Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the fire Escape Cast. It
is episode one hundred and seven. I'm Mike Mahardy here
as always. Unfortunately, once again, we're not altogether. I've got
some subs here. I've got Ben Hansen from min Max.
Speaker 2: Hi. Yeah, yeah, Ben, how's it going? Oh good? Yeah,
it's good. I can't do this. I don't even know.
I'm in my head trying to. Like, I've heard that
man talk more than most people in my life, and
I cannot place a Yeah, I don't know how.
Speaker 1: He sounds like he's always smiling you while you're listening
to three podcasts and wonder how.
Speaker 2: Did they make this?
Speaker 3: Do you hear that?
Speaker 2: Do you hear the story about Kajima? Apparently uh just
refuses to use toilets. It's crazy. As my first try
at Ben Hanson.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm also here, and I'm not pretending to be
better Hansen.
Speaker 4: I'm just regularly here.
Speaker 3: But this is so exciting because this is the first
time the three of us have been together in several episodes.
Because we have been so busy with travel and corporo
life and like crazy stuff that's been going on, we
haven't had time to just be together.
Speaker 2: About four episodes.
Speaker 1: I think last time it was me Mary Drew and
then Dan the Blake club Boys, and then me Mary
Collie Fadoms. Jeez.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been It's been a lot of stuff going on.
I say, we don't really have much to catch up.
Yeah it's not Mary this week, and I guess we
didn't really talk about it.
Speaker 3: Mary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got some stuff going on at work.
Speaker 3: I have so many cute videos of you. I have
like really funny videos of like asking Dan to dance
in a nightclub and he did this like car racing maneuver.
Speaker 2: It was very fun. I have never been more out
of my I was out of my element when I
went to clubs like twice in my life in my
twenties and immediately hated it and left boy at forty
with a bunch of influencers, I am out of it.
I guess technically, you know, I'm in that same world,
that same orbit influencer. Yeah, I feel like my version
of that is very different than the people at this party.
For you, baby boy, you just walked into a world
of influencers by by doing what you did. Hey, I'm
a businessman.
Speaker 4: Now I'm see what's your title?
Speaker 2: Chief content officer. Wait, can you run us through all right?
Speaker 1: For like the maybe three percent of listeners who don't
know what we're referencing, can you get what? In two sentences,
Max tld explain what happened.
Speaker 2: We bought Giant Bomb. Yes, I'm a co owner of
Giant Bomb now. Yes, and it's independent. Yes, it is
completely independent, null funded by fans, fully funded by fans.
There's no secret shady money above us. There's no you know,
investor company or venture whatever.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: Literally, it's just fans. That's it. I mean, well, we'll
do ads and stuff for sure, but yeah, fans and subscriptions,
giant bomb, dot com, slash join are the backbone of
this operation. And you're a chief content officer. What is
what is Jeff Backlar? Uh? Jeff Backler? Okay, well this
is a wrestling reference. He is Eric Bischoff. We decided this.
I know what that means now, I watched Netflix stock
Yeah he is. Okay, So the names we decided on
right now were Grub is mister corporate. Backlar is Eric Bischoff.
I'm Chief Content Officer, which is Triple H's title a
w E. And Jan is hb I c uh and
Mike and I. He's been at fucking Disney World for
three weeks and was not part of these conversations.
Speaker 3: He's gonna be your social media manager because that's just
what they do with the scraps.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, he's the one that's gonna happen anyway,
because he's the guy that needs Disney adults. Every fucking
comment he always reads. He's in every Breddit thread, every
YouTube comment. So he's the guy doing that anyway. He's
the one cleaning that. Shut up. Oh god, Mike, save yourself.
He's there anyway, Chief Yeah.
Speaker 3: Dick, Yeah, so I think it's great.
Speaker 1: It's a creative officer. I'm a fish joke whatever, whatever.
Speaker 3: D you know, it's fucking made up and no one
gives a show.
Speaker 2: Card.
Speaker 1: I have not told you this news myself in on error.
I'm officially assemblier.
Speaker 2: Now. How much does that piss you off? Me? It
doesn't off Yeah right, I'm not my dad, I'm not anything.
What are you talking about? Yeah, I figured it out
now that I can, I have said that to you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quit, but I just wanted to be able
to one day say that and mean it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's official. You are officially now.
Speaker 1: Yes, not full time at all, obviously, I'm still still
in games full time.
Speaker 2: But I see pictures of you on Instagram of you
serving wine and holding it in a fancy way, and yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh gotcha, yeah, oh yeah. A few friends stop by
the other day when I was helping out. That's fun.
Speaker 2: Nice spend, spend, spend quite a lot.
Speaker 3: Congrats you guys both have achieved monumental things I have.
Speaker 1: Well, now we can announce Mary's news. She founded a
dodgeball league in Portland.
Speaker 2: Wow, but I something Mary would do though. I joined
the bowling league and I the same thing.
Speaker 4: I got a new high score one nine.
Speaker 2: Oh, Mary, I want to bowling at you. It's in
a while. Three, that's correct, that is the total. I'm proud.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I should assume you guys know a
lot about bowling, but like.
Speaker 2: I literally that was the one class in college I
went to is bowling. I can I can score by
hand us. I used to be in the league. I
love bowling. Bowling's fantastic. My fingers keep breaking now, so
I don't know, Like the two fingers that I would
put in the holes are like breaking now, so that
would hurt, but maybe.
Speaker 3: You could use different fingers. Holes doesn't really matter if
you use like other holes.
Speaker 2: The guy that does cradle, there's the guy that does
the cradle, and like, like, you know, I've always wanted
to be that guy.
Speaker 3: Ic I've recognized because when we did this, everybody has
their own private balls. They don't use the house balls,
which is what I use, but everybody has custom balls
and a lot of them. The fingers don't go all
the way in the holes. They only go to the
first knuckle, which is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is really it's a good technique. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And some people just hold the ball like they palm
it and kind of just you know, toss it.
Speaker 2: And that's checking for lumps? What what? What pounded are
we working with here?
Speaker 3: I do an eleven, but I've been told I need
to go up if I want to increase my score
because apparently a heavier ball knocks down more pins. But
eleven is where I'm at.
Speaker 2: I think I've been like a twelve or fourteen guy.
It's been yeah forever, though it's hard, twenty three, I
think we're gamers, you know. I like I like bullying.
It's fun, bullings awesome, Well, great, I'm not confused bowling
with dodgeball.
Speaker 3: I would dodge you would get killed.
Speaker 2: I've watched it.
Speaker 3: I yeah. So I got my new high score and
on the system they said like most improved, Mary, and
I got a coupon for free bowling, so they rewarded
me for being the best bowler that evening with additional bowling.
Your team, it's a four persons team. Were the Pinzi
low Hands?
Speaker 2: Nice?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were almost the Michael Bolton's But I googled
it and somebody else had already thought of that, and
I wanted an original one.
Speaker 2: Where's the bull? Yeah? I was like, you're sure you
didn't mean Bullpens.
Speaker 3: No, you know the name of the sport, the Chicago.
Oh that's a good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was thinking I was about being the Beastie bowls. Uh,
but yeah, we were. We were chucking a lot of
names and Mike one of the ones. I said. Everybody said, no,
that's actually like really not cool and we absolutely won't
have to be the name. I was like, Mike would
have appreciated this. Yeah, full penetration that they.
Speaker 2: Didn't like that. He did yourself a new team, Mary,
I was waiting for you, Mike, would like it. I
thought it was gonna be the bowl Cosby's.
Speaker 1: Okay, matter of time before they came out.
Speaker 2: It's the first time we're hanging out.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'm sick of seeing you. Guys watched mcgruber together.
Speaker 2: When we did, we did, we replaced you with uh
with Seth Macy from my GN so you know Jackson,
veteran of Yeah. Well actually Jake, this is his first
time doing the whole thing, so yeah, he finished up.
Seth Macy was with us. Grub also a veteran of
the Late Night Travel mcgroober. But yeah, yeah, we we
were thinking about you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because he fell asleep. We even talked about how
Dan picked.
Speaker 3: Your nose while you fell asleep for like thirty seconds.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Who maybe I was awake and just enjoyed it.
I got bowling ball deep in his nostril.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the first knuckle. Yeah, you could have lifted them
up like a fourteen founder the lane.
Speaker 2: It's like a fatality. It's jacas in the whole thing now. Yeah,
it was.
Speaker 3: Good to have everybody together. It was like a nice
way to also socially disconnect. Something that I always tell
it's a lot, right, packs is a lot being around
a lot of people is a lot. It is wonderful
to reconnect with old friends, see fans, or just people
who love games as.
Speaker 1: Much as you.
Speaker 3: That is a joy to me. But I have a
I have a I have a running clock on my
in my system, and it's usually about four hours. And
after about four hours of interacting with people and talking
and chatting it up and drinking, I gotta get out
of there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like my social stalmina is usually almost infinite, Like
I'm the one who will always want to shut down
the bar and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Machine. But after after the path, it was this was
the night of the packs panel ours and oh that
was just there was the whole day of like planning
it together, you know, putting it together, and then like
the excitement of the hour on stage and stuff. And
afterwards it's like everyone was back at the at the hotel,
like you know, there's probably like one hundred people I
want to talk to there, but I just kind of
the squirrel away, you know, responded to text and stuff
like that. And then you were like, let's watch mcgroomer.
Speaker 3: And I was like, yes, yes, yeah, I'm glad that
that was the right move because that felt good to
me too. I'm also a lot of people misconstru or
assume like extroverted people can just do that all the time,
but because I burned the candle at both ends, I
usually can't do it for very long. So I'm very
excited and very happy, and then at one point I'll
just be like, I gotta go. And I think it
did happen where you guys were like hanging out and
just like having a drink and I just leaned down
to both of you and said mcgroup.
Speaker 2: They were like, yes, yes, let's do it. Yeah, because
I was coming straight from Montreal to PACs and originally
I was supposed to be in Poland right now. I
was supposed to go right from pas to Poland. And
then that was before the you know, the giant bump
thing happened, and it's like, well, our first week of content,
I cannot be gone for a week, so I had
to cancel that one. But yeah, yeah, Montreal was fun.
But by the time the PAX panel was over on
that last night, it's like Mcgruber's is cure for what ails?
Speaker 3: Meh, you're probably spent. You were probably spent, and we've
all been busy. I mean there's no question, especially with
all our travel and stuff like that, we have a
lot going on. And I think that's cool and it
shows that we're booked and busy, which you love to see.
But it's important that we're able to also play games
and just hang out with each other. And I'm really
grateful that we were able to find time to be
together for this episode because it's important to catch up
and and we all have news. I mean, look at
this like Somolier new company, co owner Bowling. Yeah, I
mean they're all they're all equally important, they're all equally
of value, They're all the same magnitude of value.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're all universally positive for sure. Dan. Have you
found your cat? Yeah? Oh you did. I had the
message Maharty this morning because we were in the laying
in bed and the cat like was like coming up
to say hi, which you know, we got Boss the
cat like a week ago basically, and you know, he
he got to the point bank was giving me updates
every day while I was at packed, like, oh well,
you know, Boss just kind of like sauntered in, came
into the room. Oh, Boss is on the couch with me.
And it's like started kind of coming out of his
shell and coexisting with the dogs. But he came up
into the bedroom and the dogs just lost their minds
and started barking at him. And then we could not
find Boss anywhere. So I messaged Mike like, we have
looked everywhere twice and we cannot find this fucking cat anywhere.
