Hollow Knight: Silksong, 007 First Light, Shinobi Rules

you Hello, everybody, and welcome to a new episode of The Min-Max Show, a place about games, friends, and getting better. I'm Ben Hanson, and a happy Silksong to you, and I'm joined by one Jacob Geller. I never thought this day would come, Ben. Truly. The day where the four of us are podcasting together about the one and only Hollow Knight Silk song. We're also joined by Jeff Marquiafava. That's me.

And a happiest silk song to the silkiest man in town. I'm talking about Cereal Vasquez, returning champ. Ah. That's the thing she says all the time when you fight her. Oh, does she say that? I didn't notice that. I didn't notice that. That's what everybody, this podcast is going up one day late. Thank you for your patience. Hopefully we warned you last week about it enough, but we are talking about Hollow Knight Silksong first impressions.

of that there game. And then after that, we're talking about Shinobi Art of Vengeance. Will we teach you the Art of Vengeance? Stay tuned. Suriel, God bless your heart, because you said that you wanted to talk about Lumineza Rise a little bit. Yeah, I played the demo. I was going to play it today again, but you can't play it anymore. Nope, they took it away. It's the conquered of its time, that demo. They literally, they sent an email to me that said, the Lumina's demo is done. Go play Silksong.

like it said that in the email that's smart uh then we are swapping things around we are nuking this cast from orbit uh and we are getting Hayley McClain, Sarah Podrowski, and Leo Vader to join the cast. We're going to be talking about Discountee. We're going to be talking about 007 First Light, the next game for the developers of Hitman that Leo has some strong thoughts on. Sarah wants to talk about a game called Grimshire.

and I played it today, and I am so excited to talk about Grimshire. I think it's a fascinating game. We're going to be talking about Apatris. My God. I can't wait to talk about that as well. And then back after the show, we have some great questions that people submit over there on Patreon. Thanks to everybody who submits great questions each and every week. If you just jump in on Patreon at the $2 tier, you can submit questions.

and win a prize potentially each and every week here with MinMax. Also, you're helping support independent games media. But this week, and this week only, we have something special for everybody. If... You support MinMax on Patreon before this coming Monday, which is September 8th. I've been saying August accidentally over and over again. September 8th, everybody. If you jump in and support us at any tier on Patreon, or if you upgrade your tier, we will DM you.

on Patreon with a Steam code for Spilled, which is a really cool indie game that came out earlier this year. It's a sweet little experience, about as satisfying as a game can get, personally, where, Jacob, you played Spilled, right? Yeah, to me it goes in the category of just like no-brainer games. You know, it's like, it's pretty short, it's satisfying the whole time.

not for a second how was i like man i wish i wasn't playing this game you know like i'm just like great it was a great time the whole time unimpeachable where you're cleaning up like an oil spill with this boat and then you get coins for cleaning up and you upgrade the boat so you can clean up more

It is the cleanest little loop. So you can get a code for SPILD, help support independent games, and help support independent games and media at the same time by supporting Monex on Patreon. Even that $2 tier before September.

and we will DM, or not DM, we'll post on all social media if we happen to run out of codes. We have 200 Steam codes to give away, so jump in, everybody. Support us and get a code for Spilled. And I don't want to make this, I want to talk about Hollow Knight Silksong, obviously. I don't want this to be like...

Boohoo, boohoo. But there is a weird thing happening where we could probably use a little extra support. And Jacob, I assume you're equally fascinated by this kind of YouTube grenade that's gone off, where it seems like... August 12th, YouTube had a big update rollout, and the premise was they were using AI to try to determine viewers' ages.

And then they were automatically gating a bunch of content if they thought you were underage. And now in that web, they have consumed a lot of min-max content, even though we censor swears and stuff and we're... By and large, a family friendly outlet. So our our views for our video content over the last since August 12th have dropped like 40 percent. Like I thought I was going.

I really thought I was losing my mind. I started seeing like Skill Up and Second Wind out there also talking about they're kind of hit with that same ratio. And so it is scary. It feels like we're just kind of sent back in time three years, you know, for the level of views that we're getting. So we could really use the help on Patreon if you want to jump in and get that code for Spilled.

I'd appreciate it. But also tell tell a friend you like listening to MinMax. I'm always you know, it's like I wish that more of my friends listen to MinMax both because then they could like congratulate me, but also because like. It's fun to share things with people. You know, half the reason we're always just talking about blank check is like, hey, that's a shared experience we have. And I feel like it's like, just tell your friends. Yeah.

Yeah, especially the video version there. But are you fascinated by this YouTube thing or are you more in the camp of like YouTube's a roller coaster no matter what, whatever? That is the philosophy I've had to accept. I was... You know, I have a video come out a month, and so it's really I'm not able to see trends that clearly. And so I've just been thinking, like, guess I lost it. You know, I guess people are just not interested anymore, which might be true to some extent. But yeah, it's.

I don't know. It's, it's weird. And it's just like, no one can do anything about it. Right. You know? And it's like, is that the, is the AI age gating the reason? Is there something else going on? Were all our views inflated and now they're coming back? You just don't know. You just don't have any idea. Except every YouTuber now just wakes up and thinks, oh, I'm...

I'm failing. I'm a failure. It feels like we are just bombing. You like seeing that little 9 out of 10 on the studio readout? You like knowing that this video is doing worse than all your other videos? It's really rough. And, like, if you enter restricted mode, which is what... AI on YouTube is putting a lot of people into so they can't see stuff that isn't family friendly. The latest episode of the Midmax show that they can see is our game of the year debate for 2023.

Everything else is just invisible. So we can use the help, everybody. Jump in and get a code for Spilled. Support us on Patreon. It's the cleanest way to keep us around. We'd appreciate it in these dire times, but we'll be all right. All right. Let's get to the big kahuna here. Hollow Knight Silksong, everybody. Early impressions. We're all jumping in relatively fresh. Jacob, were you feeling the...

feeling the sting of hype how are you feeling this morning when you actually were able to download it and jump into the sucker oh yeah i mean it's like you know they got it sorted out quickly but i think it's worth saying Steam, Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Store, and Xbox were all down at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, which is when this released, which was wild. You know, I...

My my theory, I don't know if this is true at all, is they probably have like additional servers that they turn on for like when the new Call of Duty is coming out or when Elden Ring is coming out. And maybe they, like, didn't have those on, and then were like, oh, snap, turn everything on! Because it was, like, it was really fun to see that this game that, you know...

It's been kind of a meme of how excited people were for it for years and years. Like, see the actual tangible results of that. Oh, like, oh, this isn't just something that people write Nintendo Switch, you know, live streams. People really want to buy and play this game. This isn't Snakes on a Plane. People are actually going to go to the theaters to play Hollow Knight Slugsong. Yeah, it is fascinating to see.

This doesn't fascinate you. Something's wrong with you. If you love the game industry, this is about as fascinating as it gets, is this sequel to an indie game can build up hype to this amount, and it can sell this many copies that it can just be a complete juggernaut.

and rival I mean the shorthand is it's the indie GTA 6 which like it feels like it's at that level I don't I can't think of another indie game that has had this level of hype at launch is hella night silk song can you like no man's sky i guess but that was promoted by sony in a big way but even this i think beats no man's sky it's like if

If Delta Rune had all come out at once, I think it would have, but I think the episodic structure has kind of stretched out the hype for that a little bit. Yeah. What's interesting about this song, like... all of that is true but then also it's the fact that it's not really the kind of like indie game that hits nowadays where it's not like a peak it's not like a surprise thing it's not like you know this is a sequel to like a long-running live service kind of like roblox kind of thing or like a

This isn't like a Minecraft to where like they're just planning to support this for years and years. And the idea is you can just play it forever and ever. This is like a. you know, self-contained thing. It's like a limited, but you kind of know that going into it of like, this isn't a game that I'm going to, you know, have a party with my friends and then play it for like a hundred hours over the course of the next year. It is just a thing that you play and you finish and, you know,

probably be dlc maybe an expansion pack um but the kind of game that this is i think is kind of the most surprising thing to me i mean just the idea that's like this this has to be the most hyped up metroidvania game Ever. So much bigger than any Metroid or Castlevania has ever been. No, that's the wild part. I mean, I was listening to the Game Business podcast and they were pointing out that if this game sells just as well as Hollow Knight sold, it'll be the biggest...

Metroidvania series of all time. Like it'll conquer the lifetime sales of Castlevania and Metroid. It is so fun to see this completely out of the blue and the extra whammy then of no reviews ahead of time. So, you know, we talked about it last week about like, you know, pros and cons to that, but the feeling of just, it's like the entire world gets to feel that little magical sprint of time that a lot of game reviewers get where it's like, okay, no one knows what's in this game yet.

We're all going in blind. There's no guides online. Let's just go experience this stuff together and let's figure it out together on Discord. If there's mysteries and Reddit's going to be popping, like it just feels like a completely magical release. And yeah, there's 535,000 people playing it right now.

on steam alone and i'm sure that number is going to keep climbing into the evening here on day one it's it is awesome you can also just go ahead and write that like that story that's going to come out in two months like uh hollow knight silk song like player numbers are down by like 80 percent and whatever because everyone will always write those stories yeah exactly but like i think a huge part of it too is like the price point the fact that it's like 20 bucks

It's like approachable for absolutely everybody. You know, and Kyle Bosman and his new delayed input pointed out that like it's the obvious thing of delayed cherry is literally leaving tens of millions of dollars on the table. They could have charged 30 bucks for this. I don't think people would have blinked.

You know, it's like it is just unbelievable. They're like, I don't know, five bucks more than the last one. We're good. We're fine. We're already multimillionaires. What are we going to do out here? It just feels like a magical release in the industry.

and i think it's like price hike we're okay with that now i think it just speaks to like the the the team in general just feels like they're they are at a position where they can kind of uh not take conventional wisdom and just like what is the thing that we want to do and we don't necessarily run that by like kind of the idea of you know like people would sell buy this at 30 40 dollars right and then i've seen kind of some some developers saying

that like it's kind of not great that they're charging twenty dollars when you know but like shinobi just came out and that's thirty dollars right and so like setting expectations etc but it just feels like they the team is you know but the entire success of this game or like the kind of its development cycle is just a small

team that decided like we're going to stay relatively small we're just going to work on it until we feel it's done and we're not going to like well we need to this is like the scope that we need to hit by a budget and whatever and like they're not really like doing a lot of things that you normally do if you want to have like a big indie success because they already you know have that yeah and so it just feels like they're kind of just saying yeah we're just going to do the thing that we

want do we're not going to worry about like trying to meet expectations or whatever so we're just going to release it and it'll be 20 bucks i don't because that's what i would pay i don't know maybe yeah it does feel the only comparable thing and we know so little about this but like the

the haunted chocolatier yeah you know the next like concerned ape game i feel like that is going to be kind of the only comparable thing and it's also a different community because the people who are like super into stardew or maybe not watching every nintendo direct you know in the same way that silksong people are but that's another one that i imagine will will launch at a price that people will be like really yeah um yeah but it's it's so cool yeah that they can just

That they have no, like, the traditional marketing for this is basically absent, and they're launching it at a low price, and it's just kind of like, you know, you don't, if you are successful, and it's like, granted. They're successful beyond, you know, 99.999% of indie developers. But, like, you don't have to play the game, you know? Like, in a positive way. You don't have to make every possible cent from this. You can just kind of...

do what seems nice and do what seems you know like reasonable to you yeah it's so funny seeing like that uh bloomberg interview that jason schreier did basically the entire interview was like development went well we're just gonna take our time because it's kind of fun we wanted to add a bunch of stuff but

No drama. We're just working on it for a long time. I don't know. And like the fact that that just was a fireworks explosion of other people picking up that story. Like the entire internet ran with the headline.

silk song development went well you know it's like yeah there's so much anticipation and the fact that you know they got jeff keely to go on stage and basically announce a countdown to a countdown for their trailer you know they had keely on his hands and knees begging for any scraps like it's awesome to see this team i hope they're good people just like kick butt with this game that being said i think a metroidvania is a tough game to give early impressions of you know like you want to

soak in this a little bit more to get the full impression. So definitely we'll be talking about this game more in the future. But I mean, so far, Jacob Geller, how do you feel about Hollow Knight Soaksong actually playing it? i i love it i you know it's like i've got i've got nuanced feelings on like the ways in which i love it but like it is it is just a wholly positive uh takeaway it really

You know, I was kind of wondering that lightning in a bottle, are they going to be able to capture it twice? Is it going to feel like they're just playing the hits, you know, whatever. And like, I think three or four hours in.

What's amazing is it feels so much like the magic of Hollow Knight is there. And at the same time, they have... so defined a new feeling for this game and this character in ways that like it is it is a fundamentally different feeling game than hollow knight in just ways that like really excite me and even similar abilities have been contextualized so differently within the game that you just like

This is not in any way a palette swap. You know, Hornet's just such a different character that the ripple effects from that affect the feeling of the whole game. Yeah, I feel like I'm maybe a little less kind of sold on how different this is from the original Hollow Knight, but I'm not someone who has spent – I've only finished Hollow Knight once, so I don't necessarily have the kind of time investment because there are things about the basic –

rhythm of a fight of like you have like the one attack right like there's not like a here's a three hit string and you have a dodge or whatever not or at least not yet but like here's all these different techniques that you use and

it's kind of, you're just kind of picking your moment. It's about like kind of, it's, you know, Dark Souls-ish in that you just have the attack that you have and you're kind of just waiting for the right moment to use it constantly. But I will agree, like, I actually would not have had this opinion an hour ago where I just got...

sprint that really changes kind of how you approach a lot of stuff because you get like a sprinting attack and then there's there's an it's also an air dash and stuff and so there are a lot of different ways uh that they kind of do build on it but it like Early on, it definitely had this feeling of like, okay, it's, you know, it's a Hollow Knight game where you kind of are kind of just mantling. I don't know if you had mantling in the original Hollow Knight, but... No, you didn't.

so like that that i think is actually really big and then i had like a very very hollow night ish experience of like seeing this object and thinking like oh this is this uh this Red object, I don't even know how much we want to spoil here, but it's just like you see a red object and you're like, that's a thing for later. And then figuring out kind of a few moments after that, like, no, I can actually, that's a way I can actually just progress now.

And then having this moment of like, I hate the dive in this game because of how finicky it can sometimes be. And also I'm playing on switch too. So like the, the D pad is not great. But then having this moment of like, okay, I think I've figured out how to do the dive. effectively and now i have it kind of i've learned how to do the dive better because they have all these challenges for it and then there was like a moment in you know in a boss fight where i was like

I utilized the dash and the dive attack in a way that I wouldn't have if I hadn't completed all those challenges. So it made all the struggles of like having to do these platforming challenges with like the pogo kind of effect that I had to do with the dive. It kind of clicked and... and that's when i was like okay this is this is kind of the experience that you want from this game of like not not knowing where to go dying right before

uh a safe point and not knowing it right and saying like how how where is the safe point i have no idea how far they want me to go between these checkpoints and then thinking like oh if i had just taken a left turn here instead of a right i would have found a checkpoint and then finally feeling like okay, I can kind of take a break and kind of rest. And that's, I think, what this series has.

uh, in spades is like this feeling of every time you venture out from the safe point, like dark souls, like, um, you know, a bunch of other games, it feels like you are making an excursion into like unsafe territory. And it's like, you are kind of taking this risk on. and moving further and further away from safety, and then finally finding another safe point feels a lot better than it does in even something like Elden Ring, where those are just everywhere.

But here it feels like, OK, I have a lot. There's even some that you unlock, right? You have to pay money to unlock certain save points. And like the feeling they have like a whole ritual of like, OK, you pay money. Then this bell comes out and it starts digging. And then this.

save point comes out of the ground and says like, Hey, okay. Now you can rest here. And that's how I feel every time I find a safe point. It's just like, okay, finally I've made permanent progress. I can rest. I can like, you know, start breathing again in some cases. Yeah. I think it's just so funny to have like, an avalanche of hype for this game and then to start it and it feels so simple it's like i'm just jumping around with one attack like art i worry people are going to be

horrified by the simplicity of this thing. Once they jump in, if they're new to hollow night and they just hear, this is the best much ever. This is one of the greatest games ever. And they jump in. It was like, I'm just running around and like stabbing bugs a little bit. uh i i was new to hollow knight because i never played the first one oh okay and like yeah it was simple but my first impression was oh my god this game is gorgeous and

All the character design is absolutely adorable and the music is fire and the sound effects, just like everything, everything is great. I, I streamed it for three hours and I was probably lost. and didn't know what to do for like an hour of that, where I was just like,

not finding the part. I hadn't bought the maps yet. And then I couldn't figure out where I was on the map because I hadn't bought the compass yet. And just like, it should have been a terrible experience. And yet all I want to do is hang up right now. and play more silk song because like, and like, I, like I was getting, I'm was getting, it has so much that I shouldn't, that I, that like should really annoy me. And it was giving me like rain world vibes.

which like I tried to review when I was at GI and I finally went to Joe Jubin and was like, I can't do this. Like find someone else to review it. I'll like, I can write an impressions of why this game isn't for me, but, and like. And a lot of that DNA is here, but it's clicking for me in a way that I just couldn't get over it for Rain World. And I think a lot of it is just, this game's adorable. Part of the reason I was not progressing...

for so long, was because I wasn't attacking the enemies, because they're so cute, I didn't want to hit the poor little villagers. Like, everyone is like, ugh. It's like, okay, you're having a bad time, like, I'm just gonna, and then I realize, oh no, they have the beads that I need. to get these maps and stuff. But like, I, I have been really impressed. I am a little scared when I, when I stopped.

