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