Hello and welcome to side Quest. This is our weekly video game show here
at Gapers. I'm your host, Zila. Mustn't it with me mechanized Kirkle
Patzer. How you're doing today, my friend, I'm doing fantastic here on
the Mondays, talking some some side Quest stuff with you. Got some exciting
Hell Diver patch notes. I'm excited to talk to you about that. Yeah,
no, it should just be a good time. Yeah, this is
fun. I'd say more of a low key sort of episode here of side
Quest where we're gonna talk about the games, been playing Helldivers for you,
and then I have a bunch of random stuff so I'll share all of that.
We're also gonna be talking about doing Awakening. Just got a new trailer,
so we're gonna break that down along with some other info multiverses. Got
a little bit of news there as well. But before any of that,
Kirkling big announcement today. I'm very excited to talk about this finally. So
many you know, some of our listeners know if you're if you're listening to
the originals, you're on Patreon. Of course, Kirkle, you know what
I'm about to say. But for anyone else. For the last few years
here, I have been deep in the weeds learning the ways of game development
that is, art and programming and a lotty to all these other things that
takes to make a game. And specifically, for the last like two and
a half years, I've been working on one project and I'm finally ready to
announce it in a big way publicly. It is called Potion Problem, and
it is up on Steam now. It's not out yet, but you can
go on there and wish list it and check it out and and all that.
So it's very exciting. I've been very quiet on this, and I
think the reason for that is because there's been many projects, creative things in
my life that I've worked on and you know, never see the light of
day. And so I think I got to a point where I, like,
I don't want to want announce things ever unless it's like, for sure
gonna happen. So I think that's kind of where I've been with this game,
or I've been working on it. I've known it like it's in a
pretty good spot for a long time now, but I didn't really want to
make an announcement until I knew it was gonna happen, and yeah, I
think it's pretty imminent at this point. I don't have a release date yet,
still working on that of course, same thing. Don't want to announce
anything until I'm like one hundred percent set in stone of when I want to
actually release it. But yeah, the game, once again, it's called
Potion Problem. It's on Steam. It'll only be on Steam. I've built
it only with mouse and keyboard controls, so no controllers or consoles you can
look forward to on this one. Who knows, maybe in the future,
but for now that's what it is. And yeah, this is my biggest
ask of everyone listening is just if you have a Steam account, go over
to Steam and wish list the game. It helps a lot. It boosts
it up on the charts and searchability and all that, and then also keeps
you posted when when it gets updates, or when the game comes out,
when it goes on sale, all that kind of stuff. You get notified
for it. So it helps me out tremendously, So I'd appreciate if anyone
who's listening go check it out. Unfortunately, don't have a trailer ready right
now, so you can just see some screenshots. But I'm I've been posting
some gifts on social media. I've made a couple of social media accounts for
the game as well as you can follow the development of it there if you
want, you can see some but hopefully I have a trailer ready in the
next like week or two where people can see more more gameplay. But Kirkling,
you've played the game, so enough about me and my biased opinions and
all. Yeah, well what do you think about the game? No?
I I absolutely love it. I think it's so wholesome and creative and just
it's like it's a great like relaxing time while while you're playing it. It's
nothing too stressful that you know, many games can be. It can be
stressful at times if you're if you're really you know, trying those those orders
out. But no, I think you did a tremendous job. It's got
some fantastic music in there. I love all all of the like the pixel
art in it as well. I definitely think that you you nailed it on
your first attempt of of game making, and what a what a venture like
obviously you've been working on this one for a long time now. You've already
said and to be at this point, you know it's on Steam officially.
I was mentioned to this tea or yeah, I was mentioning this to you
off cast. I think it was last week. It's just it's so crazy
to me to like see your name actually like attached to it, and then
you go on on the Steam page and there it is postion problem with the
rapidtique of attached to it. I think it's so outstanding. And yeah,
you should be very very proud of that one. I'm uh, yeah,
it's awesome, thank you so much. Yeah, I mean Kirkland's you know,
a very helpful play tester for me. He's played the game, played
it like a long long time ago. But you have the newest version with
you, which is pretty close to what the final game will be too,
with you right now working on that. So yeah, looking forward to hear
first time play testing a game ever and it's nice to know the developer.
Yeah that helps. But yeah, so I guess since I don't have that
trailer like it's it's a it's called potion problem. It's a potion making game.
It's a puzzlely sort of game, which is where the problem in the
title comes from. There, it's you know, one one thing I'm proud
of with it is like I don't really think I've played a game quite like
it before, and so it's because of that it's hard to describe because I
can't just say, like, oh, it's like Mario, but like the
jump is different or something like that. But I think the best way to
think about it is kind of like a top down or like a first person
view of you and your workstation and you're just chopping up and cooking weirdo ingredients
and making kind of crazy potions, and the potions you're you know, submitting
orders or you can just drink the potions and get certain effects or buffs or
things like that. And so yeah, you're kind of progressed through a campaign
which kind of introduces you to all the mechanics and all the potions, and
then once you've done that, there's all these bonus levels that are kind of
more puzzles you have to do really no specific interactions and whatnot, but it's
kind of all about discovery and figuring out interactions and just having a fun time.
And yeah, I think it is ideally more of like a wholesome,
kind of low key sort of game going on. It's pretty simple. Like
it's mostly like a single screen sort of thing, just with unlocking different things
that on there. So in some way, it's pretty it's pretty simple.
It's very different from when I originally envisioned for it, but I think a
lot of that has stayed as well. So it's, uh, it's cool
to have it out there, for it to be public and uh to hear
like because to this point, the only people I've heard like feedback on it
is like you and like friends and family and so, you know, I'm
sure people have told me some you know, things that are negative thoughts on
it, but for the most part, it's like pretty guarded. But now
that's out there and I've seen some random comments from people I don't know who
they are. It's like interesting to see that stuff. It's very different dynamic
with it. So kidding, that's a little scary. It is it is,
but I I don't know. I think my expectations for myself here are
like this is my first big game, Like I had that one game jam
thing, but this is like my first bigger thing. So yeah, expectations
are where they are for it. But uh, yeah, well I'll share
a lot more info as the weeks come through and whatnot and the next few
months and when I have a trailer, I'll make sure to mention that I'm
gonna shout it out to the stard very episode. Sorry, I'm gona be
very annoying for the next few months as I try and promote the heck out
of the thing. But yeah, once again, for today, if you
could go over to Steam and wish list the game, that is huge for
me. And then if you want to go check out the social media right
now, I have a Twitter and Instagram for it. You can search postion
problem you'll probably find it. If not Rapatika Games, r A p A
t i KA Games and hopefully you can find those two accounts and follow those
and see more updates and all that. But yeah, if anyone has any
questions about it too, send them my way. I'm happy to talk about
it, answer them. I'll share a lot more like once the games out,
I'll probably do a longer episode. You might just be a solo thing
or maybe review with you guys. A review would be weird, but just
talk about the game in the more open way and share what it's like to
make it and all that kind of stuff. So once again. There it
is. I think that's all I'll share for today, but yeah, it's
it's been, it's it's just exciting to have it out there. Is is
kind of my last takeaway there, So there you go. Moving on.
I guess a couple other shout outs here, and we're covering the Halo Show
one a weekly basis. You can check that out and over the weekend me,
you, Travis, and Taylor Daves. I might not say, we're
played Outlast Trials, the latest Outlast game just finally out of early access.
It's a fully released game now. We played that over the weekend. Next
week's episode is going to be dedicated to us. I hope we can all
get all four of us here and we can do a big, long review.
We're also going to play a lot more because we only played for maybe
a couple hours, but we all had a lot of fun with that.
So next that's what next week's episode is going to be. The week after
that will be Peach Princess Peach showtime with Kirkle and you again. Yeah,
you'll be joining me many many weeks here in a row on side Quest talking
about that one as well. There is a demo for that out now I
saw, so I will check out the demo, so I'll at least have
my hand on the sticks a little bit to see what it feels like,
but you will have more of the kind of full perspective of it there.
So yeah, that's what the next couple weeks of side Quest is going to
look like. And yeah, let's get right into it. So our first
thing for today is Dune Awakening. For anyone who kind of forgets what this
game is, I think it was announced last year, maybe even the year
before. This is not doing Spice Wars. There's a different game. This
is a MMO. Until this point I believe, until last couple of weeks
here, we'd only really had a teaser trailer, so I think we saw
it some more game Fest, and we didn't really know much about it.
From the trailer, you couldn't really tell it's an MMO because it's just like
cinematic pretty much. But then they confirmed afterward that it is an MMO.
So because of that, I think me and Travis and Taylor maybe who had
talked about that original announcement, we're like, oh, okay, not quite
as excited for the MMO part of it. But there is still elements that
I could be intrigued by. And so we got a bigger trailer here that
shows off some more gameplay. And then there was also like a lot of
people who played a beta. There's like a public beta some extent I think
you'd be able to get into. And so there's been a lot more info
about this game out now, and so I wanted to kind of talk about
here. But you hadn't seen or heard about this game previously. This is
kind of a whole new game for you as of today. So yeah,
what do you think of it so far? Even kind of including that MMO
part of it. Yeah, No, I feel like like now that I've
seen it, I do remember at least hearing about that name the past,
but this is the first time I had seen anything about it, and I
was very impressed by the trailer overall. I was really getting into it.
