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Speaker: Hello, I'm Yatsukoto, I'm, uh, presenting the Windbreaker podcast with your favourite triple -headed glasses -wearing, uh, bearded Hydra of, uh, Second Wind. It's Jay and Marty. Hello! Hi, hi.
Speaker: And this way, we're talking about the the merits of simplicity in game design. I think Jay and I can be on the same page here. I'm very fond of simplicity. I mean, complicated games have their place. Lord knows I love a Deus Ex. Well, I love the first Deus Ex game. I love a JRPG now and again. But when it comes to appreciating the art of game design, you can't get better than a nice simple design.
Speaker: it It also feels like ah when you play a modern game that you would say has simplistic design, it feels like it's harkening back to the early days of games because so many of the early classics, whether they were in arcades or early nne NES games, I think I would describe as simple. Like Super Mario Brothers feels simple to me. Batman feels simple. Tetris feels simple. There's obviously great depth to them, but um there's like an elegance to their simplicity that I that i really admire.
Speaker: Yeah, I think having a singular mechanic or a singular theme of mechanics explored to their fullest extent is always going to be more entertaining to me than say, you know, a really wide ah game mechanically that is trying to do a lot of different things, um but done really shyly. Like any time I see stealth in a game that also has action, I yeah do not engage with it whatsoever. Like yeah I just think yeah there's no point.
Speaker: Well, I read this point when I was doing ah an essay on stealth games. Stealth games kind of need to have combat as well, because you need something to happen when the player fucks up the stealth. And if you just say, ah, you fucked up, game over, then that tends to be very annoying.
Speaker: Yeah, the ah echo echoes of was like Zelda in the past has had those like four stealth sections, which have kind of been annoying in Ocarina time. There's the Yiga Clan dungeon in Breath of the Wild and then fucking Wind Waker. Walking around with the barrel on your head in Wind Waker. And Echoes of Wisdom has a few of them, but it's nice because the mechanics in the game are so flexible to where you can kind of like build a bridge around the stealth. I literally just build ah a bridge of beds to circumnavigate all stealth sections because I'm like, I don't want to do this. in In that regard, stealth is an exploration of the puzzle mechanics. It's just a different task for you to use the systems the game already has. yeah It doesn't force you to use a completely different thing. It's like, well, think outside the box and get through the...
Speaker: it's like also that yeah That's the ideal design for immersive sims for me. They give you a simple task, and then they let you experiment with the mechanics to achieve it. Teardown did this very well. yeah that was all about just Just get to these computers within one minute time limit. Easy easy as. yeah And then everything else is just like tunneling paths through walls, leaving planks between a specific pair of ledges so you'd have a quick way across.
Speaker: yeah i think what you said with um Stealth games need combat for there to be something for in your failure state. So it's not, you know, just immediate failure. I do completely agree with that. But I think again, it's how it's framed in the sense of that is a stealth game that includes combat as a response to, you know, something happening in game rather than a combat focused game that also has stealth attached to it because, you know, the failure state for, you know, failing in a combat game with stealth in it is just getting to engage with more combat, which
Speaker: you should want to be doing anyway, because hopefully the combat system's engaging in fun. Yeah, it's weird. I'm distracted by what I'm assuming is very low -flying aircraft. It was a cop. That's the Blue Angels, right? This weekend in the Bay Area. Oh, yes, it's Indigenous Peoples Day. I forgot. They've allowed a lot of my games going on. It's like, what's Blue Angels? Blue Angels.
Speaker: ah Yes, Indigenous Peoples Day, previously known as Columbus Day, changed for obvious reasons. the Yeah, and in the San Francisco Bay Area, a bunch of loud ass planes fly overhead while we can. It's funny, the way I think about when when stealth gets forced into a non -stealth game is like, if you would go to an Italian restaurant, and then all of a sudden at the bottom of the menu, they just have sushi, and you're like, just do it here. but well I'm not sure. That's that is perfect analogy, right? Because yeah if I went to ah like an Italian place and they had sushi at the bottom, my brain would go, well.
Speaker: They're not going to do that well, so I'm not buying that. Yeah. yeah it's But then I've got to be intrigued and be like, well, maybe, why'd you put it on here then? like maybe Maybe you have a really good idea with this for for what to do. My conclusion in my essay about stealth games was that the ideal like recipe is to have stealth, have combat that's kind of shitty and annoying so that you kind of want to avoid having to do it. yeah That's a hard thing for game publishers to understand.
Speaker: Like saying, hey, let's make this one aspect of our game shitty and annoying. And then the the immediate response of the committee that's doing the design will be like, why are we making why are we deliberately making part of our game shitty and annoying? Don't do that. yeah We don't want that to be shitty.