When I stopped streaming, I did a raid on Mary Kish who was playing. And when we jumped to her stream, she was in the middle of a breakdown. She seemed like... She was maybe like two hours later than me. And she was so upset. And I saw some of the stuff that she was dealing with. And I was like, oh, man, I'm I'm in for it. But like even even just being lost in that area, like part of the thing.

that I think also helped is like, it has such a good sense of setting and atmosphere that if it felt like. I was on a little adventure even though I didn't know where I was going. It wasn't just like – I wasn't seeing through the matrix of like this mechanical – Like, I don't know what the next progression point is. It felt more organic, like I was actually exploring a place that I was interested in exploring and learning more about. It's just pulling you back to your love of Super Metroid.

Not even that much. Like, it feels like its own different beast just because the combat feels differently. I found those red things that Cyril was talking about and also had that same experience of like... oh no, I can do this right now. It's kind of a shoot-off of Metroidvanias that I probably wouldn't enjoy, but I am really enjoying this one. So I'm interested to see how that difficulty curve...

you know, treats me, but also like, I'm really looking forward to actually unlocking some other things, you know, other moves and things like that. That will give me a little more flexibility too. I am nervous about art. end of year conversation about this game. Um, because it's hard. Um, like it is, I, you know, as a, as I've beat hollow night, probably like six times. I love hard games. Like.

This is hard, and I don't know how much I have been stubbornly running into a boss that maybe you could find more things to, like, prepare you for elsewhere in the game versus... You just have to learn the boss's patterns and whatever. But, like, I don't know how many other people on MinMax like... fighting hard bosses repeatedly. And so I'm kind of worried that we're going to reach the end of the year and it will be...

You know, like one of the biggest games of the year everyone else will have kind of checked out. Hey, you know, you can't be scared of what December is going to bring. Let's just enjoy a good game while you have it, Jacob Keller. It's a... Well, maybe this is another opportunity like Elden Ring for people who have not enjoyed difficult things in the past to or this kind of difficulty.

To be, like, if it's couched in the right environment, if the game is giving me the right vibes, here we are. But, like, not only are the bosses difficult, which they are, but, like... You kind of have two kinds of currency in the game, and one of them you maintain through deaths, and the other one you leave at the place that you last died, and that one with the rosary beads you leave behind on death.

and everything in the game costs rosary beads, and you will lose a lot of them. Like, heartbreaking amounts. You will have 100 in your pocket, or 200. And you'll be like fighting a boss and forget to crack the cocoon before you die again or something. And it's like it can be dispiriting in that way that Dark Souls games can be dispiriting of like, oh.

all my souls were right there man um and again it's like losing those is part of the experience it doesn't mean you're playing it wrong but it like it is It is often feels like an uncaring game in just like it will let you lose your resources. And there's no difficulty options, right?

Not that I found. But yeah, I think you have to prepare someone in the same way you would for Dark Souls. Yeah, there's going to be a learning curve that's going to be tough. You're like, you are supposed to try these bosses.

you know more than you know four or five times you know like upwards of like dozens and stuff um but i think like like dark souls um it also has like such a strong hook for like even people who get their ass kicked all the time where like yeah like Jeff was saying the world feels so, um,

It finds like a really good middle ground between the kind of isolation of Metroid where you're like, okay, I'm just by myself. I'm exploring this like very lonely world and there being a lot of characters. And they have like, you can see some of it. Some of the like little touches that, you know, maybe it was because they spent so long on it. But like things, the way that every character just has this kind of like.

hum or like their own voice actor but they're not they're using kind of like simlish voices like you can tell a character's nearby because they're singing basically most of the time um and there's like you know early on you meet someone who's chanting

because they want to open a door right and it seems very people and it's basically like a meta joke about like having to come back and unlock a door from the other side so then you go to the other side and she's like see my prayer opened this door and and there

And there's a ton of thematic stuff as well where there's a lot of conversation about faith here and what people believe. And the fact that those – That impermanent currency is our prayer beads, and you can buy an item with 80 beads that is like a prayer...

you know, rosary basically. And those, that prevents those souls from being, those beads from being lost. Right. And there's, I'm, I'm hoping that they build on that. I'm guessing that they will. Or even just like environmental stuff where like I was in an area where you kill ants and stuff. Right.

And so I killed a bunch of ants and I was like, I had like that kind of sick sense of like, you know, I bet I think I left some currency back there a little bit. And I saw like an enemy's head and I thought it was, oh, there's another enemy. coming at me but then i realized it is a bunch of tiny ants carrying the head of the enemy i had killed earlier and that was just like i you know what am i supposed to do with that that's incredible that they that it's just like this minor touch that it's

that it actually did legitimately scare me of like, oh God, there's something there. And then it wasn't. And so, yeah, there's just all this stuff there in the world.

just feels so well-crafted that even if you go back through it over and over again, die all the time, that it's like you're getting something out of it every time. Yeah. The basic moves and stuff, Jacob, you're talking about how different... the characters this time around yeah i just just to go through some of these because it's like i i think it's a really cool way of just like looking at how game design affects things so like in hollow knight

When you struck enemies, you built up soul, and you could use that soul to heal yourself one blip at a time. And in Silksong, that same basic structure is there, but you have to hit the enemies more, and then you... heal three all at once you know and so that's kind of like that changes the rhythm of combat where you're not trying to find like tiny little moments it's more like fight fight fight fight fight you know then there's this moment of healing

Same with in Hollow Knight, you just had a dash and an air dash. Cool, you know, whatever. This has, as Suriel said, a sprint, which... does the same thing in that it allows you to just cross a larger barrier or like a larger gap than before because you can sprint jump.

But it makes the character way more agile, and now you can use the sprint to, like, chase bosses down in a fight in a way that didn't exist in Hollow Knight. And Hollow Knight had a ton of... of pogoing where you would just kind of like bounce on top of enemies.

And that's still there in this game, but your pogo is now diagonal and it pops you up more. And so you can actually use it as more of a jump, but it's more difficult to target and especially more difficult to do repeatedly. And so it's just like all of...

these little changes that maintain the spirit of the first game but like make you feel like you're playing a different character who just interacts with the world and combat differently in this like really cool way you know it's like what i like about it is

Hollow Knight does not... Sometimes you play a sequel and you're like, this made the previous game redundant. You know, like, I'm never going back to the previous one. And I really don't... feel that way with silksong it's more like oh i'm going to enjoy going back to hollow knight and playing a different feeling game yeah set in the same world right it actually reminds me of dishonored a lot

um in that like the dlc in the dlc's for dishonored one you played this doubt and his like his teleport was different all these kind of very like he would have like similar but different abilities where like it does the same thing but it has this like slight nuance and this is especially true of the in dishonor 2 there were two characters in that one um like they both have abilities that do the same thing like you know

corvo has a teleport and i think emily i forget what her name is um she has like a more of like a hand that crawls and stuff and it kind of pulls you to a location and those are just different enough that you kind of have to play the game differently as both characters and this feels kind of of like that where it's like uh you are playing the same game ostensibly but it is so it is tweaked in these very noticeable ways that make it completely different you know like you couldn't um

like jacob said you couldn't swap hollow knight in for this and play the same game like the platforming challenges are so specific the jump arcs and stuff and like even her sprint which it feels like oh now i can go faster it is so fast that it is actually kind of hard to control and

Like, you can do tricks with, like, okay, her jump is diagonal when she is running. But then also, like, her attack when you are coming out of a sprint gives you, like, a backflip. And you can kind of use that to dodge certain attacks that normally you wouldn't be able to. There is just, it has a way of making you notice its game design in these ways that make you feel very clever. Yeah. Yeah. It's sweet. I mean, even just like visually, you know.

With so much hype about Hollow Knight, it was easy to jump in there after the fact and just be like, okay, you're starting out and it all just looks black and white and drab. But even just... The simple thing of like, oh, this character has like red clothing on out of the gate and you're in like a mossy world. It's like, all right, this is a more approachable place to start than black and white town from Hollow Knight, you know? And just like the simple goal of...

You respect black and white town. Sorry, I love black and white town. Everyone's trying hard. All these bugs are singing. Singing hard for their money out here. Is the story stuff compelling for folks? I'm curious with, yeah, with this being your first in the franchise. Yeah, I'm intrigued. It's weird to have the first couple hours that you played. be when you're streaming in front of an audience because I can't you know like

I'm reading it out loud for Christ's sake. And I'm not, I like, I like, I like all of the themes, like the, every character I fall in love with because they're just adorable. Yeah. And, and it's, it is such a. a weird and interesting mix to have like these absolutely adorable little bug characters and like they're miserable and they're being tormented by their faith and like

I like the mix of more serious thematic ideas that they're mixing with this cute, adorable little world. And then every animation and everything that happens... Just feel like it's like this is the most epic thing I've ever seen. But my character is like this little tall. So cute. Yeah, it's I'm, you know, I haven't.

delve too far into the lore or anything yet but but I'm in terms of just like interesting world I want to spend more time in it's definitely working for me it's definitely a this is how i approach a lot of stories but like it's a much more it's a vibes game more than a narrative game you know like what's what's interesting about these worlds at least on first playthrough until you really start

reading the Hollow Knight history books is like just kind of going to these places and being like, what happened here? You know, just like even that first town where it's just kind of like. a bunch of kind of dispirited pilgrims who have all set up tents and you're like, okay, they, I don't know. You know, these guys all seem like they're having a pretty bad time. And then you'll go other places and it's like, okay, this, this place has a ton.

of machinery in it like what's it why you know what's all that doing and so it's more you know it's not kind of like A hundred years ago, King Bug II, you know, decreed. It's just kind of like a... almost post-apocalyptic, at least in Hollow Knight 1, was just like, there was a great civilization, and now you're kind of in the ruins of it, and just linger in that atmosphere for a while.

It's also very economical about where it does that. So even the merchant where you buy maps and stuff, they give you these little marker beads that you basically buy packs of... things that you can mark on the map. And some of them are specific, like this will automatically mark save pensions and stuff. But some of them are just like, here's a different kind of marker that you can use. And even those have like descriptions that are like, oh, I modeled these after my own kind of carapace.

I hope when you use them you think of me. And that's like, that is such like very dense flavor stuff where it's like, you can kind of tell who this character is just by that description of just like, they're kind of this very sing-songy like person, but they're also very strong because earlier, you know, they fight off enemies and stuff.

But like having those... descriptions tell you so much about a character just from like a simple sentence i think is is really well done and so like the limited amount of dialogue that most characters have i feel like they just they pick their words very carefully and you you get a lot out of a little and so like the amount of time

even just like four hours there's like you know that that lady that was chanting is like i hope i see her again i've seen her twice already and i hope like she becomes a recurring thing because like her song is very catchy she has like she she looks very adorable and so like there's they there

really good at having these through lines, even if it's like not, you don't learn, you know, or I haven't yet like the entire story of that person chanting. Right. But it's like, they just show up enough to kind of put you like, here's B A. beat B, beat C. And it's like, that is enough narrative to kind of keep you going, even if you're not...

totally drowning in the like, what happened, you know, this many years ago, when am I going to fight regular Hollow Knight guy, you know? Right. It's also, it's worth pointing out in Hollow, Hollow Knight one, um, your character did not speak. Um, and And now Hornet is both quite talkative during combat and the sort of way, but also like has written dialogue and will converse with characters. Yeah, that was.

you were always just being talked at in Hollow Knight. And so it's a cool change to have her be kind of a more active participant in the world. And it's working for you. It's not a matter of like, okay, we need this. No, I think they're still keeping it good and ambiguous enough. You're not getting lore dumps from characters. And in the same way, this game has way more explicit side quests than Hollow Knight 1 did. You get these things...

And a character will basically say, like, you know, give me 12 shells of this bug. But the way that they're delivered where it's like new wish, you know, you get, you get like a wish from someone and then you can, you can do it and they don't put, you know, they don't put a marker on the map. They're just kind of like, this is something that someone wants in the world. And it's nice because it helps you keep track of things a little bit more.

but it still doesn't feel at all like it is at risk of becoming a checklist game. So it's just kind of like they've incorporated more structure and in some ways more traditional storytelling methods in this. But really maintained the feeling of what made the first game special. Sweet. It feels rare to have something with this much hype. At least opening hours.

To have people being like, not letting us down one bit. It seems to be on a great trajectory. So I'm curious where the rest of the world lands. But obviously we'll talk more about this in the future. Hollow Knight Silk Song. We're not done with you, buddy. Jacob, don't worry about the 210s.

It's funny to think of you. Okay, I'm not worried. I'm totally normal about that. Okay, good. I mean, a holiday song is going to get dunked on hard, but other than that... I saw Janet saying that it had good sound design, and I was like,

Oh, God. At least she likes part of it. That's like when someone asks you, like, what do you think about this? And they're like, you know, it's... I like the voice acting. It looked like you were having a great time out there. The buttons did what you wanted them to do.

I mean, and also, I have no idea. Janet loves Metroid Dread, and that's another, like, super hard Metroidvania, so she might be in my corner. I don't know. Unpredictable, for sure. Hey, you need to maximize, Jeff, your time playing Hollow Knight Silksong. Am I right?

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Damn good. Just like a game that should not be overlooked. There's this Hollow Knight Silk song. There's this other game that came out called Shinobi Art of Vengeance. I would argue this game is... Damn good. Now, we talked about Ninja Gaiden Rage Abound a couple weeks ago, and we talked a little bit about Shinobi then, about being like, oh, isn't it funny that these two Ninja games are coming out very close together? And Ninja Gaiden Rage Abound, hell of a game.

Jacob, you said on last week's podcast that you preferred Shinobi slightly. Are you still in that camp? If I had to pick one, and they're different beasts, and they're both great, but... yeah i i had been sleeping on shinobi yeah and like even i i feel like it was one of those things where i guess i had watched a trailer but like the art style is so gorgeous in a way that i felt like seeing it on you know it's like everything ran through kind of youtube compression

looks a little bit worse and particularly something like this where all the details are these like fine brushstroke sort of things like as the second i booted it up i was like oh my god what have i been doing not paying attention to this yep We got codes for both games pretty much at the same time. And, you know, I'm a Ninja Gaiden guy. So I was like, yeah, give me Ninja Gaiden. And Hanson was like, you want to try Shinobi? You want to try Shinobi? And like it.

Did not look interesting to me. And part of that was like the combat being. being more involved in terms of like combos and stuff everybody's got a health bar that you have to kind of like like there's there's more substantial fighting to it and when i started it holy lord like

Still really like Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, but this is blowing it out of the water in terms of, like, and the big reason is the combat that I was worried about. Like, turns out it's super satisfying, and they just keep building on it.

And every new power that they give you, just, like, I'm going to get a tan from my Steam Deck when I'm, like, setting off the ninpo arts. And it's just blasting me with, like... fire animations it it is such a gorgeous game oh my god and just yeah another action platformer like this this game needed a longer time before silksong came out to just like Baskin

accolades yeah it should be rounds three rounds of people would be like hey you know what's really good is shinobi and now it'll be like at the end of the year be like there was this game called shinobi art of vengeance please don't forget about it it could not be more different than hollow knight 2 in terms of like yes there's backtracking in both

And it's like a platformer with combat, but it's like almost on every dial of what that formula means. It just seems like these two games are opposing. Whereas like, you know, the combat in Highland is relatively simple compared to Shinobi where you have like, you know. six or seven different techniques that you could be doing at any one time and like the the backtracking is so like so streamlined to the point where it's like

There's a part of me that actually prefers this to the way it works. It's like, it's like metroidvanias without the, where do I go? Yes. Because it's surreal. Yes. What all metroidvanias should be. It's like.

uh you you see a thing it's like very obvious like here's a wall that it just has like i don't know some chemical on it or something and then you know for like immediately like i'll come back to that but it's also level based in that like okay to get back to this part of the map i just need to remember that it's level two not like okay here's the section where this is all laid out and this is the big like climbing section you can teleport to basically anywhere in the level

At any time. Yeah. It's like the perfect palate conserve. Just like you just want to go in and just like rough up a bunch of dudes with like the most extreme. you know, like finishing moves and you chain five of them together or whatever, you get a bunch of rewards and there's just, just this big hulking mech that you have to kill. And every, it feels like I thought they were, okay, this is the tool set.