Of course, like still riding that high from from Doon too. I'm looking
forward to going to see that again in these next few weeks, and so
I'm just like in the peak and doness of it all. So seeing this
trailer, I was extremely hyped until right at the end, and it's a
it's at MMO. I don't want to say like I could never like an
MMO, but I just feel like I have played my fair share of them
in the past, and it's just not not really the genre for me,
especially just where I'm at in my busy life and like just I barely have
time to like cut time out for like certain games I love to play,
let alone a genre that I'm not necessarily a fan of, even though I
am a big Dune fan. I think this trailer shows a lot of really
cool things in it that, like, if you are a fan of MMO,
I think this is super exciting to see. There was certain gameplay elements
to it that I just thinking about what was shown and how I've experienced cur
MMOs in the past, it was kind of surprising just just how that would
unfold with like however many people would be on a server and how many randoms
there could be just running around, like certain exploration aspects to it. It
seemed like a no man sky thing. But then I'm just picturing, like
it's tough for me to kind of picture what the world would look like with
just like hundreds of people running around oracus or what might be going on there,
so a little bit intrigued how that would go. But I think this
is a really cool idea. Unfortunately just not quite for me, I don't
think because of the MMO tag to it, but like who knows, Like
maybe I'm giving it too hard of a time right now without even seeing too
much how those MMO elements do play out. But I don't know, I'm
not really getting my hopes up or looking to pre order this right now just
with what was shown as well as what like the MMO genre tag is it?
Yeah, yeah, when it comes to momos like there's I played a
few back in the day when I was younger, more when I was in
high school, just because I think I had a lot more like free time
to play those kinds of games where there's always a few things that are hold
ups. One could be just like how the game is monetized, right like
something like World of Warcraft. I think is there's probably some freeway to play
these days, but I don't know. I still think about like a monthly
subscription and it's like that's that's quite a lot, like I like with Marvel
Snap where it's they have the monthly season and if I'm like really into that
season, I'll buy in for like, you know, ten twelve, whatever
dollars it is. Yeah, but like this season, for example, I
was like, I don't really care about this content, so I'm just gonna
skip this season, and like, I can still play the game all I
want, I'm just not getting this bonus stuff. Or I think with the
MMOs, it's like you're really incentivized to be in there and you don't want
to miss content and all this stuff, and so I don't know, I
guess that's maybe my one of my big questions would be for this game,
like is this a free to play game with all sorts of micro transactions and
you're I don't know, buying either progress or just like customizations for your character.
If that's the case, like I would definitely jump in and check this
game out and play for a few hours, and if I love it,
maybe I'll stick around. And maybe if I love it so so much,
maybe I would even invest some money and and really get into the world of
iraqis Here and become one of these freemen out in the out in the dunes,
like making my clents and factions and whatnot. So yeah, that's that's
always a part of it. But then also you knows, I think often
even from my experience playing in the back of the day, it was like,
yeah, the gameplay not necessarily the most engaging, like on a person
a person basis. It's more like when you get a bunch of people around
and you're all kind of strategizing, that's maybe the more interesting part. And
then they could be just very grindy. And I these days, in particular,
I hate grindy games. I just I don't. I don't. I'm
not into that. I like combat, Like, my favorite combat ever in
a third person action game was like Ghost is Ueshima, where I can put
on the highest difficulty and I kill enemies and two It's like that's ideal for
me. That's so much better than just hack it at someone in million times,
even though I'm a huge Bethesda game fan, which is like the complete
opposite of that ethos of gameplay there. So those would be some of my
concerns. But it's weird. When I watch this trailer in particular, I
just see like a co op crafting kind of game, Like that's what it
looks like to me. It looks like, I don't know, like a
Minecraft or a Valheim or you know whatever, any of the forests, any
of those kinds of games. It looks more like that than it does an
MMO. So I'm curious how much that line will be blurre and if something
like if it is maybe a cheaper like if this is like a thirty dollars
game, or I mean, if it's a monthly basis thing. I don't
think I'll buy into it at all to even check it out, But if
not, I'd love to jump in and hopefully with you and Travis and Taylor,
Like that would be really fun if we could all jump in there,
and if it was really just that kind of co op crafting experience and we
could have that within here, within this greater MOMO. We could just avoid
maybe a lot of the elements we don't really care about more just we want
to jump around the planet of Oracus like that seems pretty cool. And if
it allows for that kind of thing, I'd be down. So I wonder
what on that spectrum from like co op game you play with your friends to
MMO it truly is because obviously there's always a line in between games and how
many people they have one shot in this trailer that's like your characters are looking
out and there's like a huge battle on folding with a bunch of vehicles and
stuff, and like, I find it hard to believe that that would necessarily
be what the game actually looks like on anti minute basis, But like,
I don't know how big are these worlds, how many players are like in
a server at a given time. Could I just load into a server,
like a smaller one with some friends and go mess around and not worry about
other players? If so, then like it could be a game for me.
So definitely obviously, hot off the presses of doing Part two, I
think it's a good time for them to do some trailers for this game working
out there. But yeah, like I'm at an all time like hype level
high for this and I want more of this, And I really like Spice
Wars. I still want to go back and play more of that actually,
but this seems like it could hit pretty well. So I don't know this.
I don't think it hasn't released it yet, but maybe later this year
is what it's kind of speculated, especially if it's doing open betas right now
with people jumping in and checking it out. So so yeah, yeah,
definitely a game. I'm gonna keep my keep on the radar here. Let's
talk about some of the info that's been coming out about this. So you're
talked about there's a kind of like and I pulled a lot of this from
Rock Paper Shotguns Shows, So their article there is really really good breaks it
all down. There's kind of five pillars to this game, one of them
being survival, so that makes a lot of sense. And there's like the
water discipline surviving sandstorms is like what they're talking about here. I think that
part of it is really engaging. Like obviously the world of Doune is like
set up perfectly for a survival game, so once again we're on that spectrum
from MMO co Ops Arrival game. Is this like that part of it,
it just kind of writes itself. Like the water preservation element seems like really
interesting, like harvesting from enemies that you take out or just like that is
such a scarce resource, like they the value of that, especially in an
MMO potentially like that that value kind of changing depending on players and availability and
whatnot. Like that part of it seems really cool and like, I don't
know, kind of like a slam dunk, Like you can't really mess that
up unless the systems kind of suck. But that just it writes itself in
terms of game design. Another part is the politics and the intrigues that would
be like factions joining factions, fighting between factions. So that makes a lot
of sense on the MMO side of it. Of course, all these games
always always, but usually have like some sort of NPCs or quest gavers and
that kind of thing to that factor into the faction. So once again curious
how that would work in terms of I don't know, is there like really
these created characters that you're getting invested in playing in the world, or is
it more just like the players are engaging with each other in the way that
like seventy six was like no NPCs, it's all player to player, and
then they're like, ah, they backpedaled and added MPCs later because you kind
of need to to have an engaging world outside of just players you can jump
in whenever you want on these things. I'm just kind of I was gonna
say for the NPCs, but like on the trailer there, I was expecting
to see some sort of like character, like I don't know if I was
expecting to see paul or like another big character at the end when the one
guy was like crawling and then you have like what looks to be the protagonists
or the player character kind of reach out his hand. At first, you
don't see him. He's just holding a dagger. I'm like, oh my
god, it's gonna be it's gonna be more deep. But no, it
was just that character. So it kind of maybe set my expectations in the
sense that you probably won't be seeing a lot of those main guys that you
would expect. I do expect to see some NPCs. I feel like you
got to have them in there, but not so much a top like attached
to the main movies and the story that's going on with Paula, Tred's and
those guys. Mm hmm yep. Another thing is they've talked about infinite exploration.
So one thing that seems interesting is that the world changes with every sandstorm.
So this is like certain points of interest might come or go, might
not become available, or maybe they will unlock kind of later on. I
think this is this makes sense from like an MMO perspective, like even something
like Destiny two. Right, they have all these content releases, all this
like new expansions and whatnot, and then they like put things in the vault.
They put older things away one I think, to make the game like
manageable, so it's not like five hundred gigabytes on your hard drive that it
wouldn't fit on, so they put things away, which it kind of sucks,
right, especially if you're someone who like, oh, if they want
you to play this game ten years late, I want to be able to
go and play all the content that I miss but that's not always realistic.
I guess I don't know why exactly they make those decisions, probably once again
so that you want to jump in now so you don't wait because you're going
to miss out on this content. So there's obviously a negative side of that,
but I also think from the lower perspective, I think that's really cool,
and the idea of like certain things opening up or becoming available, or
maybe even just changing, like a certain level area that you might be used
to maybe just is different because now half of it's covered sand and it changes
with the way you have to engage or access it. So like that part
of it seems really cool, and I think it's just a great it's graaz
that the world of Dune has this natural lower element to it that makes for
the developers to be able to implement these changes to the world in that kind
of MMO lives was content sort of way. So I think it's cool that
it makes sense within their within their world, and hopefully it's just not something
that they take away content too often or build up too much of that fomo
energy, because I I really don't like that, like that that actually turns
me away from a game like Destiny. I don't like that. I think
if I go to it now, I'm playing like I don't know, some
random version of it, but like the stuff that I'll maybe someone's favorite content
is like no longer in the game. I don't know. Yeah, no,
I completely agree. I I like many got Destiny right it release and
was loving it initially, and then you know, you fall behind like a
couple patches, and they had like their story attached to these like releases or
like raids that were coming out. I'm like, I am so lost already,
Like I was already kind of teetering out of this, but now now
I definitely know that I I'm just I'm gonna let that pass. I don't
need to be there for and like World Warcraft kind of has that too,
right, like anytime a big raid comes out, or like a DLC or
just however many games they or I guess it's all the one game, but
just different deal sees that it will come out. It's like I I would
play those games for the story, and I like, that is not really
why you play an MMO, I I've come to realize. So yeah,
I agree that that's definitely deterred me from yeah things like that. No,
yeah, I mean the story, like the me, it's just that meme
of like the story is the friends you made along the way, and like
the experience is the experiences you had. So it's like, I don't know,
you hopefully you should keep a lot of stuff in there so people can
continue to have that. Uh. This trailer does a really good job of
showing off the different types of vehicles that are available. So of course if
they aren't the copters, I forget is that how they're pronounced? I never
know, the dragonfly ones, the little dragonfly. Yeah, and then they
showed some kind of like Mars rover looking things, all sorts of different vehicles
on the ground. Then yeah, the different like flying ones as well,
so that that part of it looks really awesome, Like it seems like they
have all the stuff you'd you would want and expect there, and that stuff
looks really fun to fly around explore explore with, So that's really cool.
