On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Unreal Engine 5.2 has now released and we are starting to wonder how blurry the line between reality and fiction is going to be. While impressive tech spurs the imagination, we’re taking a moment to ask how the outside observer could even tell the difference between a photograph and in-game engine footage. Will the advanced tools change how studios make games? Also, how are tools such as AI art and ChatGPT going to change gaming as they get implemented ...
May 16, 2023•51 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: They found the spoon! And it’s all thanks to Pokemon Go! No, you don’t get more context for that yet. Giant Spoon Taken From Arizona Dairy Queen Found Arizona Dairy Queen Searching For Missing Giant Red Spoon Redfall is the latest title from Arkane and really marks a troubling downturn in quality from a great studio. Nathan played, or at least attempted to play, the open-world vampire game and it was… unfortunate. What if the players in your game were r...
May 09, 2023•57 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: What would you do if you won a free lifetime of GamePass? Well, someone did and turned it down because of taxes. If you live outside the U.S. this might confuse you. Welcome to our world. A Gamer Declines a Lifetime Xbox Game Pass Due to Taxes (80.lv) I Won Game Pass Ultimate for Life and Declined the Prize (AKA: Taxes are a Bitch) We recently talked about D&D 3E and, frankly, people had a lot to say about it. Among other things, several people want...
May 02, 2023•46 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Ark is asking players to pay for the next-gen upgrade while taking the previous servers offline. This is totally a good and customer-friendly business model that will absolutely go over well with the fans. Do I have to explain that was sarcasm? https://kotaku.com/ark-2-survival-evolved-2-delay-ps5-upgrade-servers-1850293672 https://kotaku.com/game-pass-ark-ii-survival-evolved-ps-plus-ps5-xbox-sony-1849642722 Monster Energy tried to file a trademark clai...
Apr 18, 2023•44 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Last week, Klaus Teuber, the legendary game designer who created Catan, passed away. So, we are talking a bit about Catan, specifically the differences between the board game and the dice game that came later. How did the mechanics change in the process and what had to get sacrificed to make the switch? Nathan finally gets to talk about this modern classic board game. What are realistic expectations that new players should have going into TTRPGs? During...
Apr 11, 2023•49 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: E3 2023 has been cancelled. But not for the reasons it had been cancelled the last few years and that might bode really badly for future conventions. Has the digital age completely changed how video game companies release information to the public? E3 Has Been Canceled - IGN Stay awhile and listen. We played in the Diablo 4 open beta and had some thoughts on what we saw. Did Alex see anything change since his time in the closed beta? Did Nathan get to r...
Apr 04, 2023•1 hr 7 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Do you actually need a dedicated healer in your party? Can other D&D classes fill the role outside of the cleric, druid, paladin, etc. that might fill that role? Also, is it even a good idea to have a dedicated healer or is that counter-productive? That is what we are discussing on this week’s Crit Think. The 18 Best Healing Subclasses In D&D (thegamer.com) Many people are committed to playing D&D 3.5E and many will stan for 5E, but did you ...
Mar 28, 2023•1 hr 3 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: In a follow-up to our discussion on the PS6, we talk about the main reason for the Sony document that got revealed. Intriguingly enough, it has little to do with the PS6 and far more to do with Call of Duty’s future on Sony consoles. What if GamePass gets Activision/Blizzard titles? What happens if they become exclusive to Microsoft? We will look at some of the heavily-redacted documentation to see what Sony is actually talking about. After picking up t...
Mar 21, 2023•51 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Epic has launched self-publishing tools for their game store, making them more competitive against Steam, but they're playing by a slightly different set of rules. Will these set Epic apart? And will they get more games on the platform? We don't know, but we'll speculate. Epic launches self-publishing tools, calls out Valve again: 'Steam has created a real problem for the industry' | PC Gamer So, apparently we're talking about the PS6. A leaked document...
Mar 14, 2023•47 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Managing money in the real world is pretty hard, but managing multiple currencies in a game can be unneccessarily harder. Can there be a justification for using multiple currencies or is it just there to complicate things that should be easy to understand? So, the party wants to fight each other in ritual combat. Just a typical Saturday night at the tavern. The question is: Should you let them go full-on battle royale on each other, even if it’s at the ...