Like there were at least three or four different times where I was like, okay, this combat loop is really coming together. And then they'd be like, what if we added another layer? And I was like, yes, please. I can't believe I, how could I have thought? that this game was complete without this element to it. So it just feels like...

um, pacing wise, the exact opposite where it's, it's just a constant thrill light of just adrenaline the entire time. But there's just enough of the, like, Oh, I bet I see an opening there. I'm going to go in and. And, you know, like check that out. Okay. It's blocked off. I immediately know I'll be back later. I don't have to like wander around looking like.

should i go here or here it's always just like a or b um and yeah it's like it looks gorgeous like the combat feels so good it's about as close to like 2d devil may cries i've played in a long time and i'm having a ton of fun with it Yeah, they let you juggle the bosses in this game. Like, so many of the moves.

pop your enemies up in the air and then you have so many air combos and i'm like well this is cool on a lackey but like i'm gonna get to a big guy and none of this will work no you can do it on the final boss you can be like juggling guys in the air

It's so cool. There's even like a benefit to like it being 2D over 3D in terms of like Devil May Cry stuff because it feels like you are more... kind of able to do the kind of the trickier stuff earlier whereas like in Devil May Cry like you're kind of intimidated by the idea of like this is a forward back why kind of technique and they'll this will like change your spacing but when you only have like the two planes to worry about it's like okay

okay, I know I have like an air move that is like light heavy and that that does a spin move. And then when they land, I know because of it being 2D that they're going to be in a position for me to do like another combo that I learned earlier. And you're unlocking them in the same way that you do in Devil May Cry.

where it's like you buy them. So you're kind of zeroing in on learning one technique at a time, but which it's, whichever technique is most interesting to you of like, that sounds cool. I bet that, I bet I'll use that. And then you use it for a little while in there and then you can buy another technique. So it.

it feels like it is so hyper aware of what players want out of these games. And it just, it feels like it is just feeding me everything that I want to do at the exact moment that I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm good with, you know, what I have for now. just kind of you know i'll spin my wheels for a little bit and then like right then is when you get like a cool new thing or some weird boss uh comes at you and yeah i'm i was really really surprised by it especially because it felt like we're getting

what, four ninja games this year or something? And all of them seem to be pretty good. Yeah, it's funny how that works. Yeah, I was in the same camp where it's like, every boss that I've fought so far has been aggressively fair. You know, I'm just kind of like every death. I was like, that's 100% on me. I'm feeling that so much. You know, when you talk about how min-max is broken because we all just need to grind it out on 2D challenging games more, Jacob, this is where I'm...

spending all of my ammo on that because this is like this rules i am so compelled to keep going in this and it has just that extra layer of complexity compared to ninja gaiden which i like ninja guy and rage bound a fair bit as well but just that idea of like okay it's more than just This kind of...

straightforward levels there's a little bit of backtracking if you want it and then it's also changing up the pace a little bit more we're like the second level you're just running on a giant wolf this incredible looking field and dodging things like all right this looks amazing here just yeah yeah more variety here. Yeah, it's interesting given that like

I feel like Shinobi has a reputation of like, at least the, you know, the PS2 game would always top lists of like, this is the most difficult game ever made, you know, the PS2 Shinobi. And this one is, it is, it is.

is eminently more approachable than Ragebound or maybe even, you know, Hollow Knight, even with the complexity of the combat, just because, like... it is pretty nice to you you know like enemies will give you back health checkpoints are generous you get abilities where you can like regain health in the middle of the fight it like it is i i think this is a really good one for like

You can do the really cool feeling stuff without having to spend hours and hours getting good at it. You know, like you will feel good playing the game immediately and the game will not hold you to. perfection in order to move forward yeah i think there's also it's also notable that like this game doesn't really uh because i i had played a nine souls recently and like this is very similar to that in some ways but i think crucially there's it's not built around parries. Not a parry game.

so like instead of like the thing that parries do to comment it's like you're just kind of waiting for the for the moment you're supposed to parry to happen where it's this is you run your game plan until something kind of forces you to snap out of it right so like the bosses will like

take damage and stagger but eventually they're going to do a move while you're attacking them that okay now i have to roll for a little bit and figure out like whatever but it's like backwards in terms of pacing where it's like the moment that boss fight starts you just run at them and like

throw everything you can at them. And then at some point they're going to do a thing that you either dodge or have already evaded or whatever, instead of like, okay, I need to wait for them to come to me and they will do the thing that gives me the opening. And like this, both this and kind of Hollow Knight to some extent, I know that game has. a parry but it's like there are games where you are kind of forced to uh approach in a way that you're not in like a game uh where

that is built around parries. But Shinobi is so much more noticeable because there are so many more things to do. Yeah. You talk about feeling cool out of the gate. It's not that deep into the game until you just unlock the ability to... pop a super move and it is just full going super saiyan it is like as super saiyans i've ever seen a non-dragon ball game of joe of course the classic character from shinobi's like

And then just everyone lights on the screen on fire. It is so satisfying. Yeah. And like the thing I love about that is that it's, I had multiple moments where it's like, okay, they introduced the new big bad or whatever. It's like, here's a guy with his shield. Yeah. And it's like, you pull that off of them and you're like, surely it's not going to kill.

them too okay all right i guess that thing really is the most powerful attack ever made in a video game i really like that they uh there is a story and the characters talk to you and i don't think you know it's not it's not amazing but it doesn't get in the way but They will frequently, they'll like say things to Joe and then it will cut to Joe and he'll just go.

And it'll be like dot dot dot dot dot. And it's like he's a silent protagonist, but they give him room to be silent in every conversation. I mean, like actions are just like, all right, moving on. I mean, all you need for the story of Shinobi here is like. The opening scenes, it's like Joe walking away from his hot pregnant wife. And then just a lot of characters saying dialogue like...

Or setups like, Joe knew that if he didn't stop Roos and the E&E Corporation, there'd be nothing left on earth to save. All right, cool. I got it. Excuse to keep doing these sweet action scenes? Got it. Let's keep on rolling, baby. And Joe is basically a character from Act Razor where all of his voice sounds are like, whoa. And the boss design, I think it might be Ruse, but one of the guys, you know, super ripped.

He's got his sleeves rolled up and they're punched through like a... full jacket but the arms are ripped off of the jacket it's the most absurd character design is he the one who also just has the like the sword coming out of his chest or is that a different guy i can't remember he might be But, yes, it's great. It has a vibe. It has a vibe. And we can't say enough about the looks. I mean, I'm playing on Steam Deck, so small screen, and still it is...

Oh yeah, Project Steam Deck game. Yeah, it's fantastic on there. But yeah, the developers are Lizard Cube, who made that Wonder Boy remake, if you remember those. And they picked a good one. Strange 4 and the last Turtles Brawler and stuff. Which also, this game has a great soundtrack as is kind of traditional for them now. They picked a good one to do their remake. Yeah. Yeah. And same with Ninja Gaiden.

When did these old legacy companies start getting smart about who they hire to make their revival games? You're right. Maybe it's just at this point there's so many... indie teams out there just development teams period that's like all right we're just going to play the numbers like we'll just pick which team has knocked out of the park blasphemous developers here you go you know like you've risen through the system

I mean, it's the thing that we all kind of want to happen. And I hope it pays off for them because it is a really crowded year. But it's like just instead of making one game that costs $150 million. make 15 games that cost 15 million dollars you know give it to like small capable teams and just like let them do something and if it doesn't hit it doesn't torpedo your entire company yeah yeah hopefully and

I hope that both Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden are finding audiences. I know I can be criticized for using this metric too much, but like Steam reviews, they don't seem like they're juggernauts so far based on just that. But you never know. I hope they continue to find the audience because, yeah, this freaking rules. Shinobi, Art of Vengeance. I think the takeaway is like don't doubt Kelsey Lewin ever.

Because remember, in SGF, she's like, this is my game of the show. I was like, Shinobi? Really? And then even when we were talking about the podcast...

And I was like, I think it's just straightforward action. It's not a Metroidvania. She's like, I think there's some Metroidvania elements. I'm like, I don't think so, Kelsey. I was looking on their site. They didn't mention it. But like, yeah, it turns out there are very light. You really mansplained the hell out of it. I really did. I really blew it.

Uh, but also, I also love the, like the amulet system. I think it's a cool idea to have like your passive amulet you can equip and then the combo amulet where like, as long as you have a hit combo rolling, this amulet will be in effect.

But then the second that gets shattered, then that bonus is going away. Yeah. Which that has always been a little pet peeve of mine, is the way that some action games will have a combo meter that means nothing. Right, right. And it's just like, oh, yeah, but, you know, a 75-hit combo, it's like, you just...

you know, allowed me to do that. And it's like, that's not impressive because I don't understand the scale of it, but like having a thing like, it's like the Batman Arkham games where it's just like, once you have this much of a combo, you can actually start doing more stuff.

And so I think that making that a relevant thing in combat, I think, is actually really cool. Yep, for sure. Shinobi, Art of Vengeance, don't overlook it, everybody. If you like Hollow Knight, you'll love Shinobi Art of Vengeance. If there is a god. And it turns out there is a god, and his name is Mizuguchi. Luminous Arise. It's not coming out until November, but we've been playing that demo, which you can't get access to anymore. But this is...

The same team that made Tetris Effect, they are doing to the Luminous series, which they were also involved in the creation of, obviously. They're doing that with Luminous. Does that make sense? So we talked about it a little bit like last week. And it was like, hey, this is great. They're making another Tetris Effect feeling game. Nothing better than that. But then after that podcast last week.

I just kept going back and playing that demo again and again and again. And like at this point, I think Luminous or Eyes is my most anticipated game for 2025 here. Like that. Oh, dude, yeah. This is like my silk song. Like I played that demo and I was just like.

Every moment, like despite how good these two games are, like I didn't have like a super like strong front runner for game of the year. And like in the last week, I think I've played three. And I do think that like Luminous Arise might be my favorite one. of them just like having that one demo it just like i came out i played that demo twice and like the second time i i just had a thought that stuck with me of like

I think this game made a wish come true for me. Yeah. Of just like a very simple puzzle mechanic that is just like, every time I play Luminous, I'm like... I should just be able to separate these two colors. Like, there's always that... Like, if only all of these were one color, I would just do whatever I want. And then, like, this game gives me exactly that. And it feels like, oh, you tapped into the exact...

best thing you could have done to luminous yes in a way that like it feels so magic every time you do it and it's like you figured out another way to kind of like turn this entire game on its head yes and it works better for luminous because it doesn't feel like a Like, Tetris is .

sometimes feels like this very sacrosanct like thing of like you have to kind of play by the rules of tetris and tetris has like a a certain thing that like a certain set of rules that you always have to play by like the number of rotations and stuff whereas luminous it's it's not as established as a puzzle game so

doing something like that and totally like breaking it doesn't feel like it well now i'm not really playing luminous anymore because it's like what does that even mean and yeah i i haven't been able to stop thinking about

luminous arise since i played that demo and when i figured out you can't play it anymore i was like mark why did you what did you do to me why are you doing this to me it's mark mcdonald if anybody didn't understand that mark reference uh but no i'm totally with you where it's like yeah the burst mechanic is that whole idea of like all right

You're making a big square, then you pop it, and then when you drop more pieces of the same color, the pieces that you don't want there fly off. So it's like this weird thing of just like it snowballs how good it feels. And Serial, stick with me on this one. There's something interesting happening in game design where it's like reviving old ideas from older series.

but then just making them as satisfying as humanly possible. You know, like this burst mechanic I think is in that same camp, but it made me think of like Pac-Man Championship DX. Which I know you're a big fan of as well. But like, hey, we all like Pac-Man. What if you just got a hundred ghosts lined up behind you? Then you go...

And you just eat them all. You know, it's like there's some magic in that design of just take something time tested from the past and then bring it forward and ratchet it up to a thousand.

Yeah, there's a surprisingly long lineage of that with like, there's the Pac-Man games and then there's the Space Invaders Extreme series. Right. And like, there's like a handful of like arcade style games that they've kind of gone back to and stuff. Like, what if we could just... iterate on this without making like feeling the impetus to like let's totally make it like a modern game and you know put pac-man in some sort of world or something um

And it's just like, let's just kind of go back to the drawing board. Like the new Pac-Man game? Yeah, but Pac-World 2 is cool. Pac-World 2 repack is going to be great. There's nothing about it. But like, yeah, you're definitely right that there's kind of like a small undercurrent of like... What was that rhythm game that they made with the Space Invaders theming?

Not Infinity Gene. There was another one. There was like a rhythm game. But yeah, there's definitely like this undercurrent of like, let's take this old arcade game and kind of like just kind of fiddle with it. Yeah, in just the right way. You talk about this is your dream game in some way. When I was playing this, I was like, as a kid, I think this is what I wanted the future of games to be.

Just like put all of the effort into just the style and the way it makes you feel when you're playing it, even if the design can just be as clear as humanly possible. Yeah, and there's even just like the way that they're...

So like when you get like the four... the four square like the two by two in luminous usually it just kind of flattens that block but in this game they're just doing all these different like shapes are just suddenly in the middle of your field and it just looks very weird and there's like a 3d uh

you know chameleon like on the edge of the screen constantly like flipping its tongue out every time you do something cool and the way they they use the scan line in the in the burst mechanic to kind of tell you like okay you have this many left to kind of just go nuts I think it's such a, yeah, like they really do meaningfully iterate on it. And I think you, you can kind of trace this back to like, you know, them.

also partially being responsible for luminous and stuff and seeing someone else go back to that drawing board again, I think is, is very interesting to see like, okay, with this amount of time removed, it feels like they're just picking up where they left off, but then also following in the lineage of Tetris effect. Yeah. And like I started playing it. And it was one of those things where my headphones were like, they're dialed up a little bit too loud.

I said, oh, my ears are kind of hurting. I was like, no, this is the game to make your ears hurt with headphones on. I just need to blast it because this music, just in the three levels, the music is already like exactly what I wanted from it. But yeah, coming out November. The one thing is like Tetris, you know, it's in our blood if you're a Jeff Amorimi or most gamers. And so like I enjoyed the challenge later on in Tetris Effect.

You know, I think the last level in the story mode is like, all right, that kind of that'll get me every once in a while. And like my luminous skills are just. And so I do worry like, okay, later on in this game, am I just going to get ground into the dirt? Or can I hopefully build up my skills in time with that story mode where it's going to scale naturally?

yeah and i i feel like i hopefully will go through the same arc i did with tetris effect where it's like i i was okay at tetris before tetris effect but you know i'm kind of still on like the kind of long tail journey of just like double s ranking every level in luminous or in tetris effect on like the hardest difficulty and i feel like i've just become a much better tetris player and since tetris effect came out and i'm hoping that yeah i can really

take another look at Luminesce and feel like, okay, what is it like to actually be really good at this game and level up that way? But yeah, I know that... Luminous is not as like a Revere Puzzle game as Tetris, you know, rightfully so. But yeah, I feel like people are, again, sleeping on this game. And it's like, you know, Luminous deserves this treatment. Maybe not as much as Tetris, but...

don't like, yeah, don't dismiss it completely just because it's not Tetris. Yep. Luminous Rise coming out November, so we've still got some time here to practice your luminous skills, of course. Jacob Geller, you have something very important to talk about, but before you get to that, we'll... Probably talk about it more in the future. Kyle has finished at this point, but we should touch on Kronos the New Dawn a little bit from Bloober Team, who just are hot off the presses of the Silent Hill 2.

uh remake and this is their the shorthand is this is their dead space um and you're not that far in it yeah i'm about as far as i'm gonna be in it i think But yeah, probably an hour and a half. Okay. And your take on Chronos the New Dawn is? It's tough. There's a lot of stuff going on that I like. I think that...

Just calling it Bluebird's Dead Space diminishes how interesting the setting that they've made is, which is this really kind of unique Soviet... something it's not even really clear if it's like on this planet or or like what there's there are a lot of mysteries that i'm interested in

And I think that, like, the world design and the kind of, like, world setting is really cool. But for me, it is just, like, the combat... is is bad enough that i just don't want to be doing it you know like it's it's just kind of when when janet was on talking about chronos a couple weeks ago i was like does it have a thing you know where like resident evil

Four, at least. You can shoot the guys and then kick them. Dead space, you can shoot off their limbs, then you can throw their limbs at him. The answer is no. You just shoot the enemies until you die. Or until they die. But like... it's it's harder than it should be for the combat being that simple and there's like you don't really have that many avenues available to you but the ammo is really limited and so often you'll just

You'll just kill yourself in a combat scenario because you're like, I'm not getting through this. They didn't give me enough bullets that I can get through it without hitting every headshot perfectly. And so it's just kind of like it feels.

like work uh unfortunately yeah i mean i think i think their thing was like hey these enemies merge and join forces on the ground but that's not helping them in a gameplay it's like that's a that's the thing that the enemies do but it's not something that you do right and you don't have anything you have a you have a gun that can charge up a shot and like that's that's it and it's just

First hour and a half, to be fair, but yeah. Yes, and what I've heard is you get more guns that you can charge up a shot for. I think there's a lot of cool stuff. um ashley barton had a really good a positive and a well-written review for uh for games radar of this so like i think there's cool stuff to be found but i i in

In a gaming landscape where there are so many things to play, I don't think I'm pushing myself to finish this one. Okay. Cross you're done. We'll get Kyle's take. We need Jimson. He'll correct the record after this slander. Yeah. Which is funny because I think this game has been kind of divisive, like not, not like super device, but I feel like I've seen kind of a variety of like, I really like this and like, this isn't, yeah, this is not great, but like.

It's kind of interesting that, that we get one of those as well. So like, I'm kind of fascinated by the idea of playing it just cause it's like, okay, if everyone's kind of like split on it, maybe I should check it out and see what's going on. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's. I love that they made something like it feels way more original than like Layers of Fear or something. And so like, I'm glad I'm happy with the direction that they're going. This one just wasn't working for me.

What was working for you before you and sir, you'll clap out of here, though, is a new way to experience your book, Jacob Geller. That's right, Ben. So.

Earlier this year, I made a book with Lost and Colt called How a Game Lives, which is an annotated essay collection with my writing, a bunch of other people's writing. And I love that. And the book came out, and it is this very... Austin Colt brand is really like boutique and premium. and expensive, and they are in the UK, so getting things shipped is expensive. And now, I'm very excited to announce that HarperCollins, the publisher, is doing a reprint of How a Game Lives.

And what that means is that you can just get it from normal book places now. So if you have a local bookstore and you want to get How a Game Lives, you can request your local bookstore to get it. If you have a library, almost all libraries have request forms, and so you can just say...

I would like you to pick up this book, and they probably will. So it's just like it's a more accessible way to read my book, and I'm really proud of it, and I think it's really pretty, and it will be pretty in the HarperCollins version as well. And so, yeah, go ask your library to get it or ask your local bookstore to put in an order for you. Sweet. How a game lives. There it is. Jacob, thank you. Serial Vasquez, thank you. Anything you'd like to plug, Serial?

Not right now, but maybe sometime soon. Interesting. What a tease. Sweet! Alright, you two want to clap out of here? We'll get some new fresh faces in? Bye!

