Ep. 247: Wu Prince (Feat. Kuru Kuru Kururin)

When you enter the 36th chamber, does the Wu-Tang Clan start playing? Yes, they do, actually. It's very cool. Jizza's there like, hey, you solved my puzzle. You solved my riddle. Uncle Jizza! Ray Kwan! Hey, and welcome to Video Game Podimism. Do I say something different there normally? Why do I edit it? I mean, you stopped. What's going on? The hay felt weird. I don't like,

It's a very regular thing to say to people. It's the Optimist Video Game Variety Show. I think you say hello usually. Yeah, that may be it. Just a different greeting really threw me. It's the Optimist Video Game Variety Show where two best friends talk about the wonderful world of gaming. My name is Chan. And my name is David. Chase, I think you had your business casual butt on. Yeah, that's true. And that's why you said, hey. I got to switch into podcast mode. To cash.

Yeah. To cash. Yeah. Hey, did you happen to see the little oopsie I made on Saturday? I did. I did. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Accidentally just released an 11 second episode of Video Game Podimism. The 11 best seconds of pod you've ever heard in your life. Again, the reason that I did this is like a little inside baseball, but like...

Like our podcast hosting doesn't allow me to like set up the data for an episode prior to uploading just like some audio, which feels silly. But I usually just like use the intro clip of whatever that episode was. I'm so happy that that was the case and not like, I don't know, turbo fart sound or like eight minutes every Sora.

a voice line in kingdom hearts one audio or something like that there you go there's some bravery to releasing just that i feel like that would cause a few fans to unravel and be like what does it mean What are we saying here? It's just the start of the Potimism ARG. Yeah, yeah. Let's go. You've got the clues. Solve the puzzle. Mm-hmm. It's always been sore the whole time. Yeah, so if any of you were like, why did Potimism come out on Saturday? That's why.

It's because I released an episode and then I was like, I was looking at my phone and I was like, I reverted the episode to a draft and it still sure does look. like it's up and so like gotcha i'm just gonna say fuck it and launch the whole thing right now so that I can be confident. Because what a strange way to start your Saturday. The podcast is on the wrong day. Yeah. So it's either a special treat or it just really throws you off your rhythm for the week and Chase is just now ruined.

your cadence for the week. Yeah, everybody's having a terrible week because they're like, dude, I don't know. Optimism on Saturday really doesn't hit right. I didn't listen to it on Sunday and then I didn't have anything to listen to on my way to work on Monday. It's horrible. The week has been ruined. yeah no comment it comment on the discord in the discord if chase ruined your week because of that yeah i yeah let him know do it but like gentle please don't hurt me i made a mistake

It happens. It happens. It does. Honestly, I'm surprised I don't fuck it up more. Cause like. Like we've done, I mean, it's been like 240 something episodes. That's what I'm saying. The first time it's happened. Yeah. The first time it's ever been released early. Although I don't know those first like 30, who knows what was going on. I don't know if I ever fucked up in there. Cause it was like 10 of us listening.

And then, you know, obviously. OGs only. Yeah, for real. And I doubt Garen was like, oh, a Wednesday with optimism. Great. Amazing. but a consistent cadence for some reason is incredibly important. I see the numbers y'all. If we put it out on a different day, it's weird. Everybody's like, no, I'm not listening to it now. It's very strange.

back in the day when television shows were aired on specific days like the day it aired on made the big difference to its ratings that's true yeah yeah i wonder if we're doing ourself a disservice by releasing on the same days Ira Glass with This American Life. I didn't know we're up against Ira. That's a losing battle. This week, we absolutely crush those

Little Soft Boys over on Video Game Optimism. Sarah Koenig is going to investigate why they have no sauce and why they have no motion and negative aura. Stay with us. Oh, I would never be able to recover if Ira said that about me. I would be... devastated permanently. Yeah. If Iris specifically said I have negative aura, I think that's it for me. I'm changing my name. I'm moving to, I don't know, Colorado and starting over. I would have to super glue my grieving butt on.

just permanently grieving yeah no permanently grieving the loss of character in that case yeah The only way we could redeem ourselves is by going up against Joe Rogan. Yeah. Changing the day we release and fight the good fight against Joe. Yeah, we have to prove ourselves finally in the marketplace of ideas. Have you been playing video games, dude? I have been. I have been, Chase. I would love to hear about him.

I've been dabbling. I've been dabbling a lot ever since I beat... a thousand times resist i've just been dabbling in everything so i've been so i have quite a few games to talk about i'm not going to go too in depth but i'll talk about quite a few your sampler platter i feel like every now and then we get a david appetizer a platter here. Yeah, we got some Bloomin' Onion in here. We got some molasses bread, probably from Black Angus.

Like a little bit of a baked potato? Half a baked potato, maybe some jalapeno poppers. Nice, yeah. And probably some nachos on the back. middle probably yeah absolutely that's my that's my top appetizer i think personally really a nacho i love a nacho nacho is an appetizer nacho is a main course just nacho give me give me give me the nachos i think is what it comes down to yeah it may just be the nacho ability of it all

Man, I'm trying to think about what the top app is. That is such a hard question. It's a good question, right? Oh, man. And so my brain is, I worked at Chevy's Fresh Max for a couple of years and like... They did truly have a sampler platter of all their appetizers. And among them, the flautas were my favorite. I thought they were so good, the flautas. A nice deep fried rolled taco.

yeah and they they had what they called like a chipotle chipotle aioli on it which i'm pretty sure it was just like spicy mayonnaise uh and it went down went down so right So I don't know. I might go with the flauta personally. I respect the shit out of that. If it didn't have the Chipotle aioli, would you be down?

It's still a good dish. It still tastes great. Like the texture of it was really quality. I hear you and I respect you. But let me just give a quick shout out to bread. Just like I like any kind of bread. As a before I eat the stuff, just throw me some kind of bread and it really, really elevates my mood. More than just like chips and dip. See, I might be colored. I promise I'll talk about video games. I might be colored by the fact that.

Seattle charges for chips and salsa, whereas it's a crime. I know, it's a crime. Seattle, what is wrong with you? In California, that is not a thing that they typically do. I know. It feels horrible. In California, this is not a thing that they do typically. Unless it's like a very specific- No, that place would go out of business. Yeah, yeah. If it's at like- Like a specific place, maybe like a really, I don't know, high end isn't even the right word, but it's rare. The competition is just.

too stiff out here for Mexican restaurants to not offer complimentary chips and salsa yeah so like I think I'm being colored by the fact that I have to pay $8 for chips and salsa. So I don't know. But again, just my old friend, some bread before a meal is really, really top notch. I got you. I got you. Before I talk about my game, real quick shout out, runner up, Calamari.

Also, I love you. Calamari. That is kind of a deep cut for an app, but I do appreciate the energy there. Yeah. Always tempted by calamari if I see it on the menu. Yeah. Something about it. Anyways, what I've been playing this week. Yeah. Kind of an interesting segue into this game. Please. Star Wars Episode 1, The Phantom Menace. For the PlayStation. The Phantom Menace. What are you even playing this on? I'm playing this on my PlayStation 5. It is on the PlayStation Plus Classics catalog.

I would think that it's a stretch to call this game a classic. Absolutely not. Simply not true. It is a classic in the same way that I think my soon to be 25 year old car is going to be a classic technically next year. But there is nothing classic about it except its age. I think it sold well, I think is what, what they're saying there. Cause it was like on the greatest hit.

collection on the playstation yeah okay i didn't know that i think it was just that kids were going bananas going cuckoo for obi-wan and his his and Qui-Gon Jinn because it like maybe you'll tell me otherwise but I don't remember it being particularly amazing I played a lot of this game as a kid I really wanted to play it because it was cool

it was a cool game they do a great job with the atmosphere of the game they do a good a pretty good job with the voice acting and just kind of following the beats of the movie and just making all the levels feel and like Feel and look good for a representation of those scenes that you remember watching in the theater. So I think it does a great job of that as a movie tie-in game. But of course, it's a movie tie-in game. So it has a lot of rough edges too. Namely... The way that you move.

