassin's Creed? I don't think so.

I remember seeing that game running on the brand new Pentium 3 PCs at Circuit City as a kid and wanting to play it so bad, but the family PC wasn't powerful enough. So my question is, does anybody have any gaming white whales?

Any gaming white whale games you desperately wanted to play as a kid but never could and even now haven't touched either due to time or technology? Truly, I thought I didn't have an answer for this until right now because on PewPieBang when they talked about Lore's Happy Adventure, they compared it to Lego Island.

And that is one that I only gamed on Mac that only came out on PC. I wanted it so bad. We did the dual booting to play games on PC. Sometimes there's some way to like do it on Mac that didn't work very well. Lego Island was one of the games that did not work at all. You would get halfway through the first level and not be able to play. And I never went back and played it.

That game's great. And it's tough to run now. It's tough to get up and running. I feel like we were trying to a while ago, but it's a wonky one. New Show Plus? New Show Plus. We struggled to get up and running. For me, it was... You know, I grew up with just like an Apple II, and then we visited some family friends out in Seattle, and the guy worked at Microsoft. He's like a friend of my dad's, which blew my mind back in the day, right? So you could be on the playground saying...

My dad's friend works at Microsoft. I guess so. But it was before anybody really cared about Microsoft and gaming. Like, oh, cool. You got to play Pandora's box early. That's great. But I remember they had this PC and they were playing this game and it.

It was the most mind-blowing thing I've ever seen. And I had to Google around to find it. And it's called Living Books, colon, The Tortoise and the Hare. And it came out in 1993. So I was probably six years old and I saw this. And it was just like an interactive... animated cartoon with the story of the tortoise and the hare and like it was

up there for the most mind-blowing graphics I've ever seen in my life like how is this possible you can have a computer like this in your home that can run something like the tortoise and the hare and like click on things and the characters just like speak to you like it's a cartoon

And I was very excited because I was looking this thing up. Apparently it launched on Steam in 2024. They finally put it on Steam. And so I need to boot that up and like fulfill my childhood wish of finally finding out who wins that gosh darn race. New Show Plus. Because one is fast, but one is slow, and you don't know, right? You know what else I'm brain blasting is Spy Fox 1 and 3 came out on Mac, but not Spy Fox 2. Oh. And I was obsessed with 1 and 3.

I'd play Spy Fox with you. Pork Bun Powered says, let's say I'm an indie dev inviting Min Max to my hotel room to check out my new game at GDC. What's some subtle ways to create a good impression? Don't do it in your hotel room. Don't invite us to your hotel room. I will always say no if it's in a hotel room. Sorry. I'm not going in. Yeah, there's a lot of that. I mean, not to complain, but it is amazing in the run-up to GDC. It's like...

20 to 30 emails a day of like, come on to this hotel room, check out this game, please. We have a tight week, I'm sorry. So yeah, what do you do to make an ideal demo for somebody in the press during GDC? I had one. I did a demo this last year you see that I liked where it was at a restaurant and they had like the corner booth. It was a quiet time of day. They had their laptop there and you could just order a drink and they said, oh, we'll get it if you want. And then you just kind of played it.

in that restaurant atmosphere which was i liked that then it was chilling chilling and you know they even said do you want food i was like oh no no no like that felt

too crazy i've maybe one person of the day was like give me the nachos and a burger and a shake and then sat and played a 20 minute demo and left that'd be an asshole move but i thought that was really good i was like i liked that that was fun it kind of felt like you were taking a break from gdc even though you were still playing a game

That is nice. And you want them to help you like to lean over your shoulder or to leave you alone fully? Well, she was just sitting right beside me in our booth seat, which also. booth seat always to get the booth seat so it also felt comfy and then she kind of just felt like I was playing a game with like a friend or something also she was very sweet so I got along with her quite well

And it was just like, yeah, that was great. It set up everything so that the demo, I was receiving it in a very positive place in my brain. I was like, let's see what this is. Yeah. And I think being conscious that... you have done a similar thousand times and this person you're with has played demos like this a thousand times. And so like the pandering and the like, you're so good at it and stuff. Yeah. You know, you can, you can take that, that layer off a little bit. Well.

