Speaker 1: Just just talk, okay, go Project fire Escape Go.
Speaker 2: Hello podcast. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the What Do
It Again? Hello everybody, Welcome back to the fire Escape Cast.
It is episode eighty eight. I'm Mike Maharty. Here's Always
with Mary Kesh and Dan Riker.
Speaker 3: I've been playing Yellow Taxi Goes Room.
Speaker 2: Yellow Taxi Goes Room.
Speaker 4: Ye, I know what a ding dong.
Speaker 1: I love that. Uh, you probably didn't have to look
very hard for a clip that made him sound stupid.
Speaker 5: I did not.
Speaker 6: That one seemed Uh, that one seemed like a good
one though.
Speaker 2: That's Jake.
Speaker 1: Jake Decker editor.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm here in the flesh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, how many how many clips do you have?
Speaker 5: How many clips too of Dan do I have?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 6: I actually thought of this like four minutes before the episode,
and then Mike was like, oh, I'm gonna be five
minutes late, so I had time to get to one
of the ones of fart Noise and the other was Dan.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll use these, but.
Speaker 6: Next time, next time I'm on I'll have a whole library.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Dan's over at covering games Com for Giant Bomb
and Cologne, Germany. I think Lucy and Tam are there
GameSpot people.
Speaker 1: Uh, it's a fun saw Minati in a in a
picture in Germany, so I think he's there too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was a I did it once.
It was a fun show. We talked. I know it's
Dan's first time. Is it sunset in Portland? Are you melting?
Speaker 1: I almost died?
Speaker 5: Have you done?
Speaker 2: Either of you done a games.
Speaker 5: Comm I have not. I've wanted to for a while,
but the stars have never aligned. I suppose same.
Speaker 1: It's the one that eludes me. I have been to
so many game conferences, including Tokyo Game Show, which I
think is very difficult to get in, not.
Speaker 2: Just like.
Speaker 1: Logistically because it's very far away, but also you have
to make sure you get your badge months in advance,
and it's not just open to anyone, so you have
to be like approved and stuff like that. So it
I mean a lot of times you can't go just
because you didn't go through all the hoops that they have.
But I've never done games Com, which seems like basically
a packs with pretzels.
Speaker 5: No games Com is smells.
Speaker 2: Games Com is like E three for all of Europe
and pretzels A lot of people. Yeah, pretzels Curry brought
a lot of kolsh a lot of salted meats.
Speaker 5: Don't you buy like thirty sandwiches for yourself?
Speaker 2: Oh? I was with Dave Jewett to more Lucy back
when I was at Game Spot and we were staying
next to this what was it? I don't even fully
remember where, Like what kind of restaurant was? I think
it was like a halal and I ordered. They didn't
speak great English, I didn't speak German. And I tried
to order the number thirteen and I thought he was
asking me to repeat it, but he must have been
asking me how many number thirteens I wanted, So I
said thirteen again, so he rang me up for thirteen
number thirteen's And then when I pointed out the error, he,
like the whole staff in Udison like threw up their hands,
like like an Italian family in Brooklyn, freaking out on me.
They did not like me in Cologne, those people.
Speaker 5: And that's why you've never been back.
Speaker 2: Yep, I'm not allowed to removed.
Speaker 1: From Germany and not allowed to ever return based on
ordering thirteen of the same sandwich on accident the war
first uber delivery driver ever.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they've done Germany has done some pretty bad stuff too.
I'm surprised that was the thing that got you kicked out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where they draw the line.
Speaker 2: They were projecting. Colonne's cool though. I like it. It
was super fun. I'm curious. I'm curious to catch up
with Dan to see what he thinks of it. Dan's
been a decent number of places, Jake, you and Dan
have you been on the show since you and Dan
went to? Was a Ghent?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I think last time I was on was because
Dan was out for something else and I think it
was you me and Vinnie and I.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, talked about.
Speaker 1: I was gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I was in Europe too for probably Twitch
Con Europe, That's my guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's what's shooting video with Dan?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 5: Uh? It was?
Speaker 6: It was fun because he Dan just talks to anyone
he's got. There's not a lot of shame, so he
can just go up to anyone, ask dumb questions, smart questions,
all kinds of questions. So for me, recording was great
because a lot of content you get out of it.
I could not do what he does though. I couldn't
just walk up to people and ask him what's this.
Speaker 5: What's that He's just.
Speaker 1: Not burdened by the anchors of dignity and self respect
that so many of us are plagued with.
Speaker 2: I mean, I wasn't gonna put it that way, but
Dave Letterman said that Man on the Street recording is
like the lowest form of art. Just let Dan know
that when he's back.
Speaker 1: I know, Dan, I think it takes a quick wit.
I actually have a respect for it. I like watching
tiktoks of street Man on the Street videos as long
as they're not disrespectful. But you can be very witty
with someone on the fly when you ask them questions
and they don't know how to respond, or they've been
drinking a little too much, and then the host has
a witty retort.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 1: I like that kind of stuff. I just don't like
it when it's lazy, And it's often very lazy because
you just ask people like a really spicy question and
hope that they have like some kind of hawk towey answer.
But the real meat of that type of stuff is
the host being good at what they do.
Speaker 2: Has the hawk Towey girl endorsed commily, yet I've been
waiting if she did. I missed it. Uh Mary, she's.
Speaker 1: At the DNC convention right now.
Speaker 2: She's she's submitting the delegates for where she's from, Tennessee
or wherever. Anyway, Jake and I were talking when you
left the room earlier about Alien Romulus. I saw you
saw it? Did you like it?
Speaker 1: I didn't just like it. I loved it. I think
it's probably the best sci fi horror movie I have
seen in years. I am screaming this film's praises. I
was freaking out in the theater. I hope I didn't
disturb other people next to me, but I was like
the person in the theater that was like, Oh, get
the fuck out of here. That's so cool, Like I
couldn't believe the shit they got away with.
Speaker 2: It's people.
Speaker 1: I think it's brilliant. I think it's a brilliant film.
It is what the series needed. I think it is
the best in the series after Alien. Yes, I think
it's better than Aliens.
Speaker 6: Really, yes, does any much a better movie or like
a better horror because Aliens is more like action explode.
Speaker 5: You know, it's it's not really horror.
Speaker 1: I know. I think it's I think it's better at both.
I think it's better storytelling. I understand that Aliens has
its own place, and people will probably get really pissed
at me for like coming at the series like this,
But I think Aliens, a lot of people would agree,
still has like a hokeiness to it, where they're just like,
we're foregoing reality and we're just allowing us to have
fun in this space. I think Romulus does that a
little bit too, but I think it does it better
because it has a fresh faced cast of young adults,
say young adults because they're not kids, but they're not experts.
Every alien film is always about experts in the field.
You have your uh, I don't know, the person who
is an expert in the field for botany, right, or
you have the guy who's like, I'm an army guy
and that's all I know. And then they come together
and they fight, they piss and moan because they're all
the best at what they do. Romulus is actually about
a bunch of young kids that are in an outrageously
unfortunate predicament that has forced them into a bummer of
a situation where they now have to figure it out
for their lives and they are not sure how they
do things like read maps, or work guns, and I
think that's a fascinating concept, and I think it's more
interesting for me to say, what would you do if
you were young and just desperate and found yourself in
a life or death situation, as opposed to you got
a scientist and you got a top Nutch army vet.
And they both don't like each other because they're very different,
but they're also really good at what they do. And
it's like, I don't give a shit that some guys
like really good at reading maps. I want to know
what desperate people do in these situations, and they did
it with genuine heart. I cared about these characters. I
cared about who they are, and I've never wanted a
character to live more in an alien film in my
entire existence. Outside of the Cat obviously, I wanted them
to live. I felt sorrow when some of them met
their end. I cheered multiple times when shit went down.
I will not spoil anything in this film, but there
are multiple cheering moments where you will eke, you will
say Jesus Christ, you will say yay, and you will say, oh,
that's a bummer, and it just really invokes emotion out
of these kids. I think it's just really well done.
It's also expertly directed the first ten minutes. If it
doesn't grip you in ten minutes, you suck. That's how
I feel. It's really good. The visual dynamic of Old
Ships with CRTs. All the screens are CRTs, and all
the buttons are square with pointy corners, and they're chunky,
and all the doors are chunky, and the door systems
also have that like weighty feel to them. One of
the doors, the way it opens, it's not a handle,
it's like a lever that you have to push up
multiple times like shunk, Shunk shunk.
Speaker 2: It is like airlock involved with it.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 1: They didn't explain it, but I was like, that's sick door,
you know, And like that happens a lot in this film.
Speaker 2: Is that like an Chekhov's gun situation where you see
someone open the door normally like that, and then at
some point later they're being chased by the alien and
they have to do that, and it's tense. It just
seems like something they would do.
Speaker 1: There's really good foreshadowing. I have to be very careful
because one of the best foreshadowing is a character who
reveals character stuff and you're like, that's gonna come up,
and it absolutely the fuck does. There's also items in
the film. This is very indicative exactly what you're saying, Mike,
Very indicative of horror films where they'll be like, Wow,
what a cool device. You see it does this, and
then you're like, well, that's that's gonna be important later,
and it is.
Speaker 2: They have mostly The bond gets the gadget early on
from Q and he's like, you probably won't need it,
but the sink is actually poisonous and we'll blind someone
if you press it.
Speaker 1: Just like this, there's multiple There's only one instance where
I feel like they brought something up and that just
never came back again, which is a bit odd when
any film does that. But maybe it's a red herring.
I don't I don't know. I'm not an expert filmmaker.
The lighting is fucking incredible, you know in old sci
fi ships where they got the spinning lights the Wii
WU situation to just increase the tension. I think they
do it incredibly well. It is not glaring, but it
is frightening and the I'm gonna unfortunately I don't have
my alien lingo.
Speaker 2: But the Crawley face hugger face.
Speaker 1: Face huggers, Okay, is that their actual name or is
that just we call them?
Speaker 2: I think that's their like colloquial name. I'm not. I
think it's just like xenamore fetus, but I think I
look it up.
Speaker 5: Don't they refer to them as face huggers.
Speaker 2: Call them? I'm not sure if like the scientists.
Speaker 1: The face huggers do exactly what you expect them to do.
There's multiple of them. This is in the trailers, so
I don't consider this a spoiler. There's like dozens, and
that's really exciting because you're you're dealing with an absurd
amount of something where even one is extremely terrifying, and
so to have that many.
Speaker 2: They're really really I mean, they're one of the scariest
like things monsters created in a movie. They they the
face hugger is infinitely more terrifying than the xeno morphy.
I feel I would rather, I would actually rather fight
a zeno morph and get torn apart than in a
face on the.
Speaker 1: Instant you don't want to get impregnated, which is like
one of the original things that it was kind of
the inspiration.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the whole the whole movie is like playing
on the fear of rape.
Speaker 1: Basically yes, of men, right, like of well, because anyone
can have it now, right, Like we're all we're all
up for grabs. We're at the bottom of the like
this food chain. I wear an eyemask on my mouth
to be safe. I don't want spiders getting in there.
Speaker 2: I just suck on a pinky all night.
Speaker 5: I mean I'll stop them.
Speaker 2: No, I just I do that because my wife likes it.
But face huggers are horrifying, and they are I want
to see Romulus very badly.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: I'm one of those weirdos who actually liked Covenant. I
know I'm in the minority, but uh, I enjoyed it.
I don't think it was the best thing to ever happen.
I definitely the first movie is my favorite by far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Covenant was okay, and I did not like Prometheus.
I was my problem. The problem with Prometheus was it
was like, We're gonna try and explain how life itself
is created, and it's just like, but that's not what
we're here for. We are here for the deaths of
people and to watch them not suffer. But we're gonna
figure out who can actually survive in this life or
death scenario with a supreme being. That's why we're here.
I think that Romulus knows its audience. It's saying, you're
here to watch some people live and some people die,
or some all people die. Who's to say. But the
point is is like, you're gonna watch them in these
life or death situations against an ultimate, very smart being,
and it's really cool to watch the evolution of the creature.
We already know some of the things, so they do
nice little advances on what your expectations are of the alien.
And again I'll be very careful to avoid spoilers, but
they did enough where you know the sequel Aliens, they
were like, what if there were multiple Aliens, and like,
that's what's scary about it. This movie goes a little further.
It found another way for us to be scared, and
I think that's quite ingenious. I think it was a
really nice twist. It's not hokey. I think it's a
great evolution of the series. And it's not just because
there's more of the thing.
Speaker 2: Once it Like god, Ridley Scott's like directorial career is
so fucking fascinating. Yeah, you can look at how many
movies is directed.
Speaker 7: A lot, a lot, a lot, twenty four, five, six,
twenty seven, twenty eight, with Gladiator two coming up, that'll
be twenty nine.
Speaker 2: And I would say fifty percent of them are not
bad movie or no, fifty percent of them are bad movies,
like bad. But then he's also made Blade Runner, He's
made Alien, he did Blackhawk Down Delma and Luise the Martian.
I guess could say, I couldn't. I don't. The last
time I watched a movie by him that I liked
was Alien Covenant. I could not stand House of Gucci. Granted,
and I haven't seen Napoleon yet.
Speaker 5: I mean I heard Napoleon's pretty tough to get through.
