Hello, everybody, and welcome to a new episode of the MinMac Show, a place about games, friends, and getting better. I'm Ben Hanson, joined by Jana Garcia. Hello! Joined by the one and only Kyle Hilliard!
hello why does it feel like it's been 16 years since you were on this show I think I haven't been on in like... two or three episodes and for kyle that's like 16 years stats recently that i think fans have made of like the most attended right podcast i was number two after you nice congratulations but i'm not here yeah you're right it feels off Speaking of feeling off, we have Jacob Keller. Oh, I'm here and I'm off. And we have Jeff Marquiafava. Me. Oh, hi, I'm here too. On this episode...
On this episode. That was just rude. Yeah, you're right, you're right. We were talking about 2025's Overlook Games. We normally do this at the end of the year.
uh on bonus pod our patreon exclusive podcast on the main podcast we're talking about hey here's like a million games you all should have been playing throughout the year i don't know what's wrong with you i don't know why i didn't uh celebrate these great games that were overlooked and the community rightfully said hey hot shots why don't you do this like
throughout the year why don't you check in more often just make sure there's not great gems that are hidden just below the surface and so that's what this episode of the podcast is all about We're also going to be talking about some newer games. You know what I'm talking about. Why do I even need to tell you? But I will. We're talking a little bit about Deliver at All Costs.
We're talking about a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle video game, the Sea of Stars DLC. Kyle wants to talk about a game called Blades of Fire. which I was like, why does Kyle want to talk about this game that maybe is not that great? But then I saw the developer and I said, oh, now I'm intrigued by Blades of Fire.
uh and then back half of the show we have some great questions people submitted over there on patreon greatly appreciate everybody um okay 2025 overlook games hidden gems i started to make my list and i'm like well Look, it's not like we're bumping these games up in a huge way, but I was like, a lot of the hidden gems, I feel like, technically I talked about on the podcast already. I think like Sunderfolk, I still think is a hidden gem, Star of Providence.
from, you know, Dunkey's Publisher. I really love that game. I don't think that's getting the love it deserves. Rip to the Necrodancer. Despelote, I guess we just talked about last week, but I still feel like that game needs another couple notches up based on how much I loved it personally. Another game. in that camp, in that category that we talked about on the podcast back in February that I have really enjoyed this year and also could use a boost
is a game called Spirit Swap Lo-Fi Beats to Match 3-2. Everybody, this is from the developer SoftNotWeek.
And we lined something up with them. So this game, where it is Pokemon Puzzle League, Tetris Attack, Pendled Upon... um but more queer friendly is kind of their pitch overall here but it's basically that type of puzzle game with spells where if you arrange things in certain ways you can bam attack your opponent great two-player mode in there as well but spirit swap low five beats to match three two to celebrate
hidden gems from 2025. If you support MinMax on Patreon at even the $2 tier, even just $2, if you've enjoyed any of MinMax's content recently, jump in on Patreon at even that $2 tier before this Monday, May 26th. and we will DM you on Patreon with a Steam code for SPIRIT SWAP LO-FI BEATS to match 3-2. Thanks, development team, for sending over 200 codes. We will message on all social media when we are out. But right now, we have...
So if you want a great game and you want to help support independent games media and you think any of MinMax's content recently has been worth two bucks, Jumping in, get a great game, and we can celebrate this thing together. So shout out to the developers of Spirit Swap, Lo-Fi Beats to Match 3 too. Also, you can jump in, or if you upgrade your tier, if you want to jump to the $2 or $5 tier, we'll also...
dm you we'll dm you a steam code for spirit swap lo-fi beats to match three two all right let's get to some other new games some other hidden gems um we asked the community in the discord to share some pics of what they think is a hidden gem from 2025 One that came up quite a bit, and then Jeffum was echoing it as well, is a game called Starvaders that's out on Steam. Jeffum, how would you describe one Starvaders?
I would describe it as a Jeffem game because I have problems. Correct. It's a roguelike deck building game, but it's kind of I guess the core that they built off of is space invaders i assume that's where the vaders comes from but it's essentially uh you'll play a bunch of a bunch of different you'll go through a bunch of different combat missions uh it's actually like
more fleshed out than a lot of roguelikes I end up playing, and there's more story stuff and a solid theme to it. It doesn't take itself too seriously, which I appreciate. But the basic gameplay is... You'll kind of have a big grid, like a Tetris shaped well. Um, And you are a little mech. You control a mech. You can unlock different types of mechs that have different decks and whatnot.
But enemies will come in from the top and then every turn they'll move down closer towards the bottom and you're trying to just get rid of them before they get down to the bottom. That's where they will start. causing damage to you or doom. And if you get too much of that, your run ends. And so to combat them, you have a deck of cards and you will be playing out cards that will let you move or let you shoot. And from there, you're just like, Building up a more and more interesting deck.
pulling off these crazy combos you have different bombs that you can throw out and then you'll get a card that will allow your bombs to actually shoot out projectiles and and it's just like it just keeps it just keeps building and it just keeps comboing and I was I just got completely sucked into it last night because it's like every every it's it's incredibly well balanced and every level that you play it's just like
There are so many enemies. Like, I don't know how I'm going to get through this. And somehow, like, by the time that they're all right down at the bottom, you'll pull off some huge combo and wipe everything off the map. And then you get, like, a big reward. And, you know, you...
go to the store and get more cards and stuff and just keep on building. You have relics or artifacts, which are basically like the passive buffs that you have in all of these types of games. And it's just like, build a really interesting... you know engine that just gets more and more powerful but you're just kind of a little character that's moving around and it's all very positional like where you go and the boss
battles are interesting and then there's just like so many unlocks and different things that you can get to like kind of blow out that pool of different stuff that you can get on future runs yeah we talked about the positioning that was the thing is you know deck building It's a sensitive genre for me. I'm not in love with it overall. And then I looked at gameplay, this thing, and I was like, oh, wait a minute. This is This is, it has flavors of a Mega Man battle network.
Okay, that's what I was going to say, yeah. Have you played Batman Battle Network? That's also what I was going to say. No, I haven't. We're all going to say it. Yeah. Isn't Battle Network, like, more action-y, though, right? Like,
i know there's tactics to it but aren't you like actively pressing a button to shoot in battle network god i don't think so i if i remember i mean it's literally been since the first game came out when i played it but no i think it's just kind of playing the cards or the chips and you're like taking up the different spots in that grid but imagine that except things are kind of descending Space Invaders style.
And that's what Starbiter's is going on. And this is one where, like, don't get too scared off by the deck building of it. Like, if you like tactics games, this is essentially a tactics game where you will just get a ton of different tactics. And which ones you'll be able to use on any given turn is, you know, random as to which ones come up. But, like, it's a really cool system.
Another interesting wrinkle on those kind of games is that each card has a certain amount of heat that it creates, and so that's essentially your cost for playing cards. You can play like three heat worth of cards or whatever. But once you've hit that maximum, you can always play one more card, which like... causes overheating but and so you'll do that card but then that card gets burned for the rest of the encounter
And basically it just means when it comes back up, you can't use it anymore. And that creates like a really interesting dynamic that I haven't seen in many deck builders where it's like, How many of these cards? is it worth it to do this extra thing to take out these three enemies, even though I'm going to now have that burn card for the rest? And it's only for this encounter, so it's not that big of a deal. And so it's like, you're constantly pushing, like, how many cards can I burn through?
Or am I going to get to the point in this match where all these enemies are encroaching on me and then I'm just going to be drawing cards that I can't use? And that's a fun little wrinkle. And they have several interesting mechanisms that are unique to this.
yeah it feels like every deck builder now because it's like such a known trope is like in this one you can cheat in this way like it does because that's like that was the isomancer thing right it's like you can you can change any number on the board where it's like we've all taken like slay the spire as like this is the default and then it's like what if you could cheat it slay the spire and then that's the new game
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it is overwhelmingly positive on Steam for the reviews, and it's like 1,500 reviews. It seems like one that's just going to be growing throughout the year as people discover Starvaders more and more. But yeah, shout out to the developers at Pangonaut. for releasing that thing i think it's going to be growing quite a bit here um janet how was your journey of trying to think back on hidden gems of 2025 what was it like sifting through the piles of stuff you've played
Yeah, it was just me tabbing over into Backlogged and being like, what's in here that I haven't talked about as much on the show? Because, you know, obviously me and Leo and maybe other people keep driving as I think one of the...
games that were running up to try to get more attention on and things. For me, this is kind of back to I guess the debate we had on this both on and off content of like what is a year is it just the number on the calendar um i personally start my hidden gems of 2025 and 2024 because i don't usually i'm usually not playing stuff coming out in December because I'm working on finishing what i had already played doing content and then
waiting for santa um you know that's how i spend my december so yeah i uh my first hidden gem is locked digital for that reason a game that came out december 11th um but i started getting to When I came back in January and looked at, what are some things that released in December that I maybe didn't notice? Yeah, so LOK Digital is the name of this game on Steam. And it is a...
Is it a letter game or a number game? You gotta tell me. It's a tile-based word game, but it's not a word game in what you might traditionally expect. I think when you hear word game, you're thinking of Scrabble and other games that pull.
actual words. These are, like, a made-up language kind of words, and each word has an ability. Basically, you're trying to fill the grid. So you might have, like, a word, like, TLAC, and I think TLAC fills, like, two. So you highlight it, and then you drop ink into two spaces.
So basically what the game ends up evolving into is that you have this grid full of these different letters, and you're trying to... select the proper order of what words you invoke to fill that board like your goal is to fill the board with ink um it's black and white and it has like this incredible animation style to it as well and you kind of have like these little guys hanging out in the overworld and I think it's just like
a really well-constructed but simple puzzle game. I don't think you need to like word games to enjoy this. It's very inoffensive and delightful and easy to get into. It's worth noting, too, this is based on apparently like a... like pen and paper game called lock l-o-k is that the name of the i was wondering you're not actually making like words right like like in the sense of like english words that you know that's
you're getting you're getting like an increasing kind of skill set almost of words so it's like the first I've played like the first four worlds of this now where it's like you first you just get like l okay and the every puzzle is just how do you make
L-O-K in these different ways and fill it up. And then, yeah, then you get T-L-A-K, which is, does something slightly different than L-O-K, and then you get, like, T-A, and that's a third one. And so, it's both remembering all these words that you have but also it's like you will often have a choice where like you can make t-l-a-k or you can make t-a and the order in which you do those things will then affect like what words you can make next And so it's a...
Like, you could actually do the same thing if it was, like, just, like, red, green, blue or something. Like, they don't have to be letters at all. But it's just kind of like creating patterns, and the patterns can kind of mix, and then when you take something out, then you can go over. What I've been struggling with a little, Janet, and I'm curious since you've been playing this for longer, is like Is there a way to do it that's kind of not just trial and error?
Because it does seem like when they get hard, I'm just kind of like doing something and I'm like, well, that doesn't work. And then I do something else and I'm like, okay, maybe that works. And then I like go back two steps and I'm like, I'm like, it kind of feels like I just get it wrong until I get it right.
And I don't know if that's just me not being great at puzzles or if that's kind of what the game is about. Yeah, I mean, I'm like, is that not just all puzzle games? Like, I don't know. I think... I think what you're saying is true. It is a trial and error game, but I think it's a trial and error game the way, like, sudoku can be or the way pit cross can be like i think there is an element of maybe like forward planning that you can have at a quick glance but
I don't think it's unusual to not be able to solve something, especially as they evolve and the grids get bigger and you have more words, which are more abilities. I don't think it's...
it's probably more unlikely than not that you're going to have to do it a couple times over. I think it also has some nice quality of life features with having stuff on the side where it can tell you like all of your words that you have and what their abilities are there's like um i believe there is just like an undo and a reset and there's also a hint as well where it can like kind of fill in
It's like, okay, here's the first stack. I didn't use that, but yeah, that seems useful. I'm playing it on mobile. It is on Steam. And I first started on Steam, but then shortly after the Steam release, they're like, it's coming out like mobile. And I'm like, at least on iOS. I forget if it's on Android too. And I was like...
Give me it on mobile, because I think it's such a good, like, tablet or phone game. It has a really good... It's cool on Steam, too, but... Because you can, like, when you're playing it on your phone, you can, like, just drag your finger to make the words, and you don't have to, like, click things, and...
also to second what you said like The feeling of the game is really good, and even though it has nothing to do with sound, I don't want to play it without sound, because just the little noises of completing the words. is kind of the whole satisfaction. Yeah, totally get it. Is it free to play? I'm like downloading it now, but it doesn't have to play. Oh, it's going to be free to start.
