Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone to the Game Informer Show, a weekly
podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday
for discussion about the latest gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reveals,
alongside Game and Former staff and special guests from around
the industry. I'm one of your hosts today Alex van Aiken,
and today I'm joined by Charles Hart.
Speaker 2: How you doing, Charles, I'm good. I don't I don't
remember if I mentioned this on the past podcast, but
I got rid of my piano that I wasn't using
and now have an exercise bike in the back behind me.
So I'm a I'm a jock now, I'm actually not
a nerd like everyone else's. Yeah. So as long as
there's lots of like you know, sports talk and protein
in this podcast, I should.
Speaker 3: Be able to participate.
Speaker 2: I just kind of wanted to give you a primer
for my new person. Now.
Speaker 4: This is the way protein Okay, okay, behind a good
a good ven diagram for We're also joined by a
special guest, Protein bro Brendan Graham from Past the Controller
might as well be called Past the Protein.
Speaker 1: Brendon.
Speaker 5: Hello, Hello, we're doing good. I'm happy to be here.
I feel the first time, long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you've been on the show before.
Speaker 5: I was trying to think today. I don't think I have.
I've been on like other g I really but no,
I don't think i've been on the show. If I've
been on the show, then my memory right now, I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't know what you were on.
Speaker 1: Our Shovel Night Dig review in September of twenty twenty two.
So I don't blame you. It's been a long time.
Speaker 2: It was like a month.
Speaker 3: Fake fan.
Speaker 1: Fake, Yeah, you're a fake fan. He was asleep the
whole episode.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm glad I didn't wear a Shovel Night shirt
because it would be even worse.
Speaker 3: I almost put a Shovel shirt off today. I would
have been a real.
Speaker 1: I like your shirt.
Speaker 5: Though, yes, I had wear something. I was debating what
I wanted to do. I actually had a Mina shirt
on first. Oh yeah, I can't wait. But it's like
doesn't say Mina on it, and it's like the top
is a lot of enemies, and like no one's gonna
know what this is. I gotta I gotta rep one
on my indie dots.
Speaker 1: So well, you run past the controller. Of course, all
about indie games. You cover other mainstream games as well,
but I would say it is fair to say indis
are the focus.
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely, always try to champion indies whenever possible. I mean,
there's always something indie in my rotation. But like you said,
we play tons of you know, Triple A, we play everything,
so there's always a good mix of stuff. But for sure,
I'm always looking for, you know, breakout indies, but also
smaller games that you know, people should know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's past the controller dot io right, yes,
so head over there for weekly podcasts reviews. Also, I
think like one of the things that you guys do
that you do really well are your specialty cocktail recipes
that go alongside game reveals and that's their game launches
and that kind of thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they've slowed a little bit because I'm working on
something a little bigger on the background with that, but
it's something I love doing. I worked in the restaurant
industry for a very long time. My day job right
now also involves alcohol, so it's like something that kind
of has always been a little bit of part of
my life. But I do miss making people drinks. It's
one of the things I miss most about working in
the service industry. So being able to kind of like
match that with my other passion, which is all this
stuff is great and I think it. I think it's
just something different and unique, and I think, you know,
people sometimes should maybe elevate how they're enjoying themselves when
they're playing a game. So I feel like that's just
a fun way to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I've had some of those drinks in there.
Very good. Well, Brandon, thanks for being here. Of course,
people can follow you at Bee Groom online and Past
the Controller dot io. Listen to Past the Controller podcast
wherever you're listening to this podcast.
Speaker 5: I'm sure if it's oh, please go ahead say. If
it's easier, playmore Indies dot com. Also website playmore Indies
dot com.
Speaker 1: That's easy. Well, guys, thanks for being here today. It's
gonna be a great episode. We're going to talk about Kiln,
which is the new double find game, Tides of Tomorrow,
which is a really interesting game that Charles and I
kind of played together, oh lot, stay tuned, and Vampire
Crawlers at the end of the show, which is the
follow up to Vampire Survivors. But before we get into
that I do. Just want to say, please go to
gaminformer dot com, slash subscribe and pick up a copy
of Game Informer. Oh, Brandon's got one too. He was
so prepared, let's go.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 5: I couldn't wait, like, I gotta make sure great taste.
Speaker 1: Brandon the Ward of Warcraft cover story that yours truly wrote.
Speaker 2: I only hot people went on that cover story trip
from one.
Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I went to Barnes and Nobles specifically to get that
thank you because it was yours.
Speaker 3: I was like, I gotta, I.
Speaker 5: Gotta Charles is also, I gotta bring this with me.
I gotta bring this with me to a Shia. Make
you sign it.
Speaker 1: That's why you sound like my dad. Well, in honor
of Invincible Versus dropping this week, I picked our Invincible
Versus cover. I also, this is the only one that
I've kept on my desk for the last three months
because I'm unorganized. But but yeah, please.
Speaker 2: The Soul Frame cover. I did get my retail version
of this in the mail this week, which has my
coat for this Soul Frame prelots thing, which is very exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got access to early access Soul Frame. Very cool.
But please head over to gamingform dot com slash subscribe.
It's the best way to support us. You get ten
issues a year of a very premium video game magazine
delivered straight to your door ten times a year. It
also comes with free goodies. Often, like as Charles mentioned,
people who got the Sole Frame issue delivered to their
mailboxes got a code for the game, the early access,
like they just have the game now, which is very cool.
So it's a great way to support us, and you
get a lot of goodies, and we have a lot
of great, great journalism inside of that thing, and our
design team just makes everything. Dude, I love reading online
articles and like I frequent other websites, you know, I
frequent Kataku and Rock Paper, Shotgun and a lot a
lot of places. There's a lot of great games journalism
out there. It's it's really cool to see those articles
in a very highly designed cover. Just it's it's different
holding it in your hands. Excellent design in print. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: Of course, it feels so much more real when like
I'll I'll write a feature and I'm like, all right,
I did the interviews, I did this. This is this
is a pretty competent piece of writing. And then I
handed over to designers and they're like, yeah, we made
it a beautiful work of art, and I'm like, oh
my god, I'm an artist too, fantastic.
Speaker 1: Well please again, game before dot Com slash subscribe. If
you don't want to subscribe, you just want to pick
up a single issue, please head over to your local
Barnes and Noble. Like Brennan said, books a million or
in game stop and you can pick up individual issues
there for I believe eleven ninety nine, it might be
twelve nine and nine. I'm sorry if I'm wrong. And
then if you're international, we're also on international newsstands. If
you're in Canada, places like Indigo. I believe Chapters also
has it. If you are in the UK, you can
go to tg Jones. We're in the Hey, we're in
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or or a post on Blue Sky or a comment
on Instagram. Just let us know. We'd love to hear
where you're at. But yeah, let's get into the show.