And then another the last kind of of the five pillars here being expression and
customization. So obviously that makes a lot of sense in terms of customizing your
character, making who you want. I didn't really get from this trailer,
and maybe if I freeze framed and looked really closely, I could see,
like what are we talking about here? Like are we talking like can you
make a hearkening in this game? Or are you kind of more limited to
freemen or like the trade's like house to trades those people coming into Dune.
I'm not really sure what the what you can do there, but it would
seem like that would be something you should really lean into. Is the different
factions and even stuff outside of the two movies that we know, just bringing
in all the other factions from that world would make a lot of sense.
And then kind of with that customization would be like the base building, which
was a huge part of this trailer, and they showed off a lot of
that stuff, and honestly, it didn't look like anything too crazy necessarily,
but I think once again, just like having that customization that you would expect
from these co ops Arrival games but dropped into the world of Dune, seems
really cool. And then once again, like harvesting water. I'm sure there's
all sorts of different buildings and upgrades that you can get that help you with
that kind of thing, so that makes a lot of sense as well.
But it looks it looks pretty cool. They showed like different I guess templates,
different styles of customization you could do for your building. So yeah,
once again that that stuff looks really cool, but I guess you kind of
expect that. I guess MMOs don't normally have base building, they have the
character customization part of it, so it seems it's cool that they're leaning into
that as well. I was really well and with the Arrival mechanics once again,
right absolutely. I already mentioned that a few aspects of this trailer reminded
me of No Man Sky and that that was just like another one. I'm
like, oh man, like, oh yeah, that Ray that just like
destroys, like yeah, roles and whatnot exactly all that stuff. I was
pretty surprised to just see how big that base got, like when they did
the Time Last, Like I was expected to just be like a little house,
but then it just it's this tower. They had a little helicopter pad
for their their dragonfly thing, and uh yeah no. I I was kind
of surprised by that aspect, but like knowing now that it would be along
those lines of building crafting those things like with Friends, I I guess that
is kind of on par with with some of those games, because well May
six had that right, like Valheim and Forest all all those titles. No
Man Sky, as I've already mentioned. So yeah, I guess Fallo Out
seventy six would be the closest comparison, although that game is like the server
size is real limited, like I think it's sixteen or it was that launch
and maybe they've increased it since then. But like compare that to an MMO
here, there's like hundreds of people potentially in like a given space, Like
it's it's a way different kind of scale of things there. So yeah,
once again, I don't know how the customization like base building would work because
in Fallout it kind of worked because you're so limited on how many people are
in a server. But even then, I don't know what happens in Fallout
seventy six if two people have built a base in the same spot, because
obviously server to survey you go in it like loads in your base. I
could be a little wroung on this. I haven't played that game in a
long time since like twenty seventeen, But yeah, I don't know how that
would work if there's like overlapping stuff. So I don't know how that will
work in this game as well, but I'm sure they got it figured out
to some extent. Now, one other mechanical that seemed really interesting is you
know, you gotta have spice. Spice has got to be in this game
to some extent, and it seems like it's like essentially like a currency.
You could sell it, or you can use it to like power up your
character like a skilled you know, skill tree kind of way. But then
they also talk about there's like this mechanic of like getting addicted to spice and
if you use too much of it, like to upgrade your character rather than
like selling it or using it to get resources whatever that you get like addicted
to it. So I guess you need to like keep you got to keep
that influx coming in or you're gonna, you know, suffer withdrawal. So
once's a goat in a very fallowout type mechanic. And so I'm curious how
punishing that system would be, and if that's kind of a way to keep
everyone in a similar level range or power range by making it so you don't
want to use like too much of this to upgrade your character, let's say
your level one hundred, but you don't want to invest all of those points
that you would get into like upgrading your character, but invest it into like
the local economy. I don't know how that's gonna work, but it's a
really interesting mechanic that I can't think, I can't say I've really seen in
the game quite to this scale. Yeah, Like obviously followed seventy six Gamify
a lot of that stuff in a much different way than the single player games,
but not a lot of games deal with like addiction as a mechanic in
the first episode. To do it in MMO is weird, But once again,
with the lower connection of doing I think it's really cool. No,
I love when well it's pretty limited, but when games do tackle that,
I just feel like it's really interesting and add a like a pro and con
thing that you can introduce in your character. You don't really have to deal
with that, but it makes the world building just a little bit more interesting
if you do have that around. Like on a recent h this probably would
have been like a couple of years ago now, but like on a recent
like skyre and play through, I had a mod. It was like a
Scuma mod, So like you is a similar thing where like you could have
Scuma and it like totally boosts you, but then you'd have like terrible,
terrible like after effects unless you get like addicted to it, but then you
have to keep doing it otherwise the withdrawal is just totally kick in. So
I I really like I think just that gameplay aspect of it is really fun
and you have to have that. For Spice is awesome, and spice is
just such a necessity in the world of Dune that to implement it in that
matter, I think that's really creative and yeah, like it makes it a
valuable resource, which in Dune that's the most valuable resource, So I do
like that, Yeah, it could have a weird and obviously I don't know
how this works mechanically in the game, but just the idea of it being
an MMO in a game that people are gonna ideally stick with for months or
years, it's like, I don't know if I, let's say I don't
play for a month, but then I come back and like, what am
I gonna log into? My character is just like deprived, Like they're on
the ground, like they're sweating, and they've like lost all their muscle mass.
Like I hopefully it's just like as simple as taking some more and in
your back up. But yeah, I feel like with a game that is
constant, you're gonna be playing all the time, but then naturally you're gonna
take breaks here there. Hopefully you're not punished too hard if you come back
after a big break like that. So we'll see how mechanically that works out.
And then yeah, I think my last kind of thought here from this
trailer is like, Okay, this is this is an MMO, and it
does have that stiffness of an MMO in terms of the character moving around.
Obviously it's nice having the vehicles, but like that way the actual character walks
around, it's a little stiff, and I think even graphically it's not blowing
my mind. So I don't know, so that, of course, got
that could change by the final release of the game or something. But I
think those are maybe a couple of reservations that I have where but it's probably
good thing too, Like I'm keep my expectations like very very low on this
game, and if it is free or low cost and I do jump in
and really enjoy it, like that's just a huge win at that point.
So I think I'm gonna continue to keep my expectations there. I don't know
if many other trailers would change many of my perspectives there. Maybe it would
just be like hearing other preview thoughts and people are really praising the game,
then maybe I'd get little hyped. But I'm gonna try and be wary of
that because I don't know. Just once again, same as you, not
really my genre, so just kind of keeping it at arm's length here.
But anyway, that's doing awaking. Any other thoughts from the trailer that we
didn't break breakout yet? Uh No, I think we covered everything that really
tickled my fancy and then we will move on. So next up here,
Multi Versus is officially coming back with its I guess full launch. They in
this video that I was watching, they still called that previous launch they had
like a beta, which I guess I didn't even realize even though I was
playing the game. But anyway, it's coming back May twenty eighth, And
it was kind of a weird announcement because to me, it was a lot
of it was all talk, no show, and there was like this three
minute video they had with the Tony there, who's like the game designer director
whatever his title is there, and they talked about all these things that they're
gonna have in the game, and I guess, like, okay, May
twenty eighth is still a couple months away, so they have time to roll
out more trailers. But it just felt like a weird way to come back
and not really have too much concrete stuff. And maybe I'm gonna immediately just
credit my point, Like what they talked about here was like, Okay,
they have like improved net code. They moved to Unreal Engine five, so
they're on like a new engine, which are things that surprised me. I
thought they were gonna They're gonna put the game on pause and like make a
bunch of content and then come back, and that's what the main hype point
would be. But it seems like they really invest a lot of that time
to like redo the infrastructure of the game, which I don't know from my
perspectively, Yeah, the game could look better, I suppose, but like
I had no issues with the net code, It ran pretty well for me.
Now I was like more of a casual. Maybe the hardcore is were
like complaining that it's net code has don't very good, but I think i'd
like roll back and you can always improve that stuff. So I don't know
any any thoughts on multiverses. Do you think you'd come back and check this
game out some more or what would and that would that would make you come
back. I think like certain roster additions would make would definitely appeal to me.
They said new characters are coming, but they didn't say who or what
ip or anything, so it's it's kind of a speculation at this point.