Like the camera and your character are always moving in the same direction. So you move the control stick to the right and it's like you're holding the camera and your camera is attached to the character and you move the camera to the right.

And then they keep on moving that direction. It's like the camera and your character are attached to each other. Yeah. So it makes it very confusing and difficult to move around why they decided to put platforming elements in this game. I do not know, but they did.

And that's very difficult. Yeah. I feel like every game had to have platforming at this time. Yeah. They didn't know how to make a game without jumping bits. Yeah. And you know, Jedis, Jedis are known to be good jumpers. They are jumpy. That is a thing. They're jumpy. They're jumpy folks. It's not done too well in this game. It was frustrating. And there would be times that I would have probably just stopped playing because I jumped. I missed the jump.

and I'm down like two floors below from where I was and I have to do all of it over again. But thankfully, the PlayStation Arcade, or not Arcade, the PlayStation Classics catalog are emulators. So you just rewind and you just go back and try to jump again. Perfection. That's really nice. Loved it. A plus. Thank you, Sony, for doing that because I would have stopped.

so much earlier if i had to redo all that madness again yeah it's i feel like that's like Like if you're going to add games like this, that that's. of like i really need to be able to sand off some of this difficulty because like especially in something where it's part of a subscription i don't need this game to be artificially lengthened like it was in the back in the day uh

Which is through its difficulty, right? Like it is, I think pretty clearly that's what it's doing is just like, let's make this really hard and make you have to go back really far to make sure that this game like is long enough. And I truly, I just don't need that. We don't need it. No, not in this case where it's a game that I might play for two hours. I would much prefer to like make progress or just like have more forgiving checkpoints.

then absolutely have to do the whole thing over again and be like an expert at star wars episode one the phantom menace for playstation one exactly right doing a no hit playthrough on my twitch channel right yeah So yeah, that part is frustrating. And also the other frustrating part about the platforming is that you have a double jump, but it's not actually a double jump. It's like a jump and then you flip in the air and it makes you go like a little bit further, but you don't get any height.

which is very confusing you just like jump and then you guys does a little front flip yeah obi-wan does a little front flip and you go just like a hair further right interesting yeah so it's like a glide more than another jump It's almost like a horizontal double jump. It's strange. Horizontal. It's like you're almost like rolling in the air is really more what it's like.

Yeah. Which is strange. It's a hard concept to grasp when you start playing this game. Things that did well, though, I did really enjoy. the lightsaber deflecting the blaster bolts in this game. I thought it was actually done pretty well. You have to you actually have to kind of aim where you are deflecting the bullet.

back and it felt like this very dangerous game of baseball which was kind of fun baseball slash dodgeball sort of deal yeah and especially like when they're just when you're just going up against like like 10 droids and they're all just blasting the hell out of you. And they just see all these blaster bolts coming. You're just deflecting them back, just knocking down all it.

all at the same time you just feel very powerful jedi man it's great that that part is really well done actually i feel a lot of a lot of Star Wars games do that, where they try and make that specific thing feel good. And a lot of them, I will say, kind of succeed. They get pretty close a lot of the time. I agree. Yeah. I just wonder if it's the power fantasy of like your gun sucks. It's not nearly as good as this fucking.

sword i have yeah this sword is cooler than your gun which i think is really what everybody kind of wants to go back to a little bit yeah like could i just be the space samurai again is that possible it's here it's in this game it does well so yeah Very well done levels as far as like how they look and making it feel like the movie. Good. Saber play, I guess you could call it. But yeah.

But the rest of it leads them into desire, especially the platforming. That is not a game that I would have predicted you brought today. Not even close. Deep cut, deep cut. I saw it on there and I just had to touch. I had to fire it up, yeah. Also very topical with how...

the game starts off with how the taxation of trade routes has really just upended the world. And now I did not understand that at all in the movie. I'm like, okay, so now the Trade Federation is actually... invading Naboo because of all this wow okay it's real It's real out here. The next Star Wars is going to start with the Trade Federation has imposed strict tariffs on the Nintendo Switch 3 and gamers around Earth have tried to rise up against it.

Gamers rise up. I mean, if there's one thing that gamers could do for, to like make up, not make up everything they've done, but just like maybe start getting on the right track. of of rightness this could be this could be that could be a good one that could be a good one yeah we'll see i'll i'll i'll trust him when i see it i need you guys to true enough Put up a few more points on the scoreboard before I'm taking anything. We'll believe it when we see it, I guess is what we're saying.

I have also been playing Persona 3 Reloaded still. Okay, great. Yeah. I don't know what I am waiting for. I don't know what is going on right now. I don't know if I'm doing things correctly or incorrectly. And Mallory watches me play this game and she's like, oh, you're playing that game where you just hang out in lobbies again. Cool. I'm like, that is kind of what this game is for me right now. I'm not totally mad about it, but I'm very confused as to whether or not I am messing something up.

or if I am just supposed to be hanging out, building my social links and waiting for something that's taking quite some time to happen in this world before I can start going up Tartarus again. Let me soothe. So currently, is there like one of those like countdown timers that the game has let you know about? Like something is coming in this amount of time? No. Okay. And, but you have gotten to the part of Tartarus where they're like, we can't go any farther. There's blah.

there's two blocks and they're like sorry bro these blocks are unpassable yeah even though they come up to my chest i've only got a double jump that moves me horizontally i can't get up there I'm actually Obi-Wan Kenobi. I only got horizontal double jumps. but you are at that part. That's correct. Yes. Okay. Then yeah, just keep vibing and like hold steady. Yes. Okay.

I do wish they communicated a little bit more and they will after this instance, like after this time, they'll be more clear with like what your deadline is, but. Yeah, essentially the like the rhythm of the game is that you will have to like get up to many of these places in Tartarus over and over. Like you'll just have to get to these points where they won't let you go any farther. And that's like the point where you can say, all right, for the next.

x amount of time i can just chill gosh okay so it's essentially like metaphor where like if i beat a dungeon quickly before the countdown timer came up finished then i could just go around doing things exactly yeah that's exactly it got it i'm good yeah you can just chill for a little while because i agree that like i also get a little like freaked out when i'm like am i fucking this up so bad right now by just hanging out

I'm just like, am I going to like soft walk my game right now? Because I just didn't know how to persona. Yeah, no, I think you're fine. I like it. I think it would ruin a little bit of what's going on, but you could search like a walkthrough and be like, what are the dates? I know, I didn't want to search.

yeah yeah let me do you know what day you're on in that game oh no i do not i do not that that 11th i don't know yeah sure it was just golden week how about that do you know do you know what that means where you get like some time off of school yeah to play your online video games Yes. And your friend on there is like, absolutely. It's very obvious who it is.

Oh, I have no idea who it is. Oh, okay. All right. All right. Maybe you've only played like one round with them. Like the farther it goes on, it's very clear what's happening. Okay. All right. Well, we'll see what's going on. Now I'm curious.

because they knew it was a nice day outside which was kind of creepy they're like what are what are the two of us doing in here on this beautiful day outside i'm like how do you know that it's a beautiful day where i am internet person yeah do you know me irl my worst nightmare okay yeah may 9th is when shit will start you're on

like May 5th right now. Okay. I'm probably pretty close. You're very close to like things actually starting to happen. And again, like I think the, the thing that I did that I think will probably work just fine is like, Like this kind of rhythm will come up again where it's like, okay, we did one thing and more of Tartarus opened up. Usually what I'll do is just slam through Tartarus like for a little while, just like it's slammable. Yeah. Crush and try and get to like the next.

like threshold that they have you at because then you can just go back and chill for a while i'm sure other people play differently but that's how i did it just so i'm like all right i know that's how you like to play these games yeah you're there for the for the friends for sure yeah that's definitely the stuff

So yeah, uh, hopefully this will soothe your soul and make you a little bit less freaked out. Thank you. I'm going to continue playing this then because now that I know I'm a little close, I'm like, okay. Yeah. You're very near when like the plot starts happening. Oh, cool. Yeah. Like 20 hours in. Yeah. It's very, very atlas of them. I'm fine with that. So long as the first 20 hours are fun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, I think...