I know we said we're going to talk about Kiln,
But before that, Charles, you went on a special trip.
Where did you go?
Speaker 2: I went to Los Angeles, the City of Dreams and Angels.
Speaker 1: And you see any of you either?
Speaker 2: Uh? Yes, I saw both and they're the same person.
And his name is Lego Batman. My oh, my dream
came true and he was an angel. Yeah. No. I
got invited out to play Lego Batman Legacy the Dark Knight,
which is very cool. If you have paid attention to
the show at all, you know, I'm a really really
big Lego guy. Lego Star Wars was my first video
game I ever owned and played, so I'm just very
very passionate about all that. So it was very cool
to go to a proper Lego event. And I can't
talk about the game yet my preview coverage is coming soon.
But the place we actually went was really cool. Alex,
I'll send you some a bunch of the pictures I
took if you want to put them on screen at
this part of the podcast. But there was a bunch
of like movie props there. So they like went to
the Warner Brothers archives and they got out props from
the Batman movies. So there's like batter rings from the
Nolan movies. There's like mister Freeze's Freeze Rey from Batman
and Robin. For some reason, a whole display case was
just dedicated to Jim Carrey's The Riddler, which I thought
was really funny because I was like, I just can't
like Jim Carrey. Some of the props were really cool,
like they have like a grapnel launcher from Batman begins.
I'm like yeah, and then one of them was like
he's an Ivy's knife, and I was like, does she
have a knife in that movie? I don't even significant
enough thing. But then I also had like in huge
display cases, like actual batsuits from the movie. So I
saw the Robert Pattinson batsuit, I saw the one from
The Dark Knight, and they had Michael Keaton's Batman eighty
nine suit there.
Speaker 1: We don't talk about how great of a Batman Robert
Pattinson is.
Speaker 2: He was. He's I think there's arguments of like what
the best Batman movie is, but I feel like Robert
Pattinson is like the most interesting, Like Batman has a character.
I really like Robert Pattinson's.
Speaker 1: Take on it that movie was so good was incredible.
God anyway, sorry, go.
Speaker 2: On, Yeah, you're no, you're correct. And then when we
actually got to play the game, it was on this
big set that they had decorated to look like Gotham City.
So he played in this big essentially like a bat cave.
Area was where all like our computers were with the
bills of the game, all our food, and was the
Iceberg Lounge, which is like Penguins Club from the Batman series.
We did interviews in the Gotham Globe.
Speaker 1: I want to say it's called Gotham Gazette.
Speaker 2: Maybe it starts with the G. And then they had
like a bunch of batmobiles around. They had. There's a
statue I can't remember if it's I want to say
it's revealed that this it's in one of the Christopher
Nolan movies. I can't remember if it's at the end
of Dark Knight Rises at the Dark Knight. But like
these cool big metal Batman statues that were also cool.
Speaker 1: That's envious. I always it's cool to go on cover stories,
That's what I primarily do. But I'm always just going
to like cubicles or if I'm lucky, it'll be like
a really fancy lobby and like maybe like like they've
got like one of those espresso machines in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I've.
Speaker 1: Never I don't. I don't know if I've been to
I know, like Jesse Vittelly went to a friend of
the show went to a payday event and they like
simulated a bank heist inside of a like real bank
in New York City and like they were in the
giant bank vaults and all this, and I'm like, and
now you're talking about you're on the bat Cave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish I could say it was less cool.
I also got the one thing I el just wanted
to mention this week because I got to an interview.
I'm not gonna say what it is because I don't
know if I'm allowed to say it yet. But it
was a really funny thing because we didn't know who
were interviewing in advance. I just knew I had an
interview timeslot. I was the last one to go, so
there was some kind of like I could tell the
pr people were like, Oh, he's really tired, he wants
to go home. We gotta get this done. Also the
guy you're interviewing, like we can get this over with.
We go up. I kind of rush up, and then
I say what's your name? At the same time as
a PR guy says to the developer, this is Charles.
So we have given him two pieces of information at
the same time. The guy doesn't hear either of us
properly and says Carl. And so I said what's your name?
And he thought that I thought that his name was Carl,
but he missed that the person introduced me as Charles.
And the end result of this is the whole interview.
We both thought the other person was named Carl.
Speaker 1: Nobody in the room was.
Speaker 2: Named Carl, and it wasn't til the very end. I
was like, oh, can you say your job title and
just your your name again real quick? And he's like,
oh sure, and then says his name was like fully
not Carl, and then he.
Speaker 1: Was like, all right, see you later, Carl.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh no, he failed so spectacular.
Speaker 3: This is the true, This is the true Carl.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, god, Carl apparently, but.
Speaker 2: It all worked out. Also, they gave me some swag.
First of all, I got like, just straight up legos,
I have this it's like a can mount on the
wall and it has like a code for a golden
Lego Batman's skin in the game. So that's cool. And
then at the very end they were like, also, there's
some posters if you want to take some That was
the wording they used, some posters if you want to
take some kind of an unclear, you know, when it's
like when you go your Halloween candy. They're like take
one or take two. They're very specific about the amount
you can take versus like people put a like appetiser
out there like oh yeah, take some. It's like, okay,
that could be two, that could be yeah yeah, kind
of unclear. And there was a lot of posters, and
it was late in the day, so I was like,
you know what, I'm just gonna take one of every
single kind of posts that they've laid out here. So
now I have a collection of Lego Batman. We'll back
up here. But it's a bunch of wanted posters.
Speaker 1: Have you already framed them? He's already framed them.
Speaker 2: Face. I've got a Joker and a two face. The
other ones are behind these in the frames, so I
have Joker, two face, Poison Ivy Hanguin, Riddler Baine, Mister Freeze,
Racial Ghoul. Those are my eight Lego Batman wanted posters
I have now, I got frames for them, and I'm
I haven't hung them up yet. I'm I didn't make
like a closet in your house, the Lego Batman closet,
a shrined Lego Batman.
Speaker 1: And I even have them like on the ceiling, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't decide if it's cool or if it's cringe.
It's like riding the line. So hard for me deciding
whether I like it or not. Like if I had
a framed poster of the Joker, that's kind of crazy
context it's just a joker. But if it's Lego Joker,
it's like, okay, that's a little bit more specific. He's
got a specific interest, Like Lego Racial Ghoul is like,
that's that's a specific kind of guy. If that's on
your wall.