I think it's a type of game that I definitely would just keep checking,
you know, like not necessarily jump into play and see what's been added.
But like just just keep an eye, like like if I do get that
that power a full Gandalf pick or or you know, like the elusive of
the Rings for Sure characters or Harry Potter. I think that could be extremely
hype and enough to jump in there, because like you're saying, like I
I did think that there was enough in there that that would make me wanna
maybe like not just discount it and like like actually jump back in, especially
if I have some like friends like here, like in person, you know,
just just play some verses like I was gonna say couch co op,
but it's not really that, just just local multiplayer. I guess I I
think that would be lots of fun. And I'm kind of surprised as to
like what you're saying, just like what like maybe where their focus is on
on what to work on for the game right now, because I I really
didn't have issues with the actual gameplay of it. Maybe it was just maybe
it was just like more so I could play this or you know, place
place smash instead, and and it kept kind of going back to that.
But like it is, it is a free game, right, so there's
nothing really a big hurdle to jump into or big fence get to jump over
to get into it. So yeah, I definitely wouldn't say I'd never jump
into it again. Yeah, you know, for me, it'd be those
characters once again, the ones we've always talked about there, Lord of the
Rings, Harry Potter, those would be the big ones that I want in
there that would get me hyped, you know. I think really my biggest
problem with the game is that it just had like this free to play live
service model to it. Like I desperately wish I could just pay forty bucks
and just have the game have all the characters. You can still have stuff
that I on lock costumes and whatnot, but I just want to be able
to play all the characters. That's why I love Platform Fighters and the variety
of it and Smash. I play every character because I like checking out all
of them at least a little bit. So that was like my biggest hurdle
of why I just was losing steam with Multiverse, because I have to grind
and grind and grind just unlock a new character, and then they had like
their rotation. But then it's like, oh, but then now the character
that I really enjoyed, Harley, who I thought I had locked, but
I guess I hadn't. She was just in this rotation. Now I can't
even play my favorite character anymore. It just became really annoying and grindy.
So it doesn't seem like that's going to change, Like they're probably gonna intove
this live service model, which you know, it makes sense and that's just
the way games are these days. But I just I guess for me,
like the expectation of what a platform fighter is, I'm used to games like
Smash Bros. And Rivals of Eight or which you buy the game, you
get the roster, you're good, you're happy, and there's DLC for like
additional characters for sure, but you always get that base roster for free.
So even if multiverses had that where you to pay whatever and then you get
twelve characters and then you have to pay extra work within game credits to get
the other ones, that would be fine, but it just, yeah,
I think that was maybe my biggest hold up. So but if once again,
if those big characters are in there that I love and I have that
nostalgia for them, I would definitely want to invest the time or even spend
a little bit of money and get in there, because I know I could
buy into the season's pass, and I think it probably improves the rate at
which I'm getting characters. That's not really the solution I personally wanted. It's
like a platform fighter. I don't I don't want to spend a monthly subscription
for it. I just want to jump in whenever I want to, or
whenever I have friends that want to play. That's kind of more my speed
for it. So curious to see what characters they add. Hopefully they have
a couple of new ones at that launch or else. I do you think
it will fall flat? Like obviously there will be players there, people who
loved the game or were sad that it even went offline in the first place.
You'll get a lot of people there. But I think without a couple
of big characters that launch, I don't know how much it's really going to
move the needle. Again, I think a lot of people have already moved
on, so I don't know. Hopefully they can surprise me because I,
once again expectations are very low. One that's for me in terms of coming
back in a big, bad way. So I think also a lot of
like the progress whatever progress you made in that beta is going to carry over.
So that's that's good. I'm assuming there, but if they don't,
that would be a major blunder. So I have to assume that that stuff's
gonna happen. So there you go. That's multi versus. How will we
take our first break and we come back. We will talk about the games
that we've been playing. Okay, we are back, So so I have
a lot of games here, So I'm going to talk about a couple and
then I'll let you go and then I'll come back and talk about some more.
So I don't lose my voice here, but just a couple updates.
One is a Dead Island too. I talked to you about I think two
weeks ago, and I said in that episode to you that, you know,
interesting, like this is all like melee combat game. There's no guns
in it, that kind of thing. Like an hour more into the game
after that, I locked guns for the first time, and so that was
like a huge shock to me that, like, man, what a bold
play for a first person game. Again, it looks like a first person
shooter to hide any guns in the game for like at least five or six
hours of playtime in it like really really bold, interesting move, and I'm
like, I'm sure the trailers had guns, so I could have known that,
but I just totally forgot about that. And like the Bailey combat was
so good and I had spent multiple hours with it that I just assumed I
was never gonna see any guns. And it even got to the point where
like there's this the story mission where you first get a gun. It's like,
that's what the story mission is. You're breaking into some guy's house because
he he was like a hunter and he has a bunch of guns. And
through that whole time, I was like, that's interesting that they have a
story beat about getting guns even though you don't use them in this game.
And then even beyond that, in that mission, you like you finally get
a gun and you use it to mote a bunch of mode down a bunch
of enemies you have like a height advantage, and I was like, wow,
it's interesting they had like this gun mechanic for this one level. But
then they're gonna like take it away from me. I'm gonna be back to
my melee combat. But then like they don't you know obviously, that's just
like when you unlock guns and then you get a few more. So that
was a huge surprise for me. So for anyone who's like, you know,
wanted some gun combat in there, like that's something that gets unlocked later
on in once a game, maybe I'm just dumb for not realizing that was
the thing that was gonna unlock. I will say that the gun combat is
not nearly as good as the melee combat, and the variety isn't quite there
either. They just don't feel quite as good, except for the nail gun.
I feel like a nail gun in any game was always always feels great
where you're shooting just like these huge, kind of chunky bullets, so that
that part of it was really solid. But the other guns, like,
there's not a lot of them and they all kind of feel mostly the same.
So it wasn't like super impressed by it. But I think it adds
to the variety of the game pretty well in terms of like the game difficulty
as well, and like ammo is a really scarce commodity in that game,
so you can't really just spam it either, even though you know it makes
the game play a lot easier because you're not as not at risk by getting
hit by enemies as much naturally. But yeah, I had a great time.
I played through the rest of this game. I'm complete it now,
and you know, some of the biomes are areas to go in second half
of the game weren't quite as engaging to me as the first half, but
I still just I had a great time with this game start to finish.
It was super fun. The physics, like never got old of just ripping
zombies up and smashing their ankles out, and just all the rag doll mechanics
were super, super satisfying. I think maybe the biggest compliment I give I
can give it to this game is that, like I beat it, and
I didn't uninstall it, like I still want to go back and do a
little bit more. Or I think it's one of those games that, like
every couple of months I'll just get the itch of, like oh, I
just could really go for some Dead Island right now. So it'll definitely sit
on the hard drive and I'll keep keep playing it, keep doing more side
quests and explore areas I didn't cover yet. So once again, big show
out to Dada and two if you want to go hear me talk about more
go back a couple of weeks. It's in then episode title. Yeah,
it's on game Pass once again. So yeah, I highly recommend data into
just a super fun kind of popcorn flick sort of game, just kind of
a mindless, mindless experience, but really really fun. And uh yeah,
so that was deada in two. I've been getting back into a couple of
games that you know, Bowldersgate three and Miliar Solid two or two games I
was working through and then I just didn't play for like many weeks. So
I've been getting back into those I didn't share. I was talking about Miliar
Solid two with Travis, not not you on that episode, not loving the
game as much as the first one, as I praised that game when I
on an episode with you, But getting back into both of those and then
really the biggest new game I wanted to shout out today is this game called
Minami Lane. It came out recently. It came out like a couple of
weeks ago. I think it's like five dollars on Steam. I don't know
if it's anywhere else spelled and I and m I n a m I Lane
and essentially this is like a cozy, small scale city Builder, but as
the name suggests, instead of it, instead of designing a whole city,
you're just designing one street, you're just building up one street. Beautiful graphics,
such a cute game. The music's really pleasant and nice. It's a
very quirky, silly game, very goofy in terms of like the characters and
the way they walk around. But yeah, it's like it's pretty simple.
You just have this one street and you're just building like individual buildings, and
then you're changing the prices and customization and whatnot, and that's like pretty much
it Like it's very simplistic. One hundred percent of the game in like four
and a half hours of playtime, beat all the levels, did everything in
it, and like that's perfect for me. And I love that this game
exists because I love city builders and like, you know, civilization and games
like that. But goddamn they are time sinks, those games. Oh yeah,
you re download it, you play it, and then like your whole
weekend's gone. And with where I'm at right now and how much time I
have for games and how I you know, side quest, I want to
try and bring new games to the show like every week, pretty much like
I just I just can't play SIEV five only, even though if my heart
is telling me that's all I want to do. And that's where I love
that this game exists. Like I can get that city Builder fix with a
new interesting game, acute game, but I can just play through the whole
thing in like a week, or get like my fix and just do a
couple levels and it only takes me half an hour to complete one level.