I thought, okay, I misread this question. I thought it was about how to design your demo. Because some games do not demo well. I thought it was like, how do I design the demo itself to give GamesPress the best impression?

because like my thing is it's like some of these games have like really long intros like if they're just starting the game from the beginning over and over and over again like I don't want to sit through like I don't want to read basically like if it's heavily narrative I feel like you're in a bad position um

like start us in the middle of the game somewhere probably and just give us a little blurb about what happened yeah you know what would work pretty well is almost having like a launch screen for every type of thing that someone might be interested in like if you were doing a mystery one like

Click on this to play 10 minutes of farming. Click on this to play 10 minutes of the mining. Mining, yeah. Talking to NPCs. And it's just like only what you can do in that little section is those things. You can jump around. That would work really well too. Yeah. Aging Poorly writes in, I was talking to a pilot who said that he'd never drive a bus. It's too dangerous. Planes mostly fly themselves.

Um, newfound respect for bus drivers, uh, says Adrian poorly. Do you ever get an insight into a job where you thought, wait, they should get paid way, way more than they do. Yeah. A lot. Most of them at the Texas airport. We were just watching somebody. We're waiting to get picked up and they have a really bad setup for getting picked up. It's like one lane for five miles. It's truly deranged. And there was one person who was like catching people trying to skip the line.

people who were going around and trying to sneak in all all in cars a person would walk up and stop the car in front of them and tell them you can't do this you have to go all the way around now and that person picking all those fights with these giant truck drivers driving these gigantic monster trucks i was like she should get paid more than elon musk there's nobody working harder than her yeah in the world

Absolutely. Every day you wake up, you know you're going to be having, what, 50 disagreements with strangers a day? That's got to be so stressful. Yeah. You're going to be so sharp by the end of that day, though. There's no lingering. It's not like you have to argue with members of your family. It's just like you get to argue, get snappy, rinse and repeat. You're going to be razor tight, as they say. I think flight attendants should get paid.

like i can't imagine a tougher job than being a flight attendant sometimes because not only are i hate flying you have to be working while you're flying the whole time and like people on planes are always cranky so you got to deal with that and you're trapped in a in a closed space with them like if they're mean to you you're gonna have to be nearby them for the next what

lowest two hours most like 12 hours that's so stressful it's not like they get better seats they all sit on like the seats that we have in the back of the plane so they can't even recline their chair and when they're in between parts just like sheesh louise they gotta repeat the same thing the same thing every day for like the safety like oh

Must be hard. Hardest situation would be smiley service stuff in for sure. Plus like airports just make your hair greasy but their hair always looks so good. I'm like how do you avoid this? Hotel shampoo. They're not using hotel shampoo. They're not using it. Yeah, I was thinking about it with the interview we did with Shuhei Yoshida, former head of PlayStation on Min Max's channel recently, where he was talking about having to shut down studios, how hard that was. But at the same time...

he's in a spot where he's like, you know, I made enough good money that I can kind of retire from PlayStation. I don't need a job for a while. I can just go help indie developers and I'm doing all right. And then it's just that weird thing where at a certain point at the end, I was like, oh, you know, maybe you can...

Do you ever want to develop your own game? You can go develop your own game now. And he's like, oh, no, I would never do that. That's way too hard. It's like, that's such a weird spot to have, like, the gaming executive be like, pfft. No way. That is the hard job. The one that I laid a lot of people off from. As I sat back and got paid well. It's just that classic, like, why do executives get paid so much more than the developers who are making the game? It's a tricky thing.

