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Hello, and welcome to side Quest. This is our weekly video game show

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here at Geekbers, and you know
what, it's just me dying here today

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for a little lone journey. We
had some mix ups in our scheduling our

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calendar here and so said quest a
little bit late this week as well,

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as you're just getting a solo episode
from me. But I'm just signing to

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use this opportunity to just rave and
rant to you all about my latest obsession,

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which is Blatro And honestly, I
would feel bad putting in Taylor,

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Travis or Kirkland in this cast with
me and just yelling at them for forty

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five minutes about this game. We'll
see how long it takes me to talk

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about it. But just a couple
of quick plugs before we get into it

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here. One, you can wish
list my game on Steam right now.

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It's called Potion Problem. You can
check out the trailer that's all in the

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description if you want to go check
that out. And then also a friend

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of mine named Patrick over there at
the super Switchheads podcast which I've appeared on.

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He's also been making an indie game
very much in the same kind of

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parallel journey as me. Making mine, and he just released recently released his

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a beta or I guess that rather
a Steam demo for his game. I'll

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put this in the description as well. It's called Monochrome Heights, and it's

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really fun. The demo is pretty
short. I've played the game previously,

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I've helped him do some play testing
and whatnot, and I can assure you

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that the other content in the game
is awesome. It's a really really fun

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game, and the demo, you
know, is short and sweet, gives

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you like a half an hour or
so to check it out. But it's

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a really cool two D platform with
an interesting phasing mechanic where you're jumping on

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black and white platforms and you're switching
your characters color between black and white,

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and so you can only stand or
be affected by black platforms and obstacles if

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you're that color, and you're kind
of switching back and forth. So it's

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frantic, it's difficult, it's very
intense. But if you're into that kind

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of thing, like a meat Boy
or Mega Man or Celeste, those kind

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of more intense platformers, then I
think it's a game you'll really enjoy.

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So once again, Monochrome Heights is
the name of that, and you can

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check out the demo on Steam.
I think with that we can get right

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into the topic at hand. So
Blotro is kind of the latest indie Darling

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so to beat, the latest indie
game that blew up. It came out

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and I think late January, early
February and took me a little bit to

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get to it. I don't really
know why, but what essentially pushed me

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to go check it out over the
weekend here was that the Great Tyler Briggs

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was staying at my house, and
Tyler Briggs is very into poker, and

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this is the poker roguelike, so
I thought it'd be a fun thing for

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us to play together, and we
did. We had a good time with

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it, and then I just kept
playing and have been frantically playing it.

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Took a sick day for work yesterday, which because I was actually sick,

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and just play for another like ten
hours. So I don't know. I

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think I have like fifteen or so
hours into it already, just over the

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course of the weekend here. So
really really great game for anyone who doesn't

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or didn't didn't hear about it,
because it you know, it wasn't never

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at any big showcases or anything like
that. It really just kind of came

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out of the blue. I think
it was maybe part of the Steam Next

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Fest demo things as well, So
people are checking out there. But yeah,

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it blew up. It's everywhere.
But if you haven't seen it,

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like I said, this is a
poker roguelike where essentially your objective of the

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game is to make it through eight
anti's. In each anti there are three

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rounds, so I guess twenty four
levels if you look at it that way.

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And yeah, it's a it's a
you have a handful of cards,

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eight or nine cards something like that, you're submitting five at a time,

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making specific poker hands, or you
can do discards as well, making different

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poker hands. And maybe you're just
playing one high card, or maybe you're

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playing a full house or maybe a
straight, all these different things building up

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scores. And yeah, you're not. There isn't other opponents or other poker

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players. It's just you submitting hands, trying to beat the round individual round

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to score. And then like I
said, it kind of progressively gets more

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and more intense, and then every
anti within those three rounds there is kind

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of the boss blind is the third
one, and that one has some sort

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of d buff as well that will
make the level even harder, more of

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a boss level. So it's pretty
basic in that way. But you know,

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even before I get more into it, I just I kind of had

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a couple of realizations in playing this
one. One is that, goddamn I've

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been playing a lot of card games
recently, you know, Marvel Snap.