It's like the first three worlds are free or something, which is right. Like I can, I can just buy this thing. Okay, good. Yeah. It was like $6 and it's honestly, it's like, it's a good demo because like, if you don't like those first three worlds, Like, you know, I think you'll get a sense of whether you like it or not within the free version. Yeah. L-O-K Digital. Lock Digital. Janet, I was also delighted that you called out Spilled.
which is a game that came out earlier this year that also is like sitting at overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam and like, I played through it in an hour, had a great time, but I forgot to like carve out time on the podcast to talk about it. So it totally is in this camp of like, yeah, Spilled was great this year. It's just not.
gonna be a juggernaut we're talking about the greatest games of the year but the basic idea is you're a little boat and you're cleaning up a bunch of slime and garbage and gunk in the water but hold on to your butts everybody because this little boat
you can buy upgrades for it, and then you can clean up more slime, and you can move faster, and that's the loop, baby, and by God, if it doesn't feel great to just accomplish this little mission. Yeah, and then, just like a fun fact, this isn't obviously go into like your enjoyment of the game but i think it's cool the developer um lente i'm not sure if i'm pronouncing their name right yeah they worked on this game like this is on the bottom of the steam page they said
I paused school and bought my own small boat to live on, which lowered my cost of living and allowed me to fully focus on Spilled for a while. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I didn't realize this was up your alley, Ben. I wasn't sure if you were into like... kind of clean-up chores-y games. I'm kind of normally like a litter-ish kind of guy, you know? Like, I like spilling oil in the water. But you do like digging that hole, so I guess this is kind of in the same vein, you know? Yes, it totally is.
Somehow, if a game about digging a hole was too much commitment for you, spilled should be right up your alley i think i also played and beat this one oh nice just like yesterday and it is yeah it's like one sitting and it was i had a smile on my face the whole time that's the goal of games i think yeah and so it's like six bucks on steam
Yeah, shout out to Lenten, the developer, I've spilled there. It's a cool little experience. There's a lot of... chores and cleanup games that exist and i've played a lot of them and they're not all like this good um and i think i just want to like mark some of the things that make it sort of stand out in a pretty like saturated market um i think it does a great job
getting a lot out of what its core mechanics are which you're just walking around you're just going around on the boat going over oil spills and then they're gone but they also have like these teeny tiny side quests of like this person wants the beach ball and you're like go get it but it doesn't feel like it's overextending I there's nothing I hate more in this genre space than a game that feels
I can feel as a player that it's insecure about how much of a game it is, how mechanically dense it is. And I'm like, it's so much more than just, you know, executing on the idea. I think it's the way and the little, the little grace notes that really make, I think, Spilt's thing. Yeah. Yeah. And then the pixel art is fantastic in there as well. Yeah. Jeff, there's one that I want to talk about with you. Asterisk.
On this one is the developer has been a supporter of ours for a long time, including having an image on the wall of heroes, our rotating slideshow.
on every Minimax video, for a very long time, and it's very much appreciated. But Trampoline Tales is named the developer, and they released a game... years ago called luck be a landlord which has a fun journey where it was one of the main points of inspiration for the developer of balatro is like yeah let's be a landlord i wanted to make a game like that
All the games that we now refer to as Balotro likes should be Luck Be a Landlord likes. Right. Is essentially where it comes from. I ended up getting really into Luck Be a Landlord.
like a couple months ago i i finally downloaded the mobile version of it and at first it seemed really simple and and you know kind of basic and then I played like 40 more hours of it on my phone and realized, no, that this is like, This is the genesis of all these games, and it has that kind of... fun like build out an engine i'm just gonna keep i'm gonna say that all day and i apologize now
because those are all the games that I like now. But yes, and so his follow-up to that is Maze Mice, which I guess you would best describe it as a roguelike version of pac-man a lot of my games i guess i'm playing like old very old arcade games that have been turned into roguelikes. Yes. Another way of phrasing, just taking old game ideas and then making them extra sticky and compelling because
I looked at Maze Mice, and I'm like, I don't really get what's going on from the trailer here. My main point of reference for it, other than it being on the Wall of Heroes, was when Giant Bomb was exploding. I thought it was a bold move for, like, Jeff Gersman did not post anything about it on Blue Sky.
He just posted a gameplay video of him playing Maze Mice. He's like, hey, check this out. I was like, good job for Maze Mice. Like, of all the people in this moment to have their, you know, social posts filled up by a game, it's Jeff Gerstmann in this moment when everyone's looking to him for what he thinks about Giant Bomb. But...
I jumped in and played it today, and it is really damn cool. Now, here's my pitch, Jeff. You tell me where I'm off or where I'm spot on and a genius for this. It's Pac-Man Championship DX. meets Superhot meets Vampire Survivors. Yeah, and if people aren't familiar with all three of those, otherwise you're just saying gibberish. But yes, it's like... This whole episode has been people saying gibberish. Yeah, it's a big gibberish episode. Lock digital, I mean, come on.
You are moving around a little mouse. You're getting chased by cats in the Pac-Man-like kind of maze. But the mice only move when you, or the cats only move when you're moving the mouse. Right. So it's like an action game. But you can stop and you can think about what you're doing anytime that you want. And like you're constantly leveling up and every time you level up, you'll get a new power like your vampire survivors.
analogy um and those you know they'll shoot out lasers that will hit the cats or you'll drop fire behind you and those will injure the cats you're really just trying to kill cats in as many different ways as you can as they're trying to eat you and then you're picking up you know power-ups that will help level you up and stuff like that and so it was instantly I was also very confused when I saw trailers and things for it and then it's like oh great I love that
I can go as fast as I want, at which point it just feels kind of like you're playing Pac-Man. But then I can stop and I can actually think about where I'm going to go. what's going to be best for the power-ups that I've gotten and things like that. Yeah. Janet, with your love of Ms. Pac-Man, I think you might like Maze Mice. I think I might do it for you. It's got enough of that DNA in there. It's funny because, Jeff, I'm hearing you talk about all these different games that I am also the...
Ew, what is it? Rope? No. Deck? No. And then you hear me talk about it, and I'm like, maybe I miss Josh. And I had the same thing, Ben.
Because I looked up everyone's games, and I was looking at John's games, and I'm like, this is the same game three times. And also, I was like... The trailer also, it just communicated so little, and I am... uh frankly i am really petty with these trailers like i'll go quick quick quick oh yeah and i'm like i don't know i don't get it i don't see what's happening i'm confused and then i just left so yeah maybe you know what i wish this doesn't cost me nothing because
Maybe that is something that's more in my alley than I expected it to be. I think it is, yeah. Maze Mice is the name of that one. uh from mice to face as they say uh jacob face minor might be the weirdest game in this entire batch it What, Windows 95? I suggested two games for this, and I was like, this is, look, we're making fun of Jeff for being on his bullsh**, but this is, like, me on the most Jacob Geller bullsh**. We're Face Miner.
is a clicker game where you are working in some dystopian tech company where your job is simply to click on faces and you're getting these data packs And it's just full, it's just faces, and you kind of keep thinking, like, What's that?
am i supposed to like do something more am i supposed to be like finding things and it's like no you just you just click on faces and it'll be like a nine grid and like seven of them will be faces and two of them will be like static or like a picture of a fire extinguisher or something And you just do that, and then you, like all clicker games, you're kind of buying things to automate it for you, where you buy things that click on the faces in addition to you.
And then eventually, the faces are going by too fast for you to click, but you're buying computer upgrades to do it faster. But the real pull of this, is is the aesthetic uh context of it because it it's just insane where it's like it kind of um a windows xp looking desktop is what you're looking at that has a bunch of different windows open and one of them is the face clicker and then one of them is like your computer stats or whatever but then it has
there's like a music little bubble that's open and that's where the music in the game comes from and it's always playing this kind of like early 2000s break core yeah it's really just like it's music to like zone out and click faces to and then we all know that genre we're all familiar with that the weirdest part and it's like this is this is where the real money is is The kind of story of the game...
is communicated through emails that you're getting. And you're like, well, I don't want to stop clicking on faces to read the emails. But you don't have to because every time you get an email, it just automatically starts reading it out loud in a little... speech to text voice and all of these things are happening at once so you're clicking on faces and it's playing break core and then it's just like
From FaceClick organization, did you know that clicking faces increases your happiness by 20%? And they're just like, it's all happening on top of each other. And it's really... weird and cool. Janet, I'm very curious how you got on with it. Yeah, I was just, I sat down and I was like, okay, we're hitting all these games, like 15 minutes to pop. I'm going to have like three sentences to share at the end of this for my night of work.
and i got to this one and i set the 15 minute timer same deal i'm like cool um i will say i didn't set it up for the best success because i did play on steam deck where things are tiny so it is definitely better but you have to zoom in and you can you can do it it's just like not as easy, you know, or whatever. This one, the timer went off, and I kept clicking. I gotta be honest, this thing grabbed me by the wrist. Yeah, I...
I'm so glad they made that decision to do the read aloud from the emails. And frankly, I hope every game in this sort of like, whether it's like a clicker or a point and click story game. steals that because
I don't like reading a bunch of notes. Even in a game where it's really well constructed, even when that's the whole game. Especially, I think, a game like this where you have a task and then you have, like, the emails or the documents as, like, ancillary information that kind of helps fill the lore like being able to do that all simultaneously
It was super nice. So I really liked that part. And I also liked how it served as like a layer of tutorialization. I thought that was super effective because when I started playing it, I was just doing like, I was just clicking on the faces. And then when the emails popped up and they're like, Oh, the music will help you focus. Like, click on your music player. And I was like, yeah, then I was like...
oh, this is like great work music. And I was like, and then once I got everything automated, I was like then doing nine things that I'm like, okay, let me go on Slack and thumbs up these questions for the pod. I didn't end up finishing it. I'm not sure how long it would take because I was leaning a little bit more into the... At first I was doing it all manual and then I started leaning into the automation. But it's not that long of a game. I will say,
It is surprisingly long, actually. I did, I finished it because I love, like, this is another... It's another clicker game about capitalism, very much in the, like, universal paperclips lane, which is a game that I really love. And it's like, you gotta play for a long time, eventually. i won't i won't actually spoil what you have to do to finish the game but like it becomes you completely stop clicking on faces at some point it's going by way faster than you could ever comprehend but it's like
Your computer, like you need to upgrade your CPU to be able to run all the automated clickers and then you need to upgrade your computing and then are like your cooling. So the computer stays cool and eventually you're buying like.
cloud computing shares and other things but the really weird thing and this is kind of revealed once you beat the game but I think that people should know is like When you beat the game, you get the ability to write an email that i assume is being broadcast to other people's games so some of the emails that you're reading because it's like some of them are from like facebook or corporation but some of them are from like
another person working at the face clicker company. So it's a strand game. Yeah, it is. And you're hearing things, and it's all read by the same text-to-speech voice, but some of them are from other places.
and I don't know if they're like hand picking them but they all like i never got one that i was like why is that in here like they were all like felt within the logic of the thing and it's just this yeah it's a really weird aesthetic experience that's cool yeah i like the little stories from people were fun of the sort of like oh there's one where it's like
Hey, like, is anyone else, like, a face-miner out, like, in this city? Like, we're doing a meet-up if anyone wants to come through. It's, like, really lonely doing this job, and then other people that have, like, a side gig and things. Like, I thought it was... like surprisingly solid and I think the sound design is really good which again like those things I mean they matter in every game but especially a game like this where so much of it is do you feel like
can you almost put yourself in the role of this character that you're like positioned as is the protagonist and it's like yeah when I was clicking you got that good sound and I was like this is a job well done and then I'm like I'm getting kind of tired and the game's like are you getting tired? I'm like, I am getting tired. It has a nice immersive layer to it that I think isn't easy to pull off. I'd like to continue playing it and see it through. I'm a little scared that you said it
Longer than I expected. The holiday means like two hours. But I don't know. That's not true. I mean, well, that website's always lying. That website's always lying. It was three and a half for me. And maybe you could optimize it. better or you could have it running in the background but like I actually found you had to be pretty active unlike something like cookie clicker where i was like i was kind of messing with all my little systems.
pretty actively gotcha does it end up being kind of more than what it is in that first hour like narratively is there like a narrative juice that you're like oh yeah that you you should see it through because you're gonna get these really intriguing bits that are beyond what you've already gotten yes more of the same No, it becomes...
It becomes incredibly on the nose, but a very interesting thing that it does not initially appear to be. And, like, I did... The ending is fun, and the way that you reach the ending is... It is entertaining to get to. Okay, cool. There is a game that Devolver just released. And I'd imagine based on the name alone, people are like, what is this? I don't think I want to play this. Moving on. But I might point you back. It is surprisingly fun. There is a game called Shotgun Cop Man.
Have you seen this one? Yeah, going around. It's from the developer who made My Friend Pedro from a couple years back, which was the Max Payne meets a banana game, if you recall that whole thing. But Shotgun Cop Man, I was playing this morning, and I was like, uh-oh, I think Jacob Gellar would really like this game. If you ever gave it a whirl, Jacob, where it's
You're using your guns to propel yourself off the ground. That's your jump. Kind of Jetpack Joyride style as you're propelling around. Cave story. Cave story style. Cave story style, exactly. It's perfect on a steam deck. for just a little action game. It feels like a fantastic Flash game, which I know you have a soft spot in your heart for. Sure. And then the most compelling part is right out of the gate, like text on the screen, mission number one is Go to hell.
and arrest satan all right i am interested shotgun cop man so it's one of those just like super twitchy fun uh simple action with harder and harder levels and it's like all right this is gonna be a staple on my steam deck for a while as i blast for this entire thing but shotgun cop man don't look past it everybody it's it's devolver they know how to pick them you know Yeah.
Jacob, I didn't hear you say, ooh, ah, I'm so in. I'm sorry. I'm looking at the gameplay. It looks very ooh, ah. It looks, yes, it does look Uh, very flash gaming. Something looking ooh-ah and actually having an ooh-ah reaction. Those are two different things. Well, look, I'll see if I ooh and ah when I ask Ben for a code for this after the podcast. Okay, all right, that's a fair trade. Jeff, what the heck is this? You said there's a game called Starless Abyss, and I said, my dead body.