But then, yeah, we just googled it and we saw
a Reddit thread where somebody said, oh, I used this
video of kitten's me owing and a lot of times
the cat will come out. So Bunk just started up
and immediately came out from like it was like in
the guts of the couch, like in the living room,
and he just kind of came out. Cats. I love
whear to god.
Speaker 1: My So Dan messaged me, He's like, are cats like
especially adept at hiding.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, it's like their favorite thing to do.
Speaker 1: I just this morning couldn't find Scarlet and we have
an apartment like a quarter of the size of Dan's house. Yeah,
like they find spots. They do not abide by the
laws of nature. But I was about to say sometimes
they do get up, like from under couches, so be
careful with like your mechanical reclining couches.
Speaker 2: Yes, we decide we're not going to like put those
down unless we have like visual confirmation cat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because they love getting up there. He's like
Danny DeVito coming out of the couch in the Christmas
Special if it's always sunny.
Speaker 3: Yes, Mike, are your cats? Are they all gone and
hiding right now? I haven't seen any.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Daisy's definitely not jumping up the moment she
sees me talking.
Speaker 4: So it's like a tail in your cameras.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she she she walked across the screen during work
today and it gave me like a like a musstadache.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, oh that's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, reminds me of Nixon. No, no, he didn't have
a mustache, did he. He would have looked nod was hot
with a mustache.
Speaker 3: The heck.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Nixon was always hiding in the folds of the couch.
Speaker 4: He was so good at it.
Speaker 3: But everybody, everybody in the White House was like, don't
open the reclining chair unless we have eyes on Nixon.
Speaker 2: If you play a video of a bunch of baby Nixon's,
he'll come out of hiding. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's she Yeah, cats are Cats are weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're very different than dogs. But I like, because
you got one.
Speaker 3: I'm amazed that you have. You have, you have two dogs.
You have a full house in my opinion of action
and animal. So the motivation to get a cat surprised
me because I never really thought of you as a
cat guy.
Speaker 2: And Bank also did not. She didn't grow up with cats,
but she was just looking up ragged all cats. And
there's this one available that he was a former sex worker.
I think I mentioned that here who had his penis
cut off and now lives with us. So I'm still
not sure if it's penis cut off or balls cut
off or neither, but got neutered and got into LIVI
y his penis, believe it or not. He needs to
pee still, well, there'd be a hole there all right,
Like if I cut off my dick with scissors, I
could still pee, right, I have no clue. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So because you need the muscles, the muscle this episode
of Phantom Limb, Yeah, cuts off his dick.
Speaker 2: This is a huge giant bomb. You tear for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the same medical knowledge as like a twelve year
old boy. That's like how come. It doesn't just fall
out of girls.
Speaker 2: How babies are made? You pee? And the woman? Yeah,
I heard that. That'd be a sick Patreon page. It's
like eight dollars a month.
Speaker 1: You get your name mentioned in the credits of each
episode twelve, you get to come to our hangouts in
this city.
Speaker 2: Fourteen dollars. I will cut my tickoff. One person subscribe
to the fourteen dollars. Yeah, and I tell dick Off
some teenager found change in his couch and he's like,
I got it. Let me bring this up at the
next board meeting. We'll see h tell Baklar it was
my idea. He'll he'll yeah, He'll go for it. Boy,
it is. It is good we have Backlar. He is u.
He is the adult in the room. He's just like
we'll be sitting at like, you know, planning meetings and
stuff with him, and Wow, you're saying all these crazy
acronyms and making all these notes about stuff, and like
here I am just like they'll make a video of doom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly how I suspect those first meetings are
going where you're just like, we got to figure out
taxes and payment plans and health insurance, and San is
like he just like he's got like doom written down
and he's like yellow taxi go room and he's just like,
I'm booked.
Speaker 4: Sorry, guys, I have for Fight Club.
Speaker 2: Yes, I swear right if he had hair, it all
would have fallen out at Packs because you know, we're
keeping this all a secret and everything. And I've been
told this before, but I always forget is that my
voice carries And so we'd just be walking around the
pack show floor with lots of people that know us
in earshot, and I'd just be like like, oh, yeah,
so we're about to be in business together, like oh,
when's the sale go through? And like okay, we're gonna
announce it at this and then we say wait, bought
Giant Bomb and like he's like, dude, shut they'll stop
the fuck up. I can't tell you how many times
it's like, shut the fuck up. Yeah, look up.
Speaker 3: I think you're a terrible secret keeper. And I also
I could not imagine, don't bring the embargos. Don't bring
up the embargos.
Speaker 2: I think that you know, not the embargos.
Speaker 1: I think I think Dan keeps other people's secrets secret.
Speaker 2: Yeah, someone tells me if I've got if I've got
an exciting thing bruined, Well, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Walk into my apartment, Like I can see it that
he's holding something in.
Speaker 2: Fun personal news. I'm gonna say it, but I'm not
gonna get anyone else in that water.
Speaker 3: I think it's funny how often And you were like,
no one can know.
Speaker 2: This, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And I'm just talking loudly in
a crowd at a convention where most people know you, Hey,
but no one knew it was a surprise to everyone
get spoiled.
Speaker 3: It did not get spoiled. I think it was to
be honest with you. The thing too, is like I
just think it's so unbelievable. I think you kind of
needed the press release because if you had just said
that you did it, I would have been like, shut
the fuck up.
Speaker 2: Well, there are a bunch of like Reddit and stuff after, like,
you know, the stuff at the last company was you know,
clearly something was about to hit the fan, and you
would just see that stuff on Reddit like, oh, I
wonder if they bought it and they could make it independent,
And everyone was like that's not realistic.
Speaker 3: It's just like literally, it's so impossible, and so many
people have tried to do what you're doing.
Speaker 2: Wait, Reddit was wrong about a potential business deal stories.
I love Reddit. I never said a single bad thing.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: If I'm ready, I'm not.
Speaker 1: There's no no safety guidelines on this show. I think
they're a bunch of babies. I think they don't understand
how the world works. I don't give a fuck.
Speaker 2: I think they're the salt of the earth and they're
placing me alive. Yes, fine, I'll find that myself. There's
like twelve annoying people on there, and the rest are
just gems. I mean, uh, Tolkodo sucks. But no, everyone
likes Mike. Mike's kind of in a bad way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just to clarify, because I am really pro eating ass.
But that guy does it wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, technique is terrible. Yeah, he's no good. Yeah,
I'm excited for you guys.
Speaker 1: Sounds like it'll be it'll be uh a challenging endeavor,
but nothing worthwhile is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're in it now. You're gonna like have to
deal with a bunch of shit, But I think that
you overwhelmingly, this is gonna be so much better, not
just for you, but for people who listen to video
game content. It's also inspiring. I mean, so many of
us have been just hunkered down and weighted down by
the corporate shackles of investments and the rules and the
laws of what you can and can't say, and you're
just not beholden to that anymore. Like, now, obviously you
will have to create content, and you'll have to be
really goddamn good at it. You'll probably add a couple
more jobs to your current list, but that the pros
outweigh the cons.
Speaker 4: Dude, Like, You're going to be so much happier.
Speaker 2: I'm already feeling it, because it's just like you know,
with any company. I've worked for a lot of big
companies and GameStop ANDWNE and all this stuff and CBS,
and there's always going to be meetings that aren't directly
about the stuff you're making. And like, basically all of
our stuff already has just been like, Okay, what's some
cool stuff we could make? What's our plan with Like
obviously there's a lot of just logistical things with taking
over our company and like getting all the keys and like, okay,
well this thing's got a two factor and we got
to get that, and like there's just setting up accounts
and all this shit, like there are a lot of
things going on, but we're all we're all hands on
deck on stuff. So and then also trying to plan, like, oh,
is it realistic that we can do SGF this year?
Like we really really want to, so trying to get
that together, and it's just but it's I'm busier than
I've ever been, but like I've just been thrilled about
all of it. Like I was on stuff all day
today and now I'm doing another one. But it's like
it's all been fun.
Speaker 3: So do you think it will change the way you
spend money? Because when you go out, it's not really
a corporate card in the same sense anymore. It is
like literally like yeah, Ryn, that's like yours to share
with everybody else.
Speaker 2: I love taking money from corporations, like you know when
that was when it was two Oh. If I was
traveling with the company, I would just be like I'd
first stop in town, go to a seven eleven, load
up on like thirty dollars worth of Twizzlers, like you know,
just go nuts. I've seen It's true, you have seen it,
like yes, and now it's just like even like as
soon as they turned my cart off while I was
at packs, it was a thing where it's like I
looked at the uh, I looked at the menu and
it was like cocktail for twenty dollars is like I'll
do a nine dollar beer, which is still a little much,
but you know, like I, yeah, I'm not gonna willy
nilly spend money going to me and my friends. Yeah,
which is totally fine. That's yes, that's not a big
trade off.
Speaker 1: I love that if you were in my shoes, you
would have already felt this when you did fire Escape.
When we do fire Escape, because this is how I
feel when I have our corporate card for like we
don't we don't go like it sound like you go
to seven eleven and go balls out with like the
fire Escape card.
Speaker 2: Now, I've never used.
Speaker 3: The fire it's been buying Twizzlers on the fire Escape
account for like two years.
Speaker 2: Down Super Nibszlers, you're just the nibs, but they're super.
They're the best thing I've ever had. I'll be in
Montreal tomorrow so you get some super Nibs nips. I
don't think i've ever used the fire Escape card. I
don't think I've ever spent.
Speaker 1: No, it's it's when we're when we're all in town
for the thing. It's like, I'm we've never actually gotten
to a point where, of course where it's like, okay,
now we'd all we should taper off, like in terms
of spending money. But I was just like I usually
am the back of art and that situation.
Speaker 2: I say, yeah, yeah, I mean, you're the one that
knows how much we've gotten in the war chest and
stuff like that. We'll do the one. You just don't look.
I don't know how the fuck it we all have
access to do money. I'm just the one.
Speaker 3: How does it work?
Speaker 2: Do a bank account? Yes, you have access? You have
the card? Oh god, I should with a card. I
should have embrace.
Speaker 3: There's gonna be the same way giant bomb. Do we
have enough money for like an inflatable giant Twizzler for
a bit?
Speaker 4: And they're just like, you have access to all of this.
Speaker 2: Huh, Like what are these? What are these? What is
this charge for three forty nine thirty times? Like, oh,
just those are nibs we're in.
Speaker 4: It's my monthly nibs budget. What's our nibs budget?
Speaker 1: At this company, our CEO needs it to brainstorm.
Speaker 2: He can't thank about them. Yeah, I although I'm gonna
lean on. Look, I got a lot of friends in
the industry. I'm gonna lean up people that can't expense things.
And perhaps someone on this podcast was the inaugural buying
me dinner first and then it was very nice. It's
it's Mary.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's a business dinner. You guys stream on Twitch. Yeah,
I think it's fine. My joy for going to conventions
is someone who who works for a streaming site. Is
everyone I am talking to is a content creator. They're
all content creators. So it is completely justified for me
to buy someone a drink and say, how's your content going,
how can we help you? Et cetera, et cetera. Everything
can become a business conversation like that. So it is
my pleasure to be able to walk around at a
packs and and and help people and support them. And
it was also really fun just to get you guys
at an official Twatch Twitch. I wanted to say, I
wanted to say packs and Twitch, and.
Speaker 2: It came out Twatch dot TV taken twat That could
have been bad dot TV no watch.
Speaker 4: I don't know what happened.