Speaker: and them yeah And then have ah that smorgasbord game design again. ah yeah I had this issue recently playing it because i'm I'm in real spooky mode at the moment. And I've been playing Silent Hill 2, the original Silent Hill 2 and the remake, Resi 7. I played a bit of Rosy 2 remake and o octo I'm enjoying them. yeah But.
Speaker: There's just this repeated thing that keeps happening. And Marty will know this because I asked him yesterday. I hate the combat in those games, and I just want to ricochet off the environment and do puzzles and just explore the environment. And I'm like, I wish someone would just make a puzzle game like that, but just focus on the puzzles. And I messaged Marty yesterday. I was like, what was that game series you mentioned? Oh, yeah, the numbers. Yeah.
Speaker: the yeah Did you play the room games Yahtzee? They were like iOS and PC games that came out like 10 years ago or so. Well, I've played my fair share of escape room games. Yeah, it's kind of like that. Like yeah they were a big thing in like ah when browser games like new grounds were a big thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: I just wanted that exploration. I thought we were talking about Silent Hill 4, the room. No, no. No, no, one the puzzle games. And you can buy a collection of them for like $20. And I played through the first one and second one yesterday. They're pretty neat, right? they so Yeah, I was having a lot of fun because I just didn't feel like I was being bogged down. Like yeah the idea of Oh, I know where this item goes. I know what to do. And then I have to trudge through a bunch of shit just to get to the thing. Like I was talking in my, my puzzle video, worst puzzle of all time, like puzzles have one reward moment, which is that aha moment and the journey to you having that moment and finishing the puzzle.
Speaker: should be as short as possible. And having to go through a bunch of combat to get to that. I know the solution. I have it in my inventory, right? But I have to trudge through so much shit um to get there. I wish it would focus more, but.
Speaker: you know you got to just sort the horror vibes haven't yeah yeah Yeah, I would say ah the yeah the room I would qualify as a simple a simple game and knows what I was doing again It is especially like I think a lot of games that were built originally for iOS for for mobile for touch screens Understand that simplicity of like user user input. I guess where do you guys think like where does I? Where does simplicity stop? like what is the what is like What's the furthest a game could be where you'd be like, okay, you're still simple, but if you take one more step, I don't know if I'd qualify you as simple. Well, to answer that, let's consider gaming history. because As you say, of course, back in the early days, games weren't necessarily simple and ah because there wasn't much memory on the n NES or the Atari 2600.
Speaker: So you just have the your simple platform as your simple maze games. But then as technology improved, the way we tracked the progress of games as an art form was by making games increasingly complicated to build more and more upon that's the simple framework. So Mario would have like, ah you could go back and forth and Mario three and there's all these different pickups and all these different things you can collect on the map and all sorts of other things. And the the response to that was all like, Hey, cool.
Speaker: ah these games are getting bigger and better all the time. And that process is something you see in other art forms. It's it's a a process of um increased complexity, giving away eventually to a process of bringing things back to a simple place when we realize that things are getting a little bit out of hand.
Speaker: So we've we've we went through the the development period of gaming where we developed technology to the point where basically any creative vision could be realized, the graphics tech I mean, and that has led to the period we're in now, which is a much more introspective time where we're seeing not what more can be added to a prior formula, but what can be taken away to create a pure experience. Breath of the Wild did that very effectively. Yeah.
Speaker: ah games like Portal sort of stripping out the combat element of the first -person shooter to explore the puzzle mechanic instead. So I guess you'd need to put your finger on the point in gaming history where the simplicity gave way ah to the complication. Yeah, and a lot of times so those specific trends that people follow tend to be in the like, ah can you be open world and simple? I mean, you mentioned Breath of the Wild, but like,
Speaker: To me, there like you lose a bit of the simplicity when you try to. Like AAA, I would have a hard time, even even with Nintendo, who I think tend to make games simpler than a lot of folks. I would i would i wouldt be hard pressed to to pinpoint a AAA game that I would refer to as simple.
Speaker: i am boom boom I think part of it is defining simple. Sure. because Yeah. Cause of course, i the world is simple. I would say simple of the world is simple to play. It's a simple experience with a player, but it's got extremely complicated systems running under the surface. Yeah. Yeah. It's a tough one. Right.
Speaker: I mean, with the game we've got on the thumbnail, of course, is UFO 50, which is a wonderful example of exploring simple ideas as far as they'll go. I think it's a but compilation of 50 NES styled games, and they all explore a different mechanic in an interesting, unique way. One of the games I played on stream was, I think it was called Rail Heist.
Speaker: ah Which was it was, it was basically an immersive sim. Your task was to get past some loremen, steal some money and get out again. And the game was like, hey, do whatever you need to do to do that. You could break walls, you could like stun guards, ah you could ah stack objects to get over things.