So really really glad that this game exists, Like it's exactly what I wanted,
so to talk a little bit more about it, Like it's very simplistic,
as I was saying. You're building out your different buildings. You have
like different types of citizens, so you have like young young people and like
old people, and so you're building like either an older house or like a
modern house that brings in like the different types of population. And that's where
like the biggest part of like the Balancing Act comes in, where you might
build like a Ramen shop or something. And with the roman shop that young
people and the old people have like different wants and needs for it, so
the older people will are usually the cappier to pay like higher prices. The
young people lost millennials, we just want like dirt cheap prices, and then
like they might want different things, Like the elders might want like a ton
of noodles and like no egg and they're ram but like the young people want
this different stuff. And so you have like this balancing act of trying to
like find the right recipe and the right price that's gonna work for both of
them. Or you can just go beyond and build two separate rama shops,
and which is is it's kind of goofy and like almost it's like unrealistic in
that way, but like when I got into the last couple levels, that's
what I ended up doing. For like every building is I would have two
rama shops literally right next to each other. It's like no city would ever
do this, it makes no sense. But ones like only for the young
people, ones for the old people, and naturally they kind of just filter
to go where they prefer, and so you're kind of maintaining these bars.
It's a bit easier when you only have that one type of person going into
your shops. So yeah, it's kind of yanky, but like it works
out. Like the last level, I just had like two bookstores next to
each other. Two Raman shops two Bobu shops right next to each other is
so goofy, But it's fine because once again, it's a whole simple game,
Like you don't need to get as into the weeds with the mechanics as
like a regular city builder where you got to worry about the power allegation and
like all that, where all these streets dry are taking people and whatnot.
So a lot simpler in that way. A couple like active elements like you're
picking up garbage or like clicking on cute cats that walk by, Like it's
very simple stuff like that. But yeah, I just I really really enjoyed
this game. It's like the perfect scale that I want every once in a
while. Sometimes, of course, I want a game with deeper mechanics,
but this game had like just enough depth to last it's playtime. And then
like the achievements were fun, like some of them required you to play it
in certain ways or try it hit certain goals, and so it was just
like a perfect game of like beat it and then like spend an extra hour
or two to get all the achievements just because I wanted to, just because
I liked having that extra challenge on it. So yeah, I highly recommend
this game for anyone looking for a nice little cozy game, cheap game once
again on Steam. It's you know, there's a couple of quality of life
things missing, but like it's a tiny little game. It's very cheap,
and once again, huge flex from this game is that in the credits it's
like a game made by these people in like six months, And it's like,
why do you got to say that in your credits? Making me feel
bad over here as I'm making things and it makes me two and a half
years to make this this little game. And now these people are here making
this amazing game and that only took them a few months. It's just such
a huge flex but uh yeah, really really cool game. And like now
I have this developer on a radar and I don't know their name of off
the top of my head, but whatever they make next, it's like,
I'm gonna definitely check it out. I Like it seems like their philosophy is
just making like a bunch of small, cute little games and like I'm all
into that. That's one hundred percent my jam. It looks like uh li
b lib bloop. There you go you know that. That's that's funny,
like the then the credits, like their names, it was like programming by
doot yeah or by bleak Bloop, like their names are just like that's like
their gamer tags. I guess they just roll with it. It's uh.
Once again, it fits the goofy tone, lighthearted tone of the game,
like perfectly. Oh that's awesome. I uh, I never heard of this
then, just unique in the sense of you're literally just creating a lane.
Obviously there's many city holders out there in many different just aspects to them,
but I don't know, some something something nice and wholesome about like the small
scale of it. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know
if it's Kirkling game because I don't. I just don't know. If you've
played like city Builders, Yeah, like it's it's mostly like backed with with
other gameplay to it, like obviously like Total War Warhammer, that's like a
big one for me, But that's so much less on the actual city building
of it, like like you were saying, it's more the strategic side of
what type of buildings you're gonna need to fund your military campaign more so than
to help out your your citizens on like just highways or whatever. I feel
like the biggest city builder I've probably played is something like roller Coaster Tycoon,
right, which is a whole different city but you know, there's a lot
of strategy to it. But I haven't played that game since probably I got
it out of like a Cereal box in the day, So I'm dating myself
with that. Yeah, yeah, I mean this is it's it's weird,
Like it's easy one to recommend because it's so easy to get into and it's
not a huge time sink, but then also it's like, wow, the
mechanics aren't like super deep and it's like a little bit yanky around the edges.
So I don't know, it's it's definitely not gonna be for everyone,
but once again, for like five bucks, like you can't go wrong,
really really really nice time with that one. And then the other kind of
wholesome, lighthearted game I checked out recently is called A Little to the Left.
I don't know if you remember this one, because I think it popped
up in a Nintendo Direct, but this came out a couple of years ago,
but just dropped on game Pass the other day, which is why I
finally checked it out. I don't know if you remember this one, but
it's like essentially like these little puzzles one after another, and it's a very
simple thing where it's like the first few levels are something simple, like it's
it's really like an organization puzzle game, as I guess how you would describe
it. So it starts out very simple, like the first couple levels might
be just like you have a bunch of picture frames and they're all kind of
like a little bit wobbly, so you kind of have like straighten them out.
You do that, boom, you beat the level if you move on
to the next one, and then it gets into stuff that's a little bit
more interesting, like and some of them have like multiple solutions too, which
is cool. Where there's one where there's like seven keys and you kind of
have to arrange them in the right way, and so there's a couple of
ways you can do it. One is like you just arrange them from like
the smallest to like the biggest key, and that's how you could beat the
level. Or another way is like the what do you call them, like
the key, like like the teeth on the key, you know, like
the little parts at the end. I don't know you, I don't know
what the technical term for those are, but it's like, yeah, it
sounds like they look like teeth. Sure we'll call them teeth. Where there's
like each key has like one of them has one tooth on and then this
one is like two, three, four, It's like, okay, I
can arrange them by how many teeth they have, and that's like an alternate
way to beat the level. So I think the more interesting levels are the
ones that have these multiple solutions in them. But yeah, it starts out
it's like it's like a lot of things, just like things around the home.
But then eventually it's like kind of like plants into like you know,
the garage where one of my favorite levels was just uh, you have like
a whole tool box of stuff and you just got to like put the wrench
in the right spot, you got to put the level in the right spot,
and everything has like it's cozy little nook that it like fits into perfectly.
So it's a very like therapeutic chill game. It was like the perfect
game that I'd play for twenty minutes before bed until I beat it kind of
thing. So yeah, really really cozy cute games. What I was trying
to say there. I really like the aesthetic of it, and the music
is like very nice and peaceful. It's definitely this is not one like monomial
Lane where I want to go back and do one hundred percent of it.
Some puzzles, like most of them, when I beat it, I'm like,
Okay, I'm ready to move on, even if there's like multiple solutions,
But then other ones, I'm like, oh, I'm really curious,
like what these multiple solutions could be. I also think I saw I played
the Gume Xbox. I think it would be a lot better with the most
in keyboard, Like just dragging, clicking and dragging objects around would be a
lot better. A little bit hard to get that precise control with the controller,
but it worked. It worked fairly well in that way. And you
know, one one thing I liked about this game too is that has like
you just pause and can ask for a hint at any point, And I'd
use that quite a bit because like this is a very particular game, and
it's like the way they're design these levels, it's like, man, they're
like some of the solutions for these puzzles are like I would never have figured
that out, like the very precise one way they want you to organize this
thing. That's like very unintuitive. It's like I don't think I ever would
have got that, but you have this nice hint system that is also it's
cute that the hint system has like some character to it where essentially it's like
a little cheat sheet. It's like a piece of paper and it's like all
scribbled over and then you like pick up an eraser and you like erase parts
of it, and then you can see, like on the level, I
guess where you should put this one thing, so you can kind of erase
a little bit of it if you just want like a bit of a hint,
or you could just erase the whole thing, or you could keep going
back and forth and erase some of it. Maybe you still kind of figure
it out, go back, erase some more. So it's kind of a
cute little hint system that's like integrated into the into the world in a creative
way. Yeah. So once again, another cute, cozy game. Just
a simple, simple kind of puzzle design here that once again, if people
want like a nice relaxation kind of game out there, I like that this
is like a huge niche of games now, Like not every game needs combat
and health bars and stuff, and so I like jumping into these games every
once in a while. So that is a little to the left, A
cute game, definitely worth checking out. Kirkland, Why don't you tell me
a little bit about what's going on with hell Divers too? Yeah, I'll
break up your games you've been playing. Talk some hell Divers news here.
So hell Diver's too. Taking the world by storm. I'm absolutely loving that
game. I had just a little minor hiatus on it, not for any
real big reason, just I guess life got busy, and then jump back
in and it just seemed so different, more so because I think certain bugs
that I was just interacting with just we're we're not there anymore or getting into
games. It's just a lot cleaner these days. And are the server issues
like completely fix. I haven't had any issues of like waiting to get into
the game like I did initially, which is fantastic. It's nice and like
it didn't take them that long to fix that, Like I think I got
the game maybe a week after or two weeks after, like it actually came
out, so within that week they had patched that, which was nice,
so it didn't have to worry about just getting into the game, Like I
feel like that's something that you do want to fix right away. But they
were obviously surprised by the amount of success that they were having on just purchases
and everything. So it's a good problem to have, I guess. But
yeah, Like another thing that I was super confused on was just because it's
what is it? Is it a live service game or like community driven game?
I guess I guess you would call it a live service game. It's
it's weird because it's not free to play, but it still is like a
live service game and like community driven in the sense of like everybody is working
towards just like the same goal, and they have these like weekly challenges that
I thought were just personal challenges, but it's literally just just worldwide like whoever's
playing like they are working towards certain challenges, which is nice because then you
get the rewards, even if you're not necessarily grind as much as maybe you
should be to try and achieve it. But they had one forget what the
planet was, but it was something to do with liberating It was either a
region of space or just an individual planet, and that was the community goal,
and it was kind of a surprise because once that happened, it just
they like gifted mechs into the game, like, which is just a major
gameplay component that just was not in the game at all. And now it's
a whole stratagem that you can just unlock, which is super super exciting.