Metaphor was a little bit better about this stuff. I feel like it got you into the loop of it very quickly. Whereas I think Persona, it doesn't assume a certain amount of knowledge, but you're in the loop of the game quickly, but you're not necessarily told, here's what is expected of you. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know which one works, but I think, I think you're close.

to this all being understandable cool yeah all right hell yeah to be continued with persona 3 thank you for soothing my my soul you're very welcome i want everybody to play persona so i i know Cat Quest 3, still playing it. It's still fun. Yeah. The different areas you go to all have fun little changes to the ambience, the atmosphere of the game, which are really great.

yeah cat thulu is a continuing gag in this game which is always great it's like a little secret boss fight you can go and it just kicks your ass for a bit but always very fun it has a good bozo list in this game there are there are some bozos out there that have some bounties on them you go and find them and take them down yeah always a good little dungeon crawl to get to them yeah that's cool So appreciate that. Also, shout out to Mama Milka. Yeah. She is a big old buff lady cat.

who owns the tavern. You were talking about Dommy Mommies earlier before we started the pod. Whoa, whoa, whoa. For all you listeners out there. Let's be careful. That is what Chase was talking about before the pod. And I was like, oh, I got something for you then, my friend. Yeah. That is a jacked cat. She's gigantic.

geez yeah she runs the uh the pub where they have milk yeah yeah so she's just she's a fun character and she's the one who uh runs the bozo list in the game that's cool a bozo list for anybody who's very new here is like a hit list i guess Yeah. We were just talking about how it's sad that the nemesis system is gone. It's just like Bozo list is in. Bozo is the new nemesis. Absolutely. We need something new. Take it back for the people.

Also, I've been playing Harvest Moon. Okay, holy shit. Which one? The one on the PlayStation that's on the PlayStation Classics. Catalog. Yeah. I don't know that I've played very many Harvest Moon games. Back to nature. It's this one. It's the happy cow and the dog. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely haven't played this one. It's bizarre because I'm such a stardew person. Like Harvest Moon has never really grasped me in the way that. Yeah.

stardew did how are you finding this one I am finding it in that... I have constantly been searching for the farming game that is going to click for me. Yeah. I've tried Stardew. didn't work for me. I know it's not farming in particular, but Animal Crossing, same thing. Just hasn't clicked for me quite yet. The life sim of it all. The life sim. And then I tried, and then I decided I'm going to try Harvest Moon, like the OG as far as.

in my mind, for a farming sim. And I really was enjoying it. And It had a great exposition, had an interesting, a lot more story going on in the background than I thought there was going to be. But then all of a sudden, I just, as with most farming games, I just kind of hit a wall. I just kind of hit a wall. I'm like, I don't know what to do. Does it want me to like...

clear out more of my farm? How do I make money? It's like this lumber I'm putting in this box that this jacked man comes at the end of the day and takes giving me enough money to like sustain my farm should i be going to find this this child who's lost in the mountains because her family owns the chicken farm and maybe they'll give me a chicken if i find her but i don't know where she is in the mountains it's like i i can't find her at all i've looked over this whole mountain

This child is nowhere to be found. And this guy, you just walk in on him and his sister having an argument. He yells at her. She cries and she runs away. And he's like, can you go find my sister? She's just going to run away from me again if I go and find her. and you scale Everest about it and you're like I can't find her I can't find this kid I can't find her also dude like

Stop being an asshole and just go find your sister and say you're sorry. It's been days she has been out there. I feel like I need to start telling the police, the police officer in town that this kid might be toasted. But yeah, it's... It is fun. I really got into a groove with my scythe just taking out all the grass, all the grass that doesn't need to be there. My scythe, my sledgehammer, and my axe.

those are the things that i was really getting into a groove with just going up and down my my plot of land just clearing it all out and then once i got there i'm like okay what do i buy and they're very unclear about whether or not the seeds i was buying were going to be good and i bought like

like, enough seas to just do two small little plots, like, squares of land. And I have, like... a hundred maybe that i can use and like that's all the money i have i'm just waiting for these potatoes to grow so i just once again i'm just i'm just a little lost so maybe i need to look up a harvest moon playthrough guide which sounds a little ridiculous but

just see what's going on see what's good yeah it's fun I enjoy the town the town's cool yeah I like that I like the dog it's a good dog you get the name of your dog oh that's cool i appreciate i appreciate that it's i feel like a lot of these games do start very slow like that like stardew is very typical in the same way of like you have so few crops at the beginning that like part of the fun is growing like four tomatoes and then selling them to buy eight.

seeds or whatever, and then kind of just like gets exponential like that. Um, I don't know if that's how this harvest moon works, but like that's how stardew and a lot of other, the kind of like life sim farming stuff, they'll start you incredibly slow most of the time. So it's possible that that's just part of it is the slow start of it all. It's interesting you mentioned the story stuff because like I think this and like...

like Story of Seasons, which I think just is Harvest Moon under a different name. And God, what is that? There's another one. Rune Factory is another game that's kind of similar. in that story plays a much bigger role in those games than i think like quote unquote traditional at this point traditional is not the right word because like these ones are more they're older than than like you know uh modern Yeah, I think the modern games, like they don't give you quite as much story.

Or if they do, it's like, it makes the game slightly more linear. I'm thinking of, oh God, what was that game? Like Potion Craft or something? Not Potionomics, but Potion Permit is the game I'm thinking of. of it was like kind of like potion games my goodness yeah but both of them kind of rocked i like both of both those games but that one's like it is slightly smaller in scope because it is trying to do like specific story stuff

compared to like I played this game a little while ago called Traveler's Rest, which like actually does have a fair amount of story, but it's very much like you're just kind of doing your farming stuff. Sure. Whereas like I do think like story of seasons and what I've played of Rune Factory especially is like there's a lot of story in there. And so I wonder if that's just something that like you want out of these kind of games. It's just like I need some narrative hooks, you know.

I think so. Once they started giving me a little backstory into who Davy is, I was starting to get more engaged with the game. Yeah, I want to keep on poking at this one. There's something here that I feel like resonates with me a bit more. than some of the more modern games. And then if that's true, maybe I'll try out some of those other ones that are Harvest Moon likes.

yeah just sanding off some of the some of the rougher edges of this game but it's a very endearing game it's very cute very cozy very cozy game do a good rain they do a good rain effect in this game so yeah i'm looking forward to trying it out more and you get a pony pretty quick Oh, yeah. I love that. You get a pony for free. This person is just like, we don't have room for this pony. Do you want the pony? Just take good care of it.

I'm just like, yeah, I want this pony. Free horse, bro. Yes. Free horse. Dude, horses are fucking expensive. I should just sell this horse. I should just sell this horse. But the horse is fun because they're like, you have to go every day and tell it that you love it.

And then if it's raining, you have to make sure you bring it in and you have to brush it. I'm just like, I am here for horse buddy simulator. This is fun. This is good gaming. That's funny. Yeah, that's Harvest Moon. Yes, it is. Last one. I'm back into Indianapolis Jones and the Great Circle. Oh yeah, sure enough. How long is this game? Do you know? I have no idea. I think I've just gotten through like the second act.