Mar 07, 2023•50 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: It's time for a confession: Nathan does not like boss battles. That's right, the boss battles did a bad job in the game. It's about how they have been implemented in games, especially in modern ones. And so, I guess we'll get into this and the real reason he feels this way. Imagine your party is just completing a quest and... oops, everything is on fire now! It's happened in video games, but it's something you might have experienced in your TTRPG as wel...
Feb 28, 2023•55 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: They made Tetris into a movie. No, I am not kidding. It's a real thing. There is a trailer. This came as quite a shock to Alex when he heard the news and now we get to discuss if we even want to see it. Also, what other docu-drama style movies could we make from video games? The Tetris trailer - Tetris — Official Trailer | Apple TV+ - YouTube So if you have ever heard of the Ship of Theseus, you might be obsessed with trading out boards for new boards. ...
Feb 21, 2023•47 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: That'll be $70 please. The standard pricing of AAA video games has unceremoniously been raised to a defacto $70, but does that really seem justified? Moreover, is it something we would pay and is there any game that would be worth it? Nasu video - The Absolute State of Unfinished AAA Game Releases - YouTube You have reached your destination. If you have ever popped on a GPS in your car, you might have heard thi...
Feb 14, 2023•48 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Xbox and Bethesda gave us a Developer Direct video explaining upcoming projects for the upcoming year. So, does anything they showed look appealing? We will discuss Minecraft Legends, Forza Motorsport, Hi-Fi RUSH, Elder Scrolls Online’s new Necrom expansion and Redfall. Developer_Direct, presented by Xbox & Bethesda - YouTube In a previous episode, we discussed the problem with long, drawn-out lore dumps and how they ruin the pacing of games. This t...
Jan 31, 2023•50 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Google Stadia is dead. The cloud servers are down, the platform has ceased to be. It is an ex-Stadia. While a blow for the future of cloud gaming, there were some real lessons to learn from it’s end. What were the promises of this cloud platform and what were the problems? Google Stadia Is Dead, And It’s A Sad Day For Gaming (forbes.com) Stadia ☁️🎮 on Twitter While information continues to come out concerning D&D’s open gaming license, we are takin...
Jan 24, 2023•50 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Alex played a game you would not expect him to play which means we are doing a GYDTWP. On this episode, we discuss Hardship Spacebreaker… cough… Hardspace Shipbreaker and the surprising joys of breaking down space shuttles for scrap. A game of physics, puzzles, survival and dying, we talk about one of the hidden gems from this past year which is already making best of lists. What would happen if you through lightning into a body of water? Not in real li...
Jan 17, 2023•1 hr 3 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: It's a new year and so let's start things off right by talking about... Diablo 4? Alex played the closed beta and now that the beta period has ended, he had some thoughts on what he saw. He got to play a barbarian, a druid and a necromancer... wait, is this Diablo 2? We'll discuss how this compares to Diablo 2 and 3 as well as other games, what he saw for micro-transactions and whether he plans on getting it once fully released. There's much stirring on...
Jan 10, 2023•1 hr
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: It's the holiday season and whoopdie doo and dickory dock, don't forget to put a pebble in your sock. It's our holiday special and we are becoming Scrooge in real time. Luckily, the Pac Man ghosts have visited us so we can learn the true meaning of gaming. Let us go back in time to gaming past. We discuss the original board games we learned, the old school video games we remember fondly and those titles that we spent 100s of hours in that we could never...
Dec 20, 2022•1 hr 6 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Well, it's time for a souls-like round up. Nathan has been playing Steelrising and Asterigos and has many positive things to say about them, surprisingly. We also discuss Alex's attempt at playing Code Vein and how that worked out. Badly, we're guessing. So more One D&D playtest material has been released and this time it revolves around the Cleric. We look at features by level and the attached subclass to see how these new mechanics are looking and...
Dec 13, 2022•1 hr 25 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Ming from BrotherMing Games is joining us on this episode to discuss his Kickstarter for Re;Act: The Arts of War, a game where artists do battle with cards. Can you dance your way around a calligrapher? Inquiring minds want to know. You can find more information about Re;Act here - Re;Act - The Arts of War | Brother Ming Games Ming started out making fan board games. He discusses his early experiences making Fire Emblem games, the collaborations he did ...