This party just got started. Oh, you're magically synced in. We have Sarah Podzorski joining us. Hello. We have Hayley McLean joining us. And we have Noah's Ark, ladies and gentlemen. First time on a podcast, Noah's Ark. I'm just kidding. Leo's here too. Hi, can we get serious for a moment? Yeah, I went to a Jeff Rosenstock and Pup show last night and a Min Max fan said Leo Vader and I didn't hear what he said. And I said, what? And the what that came out of my mouth was the most...

Like, why are you talking to me? What in the... I've ever given him in my life. Wait, do you want to roleplay? Do you want to roleplay? I'll be the person. Leo Vader from Midmax? What?

It was horrible. I was like, how am I going to get back in the headspace to enjoy this show? They rushed through the interaction. I feel so bad. I'm so sorry to that person. I was happy that you said hello to me. I was just caught off guard and I couldn't redeem it in time. So I had to put out a public apology misconnection style.

Getting in front of the controversy. I want to unplug the amps and speakers and be like, hey, I have an announcement to make here real quick. I have an apology I need to make. There was an awkward exchange a little while ago. How does that rank with this awkward slammer? But I went to my favorite restaurant, Lian Shin, in Minnesota. You're only the finest Chinese food. And I was like, oh, I'll take three cream cheese wontons. And he's like, okay. And then he yelled, 19 cream cheese wontons!

And I was like, ha, ha, ha, yeah, right. And then it turns out he was yelling to the chef in the back that they needed more cream cheese wontons. But I thought he was making the joke that I was ordering 19 loudly. And I wanted to crawl out of my skin and die. Like he was announcing it to the entire restaurant. Look at this guy in his 19 cream cheese. So from his perspective, he just ordered more cream cheese wontons to be cooked. And then I laughed obnoxiously in his face. Oh my God. Mine was.

i was at a restaurant called oh my god and i was getting fish and chips of course and And so the guy said, do you want cod or haddock? And I go, what would you recommend? And he went haddock. And I went, should be called on my haddock. And he gave me absolutely nothing. He was like, and I was like, cod, please.

It was the worst. Everyone at my table just looked at me. I think it was my birthday. I was just like, God damn it. It was the worst. He was wrong for that one. Yeah. It was probably end of a shift. He doesn't want to talk to me. I get it. But come on, he had to be an easy lay. up or every single guest says that maybe that restaurant doesn't exist anymore so who needs restaurants when you can start your own grocery store am I right Haley McLean

Hell yeah, you sell fish. A lot of fish, actually, in that grocery store, so perfect segue. Thank you. This is Discount-y, a new game from Crinkle Cut Games. And the publisher, say it with me, everybody. P-Cube. P-Cube. So Haley, you did my favorite thing ever other than World Peace where you jumped in the slack and you're like, hey, I'm playing discounty. It rules. More people should play it.

Don't overlook this one. How'd you find this little sim game? This is Sarah, I think, like most things that are good. I'm pretty sure I've been on this podcast before and I'm like, okay, guys, discounty. That's the game we're waiting for. It's gonna be huge. Yeah, no, I've been, like, looking forward to this game for, like, years. Yeah, I think when we were on the Wholesome Direct together, you said, this game looks fire, and then I wishlisted it, and then it came up in my...

You know, Steam, this game just came out. And I was like, oh, hell yeah. Yeah. So what grabbed you about it, Haley? What turned you around in a big way on it? I want ominous vibes. I want... What the hell? Like, I've played a lot of farming sims, and I'm kind of getting too good at them. I'm kind of min-maxing them. Oh. Ben, do the thing you always do when someone says min-max. What do I do? Your stupid mouth thing.

Oh, I lap up. I lap up the enjoyment. That's right. I forgot to lap. I forgot to lap. Not that, like, I'll still play every, like, I recently replayed Stardew Valley. Just put another 30 hours into Fields of Mystria. Thanks, Sarah. Like, I'll still always play them, but it's like... It's very refreshing to be like, oh, do the thing, do your daily routine that's very mentally satisfying, but there's this underlying level of dread that I can't quite.

get a hang on that kind of keeps me like oh what the it's like more of the long term i really want to play this to figure out what's going on and then the day-to-day gameplay is just as good as other farming sims so that i'm just like let's keep going Yeah, even though it is like shopkeeping, like stocking shelves type gameplay, which is a little different, but obviously in the same wheelhouse. I'm like four hours in and it's it's ominous not just in think creepy things are happening, but like.

People don't want you in their town. They don't like you. It's a very different vibe than I'm used to. It's like your Joja Mart from Stardew Valley. Exactly. Yes. Yeah.

The good people. So it's what my pants is used to. Yeah, this is my home turf, I like to call it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're managing this little shop, and then it's a lot of cash register work. It seems to be... the main thing a lot of punching in those numbers yeah the numbers thing is satisfying i kind of thought i had a friend who worked at a grocery store growing up and it was like a game between us and i'd be like bananas and she was like

One, one, two, four, three. She knew every code for every food item in the entire grocery store because they would just type them in. And I was low-key feeling like her a little bit during this because I'd just be like, milk is $9, nine times three. And I was doing that really well. It does upgrade later on, so you have barcodes. So then it's like...

Any protein, you press downward. Any home good stuff like toilet paper, you press to the left. And it expedites it a lot. But they let you do the typing and code thing for enough time that it felt like I got really good at that. But it was still taking me a long... store got really crowded I was like oh crap like trying to ring everyone through even though I was good at it so then when I got the scanner I was like oh hell yeah and that was equally as fun

to do as well and like master by just like seeing what's coming up on the till and already knowing what directions I have to put it in before it's even showing up so that you're just like, like going through it really fast. It's a very good mechanic. They really figured out the perfect balance of the busy work that you have to do, but not making it so complicated that it's annoying. Like all of the, you order stuff, the...

the, the truck comes in, you have to like figure out where to put it. It's got a little Wilmot's warehouse vibe to it. Yeah. We played that back in the day of like, of like my, my. stock room is too small like like how am I going to arrange all these boxes so that I can run through this little maze and grab the stuff that I need and get it back out onto the floor and just like it

Like, I love farming games for that kind of, you can't do everything that you want in a day and you have to run home to sleep and then get up and do it the next day. But here, like... It has that cycle as you're doing the day, like as you're doing your shift. And then as soon as it ends, there's like the restocking the entire store vibe to it. And like now, now, you know, I have like a display that that's going to make, you know, animal goods sell better. So like, how am I going to.

like basically the entire shop. I have to now move stuff all around in order to figure out a nice little layout that works and that will get people to see the stuff that they're going to buy even though that they don't actually want it. saw the sign for it. It's just a very satisfying little loop that they, that they have built. Yeah. You really do implement like.

corporate strategies for getting people to spend the maximum amount of money in your store like put the things that people always buy at the back and then on the way there have four or five little things that are like that they get like a little eye icon when they get distracted because you'll have a big fake cow next to the...

milk and cheese and you'll have an aquarium next to all the fish products and it'll make them go and buy that even if it's not on their list and then the other thing is you can get a little coffee thing that makes them speedy for a little bit so they do their shopping even faster so i put the coffee right in the lobby

And then even the grandma was like, like usually it takes 20 minutes to do everything. She was zooting around, getting all her stuff, buying 10 extra things and then leaving. And you do see like double the profits if you just take the time to.

set it up that way in a very corporate weird like the whole thing is you feel kind of gross while you play this game which i think they want you to feel that way of just like um a corporate goon this sucks like the little old lady's just like what have you become and i'm like oh god She really, really kills you. That first, like, you...

And it's not a huge spoiler, I guess, but like you upgrade the store the first time and she like she's always the first one in your store and she's always super nice. And the first time she walks in, she's like.

you destroyed dale's legacy because you took over like the shop that was next door and she's like you destroyed dale's legacy for a convenience store what is wrong with you and i was like oh my god like and then she doesn't come in terrible and then she's stops coming in and you're like oh the entire town gets on you about that too right like the whole thing is like looking at it you're basically like a dollar tree coming into this tiny town

you know and like taking away all the business and like everyone's coming to your store but at the same time you're like making deals with the locals so like you're trying to push like local products as you meet the different townspeople you have like

you know, somebody who's like a farmer and you're like, will you consider like selling cheese or something like that or selling dairy or anything like that? And the fish person over like the weird fish sticks, which are highly processed. So you're like trying, I'm like trying to push the local product so I feel better.

I'm like, oh, like, organically grown, like, don't buy the frozen garbage, like, try this. But what's so interesting about this game is it tells the story via, like, chapters, which is weird for any kind of, like, slow life management. RPG experience in that like there is like story progression as the game goes further and further. There is like an underlying sort of like plot that's going on that gets slowly revealed.

which I haven't really experienced much of in those kind of games. I just wish I got to manage my store more. I feel like the store management feels so short to me. Like, and they speed up time when you're managing your store. Because they're like, oh, nobody wants to play this part. And I'm like, I do. I could do this for hours. Just like restock my shelves and like clean the floor and like check people out. Yeah, I'm definitely...

not opposed to it being a twist where you are not well liked in the town. But I feel like that makes this type of game go down a little smoother. And this one hasn't really clicked with me yet. And... It might just be right game, wrong time type of thing where at a different point it'll click with me totally. But as it is right now, it's like the pitch is so, so exciting to me of managing the shop and making the deals with the townspeople, right?

The fisherman getting the fish every Monday morning, the new fish shipment comes in and you can sell fresh fish. But then in practice, that gameplay is like just running straight down for 30 seconds to get to the place and then pressing A. And everybody has their skill tree that you're kind of leveling up.

But they're all mostly the same and they're all pretty like generally like this will happen for less money and you'll get more money out of it. There's not really like decision points there that I found so far. Yeah. But I don't know. It's cute. Managing the shop is my favorite part.

But I do find in games like that where you normally have too much to do and you have to rush home in time, in this game I'm going to bed early a lot. And I am still relatively early in the game, but I'm out of things I want to do. When I could be technically going and talking to more people, it's like...

Conversations have all been kind of a bummer so far, so I don't know if I'm really... Yeah, if you don't have that charm to kind of pull you off... Have you discovered, like, the highlighted items that you're supposed to interact with? Yeah. I thought that was kind of... That's a good way to do it.

There's, like, little side stories that you can experience where, like, you help out people in the town and, like, you further, like, their personal stories in a way. But, like, I find it a little... difficult because you do just have to like oh i didn't i didn't notice that that coffee cup was glowing but i went into this building and i checked it out so you kind of have to like check in on everyone to be like okay like is there like anything i'm missing that i haven't seen yet

Yeah. And they're like the progression of it is a little weird. I definitely hit a patch probably, you know, like five or six hours in where it's like. I was doing a lot of days in a row and wasn't making much progress just because of like what my specific objectives were at the time I was waiting to like build up.

you know certain resources or whatever and they're just kind of like i was spinning my wheels for a little bit longer um than i than i would have liked but then then i i think i got to like the new chapter and like Things changed, and the store changed, and there were big events, and that kind of got me back on board more. I can see that, Leo, for sure. I ended up finishing it, actually. I saw credits. It took... long enough, I thought, but...

I think, yeah, my complaint with this game, though, is that it really felt like the ending was such a flop. Like, I was kind of upset about the ending. Yeah. Up to that point, it was so fun. And I was having such a good time with the main core game thing.

You know, once you hit credits, there's absolutely no incentive to keep playing. You know, it's a story game. I get it. But I still was like, oh, I want to keep... doing my store but i have absolutely zero reason to do so now so i won't i guess and just like turned off the game forever and then the other thing was like there's this ominous vibe there's a bunch of these like pseudo mystery things that are happening

And then the ending is kind of just like nothing. I don't want to spoil it. Nothing gets resolved really that.

to a point that i was like i was like what like nothing it just was it just kind of ended and it almost kind of felt like cut content or something energy to me or like some some other really big grand like final thing happens and then that you know that happens there's even some other instances where like one character would lead up this whole vibe of like oh I bet I see where this is going and then one at the end she just like I talked to her and she was just like

Hi. And I was just like, what? That's it? Nothing else with you? Nothing more with you? I just talked to you for 16 hours and you're just going to say hi to me? It really did let me down a lot at the very end. But it was so strong in the middle. And the front that I still would recommend it just for how fun that was. But yeah, in terms of the ominous vibes, it really kind of dipped off at the end for me personally. Gotcha. Sarah, are you going to stick with it, you think?

I think I'll go back to it, but I've been so obsessed with the other game that I want to talk about today. It's just like... It's consumed my soul. I see you on so late. Me too. I'm Steam Deck playing it. I'm up until like one in the morning. Like I have like a Steam Deck wrist injury from this game. Hell yeah. Okay, real quick. The last game is called Discountee and it's not...

Early Access is just out. It feels like an Early Access game, but it's out. It's on Switch and everywhere and Steam and all that good stuff. Yeah, I mean, you want to talk about...

sim game with some sinister vibes i don't know if sinister is the right term no it is okay so sinister some would say grim grim is a better so this is grim shire is this game here that sarah put on our radar and it came out like a couple months ago it is an early access but playing on steam sarah

this game captured my imagination in a big way. I love this weird thing. Ben, yes! Where it's like, very early on, but it's like, okay, little, okay, Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon type thing, got it, got it, got it, cute animals, okay, got it, got it, got it, kind of Animal Crossing vibe, got it, got it, got it.

it but then you want to explain what's compelling about grimshire yes so yeah grimshire like ben says you're all a bunch of cute little animals there's like rabbits foxes stoats hamsters the whole works stoat and Yeah, that's what they're called. That's what they're called. Yeah, go on. But the entire underlying thing is that you are constantly in a crisis for food.

so you are the one the village basically has to provide food per day to survive um and the the beginning is absolutely off the wall like i'm like truly like how bad could this get right and You know, you show up and they're like, oh, like the city is burning, but we rescued you from the burning city and now you're in the village of Grimshire. Oh, by the way, like we have an empty farm that you could live in. Oh, by the way.

we have a root cellar and if you don't fill it, like we might all die, but like, luckily things aren't too bad right now. So like, we might not, you know, it's pretty fine. Like just, you know, be a farmer and then things get worse and worse and worse. And. I think what's so cool is that you're like Stardew Valley end of day screen where it tells you all like the everything you've sold for money in Grimshire. It is a.

how many days do we have left to live? And it shows you all the food you've contributed and all the food people have taken out. It's so stressful. It's so stressful. But like in the beginning too, it's not just like, hey, welcome to this farm. work on it but also it just sets the tone so perfectly where like in the beginning it's like hey

you're with this goat woman. I don't know. She's seriously injured. And then it just turns into a big funeral sequence for this goat woman. You burn her in a pyre on top of a hill. And the part that I think is really crucial to get across. is this is not like Cult of the Lamb. Isn't it cute how dark this is? This is the most sincere f***ing game I've ever played in my life. Water ship down. Water ship down, guys. Yes. It is just like, we happen to be animals, but...

Death is all around us. And this was a nightmare. Say goodbye to your children. Yes. Yes. And it's cool. And so there is, yeah, like permadeath.

Because I noticed, like, the game starts your default difficulty on easy. Easy. Yeah, and I was like, that's interesting. Well, of course I want to play a normal. But then when I started, I'm like, oh, okay. They have done that to try and alleviate some pain here. They've created easy peasy. Apparently that's coming or has already... came out maybe not yet but i saw a post that says like we get it we'll release an easy peasy mode because easy is too hard everyone's done

But I love it. I just feel like I feel the same way as Haley where it's like I like Stardew Valley, but like I don't want to strive for perfection. And then you bring me this farm sim and it's like if you fail, this cute bunny is going to eat it. And I'm like, oh, my God. Like I've never.

I literally, I work every minute of the day, my fingers to the bone to keep these animals alive. And another thing that makes it so interesting is the game splits you into herbivores and carnivores. Right, right. And you have to provide... Like the carnivores only eat like meat and fish, right? And the herbivores only eat plants. So it's like you have to make sure that they both have enough to eat per day.

so like i you can do ranching but like i've been slaughtering those animals to make sure these car i've never like had to slaughter an animal before and the animals have like a weight to them like out of like 15 and if you get them fat enough you get more meat from them and the animals all look like sea slugs because obviously like they can't be like real animals the villagers are real animals so they're sea slugs so i'm like

Yeah, slaughtering animals like they need to live. You must die so they can live. Wow. Yeah. So imagine, yeah, like a Harvestment type thing, but like mixed with Iron Man mode for XCOM. Or like Animal Crossing with – XCOM Iron Man. It's such a cool combination that I had never experienced before. It changes the vibes immensely. It makes everything feel different. I'm actually using drying racks and all those extra things that I normally don't care about in Sardew Valley.

shelf life also matters because if you put a bunch of stuff in there that expires in two days and people don't have time to eat it then it just goes bad and you wasted your time. So if I just put all my, if I put 50 radishes in there and try to like min-max it. Letter. Oh, I could hear that. That's the goal. I heard that too. Audio listeners, something gross happened. Yeah, if you min-max it, then essentially like...

You do a bad job and all the food goes bad. He didn't need to do it again. He's hungry. You have to set up these. These multi-step processes before you put the food in there. And then you also have to time it out so that you don't have too much going in that all spoils on the same day because then the villagers don't have time to eat it.

you don't they want to eat too much and like so i'm coming up with all these additional strategies like now hack sarah i saw on a reddit thread have a box and anything that never spoils keep it in the box never put it in the

because they'll take it the main thing so just save it for like worst case scenario save it for worst case scenario so there's like there's like bones and like seeds that are surprisingly have a lot of stamina and stuff that never spoil they don't get that that's going in my backup thing in case winter is coming and she's a harsh yeah i don't think we're gonna make it where like my current game i don't see how i'm gonna make it either i just made it to summer

and like i were already like not like things the way it escalates is like absolutely insanity like every week there's like a new challenge it's like for example like not to spoil the plot but like avoiding the plot which is absolutely insane um There's like a red tide, like red algae that makes all the fish toxic. So then you're like, how am I going to feed the carnivores? All the fish are toxic and now I can't fish anymore. And then I had to like go and slaughter a bunch of my animals.

to make ends meet leo why are you grimacing this is incredible i've never felt more alive this is gaming everything matters that's how it's farming matters like i'm not just a millionaire and stardew doing it for the good brain juice i'm like doing i'm getting good brain juice a reason. Doing it for money that's ultimately totally optional to have in Stardew. And you have to balance that too because you also need money to upgrade your stuff.