Now you have to I think the price on them is like crazy high.
I think I don't know particularly what it is. But you also unlock them
at level twenty five, which I am not level twenty five yet, so
I do not get to jump into a mech. But I think this is
just such a great addition to it, because this game is so challenging,
like especially if you're on harder difficulties and if you aren't like really high level
where you have really good load outs or really good strategems to go with it,
or even just like a lot of experience playing the game, like certain
yeah, just just strategies to in order to defeat these levels, Like this
game can be very hard and just punishing, you know, like like if
you are on a difficulty that maybe you should be on, it feels that
way. But I do love the aspect that this game. I feel like
it it always has a challenge to it, like like you won't get to
a point that you're like, eh, this game's too easy for me,
Like like if you are leveling up unlocking more things so that you go up
a level, like, they really do feel challenging. And that's something that
even when I first was playing it, like just a measly level one character,
like, the game felt hard for where I was at there just because
it's so chaotic and there's so many enemies, so many mobs coming at you
there, and I just I don't know. I think they do such a
great job with that aspect. And to have mechs in the game and you
don't unlock them at level twenty five. I've seen some clips of what the
gameplay is like when you're doing like the super super hard levels, and it
is absolutely insane, Like it is like, I don't understand how some people
defeat these defeat these levels. Now, I guess it makes sense if they
have fantastic loadouts that they can get later on, like some really powerful guns
that I was reading through the patch notes, it seems like some people are
upset that they they've nerfd some of like the go to main guns, like
some of the rail guns I believe got pretty hard nerved, not necessarily on
their damage, but just how they interact with with certain enemies. Like a
charger for example. It's armored in the front, but it's like a weak
spot on the back apparently like depending on what angle you shoot it at,
like it would have different penetration. But I think it was a bug.
It just had one hundred percent penetration no matter where you hit it. So
it was just like incredibly overpowered in that sense. So they fix that now,
and some people are upset because obviously their go to strategy just got nerve,
but I think it's better for the overall health of the game when they
do fix those things. Yeah, that just sounds overpowered that, Yeah,
no, like not like someone had come up with a cool strategy. Was
just like, no, it's broken. So for that reason, everybody was
using that and it kind of got I mean, it's not a PvP game,
but like it's habbitstale still right, Yeah, no, one hundred percent.
So there, And when I was doing some digging on a Reddit post
about the patch notes and apparently they've just had like a couple of shadow buffs
too, that like weren't in the patch notes. I don't know why they
made the decision to do that. I don't know if it's just like an
oversight they didn't realize that it wasn't in the pass notes or something. But
some of something like the resupply, like the way they interact with those got
fixed, where I don't necessarily know what the issue was before, but it's
it's more so like I think you can only get one resupply at a time,
like on on whoever is calling in the resupply, and I think you
just weren't really getting like I don't know, like your value out of it,
like like you weren't actually getting resupplied, like you know, it might
have been a bug some something along those lines got fixed, but again it
was like a shadow buff. So I don't even know if that actually was
changed. Man. I remember that a lot happening in Smash Ultimate for two
reasons. One because yeah, there were sometimes were like a change seemed to
have happened and people are like, this was not in the patch notes.
But then it's like becomes this thing of like am I crazy, Like was
it always this way, like we like is someone like there would always be
people who like would not update their game so that they could like these things
versus it. Yeah, but then it was also like Nintendo's patchions are so
bad that it's like changed Lucas's aerial attacks, and it's like, what does
that mean? Is did you improve one of them? Did you change damage
and knock back? Like there's all these things that could be and they just
have like so little detail on a lot of those things. So yeah,
that's that's funny when things just slipped through the cracks. But then it'd being
like a big deal or at least something that's like relevant like that. Even
Marvel Snap has had a couple of things where a change happened that like wasn't
in the patch notes for some reason, and usually it was just an accident
and then they undid it like a couple of days later. But yeah,
yeah, it's always it always blows my mind when people are like that dedicated
to like we're gonna figure out like something feels different than they can with like
an older version of the game, and they find out, like man,
that's that's dedication right there. Yeah, continuing on with the patch up dates.
One are the game modes, or I guess just mission type. It
was an eradication mission. They they changed them slightly so they require more kills,
which is a fantastic idea because those missions are like some of the most
fun because you just drop in and it's literally just like kill one hundred enemies
and it would go by like so fast in the past, so then your
mission's over, like really really quickly. But those were those were really like
satisfying ones to do because it's literally just you're killing enemies. You don't have
to do too much else other than that. So I don't know how much
more like required kills there are, but it's pretty significant. Now like those
missions they feel a lot longer, which is I think a positive, uh
just change overall. And another big change is they no I'm kind of confused
on this change because it says that they have planetary hazards like now, but
they always kind of had them, like if you went to a planet that
was ice, for example, like like you would just be a little bit
slower or something like. It might have just been a very minor inconvenience more
so than a hazard. But now they have bigger hazards. I haven't interacted
with all of them yet, but some of some of the changes. For
example, is if there's like a like a storm going on in on your
planet that you're on, like you'll actually interfere like with your communication systems,
so stratagems, which have explained in the past, but if you don't know,
like it's basically a button sequence that you do up down, left,
right might be an air strike, you know, up down, like like
whatever. It might be differently to get like a resupply, for example,
if you're in like a storm like that that's interacting with your your your communications,
if you do a certain sequence, it would be a completely different strategem
like every time. It would be like if I'm trying to call an air
air strike, but it does a resupply, like it would do that every
time. It's not like it's entirely random, so you could kind of memorize
which one is which I guess going forward from there, and then later on
you could, like in the mission itself, you could like I don't know,
fix the communicator communications array for example, to fix that issue. But
it's just like another factor to introduce the game, which again, like I
was saying, like this game is very challenging sometimes, so to have that
aspect to it, you know, you think you're calling a resupply and you
just like air strike your entire your entire team. Friendly fire is very much
a thing in this game, so you can definitely wipe out your whole squad
multiple times if you're not paying attention to that. But I don't know,
I just think it's a cool, cool thing to introduce to the game for
gameplay mechanics wise, just because it is such a dangerous game. It's such
a dangerous world, and to add those those extra factors. Personally, I
don't need the extra challenge, but I know if I, you know,
keep leveling up and get to the point that my character's super buffed up,
I don't know. I just think it's a welcome change because they do a
great job at just having these threat levels really feel just important. So yeah,
I like the changes overall. Of course, there's like a whole patch
notes of other minor bug fixes and here there I won't go into, but
uh yeah, hell hell divers too. I think this game is utterly fantastic,
and I'm sure I'll keep reporting it on future episodes. I'm a part
of what was there a narrative or a story reason for the mechs jumping into
the fray? Well, like like I said, like it was a community
challenge to liberate ten Ken or something like that is what it was called.
And uh for story reason not so much, more so just like adding to
the arsenal of Super Earth. But yeah, I don't think so for my
my knowledge at least m it fits though, like like the aesthetic of it,
like it really works actually, especially when you're you're fighting against these giant
bugs, Like why wouldn't you just have a giant mech if you're coming from
Super Earth. It's like, you know, you're fighting for democracy. No,
that seems like a good incentive to keep leveling up. Like, how
how many hours do you think it would take to hit level twenty level twenty
five? Uh, that would be quite the grind, I think, Like
I'm I'm like level ten ish and I think I have like eight hours plus
in the game, So maybe twenty five hours ish to get to twenty five.
Maybe I will say like a lot of those hours are probably just from
like the early days, just waiting to get in because likely just spewed up
the game and then I would walk away for like an hour and hopefully get
in. So those numbers are a little bit skewed there. But uh,
I mean like there is like the big community challenges and if you do like
complete those or I guess if the community complete those, like you do get
major rewards there. Uh So it kind of depends what you're doing. Obviously,
the heart, the hearder the difficulty, the more XP you'd be getting.
So you can definitely min max I think you're level leveling up and other
strategies that I'm sure people use to really min max their their upgrades there.
But yeah, it like it it I think it's warranted as well. Like
it like it should feel like an achievement to get up to that point to
get these giant mechs, because they do seem very very strong. Yeah,
I mean, I think especially in a PvE game, it's not like it's
not like it's overpowered for other people to have mechs and you not to.
You just gotta gotta work hard to get get there. But yeah, also,
if anyone listening wants to team up with anyone in our Discord server,
there's some people over in the Video Games channel teaming up play some hell Divers
too together. So if anyone else listening, uh need some people to party
up with, go no further than our discord. You can neither just asking
there or you know, yeah, let me know and I'll pin you whoever
the people were, and uh yeah, track you down some teammates there to
go jump in and fight against these beasts and androids and whatnot whatever you're fighting
the automatons. Automaton Sorry, yeah, cool, there you go. There's
a hell Diver's update and yeah, just two two kind of last shows for
me. One is the last month or so I've been jumping around in Hades.
I've been playing some Hades at long last, which you know is a
long time coming. Uh. This was a game that kind of I feel
like it kind of came out of nowhere when it hit big in twenty twenty.