Speaker 1: I heard that. Even the trailer I think was like
very odd. I didn't see it either, because the trailer
was like one of the most famous, like ice scenes,
but it was just taken completely out of context. It
felt like it was not accurate or even pretending to
be accurate. I understand that history movies are often playing
with reality, but at some point I was just like,
you guys are just not even trying.
Speaker 6: It's about my favorite thing to come out of that movie, though.
I think during an interview someone asked Ridley Scott, like,
I hear the French people don't like this movie too much.
What's your response, and he's like, well, the French people don't.
Speaker 5: Even like themselves, and then that was it.
Speaker 2: He I actually rewatched Gladiator recently and for like all
of the hype that movie has gotten over the years,
and as much as it's been like meme to death,
it's still pretty good. Yeah, and it's funny. I always
think he's Master and Commander before I have to remind
myself that was what Daniel no Offsky, What the hell
is his name? Black Swan Darren Aronofsky, Yeah, he was
Master and Commander.
Speaker 5: Darren Aronofsky did Master and Commander?
Speaker 2: No he didn't. Noah, who didn't Master and Commander? They're
both ships during storms?
Speaker 5: Yeah, there you go. I don't know who did Matt
Oh wait, I feel like I should know who did that?
Speaker 2: Mastering Commander was I'm not even trying.
Speaker 5: Mmm, yeah, I'm not googling. Mike's clearly googling.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to go directed by Peter Ware.
Speaker 5: Okay, Yeah, I wouldn't have known he.
Speaker 2: Did Gallipoly, Oh he did Gallipoli, okay? And Dead Poets Society?
Was Ridley Scott connected to it? Why am I associating
Ridley Scott with Mastering Commander?
Speaker 5: Did he do another boat movie?
Speaker 2: Probably there you go, oh yeah he did a boat
the movie.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I'm excited to see Romulus. It's funny. The last
time I think us three we're on a podcast talking
about a horror movie was Dead Air, the podcast we
did about horror at game Spot. Those episodes are probably
still somewhere. I don't think we put him on. We
weren't publishing on like Spotify or anything back then. I
think we had that like embedded uh like SoundCloud player
back that we in GameSpot stories. Maybe it isn't.
Speaker 1: One of my fears is that a lot of my
favorite memories and some of my straight up like hey,
I put that in my reel. That is a part
of my history is in game Spot's YouTube channel. And
if game Spot ever, for whatever reason, was like I'm
nuking it, I would lose so much of my history.
I don't think they would, but it is something I
think about.
Speaker 2: Means are gone right now?
Speaker 6: That one land I was going to say like Game
Informer folks, I mean, anyone who's written there, right, Like
a bunch of your stuff is gone.
Speaker 5: Now no proof?
Speaker 6: Now, yeah, did they did they new Game Informers YouTube
channel though?
Speaker 5: Or is that still there?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I think it might still be there, but I could
be wrong. I know they shut down everything. Yeah, I
think about that too, Like, I mean, I've had like
reviews in articles and features and all sorts of stuff
that was written for smaller websites that just don't exist
anymore because the guy who's paying for I'm not paying
for it anymore.
Speaker 5: And then it just went up in flames.
Speaker 1: It's like, all right, It's so crazy because like that's
just so important. The history of it is important, right,
and we're just not preserving that work. I think I
just have a fondness for that. It makes me want
to hoard digitally, at least anything I've ever touched, because
a lot of my old, old old videos are the
only place I can find them is on like a
Vimeo channel from like two thousand and eight. And I
think that that's sad that I had to like make
sure that I had my own shit, because now if
I didn't do it, that way, it would have been gone.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's scary polygon stuff, all my polygon stuff, so up.
It looks different lately, but it's still there.
Speaker 1: My stardew Valley review was re reviewed, and now like
it's kind of like my original review is gone, which
I think is a bummer because I still find it game.
Speaker 5: It's your review is not a games anymore.
Speaker 1: There's a new review they like updated it.
Speaker 2: Wait they replaced oh to keep the URL authority or
the SEO authority.
Speaker 6: They just I feel like also Mary, when you reviewed it,
that was at launch and now like starting Valleys so
different than it was back then. It's so different, but
they've added so much more to it.
Speaker 2: I mean, we did that, Polygon, but I don't we didn't.
We wrote a new review. Are you saying they replace
yours literally on on the like the same url. Are
you saying it's been superseded in general?
Speaker 5: I still see it. Yeah, I still see your review, Mary.
Speaker 2: And I nuked.
Speaker 1: I think it's just it's not the review when you
look at the review anymore. Right Like now it's like
this is the updated review, which makes more sense because
mine's outdated. This isn't about a wrong that GameSpot did
to me. This is about me selfishly wanting my review
to be first and foremost.
Speaker 5: It's all here. It's all here, your original review.
Speaker 1: Goddamn right it is, and it should be mark.
Speaker 5: Very kish right there.
Speaker 1: I wrote it kind of, I mean I did, but
I think Peter like had to rewrite a lot of
it because I didn't. I don't know how to write.
I could barely. I could barely form codes.
Speaker 2: You can barely speak. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: It's not my uh, it's it's my weakest thing. I
think I'm really good in meetings. I think I'm able
to be creative. I think if you just give me
a pen and paper and say, write a three hundred
word essay about what I learned in boat school, I
panic and I can't do it. I freak out.
Speaker 6: I feel like when someone tells you it's an essay too,
it's like, oh, what you know?
Speaker 2: I never got grounded. When I was younger, my parents,
well my dad specifically would make assign me word counts
and make me write an essay about what I did wrong,
and the word count would be way too high to
just say, like I shouldn't have thrown mud at my neighbor.
I had to like write a thousand words about like
the existential thoughts that cross my mind, like consequence and punishment, morality.
Speaker 5: Do these do these essays still exist somewhere? No on
a shirt? Who knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've seen how that happens. But yeah, it's like,
of course I had to start like doing these David
Foster Wallace digressions in order to fill space. I'm sure
my dad got a lot of entertainment out of it.
My dad also I might have talked about the on
fire skate before. My dad was pretty creative. Not only
did an apologies to all the five year olds listening,
but my parents when they were still pretending Santa was
real when I was younger. My dad also invented like
a whole bureaucracy for the North Pole, so I didn't
write letters directly to Santa. He had a an elf
who was like our family's delegate receive our letters and
respond in lieu ofs like in Santa's place. The ELF's
name was Flegal, and my dad was just wrote in
character as this elf until I was like, however many
years old I was and I found out.
Speaker 1: Santa was fake, classic Flegal.
Speaker 2: I haven't believed anything since then at all.
Speaker 5: What do you think about the Earth? Is it round
or flat?
Speaker 2: Oh dude, I don't. I can't believe either one. That's
how bereft of belief I am.
Speaker 5: So then what is it?
Speaker 2: It's I just don't believe earth. Okay, yeah, yeah, I don't. Yeah,
it's crazy. I can't even believe. Like, Mary, what's your name?
I don't believe you.
Speaker 1: It's not it's my god given name.
Speaker 2: Fred Mahardy for that.
Speaker 1: Before I was a sandwich artist at Subway, I actually
uh streamlined as a writer for Santa and responded to
children just so that the parents didn't have to in
what like for parents hired me to respond to a.
Speaker 2: School or like a neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Any any parents that didn't want.
Speaker 5: You can give us a sample of like what you
would have said.
Speaker 2: Wait so yeah, oh wait sorry really before you go
into specifics, I'm this is curious because that's kind of
like instead of mowing neighbors lawns, you responded to their
kids as Santa money.
Speaker 5: I think she's making this up, like, because.
Speaker 2: That's that's like a that'll make a sick movie.
Speaker 1: It's not a bad way to make a book.
Speaker 2: For like parents who are terrible at writing.
Speaker 1: And just hate their children.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna dig into this deeper.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, I'm ready.
Speaker 2: Wait, let's improv one. Dear Santa, this is Caroline this
summer or winter Christmas.
Speaker 5: Sorry, kids, an idiot.
Speaker 2: I'm an idiot. I got straight f's in in school.
I punched Timmy Wiggins in the crotch. Uh I took.
I clogged the principals toilet on purpose with silly patty.
But I would also like a pony. Love Caroline, smooches Caroline.
Speaker 1: Dearest Caroline, your behavior has caused us to purchase the
pony and starve it to death. Out in the fields.
Attached you will see a piece of fur from its hide.
May this remind you to not put putty in the toilets,
to be respectful of your parents, and to get at
least sees, which, as we know, is the standard for
all children to receive gifts. D as we know, is
no gift and f is we will kill your gift.
Tommy Higgins is my best bro. I'm sending him gold
nuggets each shit.
Speaker 2: Flagan, Dear Flagan, surprised, I love my bloated, farty, rotting
carcass of a horse. I sleep with them every night.
My parents hate the smell, but I refuse to let
them get rid of it. And every time they come
near me, I say, I'm the fucking lizard queen. Call
me Caroline. This is my bloating, rotting, farty carcass of
a horse, and I've named him Gretchen. So take that, Flagan.
I'll find you and I'll kill you, and I love
you and goodbye.
Speaker 1: This is just you and me in different forms. You
are Caroline, and we should really dial nine to one
and then find out where Caroline is and dial one
again because that's a psychotic child.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean also bad parents who just leave a
dead horse in her bed.
Speaker 1: Well, she had it coming.
Speaker 2: Jake, what have you been up to lately? Last time, Yeah,
you were on the show with Vinnie and I. I
forget what was going on then and when that episode was.
But you haven't been on for a bit. Share news stuff,
any news, exciting stuff.
Speaker 6: It can't be more stuff now it's going to be
boring because I've been stuck at home. My my partner
broke her ankle, so I haven't been able to leave
in apart from minor things running Aaron's, getting groceries, that
sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Like, oh like taking care of Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: I guess I did go to ten o'conn recently.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Last time I was at ten o'conn was with you, Mikey,
and we shot ocon Is war Frames, Convention, war fram
and soul Frames. Now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah I was there. We were shooting in the
little Ontario.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're shoot shooting some some some VIDs over there,
which none of which have gone up yet. It'll probably
be a while before they do, but uh, but yeah
it was. It was kind of interesting going back because
not much has changed with the war frame community, but
at the same time it felt very different and also
London was exactly as I remember it, even that little
pub across the street from the hotel we went to. Mike, Yeah,
still there. Uh super cheap.
Speaker 2: Reminds me of it might as well be Syracuse. It
reminds me a lot of where I grew up. What
are you What were you shooting? Can you talk about
it like like more documentary style stuff.
Speaker 6: Or uh, I don't know how much I can say yet,
but yeah, it was it was like documentary style stuff.
Speaker 2: Is it gonna be better than the one I wrote.
Speaker 6: It'll be it'll be very different. I uh, it'll probably
be better. Yeah, yeah, better, you know, I was. I
was thinking back to that trip. That trip was a
lot of fun and doing a lot of the shoots
we used to do, and that war frame one I
think was one of our one of our best that
we did. And that was a tough one because I
remember that was just me shooting it, so it was
like the two of us and I'm carrying around two
cameras so we can get like two camera set ups
and trying to do audio at the same time. But yeah,
I'm still happy with how that turned out. Yeah, we
also likely to prove people wrong too.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: People didn't think it would do well, and it did
like half a million views from like by people, one
person that frequently said I wasn't gonna say anything.
Speaker 2: I talk not too secretly about that person a lot,
as you've ever heard on the show. Yeah, because I remember,
like the idea was that we would go I think
we were basically trying to finish all the like a
roll interviews that they they were setting up, which we
realized was an inconvenience to them, But we had like
built up a good relationship with Digital Extremes and reb
and Megan and Steve, et cetera, and they were they
were gracious enough to allow us in while they were
setting up like onto the floor. So we're trying to
get all the interviews at like basically done the first day,
and then we knew we wanted to follow back up
with them. Then the last day. They always do the
same meet up in a park where like they all
get together and play magic and just hang out and decompress.
So I was like, all right, those are the book ends.
That's easy, of course, like as any video shoot will go.
That didn't go according to plants, and we had to adapt.
And then I remember we were trying to what was
it we had that that was like the days when
you know, when we kind of we had like a
not a dictum or anything or like a directive, but
like we had bought a few a drone or two
for game spots, so we're like, well, let's use them
if we can. So I remember we were getting that
drone shot inside the arena when they were starting. Yeah,
and like I don't know that we were actually allowed well,
I mean Digital Extremes told us we could. We were
fine to do it, but I don't know that like
the convention center knew about it.
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm sure this is fine to talk about, but this
was like five years ago. But stuff like that, and
then finding places to interview them while they were just
construction workers putting things together around us, like we were
in rev and I were in beanbags at one point,
which lent to a really like grassroots feel, which I loved.
But while we were shooting it, I was like, this
could just be an absolute nightmare to edit, because by
that point I was definitely helping you edit more, but
you were still doing the bulk of editing.
Speaker 6: Well I think we had we had Max help edit
as well. Yeah, I think at the time. So yeah,
it was, uh, it's quite the project. But yeah, like
I said, I'm surely happy how that turned out, even
if someone who like doesn't give a shit about Warframe
and has tried getting into Warframe when back when you
were trying to get me into it before that trip
and I just just did not click with me at all.