Yeah, it In addition to being... another game with star in the title it is also another deck building roguelike game where you're fighting things in space i'm sorry I'm sorry, guys. Janet, you said you've been won over by a couple of my description of games. This is not going to be one of them because this is kind of like Starlighters. Thank you for being honest.
Yes, it's kind of like Starfighters, but it's kind of like the more complicated, darker version of it, where it's like, it's very tactics heavy. You're now, like, you're on a big hex grid with a bunch of different enemies that pop up, and you're controlling... three spaceships that you're moving around, so there's a much heavier...
Focus on figuring out your positioning because you need line of sight for your different attacks and things. And then you only have one deck of cards, but you're deciding... which of each ship is going to use which cards because basically also in this game when you do attacks it causes
which you have to manage as a thing. This is a separate different game, though. It is. So you're spreading out against your different... different ships what's what's also interesting about this one though and is a good selling point is that like the music's awesome and it has like great pixel art and it has this really weird theme of like
Basically, in our pursuit of technology, we've ripped holes in space and now unreality is coming through. It's all very eldritch coded and it's like, scientists in this future just started teaming up with the occult and like you know like
Eldritch you know like cult worshippers in order and then like and they created this team to go out and kill These elder gods that are coming through and so like all the enemies are these grotesque weird enemy you know like floating eyeballs and things and it's all you know super well animated pixel animation and great soundtrack and yeah you're trying to figure out like a much deeper kind of
combat strategy. A little FTL-ish, but it's still turn-based. So if you're looking, if you like more grandiose kind of strategy games, this is an interesting twist on that. Starless Abyss. And check the description if you want a name for all these games. Check that out. On the topic of doing things in spaceships, can I just say this is an honor to talk about
But I beat Skin Deep this weekend, and, like, it's not a Leo Vader game! I mean, it is, but, like, it can also be a you game! Sometimes I get kind of scared by how deep Leo goes into games, and I'm like, well, I'm too dumb to do that. But, like... And Skin Deep, it rules. Yeah, you're rescuing cats on Spaceship's immersive sim. Yeah. Yeah. That's all. I just wanted to say it's like,
It can be a you game, too. I still don't believe you. Yeah, that seems like nonsense. On the Leo front, by the way, I asked him other games. He wants to make sure I get a shout-out on this episode. Yeah, he mentioned Keep Driving, which you're referencing, Janet.
And then he was screaming again about Promise Mascot Agency. Like, don't overlook that game. It's very good. I started it, but I was like, a little bit too much reading when I was on my exercise bike. But I got to go back to it at some point here. Yeah, I started that. I want to get back to it. I really like what I played. It kind of has like, which Leo sold at the time, but it has kind of like a GTA 3.
kind of, like, mechanical vibe sometimes, or it feels like I'm playing, like, a PS2 open game. You're driving around, yeah. Yeah. It feels like a, if a Yakuza side quest, because it has to do with Yakuza, if that makes sense, if a Yakuza side quest was a whole game. Mm-hmm. Yeah. kind of energy, which is pretty fun. Jacob, what is Moves of the Diamond Hand?
Okay, so get ready for some more Jacob P.S. I'm scared. There's this indie developer named CosmoD who I've been a fan of for several years now. who is maybe best known for like this game called the Norwood suite or something, but they're, they're all very, I'm like the best known thing you probably still haven't heard of. Um, but,
But Cosmo D has this incredibly distinctive audio style because he does all his own music and it all rules. It's this kind of like new jazz and a visual style, which I would kind of just describe as like asset clash the aesthetic where it's like everything is a very weird and mismatched and kind of the scale of everything is something off it almost looks like
you know, like the weirdest illustrated kids book you had, you know, like it just, it has, it has kind of, it reminds me of like kids books that I would read and it would kind of make me nervous because I didn't quite understand the illustrations. I'm sure. I'm sure.
silently watching the trailer together right like we're all like it kind of is killer seven a fair comparison jacob it kind of just like yeah a little bit i think killer seven is more like aesthetically cohesive this this is a real like lots of different things but yes it is
It is that level of weirdness. And so Moves of the Diamond Hand is the first I think it's I think it's episodic and right now there's a demo out but that demo is just like episode one of the game and it's this kind of It's basically like a dice rolling game or like a tabletop RPG where you just, there are just a bunch of people and stuff around and you just go and talk to them and do skill check.
But you the main mechanic is you can upload or you can you can upgrade the sides of your dice to just like make your rolls better. And you have six different skills that you can do this with, but the skills are all wacky, or at least a lot of them are. So there's, like, deception or wisdom that are normal things, but there's also, like, cooking or music or, you know, humor. And The situations have a lot of different ways of getting past them.
And so you can just be like, my guy is going to be a funny cook. and then you just upgrade those, and then you get past everything by nature of your culinary skill. Not even joking, this is what I tried to do in Starfield. It did not work, so I think I need to go play this game. Yeah, and it's like, then the gameplay itself is just kind of rolling dice against other people's dice.
But it has nice things like you can actually reroll up to three times. And so you're like, you're really able to kind of shake the odds, you know, towards your own ends. But again, kind of like Face Miner, it's just a game that you play for the aesthetic experience, and you're walking through, and there's like... you know, this giant pigeon walking around and then you have to, like, have a conversation with the pigeon and if you do that, you can get the item below it and
there's like a whole mayoral race going on and you're learning about the different mayors that are running and one of them is like a clone and then there's another clone that's like well i am programmed to speak positively about the mayor but also as a clone, I do support him. And it's just like, I don't know. I think, I think it's worth people trying out because it's free, first of all. And like,
If you click with this guy's aesthetic, there's kind of nothing else that scratches the itch. And then you can go back and he has like four or five other games that you can play that are exploring. the same aesthetic but also they are interconnected like textually where like you'll hear people reference things that happened in other games and so Having been with this developer for like six years now, I'm like, you know, I'm getting like Stephen King
connections where I'm like, oh, they reference dairy. I know what that means. It's just kind of like I'm seeing how things are connected. You're one of the real fans. That's right. Moves of the Diamond Hand is the name of that game. Donfolk is another one that the community was championing and screaming. Janet and Jeff, you played Donfolk? Yeah. Okay. Is it a deck builder? What are we working with with Donfolk?
No, it's not a deck builder. It's a city builder. Oh, all right. Before you leave, before you leave. I also feel that way about city builders. I mean, I think everyone, you know, we have genres we like and ones that we maybe kind of avoid because we don't like them as much and we're not as good at them. For me, City Builder is kind of in that, I don't know, all that kind of realm. Even though I like decorating, but I don't like the strategy of building oftentimes.
Super simplifies it, because you're kind of just building out things as little tiles. You also have, like, a really useful tutorial onboarding for this little, like, flame guy who honestly looks just like calcifer like this is calcifer basically legally distinct calcifer maybe not that legally distinct i don't know hang on help me out who's calcifer Like Studio Ghibli! Yeah, Cousifer. Cousifer. Billy Crystal. Nope, sorry. Cousifer is not in my rotation. I'm sorry.
Forgive me. I'll add that. Okay, so you have two things to do now. You gotta do that. You're showing your kid at home, huh? Uh, box. weird scary books jacob was talking about and you're not reading a howl's moving castle i'm sorry i'm sorry calcifer he's my main man i love calcifer yeah reading reading curse children's books that jacob was referring to that are like it's something about the
This feels unsettling to look at. But yeah, and it also has some light minigames and you can hunt and then do a little tiny minigame that kind of reminds me of an Oregon Trail structure. And it has this fun layer of your sort of uncovering the darkness um so there's like mechanics you can use to like reveal a space and then you can then put things on that space and there are um similar to like i think most city builders there were kind of
random events that could happen like uh and it also has like a bit of a dark edge to it like one thing that happened in my uh early playthrough was Some type of, like, monolith or structure appeared that like was like a dark structure and then I let it be there for too long and they're like The game's like, people in the town have started worshipping the darkness because you didn't destroy them. Hell yeah.
Gave me a little bit of that, like, the kind of fun, the goofy dark fun I had with Cult of the Lamb. I felt a little bit in this. But, yeah, Jeff and Musa, you also had a chance to check it out. Yeah, this was the last game I played last night and just played it way too long and got no sleep because of it. It is really...
Really interesting take on city builders because it is all just like a big tile grid that you're exploring and you're expanding out one you know one space after another and you have like four different resources i think four or five different resources but it the game does a really good job of communicating to you those resources because it just lists how many you have of each one and then above that it will tell you the number of like
Either you're making plus this many each turn or you're losing them. And so you don't really have to be that in the weeds. At any time, you can just look up and be like, I'm making... the least out of these things, so I'm going to plant another farm because that's what I need right now. And then you can upgrade different tiles as well. And it seems like they have a ton of different modes that you can play. The thing that got me last night was I unlocked the puzzle mode.
and it gives you there's like a daily challenge for puzzles And it gave me a much smaller grade. It was like five by five. And then they just wanted you to make, you know, like, Have it so that you're making 15 light every turn. And you basically had pretty much unlimited resource.
And so, like, I put on a couple churches and things, and then I got the 15 light. And then it was like, okay, now do 25 for a silver medal. And that was a little harder how I packed things. And then the gold medal was 30 light. And I must have played for like an hour and a half. Like it's, it's so got under my skin because I get to like 28 light and it's like,
Well, now what the hell do I do? How do I squeak out two more? I guess I can demolish all these churches and I can rebuild them in like a checkerboard pattern so there's houses next to every church because each church. tent or each house will give that church an extra light and like I puzzled on that for so long until I finally figured it out and got to go to bed.
five in the morning but but it's just like a really interesting like it is as much a puzzle game as it is a city building game and that's that's what really drew i'm not the hugest city building fan either but but it's very much like Spatial puzzle, figure out how you're going to configure these things so that, you know, your farm is next to your fields and, you know, the church is next to the tents and like all those kind of things. And that's really sad.
You pointing out that placement plays a big role as definitely a key component to the game as well, like you mentioned, where it's like, okay, well, if you put your fields in this order, they're getting the maximum amount that they can get. Those are just fun... things that can happen like on top of my weird like the darkness was being a worship story there's also things like you send people out to fish
One hasn't come back yet. What do you do? Do you go get him? I'm like, yeah, we're going to go get him. And they're like... Hey, so where he was, there's some really good resources, but he's kind of sick and needs to go home. What do you do? Do you get the resources or do you take them back? I'm like, where do you get the resources? And they're like, he died. I'm like, oh my god, I'm a bad person. So I really like
those kinds of little things again that's kind of the and many games do this but you know Oregon Trail was one of the early ones of those that I played as a kid that I kind of attribute some of those just like quick quick narrative bits that you get that you know it's not necessarily driving like a whole story there's a campaign as well which for me i'm um
On credit, sicko, I don't really like playing games just for fun. I like playing them for completion and saying, look, I was a good lad and the game gave me a pat on the head in the form of showing me who made the game. So it has that if you want that. But Jeff, it was cool that you got to check out Those are their modes, because I've just only been working through the campaign so far.
Yeah, I just jumped into the puzzle one and it seemed like there were... a bunch of other weird you know like it seems like once once they created the basic system they were like okay how many different ways can we play with it if we give you this configuration like can you figure out how to do this and uh
and it looks like there's a bunch of extra content there, as well as sandbox mode and all kinds of things that you can keep playing forever. I'm super enamored by that one, too. Donfolk is the name of that one. I'm sure we've missed I don't know, probably 3,000 games that have been great this year that aren't getting the love they deserve. So leave a comment on YouTube or you can send it to us on Blue Sky or wherever you want.
with your pick for an underrated game from 2025 here. And... Remember, December counts. Apparently! News to me! Bye! The Discord rounded up some of their favorites as well. Don't play Indiana Jones. That's exactly what I was hinting at. Guess what? It's definitely winning game of the year for us in 2025. It's only right. It's only fair.
But the community also had a ton more picks of games that they want to celebrate. That's going to be the subject of an upcoming episode of Bonus Pod, our Patreon exclusive podcast with Haley, as we'll run through all those games to celebrate picks from the community as well, to do our best to try and cover. This gosh darn industry. Kyle, when we think about doing our best,
You think about preparing a nine-course meal. Think about like your Easter, Kyle, where you're in the kitchen for days and days getting ready to make sure everyone's well-fed and happy and smiley, right? Yeah, you gotta make the food well in advance, apparently, so you have to remake it on the day. That's it. You gotta make it a thousand times. But this is the thing, Kyle. Imagine. Let me paint this scenario. You, at your next Easter feast, and you say, Hey, everybody!
I just woke up. I know it's four in the afternoon, but I just woke up and I'm in my PJs and I don't care because... Roll with me in this role-playing scenario and you're like, hey, I don't even care because look at me I'm gonna put all of our meals in the microwave for two minutes and they're gonna be better than anything I could Cook for days in the kitchen. Thanks to factor meals, Kyle.
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eating candy at Easter. All your other favorite activities instead of that Easter feast. So this is primarily an Easter-based service? I was just thinking this is a weirdly religious undertone, or overtone, I guess. That's right. Roll that boulder out of the way and sprint to a factory meal, everybody. You can get outside. Instead of prepping and cooking indoors, they have 45 weekly menu options. You can get started at factorymeals.com slash minmax50off.