I've gotten through Egypt. I've done Egypt now. Okay. And now I'm in the Himalayas. But Egypt was great. Egypt was a very fun portion of the game. Lots of just crawling through tombs, hanging out with mummies, being in the desert, knocking down Nazis. Yeah, because now it's very funny.

hierarchy of like douchebag that this game has because when you're in the vatican there's fascist right and you can knock one of those guys out with one like fully wound up haymaker from indiana okay yeah the nazis they take two They take two punches, baseline. So that's a stronger bastard than a fascist, right? So there's a very clear power scaling that's going on here from machine games.

and i just also really appreciate the machine games it's just like making a name for themselves being just like the nazi bashing the not developer the nazi fucker the nazi fucker developers yeah with of course because they did the wolfenstein games yeah and now they're doing this one and it's really making me curious as to what they will do next because

There are some fertile grounds for Nazi games nowadays. This game is really fun. In Egypt, you're in Giza and you're like going through the Sphinx. You're going into pyramids. It's really a great experience. And then you also have the town of Giza itself, which is just very well done. Just the markets feel so alive and the colors kind of pop in this area against, you know, the stark yellowness of the desert in the background. Yeah. Really great.

and that also gets a little spooky in this in this section yeah it's a little spooky it's a little spooky and the spookiness is very well done it never goes full on like super natural yeah but just gets It just gets a little tomb spooky-ish, which was well done. Also, scorpions. Scorpions are bad. Scorpions will fuck you up in this game, which is also, I think, accurate.

They do a good job of making Indiana Jones feel like a human man is doing these things. I'm like, yeah, if there was like a hundred scorpions coming at me, I don't know what the fuck I would do. Those guys will... end me absolutely it would absolutely end me yeah yeah so yeah very very well done game great exploration the whip's great and i just love the knuckle duster dance which are the underground fighting rings that you can go to

just bare knuckle brawling the way that grandpa used to do it just two dudes in a ring and you just once again just get to bash on some fascists and some nazis it's great yeah it's a good time you know i love a coliseum so It's Coliseum Ask. It's Coliseum Ask, but it's good. It's a very fun game. It's a good even chest. It's not... too action-y either. So it's a good late night game too if you just want to go and solve a puzzle or two. Yeah. Yeah. Well done. Well done game. Well done game.

Love that. That's everything I've been playing, Chase. Okay, cool. Thank you for coming to my smorgasbord this week. Yeah, good appetizers. Love those. I was a big fan of the wild cards, the ones I was not expecting. Star Wars and Harvest Moon? Yeah, I think so. I think those are the two. They're good wild cards. They're good wild cards. That's true. I like surprising you. It's fun. I like being surprised. It's a good form of surprise. I like it.

All right, Chase, what have you been playing? I got two things for you, David. The first is almost certainly going to be a little bit shorter, but it is this game called Witching Stone, which is a, oh God, what is this? Kind of bejeweled, almost roguelike. Interesting.

where you are this person, this like witch and... uh you show up to like any it's kind of slay the spy area in the sense that you're like traversing this like map of little points that you go to um and when you get there you engage in a fight and it's very like

similar to slay the spire and that an enemy will sort of be like telling you what they're going to do on their turn like they have a little sword over their head with a three or something it's like they're going to hit me for three damage or they're going to block or whatever and you have this like i think it's like four by five grid in the middle of your screen of all these little like

And on the sides of... Yeah, 4x3 actually got that. And on the sides of them, there are your spells. And essentially what you're trying to do is... Each of those spells have like a gem combo that you're trying to use. So it's like one red gem, then two blue ones will cast like an attack spell or something. all like four purple ones in a row will deal three damage to all enemies or something like that. So what you're trying to do is like find a line in those gems.

from like one to the next to the next that will cast a bunch of your spells on the enemy, but you can only click so many gems. It's like you have like kind of energy that will allow you to click like, oh, I didn't do very much last turn. So now I have an extra two or something. So I have six. gems that I can select this turn. And so I think the fun of this game, A, that's just an interesting pitch for a game. The concept is novel. And it's very fun. I feel like I rarely see rifts.

on like a bejeweled sort of thing. But also, it's got, you know, all the kind of trappings of a good roguelike where they're... And specifically Slay the Spire. I think it's definitely inspired by that. Inspired by that. But it... I think that the fun of the game is like a lot of these games, crafting your build and trying to figure out like, okay, which of these spells go well together? Because if you do like a bunch of lines.

catch like a couple different kinds of gems in there it's possible to trigger like more than one spell at a time and so like what you're trying to do is just like make a good combo that will work in a bunch of different situations and like yeah

You know, trigger a bunch of stuff rather than like these two, three disparate spells that don't work very well together. Am I crazy to say that this reminds me of Puzzle and Dragons? No, I think that it's similar. There's not as much dragging of like the jewels in that way, but like...

Like, yeah, it's a similar concept of like you're trying to like just get jewels in the right spot to be able to. Shout out to Garen, Puzzle and Dragon. Yeah, true. That game was wild. I really liked Puzzles and Dragon. It's an Android game for anybody wondering where you solve puzzles and your big dragon monster attacks things on screen when you do that.

yeah it's uh it was fun i really liked that one probably still is fun it probably still exists yeah it's almost certainly true i think like we looked this up recently and it's still is like one of the top earners in all mobile games somehow i believe it i was i was hooked on this game for a while probably oh god a decade ago now probably yeah at least

I don't know. I just found this a very, like, simple but fun video game it like it's got this kind of like almost 90s anime look to the characters which I find very charming and you know you can unlock a bunch of different classes and all of them have different spells and

you know, all yada, yada, yada. You've played a roguelike before you get it. But, uh, yeah, I just, I thought it was really cool and really novel in a way that I kind of wasn't expecting. They also have a demo. So like, if you want to check it out, like I would really recommend giving it a try. It's also like not horribly expensive. So yeah.

Yeah, it's witching stone. I think I heard about this on girl mode at some point, but I can't remember when that was. If I had to guess, that was probably Robin who brought that up because she's also a deck building roguelike fanatic. So, hell yeah. I think shout out to Robin. Who knows? Potential shout out. Potential, yeah. Possible shout out. However, the thing that is occupying most of my time now is a game called Blueprints, David. Ah, I've heard about this one. Yeah.

Blueprints. It's sort of that hot, hot new, new right now. Yes. I would be willing to guess, given that this comes out on Sunday, there will at least be one other TWG network podcast that has already brought up blueprints. It's just kind of in the zeitgeist right now. And I think part of that is that there have been a lot of like best game of the year so far kind of things.

I know Jason Trier was like, this is one of the best games I've ever played. Wow. So yeah, there's like a lot of praise being heaped on it and not to like spoil the lead. I think I understand where most people are coming from, but I also get the sense that like. Like to really know this game is to beat it. And I haven't done that yet. So like I do want to hold off on fully judging it until it is like totally done.

Let me start here. It is a game that is hard to talk about because... I think the joy of it is the surprise A lot of the game, it does not tell you immediately what is really cool about it. And you, I think, are supposed to discover that. And the best I can say is that it is cool to discover the things it wants you to discover. Gotcha. The things that are discovered are cool. Are cool. Let me also start with this.

specifically directed at you, they don't have a color blind mode yet. And color is critical in this video game. So like for you, I panicked a little bit the other day when Indiana Jones, like the wall is painted red. That's where you need to go. I'm like, Oh God, which one? Yeah. So like, it's a little disappointing. They haven't figured that out yet. And like, you know, why, why make this problem for yourself? There are ways around it, but like it is.

both a part of the puzzles and the narrative and so like it is a big part of it right now so like maybe temper your excitement for the moment being um and anybody else who was colorblind because like it is it is sort of like not in a in a state right now where i would recommend playing it if you are colorblind gotcha just got to warm my eyes up beforehand

Yeah, get them ready to roll or hopefully they just put out an actual colorblind mode. I sort of suspect they will because that's a pretty public sort of complaint or I guess expectation is probably the better word there right now. Yeah. What colors? Red, blue. Red, blue are the biggest problems. Red and blue.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Usually red and green are the worst for me, but definitely some reds and blues can get close as well. Yeah. I mean like green, I'll explain what I mean here, but like there are colors to some of the rooms that you can go into and their colors matter pretty frequently.

Gotcha. So let me kind of explain what this game is. This is a recent release from, I think it's Doggo Bomb is the way to pronounce it. This is a roguelike puzzle game, which I'm not sure I've played too many of those other than The Outer Wild. like that's pretty much it because i feel like most times puzzle games are intentionally very linear right like

Or not directly linear, but the moment you know the answer to a puzzle should be the moment that you solve it, typically. And so a roguelike is kind of a hard architecture to wrap around. a puzzle game. And I think Outer Wilds gets around that in the sense that once you know the solution, even if you have to start over, you can get back to where you were pretty quickly. And so it's not quite as much of a slog to get there because it's like, well, I know where I need to go and what I need to do.