But I still think like the story was there, it
was interesting, and I think Digital Extremes was very honest
and open, which always makes for good material, doesn't matter
like whether it's for a documentary about games, movies, just
any just honesty is always like what plays best for
that And they're very open, and you know, like.
Speaker 5: We've all talked to tons.
Speaker 6: Of developers in like big studios, right, and a lot
of them pr trained, and you just don't I don't know,
it just always falls kind of flat, Like it just
feels feels like they're reading a script and it's never fun.
Speaker 2: I mean, like the main thrust of that documentary ended
up being like how they how does something that successful,
that's that dependent on this kind of community not end
up resenting the community, Like I'm sure any creator in
today's like on Patreon or YouTube can kind of attest.
So like it was the fact that Steve it was
Steve Sinclair who was the creative director of Warfare at
the time and now is a creative director of the
upcoming Soul Frame. Before he passed the torch to rep
forward to be director of Warframe, he was like, Oh, yeah,
it's tough sometimes, like because like you give them new
content and of course they just want more and they
want it to be better. It's a hungry monster to feed.
And it's like the original name of the documentary was
feeding the Monster, which I think was a very compelling name,
and the actual documentary in the video was still called
that on our title screen, but of course certain someone
wanted us to change the name on YouTube, and like
to their credit, I guess the video did do well,
and the title I will admit on YouTube now is
more like broad enough to draw more people in, like
people like you who might not Jake. You were saying, like,
might not really play the game, but the artistic sensibilities
and me wanted it to be the other title. I
was probably wrong in this case, but yeah, I like
that video a lot. Still. I still like the past
couple jobs I've gotten. I put that like in my reel,
even if it wasn't for a video position, it was good.
I have, like I can't go back to Warframe because
I know I'll play too much of it. I've missed
the last like eight new frames.
Speaker 6: The new nineteen ninety nine does seem kind of cool,
but yeah, it's like, here's how you gotta do it.
You got to complete this and this, and then you
got to get to this point and then do this
and then it's like and then they're like, it's like
three hours of content and I was like, oh man, I'm.
Speaker 5: Not doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean anytime you want to get like do
like the New War kind of storyline, it's oh yeah,
like once you've done like forty hours and you've gotten
you know, you've unlocked the whole star map and you've
gotten this feature, and then you can you can cross
correlate these abilities and whatnot. I was all in on it.
But yeah, I mean, destiny players, any MMO players can
probably sympathize empathize rather. But anyway, Glad ten o'conn was
fun will be.
Speaker 1: You started talking about playing video games?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I know, yeah, do you want Do you want
to talk about new games we played?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, okay, turn your light on. See you? You
look like, uh are you Jon? Who's that guy you like?
The Watergate guy who's like hiding behind it?
Speaker 2: No guy, you always bring him up.
Speaker 1: No I don't. I'm tenguing him out. Jesus, I'm talking
about the guy who filled the beans on Watergate.
Speaker 2: I just said that.
Speaker 1: I didn't hear that. Yeah, I said, I thought you
were just talking about you.
Speaker 2: That is my nickname though, Okay, now let's talk about
video games.
Speaker 5: No break, No, I gotta get beer, getting beer, I.
Speaker 1: Said, no break. On Sunday, I was like, that's so weird.
My hip hurts, and I was like, I must have
slept in the bed weird, And so I slept on
my other side. And I haven't been able to go
running for two days because my hip keeps kind of
not popping out, but it's obviously not doing well. And
I was like, what the fuck is causing my hip
to be so weird? And I thought maybe it's the
way I sit in my chair, because I do. I
do sit like a shrimp, so like it could be posture.
Speaker 2: You know, No, I don't. Why do you sit like that?
Speaker 1: How do you think shrimp's it? You know what I mean?
And it's just like if you gave them a little
tiny business chair, if you gave them a tiny chair,
how do you think a shrimp would sit in it.
That's how I sit. And I very often I like
raise my like I usually like kind of like hug
my knees when I'm sitting. Anyway, the point is my
postures ass and I thought that it was related to that.
And then last night, as I was getting ready for bed,
I was putting on my j's and in the mirror
I saw the biggest, blackest welt on my ass where
my hip is and I was like, what the fuck?
Where did that come from? And I obviously got I
fell or someone punched me, and I have no memory
of it. I have a huge welt in my on
my butt.
Speaker 5: Did Mike do it?
Speaker 2: I don't know memory of this normal.
Speaker 1: I have definitely had bruises before and been like, I
don't know where that's from, but this is massive. It's huge,
it's on my hip. It's like altered my hips, like
they don't feel good. It's been a it's been a
whole thing.
Speaker 2: Sorry to hear that. Yeah, I'm just thank you. I
just had a sore throat on Tomorrow's my last day
of antibiotics.
Speaker 1: That's nothing. I also, I know we're gonna talk about games,
but I also tell you guys had this one. I
went out boating with uh with Josh because he's got
a little boat. Now. It's like a little tiny sailboat
that fits like two people and it's meant for speed
and it's really cool. And he was like, you gotta
bring your selfie stick, and I was like, no, I
have anxiety about bringing my phone on a boat that
literally can fall over at any moment. This is not
a substantial boat. It can fall over very easily. And
I was anxiety a sailboat.
Speaker 2: Those don't really fall over.
Speaker 1: It's called the quest if anyone wants to look it up.
And it like it's small to the point where like
and light you can tow it and it all comes
apart fairly easily. We take it apart and put it
back together in about thirty minutes that we can sail,
and then we take it apart and then like he
drives home with it.
Speaker 2: Ques, Oh, it's like a sailing style boat.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Yeah, it's substantial, but it's small anyway.
Speaker 2: Oh cool, my selfie stick.
Speaker 1: He gives me like a little wet sack so that
I can keep my phone dry. I'm putting my selfie
stick on it. I'm getting the best footy you've ever seen, Jake.
This is a video for the age. I'm getting really
good footage of the boat, of the sails, of me
being cool, and you know, like that caught that old
trope on sailboat where it's like watch out for the boom. Well,
he had to make a quick turn and the boom
knocked my phone into the water and I lost my iPhone.
It sank like a stone. You guys, Yes.
Speaker 2: I thought you want it. I didn't know. I got
knocked out of your hand by the boom on a
training sail boat.
Speaker 1: And the worst part is is like it's in the
wet sack on at the bottom of the Willamette. So
it is a functioning phone in a perfectly preserved.
Speaker 2: Baggy scuba equipment.
Speaker 1: It's gone.
Speaker 2: How deep is gone?
Speaker 1: I watched Poseidon to steal it from me?
Speaker 2: How deep is the Willamette River forty feet near its
mouth north of downtown for I could die forty feet
and by sleep, I you want your phone back?
Speaker 1: So sad, Yeah, go get me, like I.
Speaker 2: Give you twenty bucks, and I'll go get it.
Speaker 1: I would give you twenty bucks. I was really bummed because,
like you know, phones are actually expected. I was like
looking it up and I was like, holy shit, like
iPhones are like one thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like.
Speaker 2: The wet sack expense sink. Anyway, Okay, this.
Speaker 1: Is my fatal mistake, my fatal mistakes.
Speaker 2: I want to call it right now. Wait is it
still powered on?
Speaker 1: I don't know, call it.
Speaker 2: It's like blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Blah, fucking fish on the other end.
Speaker 2: If like a sea creature, what if I'm down there?
What if like a sea snake? Is just like it's.
Speaker 1: It's down there right now. It's just kind of like
this devastating thing. Because my fatal flaw was the wet
sack that Josh gave me had like a band so
that you could connect it to maybe like your neck
or something like that. But I needed to stretch it
out past the boat to get the footy. So I
took the clip and I attached it to the selfie
stick that way. Is it ringing? Yeah, Oh my god,
it's that's so sad. Yes, it's that's really sad. The
phone is connected to the selfie stick, so that if
the phone fell out of the selfie stick, I would
still have it. But because the selfie stick got knocked
out of my hand, the phone was connected to the
selfie stick and they both sank to the bottom of
the woodlammt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the boom swings quickly.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: It's thousand dollars. It's very but I was sad about it,
and then we both poured out a beer.
Speaker 5: In No one's ever gonna see that footage.
Speaker 1: It's gone. You guys are so awesome.
Speaker 5: You'll have to get a new one and track in.
Speaker 1: I'm never doing that again. And I looked at Josh too,
because you know, it's like one of those things where
it's like, obviously, it's my fault. I should have kept
I should have I should have held onto that phone.
I should have held onto that selfie stick, I should
have connected it with a piece of string to my ankle,
whatever the fuck I needed to do. It was my fault.
And I look at him and I go, oh, bring
your selfie stick. Oh, like, let's get sick footy on
the boone. And he was just like, not my fault.
I was like, I know, I know, it's my fault.
It's just trying trying to point the blame anywhere else.
They felt so bad about it.
Speaker 2: I just imagine like here on the one that uh
I'm marry, that's Josh. We're gone super fast. Ah oh shit.
Speaker 5: Was it recording when this happened.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think so. And the reason
I don't think so.
Speaker 2: Is so funny, dude.
Speaker 1: I wish I could recover that footy because it's really
good and it's the only it would be the only
justifiable thing to losing my phone would be like, well,
I have this really cool footage. It was worth the
error that I had, But it's not worth it. Nothing
was worth what happened I lost. I'm grateful that my
phone backs up my photo so I didn't lose the
photos of like my dad's seventieth, which I think would
have made me cry. But like I had everything backed
up digitally except for the videos that I took on
that boat. So I lost all my sick boat photos
and videos.
Speaker 5: Do you e a Do you find my iPhone enabled?
Speaker 1: What do you want me to do?
Speaker 6: Like Mike can get it, Like like's a diver diving lessons.
You know the exact spot in the in the lake.
Speaker 1: I could point to it from the river edge.
Speaker 2: It would be fun. I can find out kinds of
things down there. It'd be like the Sunny episode. May
buy a boat. It's like there must have been some
sort of civil revolutionary war horse massacre. The hell happened
down there? What have you been playing?
Speaker 3: I've been playing Yellow Taxi goes Broom didn't miss a beat.
Speaker 2: We really should have like banked up a lot of
embarrassing things, he said, for when he's not here.
Speaker 6: Yeah, mentally, mentally note those and I'll, uh, I'll put
them in my my soundboard.
Speaker 2: I don't know that you need to comb through episodes
to find dumb things.
Speaker 5: Yeah, probably not just any random.
Speaker 2: The wave for him when it gets really.
Speaker 5: Talking.
Speaker 2: I played steam World Quest two after talking about it
last episode and how much I was sorry not Steam
World Quest two. Steam World Heists two Steamer Old Quest
is a game. Yeah, I like it a bunch. I
like the first one. As we talked about last time.
Used to be Image and Form. Now it's Thunderfold Games.
They just make a bunch of different kind of games
from a bunch of different genres, set in the same
steampunk kind of cartoony universe. But yeah, Steam World Heist two,
I really like how they fleshed out, like that second
layer above, the actual battles when you're building out the submarine,
you're traveling through the world, you're actually getting into these
kind of like naval light battles against other ships. That
stuff's really fun and that's compelling. I also really enjoy
the class flexibility between characters. Your class is based on
your weapon. They're the weapon the characters using, so you
can just swap weapons out. And then you spend these
things called cogs to carryover abilities from previous class, and
you could switch between them any time, so you could
go with Once you build out your crew, you could
have four characters and each of them are using the
submachine guns, which makes them all reapers, which anytime you
kill a character you then get a second follow up
shot to try to kill another one, Which is all
to say that the actual class progression and synergy are
really clever in that game. I consistently. Actually, I'm very
much a person who in RPGs, when you get the
ability to multi class, it kind of makes me anxious.
I want to just keep that character in the category
that I know them as, and I want to keep
them being the healer. I don't want to fuck around
with them. Also, being kind of a DPS in this game,
I'm actually like, all right, I'll give my sniper, who
I have equipped with all this sniper equipment, I will
give her the shotguns so she could be a flanker
just for this mission. And then the abilities I get
from ranking up her flanker tree can then benefit when
I go back to sniper with her, because then she
can move farther or get extra movement on a turn,
et cetera. So yeah, it's fris like. I don't know
if you'd agree, Mary Jake. Have you played Steam Real
has too? No?
Speaker 5: I don't even know what kind of game this is.
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, Yeah, it's like x Com esque two D
you The first game was you are boarding these sci
fi like outer ships in outer space and you are
just going aboard these pirate vessels and naval vessels to
rob them. And then I honestly forget what the strategy
layer was in that game. You're building up a crew,
you're going on different missions, you're outfitting them, ranking them up.
It was definitely x Com inspired. This one, however, you're
actual it's back in like water, so you're more like
pirate pirates. And one layer is those missions you're going
and you're fighting the navy, which they're all diesel fueled
robots and you're steampunk robots. You are robbing them of
clean drinking water, ache or fuel for the robots. You're
also getting renowned in these different parts of this world.
But the second layer of the game is this overhead
top down of you sailing around islands as the submarine
that you're also outfitting the submarine with like broadside machine
guns and automatic turrets on top and better boosters, and
you can dive longer because when you go underwater there's
actually this like separate map that you can access secret
areas with. So it has that xcom like. Half of
it is the strategy layer, half it is the actual
tactical fights, and I think it works really well. I
really don't care about the story. I would actually say
the voice acting is actively. It sounds like they couldn't
afford a voice actor, so one of the developers had
to do it all. I don't mean that to be mean.