Speaker: I thought that was very neat. um it was It's the same thought process as Breath of the Wild, right? You you have a selection of however many like four main mechanics that you can utilize um and use them between each other and you are given, you can explore the world, but then you come to specific tasks.
Speaker: that require you to potentially use these four mechanics um in unique ways. And that simplicity, that focus on, as soon as I see a puzzle, I know it must involve one of these four things or a combination of these four things. It allows you to mail. Yeah. author of nail yourss You're seeing golden night because ah I'm seeing UFO 50.
Speaker: Is anyone else seeing Silent Hill 2 on the thumbnail? Might be just a weird backend cookies thing. So since it's in the same playlist as last week. Yeah. In the past. i But I really appreciate like ah seeing a game make the most of a simple mechanic. I mean, um, as a game designer, uh, I think one of the biggest pitfalls new, uh, amateur developers fall into is to get too overambitious with their first project.
Speaker: They're like, Hey, I want to, I want to make something that's just like the games I've liked in the past. I'm going to make a RPG adventure game. That's going to beat Halo and is also online somehow. Yeah. No, don't do that. Yeah. Yeah. Like, as I said before, a hundred small games that you've actually finished is worth a million times more than one like Titanic super game that you never actually get done. Yeah.
Speaker: I think a good example of mechanics that are games that I've seen as a designer that I've really appreciated because it's basically an exploration of just so a handful of mechanics but framed in a different way ah like Animal Well.
Speaker: Like playing through animal well really gave me that satisfaction of the simple example is jumping on the Frisbee and using it as a transportation um mode. Like the game encourages you to do that through its level design and how things are placed and and stuff like that. um But having that moment.
Speaker: click something in your brain and then every new mechanic you get is this exciting unraveling of like, what else can I do with this? What can I can i do? Yeah, everything has more underneath the surface.
Speaker: yeah which, yeah, it almost feels like it's Animal Wells, a game that begins simplistically and then evolves into something much more much more complicated. um When I look at so many of my favorite indie games over the last 10, 15 years, however long you know indie gaming has sort of been at the forefront, So many of them, I think I would place as as simple. And it's part of like what Yahtzee said as that there's an elegance to a team or to a person who is like, I have a singular idea and I'm going to act on that without the necessity of outside interference of being like, oh, well, what if the audience wants some RPG mechanics or they want a crafting system or what if I try to get multiplayer in there? Like when I think of stuff like like Journey,
Speaker: or or neon white, or ah like immortality, or even like unpacking stray from a few years ago. um The unpacking is simple. Neon white, um it's got a simple core loop, but it's got all these extra complications added to it, like giving presents to your waifus and all of that. Yeah, and I guess it's almost like the kidding yeah the game can be both simple, and like if you just want to get to the finish line,
Speaker: You can treat it relatively simplistically, but then if you want to get everything in the level and get those crazy red times or whatever they were, like you need to know the game well enough to break it. Whereas maybe that's the point point when that's, you know, that's good design. You know, it's a, you can get out of it what you put into it. You can get as much out of it as you're willing to put in. Yeah. Like simple games can, can evolve into being quite deep.
Speaker: Um, I think that's a ah word that I'd use is that the deep once you get into them, rather than being, you know, complex or anything. And that's what I want. I've certainly played complex games that I consider very shallow style was outlaws leaps to mind. And quite a lot of that style of a game where it's like a million different mechanics spread out across with a far too larger space. Like my worst nightmare. Like I, I, some of my favorite games, um, ever, you know, are ones that are taking a simple mechanic and just exploring it to its fullest.
Speaker: Um, like I think, uh, one that's very, very simple, like with its, uh, time slowdown and, and combat is like, I feel Katana zero explores it's, it's mechanics very thoroughly, but in a very short amount of time. And, uh, I massively prefer that than this weird homogenous pulp of triple a everything like this unattractive.
Speaker: Yeah, that's Katana zero is a good, yeah. Uh, hotline Miami, obviously which Katana zero partly, um, inspired by yeah yeah yeah it's a very broadly influential game up by Miami. I'd say I, there's still, I see games with some influence from it to this day. Yeah. That might be both like, if we ended up having to like make a top 10 most influential indie games that might be on there. Um,
Speaker: Yeah, but whether it's stylistically or even or even gameplay wise. ah um um When I think of some of the some of the games I play to like zone out to unwind like Yahtzee when you talk about sort of the second screen games or the podcast games and stuff. Katamari Damacy is the game I always go back to and I feel like that is a simplistic game.
Speaker: I mean, you are literally only using the analog sticks. Yes. That's go and and and that's only another simple to play, massively complicated under the surface sort of game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The complication under the hood. Yeah. if There's one mechanic. You roll a ball around. Yeah. You roll a ball around and things stick to your ball and the sticky ball reference joke. What a wonderful little sticky ball reference.