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I've been on that grind for like
a year and a half now, playing

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that game almost every day, take
a couple of months off here there,

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But for the most part, I've
been playing pretty hard on that, which

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has been fun because they recently kind
of rebuffed some characters in the Bounce archetype,

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which I really enjoy playing. That's
a whole side tangent. I won't

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get into that. I've been consistently
playing Inscription Cases Mod, which is the

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roguelike mode for Inscription, which is
is super fun, tons of unlocks and

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additional stuff there. And then I
talked about this recently on side Quest Solitaire

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Conspiracy, which I'm still playing through. That's fun. Simple Blotcher's kind of

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kicked it out of that rotation of
playing recently in the last few days,

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but still working my way through that. That's been a good time as well.

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So yeah, I've been playing a
lot of card games recently, and

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this one's definitely like Shining Bright as
like just some really great mechanics, a

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lot of variety, and then I
think that variety really does come from the

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rogueli side of it, which you
know, I've talked about this recently.

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I think even as recently as an
episode a few weeks ago where I talked

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about Hades for a bit and how
I feel like back in the day,

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I was like really into roguelikes,
and it was like even before that genre

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is a big known thing, I
was really into those kinds of games,

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and then over the years I've kind
of faded off of them or they just

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haven't really hit me in the same
way, like, and it kind of

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got to a realization like do do
I even love the rogue like genre or

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do I just love these specific games
like Binding by Isaac, Splunky, and

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Into the Breach Those would be kind
of my big three, And I've played

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games like you know, Dead Cells
didn't really do it for me. Hades,

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as I talked about, wasn't really
for me. But then a game

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like Blotro comes along and it's like, oh yeah, I do. I

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do love a rogue, like when
it hits just right for me, and

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this one's definitely doing that. So
it's been fun to have another rogue like

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to get into. You know,
there's different kinds of rogue, like some

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that are really all about like crazy, build a variety and wild stuff's gonna

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happen, like like Binding of Isaac, or maybe games like Into the Breach

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or Splunky, which are a bit
more contained and the kind of build of

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right you're gonna get. But like
just the core gameplay feels so good and

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plays so well, and Blotcher's more
on that Buying of Isaac scale of things,

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But the game feel of it is
great, and I think that's the

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first thing I wanted to praise about
it is just the general esthetic of this

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game is excellent. I've been playing
it kind of with my laptop but like

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plugged into my TV, so it's
been like playing it on the big screen.

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That music that it has just it's
weirdly like on settling a little bit,

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but also like puts you in like
this trance like state in a way

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that really what works well for the
kind of game you're playing. I guess

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it's kind of emulating almost like casino
music or something like that, but it

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works really well. The visual style
is great. It's kind of got that

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CRT to filter on it this.
The effects are really punchy, the sounds

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are all really good, and then
just like as you're seeing you're multiplying your

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score balloon and get these huge numbers
and laying on fire. It just it's

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so satisfying that second to second game
play, which is kind of weird to

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say for a card game. I
think they've gotten better at this over over

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the years. Like Heartstone has that
great feel to it. I think Marvel

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Snap, you know, being a
lot of the same team as Heartstone,

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has nailed that as well. Inscription
had great feel as well, really punchy

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effects, and so I think it's
cool to see just where card games are

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nowadays compared to you know, where
they used to be, or you know,

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even making it feel better than playing
an actual card game with physical cards

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in your hand is something that's that's
worth praising there. So just love the

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vibe. It's just a you know, there's no story or characters or anything

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like that, but it's just it's
a place I just want to be and

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hang out, which is a good, good feel for it. But yeah,

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so, as I mentioned, you're
playing these different poker hands, and

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the way it goes is there's kind
of different ways you're pre resting in that

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roguelike sort of way to start off
with a basic fifty two card deck with

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what is it, thirteen cards of
each suit, and it all kind of

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makes sense there. You're doing your
very basics and then the shop has all

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these different upgrades you could get,
or maybe you're just gonna save your money

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for the next round. You can
even skip certain rounds and that will give

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you some sort of benefits, so
you kind of weane it like, Okay,

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I'm not gonna play this round.
I'm not gonna earn him money,

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but maybe the benefit that it's given
me is worth the trade off there in

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that kind of way. So it
has that good kind of I guess risk

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reward element to it as well,
And so you know, I think the

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part where it gets more wild is
you're doing all sorts of things to affect

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your deck in different ways. So
maybe you're pulling out cards, maybe you're

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trying to get rid of all the
diamonds, so you can really focus on

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the other stuff. Maybe you're adding
just a bunch of aces in your deck.

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I've had decks where I've been upwards
of like ten to twelve thirteen of

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just like a ten of hearts.
Like you just get insane amounts of the

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same card over and over again,
which makes it obviously work really well for

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four of a kinds or different flushes, full house, that kind of thing.

