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