It just strikes me as like it was a very
budget voice acting kind of situation. But it doesn't matter.
I still it's one of my favorite games of the year.
I'm actively hooked on it. It's a good steam deck game. Yeah, Mary,
I saw you were streaming it and playing a decent
amount as well.
Speaker 1: I've put some hours into it. I'm really enjoying the
different character classes and how I can I've gotten a
little adjusted I was curious who your favorite character is
because I'm a Sola person through and through. I think
Sola's really interesting and super fun.
Speaker 2: To play is that the first character you have.
Speaker 1: Sola is a robot and they have a laser that
bounces like sixty times, and so you can like laser
everybody in a room and it crashes, and so they're
really fun to play, and I also really like playing
It's a lady. I think her name is like oh
because it's a joke off of Judy Dench. It's Judy
Wrench and she has a really fun additional skill, Jake.
I think this one's really fun. It's just brate someone
verbally for three health remove you don't have to even
be able to see them, so like in theory, she's
just basically.
Speaker 5: Like shouting insults, well, bitch.
Speaker 1: I'll fucking wreck you. You finding loser, nobody likes you,
and then they just they just.
Speaker 2: The spirit round.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. It's really enjoyable to use these different
character classes to your advantage and say, like I'm going
to bring Judy Wrench for sure, because she just fucking
mouths people to death, which is hilarious. And souls with
their laser and Solas also can build defense in front
of them, which is really.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well that's the that's yeah, that's from the
engineer class from using a equipping a pistol, so like
you could give a pistol to Judy Wrench and she
would have the engineer ability.
Speaker 1: To build to build defences.
Speaker 2: When you rank them up, they also get you can
you can give them med kits and then they can
use those for free and it doesn't cost an action,
so they you can also become your medics support class.
Speaker 1: I need a medic I keep losing people. I will say, Like, so,
I'm not really versed in turn based and it tends
to be my downfall that in games where you're only
supposed to be sneaky, Yeah, those are like ones where
I'm like, uh, I'm not going very very good at
these game. I usually don't I usually don't read all
the details. And when they tell me like there's like
eighty different things that I could choose them, like whatever,
I choose the first one. So yeah, kind of ham
fishing my way through this game. But I am getting
decently far. It's not super difficult, but it's not easy either.
What I really like is that you can change the
difficulty at a moment's notice, and there's no punishment for losing.
So if I take three people out on a skirmish
and they all die, I do not lose them permanently.
I do not take any hits. I don't lose anything.
Speaker 2: You just don't get experience, right, or maybe you get
a little bit.
Speaker 1: I think I lost the hours that I spent trying.
But you know, there's no aggressive punishment for being bad
at the game, which gives me the flexibility to feel
like I can try and enjoy it. And I also
really like the naval battles Mike. I think that's a
refreshing break from turn based actions, which I think could
get a little exhausting. But it is very nice to
be like, I just finished a long, forty minute turn
based battle and now I'm going to run around with
my ship and just shoot people in real time. Yeah,
and that's fun. So they did a good job with
the balance this game. I do think it's very highly
polished visually mechanically. The audio is very good, except for
the voice acting, I guess, but like I think the
music is really good. I'm really liking this game, and
I do recommend it. I think it's worth playing. I've
never played a steam World game before, and someone told
me that one of them is a metroid Vania, and
I was like, should I play that?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 6: Steam World, dick isn't isn't their whole thing? Like they
just takes the world and then just play to a
bunch of different genres. So I've played Quest, I think,
and that was sort of like a turn based RPG
building rpg.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it.
Speaker 6: Was so long ago though, I don't really remember it.
But I've always heard good things about Heist, and I
think game Spots review gave it like a nine.
Speaker 5: The new one.
Speaker 1: The old dig is really highly reviewed as well.
Speaker 2: Oh you hadn't played Dig, Mary, you'd like Dig?
Speaker 4: Can you?
Speaker 2: Guys know?
Speaker 1: I love I love metroid Vane and so like, I
feel like I should play this.
Speaker 2: Wait, no, sorry steam World. There are two SteamWorld digs,
I believe, well.
Speaker 6: Because one is like a mine not Minecraft.
Speaker 5: But isn't there one? It's like you just did, It's
not really a metro vania.
Speaker 2: Less yeah, almost Minecraft. It's more almost Star de Light
kind of. It's more resource gathering and farming, et cetera.
Steam World Dig two, I believe is the one that
went much more Metrodvana and that's a really good game.
The most recent one before Steam World Has two was
steam World Build, which is when you're digging for resources,
but then it's also a city builder on top of it.
I have not played since early access. It it was
early access, so take this with a grain of salt.
I did not love it. It felt like city building
was the first genre they tried to tackle that they
were not great at, but maybe they fleshed out since.
Speaker 1: Well, they can't be good at everything. I was actually
just it's kind of crazy that they made a really
good turn based and they made a really good Metrivanea,
and they've made a really good city builder, Like you
have to be shit at one of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like small scale blizzards like every genre they tackle.
Speaker 1: It's just I guess you can make that so inspiring.
This company is really cool. This like dev team, and
did you see that the dev team is also the
same team that publishes it. Like they're just this unit,
this absolute chunky unit that can do it all. They're like, yeah, whatever,
we'll do all the genres, we'll do all the voice
acting ourselves with Gary will publish it ourselves. We don't
need fucking anybody. Like, how big is this company?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Thunderful Games previous. I believe it's just one to
one previously Image and Form. Let me look that up to.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I remember Image and Form definitely published like Steam
World Quest or developed and published it. So I don't
know when they changed, because isn't there another publishing like
indie publishing called Thunderful or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're getting Thonderful Group is the publisher Wonderful Games
incorporating the former Thunderful had been found in twenty seventeen,
incorporating Image and Form and Zoinc. So yeah, I believe
it's it's it's like a small merger. But yeah, I
mean they're they made a sequel to a game that
Image in Form made, so they're continuing their legacy. But yeah,
it's there. I we started. I don't know if it
was for reboot or what. No, it wouldn't have been
for reboot, yeah, because I was in the game spot
in New York office, and I think we're still we
had I don't think we had been doing reboot by then,
but we were still doing like video essays together every
once in a while, Jake, But I remember playing steam
World Quest and I had a video that we were
like a video essay about just how agile they've been.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that's how I played it,
And that sounds fimiliar. I think that's how I know
a lot of not a lot, but I think that's
how I know. What I do know about them is
from that video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also just a great steam Deck game. I
believe it's also on Switch, so I mean, like, if
people are looking for a very good handheld game, thirty
dollars well worth it. It's it's very fun. I like
as opposed to Xcom two, similar to or No, actually
as opposed to what the hell Mario Plus Rabids Kingdom
Battle and whatever the hell? The second game was called
a game, which I liked very much. That just the
subtitle escapes me. In those games, you have those like
percentages that to hit, but it's like it's it tells
you how much damage you're going to do, So it's
not a percentage like yes, you will hit them if
you shoot this, or no you won't. They're behind double cover.
Xcom has the infamous percentages steamrollhis two for those who
haven't played the first one. You get like a laser
site from a two D perspective, and you're basically just
trying to aim that at enemies' faces from across the room,
and you could pan with the right analog stick. Not
every character's gun, some of them, like the pistol, unless
you get an upgrade, will just be like two feet
worth of a laser sight, and then you kind of
have to line it up by by estimating snipers will
the laser site goes across the whole room. And then
it's also worth noting that because these are in confined spaces,
there's ricochet involved, so you can like billiard bank your
bullet off a ceiling above robots if they're behind cover.
So I like that there's some skill in like alignment involved.
Where or x Com two my maybe my favorite game
ever made the percentages don't it's less about you know,
lining up. I mean, they're skill involved, for sure, but
it's everybody's seen that like ninety five percent shot that
missed and that was frustrating as how where a Steam
World if you miss technically it's your fat's your fault.
Speaker 5: Yeah that's cool.
Speaker 6: I like that there's sort of a tactile aspect to
the aiming. I think that I don't know for me,
would make it not more engaging, to be honest, you.
Speaker 2: Should check it out. I actually I also think the
mission design is really good about keeping you on your feet.
One mission will be an alarm just sounded, so you
have to survive for the eight rounds of alarm, and
you're trying to like balance getting your characters into a
defensible position, but you also want to still try to
kill enemies each round because if you don't kill the
two that just came in on the last alarm, two
more are gonna come. It just gets harder and harder.
Others it's like you have to get to because again
it's still you're very much your pirates and you're like
you're robbing the Navy. It's like you got to get
to this loot this timed loot box before it explodes
or whatever. So then you're similar to the Xcom two
mission where you're going to save a hack a computer
before it explodes, like you really have to move quickly,
so it's like move quickly, but do it very very slowly. Yeah.
I And some missions is like you can only take
one person on it. Others it's four. I have not
gotten to a point where it's past four yet. Maybe
you can increase your squad size to five. So far
I'm still at four. But yeah, I mean the map.
The map is also like. It's not the best looking
game ever. It's kind of I don't know, if you
played Monster Train. It's that kind of I'm not even
sure how to describe it, sort of hand like cheaply
hand drawn. But they they ring a lot out of
that stone here. So the like more tropical Caribbean looking
map at the beginning is pretty good, like, but then
you get to a part where you're in Arctica, which
is and it becomes like more polar ice caps and
barren arctic deserts off the water. Yeah. Great game. I
can't say enough good things about it. Everybody should if
you're into turn based games at all, or you're just
didn't need a good Steam deck or Switch game. I
think it's well worth checking out. It's thirty dollars, it's
well worth in my opinion, I would have paid sixty
for this.
Speaker 1: I agree. I think it's fantastic and absolutely worth playing. Jake,
what have you been playing?
Speaker 6: I've been playing a game called Natsuman twentieth century kid.
Speaker 2: What that fuck?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Oh if you heard of this mic, you're not.
Speaker 2: It's the Isn't that like a huge thing in Japan
that has not come over this way until now for
a while.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So, I think the series has been around for a
very long time, but I think this is the first
one to make it over to the United States. And
basically the whole premise of I think all these games,
this one in particular. You play as a little kid
in a world Japanese town during summer break and you
have thirty days to just spend it however you want.
You can catch bugs, you you can go fishing. There's
a bunch of little quests that you can do.
Speaker 7: It.
Speaker 5: It's really interesting.
Speaker 6: It it reminds me of being a kid in a
weird way because it takes place at the turn of
the century, like nineteen ninety nine, and I think the
kid's supposed to be like eight or whatever.
Speaker 5: And it's very innocent. It's very simple.
Speaker 6: It definitely has some PS two gives us some PS
two energy. It doesn't always look great, doesn't run great,
camera's not great. You know, there's some switch, there's some
issues with it. Yeah, I'm playing on Switch. I think
it's on PC too, It's probably better if you play
on PC.
Speaker 1: It's on Steam. I'm looking at it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's probably a safer bet on Steam. But yeah,
I had known very little about the series, but I
saw this was the first one to make it to
the United States, and I was like, I should try this,
and I'm I'm really liking it. It's yeah, it's it's interesting.
It borrows a lot from Breath of the Wild in
a weird way. I don't want to compare it to
Breath of the Wild necessarily, like it doesn't have the combat,
doesn't have that like that sense of discovery, at least
in the same way. But like there's a climbing mechanic
that is very similar to what you'd see in Breath
of the Wild.
Speaker 5: Climb anything, Yeah, you can climb anything.
Speaker 6: There's stamina that you improve by completing quests, and the
quests are always just like the lighthouse owner is sad,
go cheer him up and you go talk to him
and he's like, oh, the lens is dirty, can you
clean it for me? And then you climbed at the
top of the lighthouse clean it just things like that.
It's very simple, it's very interesting. The localization is pretty rough,
but I almost think that kind of adds to the charm.
Where a lot of the translations don't quite mean a
whole lot in English. Some of them just flat out
don't make sense. But like I said, I think it
kind of had adds to the charm.
Speaker 2: Cool.
Speaker 1: This looks actually pretty cute.
Speaker 6: Like I said, it is buggy. It doesn't run great.
I don't know if it's a merry game, but there is.
Speaker 1: So many minigames, and I love minigames.
Speaker 6: It does have a lot of mini games. There is
I wouldn't say a lot of text to read, but there.
Speaker 5: Is a good amount.
Speaker 2: I would say there's a Dewey talkie scale.
Speaker 6: I would say it leans more to Dowey than talkie,
but there's definitely talkie there. And I think the talkie
is like pretty structured, right, Like each morning there's a
conversation that usually happens that progresses the story, and each
night there's one, so like usually you get this chunk
in between where you can just kind of explore do
whatever you want.
Speaker 1: What if I don't want to do the story, what
if I only want to catch bugs for thirty days.
Am I allowed to do that?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: You can skip all the cuts scenes. I think you
can skip all most of the cut scenes.
Speaker 1: You just can I do the activities that I want
to do.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you don't have to buy like a bug, like
a bugnet, or a fishing rod or a pick axe.