And why do they want us all in office? Because otherwise they're not doing anything, huh? Right, right. I think we should flip the payment, Leo. I think they should all get paid executive levels, and the executives should get paid dirt poor. Dan Vallone writes in and says, Hey CLCs, a few weeks ago you talked about the top grossing movies of all time for each letter of the alphabet. So hi, I have another game for you. Can you guess the top reviewed video game?

for each letter of the alphabet. Ooh, fun, fun, fun. These are all pulled from Metacritic. Haley, you seem to be the only person who's interested in the trivia part. I could just run through these. Do you want to try and guess some of them, Haley? Or anybody else? Yeah, I want to guess. Okay, awesome. A. Recent game. Very fresh. Avowed?

No way. The highest reviewed games of all time. I'd say like, you know, fall to winter of last year, we were all gaga over this game. Halloween 2. Owl World. From last year. from last year that was the year before alatro oh my god it was the alatro's bees that's why i said alatro last year anora the video game i forgot that game Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, Astrobot. Astrobot! Oh, I did not clock. That was the theme song. Hayley just wanted to listen to a good tune for a while.

B. B is a classic. It is now a classic. Nope. Iconic. When people talk about the power of narrative in video games, they talk about this game from 2007, 2008. Bioshock. Bioshock! Way to go. Nicely done. Gotcha, Leo. I saw you forming the letter bio. I was gonna say the last of us. Uh, ooh, C. I would not have thought this was the highest of all time. The reviews were shockingly high. Very good, Leo. Ladies and gentlemen at home, he said Sea of Thieves was Leo's joke for the evening.

This is a game that we have. What are the civilizations? No, this is a game we have done a deepest dive on. Chrono Trigger? Oh. No. Corner Cross? Yeah, 94 apparently. Oh, wow. Then Devil May Cry, Elden Ring, Final Fantasy. I could do it for all these. I know we don't have a ton of time, but. Oh, hang on. Okay, hang on. Oh, this is tricky. F is a Final Fantasy.

Try and guess which Final Fantasy has the highest Metacritic. I never would have guessed this. It's not seven then. Not seven. Is it a mainline or is it like a spin-off? It's always mainline. Five? No. Interesting guess. No. Nine? Yes! Nine is the highest Metacritic Final Fantasy. I love that game. That's surprising. G? You're a third of the way there. GDC? Come on, it's right there. It's right there. Is there another iconic game series that's an acronym that starts with G? Gears of War. G-O-W.

This is for the fourth entry, which came out in 2008. There's a new entry in Gay-Lo coming out this year that's the most anticipated game of all time. Oh, Grand Theft Auto. Grand Theft Auto. There we go. There we go. Then Halo Combat Evolved, Inside, Jet Set Radio, Klonoa 2, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Metroid Prime, NFL 2K1, Orange Box, Perfect Dark, Quake, Red Dead Redemption.

Option 2, Soul Calibur, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 for T. Wow. Rated 3 for T. Uncharted 2, Virtua Fighter 4, Wipeout XL, X, of course, let's all say it at the same time. Of course, it's... Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Expansion Pass Wave 4 Colon Future Redeemed. Y? Let us guess Y and Z. Okay. Y. Yaris on Xbox Live Arcade. Close to Yaris. Haley, the sound you made when you were trying to guess it was... Yeah, you are halfway there. You're right there.

Yu-Gi-Oh, the game. Nope, nope, nope. Yoshi. What if you added one letter onto that sound that you were making? Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going through the alphabet. Towards the end. It's a consonant. Towards the end. It's a consonant. Okay, this is the eighth entry and the subtitle is, say it with me, Lacrimosa of Dana. Right. What the hell is this?

It's Yeehaw 8. No, it's Ease 8. Ease is the series that starts with a Y. I don't even know what that is. Oh, it's easy to remember. And then Z. Zoo Tycoon. No. It's got an 87 of Metacritic. This game rules. I feel a universe where Sarah played this game. Okay, well, that doesn't really say much. It's a pirate-themed game.