And so like the thing that takes time is figuring those things out. And so like, so what if I have to go reset it? I can just go get there really quickly. But yeah, so that's all to say this is also a roguelike puzzle game. And the pitch of it is that you are the nephew of this like kind of well-to-do landowning, I wouldn't say baron, there's a better name for it, but like... A high society dude who has recently died. An aristocrat.

yeah yeah i think that's that's a good a good word for it and he's died and said hey nobody can inherit my estate the only person who can is my nephew but he has to go and solve this puzzle that i've left for him if he doesn't solve it he doesn't get my estate And part of his estate is that it is this gigantic like manor named Holly Manor. And it is a place where day to day, the rooms completely change their location.

And so when you enter into it, it is a different layout than it used to be. And you as a person will get to choose what the layout is. Mechanically, what that means is that every day the house resets. and you get to like draft the house again. Specifically, what that means is that when you walk in, there's like a entrance chamber and there are three doors, one in front of you, one to the right and one to the left. And whenever you click on a door, it shows you like three.

options for what the next room could be what like kind of what you want to do they're very betrayal at house on the hill or whatever you are placing down very like little tiles one at a time and so in that way it's very board gamey which i think is very fun and each of those rooms also has

very specific amount of exits and entrances. Some of them are dead ends. Some of them, you know, only have a center door and a left door. And there is this grid that you're working up, like essentially the entirety of the house. It's like kind of lengthy, tall, top wise, top to bottom. It's like, I think 11 squares tall or something like that. And then five wide. And so your, your first goal in this game, as your, your uncle says, is like.

Like I need you to, there are two goals that are two puzzles you have to solve. One is that supposedly there are 45 chambers in this house. but some have hinted that there might be a 46th, and I want you to find that one. The other is that at the very top, there is this place called the antechamber that I need you to get into, but the doors to it are always sealed, so you have to figure out how to open it up. And so those are really the things that you are trying to drive toward.

When you enter the 36th chamber, does the Wu-Tang Clan start playing? Yes, they do, actually. It's very cool. Just as they're like, hey, you solved my puzzle. You solved my riddle. Uncle Jizza, what are you doing here? Raekwon, how did you get in this room? I would love it if there was actually like a Wu-Tang drop somewhere in here. That would be sick as hell.

It's a little bit in the background. It doesn't have to be a big thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like played at like 10% volume just for the real ones to be able to hear it. Yeah. So yeah, the process of the game is essentially you just working through these rooms. trying to go what is essentially north and the kind of trials and tribulations that that comes with because sometimes a door will be locked and you need to find keys. Most of the keys will unlock any door.

Some of them won't. And so you kind of need to figure out where do I get that specific key? And some rooms when you're drafting them will cost gems. And typically that means that room does something more interesting. There is just like some mechanic in there that is valuable to you.

And you just can find gems along the way, either by like solving puzzles or some rooms just have gems in them. Or like, you know, typically it's like if there is a room that is a dead end, oftentimes it will come with something cool. Like there might be some money or some gems in there or something like that.

So all of that to say, I don't want to really speak too much more on it because I think, again, the discovery is the fun. And I would also really recommend like don't search for guides if you're going to play this game because like. The puzzles are set up in a way that you can come at a problem from a bunch of different ways. And so to...

solve one problem is probably solving about five other ones too. And so you might kind of ruin some of the surprise for yourself if you were like, I just want to know this answer, but it also gives you like a hundred other answers too. So yeah, I think like it is an extremely playable game. I will say that like it's one that you definitely need like a notepad next to you to kind of be like jotting down kind of thoughts or like date.

or important bits of information that you're like, I bet I'm going to need that pretty soon. or anything like that, that it's just really helpful to do that. And I think that there's like, I'm typically not a fan of these games, or at least they don't really speak to me of the like, I need to take notes because it feels like I'm just here to play a video game, man. Like, I don't want to have to bring a pad and paper into it, but.

I think Blueprints is just like, it is fun in that way. I think there's just... There is so much information all the time that I'm like, I don't know if I need this, but I do want to write it down. And I think the puzzles are really fun in that I usually don't have to look up the history of Austria to solve.

a specific puzzle. It's like, once you get all the pieces, it's pretty often that I'm like, okay, let me just think about this for a little while. And then like kind of a bolt of lightning will strike and be like, oh my God, I know what to do. You know? Sure. And so that experience I find really fun. I think one of the kind of criticisms of the game that I also definitely feel when I'm playing it is that.

There will be some times where I think I know what to do. There's something that I would like to do in the game, but the RNG of the roguelike of it all... simply doesn't allow for that to happen. And I really have to try and try and try to do the thing that I know I need to do, but just hasn't really worked out in my favor yet.

And so that can be frustrating, right? Of like, I need to get into this one room and I drafted just a shitty hand and I can't get in there this run, you know, like it's just not an option. And yeah. And so like that. but I will say it's also very roguelikey. You know, like when I'm playing Hades, there were many runs where I got... so close to beating it. And I was like, if I had just drafted this other item, I definitely would have done it.

it, you know? And it feels kind of similar to that. And so I think when going into it, I had to have a little bit more of a relaxed mindset of like, you know what? I, if I don't get it, I don't get it. I'll just try like a different approach to these puzzles, you know?

All that to say, I think that there is a mindset that this game can be very satisfying in, but I think it does its best to offset some of that frustration by having five or six things simmering that you are thinking like, okay, here's a puzzle that I could solve. Or here's another thing that I've been thinking about for a while.

Or here's this other thing that I haven't really found an answer to and I don't think I know it yet. But what if I like got this room and was able to do this thing? So like there's a lot of things that aren't exactly the one problem you're trying to solve most of the time that you can be like, all right, well, maybe I didn't make that.

spot but like what else can i do in this run and so i think that like it can be satisfying but if you are somebody who's like really attached to other forms of puzzle games i'm thinking kind of like of lorelei and laser eyes or like mist even where like

and you solve it and you immediately move on. Right. Like that is the experience of, I think most puzzle games that like there, there's a world where this would be a frustrating one where like just kind of going through the motions of like, I've done this. room 10 times already and I'm not getting anywhere. I understand why that would be a frustrating thing, but I think just me being able to

kind of let the, I don't know, let Jesus take the wheel a little bit with some of that. Like it does make it more satisfying for me. Um, so yeah, it's, uh, again, I wish I could sing its praises. completely but to do that i think i would ruin some of what makes it very cool yeah um but i will say like I think the thing that is cool about it is that you often think you know what the game is, and that is oftentimes not correct, and that that is a fun experience.

to be like, oh, wow, I didn't think this was in here, you know? And like, it happens a lot. And so I'm just appreciative of the game doing that. And again, just like, I think that the puzzle design is really clever in that I'm a person who, when I fire up a puzzle video game, I'm like, I'm never going to figure it out, man. I'm too much of a bingus to get this going. You got to put your, you got to take your biggest hat off. That's the trick.

I mean, that is definitely the answer, but also I think the game is structured in a way that like, there's probably five pieces of a puzzle mentally that are available and you can probably solve it with like. like two or three. And like, but once you get it, it's like, oh my God, okay, perfect. I know I have enough information to solve this. Whereas like, I'm sure somebody could stare at the puzzle for a long time and be like,

I think I know what to do here. Or like there's plenty, you can just brute force too, but like that would just take forever. But I have typically felt that I know when I am ready to solve a puzzle and when I'm like, I should just walk away from this one right now because I don't think I have enough information. Sure.