So I need to balance out, like, the food, like, giving people food to live and also selling enough that I can, like, scale my operation properly so we can continue to live. It's nice because, like, the other villagers do donate food to the root cellar. It's not just you, but also the majority. is you um and yeah they have these like community projects that you can vote between and like it's kind of like the community projects they're like okay give us like

you know, 100 Wood, 100 Rock, and XYZ, and, like, the villagers will also donate to that as well and really help you out to, like... So it feels like you're more of a community than, like, the Animal Crossing donation projects where you're like, I don't see any of you... donating to this, okay? It's 100% me. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, it's so, and I think it does a lot of cool things with farming sims with, like, the crop system. It's not just by season.

They spread it out like how normal crops would go. So crops will span spring to summer, summer to fall. Like they all have different dates. So you have to watch out when you're planting because you're like.

This isn't, it's not going to all die when spring ends, right? Like some will carry over, but some won't. So I have to make sure that like that's happening. You can let them go to seed. So you can harvest them, but if you wait a day, they'll go to seed and then you get bonus seeds and you don't have to buy seed.

But like the gamble with that is like sometimes you get seed and plant and other times you'll just get like two seeds and no food. So it's like everything's kind of like a weird gamble. Like how how far can you push this envelope? Until people start to die. And like the drying racks don't dry if it's raining. So I had some food that needed to be in that GD cellar, like right now, like hello. And then it was raining and all my drying racks were paused. And I was literally like, stop.

please i was going around just picking cherries and like hoping that i'd have enough cherries to put in the cellar and i've got to the next day thank god but the little hamster was like we're hailey it was like all red and i was like

Like it's literally, I've played this till four in the morning, like two or three nights in a row. I can't stop playing. Yeah, like I get that this game, I didn't want to do it. Like I saw it on Steam and I was like, no, Sarah, like no more early access games. Like we can't do Manor Lords again.

like we can't do this but it it literally this game haunted me right like for weeks and weeks i was like i gotta i gotta play that game i gotta play that game and it currently only has like 700 reviews on steam yeah yeah so but it the gameplay loop is so addictive and it's so well done that I don't even care that like, yeah, sure, like the festival.

isn't as exciting as they want it to be and like maybe not everything's implemented but you can at least get through like a full year and i'm like i don't even know if i'll make it through a full year might just die Yeah, I saw like one Steam review, overwhelmingly positive Steam reviews, by the way, if we're not selling enough on Grimshire. But there's one Steam review where they're like, I can't believe this is early access. Like it feels...

it feels fully fleshed out. So it's nice to know that so far, at least, you haven't hit that brick wall of like, nope. But my question is, I was like, when characters die, how much is it shutting off? Like is it like, all right, this person runs this store, therefore you can't go in that store anymore? Or is it like – what –

roads are... That's what I'm wondering. Well, I'm wondering, like, if I run out of food for the carnivores, do they eat the herbivores? Yeah. Like, how serious does this get? That would be so good. The stores do have the Fields of Mystery thing where you can go to them even if they're not there. So I think the insinuation is even if the person permadeathed, you could still go to their shop and buy stuff. You just can't romance them anymore.

yeah and maybe you like lose out on most of them and they're just gonna die i'm gonna invest all that well maybe like you don't do like the community projects that they come up with like you don't get their community whatever if they're not there okay um

but yeah i like this because i like that it's on a micro level versus like the macro level of like manor lords are banished where you're like building something this is a very micro like you and like a bunch of villagers that you're getting to know um weathering these Quite literally, like, how bad could it get? And you're like, oh, it just got worse. Conditions. Super smart. Yeah. I'm not crazy about the art. That's, well, there's a two-person team.

so it's like you know one person did the art and it's like if we could improve something it is pixel art but it's like i i feel like you know what good enough good enough for me okay all right there we go my little the pixel bloodstains are you know they all look the same You want more bunny guts? Could it hurt? Yeah, come on! At least from the trailer, it adds to the, like, surreality, the strangeness of it in the genre, just, like, how tall every character is compared to a Stardew Valley.

I guess so. What animals did you guys all pick? I'm a rabbit. I'm a deer. I chose a rabbit. Oh. I'm sorry. I mean, I'm a tote or whatever. Stoat. Stoat. Jesus. Keep saying it. It doesn't make it real. Exactly. Yeah. Merriam-Webster has never heard of it either. Grimshire is the name of that game. I'm sure we'll be coming back to it. Please continue to regale us with your adventures through Grimshire, please.

Yeah, this is one of those games that's going to come out in five years, and they're going to be like, why wasn't anyone talking about this earlier? And I'll be screaming from the rooftops like, I was! Yeah, it's just on Steam right now, early access for Grimshire. Leo, a game, you...

have been asked repeatedly to stand on a rooftop and scream about is the next game from the developers of your favorite game of all time, Hitman. Their next game is 007 First Light. And with every glimpse of that game, you've been... Big smile on his face. You've been cautious. You've been dipping your toe in the water and saying, I don't know if it's the right temperature, guys. I don't know if I want to go swimming in this 007 game. And then they had a big gameplay.

focused data play in a behind-the-scenes presentation for you, which I think was largely similar. And now you've changed your tune to... I said it on the react stream and it bears repeating that I'm ashamed that I was skeptical about it. because of the trailer but you know those were in the mind's eye halcyon days you know yeah there's clear a little bit right right it's like everything that happened with io over the summer didn't happen we could just focus on this baby

Right. And it's not like it's even more of a Hitman game than I expected or more like Hitman than I expected. It's like just it is that action game, that action promise, but just with. the design sensibilities of like, you should have that freedom of approach and you should have surprising things happen because of the way the systems are interacting.

In a way that it's like you see a third person Bond action game and you kind of picture what that is. And it's maybe a little closer to like Mafia, the old country. Yeah. But this is very unique. It feels a very specific flavor that I wouldn't expect out of anybody except IO. Yeah, and it was such a smart, cool presentation. There were some technical performance issues. I understand that. Preview build, everybody. Let's judge it once it comes out. So that's fair. I at least appreciate them.

going for a state of play where it is just extended chunks of gameplay. Like here, look at this mission here. We're going to jump ahead a little bit, but presumably this is the first mission of the game, right?

That's what they say. Or it's Bond's first mission, at least. Okay. His first mission in the field. Yeah. And so just giving you this extended look where it's like, yeah, there's going to be several minutes of just slowly driving a car up to a place. And then several minutes of slowly walking through this amazing building.

If you're the type of gamer that just wants to appreciate like, oh my God, there are... hundreds and hundreds of npcs in this mansion and a thousand ways to interact with so many of them like in a very hitman style way like that that is just a confident way to present this game i think and exactly what i feel like they needed to do to to woo the likes of you. Yeah. And a pace that isn't always nailed of, of that slow buildup and it popping off.

At any moment, you know, like plenty of games have their down moments and then the action moments and stuff. But this through the systems, like the license to kill thing where you. can't you aren't typically allowed to kill anybody you're supposed to do hand-to-hand combat knock them out with gadgets or with your fists so just contain the situation if you can but at a certain point or at a story point but also if like

You get so found out that people start shooting at you. It pops up on screen, licensed to kill, and then you're allowed to take out your gun and shoot back. Having that kind of gamified, in that Hitman way where it's like there's the pace of getting in there, getting your bearings, and then trying to control when things pop off as best as you can, but you can't always.

And that is always like because of decisions you made and you're dealing with the fallout in your way. That feels like my type of game for sure. So... It can happen narratively then. So is the implication that a lot of these levels are going to be like slowly stealth their way into this situation and then at the end there's just going to be license to kill, story reasons slapped on the screen, now just shoot them up?

Yeah, I mean, plenty of that for sure. And license skill is for sure mechanical as well. I was very curious about that. It is used in both scenarios. So how different was your presentation that you got behind closed doors? Um, the first half was the same. The, the mission going from the mansion to the plane where you're doing the banking, the plane left to right to have the.

cargo slide into people to like get through combat encounters that way which i thought was so cool but then after that it was a kind of a powerpoint with some clips for us and then for the state of play for everybody it was a lot more like individual clips of the combat they just showed like So many different combat moves, grappling and throwing people into so many different things. And of course, that grapple where you run with them and you go off a ledge and you land on them.

Such a cool animation. Throwing the guns. They showed, it's like, I was really happy with that state of play for how much they showed of moment to moment combat that all felt different and clever. Kicking the explosive, the cart of explosives into the guys like from stealth and shooting it to kill them all at once.

Yeah, like shooting the trail of oil or gas to that one car to have that explode. Like I get that there's a lot of exploding barrels and stuff. Like there's an interesting reaction to this state of play where it's like everything the game did that looked like... standard action game, like something from an Uncharted. A lot of people are like, eh, I've seen it look better in the past. I don't know about that. I don't know about that part. So with them trying to like appease the...

Non-Hitman action game crowd seemed like that wasn't really working as well as maybe they were hoping. But then every other element where they're leaning into their specialties of having these more systemic elements seems like that was – it seems like a magical –

type of presentation so i'm curious where it's ultimately going to land for folks me too i was like secondhand kind of nervous for that first gameplay section that was so quiet and there were times where nobody was talking in the private demo there was like the developers were there talking about it

And it filled a little bit more of the air and answered some of the questions and filled in how different it can go for everybody versus like you're kind of seeing it go one way. And if you're not like paying attention to the sides of the screen, you're not really thinking about the different ways you might do it.

So the second half of the presentation was a lot better for that of explicitly laying out. Here's all the mechanics. It's not just linear through this. There's the one way to solve that one mission. Yeah. And it was cool seeing like the.

the dialogue options and stuff and just having like a prompt for bluff pop up. I was like, oh, that's, that's interesting to like bluff your way through all of these scenarios as bond. Like it's rare to have bluffing as a big gameplay mechanic in a game like this, I guess. Yeah, a mechanical bluff. You press a button and it uses a resource, and that's so exciting to me. I always wish there's more dialogue stuff in Hitman. But yeah, having different dialogue options too, just as like...

I'm back into Hitman the last week yet again, and it is still the best game ever. And the idea of like, even in this more linear way, going to the same type of high society party you do in Hitman.

and looking for the person to complete the mission like you do in Hitman, but with the dialogue options and a bit more character to all the people at the party. It's very fun for me just to... imagine having a bit more of that campaign experience versus like the ultimate most systemic most free thing a little bit more on rails to be a little more cinematic yeah so i mean you don't think you're going to be replaying these missions a thousand times then like it's not really that type of game

They've said they don't really have incentive to besides trying different things out. Like you can see that there are different mission stories to get in. There are like checkpoints or waypoints or whatever in the upper left going one through five. Like here's the steps.

of posing as this photographer. You've got to find the camera, talk to the journalist, et cetera. I'm sure you can do multiple of those at the same time and see which one is moving along fastest. And you might want to go like, I wonder what happens if you do that other one. But I think it's more just about feeling like it's you getting through it.

The first time. And it's not so much about level mastery the way Hitman is. Yeah. Which I reached level 100 in Freelancer finally. Hey! Incredible. Incredible work. Thank you so much. And Happy to Report hasn't impacted my want to play it at all. I don't want to play it exactly as much. That's even more important. Yeah, finally. I was surprised by just the...

The UI in this game. I love seeing funky UI. It's like, oh, it's all like kind of watch-based and watch-themed. I guess that makes sense. But there's weird stuff for like – You do watch. Yeah, but it's like instinct is like – or focus is kind of the electricity. that pops up when you do something or kill somebody you get more focused which lets you slow stuff down there's a lot of those details that are still kind of wonky

Yeah, I'm not sure what's mapped to what resource because there's gadgets and like the bluff, like charisma moves, you know? Right. So I don't know exactly how that'll all work. Yeah, it's funky. I saw people commenting and comparing it to Hitman Absolution. Can you, Hitman Junkies, explain why that's the one that's the comparison here? That was a really action-y one. Okay. That was the one where you had dual pistols and could do a focus-style slow motion thing.

Which fans of the Hitman franchise famously do not like that one. And I thought it was fun on its own terms. Okay, so that's slander as a Hitman fan to be like, this is some Absolution videos. Yeah, right. That means you don't like it. Yeah. Okay, cool. Got it. Got it. You guys are so crazy with your lingo. Also fun about this is like Bond, I feel like I don't care about that much.

Or it's easy to feel like I don't care about that much because just for the small reason that there's only like three of the movies are good of the 40 there are. But I have watched them since I was a kid. That character is fun and has a lot of like... unique personality, especially among other big franchises. And like hearing that Bond theme swell in the end of the demo, I was like, this is getting me. I'm excited by this. I like so many Bond type things, including Hitman, including.

Kingsman, my favorite movie. Oh, right. That it's like, it's almost like feeding back into itself. I'm like, okay, let's do it with the real music that everyone's imitating. Also, not to call you out, aren't you like a big Dexter sicko too? What? Didn't you really like Dexter, that series? No. How can you just assume that about someone? You mean Hannibal? Oh, those are different killers. Yeah, I was really thinking about Hannibal. You're right.

I was watching that tonight with Marie. The show rocks. Dexter? They liked anything we're talking about. Oh, damn it. We've also watched Dexter for his blood. Ford's the thing we've ever seen. Okay, that's what I was thinking of too. No, because like, yeah, that actor who's playing Bond here, he's, I guess.

Dexter in the Dexter original sense so I was under the impression Dexter's son or young Dexter I don't know young Dexter I think it's called young Dexter like a young Sheldon yeah oh gross but then they have old Dexter he's like narrating it I think so it's like wonder years about him killing people or something okay so it's not the complete dream for you then if you're not a big Dexter fan I take it back then yeah I wish they were getting a little closer to Dexter

But yeah, it comes out March 26th, 2026. People are starting to get worried about that Switch 2 version. If the version they're showing on PS5 is running all over. Hitman runs great now, but it didn't always. It's had its fair share of technical stuff.

I can't speak to that. I hope it goes well. Yep, yep. 007 First Light. I can't believe we have a new console for Nintendo. We're doing the exact same thing we did with the Switch. It's identical. It's identical. It is such a weird bummer spot to be in. Uh-oh, will it run? Let's wait another 10 years and maybe Switch 3 will work. I mean, it's so messed up. But genuinely, my friends were going nuts talking about this Silk Song game.

And they're all buying it on Switch. And I had that moment of like, I don't know, guys. I was kind of scared for them. Silk Song will run. I hope so. I hope it's running great. That's just PNGs. Easy. Hey, Hayley, in Slack, when you were screaming... Sarah just cringed so hard. When you were screaming about a game called Discounty in Slack, Jeff was screaming about a game called Apatras.

And I said, what is this? So I booted it up on Steam and then realized this is not on Steam. No. This is some shareware dark web nonsense that you've dug out. I think how you commanded Ben, I will talk about this on the podcast. You didn't ask for permission. Yeah, it's not shareware. It's open source, you ass. I'm so glad that's not me right now.

Yeah, it's basically a really cool open source version of Tetris. We don't have to talk about it long. No, I played it too. I think it's cool. Come on, let's talk about it forever. Don't listen to Ben. Talk about it as long as you want. I played it too. I want to talk about it. So you did play some of it? I did. Yeah, my journey with Tetris, obviously I love Tetris, but I've grown increasingly annoyed with Tetris, aside from, you know, Tetris.

You know, which, of course, is amazing. But every other Tetris thing that the Tetris company has been doing just kind of annoys me because they have they have Tetris on such IP lockdown. And they have their own guideline rules for how all Tetris games have to play. And it's like they just want Tetris to be this one thing and it can't be anything else. And so like...

That's what all commercial IP Tetris games are. And so it has come to basically like fan communities and open source communities are like, F it, we'll just make our own Tetris. that are off brand and hopefully we won't get DMCA too hard, which, which this one apparently did get pulled off of itch for being, but, but now it's, it's, it's GitHub. You can't stop GitHub.

Everybody can get it on whatever platform they want. So it's on Windows, Linux, Mac, and then they have made a couple, like, ROM versions of it for GBA, because I guess... I think that was like the original version. And so like you can, you can get it on whatever platform you want. And like the big selling point is that it's super customizable. Like they have, they have so many options for.

how, you know, like pieces rotate and how the randomness works of piece selection and how many pieces you want previewed. And you can just like fully customize it to the point where they also have like... a color palette editor and you can choose the colors for each tetronomo and make your own color palette. And it has a skin editor where it just gives you basically like a little MS paint and you can paint what the squares are so you can make your own.

patterns for your tetronymo pieces and then it has you know like 13 game modes or whatever and it's in active development and like a bunch of people are working on it because it's open source so they just pull in like, different, you know, builds that people kind of all merge into this one version, and, like, they just keep growing it, and it's super good. Like, the biggest...

My biggest criticism of it is I don't love the music selection, but when you unzip it or you install it, there's just a folder with audio, including the sound effects. And you can just put in whatever you want and change it. And they even made it so that if you're playing the Game Boy Advance version, the ROM version, there is a script that after you put in the audio files...

you run the script and it will rebuild the ROM for you. And then you can put it on whatever retro, you know, handheld that you play all your retro games on and stuff. And so it's just like, I, you know, like. I am always searching for like the perfect little version of Tetris and I play retro games from, you know, on different platforms every now and then. And it's, and it's like, I hadn't heard of this. And then when I found it, it was like, Oh, this is.

exactly what i've wanted from a tetris game and it's it's free and will always be free and so it's just like a passionate fan project yeah Are there customization options you like? Like what do you do in it that's different? Have I spent an hour going through and making my own tetronymo designs, Leo? Yes, I have. I don't know why. First of all, have they always been called tetronymo? Is that what the pieces are called? Uh, yeah.