It starts with a Z? Yes. Famously, it starts with a Z, but it also has a W in the title as well. It's two words. And it's not Skies of Arc... skies of arcadia nope it's it's z and w parentheses some pirate crap release for the we from capcom i believe hidden gem

I don't want to put you on it. I did not play this. I did not play this. I didn't get to it until late, and I checked it out from the game before a vault, and I was like, yes, it does roll. Zack and Wiki, Quest for Barbarossa's Treasure is the number one Z game, apparently.

It's very good. It should be Zoo Tycoon. Of course it should. Dan Vallone, thank you for writing in with that one. That was fun. Jeff D., final question. Would you rather travel back in time to meet your great-great-grandfather or grandmother? or travel forward in time to meet your child's child child and play their Steam games. What if you don't have children?

Can you change? Are you allowed to go back and change? So if I said don't leave Norway, would they listen? Would you want them not to leave Norway? Yeah. Would they know I'm a time traveler and they'd listen or would they think she's just a crazy...

blonde woman from the future who wears different clothes. Let's say they don't even know who you are. Yeah, that's better. But honest to God, I don't care. Is that weird? Is that wrong of me? Care either direction? You choose just to pass on this opportunity?

I feel like nothing good could come of it. Who do you think you look more like? Do you think you can see more of a reflection of yourself, which is what life's all about? Finding mirrors. Would you look more like, is it the same? I guess it would be the same. I look so much like, we have like old pictures of.

my great great grandparents and there's one in particular i'm like that's straight up me but in the past it's like spooky wow she's wearing weird clothes and i'm like what am i doing back there it's like genuinely looks so much like me does she follow you around when you walk around the room too Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how to improve your bit. Sorry. To call it a bit is very generous, Haley. I'd go grandchild. I'd go next gen. You'd go next gen? Next gen. Yeah.

Because you could ask me about the future. Yeah, I feel like if we're talking about, like, what's a gain, I feel like there's more to lose by going to the... has interesting and learning something i don't want to know right right yeah i would go to the future and just ask them for the most profitable stocks and invest We're trying to learn about life, Haley, and soak in the majesty of biology. I'm me up here. Yeah, they'll say, I'm me up here. That sounds great. I want to have that conversation.

cool what's this what's this sounds like the opinion of somebody that has kids would have And Ben's the only one here that has a child. Liam's with me. He wants to go see his great, great grandkids too. Oh, man. The hell. Sarah, do you want to go to Norway and try and find our ancestors? Because maybe they lived in the same town. Oh, my God. Do you guys have a great-great-great-great-grandma in relation, maybe? Wouldn't that be fun? Maybe. My Norwegian last name is Gunderson.

And Ben's is Hanson. Hang on. Are you talking about the goddamn Gundersons that my great-grandfather always complained about? The Gundersons. The Gundersons Hanson War? Oh, no. Thousands died. All right. What are you all like for question of the week? I like travel companions. Yeah, it's good. The alphabet thing. I don't want to describe that. Travel companions. The alphabet too, but that was a spinoff of last week, right?

Well, I mean, I guess. Okay. Travel Companions. Congratulations. DarthBane79. You won question of the week. Thanks. I am a bit. I am impressed by your question. We should have been saying that for five and a half years. God dang. Alright, now it's time for something that we like to call get a load of this. Hey, get a load of this.

I swear I wrote this down before we became obsessed with Mufasa and Lion King, but my kid, perhaps you've heard of him. He's very into lions. It's kind of his main thing. And so we like listen to music and it's like, Oh, I'll put on the lion sleeps tonight. There's a lion track. And then was just sitting there listening to it like, what is this song? I was looking at it like, recorded by the Tokens?

in 1961, just the whitest looking group you've ever seen in your life. Like, what is, there's a story here. And so it's a fun rabbit hole to go down where originally that song, uh, was recorded in 1939 by an African artist named Solomon Linda, and it was called Mubebe. And then Pete Seeger picked it up and did like a version of it. And then it kind of circulated in the folk scene and then it blew up in a big way.

thanks to the tokens in the 60s, and then Lion King used it, and there's a long journey of, if you trace back to the origins of it, he worked, the original recorder, he worked in the record studio as a cleaner and record packer. and recorded it wrote that song and recorded it but the folk singers in the 50s