Which is a hard line for me and something that I'm really relieved that they're able to communicate. Yeah, move on. Yeah, move on. So yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I am very much going to hold off on calling it one of the best games I've ever played until I beat it. Because again, I think something that the surprise is the fun and I don't think I've experienced every surprise that this game has to offer. Yeah. But I'm having a great time regardless. I will also say I have...

seen some pretty insane play times for people that they're like, here's how long I played this game. And I'm like, I'm not even close to that, man. So like, what is this game holding that? I don't know. Like how long? Like a hundred hours is what some people say. And I'm like, I'm like maybe 10 in right now. And I'm like, I've.

feel like i'm getting pretty close to beating the game you haven't even come to the wu-tang portion yet dude yeah no the wu-tang room is still it eludes me that's like 20 hours in and of itself thanks uncle jizza It's a cursed sentence. It is, isn't it? Anyway, David, let me just put a hat or a little cap on that one. I'm enjoying the game. I'm excited to see where it goes.

Nice. Anyway, David, this will bring me to my Poddomestic thing of the week. Which is? It's puzzles and games, shockingly. Puzzles and games, yeah. Absolutely. A hard thing to do, I will say. Usually bad. I would say like most video game puzzles are... Some variation of we're just going to make this take a while and that's the puzzle. But I think there's some good ones out there, you know?

I mean, you know, a game like Lorelai is like the whole thing is designed around a puzzle. So like, that's very satisfying unto itself. Yeah. But like, I'm even a pre an appreciator of the like. You've got a room full of ice on a grid, and if you step onto it, you immediately slide to the opposite side of the ice, that kind of thing. I think you see that in Pokemon and stuff. i appreciate that puzzle it's not too bad i like that yeah yeah um the let me let me just give a quick unpod domestic

Zelda, I don't want to move blocks anymore. I think moving blocks is not a very good puzzle. I had to move block in Star Wars Phantom Episode 1. Yes, yeah. That was a puzzle. That was a puzzle. I don't think that's a particularly good puzzle. That's just kind of like, how long would you like to be in this room? Manny will labor through a video game. Yes. Yeah. I'm doing labor right now.

So like that one's you got to add a little bit of extra something in there, you know, or like even the idea I'm still playing Assassin's Creed shadows, even the idea that like a puzzle could be, how do I not be seen in this, in this level right now? Yeah.

That's cool too. I like that as well. It's a spice you got to be careful with how you wield because a bad puzzle really stinks. I'd say it's just very, it's so hard to grade a puzzle. Yeah, yeah. Right? Either it is like... super easy and basic or it is sometimes so hard and uncroccable that it's just

an insurmountable task for, you know, the lay gamer to go through, right? So I think... it works better in games that are really focused around puzzles it doesn't work as well in games where it's like where it's puzzles are just like one aspect of it or just like hey we just decided to do a puzzle in this area for god knows what reason yeah those are usually not so good but

yeah like probably the blueprints probably lower line laser eyes i've never played out of those escape academy i have played that one great puzzles good game the witness i think that was i think that's what that game was called it was good hard but good puzzles right i knew that you played the witness I played it for Hasek and I did not beat it, but I had fun playing the bits that I did play. So yeah, I think it's just, it's hard to do a good puzzle in a game. It's hard.

You have to level set so much with getting people enough information, but not leading them completely to the answer, you know? Exactly. Which I think is why games like Blueprints and then Lorelai especially too is like, let's provide you with some very basic things that do exist in real life, like a periodic table.

or like a star chart or something like that. And they're like, all right, now let's build a puzzle on that. Now that you like have the like periodic table in front of you or whatever, that stuff's very fun. Absolutely. That's cool. I like that. Do you have something fueling your sense of optimism, David? Yeah, it's a good use of immersive first-person camera perspective.

Indiana Jones does this very well. Yeah. With Indiana Jones, like changing into different costumes. And then when he puts on his costume, they always make a show of like him. looking at his hat dusting it off and putting it back on his head that's fun there is a portion especially in egypt they did a really good job with it he falls

and then tumbles down into a tomb. And then he's just tumbling end over end and then gets to the bottom and there's just dust. He's like blinking. So he goes dark and then it goes light. And then you look up and there's just like a small little light where you fell from. And you just see it just like coming through the dust and like the rubble of what you just fell through. And it's just, it was very, it was very well done. Yeah. Yeah. They, they make, they make great use of it in this.

in this level and they also play with light a lot in the tombs there's one specific like mini little boss battle that does really great use of the first person perspective and making it kind of spooky yeah but But I always love it in a game when they do first person well, like Metroid Prime. Yeah, I was going to say Cyberpunk. Outer Wilds, I think, did a good job. And even like Subnautica or Star Wars Squadrons, they all did good jobs with just making it really feel like.

Like you're there, you know, there's, there's something to be said about a first person perspective. Yeah. Yeah. And like subnautica where like you're the edges of your HUD will kind of like freeze up a little bit when it gets too cold and shit. It's very good. Love that. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. That's cool. I love that. You want to move on to the main thing, though? Let's go to the main course.

Hey, it's good games. It's a segment where we talk about the okayest games of yesteryear and gush all the things that we love about them. What's the lowest energy? Hey, it's good games ever. I think it, I was trying to convey a certain amount of like, let's just. speak truth right now it's good games okay it is it is good games today let's not beat around the bush segment where we talk about the okayest games of yesteryear We got suggested to play a game called Kuru, Kuru, Kururen.

And two people had actually suggested this to us. The first was Guardian. Really? Who had suggested that we play, I think it was, there's another version of it. It's the series? There's three of them. We only got the one over here. The GBA one. Yes. Squash was the one that I think Guardian had suggested we play. Like the game Squash? No, Kurukurukurin Squash was the full title there. Huh.

On the topic of this game, Guardian had to say, got this game on a whim during a huge PlayAsia sale a long time ago. Single player was okay, but it immediately became a local three-player or four-player staple, both with casual gaming friends and at my local fighting game tournament.

have rarely ever encountered someone that hasn't liked this game, even when losing during a tournament. I've also rarely encountered someone who hasn't unconsciously screamed profanity while playing. Once took this to a gaming convention, spent hours playing it with strangers who would ask what it is and I would hand them the controller within minutes. me a kind of new friend and two complete strangers would be screaming and yelling and laughing like we'd known each other for years.

Also, Sam had suggested this game saying unquestionably the most messed up game I've ever played. It's just a stick moving endlessly in circles and you move through a maze. Thank you both for suggesting this game. I think Guardian had requested that we play it in person, but we had tried that when I was there and it just wasn't working. Oh, is that that game? It was one of them, yeah. Gotcha.

So I hope that this is is acceptable in place of that one. But yeah, I hadn't literally never heard of this game. Had you heard of this? No, never once. And like the. The box art for the game tells you nothing. absolutely zero about what this is.

This game is going to be the title is nothing. The box art shows you a stick moving and you're like, I don't know what to make of this. I thought it was going to be like a Wheel of Fortune type game or something like a quiz show or something. That's that was what I was guessing. Yeah, no, I think, and I'll talk about this in the hot stats, but like, I think that we didn't get the release for this because it released in Japan and PAL, the phase alternating line. And maybe that is us.

But usually there's a North American release and that's not listed here. So I don't know if we even got it. So, and again, the, the, the two sequels were Japan only. So the first time we saw it, I think was the, uh, the Wii U virtual console. So like, it was not something that I think Americans were like even familiar with a little bit. But yeah, let me hit you with some hot sats about this one, David. Yeah, let's hear it. Hot stats. Hot stats.

So, Kurukuru Kururin came out March 21st of 2001 in Japan for the Game Boy Advance. And this was made by a company called Aiting, which has made most of the bloody roar fighting games. And then like a bunch of anime tie-in games. Like they had like a full metal alchemist game, a bleach game, a Naruto game, which I will say after having recently read just a little mini manga minute.

After having recently read the Full Metal Alchemist, making a game out of it is a very bizarre decision. That seems like so not what the series is about. Yeah. I know it kind of comes off as like shonen, but like, it's so not that like I have shown in a disguise. Yeah, I don't think it really suits being a video game made out of it. So I don't know what's going on there. And they also helped develop Pikmin 4, which I think is very fun.