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can't live with them can't live without them but what if konami published a game about them there's a new game this one's not a sponsor that's right this one's called deliver at all costs you know we referenced gta 3 earlier for a promised mascot agency imagine like a really good looking version of kind of a gta 2 um and that's kind of the vibe we're going with with the liver at all costs where it's an isometric game
But the big hook, I'd say, is destructibility, which we're all suckers for on this call. Every gamer out there loves full destructibility, and so you are plowing through buildings. running through so many things. You're trying to make these hot deliveries. A lot of us checked out Deliver at All Costs. Jeff, I'm most curious maybe about you because you played the most of this game here. Yeah, I'm probably...
like 12 or 15 hours into it. Yeah, it is, such a weird mishmash of of things that don't completely go together well but like it has kept me thinking about it for a long time the core gameplay yes is just drive cars around and smash through buildings and have wacky hijinks and it's And like, and really built around that. So the point where you get upgrades for your cars
And it's like three fourths of them just seem like have no other purpose other than being stupid and fun. Like the first one I got. was hydraulics for my doors where now if I press a button the doors flip open and the hood flips up and like there's no use for that other than driving up next to pedestrians and flipping it out so that you hit them and they go flying across the screen like that's just
The only reason that exists and like you can get airbags on the outside of your car that will like inflate. And it's, it's just like, dumb destructive and physics based you know fun stuff but then like the story like they go they put so much they put so much more effort into the story then is warranted or like that most people probably want and and like the character like like it's actually it's it's actually very
a very serious story, what it means to be. Like, sometimes it's goofy, and it's like, oh, there's a commercial for constipation. Of course there is. And then, but like the core, most of the core story is that like, You are some kind of genius engineering savant who's fallen on hard times. Now you're working at this delivery company because an old man was generous enough to hire you. His son's kind of the asshole who's like the big business man.
But like the rest of the story is that the company's not doing well. And like, has to lay off a bunch of people and like the work conditions just keep getting worse and worse and like you really don't want your best friend to get fired and so you're doing missions to like
to sabotage other companies which is when it gets super goofy again but you're doing it so that your best friend doesn't get fired and it's like and then there's stuff like you'll get a flashback about your character and it turns out there's like this horrible family abuse in his in his background, but all the characters look like Maybe Hitman 1 level character models? Your main character looks like Carl the Jedi from Jedi Survivor if he got turned into a cursed ventriloquist doll.
And so it's just like such a weird mix. I will go out and I'll do a bunch of crazy stuff and I'll like drive through entire buildings until they fall to the ground. Right. And then like learn all this weird stuff about the characters that you're like. terrible, I guess. how's he going to feed his family when this is all and it's just like and your character has this dark past that
That like the son who runs the company is determined to find out. I don't know what to think about it. I really, I enjoy the wacky gameplay and everything else. Like, i guess i will remember the characters more than i would if this was just it's like if sega made crazy taxi again but was like let's make this like the main character the most complicated person with this very intricate backstory and like really think about it it's just like what are you doing and then like I don't want to
I don't want any spoilers. I thought I was getting towards the end of the game. and there's this big big very exciting mission uh and then like a bunch of things changed, and it completely blew out. Like, the game is way bigger than I thought it was going to be, and you go over to different places, and, like,
There's much more to this game gameplay-wise and content-wise than I thought there was going to be. Even the fact that you said you had played for 12 hours, like me having played for 30 minutes, am shocked to learn that the game is 12 hours long, and apparently it's much longer than that. Yeah, I mean, and, you know...
Caveat that I anytime you put me in an open world game I don't focus enough on what I'm supposed to like there are crates and different things that you can like run around and find and also I just like there's no fall damage in this in the game like if you climb up onto a building and you jump off your character just ragdolls when they hit the ground and then you just get up after a second and like keep on running and and like And I spent hours in the original Red Dead just like
going around and pushing people off of you know like saloon balconies and stuff because I like the physics of it and stuff your two abilities in this game when you're on foot is you have a button to kick stuff which is really just like kick garbage cans and stuff and they go flying over and then you have a shove button to just shove people and like the tutorial tells you like hey if you ever get stuck somewhere because there's an npc you can push them out of the way
That has never happened to me in this game. I don't even know when that would happen. But, like, I've shoved a thousand people in front of cars when I'm running around. It's just like... It's stupid open-world physics-based mayhem, but also they really want you to care about that story and the character. Is it working?
Not in the way that I think they want it to. I have just been like, staring at the cut scenes thinking like what the hell is going on and why did they do this so in a way it's very interesting but like Not in the way that I think they were intending. Ha. Deliver at all costs. Yeah, Far Out Games is the developer there. I started playing it and I... Have not given this game a fair shake. But it was...
It was, like, the opposite of those, like, um, the Sakurai explains, like, get to what the player wants to be doing, where, like, the opening minutes of the game you're just like walking back and forth in an apartment while a guy talks to himself and i'm like isn't this a game about like driving into buildings and knocking it like the amount of dialogue versus driving you do in in the opening 20 minutes is so incredibly weighted on
this story that i haven't been convinced to care about yeah it's it's pretty it's baffling and then also and i'm curious if you get used to this like I kind of assumed it was going to be a crazy taxi-style city that you're driving around, but actually it's subdivided into a lot of small regions, which is probably necessary for, like, the destruction to work, but, like,
It meant I was hitting loading screens every 20 seconds driving through the city, which also was not what I wanted to be doing. There are like six zones or whatever that you go through, and they just...
That has to be a technological concession. And they did not seem to... take that into account for a lot of the missions where it's because it's like a lot of you know you'll finish a mission they'll be like okay go back to you know the headquarters and it's like that's three zones away i'm gonna have two loading screens on the way and on ps5 it's not that long but it's like
You're still sitting there for a couple seconds while you're waiting for your car has gone through one tunnel and you're waiting for it to come out the other one. That certainly is weird, and it is certainly not. a crazy taxi style game where it's like
I think everyone sees the trailer and thinks, okay, I'm a delivery guy. I'm just going to, you know, I'm going to take something here and then I'm going to get another thing and I'm just going to go here. And like, you know, it's going to be more of an arcadey thing. That is super not what. happening here. And it is very weird. It was a weird decision to put that much emphasis on story and
the characters when most people probably just want to unlock the goofy upgrades and put a rocket on your truck and fly it through buildings. Kyle, do you know who published that game? Yeah, Konami. Konami? Which is odd. There's nothing about... I mean, I guess I don't know what a Konami game is in 2025. ultimately, you know, a Silent Hill 2 remake and a Metal Gear Solid 3 remake. But yeah, I never would have guessed it was Konami.
you know like yeah in front of me it is funny i mean we talk all the time but they have like konami still releasing games like they are making some interesting choices for smaller games that they've been pumping out recently you know so it's another one in their in their belt there
so Konami just like the greatest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games of yore in the arcade right which brings us of course to the new game from Strange Scaffold one of Jacob's fair developers this is TMNT Tactical Takedown big excitement was hey the developers of I'm your beast and what's your favorite strange scaffold game checkup
I don't know, you always introduce Strange Scaffold as Jacob's favorite developer in a way that I, I guess I've played a lot of their games. Yeah, I was literally thinking that too. I'm like, didn't Jacob, like, you know, 32 episodes ago say, you always do this, but I never said this. And I was like, maybe I hallucinate. that because she didn't say anything and then right now you're like wait
Okay, yeah, see, he loved I Am Your Beast. He is obsessed with it. He won't stop slacking me about it. Yeah, he's got a whole decal system on his car in real life in honor of I Am Your Beast. He's kind of weirdly obsessed with it. One of the songs from I Am Your Beast is on my workout playlist. Ah, okay. Alright, you're a fan. Probably once a week. Sit down, you're a fan. But then also, creepy redneck dinosaur mansion that they just released this year as well. But this is...
the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game that is a tactics game, and we're still early in this whole thing. Janet, are you digging it so far? Yeah, I'm wildly early because, again, that 15-minute timer went off and I went to go find some faces. But I really liked what I played of it. I felt like I liked the... stylish look to it has kind of like a comic book feel in the art and the animation um yeah and I think I enjoy stuff that can
get more i mean it sounds dumb to say like it's a tactics game so positioning matters because that's always true but i guess like early on abilities that lean into that i think sometimes with like a tactics game it's a little bit too
slow to roll out what you're capable of doing but you know right away like positioning is very relevant not just in the moves you can pull off but also the way they do the levels where like part of the level drops out and then more of it forms i thought that was super
cool and fun where it's like okay get out of the red zone before it like drops out but you can also sort of use that to your advantage to maybe like leave an enemy behind or like push them off like there's nothing better in a game than pushing someone off a ledge it's like killing someone
that's like work pushing them off at full health yes when they have like five hearts for health and it's like i'm going to kick you and you are going to be gone and then i'm never going to have to worry about you again yeah i mean are you digging it I am, yeah.
It is an interesting kind of, I love, I love when tactics games like have their own unique feel to them. And this one, in addition, like in addition to the comic book stuff, like it, it's very like, tabletop coded where like your characters it's a little like Hitman Go where it's like your characters are they have like a literal mini base that they're on and they're standees so like you're moving them around they do like they still animate and it's cool that like when you do an attack
like the pose will change and then you'll kind of be frozen in that pose after you do it or you hit a bad guy and they'll kind of be frozen you know after they get hit or whatever um but like in terms of the tactics it's Like you can do a lot in a single turn. You have like. Six action points, and most of your actions only take one action point. And it feels a little like Into the Breach, which is another one of my favorite tactics games. Wait, hang on. That stupid robot pushing game?
Yes. Robot pushing game. I've never heard of that one. Yeah. That's not one of the best Switch games, right? That's very definitive, right? That's the one, yeah. But it sounded really, really fun. Like, a lot more fun than the other games you put on the list.
uh but but yeah so like it's like that in that they they will hit you with just a ton of enemies and it's like you have to figure out how to clear this little this little area of as many enemies as you can because as soon as the next turn starts They're going to drop like five more enemies on there, and you will just get flooded with guys if you haven't cleared out the last group. But they give you enough tools and enough different abilities
to mostly take care of most of them. And I have appreciated that Each Ninja Turtle has, like, completely different skill sets and, like, some really interesting stuff where it's like, okay, if you do this attack and it defeats someone, you will get the action point back that it costs. And so it's like, okay, so, like,
so if i whittle them down with this attack first then this then this one basically becomes a freebie and i'm going to end up being able to do like eight attacks instead of you know six or whatever and it's like figuring out how each ninja turtle kind of
is able to control the battleground is really interesting. And then like Janet said, I really like the levels end up being pretty big, but you're just playing in small chunks and then pieces fall off, new pieces come in, and so you're kind of having to figure out...
you're trying to position yourself in places where the enemies aren't the enemies that you can't get rid of aren't going to be able to get to you to attack you but sometimes it's like well i'm way in the red zone and i and i just have to get over there before you know like I fall off next turn. And that's really interesting too. I feel to some extent like they...
Like, the ninja turtle-iness of it is kind of lacking. Don't say that part. Don't say that part. Really? I kind of like maybe that early feel of it, though, where it doesn't, I feel like sometimes, especially with, like, this, like, licensed IP, they're like, and this is where we remind you. what the IP is and I feel like the I like that it's less in your face but there's still like those integrations of oh these turtles have different
Personally, I'm not a freaking Turtles expert, okay? I didn't re-watch Secret of the Ooze before I jumped into this game, but I had the VHS and watched it more than I should have for how good that movie was.
But yeah, I like that they lean a little bit into what their personalities are. But Jeff, you feel like you wanted more ooze from this dialogue? I feel like any other Ninja Turtle... incarnation that i've seen has had more personality and kind of a more interesting even those old live action movies like this feels like it was made by by people who who like
they made it based on their impressions of what they remember about ninja turtles and kind of like well okay it's it's for you know it's like let's make a family story about the ninja turtles and i remember that Michelangelo was the party dude and it's like There have been good animated Ninja Turtle movies.
you know, where, like, they're actually much more, like, teenagers and, like, the original comics have, are, like, more adult and super weird and it's just like of all the avenues that you could have like picked for the Ninja Turtles this is kind of just the most basic plain Jane version of them. They're below the avenues. Alright, TMNT, Tactical Takedown. Curious to hear everyone else's thoughts on this thing if we jump in more.
Friend of the show, Charles McGregor, who's been on the podcast and was on The Deepest Dive for Last of Us Part II and stuff. He worked on this game over there, so shout out. That's cool. There's another game that we talked about years ago, and oh, how we loved it. Oh, how we rejoiced. And now the DLC has launched. Kyle, is this free DLC? It is completely free to the point of, like...
bizarre, I don't know why this is free. Being a bad idea. And I'll have an interview on Game Informer soon. I have to transcribe it with the director. And he basically said, like, yeah no this didn't make economic sense really for us to to make this free but it's like it's like an eight hour story expansion for sea of stars that
It's like a whole new area, a whole new art style. In the story context, the characters change clothes, and they have completely different attack styles, so they're not even using the same animations from the original game. It's really substantial.