They thought that it's like, oh, you know, it's just one of those like old African traditional songs. Like it's a folk song. So we don't got to worry about copyright. So they picked it up and just started recording it. And then it's in Lion King. And it's in like the Broadway version of Lion King. It's just everywhere. And it was a real fight to try and get any.

money back to that original family of that artist who eventually died. And there's a documentary about it called A Lion's Tale about just trying to get some money back to that family. He's like, no, he... He wrote the song, everybody. It's not just a generic folk traditional song. I feel like they could have come up with a better name for the documentary. Than A Lion's Tale?

Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. Oh, they should have called it Mufasa colon A Lion King Story. I think that would have been better. I'm interested. Music by Lim M. L. Miranda. Yeah, that would have hit. Yeah. Get a look at this.

Damn it! No, I'm setting up you. I'm saying get a load of what Hayley has to say. Thanks! Um, I am collecting animal pens. I love animal pens. I have them all over my apartment. I have them all over my bags. I have a little... piece of cloth on my wall where i just stick them in to look at them and i i think i found my favorite enamel pin of all time you guys ready to see it i think so sarah you will love this

It's Ichiban. Stop! He lifts his shirt to the left and shows his back. That's so good. It's my new favorite thing and there's also Kiryu and Majima versions, Sarah. Whoa. That's awesome. Whoa. I love them. It's my favorite thing. It's going to go in my favorite bag, so I see it every day. Love it.

It's not as, I didn't do as much research as Ben, but like, I've been thinking about this thing all day and playing with it in my hands. It's really affecting my day. So I just wanted to share it. That's better than mine. Get a load of this YouTube video. Rebecca Black, who of course did the iconic song Friday, she's really had an interesting few years. She's primarily a DJ now and she's putting out more music. The video for Trust, I can't recommend high enough.

Really, really good. She's an interesting artist right now. And she did a video with Rainbolt, the geo-guesser. streamer who is has tons of viral clips of like finding places because of the color of the sky ridiculous stuff like that he did a video with her where he found places she's been some of which were like one shot from a music video or like a place she toured and it's like an interview crossed with

Showing her these spaces and her playing GeoGuessr and trying to find the spot where they shot this thing. What a great idea. It's a really smart format. It's really like underdone. If they put in a bunch of production value, it would be like a huge show. It's giving hot ones potential. Yeah, totally. That's cool. Link below if you want to check it out. Sarah, you got something? Sorry. Yes. Haley brought me.

Some beautiful Pokemon cards to give me a GDC. And I wanted to show them off. She got me two spiel cards and an Esper card. And Hayley, were you saying this is the only full art?

card of spiel that's the only spiel illustration rare it's from the um surging sparks new set that came out last year that says one thing that's beautiful and she put them in like really solid like sleeves like the the professional sleeves yeah top loaders i was at a card show when i bought the this feel on the right sarah i was looking through the folders and i said to the guy i was like i'm really looking for the illustration verse feel and he goes oh i just sold it

I was like, damn it. And then I flipped and there was another one. I was like, oh, there you go. Yeah, we got to up our game if we're around Haley again, Sarah, when we're around Haley again. For the amount of gifts and kind things that she does for us. That's my love language. Oh, my God. Unbelievable. Hey, get a little of this from the community. Mr. Buttons in the Discord channel, they shared this story from Eurogamer about...

The people who beat the secret, really difficult platforming level in Split Fiction, the first people to beat it, Hazelight invited them to the studio and let them check out the next game that they're making.