I do have a review from the outlet Pocket Magazine, David. I took their review. I ran it through Google Translate a number of times. one language into another to mangle it up and get a little artist's interpretation of it, which I will read for you now, David. Let's hear it. The game is divided into around 30 levels and the game is divided into 30 levels. The problem is getting worse. There are ways to manage time and knowledge filled with unnecessary chatter.

Nothing more. But the gameplay is so good that you will come back to it again and again and again. Additionally, the images are sharp and colorful and the images are noticeable. Clear sound. This is the new Hard Drugs. And they gave that a 10 out of 10. They loved it. Wow. I mean, yeah, if you call it the new hard drugs, you have to give it a 10 out of 10, right? Yeah. Jeez Louise.

Yeah, they were big fans of the Pocket Magazine. That was a very serious review. Very repetitive, too. Very interesting. Could you tell me what this game is, David? i will try sort of yeah kuru kuru kuru is a i guess a spatial puzzle game really where you are I don't even know who you are. You are a little bird thing that is piloting the world.

silliest flying machine which is just a stick that circles around in a circle as you move through a level and the level is very narrow and in spots you have to wait for the stick to essentially rotate in the correct way for you to make tight turns and corners. And sometimes you have to hit a spring to make the stick rotate in the other direction so you get around a different... corner or turn that you wouldn't be able to if it was rotating clockwise or counterclockwise.

So it's all top-down puzzles. where you're just trying to get through this level as this silly little airship helicopter thing rotating around, trying to make sharp turns and crazy... narrow passes through this level to rescue your family. Is it your family or is it someone else's family? You're rescuing other little bird creatures like you. There is a story which I found pretty wild. There is a story. Yeah. I think you're looking for Karurin's brother and sister.

Okay. I think it's multiple. It's a lot. That mom loses a lot of children at the beginning of the game. They just run away. So you're also keeping an eye out for them in these levels and they'll grab onto your little spinny stick wing and just make it through to the end with you.

So yeah, you just, and you also try to get through as fast as possible in the levels. You can just, you can do the level as slowly as you want to just progress the game, but there is a time trial element to it of just like perfecting your run through the level, which is very fun. Yeah. I've literally never played a game like this. No, this is one of one. This is one of one. Yeah. It is so bizarre. And like-

It's, I think, a very fun kind of game where you get it immediately. The stakes of what is happening in the game couldn't be more clear. You're a spinning stick. you have to move and sometimes the passages are hard in a way where you have to like there's only one time during the rotation of the stick that you can get through there Oh, and it's like operation. If you hit the sides with your stick... you lose a life you only have three hits of the sides and then once you hit those

You just shatter into a million pieces. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, but it's, it's very fun in the sense that the first couple of levels I'm like, Like I'm a fucking God at this video game. I am so good at this video game. And then there's like a point where it's like, no, you are not. It takes the gloves off at a certain point and just demolishes you. It's such a challenging game.

It's almost more insulting than a Dark Souls when they kill you in a bizarre way, because there is an answer. It's not like you just aren't clever enough to do it. have to do the fucking thing you can see it you can see what the problem is

I, we, we played this both on the Wii U, not the Wii U, the Switch Virtual Console. Yes. And it, it was hard with control stick but this launched on the game boy advance so i don't know how frustrating this game must have been with just a control like a d-pad and that's it trying to get through

I have no idea how that was manageable in the slightest. I'm just like, is that easier or harder than how it was, than how we experienced it? Maybe we had too much freedom. Too much control. Yeah. Too much control. I don't know. I think it probably would have still been incredibly challenging. Yeah, I agree. But yeah, like...

I haven't said it yet. I really like this game. It's very good. It's a lot of fun, actually. Yeah, I agree. You think it would be so stupid and so ridiculous. And in a way it is, but I'm playing through it and I'm just like, I... gotta keep crushing these levels man there's no other option for me right now absolutely especially the ones where it's like you start it starts to get so complicated where

You're going up one hallway and at the end of it, you have to hit a spring to then start rotating the other way. There's no safe space in between there. And you just have to keep doing it. It's so much fun. And levels are so short that like any amount of progress that is dashed by you dying is not that bad. Like it's really not that terrible. And it's short load times. You get back into the game very fast, very fast, which is great.

Trial and error is part of a game. It's built in. Yeah, for sure. I can only imagine how nuts the multiplayer is with this game because it's just so stressful on its own that I can imagine you trying to just be a little bit quicker than somebody else. is is outrageously fun yeah doing time trials with a bunch of friends would be so stressful i would be sweating doing this with friends

It'd be like when we played Assetto Corsa and we're trying to do time trials. I feel like it would be a similar sort of experience of just such a frustrating but clear thing that i need to be doing and it's just the the finesse with which i complete it that is just keeping me from glory yeah it's the experience of like going around a corner in this game is also just like so thrilling in a way because like you can you'll be able to see like

Like my stick is getting closer to the wall as I'm rotating through this corner. Did I not do it fast enough or something? And it's this like. like nail biting teeth grinding sort of thing where it's like, I don't know if I'm going to make it, but I have to commit and keep trying to go through this like little passage.

Cause if you stop, you're for sure not going to get through it. Cause it's always rotating. The stick is always, always, always rotating. And so like you have to try. And so it's, it can just be so nerve wracking in a good way where it's like, I don't know if I'm going to get through here. And maybe I'm already fucked, but I'm going to keep trying to press on through this.

horrible horrible hallway it is also pretty funny when you fuck up just so bad because things can go from good to bad in a fucking instant you're just like chilling chilling along going along you have three hearts and then all of a sudden you just get into a bad situation and it just goes you just hit the sides of the level three times in a row and you blow up and you're just

done also the the character that you're flying around as he has a little like first person like life live cam of him in his cockpit while you're going to the level kind of like star fox and The boy is sweating when he gets down to one heart. He is terrified. It really puts some stakes. It came when you see that. Yeah, Karurin is like, he's got the fear of God in him when things are going badly. Is his name Karurin?

I think so, yeah. Is he Karurin? Okay, okay. Yeah, because the plot says the story begins when Karurin's brothers and sisters go missing. So I think it's just... that's the bird man is is karoon karoon is the bird man yeah yeah good i was just gonna say real quick can we talk about the gorilla did you did you see the gorilla i don't know if i saw the gorilla and how this boy was moving Okay, hold on. How this boy was absolutely moving. I don't think I saw the gorilla. Yes.

just the way that it moves like there are a lot of animals in this game but none are animated like this gorilla do you see him do you see him jumping and bouncing that thing No, I'm scrubbing through the video right now. I'm trying to find him. Go to the most intense, chill game you've never heard of and go to 46 seconds.

i see him see him moving that thing yeah he's like his his back and his front are animated in like different cycles nothing else in this game no other animal like background animal in this game is animated as lovingly as this gorilla is

There is a fluidity to which this gorilla moves that is entrancing. Yeah, they put a lot into it. Wow, that's really impressive. I like this gorilla. It's a good gorilla. That's all I wanted to point out was that the gorilla is good. Yeah, we get the Poddimism seal of approval. Good monkey in this one.

Yes. Got a good monkey. Yeah. It's a, it's a phenomenal game. I'm like shocked by that. It is so simple and so stupid and like seemingly very frustrating, but like is dark souls levels of punishing maybe more to be honest. Like, yeah. It is so hard, but in a way that I really like, it is like over the top challenging in a way that I like really, really enjoy. Yeah.

And I'm always a sucker for just a spatial reasoning game in general. Like all of the games that had to do with spatial reasoning on the UFO 50 were probably some of my favorites. Yeah. And this feels like it's straight from UFO 50. It really does. Yeah, this could absolutely be a UFO 50 game. Just so simple and so elegant. Yeah, it is just like one idea taken so far.

And like, I don't know how long this game is, but I was in no shortage of levels in this thing. No, they just keep coming. And the nice thing about it is that like, all you have to do is just beat the level to advance.

You don't have to do it in a certain amount of time. That's just for you to go back and just... you know replayability baby and it's a good it's a good version of replayability because when you are going quick and you are hitting those turns like you're a pro it feels good it feels good when you are just like like millimeters away from the edge and you're just threading the needle and not stopping. It is a nice feeling when you get this stick sticking. Yeah.