And I really like it. It's really good. I did finish it. Okay, so this is, yeah, Throws of the Watchmaker for CF Stars. Is it, I mean, is it like launching from the main menu? Like if people don't really remember where they left off in CF Stars, is it still available? yeah it was it's i did have a moment like i did boot up my save and i was like okay i gotta remember how to do this and i pretty quickly a character is like hey we gotta go back here
And I had a moment of panic where I was like, well, okay, I don't remember how to get back there. And thankfully the game just is like, we're taking you there. If you start this dialogue, we're going to take you there. And then the thing that's really nice is it actually...
Totally acknowledges it's like we know you haven't played this game in a while right so you're going to go into this brand new area where you have a bunch of party members you can pick from for the main game we're actually going to pick one for you there is like one character that you can take with you you don't have to make that decision because you don't remember everyone's attacks and then the main characters
They get metroided and they lose all their abilities, which means you get to kind of start from zero with a whole new set of attacks to play the rest of the DLC. And it's good. It functions well. I got back into the swing of it very quickly without having to remember a lot of what was going on. That was by design, and I think it was really effective, and it worked well. Yeah, that's sweet. Watchmaker is like the whole new character here. Is that what's going on?
Watchmaker is in the main game. You meet the Watchmaker, and they're kind of an odd character because they are very powerful, but they don't really engage with you or help you or talk to you, really. Like they're like, I'm here, but like, I'm not part of your adventure. So like, just leave me alone. So this is your chance to go back and finally see what was the deal with that character, which is kind of cool. If you're invested in the lore of Sea of Stars, which is surprisingly dense, it's fun.
So at the level of the base Sea of Stars, which I know you and Haley were over the moon about, or is it better than the core Sea of Stars?
No, I wouldn't say better than the core. I mean, it's hard to compare the baseline experience to what is meant to be sort of a thing to the side that's very good. But it is one of those things where it's like, After finishing Claire Obscure, if you like that kind of combat where it's very like button based and timing and stuff like that and you played sea of stars like there's no reason
really, other than your own time availability, to not go back and play this is very good. It's more Sea of Stars that understands that you haven't played in a while, and it's really fun to revisit that game. I like Sea of Stars a lot. Yeah, just looking at the gameplay, I forgot how good Sea of Stars look. Like I forgot how good that pixel art was.
In the launch up to it, we were so obsessed with the idea of like, oh, it looks like a Game Boy Advance RPG. And it's just so cool to see that. I mean, I think it's the closest to Chrono Trigger anybody's ever gotten. I think. Not even just because the composer made music for it, and there's lots of Chrono Trigger references, but I can't think of another 16-bit inspired RPG that...
that I felt closer to Chrono Trigger from. It's like a weird compliment to give it, I guess. Oh, so I guess you're saying I am Setsuna meant nothing to you. That's exactly what I'm saying. Kyle, real quick, because I know they made it so that the base game now has co-op. Does the DLC also have co-op? Do you know anything about that aspect of the update? I don't- I don't know actually. I would assume it does. I would be surprised if it does not.
allow for co-op. Yeah, I haven't touched any of the co-op, no. Yeah, that's awesome. Very generous. It's just nice to have a nudge for everyone to be like, by the way, Sea of Stars was awesome. Here's some DLC to maybe remind you and get a second wave boost here, but that's right. Yeah, if you love Sea of Stars, absolutely worth going back to. And it does also...
Like, there's lots of... There's more... references even to specific 16-bit era rpg stuff like there's like some final fantasy 6 stuff in here interesting okay sweet so yeah very good why do you want to talk about a game that you don't like with blades of fire what is going on with blades of fire Oh, man. Blades of Fire has been an arduous journey for me. Okay. Blades of Fire is developed by MercurySteam, which I feel like is the headline. Lord of the Shadow, Metroid Dread.
I love Lords of Shadow, the first one. It locked me in as a forever Mercury Steam fan. I will always pay attention to what they're doing, truly. That's how much that game, I really love that game. And they've had this weird trajectory where...
Their licensed games are like fantastic like well the second Lords of Shadow isn't very good but like their Lords of Shadow games are good and then the both of their Metroid games are really good and every time they venture out to go do that like an original thing like Space Lords yeah it just kind of falls flat And Blades of Fire!
is- is odd because it's not- I- I wouldn't- I'm not ready to say like it's like a failure or that it completely falls flat because there are times where it like sings and I really like it and it's like it recalls Lords of Shadow in a way in ways that I really like where like the protagonist really reminds me of Gabriel Belmont. and uh it's uh but man like navigating that world is just so hard and
Like, but it's like, this is my whole thing with this game. I keep going back and forth. It's like, moving around the world is so hard. But the combat is really weird and unique. The four face buttons actually dictate where you're swinging your sword.
so like the south button you swing from the bottom the east button you swing from the right and then when you lock on enemies you can see which parts are their weaknesses Which is like, that's really interesting and different, but then they don't quite dig into it as much as they want, and it's harder than it needs to be, but I like the world, and I like the dynamic between the two main characters, and it's like...
it's just one of those games man where it's like there's there's something here that they didn't quite get and it's also that strange thing where it has not diminished my appreciation for Mercury Steam in any way. Even though I'm, like, I'm hitting some really big frustrating hurdles with this game, I am still always going to check in with what Mercury's team is doing. Like, whatever they announce next, like, I'm there, you know? Like, I want to see what they're doing because, like,
It's one of those games where it's like, they really tried something. It's like their take on Dark Souls, and it's like, They really did try to do some different things with it. And a lot of them, a lot of it's like not hitting, but then there are moments where I'm like, I really liked that. I liked this one part a lot. Does it seem pretty explicit? Like this is them being like,
If you like Lords of Shadow, winky-winky, stomp our feet. This is their spiritual successor to that game in particular. I did a video at Game Inform where I did a new gameplay today, and it was kind of like the headline I made for it. I think it's mostly aesthetics, right? It's just this big, muscular... dude with a sword who is like surprisingly soft-spoken which is the thing i always liked about lords of shadow is that gabriel belmont is like this really level calm dude
even though he existed in that gruff voice era of video games. And I like the main character in this game because you're just like a... this dude in the woods, and he just hears something bad happening. He's like, oh, okay, I better go save them, whatever it is. And he's just immediately on a mission of goodwill the second the game starts.
And then there's also this whole thing where... you make all your weapons and you actually like have a, it's like a mini game almost where you're actually pounding out metal and like the better you can shape your metal, the more times you can repair that weapon. Okay, again, great in a pitch, and like, this is going to set us apart, and it just doesn't quite fit together.
it doesn't, it's not quite there. I think, I believe there is a demo. So if you're like, if you're a Lords of Shadow fan and you're like a Souls fan, the Souls, I know everything gets compared to Souls. The Souls stuff is mostly a matter of like, The way you navigate the world, the challenge, and then also when you die, you drop the weapon that you made. You don't have souls that you're picking up, but you do have to go retrieve something important to you.
And there is this thing where you get emotionally engaged with this weapon because you built it, you know, and you're not going to leave it behind. You want to go back and get it. But, like, For me, it's not quite there, but it's a fascinating game that there are moments that I've really enjoyed. Yeah, Blades of Fire is the name of that one. I'm really rooting for them. to have an original game that just clicks and takes off because like
Space Lords didn't really click. I don't know that this one's going to click, but like They're good at making games. They've made some really incredible games, like genuinely fantastic games. They're the Russo brothers of game studios of like, God, when they're partnered with the right people, I'm going to proudly say they're the Russo brothers of the game of open world. They made like three good episodes of TV ten years ago. You don't like any of their Marvel movies, Jacob?
I think they made two good Marvel movies out of proof that it wasn't them that made them good. How dare you? They've made four good Marvel movies. Hey, we should shout out people jumping into supporters on Patreon. That's how this whole thing operates. People like Colby Fink jumped in at the $2 tier. Hey.
Small little bit from you, but huge thing for us. It is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times more helpful to have somebody support us at even that $2 tier on Patreon than just watching on YouTube or listening as a podcast.
And so we'll DM you a Steam code for Spirit Swap, a puzzle game. Shout out to Catherine as well, who just upgraded to the $10 tier. We'll be sending her a Steam code for Spirit Swap as well. And she also gets over 140 hours of bonus content. So thanks so much, Catherine. And shout out to, of course, our dear friends at IM8Bet. They want everybody to know about The Messenger, the vinyl soundtrack for The Messenger, an amazing soundtrack from 1Sabotage Studios.
the same developers who of course made Sea of Stars and the DLC that we just talked about but you can get the vinyl for the messenger it's reissued now in IM8Bit's wonderful online store and you can help support IM8Bit directly By going to their online store. And using the promo code. It's gonna be me. It's gonna be me. 10% off everything in iMapet's Wonderful Online Store, except for pre-orders and except for Atlas vinyls. Everything else, 10% off with that promo code. Help support them.
because iMapit supports the MinMax community in a huge way by shipping a prize each and every week. You can tell that they mean it, that they're a cool company, and that they really want to support the MinMax community because they ship out awesome things like this. Whoever has the best question this week, for the next show wins the four vinyl set of the full Hades soundtrack. with smoky red vinyl one of the greatest soundtracks of all time so exciting this is
This is the closest I've ever been to messaging you and being like, instead of giving it away, could you just send that to me? Like, I'm very jealous of whoever wins this one. I mean, Jacob, you can ask a question. Ask a question right now, man. What do you got? Um, what if you had to have a game developer make a game that they weren't known for, what would it be?
It feels condescending if you're impersonating the tone of our community, but it's a great question, Jacob. Thank you so much for writing in from North Carolina. I'm going to go with, I want Naughty Dog to make a game about robots. Done. Yeah, I think both sides of this conversation are not functioning well, so sorry, no Haiti the Vinyl for you, but it's going to one of these lucky people.
Tom Bryan writes in and they say, what is the most famous video game character created in the last 10 years? Time to Google how long was 10 years ago? What? I like this question.
I like this question. I didn't have an answer, but every time I like... thought of one maybe i was like oh you know that was more than 10 years ago i know like yeah yeah we're all right he's like more than 10 he's a girl's way more you're just like a witcher three just turned 10 years old yeah like last of us like i don't know that's the 12 the bloodborne guy
I don't know. I feel like Aloy is a pretty easy answer. Solid. She's certainly iconic. And I also thought of Arthur Morgan. That's amazing. That's a great one. Yeah, that's a really great pick. That being said... most famous video game character. Now, this is gross of me, but I'm thinking like walking through a Target. I'm not going to see a t-shirt with Arthur Morgan's face on it. You know what I mean? Like, is there somebody that's at that level of fame? Sans from Undertale.
Yeah. When did Undertale come out, though? I think it's 2015. 2015. Okay. Also, Janet, that was a really good answer. Five Nights at Freddy's. Kyle, shut your mouth. Five Nights at Freddy's is 2014, so never speak on this podcast again. I was wondering at that angle. What about this one? Tracer from Overwatch.
Tracer's not bad. I was trying to think of one Overwatch character. I feel like she peaked and is going back down. You know, like if you would ask this in like 2019, Tracer for sure, but I haven't seen. like a meme with Tracer in it or something for like five years. The UI from Pokemon Go. The UI from Pokemon Go. I'm just kidding. I'm sticking with my good answer. Hi, Professor Willow. Of course, yeah. Abby from Last of Us Part II, is that counting?
I just think it's wrong. Yeah, I don't think enough people know. Same with Eloy. She doesn't have, like, a design, you know, just because of, like, the realistic, which is also kind of the same as Arthur Morgan, but it's like, you know, no one's you can't kind of make like a lego abbey uh yeah hollow night hollow night yeah that's a good one yeah i mean i mean jacob it's in the travelogue but yeah we're in sao paulo is amazing
There's like Hollow Knight cosplay. Hollow Knight like stands on the street where you can buy Hollow Knight toys. It's like, whoa. But related to Hollow Knight, like, is Cuphead a contender here? That's the one I was just about to say because I was looking at best games of, you know... various years. And I think, because the thing about Cuphead is... Cuphead also has like a Netflix
animated adaptation. Cuphead is one of those characters that people that I know who don't really play video games. I had a friend who bought a Switch recently. He was really enamored with Cuphead and started playing Cuphead. And I think And I also, this can be too much of a stretch, I feel like If you don't play video games, but you've seen Cuphead, You might know that that's from a video game. Maybe. I think so.
yeah i think it's a possibility yeah i it's a cuphead final answer i think it's cuphead and it feels gross to be like just think of how many netflix queues he's appeared in but like that alone i think is pushing him north of all these other characters I'm going sans from Undertale. Yeah, I think Janet's right. I, like, used to be, like, a counselor at a summer camp, and, like, kids who absolutely never touched Undertale or played video games would be like intimately familiar with
Undertale lore. It was just like a language they all spoke. That's fascinating. It's like Minecraft if you want to read more. Yeah. Are we just not plugged into the right circles? It's weird that like in two weeks Deltarune is launching on Switch 2, what, the first four chapters of it? I feel zero buzz on the streets for Deltarune. It's because it's not done, I guess. I misspoke last time when I kind of fumbled the amount of
episodes that go into that. I think that's why there's not more buzz for it. I mean, Undertale, I guess it depends on the day of the week, but Undertale's my daughter's favorite game of all time, and she has been playing all the Adulterune chapters. Yeah. And she's like, and even she's kind of like, okay, I guess I'll play it because it's not going to be complete. It's not the final product.