Isn't that a cool idea? I saw the way that they got to that. It was so convoluted. It was like buttons they press and they press them at the same time together. It's like, how did they know to do that? Did they look at the code or something? Yeah, and it's not like a studio, as far as I know, that's known for its kind of like deep Easter eggs and stuff like that.

that so it's wild to think that this was hidden in there but that's that's cool it's a lot of trust from Hayes but yeah come on by we'll show it to you but he said in the rapid fire interview that Neil Druckmann got to see the next game already too so I guess Neil Druckmann was ultimately the real winner here as per usual

But that is it for this episode of the MinMac Show podcast. Thanks so much, everybody, for watching, listening, sharing, all that fun stuff. Apologize again for the late upload, but hopefully... Hopefully you understand because of that whole GDC trip. But let's see. Min Max this week. We have a new episode of Pew Pew Bang. That is up right now in the standalone podcast feed. If you want to check out that show with Haley and Sarah and Janet and Kelsey.

the theme for this week's episode? Girl games. Girl games. Every game's a girl game if you really think about it. That's kind of the theme of the episode. It's funny. Just as it continues, you just keep trying to spread out like, you know, the feminine urge to... kill gargoyles. Everything's a feminine age. It's perfect. Pew Pew Bank, check it out. That show rules. Leave a review if you like. Also, new episode of Max Settings, Leo. Max Settings is back. Our show's sponsored by NVIDIA, eh?

Yes, we wanted to do that show because the community always wants more gameplay content from us. And that's a great reason to do it is for them to pay us. And I think it's very successful in that way. This episode of Kyle and I playing Half-Life 2 for two hours and it's just a really fun. play with a brief dive into the settings to what? Show off how good the graphics are because it's really pretty. It's Half-Life 2 RTX.

So it is them pushing RTX Remix, NVIDIA's suite of community-friendly modding tools for upscaling, upresing games on your own. So it's like a community studio that's working on this. And the demo was the first. Not the first two levels, but a couple levels.

check it out on our youtube channel help support that show so we can do more like it because yeah like we talked about so it's a nice sustainable way to do let's plays at min max instead of it kind of eating into everything and draining everybody's schedule in a big way but uh bonus pod

More GDC talk with Janet. Unpack even more behind-the-scenes stories, all that fun stuff. That'll be up on Monday for everybody. We have the MinMax travelogue for GDC that hopefully I can edit this weekend and then get up. It should be a fun time. If you're at the $10 tier, you'll get the... six hour version so you can really soak in the full experience because you all paid for six hours

yeah yeah um i still have to send you my clips too ben i know i know i'm trying to factor that in but yeah if you want to you know you all you all supporting us on patreon is the reason you know that sarah and i were able to afford traveling out there so we want to share much of that experience as possible with the community here so that's the goal of that extended version but we'll have the highlight cut obviously for the public as well um also the three of us not leo

He wasn't invited. But the rest of us were on the Kit and Krista podcast. So you can check that out in your favorite podcast app or on their YouTube channel. It is all of us drafting our ideal Switch 2 launch lineup.

Kit and Krista, they're so good. They're professionals. They're so nice. Former Nintendo pros, marketing pros, they know how to package a podcast, and so it's fun to record a podcast in studio with them. And technically the first time the three of us have recorded a podcast in person together, which is weird, right? So you can check that out on Kit and Chris's YouTube channel. But anybody else got anything they want to plug? No.

No? Perfect. Well, thanks to everybody who came to the meetup and was super nice. I do want to say that everyone was super cute and nice. Yeah, everyone was definitely cute and nice. Yeah, it was unbelievably sweet, and it's very nice to see, like, in the Discord channel afterwards, people will be like, oh, that was so great. I was worried about it, but it turns out everyone just

wants to politely talk about games and have some jokes and yeah it is it is so fun to do those meetups and hopefully i got to talk to everybody if i didn't get to talk to you i apologize i was trying to to dance around as much as possible it's just a series of like

I got to go over here, but I'll come back and talk to you later. And you just don't quite get back to everybody. So hopefully, hopefully we spread around enough, but shout out to everybody for sure that came out for that. We greatly appreciate it. And thanks to everybody who supports us on Patreon for making the whole thing possible to begin with. But that is it for this episode of the Minute.

Mech Show Podcast. We'll be back next week with a whole brand new one that should be fun. Until then, be good, have fun, let's go!