Tetrominoes? I knew they had a name. I'm not sure about the pronunciation, but yeah, it's... Polyominoes, but they're four squares, so it's tetrominoes. What's a polyominoes? You'll know when you're older. Hey, speaking of which, Jeff, I want to have you finish your point. It's a great question, but...

I went down this YouTube rabbit hole of old Easy Allies videos this last weekend. Sure. They did something called Easy Allies Live, like a whole live musical performance with a crowd. And Kyle Bossman wrote a love song. to one of the Tetris pieces.

And I've had that song stuck in my head for like a day. Was it the L piece? Yes. It's one of the L pieces that he calls Joey. And it is such a good freaking song. It's unbelievable. So it would have been like this way so that it looks like the letter J. I think so. I think so. That L piece. Sorry now. Okay, you put little faces on all your tetranymas? No. Oh. That would be absurd.

Which Tetris blog would you guys get? I just messed around with the editor. That's why we don't have to talk about that. There are some other options, Leo, of the auto-delay response, of course. When you press over...

Like, so you press and hold, if you press over, you're going to move one grid line over, right, with your tetrometer. Obviously, everybody knows that. But if you press and hold, the question is, when does it, when does it... categorize that as hey i want to move one piece but he's just holding it too long versus he wants to just keep it moving and like he's and so i'm going to start scrolling this piece

until he lets go and that's when I'm going to stop. And that's the thing that like the real Tetris freaks and the people who play like the Grandmaster series, like they're very particular about all of that stuff. And so a lot of these kind of open source attempts. to do Tetris. They give you a lot of options for configuring all that kind of stuff. And I fiddle with some of that stuff, but I'm not, you know...

I'm not one of the, I'm not a grandmaster. Not yet. Come on. Don't put yourself down. You'll get there. You'll get to level 100 someday. We'll get there someday, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. Apatris is the name of this funky free. Tetris. Apparently the Apo came from the person's name, and I don't know what his name is, but he said he put that in the front of Tetris. Harry Potter. And now he can't be sued for it. That's probably what it is. Could be. Sweet. Hey.

Hey, Leo Vader, do you know how this whole thing operates? I would kiss the square block. Yeah, okay, we know, Haley. Almost like a T. Okay, well, that's a weird choice. That's a cute one. That's actually kind of a problematic choice in a lot of ways. Let's think about it. Squatter. Leo, can you say the thing? Oh, the line pieces, OnlyFans. I messed with his groove and now he doesn't want it to reset again.

That's right, everybody. Patreon. Patreon.com slash minmax with two N's. You go there to help support independent games media. We greatly appreciate it. Thanks, everybody, for upgrading your tier, getting that code for spilled before Monday. But also thank you to our dear friends at IM8Bit. They want everybody to know about Remedy and Remedy's 30th anniversary, everybody. They have a ton of great stuff in their wonderful online store. Did you really? Yeah, I got one of the signed copies.

I did it, you guys. I actually got something when it was live for one minute and they sold that in one minute. I got one. Yeah, you're talking about it like it's a bad thing to shop at IM8Bit and use the promo code. Well, I also spent hundreds of dollars. Good God! But I had fun! Did you use our code? Good God. It was all a blur. I really wanted the signed copy. I don't even think I thought about codes. I just was like, and then they were sold out. Yeah. Don't be like me, you guys.

Also, it's 10% off of everything under $100, so we have our limits with IM8BitHaley. I couldn't have used it on the book anyway, so we're good. Yeah, we encourage you blowing past it. But yes, everybody, Remedy's 30th anniversary. They have a ton of amazing stuff in their store celebrating... and wake they got the oh dear coffee cooler uh remedy verse t-shirts a bunch of fun stuff in there and you can use that promo code for 10 off everything under 100 to help support pajamas yeah exactly

That gamer pajamas? More. Give me more of that. Also, super smart. They have an ashtray maze ashtray. Yeah, it makes me want to start smoking. I felt the same way. I don't get it. Are they sold out of the Night Springs VHS?

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Submits the best question over on Patreon. If you submit a great question, you're in the running. We choose our number one favorite question every week submitted on Patreon. They win a great prize from IM8Bit. This week is the Persona 3 Reload Vinyl Soundtrack. For an episode... Eight ages. So that is the prize going out. And by the way, the promo code for this month, 10% off everything I am 8 bit store. It's earth, wind and games.

earth wind and games everybody special what else do you need what else do you need all right four elements but there's three are you ready for these questions yeah it's it's email section at 9 30 time to crack one single beer

Hell yeah. And Haley, I want you to know, you're doing a great job. I feel like you're apologizing for every interjection you've had. You're doing good. It's a little je ne sais quoi for a little cheeky sorry at the end. It makes me sympathetic to the listener. I like her. Yeah, that's smart. That's smart. All right. First question. And leave a comment if you like Haley, please. She needs it. BoondockBandit writes in. They say, everybody, IO Interactive is giving unlockable cosmetics to 007.

first light based on the Steam wishlist numbers. Is this really cool or really not cool? Oh. Oh, I've seen that before where it's like if we hit X amount of wishlists, every player will get... Insert cosmetic thing. Oh, interesting. I thought this was, would we like to see if you wishlist, you get something special in game, which I think is it. Of course. That's so smart. Do that. Smart. That's what I thought it was too.

Yeah. But how would they verify that? That'd be hard. Yeah. Is there any way to... It seems like there'd be a way to do that. I wonder if Steam... They would have to get Steam to tell them their Who wish list, and I don't know if they keep that private or not. Well, you'd just put your IO Interactive account in and... That'd be fine. All five of us would do that. Just screenshot and email them with your username so they know. So do you think this is just like... Leave a positive review.

And just leave a way for them to contact you. Yeah, it's not that hard. It's very clear. But is this just common sense of like, hey, you got to have it. Treat it like a fundraiser goal thing of if we hit this, this unlocks. Treat it like a Kickstarter or something. With wishlist. It does no harm. In all the things that games can do nowadays, a free wishlist and we'll give you a free thing seems...

Pretty innocuous. Yeah, they're not stealing my children's data or anything. So it sounds good. Well, Haley, I got bad news because at 1.5 million wish lists. They just list that. They're going to steal my child's data? Well, it says they'll unlock a secret reward, and we don't know that that isn't stealing your child's data. My unborn child's data. Or just steal your child, whose name is data. Oh, my God. Bezos wants that so bad. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Don't do it.

I do think even pre-order rewards are shadier than wishlist rewards. Yeah. Oh, for sure. On the spectrum of shady. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So Boondick Bandit, no boondocks here. Thumbs up. Go for it. Yeah, no kidding. B9XM says, hello. Now that Silksong is about to be out as of writing this, what's the next heavily memed games project on the horizon other than Half-Life 3? You know, I wasn't here for the Silksong thing. It is interesting. Silksong felt more memed than it ended up.

being like it became very real it crashing every storefront and stuff i wasn't really expecting the demand to be that like material right you thought it was a joke i thought it was a joke too it was a little bit of a joke i think it was completely a joke but yeah i feel like it's like i saw someone What would it have been like if Slug Song had come out two years or three years after Hollow Knight? Would it have been as big or did the absolute memeing of it...

compound it to this level, which is, like, I think a really interesting thing to think about. Yep. They delayed their game so long they ended up making hundreds of millions of dollars more. Like, it's really wild. It's like the one in a million times that happens. I know. I know.

Yeah, so what's left? Bubsy 4D. Bubsy 4D. I think it's Haunted Chocolatier. I don't know if they'll meme on it, though. Ooh, that's a good one. But the thing is, is, like, people keep thinking, like, it's gonna come out, and... concerned ape literally put out a post like a week ago and he's like it's gonna be at least five years and what did people expect because it took him several years to release stardew valley

And he's updating Stardew Valley concert. He won't stop. He won't stop working on Stardew Valley. He's announced a new patch, right? I feel like every time there's a concert or something, he gets out on stage for Stardew Valley and says, by the way.

1.86 is coming soon! I literally saw a video of him at the Sardew Valley concert, which he just kicked off again, and he was playing, like, steel drums. And I'm like, anything but working on Haunted Chocolatier! Yeah, this better be hooked up to a keyboard, buddy!

Better be programming with them drums. What about the final chapters of Deltarune? Yeah. I don't know if we're quite to that point. Because it doesn't feel like... We have to wait a few years. But that one does sit in the oven for a long time.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Chia said that they think it's going to be Mitu Awaita's robot game. Remember that one? Sure. That super cool trailer. See, I don't remember that one, so how could it be that one? It's very present. And it is a little too artsy, maybe. Yeah. No offense to any of the other games in the discussion, but as far as memeing it, I don't know. And Star Citizen? Played out. Played out. We had our fun. It was a soap song of the past. Yeah.

get out of here first um and i was thinking like it needs to be a game that's like people are going to go gaga for so it's like beyond good and evil 2 i think is a good punchline it's a killer punchline i don't know if there's more than a dozen people who are like i cannot wait to play that version of beyond good and evil 2 that i saw you know or even remember it

Yeah, it's missing that. And it's never actually going to come out. It has a monkey in it, you guys. So I think Haunted Chocolatier and I think, honestly, Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be a... Oh, sure. Right? That's it. That's the exact slot fill-in. Other than the whole indie nature. We think TJ6 will get delayed again and then that'll keep memeing it up.

They should. If they're looking at the sales of Silksong, keep delaying it. It is trending the same way because people keep saying, like, we've got X before GTA 6, which is just, like, free advertising in itself. So it kind of already is in that slot, but...

Yeah. Maybe more. Yeah. Elder Scrolls, I wonder, the most vocal contingent of the gamer crowd, I feel like, is all against Bethesda now because of Starfield. And I wonder if that'll help its meme factor hurt it. This is important stuff. I don't know. I think... You know, Bobby Joe sloppy on the street. I don't think he's...

I don't think he's heard of Starfield. And if you just say, hey, you're looking forward to the next Elder Scrolls 6, he's going to be excited. But he's a huge Elder Scrolls fan. Yeah, he's married to that grandma. Toke F writes in, and Toke F says, fun fact, no question here, but fun fact, every calendar year a Mass Effect game has released, a new Halo game has also released. starting with Mass Effect and Halo 3 in 2007, and then Mass Effect 2 and Halo Reach in 2010.

Mass Effect 3. Have you ever seen them in the same room? And then Halo Reach in 2012. Mass Effect Andromeda and Halo Wars 2 in 2017. Mass Effect Legendary Edition and Halo Infinite in 2021. It even includes mobile spinoff Mass Effect titles with Mass Effect Galaxy and...

Halo ODST and Halo Wars in 2009. I like that this person thought of one and then was like, I wonder. And then went into the research and double-checked everything. And they sent a picture of the whiteboard where they were doing the equations. The math checks out, everybody. Was it like Dexter? It was kind of like Dexter's whiteboard, or as he calls it, his red board.

He flips it over and uses the blood as the writing tool and puts it back up on the wall. So, Leo, hand to God, you're telling me that you have not watched multiple episodes of the original Duster series? I have. I liked season one in... late high school, and then I kept watching it. Okay! Yeah, what is this, Mr. I... You love it! You made Ben look like an idiot! Yes! Thank you!

I was a bit more confused on how it had nothing to do with anything we were talking about. Because James Bond, the actor, is the young Dexter! 25 years after I watched it? Right, right. I got it now. That's on you. Dude, because you loved that first season. You said, I love it. I want some more of it. That actor wasn't even born yet when Leo was watching. Tell Leo. He's the one who's getting his facts wrong. I'm not listening.

Hey, Crowboy, wanna feel old? Crowboy says Skyrim Grandma's 89 now. Wow. Oh my god, no, that's too old. Stop! Stop aging! Elliot Robinson says, Hi, we all know that Nintendo is infamously secretive about their internal development practices. If one day they started releasing substantive behind-the-scenes content like dev diaries, interviews, etc.

Sorry, it's just funny to think of. If Nintendo did interviews, how do you think it would affect game development across the industry? Who left a question mark on this question? I saw someone leave a passive-aggressive question mark. It's a long story. I forgot to copy and paste the full question.

Um, and so, so Leo, it did not make sense. So Leo was confused. I didn't mean it passive aggressively. I did mean it. I read it as like, what the hell is this question? Who would write in with this? Yeah, exactly. What kind of sick and twisted mind? I didn't touch it. I didn't want to be. roped into that well you're roped in lady you're in one that question mark had the same emotion as me saying what to that poor guy yeah all right moving on deuterado

Did anyone thumbs up it? Yeah, I want to talk about it, but you realize you're talking about emo. What do you want to say? Somebody else gave a thumbs up. Who gave a thumbs up? Not me. Point them out. Point them out to the class. Leo and Jeffem. Did I? I didn't even hear a question. Did you finish reading it? How would it affect game development across the game industry if Nintendo was transparent? This is why we keep 5Ks. No one cares.

We can't podcast after 8pm anymore. We can't do this. If Nintendo started saying what they do, what effect would that have? No one else acts like Nintendo because they're insane. No, I think I... Oh, let's not make Super... My little NES. Super NES, we're not going to make it anymore and sell it because people want it too much. Yeah, oh, great. I'm going to go do that as an indie developer with Hollow Knight 3. I've learned so much from Nintendo.

Guys, Jeff is making me uncomfortable. Who asked this question? Who is the asshole? Elliot! I agree with Jeffem. I'm with Jeffem on this one. People at Nintendo would be like, we did all these frames in a tiny flipbook, and everybody would be like, why would you do that? Like, I bet Nintendo still faxes things internally. Like, nobody wants to emulate that!

There are lessons. Obviously, it's like, all right, we can get some wisdom, some history for the most important video game company that has existed yet on Earth. museum. Go to the museum. Yeah, where it's like here's a box of the Virtual Boy. You can look at it. F*** you. That does not seem like the type of thing we want. Oh, you want to know who made Bonanza?

We'll never tell. Please show me all the development strategies that led me to Welcome Tour. Okay. We don't need to smirch the good name. Leave purity alone. I do wonder if something about that would make... Nintendo's brand seem more replicatable. Yes. Having like cutesy stuff that appeals to, for some reason, every single person and not just people who like cutesy stuff. For some reason, everybody who plays video games keeps up with Nintendo stuff just about.

Yeah. And I don't know that there's another brand that's trying to do that. There's certainly brands that are trying to be cute and make cute games and stuff, but that level of like, this is the definitive entry in the genre and anybody can play it, you know, the way Nintendo does with... Smash with Mario Kart. Mm-hmm.

I don't know. I wonder. To the point that... Can we go back to unfettered gamer rage? This is too smart now. I liked it when we were all just like... Sorry, I remembered I did have an answer. Like, ten minutes into chewing Anson out for nobody wanting to answer this question, I remembered I did have an answer.

He pulled his second Dexter of the show, folks. Oh, the Dexter Jester. No, I think like the best it could do is the more transparency we get with like Japanese game development, I think it's just highlighted more and more that like, yeah, the teams that...

stick together and they support their employees, uh, that they are cranking out gems. I mean, from software is obviously another example of this is like that team is cranking out masterpiece after masterpiece because those people have been working together for.

20 plus years but they also nurture new talent yeah right which is what like night rain was and western depths don't do that they say nope they you release a game and then they lay everybody off and they say get a fresh crop yeah they slaughter them who else we got

Yeah, so I think that would be a nice lesson is to see, like, more people talking about how long they've been there outside of those developer asses on Nintendo's site that don't exactly make a big splash, sadly. Sure, but to Sarah's point, do you think any Western developers would be like,

Oh, we shouldn't lay everybody off because now we know that Nintendo doesn't do it. They can't do it because the laws... They're so wise. I think so. That's why they don't do it. They don't do it because they're so... cute and pretty and nice. They do it because the government would sue them, you guys. Wake up! Wake up, sheeple! That's why they don't fire anyone at FromSoft. It's not because they're so lovely and cute. It's because they got to!

Hey, Hayley, there's like three companies that are bad, and the rest are all good, okay? How many times do I have to explain this? Every company's bad. We literally cannot conceive employee protection laws, Hayley. I don't even know what that is. Yeah. Haley Lawyer, have you heard of this? I saw on Kiwi Talks' YouTube channel, I believe that's where it was, where they're talking about like rights.

to actors, I think, signed away rights or whatever, in Japanese games specifically. Like this, right? Thank you. That those are signed in Japan per platform. So like for Steam, it'd be different than like good old games.

Like whatever platform that's sold on, you need different rights for the likeness. I've never heard of that. Usually it's just a blanket, you know, waiver of rights. You just say, you're not going to come at us at all in relation to this thing. And the person goes, okay. And then you do whatever you want.

Okay. Anyways, Dutorado writes in, they say, how often do y'all clean your feet? Like actually get in there and scrub them. I can't get in my bed unless I wash my feet, person. It freaks me out. Whoa. Freaks me out. I stick my feet in the tub and I turn the faucet on for the bottom bit and I just wash my feet and then I go get into the bed. Does this mean you me saying, whoa, this is like scrubbing.

With like a sponge? With my hand. With my hand. Okay. Yeah. Normally hosing them off is fine. It's because I wear Birkenstocks. I do pick up a good amount of dirt in the summer for sure. That's what it is. That's what it is. Do you guys shower at night? Are you like morning shower people? Oh, yeah. Night shower people. Okay. I shower during my lunch break. Yeah. So, Sarah, you're saying you're a fan of a little night rain?