Patrick G writes in and says, Hey y'all, we're so close to a brand new chapter in Nintendo. So what's the last game you will play on your Nintendo Switch 1? I think CSR's DLC will be mine, says Patrick G. Good question. Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom final answer. I have played my last game on Nintendo Switch and it was like a year ago. I think I've already played my last game too. I'm just trying to think, what was the last thing I booted up? on the Nintendo Switch.
i don't remember what it was uh last night so that might be my final one that's that's a very fitting one oh janet it's going to be um it's gonna be baiting out of origins when you finally get on to baiting that like we pinky swore on the podcast do you recall no because I can just put that on my switch too oh yeah yeah yeah it's gonna run better and that's kind of the issue with the
not issue with the question like not it's a problem with the question but anything that i haven't been on switch one i will just play on switch two because it's backwards yeah but it's gotta be i get like feeling the hardware switch one i feel like is the core of the question right I played through Donkey Kong Country Returns. Yeah. You know what? I played Tropical Freeze again. I played it on the Wii U like any sane person. But I got it again on Switch because
They made me play with my fiance, but he hated Donkey Kong, so I just might on the train. And you guys are still getting married. I know. So he doesn't jump high enough. I was like, you can be, was it Dixie or whatever? And he's like, well, I don't want to be Dixie because it's called Donkey Kong. I was like, well, then you've got to get better at jumping.
I don't know what to tell you. You don't want the solutions, but this is my plight as a platformer, Stan. There's not many of us left, and everyone is like 50 years old. Yeah, yeah, they're dying. Yes, sir? You wanna know what mine was, I think? Not really, yeah. Volfied. Yeah, Volfied, baby! That was the last thing I've played. Really? Volfied. That's the arcade game from 1989 that I'm obsessed with.
Yeah, when did Zelda come out? 2023. To the Kingdom? May 2023. No, the other Zelda. Oh, no one's out there. Yeah, Jacob, you played Echoes of Wisdom. Oh, that's true. I played that for like five minutes. Okay. I mean an hour. Also, I guess we played Smash Ultimate during the charity stream. Aha! We gotcha. So, probably that.
You got caught playing Switch 1. I think mine is a game that I became obsessed with. It's one of those things where I'm like, this has to be great. This has to be the best game ever. I need to jump in and play it. Kyle, I was looking at the uh gamography of koizumi who's kind of like you know what anuma is to zelda koizuma is to 3d mario on the tokyo team for like all the recent 3d marios and stuff he was directing them and producing them and stuff
And I was looking at his credits, and I was like, wait, in 2019, he produced this game. See if you can remember this, Kyle. He produced a game that was developed by Tarsier, the developers of Little Nightmares. Do you remember this thing at all? It's called The Stretchers. And he hasn't produced that many games. It really stands out that he was leaning into this game from the Little Nightmares developers.
And it's called The Stretchers, and it's like a co-op game. It looks and feels actually a lot like Deliver at All Costs, where it's kind of like isometric camera.
except you're driving your little ambulance around and then getting out and you have, like, stretchers and you're, like, loading people onto stretchers and in a very... slapsticky kind of way like well gotta get him in the ambulance it is the weirdest little game is it co-op yeah yeah i was like okay that's probably why i didn't touch it yeah and i jumped into it expecting uh the
the stars and uh you know i ended up near the sun is that how the expression goes jacob or it's it's fine it's a little cute open world thing and you kind of get the idea quickly but it sent me down this rabbit hole um That is so niche. Please, someone else be interested in this on Earth other than maybe Kyle. I feel like it's the best I can do. But there are, like, games for the Switch that Nintendo published that are, like, second-party indie games.
And there's a handful of them. And it's really weird if you look at this as just a group of like, this is Nintendo publishing these kind of indie games, but they're actually publishing it. Or like Snipperclips, right? Remember that when they launched the Snipperclips? And then there's stuff like Good Job. Remember that? Yeah, which is like the little office sign characters. Yep, like in the factory and stuff. Cadence of Hyrule technically counts. Do you remember Sushi Striker?
I think I reviewed Sushi Striker. Okay. It wasn't bad. That was also a Nintendo published joint. Flip Wars. Do you remember this?
Oh, thank you. These are like, yeah, you're like, you're pulling into the depth of my brain. You should have made this into a trivia thing on, is this a made-up game or is this a Nintendo published? Nintendo published a game on this one's called Flip Wars. Yeah, I actually, there was a couple nights where my daughter and I got into Flip Wars. I remember she was, she was like,
she liked it I was about to say she was really into it it's like that's way too strong it's her favorite developer actually and then the weirdest I was like there's no way this is real but Nintendo published on the Nintendo Switch a game called DC Superhero Girls Teen Power, which is exclusive to the Switch still.
You remember this, Kyle? Yeah, it was almost perfectly aligned with the age that my daughter was at the time, where it was kind of meant to be for her. She did not play it, but I remember that was an early example.
Um, just going crazy because i couldn't figure out who developed the game when they announced it oh share like who the developer was and that was the first instance of that which is now common for nintendo frustratingly right where i was like nintendo's publishing it who's making this game should i care you know and it turns out boy you needed to care about dc superhero girls colon teen power um it's about time some teens have some power in this world am i right teens rise up uh owen mccarter
Speaking of quizzes, they say, Heyman and Max, I forgot. Can anybody remind me, what was the name of the pirate stealth game from 2023 by Mimimi Games that Leo really loved? Oh, come on. Leo's not on this. I think Crew. Right? Crew is in the title? Correct. Warmer. Really? It's like Cursed Crew. Oh, that's the subtitle. And the very memorable primary title is...
Shadow Gambit. The Cursed Crew. Shadow Gambit. We would have got there. And then Omar Carter says, also, Max Spielberg directed that game that's going 1.0 right now. What was the name of that game that we did the interview about? of course, Link to Banner of the Spark. We got it.
Also, Owen McCarter says, hey, what was the subtitle for the Metroidvania Prince of Persia game that released that was really good last year? Lost Crown. There we go. Bonus, says Owen. What was the main character's name from Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown? The princess assistant guy. It did not begin with a D. Wait, wait, give me something. Let's see, um...
Let's see, there's dialogue and they say, hey, you. Oh, they do. I have no idea. It sounds like a sci-fi movie that starred Sean Connery in the 80s. We're getting further away from the known censor. Yeah, you're right. He's wearing a weird thong thing. Yes, the sexy thong thing. I mean, weird thong thing. Sargon is the name of the main character. Of course.
Quiz us, everybody. Keep running in with these quizzes. Until the end of time, we're not going to forget Shadow Gambit, the curse group. Swell001, we'll be the judge of that, writes in to say, hey, cohorts, is baking... A form of cooking. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Some context. My friend brought in banana bread one day, and I said that the banana bread that she cooked was very good. She responded by saying thanks, but she baked it. She didn't cook it.
And this eventually spiraled into a whole thing within our friend group, half saying that baking is a form of cooking, while the other half is saying that baking and cooking are two separate categories under a larger food prep umbrella. Please help settle this three year long debate.
It's a square rectangle situation. You think so? It's also a metaphor simile situation, where I think some people will say, like, oh, metaphor and simile, they're totally different, but a simile... Wait, God, did I get the right order? The simile is just a type of metaphor. It's like, sure, you can be like a jerk and be like, it is a different definition, but it's a type of metaphor. I don't know, I'm more confused.
I don't think it's a strict set-subset relationship because there are a lot of people who will say that they are, like, a good baker. that can't you know that aren't going to like make you a you know a steamed fish dinner or something you know that it's like they're good at like this thing and it doesn't include the thing that it is you know a part of But I still think that, like,
I still think that baking is a version of cooking, but being a good baker, I think that I'm a pretty good baker and not a great cook. I do think that those are different. They're different skills, and you set us up on this one, Hanson. You're right.
The answer, most definitely, they should have said that they baked it they should have said baked it absolutely it is weird to say cook for banana bread but i wouldn't stumble over that if someone was like i cooked banana bread i wouldn't i'd judge them i'd lock in my brain they're a moron but i i wouldn't stop them You idiot, Kyle. Actually, I baked it. Yeah, I wouldn't be like, oh, actually, I baked it.
If I was like, I ate some soup for lunch, would you guys all be like, wrong! Oh, we would crush it. You drank that soup? Well, there's usually stuff in the soup, though, so you do have to you should be chewing the stuff that's in there. No, it was smooth. If you said I ate a glass of milk, maybe then we would kind of be like, okay. Yeah, that would be weird. Have one a day. It's good for this stomach.
Michael Griffin writes in and says, in about a year, will we be gearing up to listen to the deepest dive on GTA 6? Yeah, I think we thought we were going to do it this year, so it was kind of surprising. It will... It'll be like a Tears of the Kingdom approach. right which if i remember correctly was like much looser but like defined conversations about g like this is different because there's going to be a linear story you know like i think yeah i mean full disclosure this one too
Yeah. I'm trying to remember. I don't think so. Tears absolutely does not have a linear story. Because you can find all that stuff in any order. You can go in any order where you want. Oh, yeah. You can go in any order.
yeah so but I think yeah we were talking about it I think the last time choose your own linearity that's exactly it but the last time we talked about GTA 6 I think at a Monday meeting was like yeah we can't dodge that like enough of us are curious about it and it's just going to be so all-consuming that of course we should do the deepest dive on it and then it was kicked down a road a year so who knows what may of 2026 is going to be like but
They should have given it to us and then delayed the release for a year so we actually of time like fully pre-record a deepest dive yeah i know it wouldn't have like community feedback but if we could just if we all got a game like three months early and we could just do every episode and then release them it'd be interesting
I wouldn't rule it out, but having the community comments is very nice to help shape the conversation for sure. We could make up the community comments. Oh, yeah. It could just be Jacob because he does a spot on impersonation of everybody in our community and just gaslight the community like oh you didn't submit your question you must have missed it I guess you're not paying attention yeah that would be the best secret episode of scripted podcast
It's like, could we do a whole deepest dive and everyone would be like, I guess my comment didn't get picked. Yeah. Al Stockler writes in and says, Hey, Minimaxers, before being immortalized as Ninja Turtles, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello were just historical accomplished artists.
This should be a get-a-load of this. This is fascinating. So, which other... Now we're just turning into dicks. No, but Elle Stockler says, which other accomplished artist do you think should be immortalized as a turtle ninja? i think it'd be really fun to have like uh like modern art that people get mad at slate of turtles
So you have, like, Duchamp, who had, like, the signed urinal, and you have, like, Rothko with the big colored squares. These are antagonists for the turtles. Bad art versus good art? Yeah, everyone gets mad at them. The guy who gave the banana to the wall. I was waiting for Kyle to shine because on Slack he replied and said Banksy, which I thought was really funny.
Who's just always around. They always mention the fifth turtle, but they're never seen. But occasionally just like a Marotov cocktail will come flying in and take out some foot clam. That has to be his weapon, right? I'm trying to remember, there was the live action Ninja Turtles show during the era of like... power rangers that was like one season where they added a fifth turtle live action Yeah, and I think it was a female turtle, and I think her name was Venus.
Yeah, which is confusing. It's like it's a famous subject of art. I'm not a Renaissance maker. Think of a famous woman artist. Name a woman for one dollar. It would be like if they added a new one and named him David. Be like, no, that's the name of art. That's breaking the format. Yeah, which is why that show failed. I think kids recognize that. I think so. It was also really unsettling to have...
Like, they couldn't get the Henson costumes. You know? They had, like, really budget costumes. Oh, no. It was a cardboard box painted green. A lot of turtles just standing around talking because that's about all the costumes we're capable of doing. You know...
Her art's her art, but as a name, it's pretty badass. But if there was a turtle that was just called Yoko Ono, like, just Ono as a name for a turtle would be sweet. We're all in agreement, right? That's pretty cool. All right, thank you. And it would attack with, like... Bed sheets? I don't know what Yoko would use. It's not like Leonardo attacked with nunchucks. That's true. The reference was like the sleep-in protest where she was in bed for like a week or something.
Not that's because she slept with a beetle, to be very clear. Honestly, that was my reaction. I was like, Ben, what is this? joke. This is very lowbrow waiting for you. But no, good correction, good correction. Thank you. Somebody was talking about some Yoko Ono art recently. Am I an artistic simpleton for being like...
Okay, Jacob, first you attacked the community. Not for being like, that's so simple, but I'm like, that works. That's some good, as simple as you can get, little thought-provoking art where Yoko Ono had a piece. Get this, Jeff. It was a giant chess set in an art gallery, right? But both sides were white. Isn't that good? I was like, that works! That'll make me think for a little bit. I like it. That's art, baby. Were the squares also just all white? No, I think they were standard.
Ah, she f***ed it up. So you can technically play it, but then it's like, hey, aren't we all the same? Imagine there's no religion. Aren't we all white? If you really think about it, at the end of the day... There's one podcast you're listening to. Boojum writes in and says, Hey, I had a Tonka truck PC game as a kid. that came with this awesome controller that's strapped onto a keyboard to turn it into a truck control panel. We talked about this on QPB. Oh, right, right, right.