Speaker 1: But I haven't.
Speaker 2: I haven't put him up yet, and I I I
don't know, So we'll see, we'll see if those if
those appear in the background of the next actually whenever,
the next time I talk about Lego Batman, I'll probably
put it up there just for the sake of that. Yeah,
that's uh, that was a trip. It was great.
Speaker 3: Charles.
Speaker 5: You said you that the Lego video games were big
to you. Do you also like build Lego? Is that
a thing that you do or now I do?
Speaker 2: I have? I have multiple Lego sets behind me. H,
there's Legs tell here. Yeah, I have a Lego Beat one.
There's a Lego in Finney Gatton, little Lego Prida plant.
I was, oh, and then there's some Lego like sunflowers
in my actual uh spider plant there.
Speaker 1: I like Legos.
Speaker 2: It's been a while. It's definitely like a last two
years thing that I've like gotten back into being like,
you know what, I like Legos again. Uh. There was
definitely a point in probably like my freshman year of
high school where someone got me Legos as a gift
and I was like, hmm, I'm too old for this now, huh.
And then just kind of the kind of the same
sentiment as like the Lego Joker poster where I'm like
I've kind of come back around. I'm like, you know what, Actually,
it's cool again to be in touch with my childhood itself.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's awesome, Well cool, thanks for telling us
all about your your trip, Charles. I'm excited to hear
more about the game when you can talk about it. Well,
let's get into the first game that we're gonna talk
about today, and that is Kiln k I l n
like a kiln that you would bake clay in, which
is what you do in the game. This is from
developer Double Fine, of course, the lauded developer behind Psychoonots, Two, Psychoonots,
Broken Age, Brutal Legend, Tim Shaper and friends. You know,
they're they're always I always pay attention. I mean they
put out what was the Lighthouse game, Sure Keeper Keeper. Yeah,
they are kind of always known for excellent art direction,
zany ideas and just kind of like off the wall games.
There's I can't really think of a Double Fine game
that didn't have some I feel like Brutal Legend was
like maybe their most uh like ordinary game, and it
wasn't ordinary at all. It was an action RTS game
voiced by Jack Black, a metal musical set in hell,
and like that's there. That's their barometer for.
Speaker 6: Like, you know, I feel like, yeah, I love how
that game opens too, doesn't It open with like him
in a record store, like in real life is.
Speaker 2: I don't remember.
Speaker 1: I trust your judge.
Speaker 5: I think it like starts live action. Maybe it's just
a menu or something. I don't know any of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, continue, But yeah, Kiln is their new game. It
is a correct me if I'm wrong, Brennan, you put
more time into it than I. But ever since it
was shown off, I've been really eager to play it.
Brendan and I finally played it last night together, Brendan
even playing it for the last week since it's been out.
But it is a multiplayer arena game, objective based in
a game where you essentially mold and sculpt your own
clay pots, and depending on the shape that you molded into,
it gets sorted into one of let's i think seven
or eight archetypes with like special kind of traits. So
if you make one that's really long and kind of thin,
you can you know, I'm sorry, there's if you're hearing
that noise. By the way, listeners, the landscaping crew has
decided that my house is is the one up next,
and of course it's when we're recording a podcast. That's awesome.
I love that. But yeah, so like if you make
if you make a pot that's really like tall and
kind of like one solid tube that will have certain stats.
You'll get a special ability. I believe that one would
be classified into the sword class, where if you press
a right bumper on your controller, there's like a special
ability and you swing a sword. Brendan. There's a bunch
of different ones. I know there's one where you throw,
like if you make one that's like very uh like
kind of flat with like a rounded top, it, your
special ability becomes like a pie throw and you're you like,
can like uh disrupt the other enemy screens? Can you
run through like the base abilities and that kind of thing.
Speaker 5: So there's more than eight. So there's like there's eight
size like containers vessels for each size. So there's like
you can make a small, you can use small clay,
medium clay, and large.
Speaker 1: Play I've only locked only a medium right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So within each of those it's still all the
same shapes. So like if you have small clay and
you make a cylinder, it might be a bottle or
a vase, and if you do that same type of shape,
it would be the same like category, but not every
size has the same oh ability match.
Speaker 3: To that, there is still a lot of overlap, but
there's like.
Speaker 5: More I don't know what the actual number is, there's
more within each of those bounds. So like I think
on if you were to make a like you were
saying the pie thrown with medium size clay, if you
use a small size clay and make a similar shape,
I believe you get I don't know what the ability
is called, but it's like a hockey puck where like
you you launch your disc basically flat like kind of
sniped towards wherever you're aiming it. So there's a lot
of variation in that way, I think with the In
addition to like depending on the vessel size that you
or the vessel shape you make in the abilities that
come with that, the size of the clay also impacts
like your health, how much water you can hold and
how much damage you output.
Speaker 3: And stuff like that. So there's really a lot of variation.
Speaker 5: I have played around with a lot of different types.
Like some of my favorite abilities I think are just
kind of unique.
Speaker 3: Are there.
Speaker 5: I think it's just called planets where I think it's
tied to large certain large vessels, but you basically can
charge it up and like planets will start spawning around
you with like the solar system is. The longer you
hold it and it will just kind of be a
rotating thing around you. That is just like a area of.
Speaker 3: Effect damage cycle. There's a lot of unique abilities.
Speaker 5: So my main pot that I use and I'm kind
of like really locked into this pot right now, I
don't and I kind of like found myself here. I
wasn't trying to make this. I was just making different
shapes and like seeing.
Speaker 1: What real quick and that was really good to sculpt
these clay pods. It does so you you kind of
like position your hands where it's it's already rotating on
a one of those bases that you use in sculpting
pottery wheel pottery wheel, and you kind of like moving
your hands up and down along the along the clay
to see like where you want to pinch, and then
you'll hit a I'm talking about Xbox controller here. You'll
hit a and then you can move your hands up
or down to you know, if you're if you're not
on a lip of the of the of the shape,
you will like elongate it or shrink it. You can
pull it out and in to expand and shrink it
or you can like aim for the lip and then
go up down whatever to manipulate kind of the lid area.
And so you're doing all of these various shapes, and
then you get to decorate it, so you can decorate
it with fancy lids. I you know, there's some One
of the ones that I start with is like a
just like a pot lid. And and as you go,
as you play, you will unlock points to then purchase
from a vendor new pieces and and cragm if I'm wrong, Brandon.