Nov 29, 2022•1 hr 20 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Black Friday is right around the corner and thus the deals are all over the place. However, how does that translate to games? Not as well as you might think. We’ll look at “deals” for the PS5, the arcade cabinet you totally wanted and a few tabletop sales. Also, has Black Friday changed in the last few years and is that a good thing? Vampire Survivors is one of the biggest surprises of the year. The reason comes from it’s almost stupifying simplicity. N...
Nov 22, 2022•56 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: A close encounter with an old-school D&D player left Alex with a lot to ponder. And so, we're discussing how older versions of D&D were played as opposed to the newer versions, what changed, why it changed and how everyone could benefit from the input of others. Open worlds, rich mechanics, grand storytelling, personal journeys, complex customization and more are on the table today. You may have noticed the word "Simulator" used quite frequently...
Nov 14, 2022•1 hr 6 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Breeze Grigas joined us on this episode to discuss the upcoming Kickstarter for AEGIS: 2nd Ignition. Who would not want to enjoy combining robots in a tactical game? Well, all the people who enjoyed the first game can now enjoy the new one. Can we think of ways to combine games about combining robots? Yes. Kickstarter launches Jan. 17th. The Kickstarter page - AEGIS Combining Robots: Season 2 by Breeze Grigas — Kickstarter Zephyr Workshop - Zephyr Works...
Nov 08, 2022•1 hr 33 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Once upon a time, Nathan backed a Kickstarter for a game called Coral Island. Although he did not play the alpha when it released a year ago, he has been playing the early access version that released on Steam and other platforms 2 weeks ago. But it has become evident over 30+ hours that big chunks of the game are not actually developed yet. So, let’s discuss what it does, what it doesn’t do and why Nathan may be stepping away from it for awhile. Game l...
Nov 01, 2022•1 hr 9 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: It is our season one finale, a time to look back on where we’ve gone in the past year and what we plan on doing in the future. Guests? Livestreams? More obscure videos? Let’s find out on a very close-to-home Weekly Muse It’s the last chapter in our spoopy fest and we have saved the worst for last: CLOWNS! We go into why clowns are scary and how you can make them even more terrifying. It’s not just a cliche circus either. Imagine clowns… in space! An aba...
Oct 25, 2022•1 hr 2 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Everybody get on the trolley. Oh no, some people are tied to the tracks! What shall we do? On this Crit Think, Nathan subjects Alex to a few of his homebrewed trolley problems to see how cruel he is toward the poor people about to be run over. An overview of the trolley problem - What is the 'Trolley Problem?’ | Merriam-Webster Last of the One D&D expert classes to analyze, we dig into the Ranger. Have they finally solved the ranger problem with thi...
Oct 18, 2022•1 hr 9 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Steam is having a Next Fest with tons of demos for upcoming video games. Nathan got the chance to play a few of these games. Some of these were good, some were mediocre and one was basically unplayable. Find out which are which in this Weekly Muse. Some more discussion on draft material of One D&D because of course. This time, we'll talk a little about The Rogue, which has not had such drastic changes as other classes from 5E, but get some tweeks to...
Oct 10, 2022•1 hr 10 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: Star Citizen, the game that still has not actually been released, just passed $500 million in funding. We still have no idea when the game is coming out, but there are rumblings about sequels. Anyways, let’s discuss this milestone after 10 years in development. Star Citizen Crowdfunds Half a Billion Dollars - and $100 Million In Less Than a Year - IGN Star Citizen has now raised more than half a billion dollars in crowdfunding | Eurogamer.net Star Citiz...
Oct 04, 2022•56 min•Season 49Ep. 1
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: So, a lot of discussion has been going on around player character death, so let’s discuss what you can do with characters once they die. Perhaps they can have a fun adventure in the afterlife, fight some demons, haunt the living, reincarnate, be a rat therapist… okay, we might go off the rails here. Cozy games are an ever-growing genre of video games, but it’s mostly been in the hands of indie developers. However, with Dreamlight Valley, Disney has ente...
Sep 19, 2022•52 min
On this episode of Total Pebble Knockdown: In Weekly Muse, is Matt Mercer a terrible DM? This is something we decided to discuss following comments on the most recent Critical Role episode. So, we're going to talk about how dangerous a world should be, what the consequences are for a player's actions and other ways to slam players when things go wrong. We will also answer that question. WARNING: Spoilers. Spoiler Report - Critical Role Shocks Fans With Its Most Intense Episode Yet (comicbook.com...
Sep 13, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 47