Speaker 3: I was thinking of packs.
Speaker 2: And that was our dinner right before we right before
the panel, So yeah, got us right right there at
the big moment.
Speaker 3: I got an insider look at like how you guys
worked together, which was also really nice. You guys have
a good dynamic, and I think even though you are
silly and stuff on videos, I think you respect each
other a lot.
Speaker 4: And it was pretty obvious at.
Speaker 3: That dinner that I think you guys are a really
good group. I think you care about each other and
you're you're all very passionate about making this work. And
so it was kind of fun getting that behind the
scenes view of you guys. And I also really appreciate
you giving me credit for taking the photo yep on
the on what you called the grassy knol.
Speaker 2: The grassy knole covered in rabbit shit. That's it was
the first official announcement of us as a group.
Speaker 3: So much shit on that grassynol.
Speaker 2: And then we ate nine hundred pounds of meat we
went and announced our futures.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you need a lot of meat when you're under
high stress. I learned that from Glengarry Glenn Ross. Just
you know, yeah, lots of protein get those rookie numbers up,
you know.
Speaker 2: Uh, Sell, I'm surprised too, because, like I used to
like pax panels and stuff, any kind of public speaking
would be like a number one anxiety trigger. Like I
would worry for months before I did one. And I
don't know what happened in the last year or so.
Actually I started the medication that might be it about
a year ago. But I mean that explains it directly.
I have on and off over the years. But I
started a telegram last summer. Since then, it's it's a selexa.
It's just the generator.
Speaker 4: I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a necessry. I'm gonna like a low dose
of it. And like I just I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, I don't it's an anti depressed, anti anxiety
kind of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, yeah, sorry, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh, very's fine in the heads only Dan and I
need to take pills.
Speaker 2: Sorry.
Speaker 4: Owner typical, well.
Speaker 2: Typical cool. How's your cookie cutter life going, Marry? How's
your pussy? Nice?
Speaker 3: That's how I get my stress out. I hurl a
twelve pound bowling ball at piece.
Speaker 2: That's just my therapy. Is you crushed some man his head?
But yeah, I like before the panels. Now I'm just
like completely calm. I like fly to and from Tokyo
twice in the last six months, stone cold, sober, no
real issues, Like it's a it's the moments like that
that I really realized it. Like, Oh, I think I'm
in a pretty good spot with that stuff now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, growing, I think you're developing as a person. You've
already written a lot of stuff on anxiety, so I
feel like you understand it well. But I think, like,
what's so crazy is like, remember that story I told
you guys about the Minecraft stream and like how stressful
that was. And I was like dealing with like five
different people who wanted completely different streams, plus the beautiful
Jack Black and like all these different things, plus the
problems of a live stream, and I was so fucking
stressed that when I went home that night and I
went to sleep, I thought to myself, like, man, this
is going to make whatever stream I.
Speaker 4: Do next a fucking cake walk.
Speaker 3: And I just think you've been through so much, You've
just you've tempered yourself in so much shit that a
regular stressful day is really not as big of a
deal as it used to be.
Speaker 2: That stuff really does help, like when you just kind
of raise the stakes on that because like I remember
when I was about to take the job at W
DOWE and this was back in a very different era
of w DOE. I called up Xavier Woods and I
asked him like, Hey, what am I walking into with
this kind of job, And he goes, Yeah, this company
is going to grind you into dust in a way
where you were working like crazy and you were going
to be stressed, and it's going to like you're going
to have really really rough days, but you're going to
come out the other side ready for anything. And it
really was true. You know. I was there for a
few years and I came back out and I feel
like I was just prepared for so much more in
terms of production and high stress environments and stuff like that.
So yeah, yeah, there's something to be said for that stuff.
It's like Quibbi. It's like Quibbi. I E were talking
to you during Quibbi that was that.
Speaker 3: Was a wild time for you. I think you handled
that with a lot of grace maybe.
Speaker 1: For maybe to you, but yeah, in the quiet moments
of the night, I did I don't know what talking about,
but yeah, it was it was.
Speaker 2: It was also Covid. I think it felt normal to
work that much the time. Business strategy of Quibby was
very good. I think everyone agrees.
Speaker 1: The time it wouldn't have been good if it wasn't
for COVID, and COVID definitely hurt because no one was
commuting anymore, which is the only hope and a prayer.
Speaker 2: That they had. I should say no at all, I
will never be like.
Speaker 4: Love that pandemic.
Speaker 3: But there was there was no Yeah, there was no
It was no better time to work at a streaming
company than that moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it probably was pretty good, Yeah it was.
Speaker 3: It was crazy like everybody was staying home and obviously
find entertainment and socialization at their computer, and so our
our streaming numbers really skyrocketed during that time, and everybody
was like all right, aw yayh that's like the bummer.
But I mean it was a crazy time to be
at Twitch because it was just like it felt unstoppable
during those moments.
Speaker 2: That's that's when I started streaming on Twitch. I never
did a single like I guess I did the like
one and then PlayStation four where you could do it
from the box, but I never used OBS or anything before.
And yeah, Mike told me like, yeah, you should talk
to Mary. They got really good tools for showing me
how much money you can make. And I was like,
oh money, you say. And then I talked to Mary
and she told me how to set up stream labs.
Speaker 3: Told you how monetization works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I was like, I think I like
this and then I just went nuts with it.
Speaker 3: But it's cool though, because before you actually had like
never touched streaming software at all, and you were like
kind of like, that's not my thing.
Speaker 4: I play the games.
Speaker 3: You guys helped put the stream together, but you were
learning obs, you were learning alerts. You had. Actually, when
we do our Game of the Year streams, usually you
are the one who technically sets it up. And it
is quite technical. It's like four cameras, multiple sorry, multiple mics,
multiple camera setups.
Speaker 4: I mean it's a big ordeal that.
Speaker 3: You put it all together, unique alerts and everything, and
you've figured it out.
Speaker 2: Well. I think it's intimidating at first, because no, we
need just kidding. I think it helped that, Like, you know,
I did have a video production background and like editing
and shooting and stuff like that, so, like just knowing
the general language helps, but like streaming and OBS is
a different thing. But like OBS is kind of awesome.
I like it. It's got it spinicky stuff. But wait,
you can do a lot with OBS. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
but no credit. Both of you was getting me into it.
But that was during the pandemic. That was like April
twenty twenty. I started doing that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you weren't alone. It was a lot of people
and it was a crazy time. But I saw like
a lot of people like really freaking out, and I
was the only one that was like, I feel good.
I feel completely fine. Little did I know that company's
going to company. But I still have enjoyed my ride
where I am and it's been like really fascinating to
observe just the culture of people talking about games evolve
over the last decade. It's changed quite significantly. But something
I really I have felt for as long as I
can is that it's just best to support private people,
private companies if you can stay local. That's why I've
always been like, awesome next Landers doing their own thing.
Support next Lander, you know, find people that make stuff
that you love and support them directly and do it
the best way that you can that works for them
and allows them to live their life making awesome content
that you love. I think that's the way to go,
and I think that will continue to be the trend.
Speaker 2: I think there was a real flashpoint for that a
couple of weeks ago. Obviously what happened to us happened,
and then Polygon was it was just a masker there
like that.
Speaker 4: That must have been hard for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was hard to see for sure.
Speaker 1: I reached out to a bunch of people, especially going
to fucking veil net like vox Media, selling them to
like I. You know, I'm sure there's good people working
a screen rat and game rant, but I can't recall
two sites that made me want to throw my phone
more than those two in terms of clickbait and add servable.
Aside from fandom, well, I personally, I Mike Maharty personally
do not like fandom and never have because of how
many ads they serve up on you scroll an inch
and all I'm trying to fucking find out where this
last uh core ox seed is and now all of
a sudden, I'm getting an ad for porn Hub or something.
Speaker 2: But like, no.
Speaker 1: From porn Hub that my experience there and opinions about
Fantom do not represent the rest of the cast. But yeah,
the sites that vel net owns are close second to
ones I really fucking hate using.
Speaker 2: So uh yeah, I feel for Polygon for sure.
Speaker 1: I still like have that muscle memory of going to
type in like pol and then I was like, oh fuck,
I don't. I mean, there's still some good people doing
There's still some good people there for sure, but they're
not going to be allowed to do the really cool
stuff that they want to do.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: From what I understand of the the deal, the restructure.
Speaker 3: Tackled down by corporate ding dongs once again, and you
have a you have truly escaped like such a wild place, Dan,
I mean, it just seems crazy, especially considering how little
you did to help.
Speaker 2: To help, uh in what circumstance.
Speaker 3: I think backlar and grubbed in a lot of the
heavy lifting.
Speaker 2: It's all say, I did some good stuff that behind
the scenes. Maybe don't know about all the good stuff
I do behind the scenes about it. But the pulling together, Look,
I know people, I maybe pulling together some sponsorships. It
might be person certain.
Speaker 1: Stuff anti corporation suddenly wants to corporate sponsorship.
Speaker 2: No, I will totally I will take the corporate money
all day. I will absolutely do that. I got Twizzler's
nips to buy.
Speaker 4: Nips should sponsor you.
Speaker 2: Guys, Mister hand super naps.
Speaker 4: He thinks he's helping.
Speaker 2: I will take so much money from corporation.
Speaker 3: Back Alard Grub, We're probably like covered in sweat and
room like looking at a computer. And Dan was like
looking out the window with a Twizzler in his mouth
and was like, is it happening or not?
Speaker 2: When do we own it? Hurry up, guys, that was
taking something. The lawyers take so long. Don't hurry give
them money and then get it. And Simard.
Speaker 1: Dan Dance a guy who watches like a football games,
like just run into the end zone and get more
points the other team.
Speaker 2: It's fucking ship.
Speaker 4: Catch the ball, throw it.
Speaker 2: Run that way. Go the guy who's an integral cog
in the machine, you.
Speaker 3: Were You're a backup cog in case one of the
main cogs breaks.
Speaker 2: Just to corporate Marionette, we they can't work without content
and you need someone to chiefly officer it. Meet the
new Meet the new CEO.
Speaker 1: Same as the old CCO, ready to see, ready to
ready to ready to sill out as long as you
give him beers and nibs.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, will work for nibs.
Speaker 2: Yes, and six foot long subs.
Speaker 1: And you can just hand people in a hotel lobby.
Speaker 2: You can see more of that shit. Yeah, I'm waiting
to see what you come up with next. Dude, No,
that sounds expensive. You can't do that. Six foot longs
after like forty bucks six fts. Oh my god, they
were like one hundred and fifty each. Oh god, we
spent over one thousand dollars on subs, Miss Jo.
Speaker 1: Suddenly mister Corporate's missing his sandwich artisan slopping him together
along its.
Speaker 3: Six foot sub money coming from you guys. Stop it,
stop it with these six foot subs.
Speaker 2: We're scrappy now. I can't be buying six foot subs.
Speaker 1: Corporate America's got its hand in everybody's pockets, even the
White Night Dan Riker. It's the same old song, same lyrics,
just a different melody.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what you're saying about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the game is the same, but the plan is different.
Speaker 3: The players are the same.
Speaker 1: I think I'm starting to like this guy, I said,
that recently, like in like in the actual context, and
it felt great.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I still hate you. Oh my god, you're
wearing a bullet professor. It's awesome, all right. Uh, you
guys wanna talk about video games?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, we believe it or not.
Speaker 1: I've not all been on the same episode since Blue
Prince's review Embargo went out.