I don't know if it was that one, but yeah. Yeah, and a gear shifter. I love that it was a keyboard attachment instead of the whole special controller. Yeah, this thing does look awesome. If you've ever looked up this Tonka Truck PC game controller keyboard attachment, it rules. Please look it up, everybody. The Pew Pew Bang one was like a cooking game, right?
there was two there was one I don't think the other one was the Tonka truck I know it had like drill it was more like a construction thing maybe Tonka maybe not and then the one that Kelsey had was the cooking one like her brother had the other one and same idea though like a peripheral of you're, you know, pretending to bake, which is different than cooking as we just discussed. And you're like hitting, you know, one of the buttons to kind of, you know,
Add that layer of immersion. But yeah, fun stuff. Fun stuff. Gouda writes in. I have a simple question for everybody. Perhaps. Do you know your mom's name? Yeah. Yeah. What? Okay. Yeah. Do you know? I'm scared. Do you know your grandma's name? Yes. Yeah. Do you know your great grandma's names? No. One of them, I think, yeah. I was really thinking about this, and I'm like, oh, I guess there are four of them. I think I only know one, which is pretty damning.
To be fair, also great-grandfathers. I think I got two. Right? 204. Is that math correct? So the question is, do we feel bad after? Well, kind of. No, they've been dead for who knows how long. I, like, never knew them. Like, yeah. Try not dying next time.
So Gouda follows it up by saying, this is a little thought experiment I've developed to remind myself that life is short. Enjoy it and don't take things too seriously. You'd be surprised how many people don't know the answer to the great-grandmother's name. So the point is where we've forgotten. Oh, very much so. Thank you for this existential thing. Well, guess what?
People are going to be listening to this podcast long after I'm done, right? I question that. Maybe if my great-grandma had a podcast, I'd know her name. I mean, Kyle, your brother, I think it was on Instagram the other day, he posted like, Your great-grandma, great-great-great-great-grandma, going back to 1533 or some nonsense, it was the deepest dive I've ever seen into that.
Yeah, he's really into that. He enjoys that process of researching our family history, which actually I really enjoy a lot because it's like, It's not so much that I am fascinated in his discoveries as much as it reassures me that someone in our family is concerned about it. Right, right. But I think it's cool. But what do you think it is that compels somebody to be that into family heritage stuff?
I don't know. I mean, some people really get into history and knowing who they are and where they came from. Do you think it's a search for... something within your soul that you feel like you're trying to piece together and that's what you're trying to scratch at maybe yeah know yourself better by knowing where you came from i guess okay I don't know. Do you know where to call him? I want you to think about the question. It wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't hurt.
Let's see, DJ Tommy Pizza, backstage pass chat. talking about the great-grandma's names. He said, hey, they didn't know my name either. That's true. They started it. Very rude. Yeah. Although, they probably heard our names at some point. The nuh-uh defense, yes. Yeah. Mr. Button's right soon. He says, him and Max How often, if at all, do you respect your characters in games?
I'm not doing that. I don't think I ever have. Snowmike Mike apparently said that one's on content. And I agree. He said trust your builds.
trust the belt yeah i think every now and then mike gets in his bag i think he hit the nail on the head with that trust the belt yeah you pick those things for a reason the only exceptions are being stuck in a boss for hours like in Elden Ring when I was fighting Millennia respect like three times because I was just like I just my build is just not good enough but like if it
If it can get past something, I'm never disrespecting for fun. Like, it has to be, like, I've hit a brick wall and I can't get past it. Right, right. Uh, Macedo. Hang on, look at the segue. Pause that. Emma Going Nuts is this person's name. They ask, I recently figured out a solution for hanging art in my rented house without damaging the walls, but I haven't been collecting any art until now.
My current plan is to get some prints of favorite holiday memories and a couple reproductions of NASA illustrations from the 60s and 70s, but I still have plenty of space left to fill. So what's on your wall? They ask. Do you have a favorite piece? Where do you find good art?
Tricky question. I'm also still struggling with this a little bit. Ben, if you do something, and I don't, I'm not saying this to put you on blast, but I am saying it in a way that I've never seen anyone else do this, which is you, you will like take pictures of things and like print them yourself. and hang them up and not like family photos. Like, you have, you have, like, you, like, got high quality photos from, like, the, like, Tetris collection.
And then you went to like a Kinko's or something and had it printed out, right? I went to prettygoodprinting.com and they printed out the Tetris Forever art. That is true. Yeah, that's funny. A twist of that wasn't going to be my recommendation. I'm just like... I think we all have great art in our phone right now. Like just get it printed out and then frame it. And as long as it looks good, it looks good. And you don't have to spend a gazillion dollars.
Paying some hack-ass artists like Yoko Ono for some art to put up on your walls. There's no in-between. Hang in your bed sheets at all. Yeah, hang in your goddamn bed sheets. yeah i have i have the opposite recommendation which is buy from local artists yeah they're not they're not expensive if you just if you just go to like local galleries or like farmers markets or whatever like
You can just get stuff that people have made and it doesn't cost much. And then you have like a thing that someone made on your wall. Correct. Obviously, that's correct. Support local artists, please. However... What about that?
What about this idea? Is it weird to think of, like, take a picture of their art and then print it out yourself? Oh, no! We talked about it when we were in a museum in Sao Paulo. We both really like this piece of art. I'm like, how tacky would it be if I took a picture of this?
and then printed it out at home and blew it up in a big way. I'm never going to own this famous piece of art. That's pretty dorky. Well, you can go buy the replications in the store, usually. I didn't have them. I didn't have them.
So at that point, what are you going to do? It's a little... I mean, I will say, it is, like, technically illegal, I think. Like, if an artist doesn't sell prints of their work, I think you're not allowed, but also it's like, well, what... who's gonna get you for it right right the art police are gonna be knocking at your door come at me uh but okay what about this though like i was really just thinking about this there's this like uh there's a frame in the pokemon manga
I want to remind everybody I'm a cool adult man, but there's a frame in the Pokemon manga that I think is really great. And I was like, God, what do I do with this? Would it be cool to take a picture of that with my phone so it's high quality and then get it? print it as like a huge blown up thing. Maybe I can even like, because it's black and white, maybe I could like paint it myself after blowing it up. Okay, that's just Rory Lichtenstein's work.
And he's an artist. So you can blow it up and then sell it yourself. As your art. Is this fine? Or even like there's some art in like a kid's book that I read to my kid that I really like. I'm like, well, you know, is it weird just to take a picture of this and then blow that up and hang it on the wall? Like I think the phone is just like the ultimate like zoom in, put it on a wall opportunity.
I'm curious how, like, maybe you're better at this than me. Like, you can get, you can get, like, a perfect photo that doesn't have, like, warping or glare or whatever. No, you'd see like my reflection and shadow in it. So you just kind of have to work on it. It'd be like, oh, and dad's always here in my favorite. It kind of has a haunted quality to it, I suppose. Yeah, you'd have to You'd have to get some flatlining. It's possible. You can do it. It can be done. I guess like...
I don't feel like I have so much wall space that I need to just start taking my phone out and printing things out off of it. I have, like, way more posters than wall. Yeah. All right, Jason. Mike Lynch writes in and says, when Ben mentioned looking for the archive of the Out of the Game podcast last week, it reminded me how shocking it is that in 2025, you can search for something on the internet and find nothing.
Is there any specific information or video that you can't find online that you wish was more thoroughly cataloged? I went down a rabbit hole a couple months ago where I was trying to look up...
Apache Plaza which was an old shopping mall in like the area that I lived when I was a kid and I found like you know like a 30 second home video that someone put on facebook from it um and then there was a news story from like the 1980s because there was a big there was like a big tornado that like collapsed the roof in one part of it and like It's a good time to go back. Anytime is a good time to go back and watch like old.
news stories from like when you were a little kid like the nostalgia of the way people are dressed and seeing like your old hometown before everything was a condo and stuff but there but there just wasn't that much You know, there were like websites and stuff that would talk about it, but there wasn't a lot of like actual old pictures and videos.
I was going to go the complete opposite route. I have a memory that I cannot back up anywhere online, but in my memory, I loved SSX right at the launch of PS2, and I could have sworn when SSX Tricky was announced, I remember it being announced as, this is just the version of SSX we're releasing in Canada. It's like the expansion of the core game, but it's only for Canada. And I cannot find any evidence of that. Like I was like, surely I was obsessed with GameSpot. It's not on GameSpot's site.
I don't know if this is just one of those things that my friends told me or something. So the thing you want documented is the delusion you had about SSX? Is it? I have to ask that the internet back up my Mandela effect of what's going on here with SSX Turkey being an expansion that only released in Canada. Alright. I had a weird thing recently where I was working on that video about digging holes.
And there was, I could find that there was a Discovery Channel show that was called like Engineering Marvels or something that had had this episode on like the deepest mine in the world, which is in South Africa. I could not find, the episode was not available to rent online.
no one had uploaded it it wasn't available on piracy sites like it was just i it was like and i don't even know if they made like dvds of that show so it was like it was listed as like technically this episode did come out on television, but I just could not figure out how I could get my hands on it. I'm in that same camp but in a completely different arena where there is a very cursed episode of TV that was Jerry Seinfeld's show on NBC called Marriage Ref.
Do you remember this? Oh, I remember when that show was a thing. Yeah. And there was an episode with Adam Carolla and Donald Trump. And at some point when Trump was running for office in 2015 and 2016, I'm like, I got to go back and watch that. Like, what was he talking about sharing his marriage advice? And there's just, it has been nuked from orbit. Like that just does not exist in any way. But if anybody has like,
You know, a thumb drive with the Miradrift seasons on it. I'm very interested. Cree McGee writes in and says, Hey, Min Max, here's a game for you. Are these games So they call it, are these games overrated or underrated? Which is a confusing way to frame it, but I love this game Kree. So the core idea is, We have the critical score for these games, the average Metacritic stuff, versus the user score, which is higher.
users or critics for the average review score here. Janet, Super Mario Sunshine, is that critics or users? Who has it higher? Critics. Correct. 92 versus user score of 82. This is a very tense intro to the game. Hang on. Crowboy just cracked the code on that SSX thing. He says it was developed by EA Canada. Maybe that had something to do with it.
That I bet is exactly what it was. You didn't know what EA Canada was? I bet I just saw that at GameSpot back in 2000 or 2001. I was like, well, I guess this is just the Canadian release of this. That's exactly what happened, Crowboy. Oh, my God, thank you. So stupid. I'm going to go kick that kid's ass. We thought that back in the day. Okay, Jacob Geller.
I understand you worked on this game, but Silent Hill 2 Remake, which is higher, the critical score or the user score? Oh, um... Use... Critics. User score, 91 versus 86. This is interesting because I usually think user scores are completely Bullshit, because it's always just people either giving it a 10 or a 1, and everyone was giving Silent Hill 2 a 1 because they thought that the women weren't hot enough. Right, right, yeah. But hey, users came through! Good for them! Jeff, um...
Dragon Age the Veil Guard. Ooh, that's spicy. Spicy. It's anybody's game now. Don't overthink it. Don't overthink it. critics what could he mean when he says correct uh correct score is 82 user score is 39 39! Is that big a trick on that? That's probably, yeah. I get so mad, sorry, but it's like, the user score things just make me so mad when people cite them as if they mean anything, which isn't to discredit this quiz, but when it's like,
critics hated the Mario movie, but look at the user scores. I'm like, this isn't anything. Why are we talking about this? Kyle, Pikmin 4. Critics or users? All right. Incorrect. Users have it at 900. Critic is at 87. Yeah, I felt like users would be like frothing at the mouth over Pikmin. Because Pikmin's so fun and delightful. And not that like critics can enjoy fun and delight, but
Yeah, as a critic, I would also rate that lower than a user would. If you're a Pikmin fan, you're really in, right? And there's no one... I mean, maybe they exist, but I don't think there's anyone who has an axe to grind with Pikmin where they're like, I gotta go bring down that user score. What kind of sicko is it talking on Pikmin? Well, the purple Pikmin are women, so, you know...
I don't know. What's going on with Ochi? This is not just a woke dog in your game. I don't know. It's always something with some of these people. The woke milk? Yeah. Jacob, clear up scare. Expedition 33. Critics are users. Correct. User score is... It's the highest game on Metacritic, right? Really? It's a 97 for the user score. Holy cow!
And the credit score is 92. That is ridiculous. Which both of those scores are really high. So that's actually kind of wild. Know that about it. It's like, it's beloved and then more beloved. Janet, where's your beloved meter at right now with Glare Obscure? It's really high. That game is incredible. It is so incredible. I do not care that it needs a map and that the level design, frankly, I don't think it's that good. Don't care. The combat.
is wildly good the story is also very good which is super rare in a game that isn't a story game so yeah this is like two tens wrote itself baby it's done you know right up to the top And that's it. We're all going to pretend that we're... I'm wondering what we're going to pretend. Yeah, Hans is going to put it at the bottom of the list for like four hours. Oh, it's called podcast drama. Maybe you should try it, you baby boy. Alright, what do we all like for question of the week?
There was one earlier, I don't remember who it was from, but it was like, there was like a developer, if you could take a developer and have them make your game or something. That was really smart. I really couldn't remember what the question was. I tried to write it down, too, so I remember. I was like, what did I do?
I like the video game character from the last 10 years. I think that's a good thinker and talker. That was fun, yeah. I like the last Switch 1 game. I like the artist for the Ninja Turtles. That was certainly a talker. I like the famous character, just because it's weird to think about who stands the test of time. There we go. Maybe it's Zagreus from Hades, because Tom Bryan, you just won the vinyl soundtrack. Congratulations. And now it's time for something we love to call Get a Load of This.