Speaker: Uh, yeah, it is because then even from a lot of these like simple games ended up, you know, you get the offshoots of them. You get, you know, donut County comes from a catamari and then you get, uh,
Speaker: it was in Was Limbo the first like so sad sad sad child walks to the right? Yeah, sad child in a scary world walking to the right. I think Little Nightmares has taken the the crown of the codifier of that particular genre, but Limbo was the first, yeah. Yeah, and obviously, yeah, you had Inside, you had the Little Nightmares games, you have games that are offshoots of those developers, um like Summerville.
Speaker: The thing about Limbo is that it's not what I would call elegant in design, because as a strictly linear narrative, it's a game that has to constantly come up with new ideas, none of which it can explore for long. It's not really the same as something like Esamari, where you're doing the same thing, but and more and more. It's the opposite.
Speaker: yeah It's the opposite of like Breath of the Wild. you're not Every time you come to a puzzle, it's not, well, I know the answer is a combination of these mechanics that I have access to. It's, what is this mechanic? What does the game want me to do? Rather than, what can I do? Oh, yeah, the puzzles are very singular in their solutions, I would say. Yeah. Almost, it makes you think of point -and -click adventure games. Another genre that was very big on singular solutions.
Speaker: Yeah. Would you say were we're we're shooters, for is particularly first -person shooters, were they ever simple? Oh, yeah. Are there simple shooters? Point to the thing and click on the thing. Well, do you think Doom becomes complicated when it's like, touch a bunch of walls and try to see which ones open up and then find your key cards? and Well, I've certainly been seeing a lot of indie shooters that have tried to strip it down even further. Shittlet, Bullard, Mad Jack, and The Post Void.
Speaker: where it's literally just keep pressing forward going to the next room and shooting guys. Oh, there's no mazes, there's no key hunts. There's no gradual escalation of monster types and weapon varieties. I guess Wolfenstein ah was about as simple as it got in like the old format. Yeah. Like literally just single level levels.
Speaker: ah three different weapons and do you shoot Nazis early, like early deathmatch, like before, like before sort of, I guess, like call of duty perk system came about and tons of different game modes. Like, uh, multiplayer gaming was simple. I remember yeah when i be a part of that umm playing team fortress classic. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah Yeah, that's what it almost feels like when multiplayer got complicated is when I had to tap out a little bit. Yeah. And then like the single player started taking influence from the live service multiplayer games and how everything's fucking gear grinding and de leveling up and RPG elements. I think we've been doing that in FPS games for young like even when I was playing color duty multiplayer as a, as a teenager.
Speaker: Uh, it was all about, you know, well, you're not going to unlock the most powerful SMG until you hit level 50 and you have to play a certain amount of time. And, um, there is a level of, you know, this is why they do it addiction and you want to get to those things and you want them to be powerful, but that also does the opposite. Now I'm older and I don't have a lot of time when I see those systems. I'm like, fuck that. I'll go play something else. Yeah. Yeah. There's different demographics.
Speaker: How do you feel about a game that has a very simple control system? ah I was thinking of Cocoon last year, which I think just has a button you use. like I think there is an ah action button.
Speaker: Uh, and the, you know, the, the, the puzzles that we talked about cocooned quite a bit, but it's, you're like ah a little, little dude in a big world and you solve puzzles by sort of creating these, uh, universes within universes. And you, you carry a ball around that powers a switch, but then you can go inside the ball and it's its own little universe inside there. I suppose, uh, it's that's more, uh, elegance than simplicity. I've been noticing people bring up that distinction in the chat.
Speaker: Okay, there's a cocoon. I wouldn't say it's a simple game, but it does have elegant controls. I've always comprised elegance and controls like the fewer button presses you need to press to get to what you need to what you're trying to do. The better in my view. That's another thing I triple a game seems to be will what's the distinction between that simple though, because for me, that's, that's the very, very similar. Okay. Hmm.
Speaker: Because something can be simple and elegant at the same time, but what would make something... and also so Also, something can be complex and elegant. But can something be simple and not elegant? Because for me, if something to be simple, it has to, by its very nature, be elegant. The Plucky Squire. I would consider it a game to be simple, but inelegant. Okay, cool. Yeah.
Speaker: because it's got it's got a lot of clumsy like switches like gameplay switches ah but it doesn't really focus on any core gameplay mechanic none of its mechanics are particularly deep and yeah and that was a game where despite the fact that you have very little to do like in terms of like you have a sword, you can leave the book, you could turn the pages of the book, you could pick stuff up, but like you don't have a lot of stuff to do, but every time I had to do something, I almost had to think a beat about like I'd leave the book and I'd be like, how the fuck do you turn the pages again? And I'd be like, I got to hold a couple buttons to turn the pages and am I turning left or am I turning right? And like, which, which direction is going to move the pages in the way I wanted it to go? Um,
Speaker: which I almost feel like that it's kind of like when you guys were talking about, um, Astrobot and how, so how some of the, like, uh, not fourth wall breaking, but some of the gimmicky, like blow on the controller or, Oh, you can motion control. It takes you out of the experience because it reminds you, you are playing a game and not like you are immersed in this world. Um, yeah, yeah it almost feels like that's where the elegance breaks down when I stuck to the code.