You just have them, so like right from the beginning,
you can just go to a pond and start fishing,
or you can start catching bugs. And I think one
of probably the most endearing things about it is the
main character has a little journal. So every bug he catches,
he like draws a little sketch in the journal, and
you can, like there's like a couple options of how
you want to fill in that journal entry with dialogue,
like or with text. It's like I caught this bug today.
Apparently it's rare or there's a longer version. But they
they're clearly drawn by a little kid.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: It's like crayon and they're scribbled together. And it's not
it's not great. It's very I think it's it's got
a lot of heart.
Speaker 5: It's got a lot of heart, but it is Uh.
Speaker 6: I don't think it's going to knock anyone socks off,
maybe unless that's the kind of thing you're looking for.
Speaker 1: What's intrigued. Yeah, I like stuff like this generally just
more worried about like how dewey it is. But if
you think it's dewy enough, I think this is something that, like,
I don't know, this kind of appeals to me. I
love where it's like, hey, any day, you don't really
know what you're gonna do because it's weird and the
screenshots are so wild. Everything's so different. There's a screenshot
of doing like, I don't know, yoga in a group
in the middle of the town.
Speaker 5: Hall, and so that's not a mini game.
Speaker 6: That is like a three minute cut scene of them
just doing. Oh you can skip it. I watched the
first time and skip it every time. But I was
like getting ready because I was like, all right, I
gotta like move the stick in the circle or whatever.
Speaker 5: But nope, you can just watch them do.
Speaker 6: Yoga for radio, radio calisthenics or whatever for three minutes
every day.
Speaker 1: It is sweet. Obviously a sweet little game, but probably
for a unique audience. Interesting. I've also been playing. Would
you consider this wholesome? I would consider this quite wholesome.
Speaker 5: Yeah, i'd say, I'd say it's wholesome.
Speaker 1: I've also been playing a game that I think is
pretty wholesome. Dan actually messaged me from Germany to make
sure that I played it, which I think is very sweet.
And usually when someone does that, I'm like, I gotta
play it because they've pushed me to play it. Dan
told me to play Fields of Mystery. I downloaded it
last night. I've put not that much into it, maybe
like six seven hours into it so far. But it's very, very,
very much like Stardo, almost too much. But you are
new to a town. You get a plot of land
that you can farm. You do ta asks for the
farmers that increase your rank in the town. Right now,
my rank is wood. I do not know what the
next rank is, so I cannot answer that question.
Speaker 2: Your rank as wood, my rank is woold. That sounds
like something like Ken from the Barbie movie would say.
Speaker 1: My job is farm and my rank is wood, and
I am planting tulips to sell them. There's so much commonality.
Right There is a mine. I haven't been able to
get into it yet because I haven't unlocked that part yet.
There is a sea and some lake space, and I
can fish, and there is a fishing minigame. It is
not the same fishing minigame. The fishing minigame in Stardu
is kind of annoying, right, Like there's this block and
you have to have a to raise the block, yeah,
and you have to kind of tap it to make
sure that the block is in the right space. This
one is just wait until the fish your bait, and
the second they do, you have like half of a
second to hit a to real am in and as
long as you hit the button at the right time,
you get them. I've been doing that a lot. It's interesting.
It has more character development as far as I'm aware
so far, in the sense that every Friday all the
characters meet at the same lodge to hang out, and
when I talk to them, they have stories that progress.
One night, all the characters were playing D and D.
I had other characters that were playing poker and arguing,
which was kind of neat, just like seeing them fight
with each other. And one of the characters who's kind
of mean to me, got too drunk and was like,
I like you, that's pretty cool. I assume there's romance,
but I haven't unlocked the ability to romance. Anybody. What
I will say about this is in Stardo, obviously, romance
is a huge part of it. You get excited about
romancing a character based on their personality. In Mystery, everybody
is smoking hot. They are so unbelievably titty bang bang
hot that I struggled to pick someone that I was like,
that's gonna be my focus, because every time I met
a new character, I was like, oh shit, they're hot,
and there's like this anime style to them. They have
a like eight bit Avatar or whatever that makes them
look more casual. But when they talk to you, it's
a drawing and it's very uh what is it called,
Like that dad Daddy dating simulator, It's got dream Daddy
all over it where it's just like these people are.
They've made them way too hot for this environment. No
farmers should look like that. I was helping out a
lady make potions. There's also like some kind of magic
element going on to this town, and she had titties
pop it out of her turtleneck. She looked so crazy
that I was like, I must be the slave to
your bath house because she's just unbelievable. And I found
myself struggling with giving her gifts that she liked. It's
been a bit torturous to me. I don't know what
to say. This is definitely for horny kids. Play it
if you liked Stardoo and you want to like sweat
on some unbelievable good looking people.
Speaker 6: I've been I've been hearing a lot of people talk
about this recently, and it sounds really good. I just
I noticed it was an early access, and I in
my head, I'm always like, well, I'd rather like I
don't want to burn myself out before it actually comes out,
you know, like I did that.
Speaker 5: I guess started released.
Speaker 6: It didn't release an early access, but like I feel
like I played started too early seeing all the stuff
they eventually added to it, and I was like, I
don't know if I can go back to it, So
like I'm my eye on it.
Speaker 5: I'm just waiting for the right time. I guess.
Speaker 1: Usually I also of an early access person. The reason
I haven't played Hades too is because it's in early
access and I prefer to play when they come out. Yeah,
this is Dan recommended it. I couldn't help it. I
do really love Stardu, so this is obviously up my alley.
And something that I'm going to probably continue playing. It's
funny I brought up Hades because it's kind of like
got the Hades hotness, you know what I mean? You
know everybody was like playing Hades. The game is so
well done, but you're also like, I can't not talk
about how hot these characters are. Mystery is the same,
very well made, Like this is an adorable game. It
does what it's seeking very well. It has a couple
deviations from Stardu just to make it not literally the
same game. But you're ultimately anyone who liked Stardu, You're
getting a very parallel experience with this game. But everybody's hot.
Speaker 2: I just want to start started so got so much
more going on. I played like six months ago, and
I had no idea you had them any different starting
areas and rules and modifiers.
Speaker 1: The modifiers are crazy now when people are like sleeping
with other people in that game, because that's new to me.
Is that.
Speaker 2: Penetration too?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I think it was what update two point seven that
added penetration.
Speaker 2: Up update six. Here's the twist. We show it. We
show all of it. Staff lungering out in the fields,
farming comes back, outrageous sexual experience on his young pupil
I'm doing. It's always sunny, and it's just clarifying this
isn't a fantasy I have.
Speaker 1: This is your fantasy too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it could be both.
Speaker 1: But the sex stuff in Stardo was that an update?
Or is that where people are modding the game?
Speaker 5: I think, well, I think it depends.
Speaker 6: Like I think people mod it in some real weird
ways and probably take it much further than the developer
probably intended. Uh.
Speaker 5: That said, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 6: The like like you, the whole like child raising stuff
was like an update, right, I don't think that was you.
Speaker 1: Can legit have babies now and start. Yeah.
Speaker 6: I don't think they show them in life, No, I
think I think they do show the full birth.
Speaker 5: I think it's.
Speaker 2: Here's the twist.
Speaker 1: You have full crowning, you see everything. You have to
cut the umbilical cord. There's a mini game for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like you have to anytime they dilate more
than six inches or whatever it is, you have to
the analyt sticks like your hands. There's haptic feedback.
Speaker 1: Pain modulator for men's bellies that you can feel what
it's like to have a contraction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd a good use for the next switch.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've heard that there's a thing that lets guys feel
what cramps are like it cramps?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 5: Oh like yeah.
Speaker 1: Interesting, but for your body.
Speaker 2: I don't want to play that game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wouldn't it be nice to just not play?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: One of the few times where being a man is
easier than being a woman. One of the few instances
I should.
Speaker 1: Say, yeah, the one. Uh is this a joke? Why
do you have Hollow Night on here?
Speaker 5: Because I finally played Hollow Night?
Speaker 2: Don't start with me, I swear I did.
Speaker 6: You hadn't played it, par I tried it when it
came out in twenty seventeen, but I didn't finish it,
not because I didn't enjoy it, but because it was
It came out in twenty seventeen, and there was I
think it was twenty seventeen or I played it in
twenty seventeen according to Steam. Uh, and there was just
so much other stuff. So I finally went back and
finished it. Gonna be honest, partly inspired by Dan a
little well.
Speaker 2: Dan never shuts up about that game, and he was
trying to sell Mary on it for a while.
Speaker 1: And I'm a little offended that Dan is what convinced
you to play Hollow Night and not.
Speaker 5: Okay, I wouldn't say it was Dan who convinced me.
Speaker 6: A lot of people have been telling me to play
Hollow Night because it's one of their favorite games of
all time. I mean, you've said so much about it.
One of my good friends I visited him in Colorado
and he was just all he talked about is Hollow Night.
Loves that game, one of his favorite games. So I
came back from that trip and I was like, all right,
I don't play Hollow Night. Conveniently, Dan was also playing
Hollow Night, so he finished it well before I did
because he had surgery and everything. But I was chipping
away at it. And it turns out people were right.
That game's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Great reason, tell us more about, like what you liked
about it since your first playthrough.
Speaker 5: I'm good, that's it.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: I've been playing Tavern Manager Simulator.
Speaker 5: Nice.
Speaker 2: Is that good?
Speaker 1: It's actually fucking great. I don't play a lot of
sim games because I don't know. They usually don't grip me.
This is Tavern Manager Simulator the whole thing. I have
to say that because I recommend it to a friend
and they googled Tavern Manager and they got a completely
different game. So it's Tavern Manager Simulator.
Speaker 2: Okay, I see you.
Speaker 1: You are the manager of a tavern in an RPG.
It's very funny because you'll see people who are like,
you know, they look like they came from like Wow,
but they're ordering beers and sausages from you. You have
to get everything. You have to order the wheat or
whatever for your beer, the pops, and you have to
order the sausages. You pour the beers yourself. There's mini
game for pouring the beer perfectly. If you overpour it,
now you've spilled on the floor and you have to
mop up the floor. There's a clean rating for your tavern,
and if it gets too dirty, people talk shit about you,
so you actually have to like mop the floor, get
rid of everybody's like dirty ass footprints. You wash the
dishes after people have finished drinking their ale, and they
give you money for everything that they ordered, and then
you use that money to upgrade your tavern. Obviously, so
I got more tables, I increased the things that I
was offering. Originally it was just beer and sausages. But
at this point I am doing steaks, soups, beers, and sausages.
I got a lot of different stuff. I have a
table for six, which is nuts. And then here's the
cool part. Because it's set in like an RPG fantasy world,
I can employ fairies. So I've hired a faerry to
do my dishes, which is like my least favorite task,
and I you know, no, it's just a wearing really
monotonous tasks. So as soon as I was able to
hire my first fairy, now they do all my dishes
and my dirty work, and I get to do the
stuff that I like to do, which is usually serving
people and kicking out the drunks. It's pretty funny, like
they have said it so that like some people drink
too much, they like ask for four beers and you
serve them and then when they're done, they just flop over,
but you have to physically pick them up and hurl
them out the front of your bar and boot them out.
There's also an old lady that comes to the front
of your tavern is just talk shit about you, and
you get a pan to hit her over the head
with it to get her out of your bar, which
I think is very funny. People shit in my toilet
and they clog it, and I have to unclog my toilet.
I don't enjoy that mini game, but I haven't been
able to assign a faery to unclog my toilet, so
that one I have to do. I cook my own soup,
I cook the steaks. It's all minigames. None of them
are extremely hard. This is not a difficult or complicated game.
I actually really like playing it while I'm watching a
TV show. I've been like watching Hacks a lot. I
think it's very funny, and I can watch Hacks while
I play Tavern Simulator. It's not too distracting. So, like,
if anybody's out there who's like, I just want a
casual game that I can like half ass play while
I'm like watching TV or sitting on my ass or drinking.
This is the one you do not have to like
pay attention. You do have to like function while you're
playing this game, but you don't have to think very hard.
This is like a casual enjoy pretending to be a
tavern wench or wenchman.
Speaker 6: My first thought looking at this on Steam is I
feel like this would be a lot of fun in VR,
like it's got that job simulator vibe. I don't know
if you guys ever played jobs Inanda or whatever. I
think they've made a couple of work simulator. I feel
like that be a good time.
Speaker 1: I think would be ideal in VR, especially like picking
up the trunk and like carrying about hurling their fat ass.
Speaker 5: Having that lady with a pan.
Speaker 1: Hitting the lady with a pan is funny. So the
very first time it happened, I gave her ten dollars
and she goes away if you give her money. And
then the second time the game was like you've unlocked pan,
and I was like, oh good, so that I can
make the sausages. And they were like, no, use this
to beat the shit out of this old lady that's
constantly begging in the front of your tavern and get
rid of her. I could not believe that that's what
they wanted me to use the pan for. But you know,
one hit and I couldn't quit. I'll never give her
money again. I just beat her ass every time I
see her tavern. So that's my new system.
Speaker 2: I try this out. I what's the last like similar
game no No. I played Barren Breakfast and I liked
a lot of that game. I feel like it took
too long to get to the fun points though I
like the actual fact that you're decorating the the in
But yep, again, I think it took to it didn't
get to the actual, like compelling rewards quickly enough.
Speaker 1: I want to get a bit of a slow burn too,
like I will prepare you.