I mean, I guess you could call it that. I do. I forgive you for that thing earlier. That's a good host. I'm glad I work for Ben. Oh, work. At my friend's meetup last year, the showers, like the bathrooms, water stopped working and I needed to wash my feet before I got on the air mattress. And so I filled up a bowl in the sink and washed my feet in it. Whoa.

And my friend saw it. Thank you. My friend, my very chill friend was like, you know, Hey, everybody's got their thing right on. And I was like, Oh, I guess this is weird. Crouched in the sink with a bowl. My sister and I shared a bathroom growing up and I would pick up my foot and put it in the sink and wash it in the sink. I mean, I guess I can imagine that feeling good. I've never imagined this before.

As someone who just, like, showers and then goes to bed immediately. That makes sense, but it is truly, like... There's two of you here! I've never met anybody else who does this. It's the idea of getting into bed with dirty feet. There's a stiffness when your feet are dirty. It's not even about sanitation. Right now I feel it.

I go out with my feet out all the time. Yeah, that's the thing. We conceal our feet. Do you wear socks? I'm not out with my feet out. It's a free country. It shan't be. Sorry. Barefoot's legal. Leo, did you write this question? I did give it the rare 100 instead of the thumbs up. Yeah, I cannot skip this one. So, Jeff, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, like, do you...

Do you ever wash your feet in the shower or is it just a matter of gravity brings soapy stuff down there so you assume they're doing fine? No, I scrub them. How often do you scrub them? I scrub them in the shower. Well, I always wash them. If they feel rough, then I'll scrub them. What does that mean? So hand wash versus rag wash? Rag on a stick wash? I knew those would be your two options. Rag? No, like one of those pumice stones. You uncultured swine. Those are good. Get the dead skin off.

Yeah, I don't think. I'm also a night rain person. That's when you got all the dirt on you. Yeah, and then you gotta get in bed when you're all clean. so my hair gets greasy really fast so i have that too i have one of these things i have one of those It's got like a thousand little dots on it. It's a circle thing with a gripper on the back. It's like kind of a silicone plastic. And you scrub them. And it's more sanitary. Like the, what are they called? The scrunchy ones.

Lulufas keep so much bacteria and then they get nasty, but those are a much more clean alternative. I was hoping someone could tell me what they're called. I don't know why I'm talking about them. No one knows. No one knows. These are great, great feet scrubbers. I scrub my feet every time in the shower, too. Maybe I am just a freak. I agree, folks. This is too much foot talk. Let's move on to greener pastures. Ben, what do you do?

I let water take care of them. I invite anybody to smell my feet at any moment. I think I'm doing just fine. Yeah, of course you do. What a shocker. Please smell my feet. That's how it ended. Scrub. I don't touch my feet. Because every time you asked people, you went, do you scrub or do you do the natural thing? Like if the water flowed out and touched them, that's enough.

That's how you phrase it three times. And the worst part is I'm so sick and tired of arguing hygiene on this podcast. There's going to be a million comments on the YouTube that are like, Ben's right. What's wrong with you guys? Why don't you just piss in the shower on your feet while you're at it? It's the same thing. Kill two birds. Yeah, that's why it's so important, Sarah.

to get that word out it's a psa it's a psa well ours is also a psa um yeah i think p shower all the time i think if it was like yeah gun to a head how often do i wash my feet in the shower like with hand or whatever rub soap on it like every five months like i just i just feel like the water and the soap are always running through them and i think they're doing just great again i invite all listeners come to my house and smell my feet and give me something good to eat

You know what? Again, your points are way up. You're way in the positive again. It's like, of course, you do get pretty clean where nobody's going to notice no matter what. But my feet are like soft. After I washed them. And that's nice. That's a good feeling. That's why you're so eager to show them off in that travelogue floating down the river. You're like, look at these suckers. You kept zooming in. I had to edit out all the footage of you just zooming in on your own feed. You what? Edit out.

He clipped it and then dragged it to his little personal folder. Little personal folder. You're getting a little personal. Felix Davin writes in and says, hey, Minneapolis Maximum. We're Minnesota Maximum, get it right. Can you all think of a game in which the word vagina appears? Besides back alley steamboat. Okay, only one person put a thumb up for this and guess who? We don't need to do a litigation of the thumbs every time.

Other questions that had four thumbs on them, of which I think you've read none. Not interested. The f***ing thing is I don't have an answer. I knew it. I knew it. I wanted a group to... I don't think we can think of one.

i've got it i've got it i've got it googled video game script search and then it was bringing up because i wanted to look up a bunch of scripts and look up the word vagina but then it was like scripts like coding and i was like no look up video game narrative scripts and then i couldn't find it gave up and i forgot that i like this it's those like hospital teaching games probably that they use for like to teach and educate nurses in medical schools

I feel like GTA five had to have said the word. I bet it did not. Here's, here's my, I think it's four because it's funnier with the accent. Oh, which of course goes low. Something like this. Definitely had an Eastern European guy say that in a funny way. Yeah. That word that I would never say. I got the scripts for most missions. Okay. Yeah, look through that. Oh, I think they're all separated. I think they're all separated. Okay. I do have the answer. If anyone's...

Wait, yeah, yeah. It's Cyberpunk. It's Cyberpunk 2077. That was my second guess because they say the C word all the time. It's nonstop. Can you use it in a sentence? Thank you. It was there the whole time. This is good podcast. Good podcast right now. Yeah, it's in the beginning of the character creator. Because I remember talking about it on the deepest dive. You never see the word vagina on your TV. It's not like you hover over it. Vagina?

If you do, like, text-to-speech. Yeah, right. Does it have good accessibility so that we can hear the word vagina? They must say it as well. Text-to-speech. The cyberpunk of Texas Beach. It must. It must for everything. Yeah. Someone's saying no, it says vulva. No, it says vagina. It says vagina, but you select the vulva very carefully. Tyler writes in.

And says, by the way, only Marvel movie. Sorry, you guys. Sorry, I liked that one. Hayley, why did you do this? Why did you do this to the pod? Because I was interested. Right after the feet question, too. Yeah. Yeah. So Tyler writes in. Oh, boy. whiplash okay do you ever feel like video games sometimes inflict a fear of failure onto us i'm terrible at taking my own advice but i know it's important to embrace failure in life however video games tend to make me become a perfectionist

I want this level run to be perfect. I want the most health items, etc. I find myself with certain games constantly reloading my last save or checkpoint to ensure my outcome is the best. But is that authentic? I know video games are fiction, but is it reinforcing a bad behavior for our lives? Hold on, shut up. NotWeirder says he found a part in the GTA 4 script where they say the word. Yeah! What's the context? Give us the context. Who says it? Who says it? Who says it?

Cousin, do you want to go get some vagina? Haley! Oh, I said pretty normal, okay. Also, Joey in the comments. quoted Ben as saying, why are they age-gating all our content? Which was the other question that we talked about earlier. I do think that's a really interesting question.

I think probably in general, games are good at, like, teaching you to overcome things. But I also think, you know, it's hard to start anything because you don't feel that good at it, right? Starting a new hobby, starting a new thing you're nervous to try. It's like, well, if I'm not...

feeling adequate at it it's not like rewarding to keep trying until i get good at it that's that's like makes it hard to start anything new for a lot a lot of people and i do wonder if games kind of get you used to getting through things yeah being adequate at stuff because they're designed to and then when you don't it's like well i have plenty of things i can feel adequate at so why would i do that right right why would i learn to play guitar when i can play guitar hero the end right

Yeah, I think about this a lot in terms of like video editing. I do think it has probably added more anxiety to my life when doing so much video editing throughout my life. And it's always just about like, I can clean this up.

I can make this situation better. I can trim out this little stumble the way this person speaks that I think I'm more anxious at parties and stuff because I just... feel myself messing up yourself because i can't edit myself in real time you're anxious at parties because of this yeah i'm just like oh i wish i didn't stumble there oh i wish i could have corrected that oh i could have trimmed that out like if you

only have a video editing mindset it like kind of breaks your brain I think Leo you know what I'm talking about do you have any of that maybe a little no he's normal normal It's clean feet. Okay. Yeah, I guess when I'm nervous socially, I just kind of like feel my soft feet.

In the corner of the party with your socks off rubbing your toes. I'm normal. I'm normal. Cover writes in and says, I was going through my notes app and I forgot that like two years ago, around the time Ben was on paternity leave. I started writing down what I call out of context Ben Hansen. But I completely forgot about that note. And then it got buried under random grocery lists and mental doodles. Anyways, I have a bunch of...

notes for quotes that I wrote down. If you guys want to hear some out of context, Ben Hansen quotes, and I want the record to show. I know this is self-indulgent. I apologize, but they all voted for it. So. It's one of the questions we all actually voted for. Yeah. So would you like me to read this as if I'm saying this for the first time? Yeah. Okay. Someone be dominant, please! I think I was screaming at you guys because it was just silence.

Is there context too for all of them? No, no, no. I just remember some of these that I can imagine. I said, Jeff, you ever love anything? I can't imagine this is actually happening. I said, how much are you sucking out of that tank? How much can your stomach hold? I actually saw Sarah elevate up to the heavens. Never order a dog off of Amazon. Okay. Classic, classic. Leo, I see those eyebrows. This is aged well. I said, tweet for the job you want.

You and like a poster. Yeah, that's good. Sarah looks like I just shoved a big pile of feces in front of her on a plate. I feel like I make that face a lot, though. Yeah, what is that? Yeah, that could have been anything. Stop that. Squat down in Moo Moo Meadows. You're ours now. Give us your milky money.

That's not, that can't be a sense. That's the best one so far. That's the best one. Yeah, we did love saying that. That needs to be a mid-max teacher. Just full text. Or it's like the names of the Beatles style. Yeah. Okay. Slycut writes in and says, hello all, what's your favorite Bond film? I like Diamonds Are Forever as a kid.

Wow. Casino Royale, which has age varied. I mean, it's weird now. I watched it not too long ago. And like the first scene, Bond strangles a woman with her bikini top, like attacks her, like not self-defense at all. She's a bystander? No, that's Dexter. You're thinking of Dexter again, Leo. She's got some information, but it's like, try to ask her first the normal way. Oh, please. That's why I wear one pieces.

casino royale is still the best and i think and one of my favorite movies um yeah and what was the is it die another day the pierce brosnan gawker one yes with uh michelle yo That is one of the most fun, goofy, bad ones for sure.

Yeah. There's so much Pierce Brosnan trying to fire two submachine guns hotly, like with a smirk on his face, these giant guns waving around. It's a really, really funny one. That's Tomorrow Never Dies, apparently, with Michelle Yeoh. Okay, Tomorrow Never Dies. Tomorrow Never Dies. Yeah. Die Another Day is like the last.

Pierce Brosnan one which also completely goes off the rails what's Halle Berry the Halle Berry coming out of the water but then that's the one where he's like surfing down the wave around like the the ice and all that stuff and that's It's one of those things where I'm like, oh, Bond, got it, got it, got it, Bond, Bond. Bond, Bond, Bond, got it, got it, Bond, Bond, Bond. You know, just the way you talk at parties when you're being anxious and stuff. But then I realized, like, I have a huge gap.

I have seen all the Daniel Craig stuff except for Quantum of Solace because everyone said it was bad. But then for – Every other Bond, the only other Bond I've seen is Die Another Day. I've never seen Goldeneye. I've never seen any other Pierce Brosnan Bond. But Die Another Day, I saw twice in theaters. Because I saw it and I was like, this is dumb fun. This is great. And then like the next week, I went and saw Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights, the animated film.

And it was genuinely the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. And I walked out and I just went and watched Die Another Day again after like 15 minutes. So I'm doubling down apparently on the worst Pierce Brosnan one. But I remember having a hoot with that film.

Well, there you go. There you go. I think there was the one with like a 40-minute cold open before the credits, which I, for some reason, I thought was really cool when I first saw it. I was like, this is a big movie. This is cool. Keep going. Big man movie. But yeah, it's obviously Xena Royale. Yeah. But I also like GoldenEye for nostalgia. Because that was the first Pierce Brosnan one.

All the old ones, I think I've seen like every single Bond movie. And all the old ones are a lot slower and more boring than you think they are. For sure. The gold finger. There's like a big build up to the big heist scene and it's about to pop off and then it is. 12 shots of them driving to the bank with no music. That was like one of the good ones. Yeah.

Using his blinker like some boring 007 first light video game. They're really honoring that. That's where they got it, yeah. Drake Heinhorst has a question for Sarah. So that's what I question as a statement. They say the term werewolf comes from Old English were, meaning man, and wolf, meaning wolf. So essentially it means man-wolf. But when Sonic transforms in Sonic Unleashed, he becomes a werehog. A man hedgehog, according to Old English.

hell yeah uh let's see more badass than i thought that's great uh hot ricky winterborne writes in they say skate 4 is coming to early access soon congratulations uh the reaction seems divided between the old fans hating the mobile game vibe You know, in the case of Skate... I'd rather have that version than nothing at all, I think. Yeah. It's not like a genre that's super, super saturated, but I don't think across the board that's true. Yeah. Yeah. The correct answer is no.

Not every old IP. You can do it for skate, sure, but there's plenty of things that you can just go back and play the old game and they don't have to desecrate it. Oh, so don't revive it at all. Leave it in the coffin. Just go in the coffin with the game is what you're saying. Yeah. Okay. That's right. Yeah, because when Dungeon Keeper...

Came back with all these EA properties and it was like the grossest possible free-to-play version of it on mobile. Like here we go. Commander Keen. Remember that mobile revival of everyone's favorite commander? I remember when that announcement dropped. Megaton!

Um, where's your hype at for Escape 4? Um, I'm curious about it. I don't know. Writers Republic still... is i haven't gone back to in a while but it's still like i know that it's out there for me i had a great experience with extreme sports recently and that has skateboarding in it i'm sure this would be better skateboarding but it's like i don't feel super underfed even though i just said this genre is not super saturated

It's still like, I support more games in there and I will try it, but I'm not like dying. Gotcha. Tan writes in, maybe Tan from Queer Eye, and they say, Hey MinMax, you must each answer true or false to these hot take inducing questions. You can provide supporting arguments if you want. That won't be necessary, Dan. So true or false? We all got to yell at it at the same time. The age of great mobile games is over.

True. What do they consider like the great mobile games? That like iPhone beer app where it looked like you were drinking a beer? Yes. And the Constellation one where I tell you what Constellation you're looking at? All the great apps. There was a joint one. There was a joint smoking one. I'm laughing already.

I would just pull out my iPod and go, you guys. And then everyone would start a slow clap. Yeah. And then I took my feet out. And then they'd stop clapping. They would clap harder, actually. Oh, okay. That was your feet clapping. Think about some angry dogs. I currently have Bellatro and Merge Maestro on my phone, so I'm going to say no. Yeah, I say false. Okay. I mean, false. It's good in Apple Arcade, but I don't know. I feel like... I'm...

Probably stupid. What do you consider the greatest age then? Do you think it's over? Well, I just think it was such a fun... Cut the rope and angry birds. Before Free to Play just completely took over and it was Free to Play. just dominating everything. In my mind, I was like, I feel like the momentum's over for people being excited about games on your phone for like, you know, some words with your friends stuff. Then I'm like, I don't know. Monopoly Go is making...

$48 million per second or whatever the hell that version is called. Everyone's just quietly into it, yeah. Yeah. They should be loud and be shamed. I feel like we're at a new generation of... like games that you can just release on mobile though. And they'll be fine. We're like wordplay is going to come out on phone at some point if it hasn't already. And that will be another great, you know, like perfect for mobile, even if it's not.

I'm not going to the mobile store and looking for games. But when there's a good PC, like indie game, that is suitable for it. Like that's... Yeah. Or Resident Evil 4. That's better than 99% of, you know. I'd rather play that than threes. That's it. Okay, true or false, the Switch 2 will have a Nintendo-developed killer app with great mouse functionality. No.

We've talked about it before. I don't think there's some great magic mouse movement. That would have happened already at launch, I feel like. It did. It was called Welcome Tour. Do we think the Switch 3 will have the mouse functionality? It actually will just be like a tiny laptop. Oh. With a mouse attached to it. Like a DS? A trackball. I'll miss having two mice, one in each hand, but that's okay. Fighting games will never have mainstream appeal. That's tough.

Smash Bros has mainstream appeal. Yeah, what does mainstream mean? Mainstream appeal. Fortnite? Yeah. If Fortnite released the fighting game, it would have mainstream appeal. Well, I think they're kind of trying that for League, right? We're kind of getting that test. I think with the success of Marvel Rivals, that teaches me that Marvel token fighters could be something huge.

Yeah. I feel like there's just something about fighting, like the gameplay of fighting games that is not as mass appealing as like a battle royale. Yeah. I think it's like that skill that like...

I think it's, yeah, I think there's just something about the gameplay that keeps it from going into, like, Fortnite territory. And even if they make a really streamlined one, it's such a tricky thing. Shut up, Pilly! Shut up! I like the... way you said it i wanted to say i just echo thing where i just was having fun uh don't you wish you could edit that moment out of your life sarah

Yes. But it's more weird because fighting games are so easily understandable. That's the reason they're great to watch. I feel like they're not, though, right? It's a high skill ceiling, low skill, whatever. But just watch it. If you watch a Street Fighter VI match, you don't understand all the buttons they're pressing.

and why, but you see health bars go down, this guy punches this guy more at the end. But be so honest, is it entertaining? I like it. I feel like it's entertaining for five minutes and then they all start to look the same. That's why it's not a successful esport.