And the reason I didn't play it, even though it's like a roguelike,
like it should be great up my alley is because like it was,
either the week before or the week after it came out was the release of
Splunky two, So it was a Splunky two came out. I didn't care
about anything else. That's all I played, Like by I don't know,
by like February, I think his PlayStation had like their yearly recap or something.
Splunky came out in September. I had like four hundred hours by the
end of that year, Like, I played nothing but Splunky. And I
wish that side Quist was around h when Splunkie two was out because but I
also maybe not, because that's all I would have talked about for like four
months, so I wouldn't have had a whole lot interesting to say, whereas
now I can bring in a lot of new games. But anyway, I
love Splunky two. This is not a Splunky two episode. But the reason
I didn't play hey because it came up so close to Splunkie and you know,
it's another roguelike and I was plenty busy with that one, so I
didn't need to check it out. But it definitely felt like a game I
was missing out on. It was win all these Games of the Year awards.
It's a genre that I really like, and I think finally with Hades
two being on the horizon, I think it's going into early access this year,
or it's coming out this year one or the other it felt like,
Okay, I should probably jump in there and make sure I've played Haites Hades
before the second one comes out, so I can be ready and be part
of that conversation when the games come when that game comes out. But you
know, I think, you know beyond it's just its release date. I
don't know. When I watched Haities trailers, like art style not necessarily my
cup of tea, and also like the combat didn't seem like something I would
necessarily be into. And I think, unfortunately, after playing it for a
few hours, I can kind of confirm that, Yeah, I don't think
this game's really actually for me at all. Like there's something about the gameplay
here that is just kind of hack and slash and mindless, and the enemy
types are a bit too same me, and you know, it is a
roguelike, so obviously if you're dying and you're replaying the same earlier levels over
and over again, like they never really feel that interesting, Like the level
design and the way you're navigating these maps, it's like it's not really in
the way you're navigating, like a binding of Isaac, and it's not a
platform or Likesplunky, right, So it's kind of just a room base.
You're going into a room, you fight some enemies to go into a next
room fight some men. He's like, it's pretty linear in that way,
so there isn't some part of like discovering the level or finding secrets. It's
really just do the combat going to the next place. So unfortunately, fortunately,
I just don't love the menagement gameplay. I don't love the hack and
slash part of it. And you know, there is different weapons you're unlocking,
and I've tried like four or five of them now and none of them
like they all have their own unique part to it, and so I like
when I unlock a new one I tried out, it's like fun for run,
but then like kind of lose its luster pretty quick on me, unfortunately.
And so then the other part about this game that I've heard people pray
so much, as like the story, the characters and getting to know these
characters is really great, and like they seem to use then so far,
like it's fun, they seem cool enough, but none of them are really
blowing me away now, So I wonder if that's something that really gets better
later on. I feel like one thing I've been googling a lot lately,
is does blank a game get better later on? Like there's so many games
where I finitely playing them and I'm like not vibing with it the first couple
of hours. I'm like, Okay, does this game get better or should
I just go do something else that I enjoy more? Like I did that
with Metal Gear Solid too. I'm like, please tell me this game gets
better in the second half. And I did this a similar google with Hades,
and it seems like, yeah, like the story and the characters,
you get to know them better and that's cool, but it seems like the
gameplay doesn't really improve much like it's it. You know, for a lot
of people, that's fine because they like the combat as is, But I
really don't like there's not enough variety for there. For me, it's a
little hack and slashy that end mean variety is not really that great. It's
a bit too linear and all that. So, unfortunately I hate to say,
but I don't. I just don't think this game is for me.
It's not my kind of roguelike. I think maybe I'm more into more hardcore
roguelikes rather than rogue This is more of this is more of a rogue light
where you're in like kind of improving your character run to run and you're getting
stronger over time, rather than just like a new run from scratch kind of
thing. And I don't know, there is some in that kind of subgenre
that I do enjoy, but I think the grind part of this of like,
oh yeah, I guess I'll just get strong enough eventually because I'll level
up so much that the earlier areas become pretty easy, is just not quite
as engaging to me because the variety there is not really that great. So
I hate to say, but I don't think I'm gonna really play this game
anymore. And therefore, like I probably won't check out Hayes too, because
I'm just trying to have an interest. Unless they greatly change the combat of
it, I just don't think. Uh, I don't think it's for me.
So I don't know. I don't know why I feel bad about that,
but I do because I just feel like a lot of people it's their
favorite game ever, their favorite indie game in the last five years, and
I just I, you know, I want to support Into as much as
I can roguelikes, but I just I just don't think I can be there
for this one unfortunately. Yeah, oh that's fair. I that's a game
again, just because it has been so popular and so well received, and
like I've had any friends play it and just say it's amazing too, And
I like, I wouldn't say I was like stand offish because of what I
had seen. It's more just so like, oh yeah, no, I
maybe one day I'll try that out. But yeah, I'm curious how how
I would feel on it as well, just because it is I don't know,
it's different gameplay wise than some of the Rogue Lakes that I have seen,
and I don't know, just just curious because I think you're actually the
first person that has been like negative on it. So I've heard not like
it until I was like looking up on Reddit and stuff. But yeah,
never on like any podcasts or anything. I guess probably because people will love
the game so much that people didn't want to like get hate they didn't didn't
like it or something. But I think the dust is settled enough. We're
enough away from that game coming out that I don't think people care anymore if
I don't like the game. But but yeah, I don't know it is
weird to be on an island with it, but that does happen from time
time. I don't know. I've just played so many games in my life
I feel like I I need something special or different to to grab me,
and I know this game just doesn't have the sauce for whatever reason. So
it's too bad. That's the way it is anyway. And then the last
I've kind of it's kind of two in one shout out here. The last
thing I'll show it for the day is, uh, Kirkling, can you
believe it? I have not one, but two solitaire based games that I've
been playing that I want to talk about here. So I saw that on
the list that I'm like, where, what's where is he going with the
Solitaire? Where am I going with soliditariy? So it's not just it's not
like Microsoft Solitaire or whatever pre built in your computer. It's just two different
games that are based off Solitaire as a concept, which I'm realizing, like
what even is solitaire? Because I know the Solitaire that you you know,
play on a computer, or like you play with the deck of cards and
I play camping growing up. But it's like, I don't know, what
if you boil it down, is like, what actually is solitaire? Like,
I think it's just the concept of like a card game where you're putting
like cards, like building up like one, two, three or a two,
three, four, five all the way up to king. Like I
guess that's more like the basic concept of Solitaire. But maybe there's like different
versions of it. I don't even know if it's just like a here in
Canada, this is how we play solitaire, but like maybe in the US
they played differently, or maybe in Japan solitaire is like a completely different thing.
I don't know. Anyway, I'm getting lost in the weeds here.
The reason why I've checked out these two games. So the two games are
Pocket Card Jockey, which is a three DS game, and the other one
is called The Solitaire Conspiracy. So the reason I decided to check one of
these games out and then it kind of allowed me to want to play the
other one is that recently in the Nintendo direct that me and you briefly talked
about, but mostly we just skipped over it because there wasn't much in there.
One of the things was announced was Pocket Card Jockey and a subtitle that
I can't remember, And so I don't know what that version was exactly,
but Pocket Card Jockey was like a really popular three DS game, and so
I think the Switch version that was in that trailer in that direct, I
should say, is like essentially like a port of that three DS game two
to the Switch. I think that's what it is. Maybe it's a bit
of a sequel, maybe has a new content. I'm not too sure,
but Pocket Card Jockey was a game that I heard so much praise of,
and like there were so many podcasts that, you know, when the three
DS Store was going down that did an episode I'm like talking about the three
DS. We did that, Me and you talked about the three DS for
hour and a half, two hours, talking about our favorite games on and
whatnot. Yeah, And when I listen to anyone everyone else's podcast who did
a similar thing, everyone was praising Pocket Card Jockey, and so it was
again like it's like eight dollars or something. So I bought it on the
store before the three DS Store closed because I wanted to check it out,
and so it was because of that like announcement in the direct, I was
like I kind of want to now maybe the right time to finally go play
that game, so I downloaded on my three DST and just never actually booted
it up to that point. There's still a couple of three DS games I
bought that I'm kind of waiting for a rainy day and whatever. For whatever
reason, it was finally the rainy day for this one, so I checked
it out. And then the other one is a Solitaire Conspiracy and that I
just have out on my wishless for a long time on Steam and it went
like super super cheap on it sale. I think it might have been the
Winter sale actually, so I bought that and then it was finally when I
was playing Pocket Card, I'm like, I kind of want to try out
Solitaire Conspiracy now too, So I'll talk about that one in a bit.
But yeah, Pocket Card Jockey is a very weird Nintendo game. It's made
by game Freak, so it's made by like the people that make Pokemon,
and every once in a while they make a game that's not Pokemon, and
they they no one cares about those games, or no one knows about those
games, but they do have for every once in a while, every once
in a while, and so yeah, this game is like as the name
would suggests, jockey like you are a you're riding a horse. You're doing
horse racing, and then like the gameplay mechanism of way of which that comes
across is through like these little games of solitaire. So it starts out and
you, you know, you have like a little solitaire puzzle and it's not
in the same solitaire that you or me are like used to, but you
know, kind of similar thing of you're just picking cards that are close to
each other in number and you're kind of trying to knock them all off the
list, that kind of thing. So it starts out with that, and
then throughout the race, you're like planning the position of where your horse is
going with like the three DS stylists. You're like moving that long line like
maybe you want to go right behind someone to try and reduce drag, or
maybe you want to just go to this other spot. Different horses have different
boosts whatever of where they're where they're most efficient. And then you're once again
doing like multiple solitaire games throughout this to like, and the better you do
solitaire, the more energy your horse gets, the faster your horse moves.