Speaker 2: That is so wild, so nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels like it. Wow, And we've all been
playing it in our own world and at no point
have we ever had the time to just sit and
talk to each other playing. And we're also I think
at completely different levels. Like well, when I when I
talk to you about it, you really hadn't played it.
You'd have only played like a couple days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had.
Speaker 1: I told you in college that I really it was
not grabbing me. I think I expected to grab me
right away. Yes, but I have since played more. I
want to say, I'm still only like day twenty or twenty.
I'm in the twenties somewhere. However, it has definitely started
to I've had that like those Eureka moments where I
kind of see the bigger picture and the game has
not been out super super long, so I don't want
to spoil stuff. We talked about this before, and I
also don't want you got to spoil stuff thing because
you're both much.
Speaker 2: Farther than I am.
Speaker 1: But there are those moments where Mary, you mentioned the
Witness as a comparison on last episode, and I get
that now. It's like, oh, I didn't even realize that
this part of the game was a bigger picture puzzle
and seeing how that fits together. Also, the farther you
get in, the more you're actually having to worry about
your foots, your steps, your energy. You're learning what different
items how they function. You are finding rooms with a
computer or with like a little note that seems innocuous
until like six days later when you're like, oh, right,
I did write that down in my notebook. I'm starting
to see the actual Rogue Light elements where I'm getting
permanent upgrades, which feels awesome because now I start with
X or Y as opposed to just starting from scratch.
I'm finding new room types every run that I didn't
know existed. I'm starting to learn how to balance. Okay,
so I can have this experiment running from the laboratory,
which will help me buff or help me toward this
goal with the commissary if I get a commissary, so
like they this thing says on these days, I'll get
a discount. However, it's a lie because this other note
told me that these memos are not to be trusted.
Speaker 3: That's an interesting but the dark Board.
Speaker 1: Puzzle, Like I figured out the dark Board puzzle by myself,
but it took me a bit, but then I found
a note about it later. The there's some like resident
evil level puzzles going on with like the fuse box.
When I finally did the fuse box kind of stuff
like have you the pump room no?
Speaker 2: Yea yeah yeah, hyeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fucking pump room pisses me off. That's like the
only one where I like really struggled with it because
it did not I like don't understand like how some
tubes don't want to go up or down, And that
one was frustrating for me. But it was really fun
the very first time I drained the fountain, and I
was just like, that's such an eye opener to be
able to do stuff like that. And so it's been
really have you, Mike, have you been able to get
to the garage or have you had luck with the garage?
Speaker 2: Trying to figure out how to say.
Speaker 3: This, I'm trying to say this in a delicate way.
You don't know what's going.
Speaker 1: The game is bigger than I thought it was, and
I have discovered some other stuff going on, And there's
stuff like in the distance through windows and like hah,
that seems like it might be a thing later. But
then there's also stuff where it's like why would I
want to set up an experiment? And I don't actually
know this not being coy, I'm still figuring out why
this would be beneficial. But the experiments say like okay,
if this then that if you choose a green room,
then we'll split spread dirt over the driveway, Like what
the why would what?
Speaker 2: Why would you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So like there's still like quite a lot of
mystery going on. I discovered the sprint, Like everybody's gone
to the rapture.
Speaker 2: I didn't know the sprinting so funny. It's not like
a super no, but it's still I don't not use
it though, like all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But there's there's also like really tense moments too
where I find terminal or something that's like oh fuck,
I missed a key somewhere. I don't know where it was,
and I don't have the metal detectors, So now I
need to go through every room with a fine tooth comb.
Speaker 2: But I need to backtrack quite a bit.
Speaker 1: I have the sneakers, so I'm saving one footstep every
few rooms. Yep, uh oh right, there's a bedroom that
along that path, so I should go through the bedroom.
But then I'm getting toward I think it's in this room,
and I'm almost running out of steps, so and then
it gets tense, like are the sneakers going to work
before I get to that room, which then has the key,
which then I can, you know, hopefully make my way back.
There's stuff like that where the different layers of the
game are starting to coalesce in a way that it
seems way more compelling than I initially thought it was.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I would keep unfolding and unfolding, and like
it's the point where it's like I did stop at
a certain point, but you know, I played sixty hours,
seventy hours something like that, and I could still see that, like,
oh boy, there is way more I could do if
I want to dive all the way in like I
feel like there must have been thirty percent of the
game left, but I did stop playing just because it's
like it would require a crazy amount of further investment,
you know, Like it's not that I wasn't enjoying it anymore,
it's just like I do need to play something besides
this game at this point, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I understand. I think I'm also there. So I
had the flight to Boston for packs, and so I
had five hours to kill both ways, and I played
a good amount of Blueprints again just to see, like
what the late game has to offer. I'm still trying
to figure out. There's like a power room that gives
you like is it a boiler room, but it gives
you power and you can route to another room. Yes,
really interesting ways. My problem now is that I have
a goal in mind, but because of the RNG nature
of this game, I am constantly derailed or like pivoted,
and I try and say with a good attitude the
best of every day, like don't let it bother you,
but it fucking does. Because I do know what I
want to do, and if I just don't get the
layout the way I want it, then I just fucking
ruined the whole day.
Speaker 2: Do you can you say without it being too spoilery,
what the thing is you're trying to do.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to power the science room.
Speaker 2: Okay, that one took me. That was frustrating for me too,
because like you specifically need like and there are things
you can do where it's like, oh, if I do
this thing, it'll make it so mechanical rooms pop up
more often and things like that, but like there's nobody's
like guarantee it still beholden.
Speaker 3: The only thing that's like happened to me that's been
really beneficial is I've like now I'm consistently getting those
reroll dye and like that gives me better odds, but
even still I'm screwed all the time. I've also been
trying to get all of the classrooms, and I almost
always around, like cause I think I think there's eight
classrooms and around four or five. I just they just
stop giving them to me, which I think is bullshit. Obviously,
if I am going for the classroom run and I've
opened five classrooms, the game knows that I'm going for
a classroom run, and it keeps giving me fucking hallways
and a part of me just wants to be like,
you know exactly, this is an orange. You guys are
fucking me intentionally because you you want me to keep
doing this and try and get more classrooms, Like give
me the fucking class If.
Speaker 2: You're trying to do the eight classrooms thing, are you
doing the thing that bitch? There is something that you
can do that really helps with that. I mean, you would.
This is not like a crazy spoiler. I don't think, No, don't,
I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't even know about the classroom thing, so don't
for a second take care. But I also think it
might be a spoiler for people listening because there's a
lot of room types I don't even know about that.
Speaker 2: It's a spoil.
Speaker 5: Take off your head.
Speaker 2: And if you need to listener the shelter, there's a
thing you can do if you somebody if it's like
a classroom adjacent thing, and it adds like eight classrooms
to deck. So don't even try for the classroom thing
unless you do the shelter first. Fine, we told the
listeners the mute as well. I guess I just.
Speaker 3: Don't know what I don't know. And this reminds me
of animal Well, which seems like a weird game to
compare this too, but Animal Well was also the same
where it was like, we're not going to tell you shit,
figure it out. And there were times in Animal Well
where I was like, I can't believe that the disc
is rideable and that this is like a travel thing
and like the yo yo is so it does does
all these other things. That is really fun to become
aware of it. It's also insanely frustrating to play a
game for thirty hours and be like, oh my god,
this was something that I could have done the whole time,
the whole time, the whole time, the whole time. It
just irks me a little bit, and I just think
that is it is not a bad thing for the way.
Speaker 4: This game was designed.
Speaker 3: I think what I'm trying to say is like it
is intentional what they have done, and I think they've
made an intentionally great game, But I think you have
to have extraordinary patience, and I don't always have the
patience that this game requires. So it's not a game problem,
it's a me problem. But I've gotten to the point
now where I also don't know if I'm going to
play it anymore because I'm running out of patience with
like not getting the run I want or getting getting
something in my way when I know what I'm trying
to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like I still know anyone for everyone I
know that loves this game, and it's most people that
have played it that I know. I don't know anyone
that's been like, yep, did all this stuff? Like, I
think there is going to be that point for everyone,
regardless of how much you like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like with something like Haites or Dead Cells,
the action oriented games, those are easier to forgive when
things aren't going your way because the moment to moment
gameplay is still so like enticing and fast paced, whereas
this is like a literal can be a like plotting
pace through the mansion that you're building.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's RNG is great, and I think
the game is expertly designed, so it's not it's not
a ding on the game. It's just more of like,
am I in the mood to try for something and
never have it happened to me after six hours?
Speaker 4: That is something you have to be in the mood for.
Speaker 3: And I would almost even also say like that's compar
Oh my god, I can't speak today. Comparable to Blatro.
I tried to say, compare in Bolotro, and I said
compar whereas like, you can have an excellent run in Blatro,
but if you get a blind that's a real motherfucker.
Speaker 4: Your run's over.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, and once you go further in it too,
like you know, Bank was trying to get all the
gold steaks and then oh yeah, like and at that point,
like she says, she knows within a couple like anties
that like, Okay, this is not gonna be the run.
You have to like be perfect from the beginning, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: So it's that's why I say that, because I think
Blatro is brilliant. I think it's like perfectly sculpted, but
it will frustrate you if you were if you think
you're in a good way, the game RNG will get you.
Speaker 2: Yep. Well it's probably a good segue because Doom the Dark
Age seems very similar to Blueprints, like similar the same. Yeah,
once you get once you get the gun that crushes
up all the skulls and blueprints, it really a lot
of stuff that's.
Speaker 3: A real game changer. Yeah, take that, Rampa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the shield saw once it's up greater than Blueprints
is fucking sweet. This is Babbage.
Speaker 1: The boss fight is pretty pretty gnarly. It can be
pretty How's dark ages?
Speaker 3: You played it like itking it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: With that shield dash Mary, that is that feat every time?
Speaker 3: It's crazy like they they knew the juice that it
was gonna make me freak out. I I literally I
tweeted this and I and I mean it. In the
first three chapters, I said fuck yeah a dozen times.
I said it out loud. And it's it's not just
the mechanics that they really nailed. It's the environment and
the feeling that they want the player to have. They
nailed it.
Speaker 4: They knew that.
Speaker 3: When you were at the top of like, uh, like
a hill and you're about to drop down, you know
that there's gonna be a bunch of ship that's gonna
hit the fan. And as soon as you're dropping, they
just increase and pump the metal music like crazy, so
that you feel the rush of murdering and destroying demons
with your bare fucking hands.
Speaker 4: It feels fucking good.
Speaker 3: And then on top of that, the evolution of this
game is really interesting too, where they were like, we're
gonna put crazy shit in the background, like giant mech
looking devils, like huge beings in the background and they're
competing and fighting with each other, And was so sick.
Speaker 4: I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3: When I was like in the middle of a fight
and I look in the background and there's like two
giant beasts like killing each other in the background, stomping
on little players my size in the back.
Speaker 4: It was awesome, like I they nailed it.
Speaker 2: Or when it's like it puts you in the uh.
It was at the Atlan the mech and you are
suddenly like Kaiju size, and there's just bridges of like
tons of enemies that if you were dude size then
they would be terrible. But you're just walking through it,
and you get that super gun that gets like super
charge if you get a perfect dodge, and you're just
monsters that you're shooting with this turret basically, and chunks
of meat are just flying off whatever part you're shooting.
You're shooting their left thigh. All of the meat is
just getting off of it.
Speaker 3: It isster It's so satisfying. And they have the death
animations just like the previous one.
Speaker 4: So if you liked the last Doom.