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So it helps you get those things, and you know, I think

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it's good too, like even if
you don't understand poker know much about it,

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which I don't really know a ton
either. We recently did an afternoon

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we replayed it with some of the
patrons, but I had to have a

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cheat sheet up of all the different
hands because I don't know about stuff off

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the top of my head. But
this game makes it really easy to do

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that, and then you can.
As you're going through, you're building up

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the value of those poker hands as
well, so maybe now two pairs worth

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way more than it normally is,
so you're kind of building up these numbers,

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getting huge multipliers, all that kind
of thing, and I think that's

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where it gets really fun and a
bit wild. And even deviates from what

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poker is because in the shop you're
buying things like planet cards, and those

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are the ones that are going to
uprade the value of your different hands that

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you're getting. And so that's like
a card where you're getting like an Earth

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card or Jupiter or Saturn, and
that's just leveling up your deck. And

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then you're getting things like tarot cards, you know, all those classic tarot

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cards and like Binding of Isaac or
so many games have them now, and

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so all of those affect your deck
in different ways. You're adding additional playing

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cards into your deck, as I
mentioned, and even some of those,

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there's all sorts of upgrades like holographic
you can get steal you can turn them

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into like rocks, and then they
just have like straight value, but they

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take away like the actual value of
the card that sort of stuff. And

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then there's even like spectral upgrades as
well, which are even crazier things that

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I don't I don't really need to
explain the details of that. So that

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part of it's really great, really
fun. And then you know where where

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it takes all this stuff and multiplies
the possibilities by a thousand is through the

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joker cards. So the jokers are
all all sorts of different things, and

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these range from just basic things like
okay, this gives you just plus four

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multiplier each hand you play. Cool, pretty basic, but then we'll be

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things like, oh, this powers
up all the spades you play, so

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every hand if it has a spade
in there, that I'll just get a

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bonus on top of it. There's
different variations of that. There's other ones

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when I really like it's called four
finger where it makes it so that you

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only need four cards in a row
to play a straight or four cards to

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do a flush, which makes those
a lot easier as well. But then

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it just gets really wild because it
starts out as basic joker iconography that you'd

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expect from a deck of cards,
but then you get wild stuff like one

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of them is just a driver's license. One of them is like a credit

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card that puts you like twenty bucks
in debt, and I don't even know

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what the benefit of it yet.
Is Like there's so many mysteries to some

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of the cards, and some of
them I've seen them, like I don't

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even understand how you would ever make
use of this. But then like three

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or four or five runs later I'll
bump into some other combination of like,

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oh, I wonder if I had
that joker now compared with these other two

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new ones I've seen, and maybe
that's where it would create some really crazy

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strategies that I otherwise couldn't have expected. So in that way, it has

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that kind of roguelike element too that's
works really well. And so those jokers

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by default, you can have five
of them equipped at any given time,

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and they're not in your deck like
they're just kind of up at the top

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of the screen. As these constant
effects. You can even move them around

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and they might multiply off each other
in more efficient ways if you position them

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correctly. And then you know,
there's course ways you can get more jokers,

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like I think the most I've had
at times like nine nine at a

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time, which gets really really complex
in terms of kind of factor in all

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the math of how it all works
out. But thankfully you don't need to

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worry too much about the specifics of
that. And so I've managed to win

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a few runs now, and I
think that's maybe the best way I can

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illustrate some of the variety is by
talking about some of those. So you

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know, the first win I got
was a pretty basic deck, but was

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once again it was kind of I
had this multiplier that would give me bonuses,

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bonus chips if I played exactly four
cards, so instead of playing five

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cards like you normally, can only
playing four and you get a bonus.

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So there's kind of a trade off
there of you're playing one less card,

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one less potential value. You're not
going to be able to play like a

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full house or things like that,
but ideally you're getting more points off of

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this joker card that are gonna turn
in two more points at the end of

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the day. And so I was
just playing a bunch of two pairs and

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having those four cards, and it
just worked so well because I leveled up

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my two pairs and insane number,
I had that four card bone, and

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it just worked out. I was
able to beat the run pretty much just

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having this very simple strategy of just
playing two pairs, which is not the

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hard to do, especially when you're
modifying your deck, maybe taking out all

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the fives, if you can,
adding in more hates or queens, whatever

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it may be, so you can
really guarantee yourself to get more and more

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of these pairs. So that was
a really fun strategy I had. That

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was the first win I got,
and then we get into more wild ones.