Speaker: I would say that Astropot would probably be another good example of a game that's simple but inelegant. Well I think adding those mechanics of blowing the controller used like the haptics use the motion controls makes the game just not simple. Like the the fact that I have to break my mind out of my flow state of playing and look at the controller or think about what the game wants me to do. It's like approaching those puzzles in limbo. I i think it's bad design when you have to think, what does the designer want me to do here? Not, I know what I should be doing because of the context clues in the narrative or like I can just
Speaker: Intuit what's happening. If you have to think about it, I think it makes it complex and not very good. I actually still I still like the as gimmicky as they are. I still like the moments where my controller chirps at me or when I had to to to look down and blow on it. And yes, it does. Absolutely. You guys are correct. It did takes you out of the flow. But for me, it really lends to the feel of this thing is a toy. um And I wouldn't want it in I don't know. the last voice I'm a big grown up. I want to grown up things. Would be honest. Astro body is a to i what is the headge of the toy. la Carry a gun. You're the shadow. The children.
Speaker: um Yeah, but I mean, I see where you're coming from, but that's just like, one I don't know, like part of the joy of Ashrobot to me was like the fact that it just feels like a ah toy box that's been dumped. That's what Ashrobot is built on, right? It's these little micro moments of, ah, oh yeah, cool. Like you see a character you like, you think you realize the game wants you to blow on the controller and because Ashrobot's very short. I think that's why it's satisfying in the moment. But I think if you blew that up to a ah like a 20 hour experience where the game just kept doing that and you still didn't fully understand what the game wanted you to do, I think it would become rather frustrating. In theory. Are there genres that you think, I already mentioned shooters, but are there genres that you think that can't be done simplistically? Like, can you have a simple fighting game?
Speaker: Well, the that you can, and such things exist. Like Karate Car, or Divekick, or Nidhogg's a good example. Nidhogg's a good example, too. yeah But that's not what people want in fighting games, apparently. ah The core audience of fighting games wants more and more complicated ways to get one over each other, I suppose.
Speaker: Yeah. Also, the a lot of modern games, I can't name some. I think it's the Dragon Ball Z fighters. And I think the new Tekken have auto combos. So you just need to land the hit and the combo themselves. Street Fighter had that. I think I think Casey was talking about how it was like a simplistic control scheme or casual or whatever term names. A lot of the hardcore people complain about that. Yeah, that does seem like something hardcore fighting game players would complain about.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's their way of like, how do we like these things have gotten so complex? How do we draw in an audience who might find this overwhelming? um Maybe they would enjoy it if they had time to play it. But like, can you have like a simple RTS? Can you have like a simple I don't know. yeah See in fighting games, the whole thing where every character has like unique button combos that you have to memorize to do that every different attacks. I don't know those things where I've always said, if that hasn't existed since the beginning of fighting games, would you invent it? Because the Smash Brothers method where every character has exactly the same button in butts, but it just changes what they just have different moves assigned to them feels like the much more elegant solution that would be much more actually skill based and not just based on memorizing shit. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's always overwhelming to go to like an arcade and see like what a. ah For like a modern fighter, they're like, OK, it's got the it's got the joystick and then it's got 17 buttons, you know, like there's too many buttons. like What do I do with all these buttons and granted a controller has a bunch of buttons and keyboard obviously has a bunch of buttons, but um yeah. OK, here you go. I don't I would say there's no simple JRPGs.
Speaker: How about that?
Speaker: Oh, they're all simple RPGs. Can you think of any simple RPGs? All of them? All of them? i Yeah, just, oh, I'm in my menu. Oh, i'll I'll hit this guy and I'll heal this guy. Fucking baby game. You fucking um be talking even Final Fantasy One is a pretty complex game. Yeah, that's I within the last year I replayed Final Fantasy One and Dragon Quest One and both.
Speaker: I feel like are are very complicated. um Like surprisingly, so probably even more complicated than some of the ones that came afterwards. But you know, yeah, that's the kind of complication I appreciate. Like, ah hey, let's make this timely. And we both liked Metaphor Re -Fantasio, didn't we, Marty? Yeah, absolutely. That is by no measure a simple game. What makes it complex?
Speaker: Well, the it's a lot much like its spiritual predecessor persona. It's a dual hybrid ah JRPG dungeon crawler stroke life simulator where ah you have to build up your social stats and your relationships with characters during the life sim parts in order to help with your combat ability in the dungeon crawly part.