It's like it's pretty simple in that way. You're just doing horse races,
making money, going to tournaments, that kind of thing. That's like the
general conceit of it, but then like the story surrounding it, it's like
really weird. Like the start of the game, your character like dies,
they get hit in the head by a horse's back like hind legs, and
then like die, and then then I get brought back to life, and
then they have to compete in these horse races to like make money. I
don't, I don't really get what's going on. There's like a grim reaper
kind of guy early on in the game that you know, brings you back
to life. So a very weird game with a very weird setup. The
dialogue is really strange. The jokes are really bizarre, like just not even
like dad jokes, but like somewhere in that ballpark. So it's a very
bizarre game. So way more, way more dialogue than you would expect as
well, like get some porum, like come on, let's get to this
cut scene here, because I just want to like play the game some more.
But yeah, it's it's a weird game and I don't. Once again,
this is another one where I google it. I'm like, does this
get better? Later on, because like early on it's like it's all right,
but like, I'm just shocked that people say this is like one of
the best three DS games. And you know, I think part of that
might be that, like the three DS just like maybe didn't have the best
roster of games overall when you look at like the console lifespan. But yeah,
when I've heard people like praise this game, I'm kind of surprised to
see that based on how much I'm enjoying it. But I think part of
that is that I'm also at the same time playing Solitaire Conspiracy, and I'm
liking that a whole lot more. So maybe that's just part of it too.
It's just comparatively two solitaire type of games, and one of them is
like way better than the other one. So I might still go in and
like just do a RaSE every once in a while on this game, but
it's not incredibly engaging for me unfortunately. So that's Pockety Card Jockey. The
second solitaire game is once again, Solidaire Conspiracy. So the reason this one
is on my radar is the developer here is Bithel Games, which is you
know, led by Mike Bithel, and he's an indie game developer out of
the UK. I believe he's on a podcast I really enjoy playwatch list,
and I really like his takes on games, and so because of that,
I've always had a appreciation for his games and I want to go check them
out when I can, And I've talked about a lot of those on side
Quest here. The first one is it's called Thomas was Alone. That was
the studio's first game. Is like a platformer game, which was which was
cool. I really liked that. And the other one they made was john
Wick Hex, which I talked about last year when he were doing the John
Wick retrospective. I did like a short side quest episode talking about playing through
john Wick Hex. They also had that what was it Tron that Tron game
Tron Identity that came out last year I think, or maybe it was two
years ago now, so everyone in a while they have like these kind of
licensed games. But yeah, Solitaire Conspiracy is like an original one here,
and essentially the setup of this one is it it's more like Solitaire that I'm
used to, but I guess the right you don't really have like a deck
that you're drawing from, so like all the cards are put on screen at
the same time, and there's eight piles of these cards, and then you
have like your four slots in the middle to put your like start with your
ace and then build up two, three, four, five, whatever.
And so it's kind of about like organizing those eight stacks rather than like drawing
new cards to like make those stacks, if that makes sense. But then
like I guess, like the the hook on top of this is that the
the face cards, the Jack, the Queen, and the King, they'll
have certain abilities depending on which like faction they are, So rather than like
clubs or spades, it's like these certain factions you know, based around the
story in the world, and they all have like certain abilities. So if
I put the jack of like this certain suit on top of another one,
it'll send that next card to that stack. So even if that two is
way at the bottom of one stack, I can immediately like send it there.
And so it's kind of set up like the conspiracy part is like it's
whole it's a whole sleeper cell like spy agency sort of thing, and so
each of them have like like these are like the driveaway guys or like the
like the sleep or cell like whatever, all of these things. Yeah,
the story part of it is so funny to me because it's like you're playing
Solitaire. It's like this goofy little card game. But then like the story
is like so serious and about like this evil mastermind. And another funny detail
about this is like it's called Solitaire Conspiracy for two reasons. One, you're
playing Solitaire and conspiracy it's like a spy thing. But then like the villain
in the game, his name is Conspiracy, or his not Conspiracy, his
name is Solitaire, and so you're like trying to hunt down Solitaire. So
you're playing Solitaire to take down Solitaire. Which is funny because John Wick Hex
that game is called that because the villain of that game is called Hex.
So I like that. For whatever reason, the studio two games, not
back to back, but two of their games. The name of the game
is based off the villain, which, like, I can't think of many
games that are named after the villain. Normally, like the name of the
main character the protagonists would be in the title, right, So that's kind
of an interesting twist on the formula. But yeah, they like doing that
for whatever reason. But yeah, I don't know I really like this Solitaire.
Like the actual gameplay is really fun, especially once you finally get up
to four suits, it gets like really intense, like they lead you in
there where you just have one to two suits that you're doing, so that's
a lot more simple, but then eventually gets like really chaotic and it becomes
like a puzzle game and you're like making your way through a puzzle and the
I'm like, oh, I kind of hit a wall here where you only
have like a certain amount of moves to get that to get to the wind
condition, so I ended up like resetting and like trying different ways, and
so it becomes like a really fun puzzle game on top of like the regular
solitaire kind of format with it. But then yeah, like the variety of
like these different classes or suits whatever adds like a nice mix onto it as
well. So yeah, I really recommend this one. I think it's it's
a really good time and the story of it, like a lot of it
is tech space, but then you also do have like FMV footage of these
actors who are kind of explaining it to you. They're like, oh,
welcome to the organization. Here's what you're gonna do, and a lot of
these people are like from podcasts that I listen to, Like they're like influencer
level people, so it's kind of weird to see them in this game.
Yeah, it kind of takes you out of it a little bit because I
specifically know these people like they're doing a good job even though they're not like
actors normally, Like you got Greg Miller in there, and a lot of
peers in these people that I like listening to their podcasts, so it's it's
cool to see them in this game. But yeah, I really like this
one. Out of the two solitaire games, this is definitely the winner for
me. Solitaire Conspiracy really nice aesthetic, really nice menus and whatnot. Like
even in john Wick Hex, like the studio has a really good sense of
UI. It's like minimalist, really informative and really condensed, but also kind
of like different than what you're used to do, so it gives it like
its whole kind of it has its own aesthetic and feel to it, which
is cool. So so yeah, there you go. There's a too solitaire
games. Who would have thought in the year twenty twenty four we we talked
about the Solitaire I love that aspect to it, because especially keeping on the
simplicity of what solitaire is, but having this whole interesting, like you said,
serious story to it. And I'm so curious, like what that inspiration
really came from, Like were they playing Solitaire and just like in the moment
they're they're thinking about these sleeper cell cards that could be interacting with other cards
or whatever. Like, just just what that came from and why like why
make it solitaire over just I mean, obviously the villain's name is Solitaire,
but I'm sure that came out much after the fact when they're already working on
the gameplay. But what a cool idea, And like you said, just
to be talking about solitaire in this year, I feel like everybody, well
probably not these days, but you know, growing up a lot of people
that played Solitaire and every once in a while, like you know, I
like to play a little Solitaire game. And yeah, I didn't even know
there was this subgenre of solitaire games clearly that you mentioned. I mean,
the thing is like solitary, like play on your computer or with a deck
of cards that I know. It's like it's not a well designed game,
you know, like you just kind of do it to pass the time,
right, like oftentimes you just can't win because of the luck of the draw,
and like that kind of sucks. And so I like that video games
that I've played that take that idea, that general concept of Solitaire, but
like actually turn it into good game mechanics. It's like it's it's it's just
solid because one it's like very readable. Everyone else saw like a deck of
cards is and works, and so just add to have that as your baseline
and to build off of. It's really cool. Another one I played it
was called I think it's called foot Flop Solitaire, and that's like a mobile
game like I played on my on my phone, and that's like really cool,
really interesting take on Solitaire as a concept. So I like that.
There's other games that have taken, yeah, what is like a simple card
game and turned it into actually like a fun video game. But yeah,
I wonder why they chose Solitaire, Like where where the story and like the
Solitaire part of it like somehow meshed into one. It's kind of weird,
But I'm really liking going through checking out these games from bithel Games, Like
I think one is just like the UK based team, like they've maybe different
outlook on games, like a slightly different view. But then like John wick
X was like a really interesting take on a tactics game, and this is
like a really interesting take on a solitaire game. So it makes me more
curious to go on check out more of the studios games. Like I think
Thomas was alone, it was a bit more of a straightforward platformer. I
guess the aesthetic of it was something that was unique in the story, but
in terms of like the gameplay was pretty generic in that way, whereas these
ones aren't like much bolder takes on like genres that I've seen done before,
right, So makes me want to go check out some other other stuff as
well. Yeah, so there you go. There's there's the solitaire conspiracy in
Pocket Card Jockey, And I'm glad I got to talk about all these random
games today with you, Kirkland, because, like I said, next week
out last Trial's week after that, you're going to be centered on Princess Peach,
So like, I don't know, next time, I'll really have time
to talk about some of these random little games I've been playing. So it's
good to kind of let it all out here, and that gives me a
few more weeks to play some other hopefully interesting things and then bring them to
the show as well. So this was a fun episode. Uh and yeah,
once again everyone go wishless potion problem on Steam. I appreciate that.
And then yeah, thank you everyone for listening. I'll see you next time.
Good Bye.