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So another one I had was kind
of all based around just playing strictly

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flushes a flush bean when you play
five of the same suit, and so

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I had a bonus on spades.
So I started building my deck around that,

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trying to clear out anything that wasn't
a spade, get more and more

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spades. But then eventually I got
a card that another joker card that made

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it so that all spades and clubs
act as the same suit. So now

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essentially half my deck was all spades, and so I was just deleting out

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all the diamonds and hearts, focusing
on now spades and clubs, getting like

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bonuses on top of those. And
then I even had on top of that

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another bonus that if after I play
a hand, if all the cards that

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remained in my hand are also spade, then I get another bonus on top

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of that. And so since my
deck was really just thin down really just

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that one or I guess two suits
that were the same, I was just

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getting insane multipliers on top of each
other and it worked really well. Once

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again, I had a similar sort
of one with the heart flush deck.

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So once again similar basic kind of
strategy there, but this one was kind

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of based around trying to play like
face cards and flushes. So I'm just

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trying to play just like a bunch
of queens, Kings jacks, And once

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again, I had so many of
my deck by the end of the run,

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and then I had various specific jokers
positions where it would like the first

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face card you play would activate twice. You'd get like double the value off

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of it. And then I had
so I'd play that as like a face

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card so to get procked again.
And then I had certain cards that had

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this red seal you can put on
them that makes them prock twice as well,

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so I'd have like one card going
like three or four times. All

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these crazy multipliers. You can get
this one joker that's just called a bloodstone,

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which is that has and it just
makes it gives you, like I

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think it was like a one in
three or one and four chance that a

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heart card will just get some crazy
multiplier on top of it. And I

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was getting insane like multimillion dollar runs
or plays all in one go. It

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was super satisfying, really fun,
but I also had to change it around

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a couple of times because certain jokers
I got, they were really strong initially,

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but then they lose power over time, and a couple one of those

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got a little bit weaker, so
I kind of had to modify it as

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I went on. One thing I
really like too is after you complete a

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run, you can go into endless
mode or you just continue that run.

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But I feel like with some roguelegs
you just build is so overpowered that endless

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mode is just that, like it'll
just go on forever because you're you've essentially

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beat the game. But in this
they ratch up the difficulty so much that

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even if you're in endless mode and
you have a really really strong deck,

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the most I've ever gotten is like
one or two more anties at the most

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pass that final round, because it
just gets to like you need ten million

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chips or something, which is just
an insane number considering the first hand is

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always to be or the first round
rather there's always gonna be three hundred,

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Like just the amount that it increases
over time is absolutely wild. And then

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another one I had that was it
was really fun. It was a deck

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based around essentially having this multiplier that
would build up anytime I didn't play my

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most played poker hand, so meaning
that like let's say pair, you can

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see like how many times you've played
a pair in a certain run. So

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lets say I've played a pair seven
anytime I seven times, anytime I didn't

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pay anything except for a pair,
it would like build up this multiplier.

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And so it got to a point
early on the run. You know,

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it was kind of hard to keep
track of that because I had only played

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a handful of hands, so it
was very hard to keep that going.

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But it got to a point where
I played like ten flushes or something like

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that, and that kind of became
the number that I was like, Okay,

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I think I can try and play
other hands now, And so it

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became this thing of like, okay, I'm gonna play a bunch of two

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pairs. Eventually two pairs got up
to also ten plays, so then I

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switched over to the three three of
a kind or four of a kind or

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full house, and over the the
run just getting like almost all of the

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available poker hands except for like straight
flush because that's so hard to get.

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It was up to like that ten
number, and so my multiplier was absolutely

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insane, but I had to play
like really specific limited hands, and it

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was just really fun to try and
balance that back and forth without trying to

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lose that multiplier on top of that
too, I think my favorite joker,

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I think so far as one.
It's just a walkie talkie and it's called

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00:17:26,079 --> 00:17:30,440
ten four and so you just get
multipliers on tens and fours, and so

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that that whole build, that whole
run. Rather I was just going all

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around deleting anything out, duplicating any
tens and fours I had, and that's

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where I think I had like upwards
of like twelve or thirteen tens in there,

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and like seven or eight fours as
well, and all of them were

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00:17:44,319 --> 00:17:48,839
like multiplied enhanced versions as well.
So that was a really really fun one

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that took. Like that one felt
like it took a lot more skill and