The pieces are almost like they're not consumable, but like
if you implement them into a sculpt you then will
have to go and get more if you don't have enough.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So, and just for clarity, just for the listeners in case,
I feel like sometimes whenever you mentioned currency, people might
think if to spend money, oh, you're not spending real money,
it's just unlockable currenty in the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But when yeah, when you unlock something, I believe you
get five uses of it, so you can build it
into five sculpts, and then you would need to like
re up it at the shop, which I think is
only like twenty of the coins. It's like very inexpensive
to upgrade, it's more expensive to unlock stuff.
Speaker 3: I think it's.
Speaker 5: Between like three fifty and four fifty depending on what
you're unlocking. So you usually when you gain a level,
I want to say, you probably can usually unlock one
or two new things based on how much uh like
currency you get from gaining a level.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: How many levels do you think you gain an hour?
Speaker 3: An hour?
Speaker 5: If you're winning like me, probably, uh, matches are quick.
I think the the timer on a match is ten minutes.
Most of my matches do not go ten minutes. They
go I mean I've had matches that we've cleaned up
and gone like, you know, a minute and.
Speaker 3: A half, two minutes wow.
Speaker 5: But I would say, like the average is probably closer
to five minutes. I don't think you really unless you're
playing against like two teams that know what they're doing
and it's like a very tight battle. I haven't had
a lot of matches go the ten minutes, So you probably,
I would say, at least play five to eight matches
an hour. You could probably if you're winning, you probably
gain maybe four levels, five levels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're getting enough currency to unlock new pieces
pretty frequently.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the early game too. I mean, obviously
as you're gaining levels, it's more xp to go up
so that that will hear my legile vary there. But
I think early game you are unlocking stuff pretty quickly,
so you do get some customization stuff opened up to
you pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: I love the process of dipping the sculpt in the galazs,
like you can row rotate it and dip it and
then fire it and it looks it's so cool. I
mean it's yeah, ah, it's like really fine.
Speaker 5: There's there's so many dies you can alock to that
just like open up so much more. Like the other
thing too, when you mention how good it feels to sculpt.
As you get a little bit further because I know
you're very early still, you actually get a few more
tools as well for sculpting. So you can get like
a ruler that will like kind of shave up your
edges a little bit more so it's like smooth instead
of having like roughness to it. There's a sponge, there's
I forget, there's another like fine edge tool that will
allow you to like really manipulate shapes into a.
Speaker 3: Created that way.
Speaker 1: And these are do those affect the piece in like
a stat way or is it mostly just cosmetic.
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 5: I've tried to like find out if that is a thing,
because I think what really, the only things that get
affected are your ability depending on the side of the shape,
whichever vessel you choose to make, and then that like,
those are the only things that I've noticed that like
affect your actual stat Oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we also haven't talked about you are building
these things to hold water in. So when you're in
the game, each team, one of there's one v one
teams or sorry, two teams fighting each other. That's what
I'm trying to say. Each has four Yeah, each each
team has a kiln that is like their home base,
and that's where you if you respond, you'll respond by
the kiln. But the kiln has a big health bar,
and if you deplete it three times by dousing it
with water, you win. And so it is a sort
of like attack and defend simultaneous simultaneously, and you are
you know, okay, I need to defend because they're trying
to bring water and put our killing out. But I
need to go over, you know, to this area in
the map to you know, pick up, you know, either
more water or I can smash some big vases to
to kind of fill up and then go around and
like try to curtail the team and curtail their defenses
and get in and very sneakily like take out their kiln.
There are other if you get damaged, you can find
gold too. What is it called kitsu h What is it?
Speaker 3: When you were keiitsugiri pasted?
Speaker 1: Yeah, where you prepare like a broken vase with gold.
It is the It's a Japanese practice kid sunni kisiri say.
Speaker 2: No, it's uh u ksugi. I just want to say
I have not played this game. I am attentively listening,
and I think it sounds really cool and I find
it very fun that my only contribution has been I'm
three for three on pottery terms so far. Yeah, this
is what that's a pottery wheel. It's a kinsugi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, I'm it's really fun. So you're kind
of like it's this back and forth, like I said,
kind of attacking their kiln defending yours. There was a
map we played on last night. Brendan I really like
to wear at the entrance of our respective bases. There
are sponges, and if you instead, you can use your
water to inflate the sponges so that, like people, can
you gottather, trap people in or block them out in
really fun ways.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that that might be my favorite level
at the moment. So there are a few things I
definitely want to bring up because at please, I feel
like I don't see a lot of people talking about
this game, which makes me assent because I love Double
Fine and I think this is a really rad game.
Some of the people I've talked to, just you know, friends,
who get the basic concept, they're immediately like, kind of well,
I don't. I'm not really good at like creating stuff,
so I feel like this is a barrier for me.
Speaker 3: And two things I'll say.
Speaker 5: You can just very simply make the shape on the
top right of the screen. It'll show you the shapes
that you can make. You can just make the shape.
It can be as basic as you want. Like we
were saying before, it doesn't really affect your stats other
than you just want to make the shape you want
to use, so super easy, even if you're not consider
yourself skilled creatively to do that. But the other thing
that the game does which I think is really cool.
So when you get put back into the lobby after
a match, which is called the wedge, that's like the
home area. When you're in there, there's other people that
were in your match that are also in there, and
people can either go to the pottery wheel and make
new creations, or they just kind of hang out while
they wait to queue into the next match, or go
to the shop, whatever they're doing. But when so you're
it's called the collection, which is your creations that you
keep that are part of your arsenal. Then there's the
top shelf of your collection, which is three vases. There's
the one in the middle, and then there's one on
each side. Those three are the ones that you bring
into battle when you match makes so your top three
will always be the ones you have available to switch
in between matches or in between you know, if you
get smashed or not, if you wanted to change up
your strategy, but whatever, your like, middle one is on
your top shelf that becomes like your showcase piece. So
whenever you're in the wedge, everyone that's in that lobby,
there's pillars off to the side, and everyone's like showcase
piece is there and if you like someone's creation, you
can just go over a little spirit guy pop into
it and just add to your collection. So then that pot,
now their creation becomes your permanent collection as well. So
even if you're not super skilled with creating stuff, but
you see other people's cool things, you can just very
easily add it to your collection. Of the thing is nice,
little like bonus for people who might feel a little
intimidated by that aspect. So that's like super what it's
like one of the most common things I've had trying
to convince friends to play this with me of like
I don't want to make pots.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm telling you you don't have.
Speaker 5: To worry about making pots. You can just get in
there and play the game. The other part of it
is I feel like it's super low barrier entry to
like get in smash buttons, have a good time, whatever.