Speaker: you know, and also there's a really liveing surviving combat is based on you knowing your party strengths and weaknesses, knowing the enemy strengths and weaknesses, exploiting them without getting your own exploited. And then finding the best synergy between job trees between your four characters. There's a million billion different abilities you can unlock. There's a million billion different items you can use mid battle.
Speaker: And, uh, the game goes off like a hundred hours, uh, against increasingly, uh, difficult enemies. Uh, there's plenty of side quests, all sorts of characters all over the place. But it's complicated in the way one appreciates because yeah it's a complication sort of is more about creating a world. We can just bury our face in and go, boom like a big pair of jubblies. And is that.
Speaker: Complexity -wise, JRPGs in a lot of games similar are not mechanically intensive. The complexity usually comes from like and ah knowledge and understanding, like you said, the weaknesses and um advantages of your your party or the enemies and knowing what to do rather than being able to do it, right?
Speaker: the Interesting. Well, it's a bit of both really, because yeah you have to be able to do, you have to level up in order to unlock the skills to be able to do things. And you also have to know ah what things to use. and Does that stuff happen naturally or does it require you to grind?
Speaker: Well, is very little grinding. ah Like you in fact, like you can't, there's no like infinite grind spots. Like there is a yeah previous in Mugami Tensei like ah style games. ah ah You'd usually fight a boss and in the process of fighting it, it would probably kick your ass. and But in the process of fighting it, you'd learn its weaknesses. So the next time you did it, you'd know what to do.
Speaker: Uh, but in metaphor, they introduce like intelligence agents ah who you can buy information from, and they will just tell you what the weakness of the upcoming boss is. So you can be sure that you're on your first go that you're fully prepared. Did you like that? Yeah, I liked it. yeah there's Didn't waste my time. the Yeah. Cause it saves you from going up there and being like, I'm going to try out 10 different elements and three of them are going to repel against me. And then i'm I'm going to figure out it's fire. and i'm And I'm probably going to get wiped and have to restart.
Speaker: Yeah. um Yeah, like I don't like. I feel like when anyone's like, what's the first JRPG I should play? I always tell them k Chrono Trigger, but I don't think Chrono Trigger is simple. I think Chrono Trigger is very elegant and like everything. I think Chrono Trigger has a simple plot that doesn't yeah that like turn people off. Yeah, it you it starts, you wake up, your mum goes, hey, get up Lazy Bones, go go to the fair. And you know, it's all fairly intuitive and straightforward. Oh, you get time traveled. Oh, it's like a Goosebumps book.
Speaker: Oh, I'm just an ordinary kid who's trapped in and and having an adventure. I think it gets a lot more complicated if you keep playing it, yeah but, uh, you know, it's, yeah I think it's a good, uh, it's a good first JRPG. I agree with that. You touched on an important point there, which is.
Speaker: story and how a game portrays its narrative in its early moments is incredibly important. Well through that you can have a very complicated game and a very simple story and the other way around like the Return of the Obra Dinn. Simple gameplay, very complicated story.
Speaker: also a great example because I was going to say you don't really want to start off complicated. You want to start off simple to build people up and then get more complicated as it goes. But I think Obra Dinn does the complete opposite, which is um here's an incredibly complicated narrative on this ship go and you're super overwhelmed and the satisfaction is from unraveling that. But I guess that's just the the type of game being, you know, an investigation. but with this Like, I think it's one of the early corpses, you explore their final moments and you just, you just go in and you're like, oh, the ship's being attacked by a Kraken. And there's like 100 people getting killed and there's bits flying everywhere. And like, you know, like two hours later, you'll have a death where it's just some guys cutting a sheep's throat and ah in the belly of the ship so that they can cook dinner.
Speaker: I was like, wow, like, uh, quite a sine wave of experiences this game. Uh, snake, snake of the garden and a few other people earlier brought up in terms of an RPG that could be simple. The original Pokemon generation. No, you don't think like the original blue and red, you got to have there's like a million different types of Pokemon. You got to memorize what types of vulnerable to other types. You, you,
Speaker: It's a, that's, I would say Pokemon is a very complicated system. and was it your life for but I don't know. Like, cause to me, I knew a lot of people who, uh, that was their like, we're getting stuck on the semantic equal versus ethical question. there aren't we But yeah, I think for a lot of people that was like a, I guess maybe that's more of a gateway game. Maybe that's an entirely different thing. Like I think that was a gateway to JRPGs for, I think a lot of kids.
Speaker: I guess. And that's another one that I guess does start pretty simple. Like, Hey, you want to be the very best like no one ever was. Off you go. I would love that. I would love that. I would love to be the very best. Uh, before, before we get to the super chats, one last thing, when Jay, you brought up earlier of, uh, um, simple mechanics, but the complexity comes in sort of the knowledge around it. Um, that to me in a nutshell is like the witness.