Speaker 3: They do that thing where like if they're purple or
if they're like shiny, a certain way you can hit
a finish your button and then that they play a
finishing animation and the finishing animations and doom or exactly
as you would expect. They open up the mouth, they
vomit into their throats, and then they rip them apart,
like it's gross, it's fucking cool. It looks so sick.
They they knew their audience, they knew exactly what they
were going for, and they went for it on this one.
Speaker 4: Like it is just it's just everything that you want.
Speaker 3: I do have a couple of gripes with it, but
I'm loving it and I and I am really looking
forward to playing more. And I've also enjoyed the upgrade system,
which Dan you were talking about, like upgrading your shield
so you can have like more dashes. I've upgraded certain
guns that they have, like flame bullets and things like that.
Speaker 2: It's been fun well and it's smart too that like
you know, it's got the radio weaponmanu, and it just
kind of puts like, okay, here's like the energy weapons here.
So you've got to couple like blue kind of plasma
weapons and you can just hit X on the fly
to like it almost feels like an alternate buyer, even
if it's a different yeam. So it's like the shotgun.
You hit X, it turns into the super shotgun and
it doesn't get overwhelming the way that Doom Maternal did.
It's like Doom Maternal, like, you know, the first couple hours,
it's oh, cool, cool, cool, but then it like kept
adding stuff and kept adding stuff, and it's like, well,
if this thing, you can do it this way or this,
Like it just it got a little bogged down. You know.
You get the flame thrower, and then like they kept
adding stuff on top of that, and it's like I
feel like I have to think too, Like I only
want to think a certain amount in a doom game.
You know, Yeah, you've.
Speaker 1: Already got a hammer. You don't need six more ways
to hit a nail into something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the good way to put it. Where It's
like I want enough stuff to where I feel like
I can switch between a bunch of weapons on the
fly and kill a whole arena full of bad guys.
But I don't want to constantly be having to think
of like, Okay, I should do this now and I'll
switch to this, but then like it's it got to
be a little overwhelming an Eternal, I think they have
found a sweet spot in this one.
Speaker 3: I think so too. I think they also opened it up.
Some of my problems with The Eternal was that they
would put you in these pretty thin corridors where you
would have to face these shield enemies from a very
specific direction, the front, and that's really annoying because it
means you had to approach them in a very specific way.
You had to be able to parry and then shoot
them to get rid of the shield. It's fine, that's
what they were teaching you, but it's very limiting. This
game is kind of more sandboxy that when you fall,
they usually drop you in a very open environment, So
if you want to sprint around and grab them from
behind and kill them, you can do that. If you
want to do what Dan was saying, there's this like
awesome shield thing where you'd like dash shield into someone
and they essentially explode. When you do that, you just
run around exploding people and that's very satisfying.
Speaker 4: So I can just play it my way this time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's like groups. So like you'll go into
a group with a shield dash and that'll decimate everyone
in a certain radius. So fine. And then there are
these guys that have different shields that they have shields
where it's like, okay, if they have an energy shield,
if I use an energy weapon on that blue thing
and you can see it from far away, you can
shoot it and that'll explode everyone near them. Or if
people have metal shields, whether that's like body armor or
holding it, if you shoot it with enough bullets, it'll
heat up and you'll see it get like bright red,
and then you throw your shield saw at it and
it explodes cloths. So yeah, if you want to like
be an idiot, you can try to take them all out,
you know, with just whatever gun you've got, or you
can just kill them this huge fell swoop with the
right weapon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been not thinking it through. I've been doing
the opposite of probably what the game has been trying
to get me to learn.
Speaker 4: I like running around.
Speaker 3: I've been dashing around in the little spaces and just
shooting them in the head, mostly with my like little
sniper rifle thing that I've just enjoyed. I just think
it's fun to use, it's easy. And when I run
out of those bullets, I go to Faithful shotgun and
I just bop them with my shield and shoot them
in the head until they're dead. And I don't have
to think about it that much. I feel very strongly.
You were kind of alluding to this earlier, but I
just feel really strongly when I play do them. I
don't want to be like, what's the strategy here? It's
like are you are you out of your mind? I
want to like completely close my entire brain off. I
want to enjoy this experience and that's all I care
about right now.
Speaker 2: But the visual language is also really good where it's
like it teaches you early that like if you see
a bright green thing come in your way, hit lt
to parry, parry shield and that cares you know. There's
dragon levels, there's mech levels and on foot levels, and
that language stays the same throughout where it's like if
they're throwing orange energy at you block it or get
out of the way if it's green pariot, and that
might put them in like a stagger sat and you can.
Speaker 3: Go in reflex Yeah, reflex brain, I would say, like
one of the things that they tried to do that
I wasn't as stoked about is that there's like these
mini bosses at the end of chapters that I think
are a bit inspired by Returnal.
Speaker 4: There they just throw a lot.
Speaker 2: Of balls at you and a bullet hell. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: Very bullet hell.
Speaker 3: I just think that when you're doing something that is
quite similar to Returnal. The reality is is that these
boss fights aren't even nearly on the level of Returnal.
And so when I was experienced them, I was like,
I feel like there was inspiration here, but you cannot
pull off what Returnal was doing.
Speaker 1: And a party was like Eternal was doing stuff like
that before Returnal or sorry, the first Doom was doing
stuff like that too. It got pretty bullet helly with
some mini bosses. But to your point, Returnal definitely did
it better than that day.
Speaker 2: They just did that is what like Housemark does is
they make like really sweet Bullet Hill type game. Sure, yeah,
Doom was never on the level of that with Bullet
Hill specifically, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Think it's like put it on another level. I think
they're simplified versions of it still, right, these are mini
boss fights. They're not like meant to be crazy powerhouses,
but they are much more difficult enemies with a lot
more health, and they're shooting lots of balls at you,
and most of the time in these fights, the only
way to win is to parry the green balls. Like
that's the only way you're actually going to knock their
health down with any efficiency. So I got adjusted to
doing that. I did not find them as satisfying, but
I got through them. The other thing that I did,
I feel like I haven't heard anyone say this, but
like I don't care for the dragons.
Speaker 2: I don't care for I think if they did it
too much, I would not like it. But you know,
I'm eight nine chapters in and it's only one chapter
has been a Dragon one.
Speaker 3: There's only been one Dragon chapter.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, so I'm sure there will be another
one or two by the end. And I liked it.
Like even in the Dragon one, you will like do
a little bit of dragon combat stuff and then you
will land, you'll get off and then you know, you'll
go around to the dude. Yeah, and then big ending
and you fly through the air and land on the
dragon again. Like it was just a vehicle kind of
getting from thing to the thing.
Speaker 3: You're right, it is a vehicle, and I think in
that sense, like I'm fine with it. I think when
it ended, I remember saying to myself like I didn't
care for the dragon, which is such an amazing thing
to say, because the first time they gave me the
option to get in a dragon, I was like, you're
you're crazy that they made this. It's so awesome that
they added a level where you're riding a freaking dragon.
It's like, hats off to them, But ultimately, it's just
not what I'm there to do. I'm not there to
play a dragon or ride in a dragon. I'm there
to shoot a gun that crushes skulls and shoots the
shards of their skull at my enemies. And that is
genuinely where this game shines. The guns are so fun,
they're expertly designed, they're joy to look at, like they're
just they're like chunky and thick, and the sound effects
of this game are so fucking good, Like this is
where the game is at its best.
Speaker 2: Have you got the grenade launcher? Oh? Yes, that is
a cool looking grenade launcher, Like the balls themselves like, yeah.
Speaker 4: This game and its balls, they knew what they.
Speaker 2: Were doing, oh ooh category best Balls of the year. Okay,
all right, okay, yep oka, I think we have the
doc Yeah, okay, great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that stuff.
Speaker 3: I just think it's important that when you're evolving, and
obviously when they were making this game, they were thinking, like,
what how do we make this better than the last one.
We're not making the same game. We have to like
think about how we're evolving it. And I think they
did think about some inspirational things.
Speaker 4: The mechs are.
Speaker 3: Sick like, the dragons are really cool evolutionary concept. I
do think they came up with brand new gun designs
and brand new ways for you to kill people, and generally,
like all of these have been excellent decisions they have.
They have done a good job with this game, and
everyone is going to love it, like Doom is good
and even like.
Speaker 2: The look of it. I was, I was like, is
it going to be too like fantasy?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's it's a doom game. It's you've just
got tons of guns and stuff like, yeah, sure there's
some castles and dragons, but even those are like very doomified.
So no, if you if you like Doom, this has
the tone of a doom game. I agree, good stuff.
What a Shotgun cop Man?
Speaker 3: Oh Dan and I both played this, which I think
is really funny. I don't know this is a Devolver Spech.
Speaker 2: The developer of my friend Pedro the Banana game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, which is also a pretty interesting game.
I believe this is a solo dev and it's very
unassuming visually. This is like kind of garbage looking like
you're like this little look.
Speaker 2: I think it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they have funny animations, like the very first
thing that happens because you are Shotgun cop Man, your
job is to go to Hell and arrest Satan. And
the very first thing that happens when you get dropped
off in the game is Satan shows up and you go,
I'm taking you in, Satan, and Satan goes, fuck you
shock Shotgun cop Man, and then he runs away, and
then you have to go through these levels.
Speaker 4: I'm really curious, Dan, what you think.
Speaker 3: I think where this game really shines is it the
mechanics are very simple. The shotgun is also your boost.
There's no jump, so you have to shotgun to move
quickly and efficiently, and you also have to kill things
in the area. You want to do three things. You
want to kill everything, you want to beat it with
a certain amount of time, and you want to take
no damage. And if you do those three things, you
get like an all in one check mark, which is
super addictive. And so my goal isn't to just get
through the levels, which I think you can do with
fair ease. The goal is to get through the level
and then realize, Okay, if I do it this way
and I do it with this combination, I can kill
everything without taking any hits, and I could probably do
it under twenty five seconds. And that's that's like the
sweet spot of like when this game really starts to
feel good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the platforming and the way it works
is really like you describe the shotgun, but like you
could shotgun, you'll you'll get a shotgun in one hand
and like pistols in the other, and so you'll do
like one big blast to shoot yourself into the air,
and then you can like pop up Pup Pup Papa
and kind of keep yourself hovering by shooting enemies. So
it is just a lot of like trying to figure
out the best use of you know, offense and platforming
using whatever two guns you have equipped, and it's almost
like a meat boy style, like you know, it's just
very two D platforming action. You die quickly, restart quickly.
But yeah, it's it's doing something very simple, but it's
doing it very well.
Speaker 3: I think, Yeah, I was comparing it to Down Well
because sure, I think in many ways as well. In
later levels there's lots of spikes and there's move componed.
I don't know how far you aren't it. I actually
it's really hard to gauge how far you are because
the map system isn't like you're on level twelve, Like,
I have no idea how far I am in this game.
I want to say maybe I'm halfway, but that is
like a bit of a guess. It gets really complicated
with just surviving, with just staying up in the air,
and so you get to have a lot of fun
with shooting. You have two different guns, as you said,
shooting your different guns in a particular way that float
you just enough but not too much. Where you get
hit with spikes from above or like from a moving object.
Speaker 4: You to be very delicate with your character.
Speaker 3: I think this game is well crafted so that you
can maneuver yourself with two guns for jet packs essentially
without getting hurt.
Speaker 4: And to me that was very down Well.