But I do think that there's a sneaky skill ceiling here,
and I feel like there's a lot of depth with
how you can kind of construct a team based on
all of the abilities.
Speaker 3: And size and stuff. I love how you have this.
Speaker 5: Kind of on the fly within a match, like hey,
we need to switch to some larger pots, we need
some heavier defense or higher attack output, or we need
to be able to carry more water or whatever it
may be. I love these just like kind of on
the fly changes to kind of change strategy. I just
think that there's way like this game on the surface,
you know, has a very cartoony art style, which I love,
but it can look like it's a thing that it
might not be.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 5: I think it's a very easy hop in have a
good time with friends, but I do think like you
want to get sweaty, you want to dive into this.
There's a lot of that, which is why I've already
put so much time into it, because I do love
these types of games, and I feel like I feel
like like Splatoon its own is its own thing, and
it has its thing, but this kind of feels like
a Splatoon to me, where it's like it's a very
unique multiplayer team based game. The suite of what's available
in it is a little small at first, so if
you're not really feeling the gameplay loop, it might be
a little kind of bare bones to you because there's
only four maps, there's only one game mode, so there's
not a lot here. But I happen to really like
this gameplay loop. So the for maps one game mode
is like perfect for me. I'm in and out, I'm
having a blast. Playing with friends is like highly communicative
and just where where firing roll cylinders and just smashing teams.
Speaker 3: This game is great.
Speaker 5: I can't speak highly enough about it. I really do
enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad to see them continue to cook. And
I wonder if this came out of one of their
game jams. I assume yeah, oh yeah, yeah, perfect. Yeah,
I just love to see them. I mean, you can
always count on double Find for just off the wall ideas,
and most of the time the execution is good at
the very least. And you know, I think from there,
where does it go? You know, it kind of depends
on the game. But I think this is a pretty
interesting showing. It's one that I want to keep playing
as the as the month goes on, and I hope
that we'll see some some support for the game, you know,
I think new maps and new shapes, that kind of thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so they do have a small roadmap right now
for at least the next few months, so there is
I don't think there are dates attached to anything other
than there's going to be like spring and summer updates
that add I believe there's a plan for a few
new maps later summer or later a year. There should
be new game mode, but they're also going to be
just like additional cosmetic things that they drop that you can,
you know, make whatever you want to make with them.
Speaker 1: There's there's no battle a small play or anything like that.
As far as I'm aware.
Speaker 3: There's no battle pass.
Speaker 5: I do believe that there is like a deluxe add
on you can get that would I think it gives
you some like gold spiky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like gold adornments. Yeah yeah, but that's the
only thing that I've seen.
Speaker 5: Again, you can if someone else is using that in
a match, you can also just take it too and
then add it to your collection. So you can't you
can't customize someone else's creation, but you can at least
still take some of that stuff and add it to
your little vault.
Speaker 1: So yeah, fun little multiplayer game.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm yeah, it's a good time.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Double Fine. Well, Charles, we're gonna change
gears a bit, uh and and and go into the
world of the ocean tides of tomorrow. It's a new
narrative game where God, I'm just gonna let you explain
it because it's weird and it's cool and I want
to I want to hear you over all thoughts as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is a game. It's from the creative
of Road ninety six, which is a digit's.
Speaker 3: Art I believe is the developer.
Speaker 2: It is a U and Road ninety six. I've actually
never played. It's been on my like wishless forever and
I've never actually pulled the trigger to buy it. But
my understanding is very uh uh procedurally generated story. Like
you go on a road trip and you're picking up
different people and it can your your journey is supposed
to be very unique and it changes every time you
play through the game. Tides of Tomorrow takes that kind
of idea of let's mix up the way that we
tell a story. And it is a first person choice
driven game. But the difference is that you are a
character called a tidewalker that has visions of other tidewalkers,
meaning you have visions of other players that play the game,
and every time you play the game, you have to
pick another player and basically play right on their heels,
so you're always seeing not just what the player before
you did, but you also get to see all the
decisions they make, all of the things they like interact with,
and then also the world is altered based on whatever
they do. So for example, and the timeline is kind
of intentionally fuzzy, so you're playing as if they were
just there, but it's all kind of the same linear story.
It's kind of hard to describe, but essentially what might
happen is you'll show up and you'll be like, Okay,
this is a gang leader and he's I need to
ask him for something to figure out some information from him.
The person that came before me might have been really
nice to the guy, so when I show up, they'll
be like, oh, there's no security, you can walk right in.
Your friend was really nice, and they're like, okay, tidewalkers
are cool. On the other hand, it might be like,
your friend tried to lie to this guy and steal
from him and got caught, and then you show up
there like, oh, no, tidewalker's allowed, and so what would
have been like a normal just walk and talk mission
is now like a stealth mission where you have to
like get around, sneak around the back to avoid stuff,
And so the whole game you're on someone else's heels
and you're constantly seeing how they affect what your save
file is. And then in turn, you have the knowledge
that anyone can follow your character, and so you're like
leaving stuff behind for the people that come behind you.
Speaker 1: So it's not mely, not you, Alex. I. Uh, the
first choice in the game you get is like, do
you want to leave behind a health pack for the
next tidewalker or you can heal yourself?
Speaker 2: Oh, you didn't take the ozen.
Speaker 1: I did take it. You, I took it. You left
it for me? I did, and I took it and
didn't leave any for the next person.
Speaker 2: So Alex is Alex is saying here, he is following
my safe file. It gave him like my friend code.
I posted mine on social media somewhere. Uh, probably on
Blue Sky. But yeah, So Alex, Alex, what is your
experience been following me? What you what is your impression
of me as a as a predecesse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've only played like the first main chapter. I think,
like the first big section, first island. Yeah, yeah, and uh,
you know you were very You were a very nice
guy most of the time, and I decided to not
be Okay, I did. There was like a I did
see you did help me a couple of times, like
I said, you left me health some o's o's, uh,
you left me some of that stuff which helps my
character from death from dying, So thank you. And then
I got to this like water world looking base on
top that's like this floating base, and I saw kind
of like some of the places you went. I found
like a I think I found like some a secret
item that I don't know if you found. I didn't
see your just like some currency. But then you were
like knocking on this door of this bandit place, and
I saw that you had been apprehended and like you
had I think like tried to escape. You ran, I
think from them, and I was like, oh, I wonder
if there's like a way around this for me. I
ended up getting captured too, but instead of running, I
fought oh and and things went kind of awry. And
so it told me that the next tidewalker that would
follow me would encounter much more like hostile people than
I did. And like there was yeah, I think there
was definitely.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 1: There was a section where I could have stealth, but
I think you had made one of them angry from
running or something.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I had the So the options for me
was either run or fight. But the person that came
before me had like bribed the guard. But I didn't
have that option from from when I went because the
other person had already used it. So I think it
like takes one of I think in a lot of
cases there's like three outcomes, and it always takes the
one that the person did before you away from you.