Compared to like other large esports. Yeah. I mean, it's doing all right in the esports arena, but yeah. I guess I feel like somebody could crack it. Somebody could make that version of it that is satisfying and easy to pick up and play. Yeah, I think the gameplay would have to change somehow. Yeah. Would any, like, 1v1 game reach that kind of mainstream popularity? There was a quote from, was it Kamiya, who was like, fighting games will never be massive because...

kids like to blame their teammates when they lose. Oh, interesting. Somebody said that quote and got roasted and they were so right. Yeah, yeah. To say that. De-roast them, folks. Ice them down. The PS2 has the greatest console library of all time. I'll say true to that. I mean, unless we're going like backwards compatibility, then that gets messy, right? We got to keep that separate. That's too messy. That's too messy. I don't say false.

DS? Best library? Mm-hmm. I don't think they got a Hitman on that. Oh, yeah, that's true. You know, I played a lot of Hitman back on my Dreamcast, Leo. I don't know about you, but shout out to the IO Showcase. The $80 MSRP for AAA games will be standardized in 2026. 2028. 2028 feels better, right? Yeah. They always like to go...

Give him a little breathing room to get used to it. Okay, do it again. Yeah. Yeah. Probably true. There we go. All right. Thank you, Tan, for writing in with those. What do y'all like for a question of the week? I liked when Haley asked... what Tetris piece we would kiss. Oh, yeah. Hayley. Everyone ignored Hayley. And I noticed that some people did not answer. Yeah. It's personal. I don't know. The Z.

No, you like long skinny peas. Don't even lie. Okay. You're a long skinny peas kisser. Even at the moment I met you. Okay, Hayley. give it to hayley she needs the coupon anyway i already bought all the stuff that's it you get the coupon i did like the mass effect and halo games come out in the same years that wasn't interesting

What was the one we got mad at but then ended up having a decent conversation? Nintendo one. Yeah. Silksong anticipation. What's coming up next? How often do you clean your feet? Vagina. Vagina. Vagina. Vagina. Clean your feet was a good one too. Yeah? I like the Ben Hansen quotes. Do you? Just because the effort of getting all those, I appreciate. Okay. We've got a lot of options here, folks. We need definitive takes. This is tough. This is a tough one. Someone be dominant. Yeah.

I'd probably go feet. Don't, I don't want to encourage people. I don't want to encourage like hygiene related questions. Okay. Like I'm. tired of them. I don't want to be disappointed anymore. Luckily, this one was a positive one. If that's the goal for this one, I want to encourage more questions like Ben Hansen quotes then.

I feel like that's the question I most want more of. Well, it's the best question. What made the show the best? Well, that's where the conversation was leading. Ever podcast before? Yeah, and I feel like the vagina question is really getting...

tossed away that's a really original thought and then we all got really engaged you were the only one that liked it yeah you all loved it now don't you and jeff have even said pause this next question we have an answer for the vagina one if you recall that's what happened back in the day i do

I thought about it again. It was Sarah in GTA 4, so set in American accent, but she was quoting Nico, so maybe she was doing a voice. I hope to God she was doing a voice. Jeff, call it. You want Nintendo being secretive or vaginas? Okay. He left! He left us! What choice did you give him? We have to wait till he comes back before we choose. That's so funny. I'll be watching the stream.

Do we think his computer died, or did he hit the end? No, he would be back already. Yeah, he absolutely just left. Welcome back. I honestly couldn't figure out how to get back in. This is so funny, gentlemen. You guys pick one? Yeah, we ended up going with vaginas!

Congratulations, Felix Davin. You just won question of the week. Unless anybody else has another thought. I'm not trying to steamroll this. I'm trying to just pick one. It's almost 1030s. Trying to change it after we've awarded it. There's one in Stardew Valley as well. When you put in favorite food. Oh! It's 12.30 where I am. It's 12.30. Cut the podcast right after that.

Oh, we're getting a bunch of streamers in the back chat. You know how they can do emotes? No, they love you, Leo. They love it. Oh, good. I thought it was my parents. Okay, now it's time for something we call get a load of this.

Thank you. Do you think? We just all sit there in complete silence. Did you see that new show plus suggestion I had in the docket, Leo? It would be fun if we just like choreograph the get a load of this sequence dance.

Like just – yeah. So just like it was like perfect and we just nailed it every time. Wouldn't that be great? I love that. Thank you. That's a good initial place. We'll get in the poll in the future. I hate the quietness we have to do for the song. I won't lie. No one else knows what you're talking about. Hey, get a load of this. There was a podcast that was very good many moons ago by one Robert Ashley who came out of that whole one-up scene, right? And it was called Life Well Wasted.

Suddenly, years and years and years and years down the road, Robert Ashley dropped Episode 9 of Life All Wasted. The original pitch was a little bit of This American Life for video games. And every episode had this amazing Olly Moss art.

But they just dropped episode nine. And Haley, you should listen to this. It's called Game Over. And instead of being multiple stories from the world of video games and the people who play them, instead this one just zooms in. It's all about one topic. But the topic is... People talking about the game that they worked on and it being launched and it did not go well, but they all are like, we can't say what the game is, but it is abundantly clear that it's Concord.

And so it's just an hour of developers who worked on Concord, like talk about how that launch felt. And it is fascinating. It's so good. It's like my favorite piece of games coverage from this year so far.

Like one artist, she was talking about – she had the perfect analogy where she's like, yeah, it feels like you're just bonding with hundreds of people on the game development team and you're working on this thing for four years. And you're working on it for four years. It's like being in high school.

But then imagine at the end of high school, they don't give you a diploma and you didn't graduate and they just kick you out and say, good luck. Like that is what it's like when a game launches and they just shut it down and erased all existence of it ever happening.

They delete every photo of you in the yearbook. Yeah. Well, some of them were talking about it. They're like, I wanted to have stuff to put on my reel, but I couldn't access it, and I didn't get a video of it, and I was just gone forever. It is fascinating to hear, but it's got a good sense of humor about it as well.

So Life Well Wasted is the name of that podcast if you want to check it out. Great show. Haven't listened to the new episode yet, but amazing that there's a new one. Hell yeah. I get a load of this. A little game on Itch.io that's free called Blue Jeweled.

And it's Bejeweled. Bejeweled 3 specifically, but it's modded to have more blue in it. And so... you will you will click on things and more blue than usual will be there and i guess that's all i need to say because it's it's a rewarding play blue jeweled you need to play easy mode bejeweled is what i'm hearing yeah but it's also cerebral

Play more than the first level. It's a real deconstruction of the genre. Cool. Right on. I'm sure it is. Get a load of this. Get a load of this. Get a load of this.

of my things about Dead by Daylight again. Dead by Daylight's crazy right now, you guys. There's so much happening. It's crazy. They're literally like completely changing so much of gameplay to like... punish killers for playing a certain way so there's this thing in dead by daily called tunneling which is a strategy survivors obviously don't like it because one person has a really bad time but it's like the first person that goes on the hook get them out of the game as soon as possible

is essentially the strategy, right? Because then you're only dealing with three survivors and it's much easier to win the game. Person who gets tunneled has a very bad time. And so Behavior was like, how do we account for this? And essentially they just like... Right now it's in the testing phase, so it's not live, but people can play matches. It's like, if you leave someone slugged on the ground, leave them on the ground, they can pick themselves up now.

without a perk, which is insane because sometimes you generally need to leave someone on the ground because for all the other people are around you, what are you going to do? Pick them up, flashlight you in the face? Okay, no, can't do that. I'm a killer main if you can't tell. It's just like completely like...

It's so weird. It's like, also, if you get someone out too early before six hooks, they can do Jens 25% faster. So they're trying to get you to do all the four separate people and kill them? Like... one hook one hook one hook one hook time for the second hooks one hook one hook they want you to be doing that so everyone spends the most time in the game but what happens in reality is they just all are going to like abuse that and some teams might actually just like let one player die

If there's one solo queue player, they'll say, don't save her, let her die on hook, and we'll just stay on gens that go 25% faster and we'll win. All that is to say, the community is crazy right now. It's the craziest place to be right now. From an outsider perspective, it seems like... they've like almost revamped how the game has is working yeah um and somebody said it was like to help get new players in with no perks but like i i don't know no killers are gonna want to play i saw a thread

on our dead by daylight that was just killers if this goes live join the match put on insidious which is just if you stand still you don't have they can't find you and go stand in the corner and we'll show them we're gonna yeah what is it like in game

Is it like stand-in boycotts or stand-in protesting? Like, what is this? Exactly. And so survivors don't want to get killed? Go ahead. You won't even see me all match. Like, that kind of energy. The survivors are like, killer, shut up. This is totally fair.

it's like the weirdest infighting there's it's such a interesting community management perspective where like your own community is like othering each other based on the roles that you've set in the game which is like killer versus survival yes there's very few flex

Dead by Daily players. You're either in the survivor bucket or the killer bucket. There's very few people that dabble in both. Is it because you have to go to, like, specific perks? Like, you have to tunnel them a little bit more? There is no flexibility between them? I think there's just an appeal. Like, I feel like if you're, if you don't have people to play with, you're naturally going to play Kayla because solo queue is so.

awful in dead by daylight it's one of the worst solo queue experiences you can play in games and then if you play with the group you'll always pick survivor because you just can't play with them otherwise so what you have is a bunch of swifts which are survive with friend teams and then no friendless assholes like me who just want to play this game but don't have friends to do the queue with the freaking survivor so I play killer

And then they all are in comms saying, she's over here. Don't come over here right now. And how on earth do I counter that? Because they just all know where I am 24-7. So then they all get the jets done. They all teabag me at the gates. Anyways. I need to have like a dedicated Dead by Daylight time in the podcast maybe so I don't just bogart the...

get a load of this question to talk about Dead by Daylight. Yeah, that was a really bad get a load of this. Yeah, shut up. Sounds like you need more blue gems, Hayley. Doesn't feel so good, does it? It feels great. I'm empowered to talk even more, idiot. There's more? Yeah, there's a new killer. There's a new killer and she's insane. And the reason I'm bringing her up is so I have an easy thing to link, honestly, because I don't know how I link my feelings towards all the killer changes.

so my it's a new killer she's based on Thai folklore and she's terrifying she looks like a normal lady but then her whole body pulls out of her head and And it's just floating internal organs. And then she can... One of her moves is intestinal whip. And she takes her dangling lower intestines and goes like this and hits you with them. It's disgusting. And her Mori is so gross that people's videos on YouTube...

are getting like demonetized because of how graphic and gory it is oh my god dead by daylight youtubers are blurring out her mori which they never usually have to do and like making it black and white and stuff it's crazy that's sweet yeah wow get a load of this Back from the grave, everybody. It's Infinity Nikki with the craziest collaboration. Did you guys see this? Yeah. Infinity Nikki is collaborating with Stardew Valley.

whoa i know i was shocked when i saw it and the girls are pissed there's kind of like a lot of contention in the community because people are like how could concerned ape do this to this evil company that just wants my money to play this game that they gave me for free um so there's a lot of that going on yeah but like it is kind of a crazy collab i think this is probably like the biggest game uh starter valleys collabed with in a while

Um, cause I know they've done like Terraria and they've done like Bellatro, but like they don't do a lot of this kind of stuff, especially with the game that's like 3D. So I watched the trailers. Crazy. So basically you're just going to get what looks like a little sub quest.

And you get a furniture item, which is like a chicken gramophone. And then they revealed one of the three star outfits, which is a cute little farming girl outfit with like a pixelated chicken on the back. And they took the Junimos, you know, those little like green guys.

Um, and they put them in the Infinity Nikki world, but they're 3D. Cool. But they tried to, like, maintain the pixelness? Mmm. I think... doesn't look great it kind of comes out to like a soft gummy voxel style which i feel like doesn't do it for me but just an absolute

out of the box you're like yeah that makes so much sense for that collaboration but i also never thought that i was gonna live to see it yeah happen it's fun to think i haven't even considered that but like of course epic has probably Knocked on the door to be like, hey, can we get Stardew characters in Fortnite? I'm sure that conversation has happened, right? How would that work? Who would they put in? Mayor Lewis? Deadbed grandpa? The homeless guy?

That bad grandpa would be lit to win that victory royale. Maru? Get a load of this. Alana Pierce has a new video called I Asked 20 Game Developers About Stop Killing Games. Yeah. And she kind of just recaps all the different opinions that they got on whether it's good or not.

And the main takeaway is it depends on, you know, what kind of game you're making. But she kind of goes through a lot of different cases and examples. And it's a good kind of, you know, recap to catch you up on that whole... movement and what a bunch of developers are thinking about it. I like how curious Alana is and having the connections and hitting the pavement to talk to all these developers. The way she framed it was very much like, I wanted to post this after kind of...

people stop screaming about that entire thing. Like it calmed down a little bit to see if we can actually get some insight. Yeah, for sure. Hey, get a load of this. Nick from Atlanta shared this in the Discord where people share good little tidbits all day every day. Maybe you guys saw it. It's a Blue Sky post, a little quick video of a reporter who was left speechless after witnessing Japan's new $70 million maglev train in action when it goes by this reporter at 310 miles per hour.

And it's one of those things like you expect the train to go fast, and then it's a double whammy of the train goes way faster than you think it's going to go by them. And the reaction from this reporter is pure bliss. It's really lovely. So links below if you want to check out all this fun stuff.

Except for Haley and Leo's, because if somebody disses somebody else's get a load of this, then they're new. Yeah, it's not included. Mine's really gross also. I feel like I need to do a warning or something. It's really... Really graphic, folks. Yeah, so one of those links below will make you puke. Alright, that's it for this episode. It's Blue Jeweled. Oh my god.

I got the last dunk. And the podcast, and the podcast. You're bad. Thank you so much, everybody, for watching, sharing, listening to the MinMax Show podcast. Any help sharing it online is appreciated. We have a bunch of stuff happening on MinMax. Recently and moving into the future, by God, the new episode of Pew Pew Bang dropped. They're following up the Game Boy Advance episode, of course, with the Wii episode. It's a huge discussion celebrating the...

The Wii and also debating the Wii and all that good stuff. Pew Pew Bank, subscribe to it in a standalone podcast feed or you can watch it on YouTube. Do you all have specific plugs for this episode you want to get out there? You can see my ex has a me. Oh! Ex is Hayley revealed. It's his me. Oh my god. Come check it out. Cool! Cool!

X's. There's also the deepest dive on Metal Gear Solid Delta. That's up. The first episode's up on Min Max's YouTube channel and in the bonus podcast feed if you're a $5 supporter. That is... A two-hour conversation about the opening two hours of Metal Gear Solid 3. So I love that. Literally, yeah, as many minutes as it is. Yeah, yeah, it's fun to match that exactly. So that is just the first episode talking about the Virtuous Mission, but we are...

aiming to give that game the discussion it deserves. So we're covering the rest of the game here this coming week. We'll have a post up on Friday. Today, if you're watching this, listening to this, up on Patreon, where you can submit your thoughts on the game up through the Sorrow boss fight.

So the sorrow boss fight is the stopping point for the next discussion that's going to be airing next week on YouTube and in that bonus podcast feed. So if you want to submit your thoughts, have us read your thoughts on that huge chunk of Metal Gear Solid 3 or Metal Gear Solid Delta. Jump in there and support us on Patreon.

If you jump into that $5 tier on Patreon, you get access to the podcast version of The Deepest Dives, but then also access to BonusPod, where this week Haley talked to Kelsey Lua and all about PAX. It was a very fun conversation about just...

Kelsey's experience about PAX, setting up and tearing down the Pink Gorilla Game Store, but also how to stop... thieves and kelsey's history with talk about her theft procedures yeah it was fun um and also it's just fun to have hayley's be like tell me more about running a shop tell me more and i realize you're just field because of discounty i feel like you're just very in tune with wanting to run a little shop i just feel like kelsey knows so much about business that we

that I want to tap into that she doesn't get to talk about otherwise. Cause she'll be like, Oh yeah, you need to do this on a Thursday because otherwise the gamers don't buy it till next Tuesday. I'm like, how do you know that? Like she just like knows all these things about gamers and what they buy. Which. Yeah, you should – like there are comments on the Patreon post that are like, oh, we want more Kelsey's Business Blast and stuff. So check that out. I'm glad.

Also, New Show Plus this week was very absurd. Don't have the heart to watch the second half quite yet, but it is a game called Guilty as Sock. I can't imagine why. Apparently I was on trial and you were sock people in this game and you debated in a courtroom what happened. I would love to watch your reaction to this. I don't know. Also, let's see. Other stuff on the horizon. We have a...

Travelog for Gamescom coming up, showing Sarah Nana's grand journey. I'm sorry, Janet Nana's, thank you, grand journey there. Also, we have a rapid fire that's in the can, unless Leo deleted the footage. But that should be dropping on Monday for a very anticipated game from 2025. So I'm excited to get out there. One of the most anticipated. I would say probably Kyle Hillier's most anticipated game of 2025. So look forward to that rapid fire on Monday. How's that going, Leo?

Great. I'm done with the assembly. Just want to add some funny clips before the screening tomorrow for MinMax council members. This is – yeah, the coolest thing is I love having Minimax Council members join us for like a rough screening of it because it's actually – you want to see how the sausage is made. If you're at the $10 tier, we'll post that archive of that.

of that whole stream as well where we just kind of break down like okay i think this should be edited this way this should be edited this way all that fun stuff um all right That is it. We've kept you all here too long. Thank you so much for being here. Again, if you want to help support us directly, you can jump in at any tier or upgrade your tier before this coming Monday, September 8th, and we'll send you a Steam code for Spilled.

I promise you'll like playing Spilled. I cannot imagine the gamer on Earth who would not like playing Spilled, truly. So check it out by supporting us. We'll DM you on Patreon and we'll post on social media if you run into codes. But that is it for this episode. Thank you so much, everybody. Greatly appreciate it. All right, we all have to say it together on the count of three. You ready? One, two, three. B. Let's go. Got him.