Speaker 3: I used to always use the jet pack boots in
down Well. It gives you just a little bit of elevation,
which is very important and down Well in this game,
you just need that little bit of elevation and to
do that, you shoot your shotgun or you shoot your
gu on a couple times to get through. I also
think it has the down Well magic of like random
gun drops. In this game, you do not know the
gun that's actually going to be your next gun.
Speaker 4: It's orang.
Speaker 3: It could be a submachine gun, it could be a rifle.
You never know. It could be like a pistol, and
that will change the way you're able to navigate the space.
So it is different each time you play a level.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. I'm not being as meticulous as you with, like,
you know, getting the full all in one thing every time.
I'm just trying to like kind of get through it.
And like you said, it does get pretty hard and
you really have to learn when to like kind of
feather these shots. You know, how not to send yourself
into a spike above your head. And yeah, it's just
it's one of those very bite sized level games that, like,
you know, put it on a Steam deck, bring it
on a plane, knock out a few levels. It's an
easy one to pick up for fifteen minutes or an
hour if you want to. So yeah, I've definitely been
enjoying my time with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've really like I think this is a sleeper.
I feel like people aren't going to talk about this
game because it visually doesn't look amazing, and even when
you do get hands on it, like if there's like
a demo or something, you might be like, this is
a bit simple. But I actually think this game has
a really well done design. We haven't talked about the
music yet, but there's also like just a heavy feels
like you're in a club beat, and so I feel
like you can really get in the zone with this
game mentally, where you're just completely zoned out and focused
on shooting every demon that comes into your face and
excuse me, stop talking. Yeah that's an that you're well,
you'll get there. You have to get me really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the spoilers kish tonight.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: That sounds rad. My backlog is getting unwieldy almost, But
I'm getting there. I'll get there eventually.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: I will not, however, be playing Destreating two for a while.
But Dan you, I don't know if you heard I
went to Koji muf Production Productions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you hear about that? I was at Cochi
Munt Productions for a while.
Speaker 3: Why no? Because I was under a rock with my
fingers in my ears, trying my best not to know.
Speaker 2: I forgot what we were talking about so much, and
I was just saying it, not as a brag. I
was saying it as a The reason I can't respond
right away is because I'm at Kadima Productions and we're
not allowed to use our phones if we're not in
the relaxation area. So that was just me saying sorry
at Kadima. That's why I'm not responding museum times.
Speaker 3: You can't fucking a photo in there, just bragging.
Speaker 2: No, Why were you in Japan recently? I went to
Coach Munt Productions. Oh nice?
Speaker 1: How was dest eRating two seeming so far? How much
did you play? Did you just play straight from the
beginning or was it a rom.
Speaker 2: The beginning and I played thirty hours? So you played
as much as most people. Many people would play when
they buy the game. I mean, yeah, but they said
it was thirty to forty percent under the game, gotcha.
So it's a big fucking game, and I like it
a lot more than the first one, which you know,
I did come around on. You know, I think we
could give a Game of the Year, So yeah, I
came around on it for sure.
Speaker 3: When does this game come out June this year?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Man, that means I have to quit the podcast.
Speaker 3: So soon.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's gonna be getting Look, we
got a Mario Kart and a Donkey Kong and who
knows what else this year. I don't I don't know
if I'm fighting for Game of the Year for it's
what's new in two it's just does things. It's way
less of a pain in the ass in terms of
all of like the management you have to do. Like
in thirty hours, I think I soothed the baby twice.
You know, the cargo stuff, like there may be two
times three times that I fell down and like, oh,
fucked up my cargo or whatever. Oh they removed the
good stuff. No, they've got that stuff. I mean, you
can fall down and things like that you are still
delivering things. But just like when you get to a
bt air, you don't have to like crouch walk and
hold your breath and you know, just go at a
snail's pace and I have a blood boomerang that I
fill with my blood and throw it at BET's and
it kills him immediately back. Yeah, it's the oh God.
So when you approach an outpost, like you wanted to
avoid combat and stuff in the first game because it
just dudes with electric sticks would chase you and it
wasn't fun. Yeah, well this when you have like almost
a metal year level of like I've got trank sniper rifle.
So like I'll build a watch tower on the perimeter
of an outpost. I'll get up there, i will trank
sniper rifle several dudes, and I'll get down there. I'll
throw my puppet doll Man. I'll throw him in the
air and he hovers in the air and you can
tag enemies through doll Man's eyes and then he comes
back and then it's like, okay, there's a guy over there.
I'll distract him with a hollow grenade that makes like
a holographic Ostrich and sneak up behind kill him and
then when things go to shit, you can actually just kill,
I mean not kill. It's all like non lethal stuff
because you can't avoid out, you know. But it's rubber bullets,
it's trank grenade launchers, it's things like your blood boomerang. Oh,
you can kill somebody with a rubber bullet A blessing,
blessing from kind of funny. Didn't realize that you could
just capture, like there's an animal shelter and it's in
Australia and you can like capture kangaroos and stuff and
bring to an animal shelter. He didn't realize you just
go up and press a button to put him in
like a nice little like box and deliver him to safety.
So he was unloading assault rifles with rubber bullets like
directly into kangaroos to knock them out. Kangaroos can be
dicks and blessings defense. Yeah, yeah, I've heard someone did
say that they can punch you. The kangaroos in the game.
Oh that jacked one. Uh yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it'd be nice if you could get their
pouch and then like GTA like commandeer them and then
you tell them where to hop because you're in their pouch.
Speaker 2: There's no room for ridiculous stuff in deest training too.
This is serious. Yeah, So like doll Man, you see
the ha of a man got in included in the
ka of a puppet, and that's why he's a puppet
that talks to you. And he explains to you that.
He's like, hey, Sam, do you want to know how
I stay so young? And I was like yes, because
he talked to him in your private room. And he says, well,
there's a character named Rainy and she's a seven month
pregnant woman where the fetus won't grow past seven months,
so it's just kind of staying and she's a still
mother or whatever, so the baby won't go past seven months.
But when she's outside, she causes time fall rainstorms, which
time fall rain makes everything age faster, but in a
one point five meter radius around her, it's core fall rain,
which makes things younger. So every once in a while
she takes the puppet into the shower and the shower
water turns into core fall rain, and since the puppet
is showering with her, he stays young. Oh yeah, so convoluted.
Speaker 1: I just saw getting realistic. I play games for escapism.
I don't want science and realism in my games.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's just I don't know many things
like that that are just incredible. And it's genuinely just
very funny. It it's into it so much quicker, the
action's better, man, It's it's really really solid. I didn't
know if I would play another thirty hour like because
then you know, are saved and carry over whatever, so
I'm just gonna do it all again. But I had
so much fun playing it that I will absolutely do
it again. Cool. Where did you play it? How'd you
get your hands on it? It's just my buddy's house.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you're just being Keeley.
Speaker 2: Now. He was there. I was sitting next to him.
He was at the station next to me. This puppet
thing this city gets.
Speaker 3: Did he get a computer bigger than you? Was it
like in the number one spot?
Speaker 2: No? No, had the exact same setup, although his his
build was kind of weird because the prompts wouldn't show
up so like the square, it would just have like
a nothing button there. So that was that was a
whole chaotic thing for the first day or so. So yeah,
I had the better station than Keeley.
Speaker 1: Just for dah, where's my prompt? You know, like Daddy
Keeley's got to have his prompts. He kept calling himself
Daddy Keeley. It was weird. Yeah, Daddy Keeley doesn't know
what button to press. Daddy Keeley needs his prompt.
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't know you were also, could you have
a productions with us?
Speaker 1: Welcome to the seventeenth Annual Game Awards. This is Daddy
Keeley and I am promptless. I'm going free bird tonight,
raw Dog and all you sounds a bit just tuning
in to see the hottest announcements the greatest awards. Now
for our next guest, it is Yosa Fares. They know
each other, I guess. So someone told me that you
finished Guns. What's Guns of Fury?
Speaker 3: Guns of Fury was a game I told you It
was about a month ago. I think I've already been
playing it. But it's the one where it's a side
scroller metroid Vania that kind of feels like lots of
explosions and you're shooting a lot of people. But it
is a Metroidvania. And Dan, I told you I thought
you would.
Speaker 2: Like I tried it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I rolled credits on it. It's pretty fun
down to the last boss fight. It's such a slog
to get to the final boss fight, just because in
classic it's just in classic metroid vania style. Like there
were many times where I was like, where the fuck
am I going? And it's because I didn't have the
right boots with the spikes that so I could do
a double jump onto the thingy and I didn't know that,
so I was going into areas where I really didn't
have the right items in order to progress. But once
I figured it out, I was able to finish the game.
It felt really freaking good, and it has a really
funny ending of like when you're when you've killed the
final boss, you just kind of want a nice ending,
and they do that thing where he's like gets on
a motorcycle and he like rides into the sunset and
he's just like, yeah, we did it, and yeah it
was good. I've I've enjoyed the game. I just kind
of wanted to remind y'all, like I think it's a
good metroid vania people looking for this type of experience
that like retro style. I don't know the guns Blazing game.
Speaker 2: That Metal slug, you know stuff.
Speaker 4: Very metal slug.
Speaker 3: I think it. I think it appeals to a certain user,
and so I was. I was glad to finally finish it.
But yeah, it took it. Took time to get through
that boss, but I was doing it on the flight
and uh, my flight was two hours delayed out of Boston.
There was a mechanical issue with the plane. And so
I sat there just burning through this game. And you
can tell people after two hours of delay, people are
heated on a This is a five hour flight. So
this flight has gone from five hours to seven hours.
People are angry, babies are crying, people need to pee,
Tensions were high, and I was like, this game is
so good, and I was just like I was completely
immersed in the game for the entire seven hours. I
think that's actually how I was able to finish it.
Speaker 2: So nice. Yeah, I downloaded it. I played a little
bit and see what you're talking about, but didn't get
too far. And it's like, all right, once there's a
little more time specific stuff, Once I'm done with that.
That seems like a good playing game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good plane game. And I think the
thing though that can happen and might happen with you
is like once you get stuck and you're like, I
don't actually know where to go next, that could be
like a forty five minute trip for you, like walking
around being like where what am I missing? And once
you figure it out, it's fine. But yeah, it can
get to you a little bit.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, but I've played something the Night Hollow
Night like and had those experiences in those games. As
long as I enjoy at the moment moment I'm accruing something,
whether it's XPE or currency or something, then it doesn't
bother me too much.
Speaker 3: Well, then probably what will happen is that you will,
you know, hate the game and talk a bunch of
shit about it and then do like this crazy turn
and change of hearts six months later and then fight
for it like you actually as a person.
Speaker 2: Grow as a person. Yeah, flip flop, no personal growth.
Just look, I own a concert. I can't be a
silly person who flip flops.
Speaker 4: You can, and you are, and you.
Speaker 2: Do to be silly anymore, Mary.
Speaker 3: Bad people own companies all the time.
Speaker 2: That's not true.
Speaker 4: There are so many evil men.
Speaker 2: No wait, I'm evil now, i I'm just.
Speaker 4: Saying you can't.
Speaker 3: You can't use your company owning as like something that
absolves you of anything. There's like so many badness.
Speaker 2: I'm a serious person.
Speaker 4: No, no you're not.
Speaker 3: You're just this little slapheaded ding dong that got handed
the keys to the castle and somehow like they allowed
you in and I'm happy for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Hump dirt, Yeah, truck fucker clothes. I get a mic, Yeah,
hump dirt, humpters. We own, we own fire Escape, yes
we do.
Speaker 1: Dan's got his Dan's got his hands and everybody owned
multiple companies.