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00:17:51,279 --> 00:17:55,039
reallyd to pay attention each hand,
but it had like a huge reward to

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it as well. And that one
I think took me a couple antis passed

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the h past the final round as
well, So just all sorts of crazy

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00:18:02,640 --> 00:18:04,000
stuff like this. And once again, I've seen so many jokers in there

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00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:07,599
that I've like never even purchased because
I don't have a run that particularly makes

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00:18:07,720 --> 00:18:11,079
use of them, but there's so
many that you're getting that all do all

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00:18:11,119 --> 00:18:15,279
these crazy things. They're very weird
and funny too with the icronography on them

305
00:18:15,279 --> 00:18:19,759
and their names. So I just
I can't. I can't foresee me running

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00:18:19,799 --> 00:18:23,319
out of fun things to do in
this game for a very very long time.

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On top of that, as you're
playing through it, you're unlocking tons

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00:18:26,680 --> 00:18:29,920
of new things as well. You're
unlocking new decks. I give you different

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00:18:29,960 --> 00:18:33,839
starting positions, new cards, new
jokers, you're unlucky like challenge runs,

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so it's give you very specific goals
as well. And then for each deck

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you have higher difficulties, and I
think there's like six or seven of them

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00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:44,680
too, and I've only ever beaten
the Tier one difficulty of like, I

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think I have like five or six
wins now at this point. But yeah,

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00:18:47,599 --> 00:18:51,880
so much more to do. And
I even just saw today that the

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00:18:51,920 --> 00:18:53,480
first like major patch for the game
is coming, which is going to add

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00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:56,279
even more stuff on top of that, as well as rebalancing a bunch of

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things as well. So I'm very
excited to see see that and it finally

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comes out but yeah, this game
is fantastic. You know. I've got

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a lot of praise back when it
came out, and I just I guess

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I'm happy to hop on the bandwagon
there, even if I'm a couple months

321
00:19:10,319 --> 00:19:11,519
late, and just kind of confirm
that, Man, this game really is

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00:19:12,519 --> 00:19:17,880
great and knows what makes a good
roguelike and knows what makes a good card

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game, and I don't. I
haven't really played many like poker video games

324
00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:25,880
before, so I'm sure it's studied
those as well, but I don't really

325
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have that background. But at least
in terms of having playing tons of roguelikes,

326
00:19:29,079 --> 00:19:30,920
playing a bunch of card games currently
in my life, I can say

327
00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:34,720
that this game definitely nails it in
terms of the variety there in terms of

328
00:19:34,759 --> 00:19:38,240
the game feel, So yeah,
I don't think I have much more to

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00:19:38,319 --> 00:19:41,519
add on top of that. I
think this is just a game that's absolutely

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worth playing, and it gets like
twenty bucks. It's available I believe on

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00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:48,279
Steam and maybe Android now or Android
iPhone, one of those two things,

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00:19:48,279 --> 00:19:52,319
and I think it would probably work
pretty well on mobile as well, because

333
00:19:52,359 --> 00:19:55,559
it's pretty low key sort of game, pretty simple visuals for the most part.

334
00:19:56,279 --> 00:19:57,400
But once again, I'm like playing
on a big screen, so I

335
00:19:57,440 --> 00:20:00,880
think it's cool that it goes all
the way there from like being a good

336
00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:03,839
phone game all the way to the
main thing on the TV there. It

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00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:07,039
works well for that, so uh
yeah, hopefully this wasn't too rambly,

338
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wasn't too confusing, but I think, you know, hopefully it shows up

339
00:20:11,960 --> 00:20:15,279
my enthusiasm, my excitement for this
game. And it's like, man,

340
00:20:15,319 --> 00:20:18,720
any more time I spend in this
podcast is less time for me to play

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00:20:18,799 --> 00:20:21,640
the lotro, so I just want
to get back to it. But yeah,

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00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:25,359
I'm sure I'll keep updating my thoughts
on this game as I play more,

343
00:20:25,559 --> 00:20:29,200
get more crazy runs in there,
so yeah, I'll share that journey

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00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:32,400
as I continue to play more here
on side Quest. Thank you everyone for

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00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:34,119
listening to know this is a short
episode this week and not kind of what

346
00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:37,799
you expect, but next week we'll
be back with the kind of standard side

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00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:42,079
Quest episode that you know and love
and uh yeah, so thank you everyone

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00:20:42,079 --> 00:21:04,319
for listening, and I'll see you
next time. But by Pat