Speaker 2: It's fine. It's maybe I'm probably phrasing it wrong. It's
not I shouldn't say that. It's that Bear and Breakfast
took too long to get to the interesting that. It's like,
I don't think it pasts it out, So there's long
stretches where I feel like I wasn't like doing much
at all to like improve my place.
Speaker 1: Good games should just really dole that out almost every day,
so you feel like you're never doing the same thing.
The very first day in this game, you're only pouring
beers because you're learning and you're like figuring out the rules.
I swear, by like day three, it was like sausages
and beers. By like the first week I had soup.
I mean, I'm definitely in it at this point. I've
been playing for like a little bit longer. But I've
I have upgraded my kitchen several times. I have put
up cactuses and beautiful wall decorations, and I've upgraded a
lot of different companies. I've upgraded my bar so that
it seats more people like I'm at this point, but
I do think that you know, you're probably gonna have
to give it four hours if you want to be
able to play and upgrade like all the food and
stuff like that. But I don't think that's a huge investment.
And again, what I would argue is is, like everybody's different.
You can play simulation games however you want. But I
have found this best on my Steam deck, casually playing
this while I'm like enjoying other media, if that makes sense.
This is not like Dodo, where I'm like, this is
all I'm doing for the rest of the evening and
I have all my Snacky's and my drinkies and I'm
not leaving my computer. This is a like whatever, I
will like casually play this for hours while I'm also
talking with my mom on the phone, which.
Speaker 2: I did do. Mary, what else have you played?
Speaker 1: I have also played Dross. It could be Dross. I'm
not really sure. I got this key were my switch,
so I dust it off my Nintendo switch, which I
have not turned on in a long time because I
have a Steam deck now and I'm a changed person.
But the game Dross or Dross is a I want
to say, it's like a light puzzler where you are
a person in a Night's uniform, but you are also
the Gou that is sentient that helps the person in
the night armor, and you solve puzzles either together where
the night Armor can cut things and open big boxes
and is strong and heavy, or you are the goo.
The Goo can jump, it's dexterous, but it's really weak
and it can't defend itself. So in a puzzle where
it's like, for example, the first area is like a sewer,
and you're like, okay, I have to get some machine parts.
I need to get to the next portal, but I'm
not heavy enough to open up the space. So I
bring the Night to the I don't know, it's like
a button that you have to stand on to open
up a gate. Then I release my goo. My Goo
crawls around and opens up a different way so that
my Night can get there. It's just puzzle based activities
I don't think they're necessarily complicated. Something I found odd
is that it's very much based on completion get a
currency that you spend. If you get attacked and get hurt,
you spend the currency to essentially like heal yourself. But
you want to have enough currency that you get a
check mark at the end of the level, so you
don't want to get too hurt. What bothered me about
it is is I want to complete all the boxes,
so I want to get all the currency, and I
want to get the crystal shards, and I want to
get whatever the secret thing is that they hide something
in the level. But then the last one is time.
And in a game where it's all about investigating and
learning how to solve the puzzle and not taking too
much damage and finding all the secrets, it also wants
me to do it in under two minutes and thirty seconds.
So I'm never getting all the boxes ticked because I'm
looking for all the secrets, which means each level is
taking like seven or eight minutes and I'm totally blowing
past the time. And maybe they want me to replay
those levels, but I'm not doing that shit. So that
was like something that bothered me about it, but it
is nice to go back and forth between Heavy Night
and Skinny Little Goo solving puzzles. They're simple puzzles, but
I don't know. It passes the time. I'm not mad
about it, but I ain't fucking doing it in two
minutes and thirty seconds. I don't know why they did that.
I don't know why they added that part to it.
But that's dross.
Speaker 2: Is this?
Speaker 5: Is this a first person game?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 1: No? You see them like pop down?
Speaker 5: Huh?
Speaker 6: Because I mean I searched Dross on uh Steam and
I got like a boomer shooter looking game that sounds
nothing like you just described. So that's kind of interesting.
There are two games called DROs.
Speaker 1: That's impossible. It's I'll send you the link.
Speaker 5: Did I did? I? Maybe I misspelled it? D r
O S S d r O S. Oh the odds.
Speaker 1: That there's two. This is like the second time that
I'm telling you, like, be careful because these games are
like so specific.
Speaker 6: Yep, Okay, I see the one you're talking about now
that that matches more your description.
Speaker 1: I yeah, okay, that's so funny. Uh d r O S. Yeah,
you're like a little guy and there's an eyeball like
sticking out of you. That's the goo, and so the
goo is able to like go into pipes and go
into tiny spaces. But again, the goo can get killed
very quickly. The only thing that doesn't get held quickly
is the guy in the night, and he also has
a sort so he can like attack bosses and stuff
like that, and eventually you get like two boss fight situations.
I'll probably keep playing it. I don't think it's bad
at all. I enjoyed like getting through the puzzles that
I played so far. My only gripe with it is like,
I think it's confusing that you would ask me to
solve and find everything, but then also give me a
time limit. It's like, well, not a time limit, but
they reward you for getting through it in a very
short amount of time. And it's like, do you want
me to find all the stuff? Make up your mind?
Do you mean to do it quickly? Or do you
want me to do it right? So you know that,
uh you know that like, uh, what's it called? What
is it? When it's two circles and they overlap a
little bit and then there's any Okay, it's like that
ven diagram. That's about uh Art and it's like do
you want it cheap? Do you want it quick? Or
do you want it good?
Speaker 6: I'm talking about Yeah, that's that's the triangle, right, the
production triangle.
Speaker 1: It's a triangle. It's been diagram. No, it's it's a triangle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's it's arguing with herself and that's.
Speaker 5: Cheap and good. You can only pick two?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it really sucks. Is I didn't know
what the word for a Venn diagram is, but I
know the word for a triangle, So I could have
saved myself a lot. I could have saved myself a
lot of hurt if I would have just gone with
triangle from the beginning here. But yeah, so anyway, it's
kind of like that. The game was like do it fast,
complete it and don't get hurt too much, and it's
like pick two.
Speaker 6: Well, speaking of time limits, did either of you ever
play the original Dead Rising?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah, you did love it because I'd got a preview
of the remaster a couple of weeks ago last week.
But it's like all I've been thinking about love that
original game. I think that is like one of the
most slept on classics of that generation, super rough around
the edges at the time, with that infamous time limit
that I think a lot of.
Speaker 5: People didn't like, or maybe they did. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't think people liked it.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I honestly don't know. I think people who like critically
people liked it, and people who were into that game
were into it. But I think people just bounced off
they didn't like it. I don't even know if this
was an era where if people hated something they would
just like review vombit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't think that was a thing.
Speaker 2: I'm so wea what have they done with the remasters?
Just strictly visual but they've kept everything?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did they upgrade anything else or just visual?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: So, I mean I've only played like the first day
and a half, I think, because that was that was
all I was.
Speaker 5: Able to play for the preview.
Speaker 6: They it's basically a lot of quality of life changes
plus better visuals. Quality of life includes like better mission tracking,
a compass that works better. I don't know if you
remember in the original there was just that arrow that
kind of floated around and kind of didn't really help
much because it was hard to always tell which way
it was pointing, especially when it like sporadically tell you
to you turn or whatever.
Speaker 5: The aiming is much better.
Speaker 6: Like once again, I don't know how well you remember
that original, but using firearms was almost kind of pointless
just because of how bad that aiming was and you
couldn't move it like took a page from ri E four,
which makes sense at the time, whereas you aim and
you just you plant your feet in the ground, don't
go anywhere, but in this you get to move. But man,
I think that game holds up so well otherwise, like
there are some things that are still kind of funky,
Like pretty much every quest ends up being.
Speaker 5: A a.
Speaker 6: What's it called a mission where you take a person
from point A to point B escort mission blanket on
the way. And they they sucked so much in that
original I remember, and this they're still there because they're
so core to the game. But your companions are much
better at fending for themselves for the most part. Obviously,
every now and then there'll be someone who has like
trouble walking or whatever.
Speaker 5: You have to hold their hand or have them on
your shoulder.
Speaker 6: But yeah, I don't know, I'm playing it and It's
like man, game design at that time was so much
more interesting. I feel like because a lot of these
like edges hadn't been sought off, it hadn't been like
focus tested where it's like, yeah, we're gonna make every
weapon in this every item in this mall a weapon,
even though like half of them suck and they serve
no purpose, Like you can throw CDs at zombies but
it doesn't do anything. And then like they also like,
like the amount of zombies they fit on screen is
still kind of impressive, and that was that time where
like they're like, yeah, with the power of the Xbox
through sixty, we can fit five hundred zombies on screen.
And now they're like, yeah, the power of these consoles now,
like the lighting looks a little better. And I'm like,
I know, I want the days where it's just like
they cram as many zombies as the camp. But anyway,
all that to say, I played the preview about a
week and a half ago or so, and I can't
wait to play the rest of it because game holds
up games of classic Oh.
Speaker 1: Cool, I love that game. I think that was like
around when did that game come out?
Speaker 6: Originally it was two thousand and eight or two thousand
and seven, six six, it was the care.
Speaker 2: Of Bully Oblivion. Yeah, a Company of Heroes half or
Twilight Princess. Was that Twilet Princess on GameCube or the Wii?
Speaker 6: I think they came out. It was the same time,
right on both, but it was twenty you know, it
was two. It was when the Wii came out two
thousand and seven.
Speaker 2: I thought it came out on GameCube first and then
it came out on the Wii right after.
Speaker 5: I think it was reverse okay, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, either way, Dead Rising was two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: What a phenomenal game. I love that the imagery on
the Steam page is there's a screenshot of hitting a
zombie with a teddy Bear, which is so iconic to
this original game because for anyone who did not play
the original game, you get to basically make anything a weapon,
a bat, a teddy bear, a hat. There's like lego
heads that you can put on them.
Speaker 5: Slam on zombie heads.
Speaker 1: It is silly. It is a silly game, and it
does it really well. There's an enemy, there's like a
boss fight that's like a clown that's so crazy, with
like just a wild ride of a game. And I
think I'm really looking forward to an excuse to be
in It's a mall, right, like to be in like
a mall and just fuck around hours. Yeah, very George Romero,
yea in this one? Can you make smoothies? Or is
that the next one?
Speaker 6: Yep, you can make smoothies. You can you take two
ingredients and make a smoothie. And some make you run fast,
and it just it looks stupid as hell because you
don't actually sprint. You're just still walking really fast, but
you zip around the map. There's just there's a charm
to this this game that I'd like. I felt like
they just kind of slowly kind of got rid of
by the time BE four came around.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but one is like it's so.
Speaker 6: It's so bizarre, like that game would never get made today.
Yeah right, I mean I guess it kind of is
getting remade, but still.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got personality and like, actually it's doing something different. Yeah.
I want to play that remaster for sure.
Speaker 1: Can't wait for that. That's really exciting. I'm glad that
you got to play that. That's such a cool experience
and memory for me playing that game for the first time,
and you know, for its time, I think it was
really advanced. I think it was doing things that a
lot of other games weren't doing. A lot of other
games were very much keeping you on a path, and
this game was like whatever, Like this entire mall is
a playpen for you, and you can pick up anything
and use it and throw it and hurl it and
whatever you really want to do, and then there's just
masses of zombies to kill. I think with updated graphics,
it's going to be really fun to play. I think
streamers are going to love this. I think gamers are
going to love coming back to this or just playing
this for the first time. So good idea to make
to remaster it and looking forward to playing it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm excited to play the rest.
Speaker 6: I also like, God, Frank West is such a stupid character.
I love him so much, like he and I feel
like because they brought him back and forth and he
was like I don't know, they like once again like
kind of smoothed all the edges. They made him like
handsome and like and like an action hero. And in
the original he's just kind of he's kind of like
a skeazy journalist who has got a weird looking face
and like super broad shoulders, and they just it's just
it's something else.
Speaker 5: It's I can't wait.
Speaker 2: To play More Cool looking forward to it. Do you
guys want to do emails?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. As usual, you can write into fires Kit
cast at gmail dot com for questions for the show.
Get more in. We're getting through a bunch of the
recent batch of influx of emails that we got recently,
so give us another batch to get through.
Speaker 1: And no one's drawn my best friend.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no one sent in the friend that Mary
created from episode what eighty seven eighty six? I think
go back and listen to that and send one in.
I want to More's stomach, Timtry's chest, my hair, I
think Lucy's neck, Lucy's neck. Yeah, it's not gonna make
any sense unless you listen, so go back and draw that.
We got two emails tonight, Mary, do you want to
read this? First one from Alex from Australia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh Australia, Hello escapers. Dan has told us all
many times how cheap his dad is and how proud
of that Paul is. But is there anything you're proudly
cheap about? Personally? I use a safety razor to shave
my head and the cost of that per year is
barely north of five dollars, and given it's the cleanest,
smoothest shave you can get, I genuinely feel like I'm
cheating someone out of something. Love the show Alex and
Bendigo Australia. It's a really good email because I feel
like even people who like to spend money, there's something
that you're like, I am saving so many dollars. This
is a good question. I got a noodle on it
for a second. Underwear just don't wear it.
Speaker 5: No, he's just been wearing the same pace since he
was twelve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been going commando for years looking Calvin Klein
is always mad at me.