You'll have two options, and the next person will have
two different options. Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh, and it was cool. I definitely need to
plan more to see like the the extent of it.
Like I felt like it was like novel, but I
wasn't sure like how much I like, I wasn't blown
away by any of it, by those choices. Does it?
Speaker 2: Does it get past that I gave it? I think
I even an eight. I should actually check to see
what my actual sc has been like a week sure,
But yeah, I think my general uh impression was that
it was a fun way to tell and experience a story. Yeah,
I gave it an eight. Uh the story itself, I did.
I wasn't like that blown away by but I had
a lot of fun playing the game. But uh, yeah,
I just think it's a I just think it's an
interesting concept I liked. I also liked I was following
a stranger, so Sophie V was their name. I didn't
know who that was. It was just on a list
of options I could do. But it was very fun
to like learn stuff about this person based on their decisions.
Where I would go to a place and they'd be like, well,
we can get a cure, but it's gonna sacrifice these
this marine life. And I would always be like anything
for humanity, but I knew my predecessor would be like,
but the whales, we gotta save the whales. And I
don't know. It's fun and they become sort of a
character in the story, like they are often like people
will talk about them, be like, oh, that person was
just here and they said this, or they like this
thing for you, or they did did whatever.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like they pushed that concept, Like, were
there any moments throughout the game you're like, WHOA like
that really there changed things in a huge way.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say a huge way, but it does. It
does get more interesting. I won't spoil it, but there's
the character you are following is a significant part of
the story. It is not just a mechanic. It is
like a thing that you will encounter and like kind
of butt up against time and time again. And at
the very end of the game, there was a segment
that it was like, oh, you failed to collaborate with
this these people effectively, and so you didn't unlock this
secret thing. And so I'm like, I have no idea
what that is. I don't know what to do there,
but I could play through the game again and try
to see what it was. I also want to just
just to explain kind of the world that the game exists.
And this is the other thing I thought it did
really well. So it is a like post apocalyptic world
where like the whole earth is flooded. There's at the
start of the game there's only three hundred thousand humans alive,
is the whole thing, and the world is flooded and
covered in plastic. It's like super polluted, and there's a
disease called plastemia, which makes your body slowly turned to
plastic and all the player characters in this game have plastemia.
There's no cure for it, but the best way to
treat the symptoms as a inhalent called ozin, which Alex
was mentioned earlier. And it's like this blue like health
pack essentially, and you can only get ozin through like
story stuff, and there's like some vendors you can buy
it from, but every time you go and do a mission,
you'll lose like two to three chunks of health depending
on how long the mission is, so you constantly have
to be getting more ozin and using it for yourself
and doing et cetera. And it's like the themes of
the game are very much like pro environmentalism. Marley's making
you reckon with the idea of, like the people before
you did not treat the world well. You have the
option to like leave something for the people behind you,
and you have a very tangible way of seeing those
effects and doing that where I'm like, there's definitely times
where I was like, oh, I'm really dying, But there's
these little chests that previous players can store resources in,
and I would open it up and be like, oh,
thank god, someone left ozen here. I won't die and
I can go on to the next level, and then
having things where someone like comes up to you and
they're begging for ozen and a lot of games, if
someone like asks me for money, usually I don't know.
If it's like a long, like one hundred hour RPG,
I'm like, yeah, I got money.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'll give this guy money. Maybe he'll be nice to
me and give me an item, you know, that sort
of thing. In this game, it's like, hey, can I
have one of your health backs? You only have two
bars of health left and you only have one health pack.
It's like, well, that's a lot more of a significant decision.
It's like, I'm I am actually sacrificing to give something
up for this person. And on one hand, it's not
a real person and that's fine, but also I'm like,
I don't know you're being watched. Like I know there's
times I've come across like a beggar that's like asking
me for help, and I know Alex or whoever is
following me will be like they'll be like, oh, your
friend didn't help me. I'm dying even more now, or
maybe they'll just be dead by the time Alex gets there.
I don't know, so I thought that that was a
really fun like take on it. And then there's a
bunch of like factions of there's the Marauders who are
like kind of a bottlenecking the flow of Ozen to
the people. They're kind of like courting it for themselves.
There's a religion of people that are kind of kind
of cult like but are obsessed with this divinity that
is like telling them what to do with Ozen and
where to go. And then there's just like kind of
the general people that are trying to get by and
survive with with all this stuff. So I like how
how closely it tied the mechanics in with the story,
and in general it marries those two concepts really well.
Even if like the story itself is like fine, like
none of the characters are. I like the characters, but
none of them were. There's like one moment I would
say that felt really significant where I felt like I
really connected with what had happened in the world at
that moment.
Speaker 1: Yea, uh, I.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I thought, I don't know if I've
played a game before. I was like, I love the
way it was told. The story itself was fine, but
I still had fun going through it. Yeah, well, we're
worth checking out. I think if that sounds interesting you
and if you want to follow me, you can go.
Let's see if I can find it real quick. Alex, Yeah,
for a few seconds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I was gonna ask Brennan, had you heard
of this game before today?
Speaker 5: I have a little bit, but like hearing the two
of you talk about it, and now I'm like, oh,
this might need to get bumped up my backlog a
little bit because this sounds pretty interesting, Like I like
the the concept behind it, and it is interesting to
think about, like if I were to follow one of you, like, oh,
I can kind of judge their personality and maybe how
they maybe maybe what's really underneath the hood based on
how they're interacting in this world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Alex gets canceled for not giving Uh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there is there a maybe maybe you said this
and I missed it. Is there a benefit for you
to not leave something behind? Does it just mean you
you sawn with those same things?
Speaker 2: Keep it so it's like, uh, it's my play through
was like thirteen hours or so. It's just things of
like you'll you'll want health for yourself the further you
get on. I literally the last mission of the game.
If if I had had to transition to another mission
after that, I would have died. Like I was on
my last two chunks of health, and I was pretty
desperately scrounging for stuff, and part of that was because
of a lot of times that people ask me for stuff,
I'd give it to them. But then there's there's like
moments at the end of the game where it's like, hey,
I'm trying to get everyone to band together, and a
bunch of people in the crowd are like, actually, he
did give me stuff when I was really sick, and
that like bumps you up, Like it does affect the
ending pretty significantly. And also I'm talking a lot about
some of the decisions you make are relatively minor, like
it'll kind of affect that mission and then for the
person that comes out after you. And then there's more
incremental stuff like I'm saying of like if you're donating
to people throughout the game, or there's one person that's
sick and you often have options to give them medicine,
and if you don't give them enough medicine, then they'll
probably die at this this later part of the game.