Speaker 4: Yes, a lot of cookie jars.
Speaker 2: That guy, I love cookies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's got his hands and a lot of nib jars.
What can I say?
Speaker 2: Boy boy needs his nib money. That's right. What is
Bionic Bay go? Oh geez? Wow? This today? It's like
a limbo or like an inside like really cool look
to it. A lot of physics puzzles, a lot of
like uh kind of puzzle. It's a puzzle platformer and
and both parts of it are very very good. If
you look up how the game looks, it's it's got
a hell of a aesthetic going on. Fantastic Steam deck game.
So when I was flying out to Japan. This is
the main thing I played, and not cool, very very fun.
Lot's the cool powers and yes if you like limbo
and inside and stuff like that, but almost wanted to
be a little more platforming centric. It's it's fantastic.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna look it up. This seems like right up
my alley, like I could see you doing.
Speaker 2: It quite a bit. Yes, all this stuff studio? What
else they make? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well yeah, tell me tell me their background. Oh, I'm
gonna seeze.
Speaker 2: They are Kepler funded by the Royal Saudi family. Oh. Interesting, why.
It's a very plausible lot in the game industry. I
know that. I think this looks like their first game. Okay, nice,
It's a very good one. I would definitely recommend checking
it out.
Speaker 3: Is exciting.
Speaker 4: Thanks for the the tip.
Speaker 3: I'm excited. I'm going to give this a try.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, all right.
Speaker 1: I've been playing Warhammer with Vinnie. That's going super well Warhammer.
Yeah new for me, huh. I think Vinnie's hooked, Reanna.
I don't want to put words in his mouth, but
I think he's hooked. I think a lot of people
have been watching it. It's getting fun. My my one
campaign is I'm commanding a bunch of dinosaurs and he's
this high elf prince who's got a sexual thing for dragons.
So that's making it weird to work with a bunch
of lizards and reptiles because I feel like he's coming
on to me.
Speaker 2: But I'm helping a game. Oh yeah, yeah no, not
not in not like Death Stranding too or Mario Party.
But it's right, it's got some yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: And then my other campaign, I'm a vampire zombie pirates
and he's what is he He's uh, he's the skull
taker who's just collecting skulls for his cape.
Speaker 2: Very doom. That dude, it's fun going, well, we gotta
do a We got into a few big battles.
Speaker 1: People see what I think people are starting to see why, Well,
Mikey likes this game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mm hmmm, that sounds pretty fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It required someone with an open mind as opposed
to you. You. If you would have just recommended it,
I would have given it a shot.
Speaker 3: I don't mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not recommending it. I never once told thought
either of you would have would be any There's just something,
there's this artistic edge to the game. I don't think
you'd get uh huh going, well, it's fun. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's in our off weeks here and then the other
campaign is on next Slander.
Speaker 2: If you're not subscriber over there, you want to talk
about do you want to talk about emails? Concept? Concept?
I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: Okay, as usual, you can ride into firescape cast at
gmail dot com if you have questions, comments, concerns, or quizzes.
We've not done a quiz in a long time, but
our friend Alex from Australia sent in a good one
tonight that I'm gonna be quiz master for. It was
specifically tailored to Dan and Mary's interests and knowledge, so
I won't mess with that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, escape, yeah, a little bit. There's a few,
there's a van cross, there's a crossover. Yeah, mccari.
Speaker 3: Beer drunk, so many things that we both love.
Speaker 2: Mcgruber with beer, drawn, hollow night bars.
Speaker 5: Yeah, bars, dogs, Yeah, soon, cats, when I start slipping
cats into Mary's house under cover of darkness, I'm not a.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, you'll evolve. You'll evolve at some point. Okay,
let us do this quiz. This is from Alex in Australia.
There are three questions for each of you. So six total,
and then at the end we could just tail it
tally up how well each of you did. If for
some reason there's a tiebreaker. There is no tie breaker
in the email. I will just kind of off the
cuff make up a tiebreaker question.
Speaker 2: It'll be fine.
Speaker 1: Okay, uh Mary, this question is for you specifically, and
you can you either get it correctly or you don't.
Speaker 4: What are There's no multiple choice?
Speaker 2: No? What are three growable crops in Stardow Valley? Just three.
Speaker 3: Growable crops?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 3: Okay, you can grow? Is like time for that? I'm
like panicking now.
Speaker 2: You take too long? Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna start
shouting this game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know this game really really well.
Speaker 4: I know I'm panicking.
Speaker 2: Let me double check that. Yes there's horn, Yes there
just one.
Speaker 3: More uh uh.
Speaker 2: Uh uh seconds cauliflower. Yes, correct.
Speaker 3: I had a panic attack, and I know that game
very well.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: Well, you have me, you have me guys in there,
all right, Dan, your first question, what is the exact
day and date Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps was born thirty seconds.
Speaker 2: March third, nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: No, it's the June thirtieth, nineteen eighty five. You have
zero points, Mary, Mary. Question two, name the main character
of the video game Duck Detective.
Speaker 3: It's the duck.
Speaker 2: What is his name? Um?
Speaker 3: His name is uh quacks detective Quaxworth.
Speaker 2: No, do you want a second try?
Speaker 3: Uh, it's got quack in the name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but no, it's not it. All right, it's Eugene mcquacklin. Damn,
that's wrong, all right, Dan?
Speaker 2: Question two? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Known as the Gumby of the Pool, Michael Phelps also
won several Olympic gold medals. How many exactly did he win?
Speaker 2: Eight? The correct answer is twenty three.
Speaker 1: All right, Mary, you are up one. You have one
of two. Dan has zero of two Mary. Question three.
Internationally known as a good Boy. What is the name
of your dog?
Speaker 3: I know this. His name is Simon full name Simon
Kish and we also sometimes call him Chug.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's correct. Mary is two of three. Dan. You
don't have a chance to tie it.
Speaker 1: This is just to save face before having to flee
international authorities for threatening to beat up the Pope. Michael
Phelps held several world records. What was his time at
the two thousand and six Pan Pacific championships in the
two hundred meters butterfly.
Speaker 2: You know this, Dan, forty six seconds.
Speaker 1: The correct answer is one minute, fifty three seconds and
eighty ever tense of a second. Uh, Mary, you have
won this quiz. Thank you for Alex, He says, Long
live the bomb, speaking of beating up the pope. I
watched you watched Conclave? Have you guys seen Conclave yet?
Speaker 3: I missed a question dedicated for me.
Speaker 2: I think you should lose the whole thing now, Dan,
did you know the name of the duck? Uh? No,
I wouldn't it had.
Speaker 3: Quack in it. I knew that it was like quacks
you know, McGillicuddy, quacken Shire, but like I couldn't think
of it Quacksworth, Quackley.
Speaker 1: Detective Eugene mcquachlan mcquachlin, Yeah, detective Detective mcquachlin, Yeah, mcquacklin.
Speaker 3: That's funny. That was really funny. I mean, I think
it only like helps determine that I am smart. And
you know Dan is here.
Speaker 2: You know I can't argue with the results score bomb. Okay.
Speaker 1: I got a couple of email questions as well. We
can this person sending a lot of nice stuff about
each of us, but I think we don't have to
toot our own horn like that. I can delete that
said here. No, no, no, it was all extremely nice.
This is Cameron from Baltimore.
Speaker 2: Thank you. They know what they wrote, appreciate it, but
it's just it would be a long read.
Speaker 1: I will read it, yeah, Mary read it. Yeah, it's
in our inbox. Mary, do you want to read this one?
Cameron from Baltimore.
Speaker 3: Yes, Hey, Fire Escape Gang. I've been listening since the
first episode, but never took the time to sit down
an email. With the death of Giant Bomb and Polygon
this week, I've been pretty sad but still excited for
everybody has next. Bet you didn't expect that when you
wrote this email, huf Cameron from Baltimore is crazy. I
know this is long, but you guys still like with
a question. Oh we cut out the middle part. Yea.
Over the years, you all have done a good bit
of playthroughs with different people.
Speaker 4: What is your dream matchup of game and person?
Speaker 3: For example, I personally think it's hilarious to go through
an entirety of Kingdom Hearts with Hideo Kajima. I think
he'd outwardly hate it, but secretly have fun, thanks for
everything you do, and kicking ass in the video game world.
Cameron from Baltimore. That's a good question. I thought I
didn't think like celebrities and like, you know, like when
they're like who would you have dinner with?
Speaker 4: It could be a person who's dead.
Speaker 3: Like that's a total game changer. I genuinely have always
felt that playing Resident Evil with Mike has been like
such an awesome combo because he knows those games quite well,
but we have a really silly connection when we play
them together, and it's been really fun for me having
the experience for the first time so realistically always able
to at all never it's always been beautiful.
Speaker 2: No one's ever tried to five Wonders for our relationship,
but my.
Speaker 3: Dream matchup in reality was me and Mike playing Right Evil.
I really enjoyed playing that series with you and I
and I have really good memories doing it, and it's
really special to me.
Speaker 4: Now fantasy, that's a whole new thing.
Speaker 1: I have one go ahead, I would love to play
Golden Eye with fom K Johnson.
Speaker 2: I have another one.
Speaker 3: I dare you use this to be a pervert.
Speaker 1: I would love to play Death Stranding with fom Ka Johnson.
Oh wait, I got I would love to play Terraria.
Speaker 3: Know you want to play a game that's like four
hundred hours to finish it so that you just get
lots of time.
Speaker 2: I have one. I would love to play Ninja Guid
in Black two with fom Kay Johnson. These are good answers, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, these are the dream situation.
Speaker 1: I do wish there were more like being serious, not
that I wasn't serious, but I do wish there were
more developers like I enjoy what you Know IGN and
even like what I Know what the show that Lucy
had been doing a game spot where like developers you know,
commentate on stuff. I wish there were more avenues for
developers to do, like full playthroughs and just comments on
like each mission. That'd be rad Like I'd love to
hear the og Halo developers talk about each mission and
combat evolved like they're thinking for designing them back in
two thousand and one, late nineties' that'd be cool.
Speaker 3: Sure, what about you, Dan? What do you think?
Speaker 2: I say this because conceptually it sounds funny, but it'd
probably be more infuriating. But making my dad play through
all of Metal Year sounds pretty funny. I did watch
him watch some of it when Kayla was playing four
and uh yeah, that was not penetrating his head at all. Yeah,
is this a shooting game? Is this is to shoot
him up? Yeah? Dest stranding with my gram would be fun.
Speaker 3: That would be fun. That's a sweet one.
Speaker 2: Wait, why what about your grandma? Why would she She
was just afraid of everything. She's afraid of being confused
by everything in the world and definitely does not take
in anything like that. And I would just like to
see how she reacts to that.
Speaker 3: Okay, gotcha In a dream where I could play with anyone,
I think it'll be really fun to play most game
series with Conan O'Brien, and I think I would pick
GTA because I think he would have a lot of
fun experiencing GTA and the storylines and the different things
that you go through. I think he would. I think
he would just be so fun to play that with
and so throwing it out there into the ether that
I would literally play any game with Conan O'Brien and
have such a good time. Yeah, any comedian playing a
game with would probably be a joy.
Speaker 1: Honestly, oh Man, I'd love to hear. What's his name,
Daniel Danielson? What's the Norwegian dude?
Speaker 2: Damn? At the Comedy Seller? I forget, but he was great. Yeah,
the autistic Norwegian dude. He'd be fun to play games with.
He was hilarious. Yeah, Hey, anybody but into the bank?