Speaker: which is a game that essentially is just first person wandering around an island solving little mazes from point A to point B. But the complexity is how it folds in new rules to these mazes. And like the what you are literally doing does not get any more complicated, but how what you need to know in order to do those things. um What was that game I played? I streamed it a while back, ah where you can jump higher than your maximum fall distance. So if you jump and then land, you just die. Oh, yeah. And but um later on you like the game teaches you that if you fall slightly further than that, then you bounce, you have to unlock a hole and if fall even further than that and you tunnel into the ground.
Speaker: Yeah. i called Yeah. I can't remember what it was called, but I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. Leap year leap year. Yeah. talking about Yeah. i'm looking this that's That's what, that's definitely what we call a Metroid brainier where you've got all the abilities at the start. You just have to know that you have them of warming you positive. Yeah. It was an interesting one.
Speaker: There's ah ah new a new, a new or a game game out of, I think a month ago or something called foul damage. F O W L. If you fall too far, you crack. I like that. Same principle. Yeah. Same principle. If you, you can jump higher than your maximum full distance.
Speaker: ah
Speaker: yeah I Yeah, I'd recommend it. Give it a go. And you know what? It was a game developed in GameMaker, which is our sponsor for this stream. No one makes a GameMaker. ah Yeah. When you'll download GameMaker and then make very simple games to impress us with. yeah Legit, do it. Because I would like to play some of your game prototypes. It would be fun to have a second win Game Jam where we tell people, no, it's just make a little thing.
Speaker: Just before the escapist imploded, we were planning one, um but i then everything happened. Maybe that's something we'll do. I think that would be really, really fun. Year 10. Yeah, I've been, might be fun to do that. I've been trying to like get a complicated game idea off the ground. So it might be fun to take a holiday from that. oh Anyway, super chat, starting with Dr. Theo, who gave us $5 and says, remember back in the day when casual gaming was frowned upon? I'm so glad we moved past that.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember a time when people would like to dismiss games like Stardew Valley as casual games, and that whole attitude seems to have disappeared. I do think there's still a little bit of it. um I'm not going to call anyone out on this panel, but there's still a little bit of it when it comes to is ah are certain things legally games?
Speaker: Yeah, I had that distinction with Stray like is Stray a game? You had it with Stray, you had it with Hellblade recently. ah Yeah. I'm glad it's gone with like mobile games. Like I remember when I was younger, a lot of people wouldn't consider if you played games on mobile, they wouldn't say you're a you're a gamer. Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like, what are you on about? I think there's a general understanding that gaming is a wonderful smorgasbord tapestry of different experiences and everyone can enjoy whatever they enjoy. And there's no need to be an asshole about it. They need to gate keep a like a hobby. Like let someone have fun.
Speaker: Yeah. And I think, like, I think there's good things to sort of keep a watchful eye on when it's like mobile games. I have nothing. I guess there's so many mobile games I love, but arguments can be made against the predatory ones, against the ones that are like there to kind of entice you, suck you into its fucking quicksand, and then try to get as much money out of you as possible. That's the same thing, right? Gacha games. Yeah. Designed to ruin you. Yeah. To ruin you.
Speaker: a rumpf, disapprove, etc. Yeah, beautiful. Alex Armstrong at AXA gives $5 and says while your rant on donating to Patreon was funny Yahtzee, why would I donate when I spend about $20 a week on here to have my dumb questions answered? Well, you weren't the sort of person who were complaining about Alex Armstrong. If you want to like do that, fine. Just seems, you know, more convenient and to subscribe. But then we would never see Alex Armstrong's beautiful, what a different name.
Speaker: Well, Alex Armstrong, why don't you just get like a second mortgage on your house and do both? Yeah. And then give us all the money. Think about it. Second mortgage. We can keep making videos. You know what? Your first mortgage is probably lonely. Your second mortgage. Yeah. Yeah. Get the full set. Mortgage marriage. Don't do that. Don't do that. This might be the worst advice we've ever given anyone. Like 52 mortgages. Oh no.
Speaker: FoxD is five dollars. It says third straight Monday off work. Didn't sleep through the pod this week. Listening while playing American Truck Simulator. Speaking of simple games. on kok Oh, my God. we We are the second monitor right now, guys. Oh, my God. Ah, it's simple. But is it elegant? Oh, definitely not. Probably not. Yeah, because they had to design a whole open world version of America to explore.
Speaker: Oh, you're talking about, I thought you said we are simple, but are we elegant? and so We're definitely simple. I do not think we're elegant. I'm not sure. I like to think I have an elegance to me. Mortimer does. You're not elegant, but you play one on TV. I only wear black clothes. That's elegant. I think it's more goth than it is elegant.