Hello, this, um, the, this is from NPR, but it was originally reported on by four for media, uh, how, which, Rafael, as someone who's from Chicago, how an AI-generated summer reading list got published in major newspapers. If you're not familiar, it just gets into... The Charleston Times had their, here's our summer reading list, and here's the kicker. It's not just
that it was made by AI, it's that only five of the 15 titles are real. Whoa! We had fake books on here. And fake books. This has to be one of the most humiliating things to happen to this city, and the sports scene ain't great. I ain't gonna lie. So, I'm like, we just came up on the Pope, and now this had to take us down a bit. But, yeah, the article, it's NPR, again, 404. Check out their work as well, their original.
reporting on this. But yeah, they just kind of get into, like, how did this happen? And basically, it was sort of like a I guess they have, like, a deal with another company to, like, publish content. So it's kind of like, oh, we didn't know. And then, you know, we pay for this thing. And then they're doing something else. Jeez, this has to be... It cannot be overstated how awful and humiliating and also how clear this is. We've talked about the negatives of AI in terms of how it...
is able to generate that content, you know, in terms of maybe stealing work and then, you know, and the environmental impacts and all that. But, like, this is just... This is just bad. It doesn't make good content. And I think it's frustrating with the state of media as well, where it's like so many people.
Probably want to do this kind of you know could come up with this in a way that was good and also at least real at least real but yeah Jacob you were gonna you were gonna add something to this it's not even it's not even like the first five books were real and then 10 were fake. It was the opposite. The first 10 books were fake. Like, you look up the first book on the list and it's not a real book. Oh my god. What fun times.
Hey, get a load of this, everybody. Nintendo just posted their kind of successor to the Awana-ass series. Just ask the developer, right? They just posted one for Mario Kart World, which is all right. You know, there's a little bit of insight there. They're like, oh, they started the game right after. Deluxe. launched and then they were struggling with development on the switch one they had to pivot
because they needed more time. Like, okay, we'll launch it with Switch 2. Okay, then what do we do for Switch? And then that's when they realize, like, I don't know, just release those booster courses. like release DLC from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe years and years in. I would just release like a thousand courses. Yeah, so that was why that pivot came so late because that was them panicking. But there's just a funny little anecdote in there where they're talking about, okay, we wanted to add food.
in the courses you can drive through like fast food places called yoshis and get food and like okay but then if you eat the food we also want that to change your costume there's originally two systems we're combining it into one And they're like, okay, so you eat the food, then you transform. Like, yeah, that makes sense. They're like, but wait a minute.
So this is like Mario eating food to transform, and then they said that they got into a debate internally about like, well wait so when mario eats mushrooms he transforms does he actually eat the mushroom to transform and they said they had to go talk to tezuka you know who's been with mario since the start like director of three and we're all they're like hey tezuka is mario actually eating that mushroom when he transforms
And Tessica's like, who gave you this number? No, Tessica just like goes, Of course, what are you talking about? I mean, it's a valid question because he always just kind of touches it and absorbs it. I don't know if there's ever been like an animation of Mario. The Mario movie. This would have been before the Mario movie where it's very clear that Mario hates mushrooms but Peach shoves it
shoves it down his gullet. Yeah, that's now canon. But I just love that he's like, yeah, the obvious thing, yeah, that's exactly what's happening. Does Nintendo know what a race is? Why are you stopping at fast food places? You don't stop. You just drive through and you get the costume. It's very clear. You're so far ahead. I'm going to get a Yoshi burger. My foot's never off the gas. It's all supervised. That's it.
um get a load of this what do you guys think is the biggest game on earth right now Roblox. Roblox? Monopoly, go! it's janet you're right but it's specifically and this is an article by carpenter for yes oh my god i I talked to her this morning. It is a game called Grow a Garden, which is a game within Roblox that over this weekend had 5 million concurrent players. Shut up.
Five million. Oh, we failed. Oh, we have failed. And this morning it had five million. She was on Remap Radio. That's why I was talking to her this morning. So, yeah. That's amazing. Does it look good? It's a kid who made a game and got 5 million concurrent players. Roblox is, like, squeezing money out of unpaid developers, but, like,
You know. No, I'm not saying we failed as a society. I'm saying we failed for covering games, that there's a game that has five Millicicker players and none of us talked about it. Well, I mean, we haven't ever talked about that fashion game either, right? The runway one. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh.
I've played it with my daughter. Just to impress. That one actually does seem pretty good. I'm not going to lie. I kind of want to check that one out. There's a lot of good Roblox games for sure, but it's that thing. I mean... I'm back in a place where I'm looking at headlines and traffic for stories. If I put Roblox in a headline, it's just going to die. Don't put Roblox in a headline. There's tons of fascination about it.
I know. There's tons of people playing the game, but people aren't really interested in reading about it. Kyle, write this down, Poindexter. The biggest game in the world right now is something you've never heard of. Ellipses. Click through dummies. There you go. Then go to chat GPT and ask them to make up the name of a game in a description. Exactly.
it is fascinating obviously it's like you know worth covering and paying attention to i mean but it but it is interesting that like the way that that works where it's this like segment of like that's hugely popular within this like this like uh group of young players who just they they get everything they need out of roblox from roblox oh yeah you know what i mean like they don't really they don't really like
go seek out additional information on it because they'll just go be in that world with the other players. Especially with Grow a Garden specifically, which I don't know if I messed that game name up, but what Nicole was talking about with that, and Patrick and all of us, so many of those Roblox games
They're not about, you know, lore, narrative mechanics. They're about like an online space to hang out in. So I also think one reason that there's not more like reporting on it or like why we don't cover it on the show or talk about it is there's not really...
as much to report back. Obviously, there's exceptions. Just to Impress is a game that has a more traditional setup of here's how it functions, and you vote, and you do these other things. But grow a garden, you put a seed in, and then a plant grows. You can steal stuff from players if you pay money.
I think we had the conversation just now. There's not going to be something more to have despite it having this massive... but it'll be interesting how, if they can survive, what future critics will be like, because these will be the games they grow up playing, assuming that criticism doesn't explode in the next. Three minutes. Nope, it's going to be huge for sure. I was going to get a load of this. I'm a big fan of the TV show Taskmaster. And the latest season...
I don't know if they've always done this. Maybe this is something I totally should know. But the full episodes are just dropping on YouTube every week. So it's totally free to watch. And Jason Manzoukas is one of the cast members, so it's the first time an American. As far as I know, I haven't watched all of Taskmaster, but... I think he's the first American to be on the show.
And it's like three episodes in and it's like a fantastic season. Like I don't know that I've laughed harder at any recent shows than just little moments in Taskmaster that just like my throat hurts. I'm laughing so much. It's so good. It's fun.
So watch it. Go find it. The Jason Manzoukas season on YouTube. You can just watch the full thing. Get a load of this. Look, it's depressing times. Lots is going on in the world. And if you ever need a pick-me-up... I have a video for you called Mr. Rogers reacts to getting pranked and it's a video of him coming in Singing his song, changing his shoes, but one of the production people switched out a pair of shoes that were too small for his feet to fit in. Yes. And his reaction to it is just...
adorable and wholesome and it'll make you feel better. Does he freak out? Yeah, he swears so bad. I was literally thinking that's when you said Mr. Roger React. I picture, like, a React YouTube thumbnail. I'm sitting in the YouTube ads. Oh, boy. Link below if you're going to check it out. I get all this from the community. They have a Discord channel where they share fun stories all day, every day. This is just one. I was like, oh, we should cover this a little bit.
Jot shared the story of oh boy, Jade Raymond. has left Haven Studios, the PlayStation studio that is developing fair games.
which also dropped the dollar sign from its name, apparently. This is... a wild journey for jade raymond who like ever since leaving ubisoft and many producers on assassin's creed has just dropped out of project after project canceled or you know projects have been canceled canceled canceled so now there's the big question mark about fair games like if the head of the studio the founder of the studio is not there anymore
This is probably not a great sign. This is right after a big review just happened for Fair Games as well. And so, very curious to see. There's a larger conversation. Maybe we've had a little bit on the show, but I think it is fascinating that after... It feels like Concord in particular. Sony and Microsoft are very hesitant to push. This is our big multiplayer efforts. Like they just know it's such a scary bet to make. And so that's why you see stuff like.
Midnight Murder Party that PlayStation published, right, that they just are completely silent about for marketing. If it hits, it hits, and if not, we didn't do it. So who knows, the future for fair games, but rough go for that studio out there. But that is it for this episode of the Midmax Show. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening.
watching, sharing it with a friend. We greatly appreciate it. We have a ton of stuff happening here at MinMax. You can check out our YouTube channel for even more stuff beyond this podcast if you're just a listener. We just posted a quick video. where it was a very fun thing where we just posted in the Discord a while ago, like, hey, volunteering opportunity happening in St. Paul, Minnesota with an organization called Open Arms.
where we prepare meals for those in need and then deliver those meals out to people who are sick and a lot beyond that. And so we... Posted on the discord and we got like 15 people from the community who jumped in like yeah, I'll help volunteer for that And so we made a video where it's Sarah and Leo and I prepping meals along with folks from the Minimax community who came out. And so it was a very sweet endeavor. So shout out again to that crew who, you know.
they're sick of doom scrolling they want to actually engage with their community in a positive way and it felt great and it was super fun so you can check out that video to get a taste of that Otherwise, we have Doc Lightning happening at the end of May. That is when your short documentaries are due for our short documentary film festival. If you've never made a documentary before, good. You can start now. Use your phone. Hold it horizontal. It's all we ask.
and then edit together a documentary that's under three minutes, and we're going to have a big film festival. Probably at the start of June here is the rough timing for when we're going to actually have that film festival, but you have until the end of May to submit that. You can jump in the Discord if you want some advice. There's a whole channel dedicated to that. Um,
also this week on our YouTube channel, the PewPewBang crew broke out of the podcasting mold and they said, I wasn't in those meetings, Janet, but let me imagine and went, let's do something different. Let's play a game together. And you ended up streaming two hours of Fortnite, which was super fun. Yeah, we'll talk about it more in the next episode that I think drops. We're going to be talking about gaming friendships. And for that, we're like, we should play a game together as friends.
And then we spent many, many days trying to be like, what time could we possibly do that? And what game should we play? So yeah, landed on Fortnite. And was it a fun time? I don't know. Watch the VOD and or listen to the VOD to hear about it. There we go. Sweet stuff. New episode of Pew Pew Bang dropping in its own standalone podcast feed this Monday. Subscribe to that feed. Tell a friend.
Also, we have The Deepest Dive on Clear Obscure that is also up on YouTube and in the bonus podcast feed if you support Mim Max on Patreon at the $5 tier. You get access to The Deepest Dive and Bonus Pod and a ton more stuff in there. But the second discussion covering Claire Obscure Exposition 33 is now up. It is the best, most of our discussion about that game on the internet.
We talk about the middle section of this game, so everything from when you get your fourth party member up through when you deal with two axons. That is the stopping point for this discussion. We don't spoil anything beyond that. But Haley and Kelsey and Jacob and I have a great time unpacking that. Thank you, Jacob, for... not spoiling anything in the discussions even though technically you have finished the game.
It was fun to listen and know that Jacob was doing an amazing job. So, good job, Jacob. I would I don't know if I could, I would have just had to like react. as well as I can but thanks for the help spreading that online everybody we appreciate that so clear obscure fans can find a very thorough discussion about that game online also shout out to bonus pod in that bonus podcast feed if you support me next on patreon at the $5 cheer you get access to bonus pod which Haley hosts every single week
This last episode was a goodie. Most of them are good. This one was good borderline great. This was Kelsey Lewin on there talking about what it takes to launch a new video game store with Pink Gorilla expanding to Las Vegas.
and all the ins and outs of that process of setting up a used game store like how to stock the shelves the considerations the things she's had to learn throughout the years it's just like if you like people who are very knowledgeable and geeky about things that they know a lot about that you probably don't know a lot about this is a great episode for you of just Kelsey diving into like, here's what it takes to run a game store. Like Jacob, I know you're also enthralled by that episode.
Yeah, that's good. That's good stuff. So shout out to Haley and Kelsey. Unlock that podcast. Oh, also they talk about like Pokemon cards. Like if you're trying to sell Pokemon cards in your store, what is that process like for dealing with distributors and stuff? Like there's a lot of insight in there so you can check it out.
Also, Kelsey talks about her adventures through Suikoden 1, that HD collection from Konami came out, and so she talks about a little bit of Suikoden, so if you're a big Suikoden fan, you can check that out. Notice I pronounce it differently every time, so I have all my bases covered.
But also, shout out, no bonus pod coming out Memorial Day. Next week, Haley's taking the week off, so since it's on Monday on Memorial Day, there won't be a bonus pod, but we'll be back with more hidden gems uh in the bonus pod after that and again reminder if you enjoyed this podcast you enjoy uh you enjoy what min max is trying to build here you can help support us directly by going to patreon.com slash min max with two n's you jump into even that two dollar tier two dollars everybody
and we will dm you a steam code for a great little puzzle game from earlier this year spirit swap lo-fi beats to match three two so get a great indie game help short independent games media and you are a huge help for keeping this thing growing That is it. Thank you so much, everybody. Greatly appreciate it. We'll be back next week for a whole brand new episode. Kyle, you want to take us out, man? uh be good have fun let's go