There's also there's also a major decisions where it's like
do I let this person kill this other person where
the endings are going to vary a little bit more drastically,
or decisions you make early in the game will mean
you have more options at the end. Yeah. My my code.
By the way, my world seed is for anyone listening.
Eight four nine Nope, I already said it wrong. Wait no,
I didn't you ever say numbers and you get confused anyways,
eight four nine three nine two five five four nine
three nine two five five. If you want to follow me,
it's also on Blue Sky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I recommend people follow Charles. I think it's the
game's a lot more fun when you know the person
ahead of you.
Speaker 2: And also I'm I'm pretty nice.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 2: The thing I didn't mention is also you can do
like emotes in the world to like radiate to stuff,
and other people will see that, so you're seeing their
large decisions. But also you can just see if someone
looks at someone and they're like, oh no, like this
something bad happened, and that's kind of fun. But also
you can like point towards secrets and be like Hey,
I found a thing there. I'm going to point towards
this thing, or if you if you want to be
a real little rascal, you can point towards like bad
stuff for the wrong thing and like mislead the person
that comes behind you.
Speaker 1: Which is which is fun. Yeah, that's Tides of Tomorrow
for anyone looking to remember the name. Well, let's take
a quick break. We'll come back chat Vampire Crawlers before
we get out of here. We're back right after this.
Welcome back to the Game Informer show. We're going to
chat about Vampire Crawlers, which is the follow up, not
a direct sequel, believe, but they follow up to Vampire Survivors. Brendan,
you have been playing it. I wanted to hear. I know,
you know a lot of people are like really excited
by Ponkell's new you know, the idea of a new
Punkel game. But yeah, I know you've played it a bit.
Can you tell us more about it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So this is if you're familiar with Vampire Survivors,
it is like set I don't know if there's like
story crossover or like continuation of some sort of narrative
or not, but it's set in that world at least,
So if you're familiar with Vampire Survivors, you're gonna have
a lot of like information that is probably helpful to
have like a baseline knowledge of, because a lot of
the items and characters and stuff function in similar ways.
But it's a very different game if you're not familiar
with what Vampire Crawlers is. So it kind of moves
like a wizardry where it's like you're in this three
D space and you can move down left, right and
turn your camera as well, and you're encountering battles and
using those similar types of items like King's Bible or
Santa miss or whatever other types of things. Yeah, Garlic,
all those things so far for me are persistent and
you unlock them as you progress, similar to Vampire Survivors,
but you are kind of crawling through these dungeon areas,
and as you progress, you're going deeper and you have
the choice of like backing out and keeping what you
have or continuing to go through to the end of it.
And as you're going it's like it's a lot different
than Vampire Survivors. And I was nervous upfront of like,
I love Vampire Survivors. I put so much time into
that game. I'll give anything Punkle does from this point
for a shot until they show me that maybe I
shouldn't just jump on any game they put out.
Speaker 3: But this at first was a little.
Speaker 5: Like, Oh, I don't know if this is going to
hit me the same way. But I do think that
the beginning of the game very good at onboarding you
to what is what this game is, and how it functions.
It very slowly opens you up, showing you how to move,
how to enter combat, how to use items.
Speaker 3: It's not a deck builder, but like it is kind
of a deck builder.
Speaker 5: So each each item is so unless I have not
unlocked this feature yet, you don't like you're not building
a deck outside in the hub world and then going
in with that deck. Each character that you unlock has
different like starting abilities and different things and cards they
start with, and you go in with those things, and
as you gain levels in the dungeons, similar to Vampire svirs,
you'll get a rotating thing of like which one do
you want to unlock x either another one of these
cards or maybe an upgrade to a card, or maybe
you can evolve a card, similar again to Vampire Survivors,
where if you have two items that would fuse together,
you can do that on certain levels up and stuff
like that.
Speaker 3: So it has a lot of that.
Speaker 5: Same vernacular, a lot of those same mechanics, just implemented
in a different way. The way the card part of
it works is that you say you have ten cards,
and as you keep going, you'll get more cards added.
As you're in the dungeon, you just keep rotating through
that deck in a random shuffle. So as you enter combat,
it'll deal you four cards, three cards, whatever it may be.
Because you can also change how many cards you start
with and stuff like that depending on there's a lot
to unlock, so it's like early game, it's like three
cards in your hand or four cards in your hand,
small deck, but you continually every time you do a run,
we'll just be unlocking more of a suite of options
and upgrades. But the way that the combat works is
each card has like a man of value to it,
So in addition to whatever the card does, it might
have a zero or one or three or whatever. And
to play it in a more strategic way, you want
to scale up your card usage, so you would want
to play a zero card first, and then a one
card and then a two card because it will combo,
which will give you more experience. It will also like
give you better damage output and stuff like that. So
there is that kind of like working in the background.
You could just play every card wherever you want and
you'd probably be fine early game. But I think like
understanding that combo mechanic early on is like super helpful
for you kind of progressing because the first few areas,
I feel like you can kind of maybe power your
way through and not be super strategic. But I do
think that like pretty I think I'm at a pretty
good skill check right now. Of you need to know
how to utilize these cards better. You need to know
how to combo better. Maybe you need to go back
to some of the other levels and unlocks persistent upgrades
back in the hub world. So when you do finish
a run, you go back with your gold. You can upgrade,
you know against similar to Vampire Survivors, you can upgrade
a lot of like persistent things, like you gain more
experience every level, you gain more gold, you have higher
ten percent, might you have ten percent lock or whatever
it may be. So you have all of these persistent unlocks.
You have different characters you can unlock by completing different
like in game achievements or goals, so you can unlock
like the character that I've been using a lot lately.
I forget what the character's name is. They they have
a permanent experience boost every level you gain, so I
gain levels faster. So like early Run, every time I
start a run, I usually gain like the first level
I gain. I gain like three levels in a run,
which is great for like early deck path, I feel
like I can kind of construct my run a little
bit early on. I haven't messed too much with I've unlocked.
I think six other are five total characters right now,
and I haven't even touched the other ones I've unlocked
just because I really like the build of this character
and I've been in.
Speaker 3: Functioning with them.