It's true. It's so bizarre. It's like, I'm trying to find like. a metaphor or just like a comparison to make of this game. And I just, I have nothing because it's so, so nuts for a game that is about a spinning stick. Yeah. I think it, It's able to get you to activate a flow state very well because it is so simple and just the stakes are so clear about what you're supposed to do.

Yeah. It feels like what reading music feels like to me sometimes where it's like, I have to completely clear my mind to be able to like focus on this enough. Yeah. to play it but like when I'm there and I am reading it very quickly it's like My brain is attached to the actual reading thing and my hands are doing what I'm asking them to do, but there's a byproduct of those things, which is the music. And in this case, it's the sweet, sweet victory. Yeah.

I can see what I need to do. It's very rare. in this game that I'm like, I don't know what to do in this like hallway. Maybe you have to look at it for a second, but like most of the time there's really only one option, you know? Cause like full send, that's the option. Yeah. Like you just gotta go. And so in a way it's like, you're just trying to like take in the visuals of it and just like respond to what you're seeing, you know, in the way that like reading music, it's like.

like, or Guitar Hero even, where you're just seeing instructions for what to do. Absolutely, yeah. And then you have to just, like, kind of respond to it. so wild i really like it i think this game is very good It's a very well-made game. It's incredible. Really, just how simple and fun it is. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good puzzle game, honestly, or even a good, like, racing game. Because you can play it as a racing game, honestly.

It defies genre in a lot of ways. Any one genre doesn't seem correct, but they all have a little bit of it in there. This is a Kuru, the first Kuru in like... it's true i i think the comparison to to ufo 50 is really apt like it's it feels like it's right at home among those games yeah i would not blink an eye if this was on ufo 50 at all no like yeah no this checks out i uh

I definitely need the UFO 50 take on this game. Like what is there this game, but this as well. Well, you know, I would, I'd really love that. That'd be cool. Well, what would you combine this game with? What other game UFO 50 game or otherwise? Like a bullet hell or something, maybe. Like Gradius? Yes, yeah. This and Gradius. Man, that would maybe be the most frustrating game I've ever played in my life. You would need to make it like this, where there's only one way through the bullets.

Sure. And so you just have to pay attention to where the void of the circle is in the bullet hell. And you'd have to be able to have the ability to change the direction of your spin whenever you want to. Kind of like Ikaruga. I was just, I was trying to reach for what the name of that game was. Very Icaruga. Very cool. That could be cool. That could be cool. So it's like. Kurukuru Kururun has its mid-aughts edgy turn with this game. Yeah, the Kururun within.

He's got an emo haircut now. Yeah, sure. Just like the side swoop black hair. I love that. He's just listening to Linkin Park the whole time. Goodness. I like... i wish i had so much to say about this game but it is so stupid simple that like even by trying to describe it i know that i am not doing it justice so like

you listener if you're in front of a computer or a switch like just play it now um yeah because it's like if we sat here and tried to be like okay so here's the cool part about tetris or like mr driller or dig dug or something it's like here's my favorite thing about breathing Yes, exactly. It's like, well, I don't know. It's nourishing in a way that I don't know how to describe. What a bizarre game, but also very good. Very good. Do you have anything else you want to say about it?

I do not. I had a lot of fun with this game, a lot more fun than I thought. And I was cursing. I was getting into this game. oh yeah yeah it's uh it's thrilling and yeah just like every every time i die i was like not expecting it because i was like i'm good i'm good i'm good oh fuck and then died there's something there's something very engaging about it Good game. Guardian and Sam, thank you for suggesting this one. Yeah, thank you. It's great.

If you would like to interact with podcasts more, you can go to podtimism.com. There you can look at old episodes that we have done. You can search for games that we have talked about in the past. You can look at podcast art that Chase has made.

or thumbnail art that chase has made and then also you can go there and suggest a game for us to play in the future we will get to it eventually we got a lot we got a lot on the backlog but we're getting we're making our we're making our way down down moving fast to yep you got it through all those suggestions. So yeah, thank you and keep them coming. It's great.

Yeah. Also on our website, you can find a link to the worst garbage podcast network discord where we are. We are a part of this network and we have a little spot there so you can go over there and just talk to other pod heads. about our podcast and other things and just kind of generally have a good time and vibe out over there. Yeah, it's a great podcast network. Check out the other podcasts such as Can't let it go. Zip. Frog of the week.

girl mode into the Acer. Paws and claws. Next portable console. That's a new one, right? And any percent, right? Yeah, you got it. Check them out. They're all great. Check them out. They're all great. They're all great. Thank you to Scott Wilkinson for our podcast art. It's great. If you want to check out more of her art, you can go to ko-fi.com slash humble goat and see what's good. And lastly, thank you to your listener.

for being here. This is great. We love this. This is a fun time for us every week. We look forward to it. So it's cool that other people do as well and want to spend time listening to us yammer on and on about casual butts, business casual butts and stuff like that, you know? Yeah, yeah.

it's good. It's good stuff. So yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Also a shout out to Lex who did a, uh, I would say a rendition of business casual, but commercial in the discord is good. Extremely funny. Thank you, Lex. Junk in the trunk drawer. It's a thing. Yeah, it is. Why not? Treat yourself. Live just one iota and put on your going out ass because we're going out. We're going out. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Also, yes. Thank you for listening. We really appreciate you.

Yeah. Chase, do you have any video game wisdom for us this week? I've been sitting here trying to cook and I got so little, David. The whole time you're doing the outro, I'm like, I got something. There's got to be something. Chase was stressing over there. I usually do it off the dome and just kind of riff, but this time I'm like, let me come up with something special. And what that led to was nothing.

So it never works for me either. I'm like, I'm going to do something good. And that's just nothing comes. Nothing ever comes. So maybe the move is trust. Maybe the wisdom is trust your instinct. Oh, trust your gut. Trust your guts. Your guts never lie. Yeah. Yeah. We'll say that. Maybe sometimes they're not correct. You should fact check your guts for sure. But like. Yeah. Yeah. I started a new probiotic recently, David. Oh, is this your microbiome talking right now?

trust your gut we are superior feed more microbiome please I need that good, good probiotic and a healthy dose of yogurt. The Myconids are taking over. Please, bro, let us just stink up the house even more than we already do. Maybe fact. Okay. Here's the real wisdom. Trust your gut, but fact check it. Make sure you're good. You know, because I will say gut.

Fact check your gut. I will say, as a person with anxiety, my gut is usually a little haywire sometimes. It's telling me, you know what, dude? I got a bad feeling about this specific day for some reason. There's no evidence per se, you know? If you're out or something like that and you're like...

Like the vibe is kind of weird here and like the people are acting a little nutty. You know, maybe trust that gut. But the one that's like, it is April 14th. It just seems like something fucky is going to happen.

yeah i'm laying in my bed and i'm just sure my heart's gonna stop any second now yeah fact fact check that gut because that was a real asshole realize that the gut it's trying to help you it wants to help you that's what it's trying to do in that situation but it's just not it's not it's not doing it then bro there's a tiger in here i promise there's such a fucking tiger in this room

I don't know how it would get here or why it's here or why it's coming after me, but it's here. I'm so sure this time it's for real. I promise you death is imminent. sir please bro please look learn to put your gut on a shelf you can appreciate your gut but you can put it somewhere else where it's not where it's not attacking you yeah Or maybe here's, here's the gaming wisdom. Make sure there's no tiger and then trust that there's no tiger. Sure enough.

True enough. This is all really bad wisdom for an episode where we talk about fucking Kuru Kuru Kuru and the most anxiety inducing video game. It's all bad when you're playing Kuru Kuru. It's all bad. My gut microbiome is blasted from playing. My gut brain barrier is never going to be the same. It's dead. It's toast. But the gorilla gives me life, baby. That is true. All right. We'll see you next day, everybody. All right. See ya. Goodbye.