I do you I've married? Do you know who that is?
Speaker 1: Hold on, let me look up his name because now
Daniel uh Norwegian comedian.
Speaker 2: H Daniel Simonson. Oh, he gets up on stage.
Speaker 1: The first time I ever saw him, I was with
Dan at the Comedy Seller and just clearly was immediately
being awkward. But he's just his jokes are all about
like how awkward he is, which I usually don't find funny,
but he just was nailing it. He's like, I've been
really working on just, you know, my small talk lately.
So next time I go to the barbecue, people are
gonna be loo, look out here comes Daniel, and I'm
gonna be like, hey, anybody been to the bank.
Speaker 2: That's his idea of I'm not doing justice. Daniel Simonson.
Speaker 1: Watch watch, go, watch go watch some clips of him. Okay,
didn't mean to minimize that. Dan, You want to read
this last one. Uh, this is thank you camera from Baltimore.
Speaker 2: Who is this from? Let me look Matt, Matt from Massachusetts,
Matt B.
Speaker 1: From Massachusetts. Wait a minute, Oh, never mind.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: They were asking about whether the new season of the
rehearsal is sucking up your newfound confidence with flying.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, that's it's I never worry about the
plane crashing or anything like that.
Speaker 4: No, got cha, What do you worry about when you're
have anxiety?
Speaker 2: It's just anxiety. It's just the fear of fear in
panic attacks. And it's for people that don't really have this,
it's almost impossible to explain. It's just like the fear
of having a panic attack and not having control over it.
And yeah, but I mean it never happens, you know.
It's just the idea of like, oh, I'm locked in
this thing for you know, twelve hours, and am I
just gonna be doomed to have this panic attack a
whole time? I've never once worried about a plane crashing,
you know, which, I think a lot of people when
you say fear of lying, they assume that. But if
you tell it to anyone with like severe anxiety disorders,
they're like, oh, I get it so but no, no,
I'm getting much better that stuff. But yeah, hey, Fire
Escape Cast Matt Bee from Massachusetts here to say congratulations
to Dan and the Giant Bomb crew on this huge moment.
I'm actually writing this live at Packs East during the panel.
I'm an enforcer here and it was awesome seeing both
Dan and Mary here. Now, this is not a Giant
Bomb podcast, so let's get to business here, Mike, if
Dan and Mary were a wine, what wine would they be?
And why would Dan be? Wine? In a box? Love
you guys rocking banana yellow for life.
Speaker 3: Oh that's so sweet. I do not know if this
is the same person. But while Mike thinks of the answer,
I just want to say that post the panel, everybody
was kind of gathering around you guys and giving you
congrats and cheersing you, and you were kind of just
hanging out with everybody. And I was hanging out in
the corner quietly and a person came up to me.
They did not tell me their name, and they said, Hey,
I just want to let you know I always rock
in that banana yellow. And I was like, dude, that's
so fucking cool. That's such a funny thing to say
to me, and like, I really appreciated whoever that was.
I appreciate you. I love that. I will always retweet
a banana yellow shirt. But it's just a funny and
really silly specific thing that you can say to me
that makes me smile. So I thought that was very sweet.
I don't know if that's the ensporcer or if this
is a separate person, because there's there's thousands of people
rocking that banana yellow, so it could be anyone. Really,
Oh yeah, it really could It truly could be. The
Metal had a bunch, ye I know, it's very in
right now.
Speaker 4: People love that banana yellow.
Speaker 1: Oh god, imagine if if someone actually wore fire Escape
merch to the met Gala, they would actually probably be
seen as cool and avant garde the fire Escape.
Speaker 3: Listen up, celebrities that go to the met galo that
listen to fire Escape, You too could be the bell
of the ball if you want to wear a banana
yellow T shirt to the Metal and if.
Speaker 2: You're free, if you're a celebrity of enough statue, yeah.
Speaker 4: No you can pay for it. You're rich, but like,
don't be a little bitch. Pay for them shirt and
wear it.
Speaker 3: Speaking of which, I don't know if you guys talked
about this, but you guys talk about the fact like
right after your panel Jeff got kicked out.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I forgot about that. Backalre no Grub wait
deal like they were telling us all to like move Yeah,
well he heard two different stories from enforcers. We were
like sitting there doing meet and greets with fans, and understandably,
you know, the packs enforcers were like, hey, come on, move,
we got to clear this area.
Speaker 4: Cletely reasonable, which is reasonable.
Speaker 2: We kept moving down. We kept moving down, and they
kept being like, we'll move more, move more, and we
kept moving more, and one packs enforcer took his badge
and said it was because he wasn't moving down enough.
But then wasn't. Another one saying because he had alcohol.
Speaker 3: So the the panelist before this is what I heard.
The panelists before us, I guess had like.
Speaker 2: A fifth of they did. I brought a glass on stage, yeah.
Speaker 3: And they gave to you guys and so but you
didn't bring it in. But it was contraband and I
just think Grub wasn't thinking and just put the fifth
of whiskey in his back pocket visible and when the
enforcer saw it, he was like, you can't have that,
You're out of here, and confiscated his badge and kicked
him out.
Speaker 2: Incredible, you bought giant bomb then got kicked out.
Speaker 1: Of packs, Jeff grub It's already going to his head
being whatever that title is.
Speaker 3: So funny anyway, a funny side story of getting kicked
out of packs.
Speaker 4: But hopefully that brought you time to think about our wines.
Speaker 2: I didn't need time. I got it. Uh Dan, I
always see Dan.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people see him as this big,
boisterous personality with a booming voice that carries as we
talked about earlier, but there's some nuance once you get
to know him. But I think I think at the
end of the day, he's a very very reliable friend
and someone that like even if I even if I'm
like going farther afield and trying out new stuff all
over the world, I think he's like a Rutherford Cab.
He's always going to be like, He's always going to
be a good friend and be there for for whatever
I whenever I come back and want, you know, like
old reliable, reliable, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Mary, I would say you're more like a Barolo or
a barber.
Speaker 1: Esco both Nebiolo made from Nebiola. I think you start
off like I think when you're first getting to know Mary,
she could be extremely tannic and uh and can be
maybe a bit like have an edge to her, especially
if you're a mom.
Speaker 3: From Jersey to say annoying.
Speaker 2: No no no no no no, not like that.
Speaker 1: You can be fiery, and you can be like, you
can be abrasive at first if you're a mom from Jersey,
you know, like just rubbing you the wrong way. But
over time, as you like you start to breathe and whatnot,
you become very very ethereal, and you can be very
very alluring and uh and very uh you know, like
just generally very memorable to be around. Yeah, that's that's
that's what I think you guys are.
Speaker 4: I think that's and I accept that.
Speaker 3: I would always say I had a friend who was
like a lot like high high energy, and I used
to always say I take them in doses, meaning like
I could totally hang out with them for like two
maybe three hours, but then I need a break because
they're like way too intense. And I think for how
intense I am. There are some like there were like
more city people who are like, listen, I got like
two to three hours with that girl, and I need
a moment. So like, I think it's super fair and
par for the course that like it's I'm an acquired taste,
whereas Dan is a classic.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you, Yes, that's yes, that's a good way
to put it.
Speaker 4: Water down, red with some ice in it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Matt b and thank you for keeping those
hallways clear of Jeff Grubbs shenanigans at packs. He's already
been a prima donna. After what a week A giant
bombs chame on it. Well, that's our episode. It's been
a while since we've all been together. Got a lot
more travel coming up, but will you know, knock on wood.
I think we're planning on all being here for the
next one, so that'd be fun.
Speaker 3: Try and do it come hell or high water. This
is very important to us and we appreciate your support
and thank you so much for the support of fire
Escape over the years. It's really meaningful, and if anything,
this is just a reminder to always support local support
at like the micro level, support at the.
Speaker 4: Human level, where you can.
Speaker 3: Who knows when Giant Bomb will just become corporate again,
Like you know, I can see it. Dan, Dan's going
to like start wearing suits and he's going to start
worrying about the numbers, and you know, worry.
Speaker 2: About the numbers. But yeah, no suits on the horizon.
Speaker 4: Do you even own a suit?
Speaker 3: You own a suit?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I bought a bunch when I got hired at Devnade,
but then the pandemic it and I didn't have to
wear any of them. So I was literally looking at
them today and be like, god, damn it. Spent like
probably a couple thousand dollars in all these suits and
haven't worn them once because yeah, the pandemic it. Yeah,
great suits you could wear.
Speaker 3: You look nice in a suit. Nobody cleans up like Mike.
He's always you.
Speaker 2: Have to because you're moments, But I thank you.
Speaker 4: I don't do it like without nothing.
Speaker 3: But I'm just saying I think you have to because
your wife's so smoking hot. If you were like dressed
for the nines, yeah, she'll she'll find someone else. You
gotta like keep it up. You gotta like you gotta
keep going real, keep it at the highest bar.
Speaker 1: Plus like this is me as well. You just wouldn't
know that that helps.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, is that a penis thing? Yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 3: It's always really hard walking around and you got to
twelve foot python in your pants.
Speaker 1: Four Yeah, So why I say them, It's fun to
hear them.
Speaker 2: Yeah that Mary. What do you have going on outside
of the fire escape?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I usually say the same thing, but I will also
say that because uh uh, I'm limiting my VODs on Twitch.
I put everything on my YouTube. So if you ever
want to watch an old stream of mine or even
my new streams, I'm putting all of the VODs on YouTube.
It's the same name, Emmy Ryki say, so you can
watch everything on YouTube. I will also say, like, I
have found that my social media of choice as of
late really has been Instagram. So like if I'm posting
Dan dancing at a clerb, or like fun photos of
watching mcgruber in a hotel room, it's it's usually on Instagram,
so you can find me there.
Speaker 2: Cool Dan? What about you? I mean I think we
talked about it, but blue Sky and Instagram for socials and.
Speaker 3: What have you been up to?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What do you want to?
Speaker 3: What do you want to if you want to plug anything,
this is the point.
Speaker 2: I was gonna plug something. I would plug giant bomb
dot com, which I have plugged for a long time now,
but especially proud of it. Right now, we're gonna be
making some fun stuff and giant bomb dot com slash Join.
This thing is alive now because of people that support us,
So yes, check us out for free if you can,
but if you can support monetarily, giant bomb dot com
slash join and it's gonna be very very fun cool.
Speaker 1: And I'm playing Total War Warhammer three two co op
campaigns with Anny Caravella of Nextlander.
Speaker 2: We're doing one campaign here. You're on fire Escape.
Speaker 1: If you're not subscribed, you want to see that, do
that for our video tier. And then if you're not
subscribing next Lander, you want to see our Evil campaign.
We're playing different factions and different parts of the huge
map that's over on next Lander. Go subscribe to their
top tier as well. That's every other week. It's our
off week. We publish our good campaign and then the
Evil will publish a new one. Would have published today.
Speaker 2: If you're listening to this episode right now on day one,
all right, that's our.
Speaker 1: Episode we'll be back, yeah, in a couple of weeks.
Good to see both of you again.
Speaker 3: While too, it's been nice. It's nice to catch up,
and especially with such good news. Everybody's so successful. Somoliers
co owners.
Speaker 2: One hundred and fifty nine points. I think I forgot
about that.
Speaker 3: That's why you're my best ye, yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember one hundred and fifty nine. I mean, if
you don't bump those rookie numbers up, then we won't
be besties. But I still think it was kind of
impressive to begin with. All Right, everybody will see you
in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: Fah,