Speaker 5: There's like deeper mechanics you can unlock, like ar Kana,
and you can add one of those cards per I
think it's just one. I don't know if there's an
ability to get more, but you can put one at
a time on your character as you're in a run,
which will just give you different other boosts like the
one I currently have equipped. I believe is healing items
do double the healing, which is helpful for the levels
that are like five stages deep.
Speaker 3: But it's it's really good.
Speaker 5: Like I think there's gonna be a lot of people
that maybe it doesn't click with, especially if you are
hoping for something more like Survivors, But I do think
that what they're doing.
Speaker 2: Here is.
Speaker 5: Very well done. It feels like very familiar, because if
you're familiar with Survivors, there's a lot of just familiar
things that will kind of give you a lot of
knowledge up front. But it does feel very different and
feel unique in its own ways, and I've been surprised
at how much I've actually been enjoying it.
Speaker 1: Cool Charles, are you gonna give this thing a shot?
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. I was gonna say. I you were talking
about your like the lore might crossover, and then you
were talking about You're like, I don't know what this
character's name is. I was like, Okay, good. It's not
not that I thought it was lore heavy, but I
was like, I was not paying attention to any of
the names of the.
Speaker 1: Character, like the blue guy with the blonde hair, you know, yeah, yeah,
But even.
Speaker 2: Then, it's like, uh, ponkel is like, the thing that
makes them good is they just their systems feel so good,
and so I think I think that's the the spirit
of like Vampire Survivors isn't even like a type of
game I would have considered if it wasn't done as
well as it was. And I think this is a
simple thing with Crawlers where I'm like.
Speaker 3: Is this my genre of game?
Speaker 2: Not exactly, but it's Ponkell, so I'll play it for sure. Yeah,
and I'm glad it's it seems to be good so far.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's where I'm at in like both
regards to what you said.
Speaker 3: It's like, I love Survivors.
Speaker 5: I could not tell you if there was important narrative
structure there that mattered to me at all. And again
for maybe for some people the sick goes out there. Yeah,
maybe that stuff's cool and maybe it's there. And Crawlers,
I just have no idea if there is. I do
think that some of the characters are the same names.
I just don't know if that means anything other than
this is Ishmael and.
Speaker 3: This is Dracula idea.
Speaker 5: But the other thing I think, exactly you're right is
I don't think a Vampire Survivor's game is typically my
type of jam, but it's just done so.
Speaker 3: Well that I was like, oh no, this is actually
really good.
Speaker 5: And it's the same thing with here where Crawlers got announced.
I'm like, oh cool, it's I'll check it out when
it comes out because it's punkl And then I'm happy
I did. I'm happy I gave it a shot because
I don't think I would normally dive into that type
of thing, and it's so far done really well. I'm
I'm curious if it's going to hold me the same
way Survivors did because Survivors I played for a long time,
put a lot of time into that, enjoyed every moment
of it. I'm enjoying my time with Crawlers. Curious if
it will still have that long standing effect on me.
Speaker 2: Does it feel like I feel like when I play
Vampire Survivors there's a particular effect it I feel like
it has on my brain of almost like just like
pure lizard mode of like a numbers in color is
so good? Does that's a that's a scientific term? Is
the is Vampire Crawlers? Do you feel more tactical about
it or does it does it trigger a similar kind
of instinct in your body.
Speaker 5: I think early I was more cautious and careful and
like trying to play strategically, and I was winning every
like I was completing every run. I wasn't, you know,
dying and getting sent back the further I got. I
was still playing strategically, but there were definitely like swathes
of certain dungeons where I'd be like, I'm feeling good.
I'm just like zooming through this. It feels great, like
I don't have to put too much thought because I'm
building correctly. But then you get to like the boss
of the room, and then it's like, let me, let me,
let me focus a little bit more. So it does
kind of like I feel like it ebbs and flows
in and out of that state for me, and maybe
it'll change later because I would imagine as you build
persistent upgrades and unlock more stuff in the suite of
things you can do that you like Vampire Survivors got
to the point to me where it was like, as
long as I have this, this and this, I know
I'm just going to be an absolute wall of damage
And it's great to just run around for forty minutes
and I and even the Grim Reaper can't kill me,
Like I'm just chilling. And I don't know if that's
going to be the same thing here, but I feel
like it has the potential to do that. Will it
be the same amount of fun? I don't know, because
the vomit of color on the screen when you're doing
that in Survivors is just a I don't know, it
activates a flow state. Yeah, it feels just like comfortable
and relaxing to be in that. I don't know if
this will have the same effect, but I do feel
that on a smaller scale, just up and down.
Speaker 1: So far nice, well, cool. Well that's Vampire Crawlers. I'm
headed to Magic Con this weekend in Vegas and I've
got it downloaded from my flight, so I'm excited to
dive in.
Speaker 3: It's probably a really good steam ty.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I'm still I'm still truggling along on slightly
Spire two working on my sensions, but but yeah, I
think I could. I could make some time for some
Vampire Crawlers. Speaking of, if you are Imagic on this
weekend and you see me, come say hello. I'd love
to meet any listener of the show if you happen
to be there, I'll be around all weekend and he'll sign.
Speaker 2: He'll sign any issue of game Form you want him to.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I will write anything you want me
to write, saying you want me to say I didn't say.
Speaker 2: I didn't say that. You don't have to promise to
write anything, right, that's crazy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that could be very dangerous, very quickly.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, come say I I would love to
love to meet some listeners or readers of the magazine.
But yeah, Brendan, I just want to say thanks for
for coming on the show this week. Can you tell
people where to find you?
Speaker 5: Yeah, as you said at the top of the show,
you can find everything we do at our website, either
past Controller dot io or play more Indies whicheveryone is
easier and more indies that kind.
Speaker 3: Of you can find.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you can find me everywhere on social media at
b groom that's B E G R O O M,
or past the Controller as well.
Speaker 3: You can look for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm I mean, we do a weekly show.
Speaker 5: I write stuff sometimes make some drink recipe videos and
stuff like that. So if any of that sounds like
your jam, feel free to go check that out.
Speaker 1: Perfect and Charles, where can people find you?
Speaker 2: Just online everywhere at Chuck Tuck three six five awesome.
Speaker 1: You can follow me at It's van Aken. And while
you're checking out everybody here on social media, be sure
to follow Game Informer at game Informer or at game
Informer Magazine, depending on which platform you are on. Oh,
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Head over to gaminformer dot com slash subscribe to pick
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Please again, if you see us, let us know where
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we'd love to hear where you're at. All right, Well,
that'll be it for this week. Thanks for listening, thanks
for watching if you're on YouTube, and you will see
you next time. Goodbye,