Speaker 6: But I always don't know what's worse of that or yeah,
we're in the same pair of underway.
Speaker 2: I just resell the pair I've had.
Speaker 5: I bleach it now.
Speaker 2: I'm one of those people who like waits till like
the last possible minute to get new underwear, and then
I buy like thirty new pairs and then it lasts
another like six years.
Speaker 1: That's a weird one.
Speaker 6: What else I'm proudly I feel like I'm I'm surprisingly
cheap about a lot of things unless they're tech related, right,
Like I bought like a roadcaster pro so I can
you know, do sound effects like that? Which was not cheap?
But this sm seven b mic. But other than that,
I try not to spend money on much else. Besides
that cheap beer usually yea, but the thing is too
in San Francisco, like even cheap stuff is usually fucking expensive.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I despite my love of good wine, I
actually do not spend much money on beer at all.
When I get beer, I actually I'm not a verse
to slamming some peace ebes. I like PBR. I wouldn't
say it's like the most delicious thing I drink, but
I'm very up for there's something like the Bat Blue
and La bat Blue Light. Especially the latter are the
best beer's ever made. I don't know how anybody would
top them, So why would I spend more than thirteen
dollars on a six pack of beer?
Speaker 1: I think I can be cheap when it comes to
food in general. I hate food waste, and I'm the
kind of person that when I have six different random
bits and bobs in my fridge, I will be like well,
I'm making the weirdest curry ever, and I will just
make sure that I use every part of it because
I don't want to waste it, and I paid for it,
and so I feel cheap about it. But I'm also
like very cheap about my produce the sense that, like,
if green beans are on sale, we're having green beans,
even if I did not plan for it, even if
there's no reason to do it. I buy what's on
sale at the grocery store. I it's ingrain in me.
I think, maybe like from when I was a kid
and I went with my mother. But like, if there's
a bunch of different burger buns, I get the one
that's cheap and on sale. That's what I do. I
don't care if I don't have a brand of bagels
that I have to have, I buy the one that's cheap.
It's fine.
Speaker 2: I like to push that too far sometimes where I
see something at the grocery store is on sale, Like
I had no intention of eating fucking uh like mangoes
that week, but they're on sale, so I'm saving money
if I get them, like I do out of mind.
Speaker 1: You can't afford not to get mangoes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm saving four dollars if I buy mangoes compared
to the usual zero that I usually buy.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, like getting the sales is, I've just
bought a frickin' freezer. This is something I think adults
do in their adult life, but I finally purchased a
freezer for my basement so that when meat is on sale,
I can buy it in bulk and keep it in
a freezer, and then I can get out my fucking
cheap ass two dollars chicken that I bought on super
sale in bulk. I'm also like probably gonna get a
Costco subscription because now that I have this freezer, I
can buy Hamburger patties in bulk and get a really
good deal on Hamburger patties. Like It's just it's always
been a part of me, and I've always been limited
by my freezer capacity and not anymore. But that purchase
is very strictly cheap related, because it's about buying cheap
meat in bulk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Meat's not something I'm I skimp on. I don't
want to buy.
Speaker 1: Cheape I'm a free I will even uh you know,
like where they'll they'll put meat on super sale because
it's like, hey, you got to eat this, like probably
in the next two days. I buy it and then
I'm just like, I'll eat it tonight.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like if I see the like red meat,
is like, hey, this is on sale and you know,
it looks fine, and then I open I smell it,
it's fine, I eat it. Chicken, I'm much warrier about
I'm risky.
Speaker 1: I'm risky with chicken too, but I won't eat if
it's gone bad. But like if it's on sale and
they're like, you know why it's on sale and like whatever,
I'll just eat it immediately. I'll just eat it as
soon as possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I there's like I really really like and I'm
not really proudly cheap or with coffee. In fact, I
really value like good coffee. Most of the time. On
Saturday mornings, my neighborhood has a farmer's market, and I've
started getting my coffee from there because this local company
brings their coffee, so I get it from there if
I can. However, I'm definitely not my palate for coffee.
As much as I love it is not that discerning.
So if I go to as long as I'm getting
whole bean so I can grind it here. That's my
only nitpick, Like I want to be grinding it here.
It takes way fresher when you do it yourself. I'll
get fucking dunkin Donuts if it's on sale. I love
dunkin Donuts coffee. I am pretty proud of Dunkin Donuts.
And that's a Northeast thing I think it is. But
Starbucks is dogshit dunkin Donuts. I'm proudly cheap about that
that I get. Actually, I am pretty proud of that.
But otherwise I'll just go for the on sale coffee.
Like if it's like seven dollars for the U, the
hole beans perfect, They'll last me a week.
Speaker 1: I like good coffee. That's where I that's where I break.
I like to have a good cup of coffee. But
like I said, like there's certain things I just don't
think I can tell the taste difference with, you know,
like like bread, I usually just buy whatever is cheapest.
Or pasta, you know, like the box pasta.
Speaker 5: Yeah that's like eighty five cents or whatever.
Speaker 2: And yeah, the cheapest.
Speaker 1: Fucking pasta shells you've ever seen in your life. I
will buy that shit. It will be Kroger brand. I
do not care. It's fine. I'm putting sauce on it.
Speaker 6: Like, I don't know why you'd get pasta that's expensed,
like unless you're a restaurant, of course, but like at
the store now, you're just gonna get the cheapest pasta
you can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is sort of a roundabout way to answer
the question. I've actually been trying to diy more foods,
and I don't mean cooking. I cook a lot. I've
been trying to make my own Like tonight, for instance,
for dinner I made, I had leftover. No, I don't
pickle things yet I will at some point. I'm sure
I had leftover, like a half of a baguette that
we weren't going to eat and it was going stale.
So I was like, oh, I'll make my own creutontons.
I've been doing that. Yes yesterday I made what may
have been the best meal I've made, if not in
my life then in a very long time. The farmer's
market again where we have started trying to get most
of our groceries because they're all literal people from around here.
It's also just cheaper than kings, which if you live
in New Jersey or around here, you know, kings can
get stupid expensive. In the produce we got like this
Chilean sea bass. I was trying to create the dish
from my wedding. I don't know if you guys ordered that.
It was like my favorite thing ever, Yeah, it was.
So I made miso glaze Chilean sea bass on bosmadi rice,
and I made using that same baguette before it went stell,
I made my own like parmaganado. I think it's called.
It's the breadcrumbs that you'll get on pasta to add texture,
like the crunchy texture to like angel hair or any
kind of pasta, I guess. And I put that on
the fish with and I just cooked down the marinade
from the fish kind of to a reduction bosmadi rice.
I looked up how to like make it like that
perfect sticky texture. You do one and a half cups
water to every one cup rice, and it turned out incredible.
But it, like to your point, Mary, of not wasting anything,
I'm kind of proud. It's like, oh, okay, so now
I know what to do with like stale bread now
or I know what to do so I don't waste
all of that marinade. And I know this is these
are not these are not like the newest revelations ever.
But it's like I'm definitely getting to a point where
I'm more confident, like uh, making more use getting a
lot out of one ingredient as opposed to just dumping
all that marinade down the sink. Once it's done, the
fish is done, sitting in it over there.
Speaker 1: That's probably what Paul does too, you know, because he's
like known for being really cheap, and I bet you he.
Speaker 2: Like makes marinate. It makes he doesn't want to make
the mirror the sweet wine vinegar. Yeah, it's a very
Paul vibe I'm channeling lately.
Speaker 1: That's a good one. I think. The last thing I'll
say is like, I also am a sucker for deals
when it comes to eating out. So usually when I
go out to eat, I am paying attention to sales
and deals that restaurants do. And one of my favorite
things that I like to do is there's a restaurant
that I like. It's just a cafe and it has
avocado toast and coffee, and on one day of the week,
you can get avocado toast a little cheaper, and it's
two pieces of bread with avocado on it. So if
me and my partner go and we have two coffees
with one avocado toast that we split, it's a seven
dollar breakfast, baby damn with tip. You can't get a
seven dollar breakfast in the fucking city anymore. That's crazy.
That's crazy.
Speaker 2: Can't get that anywhere, I'm telling you, Yeah, that's That's
another thing. I'm very proudly cheap about diner food, Like
I fucking love diner that's I would. I would pay
a lot of money for diner food because I just
a good diner is like one of the best things
in the world. It's up there with dive bars in
terms of like just pure things that I never want
to lose. But it's usually not too expensive. Like when
I go back to Syracuse when I'm visiting family, there's
a couple of diners that I try to hit up
all the time, and they have shitty coffee most of
the time, and I like.
Speaker 1: Shitty diner coffee that I accept. I don't think that
that is comparable to like making yourself a sad cup
of folgers, like going to a diner and having just
diner coffee.
Speaker 5: A happy cup of Folgers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, it was made with love.
Speaker 2: Bye.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Donda, I.
Speaker 6: Was gonna say, I hate paying full price for clothes,
like I That's what I'm always looking for sales on
like I just ordered the only thing the only exceptional
make is usually like Levi's because I have a size
and style that fits and I just buy that every
time one wears out, which, to be fair, takes a while.
But Levi's just had a big sale where they were
like selling jeans for twenty dollars and I was like, yep,
this is my this is my moment, yeah, closer, big one.
Speaker 5: A lot of the shirts I wear are free.
Speaker 6: I got them from events or other stuff, except concert shirts.
Sometimes I'll splurge on a concert shirt, but those that
don't even wear a whole lot because I don't want
to ruin them, which is stupid, but you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's definitely there's definitely things as as people know
that I like don't skimp on. But I'm I'm just
as likely there's certain things I really don't care to
spend money, and I'm the same way, like I'll go
on the same three websites to say, see what they
have on style clothes wise, it was.
Speaker 6: Say functional stuff like jackets and sweatshirts, mostly jackets like
that I'm willing to spend a little more on because
I actually want a jacket to work well.
Speaker 2: You know, suits, etc.
Speaker 6: Like things you need to Yeah, that's sort of stuff
that's like has more of a purpose.
Speaker 2: But like there's like things that should be expensive because
the labor involved with making like a good version of it.
Like I don't want to be paying just like one
hundred dollars for a suit that I need to be
wearing to weddings and potentially funerals and whatnot. Like I
don't that's in that middle ground where it's like I
might as well splurge because otherwise I'm paying, like I'm
going to get what I pay for. But yeah, anything
that's like it can be under fifty dollars. I don't
mind going as low as I possibly.
Speaker 6: Can, I will say kind of in response to this
email right here, I spend a lot of money on haircuts.
I still go to the same place, Mike that the
people's in on Polk Street, and I think when I
first started going there, around the same time you went
there first.
Speaker 5: You told me about it. Haircuts are forty dollars.
Speaker 6: Now they're like sixty five seventy dollars and that's been
what six years or so. Yeah, and I what am
I going to do? You know, like I don't want
to change my heart?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a kind of place where they give you
a drink.
Speaker 5: They do.
Speaker 6: And I abuse that because it's free, because they can't
actually you can't actually like they can't.
Speaker 2: Well their facts are alcohol, right, Yeah, but I'm sure
they're factoring the price of the haircuts into like the
the stocking of alcohol and whatnot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't, well, they're averaging it and they're assuming
you're not going to ask for four beer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's when you get them. It's like, that's how
you get your sixty five dollars worth of a haircut,
is you have slam a sixer right before you get it.
Speaker 4: Cheer.
Speaker 5: I check in and I walk away from the fridge
with just six.
Speaker 2: Beerd just even go back to the office.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, sorry, I got my hair cut last week.
I'm just.
Speaker 2: I'll just do I'll just do a quick trim. Cindy.
She does trims like just one side, you're like, okay,
that's good and beer. Yeah, yeah, there's I also don't
spend much money on razors, but I also don't like
I have an electric razor about a while ago, so
I don't really shave with other razors. I'm just mentioning,
like what Alex and Australia said. Thank you Alex for
writing it. Jake, do you want to read this one
from Josh?
Speaker 5: I'll try. I can't read out loud, but we'll see
how this goes.
Speaker 2: Are you serious?
Speaker 6: I'm really bad at it, so bear with me. I'm
writing to you for career advice. As devastating as it
was to see Game Informer go, it was great to
hear you reminisce about your experiences at the company and
talk about the early days of your careers in games media.
Speaker 5: I'm twenty three years old from.
Speaker 6: Maine who has worked in theater for the last couple
of years. As someone with the intention to pivot into filmmaking,
I got to ask, how do you find the courage
to make the big first move. It's amazing and terrifying
to hear stories of people my age taking big risk
and getting great gig gigs in the media industry. What
advice would you offer to my cohort of ambitious upstarts.
Speaker 5: Thank you for the wisdom, josh.
Speaker 1: Oh I think that's really sweet. This is a good question.
And I actually I just had a call with a
nephew of mine who's also early twenties, graduated from film school.
He is in the Buffalo area, and we had this
call about like what he wants to do, and he
would like to get into film and asked me for
some starting tips and tricks of like what I did
when I graduated from a video production background to get
my start, And the advice I gave him was that
you should be joining groups and social clubs and events
that will get you around other like minded people that
are passionate about film and video because that is where
your job will come from. It is very unlikely that
sending out your resume a thousand times, no matter how
much you fine tune it, is going to get you
the gig that you're actually looking for. What is more
likely to get you that gig is going and doing
a forty eight hour game jam with other people who
are passionate about film, and one of them also knows
somebody who's interested and works in the industry, or you
join a group that meets once a month and has
coffee and talks about the projects that they're working on.
Join clubs, join social groups, find other people that are
really passionate about what you do, and go do it
with them. I don't care if it's for free. I
am a subscriber of being able to just do it
even if it doesn't pay anything in the beginning, just
to get your hands dirty, just to get your feet wet,
just to get in there. My first job, like legitimate job,
because I was a waitress after I graduated college for
several years. My first job job was an unpaid internship
at a film company. And I got the contact by
going to film groups and film clubs in Ohio. That's
how I got it. And I said, I will answer
your calls, I will answer the door. I will show
up every day, and you don't have to pay me.
And they were like fine, And that's how I got
my in. Obviously, like there's a long road, and I
wish that I could have just gotten a paid gig immediately,
But the truth is is that me doing it for
freeze how I got my foot in the door. And
so I worked for a film company from nine am
to four pm every day, and then I went from
my free paid intern gig to my paid waitressing job
from five until like nine or ten, and so I
essentially just worked double shifts for like six months. And
after six months or eight months or something like that,
they were like, we're gonna start paying you. And I
still did the uh waitressing job because I needed the money,
and so I kind of just kept both for a
while until I was able to pivot those resume builders
into a job in games media. So, like I do
think it requires being hungry, especially and it's in a
creative industry because I think they're very competitive because they're
fun and beloved. So if it's something you're really passionate about,
I would say, like, have some grit and be willing
to do whatever job is offered to you. Not any job,
but like a lot of them, for a little bit
of pay or even no pay, just to meet the
right people and get in the right circles. That's my
genuine advice to get started.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very much bearing in mind like if not
everybody can make huge changes right away, I think it
might help. It will help to have a plan, Like Josh,
you were saying that you've been working in theater, but
you want to transition into filmmaking. Yeah, finding the courage
is one thing, but like if you know what you
want to do, and like the courage I'd find for
most people who are really inspired to make a change
is not the hard part to come by. It's like
if you can make some sort of a plan to
to Like I don't want to say mitigate risk and
just completely like bail on your dream if like there
is any semblance of risk, because I think there's always
a semblance of risk and nerves anytime you make a
big change. I think having some sort of plan like
foundation before you launch wholeheartedly into something like Mary was saying,
I think if you can have some sort of structure
where you're still working in theater and making like decent money,
but you're also like spending some social time and free
time getting into these circles and why filmmaking for Addy
and slip there like filmmaking and around people who want
to make film, and then maybe the opportunities will pop
up there as opposed to just being like quitting your
job one day and being like, you know what I'm done.
I'm going to go to film school. I'm gonna pay
ten thousand dollars to do so, I'm going all in.
That can work for some people that have certain like
safety nets, et cetera. And like I've made some in retrospect,
I've made some like pretty drastic changes. I made some
pretty I took some pretty drastic chances to get into
games media, and I was I worked hard, but I
was also just lucky enough and in the right rooms
and met the right people where it all worked out.
But I would say if you can like keep keep
like a foot in in the you know, like this
more stable side of things, if you've established yourself in
one industry but while you're kind of phasing over into
the next, I think that'll make things a lot less hectic.
And I say that as someone who just like the
last few years of course, like when I left at
Games Editorial that I was very much like, all right,
I'm not at a point in my life where I
should just like ditch everything on this side of the fence,
jump over and then see kind of what's going on
Before I really have a plan, you know, there's always
going to be some risk, so I guess it's just
like you know, approach it. If you're the kind of
person who needs like some structure and like planning ahead
of time, like I usually am. I've found that that
has helped to like I'm not like a two year,
five year plan kind of person, but I have found
that it helps to write like a long term to
do list, Like like when I was leaving games, editorial
was and I still work in games, and like my
you know, my editorial skills have translated. So this isn't
completely but it sounds like theater into filmmaking would be
something similar. Like it's not completely you know, they're adjacent industries.
It's like my long term plan, this is hypothetical. It's like,
all right, well, going to keep doing what I've been
doing for the past twelve years for a while. But
in the meantime, I'm also going to be like, you know,
seeing so and so as often as I can at
these trade shows. I'm going to be you know, making
inroads like with different people on different whether social media
or LinkedIn or whatever, and then kind of just get
a viable what's going on over there, and then you know,
be asking the right questions from these people. I think
it's just a matter of like I think there's this
like romantic idea of dropping everything and then like risking everything,
and Mary and I have talked about how that has
has worked for us. But again, at this point in
my life, with like what I know now, if I,
like my twenty two year old self was about to
do that, I'd be like, you're fucking stupid. Don't do
things like that. It just happened to work out for me,
like if you're passionate about something and no one's going
to stop you from making that jump. But I do
think it's like it pays to have a stable foundation.
I think it'll also just help your personally speaking, I
think it'll help your mental health to not have every
single thing in your life riding on this change. That's
my two cents.
Speaker 4: At least.
Speaker 6: Both of you guys had really good advice. I think, uh,
both of those really resonate. I think particularly like finding
a group of people who are also interested in filmmaking
or whatever your passions are are super important because that
will mobilize you, that will encourage you, that will that
will drive you. I also think, like with filmmaking in particular,
I wouldn't say it's gotten easier, but I do think
the tools are like right there in front of you.
And especially if you're if you've worked in theater, you
probably know actors. Like I just I don't know exactly
what you want to do in filmmaking, but I just write,
write short scripts that have two people in them. Get
your friends together, shoot it on an iPhone if that's
all you got. But if you've got DSLR, if someone's
got a DSLR, like just shoot stuff.
Speaker 5: Shoot as much as you.
Speaker 6: Can, write as much as you can, but write in
a way that you know you could film it. Because
just practicing, like just working, like exercising that muscle is
super important because I think, especially with film, a lot
of people are like, yeah, that's what I want to do,
but then they don't actually act on any of those ambitions.
But like, especially you know you're twenty three, you've got
actors nearby. Usually finding actors can be pretty tough. Doesn't
need to be crazy productions. Just make a five page
script and spend a Sunday making it. Post it on YouTube,
post it on video or on vimeo. Hell, if you're
happy with it, send it to film festivals. I guarantee
you their film festivals that will accept it, like you know,
if it's five minutes, if it's if it's coherent, if
it has some sort of direction to it, some sort
of artistic flair to it, Like there's probably an audience
for it, and you may not find it right away,
but probably out there.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean, like I got, i'd say incredibly lucky as well.
Like I went to film school, but I went to
community college, which apparently means a very different thing outside
of California and California are community college is usually pretty good,
but I hear outside of California, community colleges are kind
of shit. I don't know if that's true, but that's
what people have told me. But anyway, I didn't pay
anything for that because it was community college. I lived
in the area, I had financial aid, And I think
the most important thing I got from that is just
meeting people who also wanted to make films and short films,
and even like I just raped production or I just
rap post production on a short film I did earlier
this year, and like the person who produced it, I
went to school with the assistant director. I went to
school with the cinematographer I used to work with the
editor I used to work you know, it's just like
it like I had an entire group of people to
pull from and it was all just people I knew,
and a lot of them were from school, you know,
a lot of them were just people I met through work.
Some I didn't even know we're interested in that sort
of thing, but they were. And you know, yeah, that's
I would say, just start doing shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've been doing more fictional filmmaking lately than finding
some success and doing some exciting shit, which I'm excited
to see.
Speaker 6: Yeah, just finished the short film that we sent to
a bunch of film festivals. Have not heard back from any,
so we'll see how it goes. But but yeah, and
that was just like that came about because a friend
of mine who I met in school, wrote a script
and he was like, hey, you should direct this, and
I was like, I can certainly try. And you know,
we got in touch with my friend who was a producer,
and like it just it just spirals. It's spirals, just
based on people, you know. So if you don't have
that school connection, like Mary was saying, like go to clubs,
I mean, fuck it. I hate Facebook, but like, there's
got to be a main filmmaker.
Speaker 1: Are usually based on you know, like your local city
usually will have some kind of club that helps. Sometimes
LinkedIn has them, but I find LinkedIn so gross. Sometimes
I'm just like, I have a hard time recommendation anymore.
It just doesn't feel genuine. Every time someone posts, I
just feel like they're straight up lying.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of.
Speaker 1: Market lie on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's largely like cmos and bizz dev. People
use it for their like for their companies, like my
wider company uses a lot it's. It's it's almost less
less social media and more like an extension of the
marketing arm for each company. So yeah, it's got a
It's got a different sheen to it for sure than
like Instagram or Twitter is gonna. But yeah, I found
a lot of I've been like looking for like wine
tasting group in New York, and there is a surprising
number of like Reddit threads for other people looking for it.
I think there's always gonna be someone else looking for
the same thing. You are, You're you're not, You're never
gonna be the only person with an interest in your area.
I feel like unless you live in like Greenland than
in which case, how are you listening to podcast?
Speaker 6: I would say, like in terms of courage, like I like,
I think what Mike said speaks a lot to that,
where it's like, if you're kind of taking a measured
approach to it, you don't necessarily need courage, you just
need a plan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for writing in, Josh, And that's our show.
Like I said, everybody rite in. We get more questions
that the getting through that was eighty eight. We just
warped in the Dolore in this episode. Yeah, Dan is gonna.
I think we'll be back next episode. Jake, always to
have you on for anybody who might not know. Jake
is the lifeblood of the podcast and does all the
production for it and make sure it, make sure it
sounds good, looks good, gets up on time. Jake, What
do you have going on outside? I know you talked
about warframe stuff, but what else is going on at
game Spot and film stuff?
Speaker 5: Oh god, I mean I have this short film that's.
Speaker 6: Supposed to go to some film festivals later this year
and then hopefully I'll release it to a you know, Vimeo,
YouTube or whatever, probably.
Speaker 1: One it is it just you. Is it a small crew?
What is it?
Speaker 6: It's like thirty people. There's a cast of six people.
Cast is kind of cool. Actually, one of the guys
was on, uh No, one of the guys was on
I think you should leave though, oh neat, and then
someone else was on curb your enthusiasm, and then yeah,
we had like a full crew. Andrea was the cinematographer.
Speaker 1: I love Drea.
Speaker 5: Yeah, former spot.
Speaker 1: Often Drea and twitch. I hired Drea as a videographer
or cinematographer for a lot of freelance stuff. And what's
really fucking crazy is that there was like a couple
opportunities where we were like, hey, I think this could
be a full time role. Andrea would be like, no,
I only want to work freelance so that I can
make my independent films. I don't give a shit about
anything else. I will do this because I need the
money and the work and it's good for me. But ultimately,
she's been put on this earth to make her independent
films and I respect that so much that I like
love working with her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she fucking rules.
Speaker 6: I mean she came and clutch many times throughout that production,
like had connections to get us a nice camera, like
just all once again, like just connections.
Speaker 5: You never know where these connections are going to come from.
Speaker 6: But yeah, that short film, I would say. Game spot wise, Yeah,
I don't know. I'm sure there's some shit coming up.
Speaker 2: Mary, what about you?
Speaker 1: Same as usual right now, I'm just streaming every Monday.
I've been streaming a lot of the games that I'm
talking about. So if you want to get a first
look at what I'm thinking when I'm playing these games,
check out the twitch. Honestly, I think that's it because
I'm preparing for twitch Con in one month. It's literally
four weeks away, so that's where all my energy is going.
But I will be in San Diego in four weeks
for twitch Con.
Speaker 2: And I am just here in terms of forward facing stuff.
All my other day job stuff now is behind the scenes.
Well cool as usually. You can go to firescapecast dot
com if you want to be a patron and get
ad free tier episodes or video vers of episodes, or
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the year Game of the Year extravaganza that we've done
for the last This will be our fourth this year.
Speaker 1: But inspired it all as well, because we wouldn't be
here without the Christmas Special, because that's kind of.
Speaker 2: What the first thing we did was the halfway through
twenty twenty, wasn't it? Oh?
Speaker 1: I thought it was the Christmas Special. We thought that
was like this very first time we all got together as.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I thought you meant the whole thing that
inspired fire Escape.
Speaker 1: Well, what I'm saying is that the first time we
all got together is kind of what led to fires
in correct. I also wanted to say we also had
a new episode of Kanini, So if anybody likes watching
me and Mike play Resident Evil once every three months,
we've released a new episode and it's pretty good.
Speaker 5: Are you guys almost done?
Speaker 2: They have to thank episode us You're about to kill
Fight Krowser. Two episodes Max left.
Speaker 1: We got to.
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Fi scroll mousepad or the shirt. No one wants to
see that in public. But anyway, thank you everybody for
joining this episode eighty eight. We're getting toward one hundred.
I think we did the math. It'll be like February
when we do one hundred, figure out something fun for
that and then yeah, we'll start talking in the next
month or two about what we're gonna do. End of
the year wise, I'm sure will be fun and dumb.
I still have like four big games I need to
catch up on so I can be all of you
in an argument about all of them. So it'll be fun.
But in the meantime we'll see everybody else in two weeks.
Until then, have fun, be good, see y'all.
Speaker 5: See y'all, and thanks again for having.
Speaker 4: Me see you. Stop Stop