Speaker: ah gods are elegant It's not golf. It's, um, it's being a writer. jim spworth by Oh yeah. We've had this conversation before. Yeah. And Neil Gaiman will just dress in black and then off. Gosh, very true. Uh, Yahtzee will wear a green hat in eight weeks, gives two euros and says when I went back to starstruck, it was like coming home. Now I put my hands up to starstruck not being a very simple game. Certainly he wasn't for my perspective.
Speaker: No, it's I don't think it's simple. I think it's simple mechanically that then gets more complex as you go. Were there any things that you you wanted to do but talked yourself out of? um I was thinking about adding explorable caves on the wild planets and I was like, no, I can't be bothered. That's a good reason to not.
Speaker: Huh. All my chat windows just, uh, went blank and it says yeah mind library to open this page. You don't have enough memory for chat. Well, uh, we know Chrome is a bit of a memory hog. Apparently. Uh, do you, do you need me to keep reading? Uh, why don't you tackle the next super chat while I get them back up? I'm going to say it is ominous that Yahtzee will wear a green hat in eight weeks that that number keeps going down and I'm looking at it. It looks like December 7th.
Speaker: a day that will earn na before my birthday. You might only be wearing a green hat on December 7. I'm just saying the number keeps going down the number of weeks. So maybe first I'd have to buy ah and stroke acquire a green hat have a green hat on standby should our November funding goal be get Yahtzee a green hat. Is this one of those trying to create a self fulfilling prophecy thing? I think it might be a little bit for a green hat.
Speaker: like Um, Doran Grossman Naples for a $5 don't know. Thank you so much. Uh, FYI Puss -a -lan -a -mus. Uh, Pussy is a folk etymology. It has no historical basis and seems to have been invented by Redditors. Everything has a folk etymology. Oh, soft Doran Grossman Naples, words of jazz, et cetera. Words of jazz! Skiddily -bop -bop -boo -dop -boop. Alexander Strong gives $2 and says, you can't get more simpler than Namco arcade games.
Speaker: mean I think Pac -Man is incredibly simple. It's just a little dude running through a maze trying to trying to eat his pills and avoid his spookies. But then they added a bow and called it Miss Pac -Man, and that was where things were getting a little too complicated for me. For a second, I thought you meant a bow, like a bow and arrow, and I was like, that can't be. They can't have added that into Pac -Man. The ghost in original Pac -Man, Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde. The ghost in Miss Pac -Man, Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Sue.
Speaker: Now, where the fuck is Sue's coming from? And what the fuck did she do to Clyde? Maybe Sue is Clyde's partner. It's too complex. yeah Someone has just sort of muscled their way into the friend group. classically It's like when Shemp entered the Three Stooges. You're like, where are you? Where are you? And how did you get here? a shout Shemp's really funny, though. I'm umm a big fan of Shemp. Sorry, Clyde can't make it anymore, but you could be friends with me now.
Speaker: No, thanks. sue What's in keys perspective? That's what I want to know.
Speaker: ah ah Diane Spencer gives 20 pounds, the best currency and says here's some money as I've not got a live stream for a while. Thanks very much, Diane Spencer. We appreciate you. Say thanks, Lulu.
Speaker: Dogs talking. Oh my god. Sufferin gives five euros and says what I'm getting from that SH stroke RE combat talk is you don't actually like survival horror games, Jay. You want a puzzle game with a spooky theme. Correct. I think that's it. I think that's yeah. but i think that's Absolutely. And there's nothing wrong with that. No.
Speaker: Some of us like having a bit of horror in our lives, which involves like smashing the fuck out of something and then stamping on it while weird sort of yelping noises come out of our mouths. I like horror. I just, Silent Hill 2 Remake, I was not scared once. Like, I'm not scared. And I like the puzzles. So give me a spooky game or give me a puzzle game. Even when one of those asshole mannequins jumped out from around the corner. Nope.
Speaker: and I liked it when they stood still in the corner, like pretending they were like a coat rack or something. and i got close yeah Sometimes I'd point my torch at them and they just wouldn't move. And I was like, what's what's the next stage in your master plan, mate? It's shot. yeah Yeah. I think the first time I saw his pyramid head through the gate, that was still spooky to me. Every time I see that man through a gate. Pyramid head's spooky until you fight him. And then it's just... Everything's spooky until you fight it.
Speaker: I feel like combat immediately makes something not spooky. I mean, there's a lot of Dark Souls bosses I fight that are spooky because of how they're designed. I think what they did with the Eddie boss fight in Town Hill 2 made it a little bit spookier because you don't know where he's coming from and there's low visibility and you don't know when he's just going to spook you out of nowhere. There's two people standing face to face firing guns at point by range. Well, I guess you were playing it wrong. In the original that time I played. I haven't got to Eddie in the remake.
Speaker: Well, I always use the great knife to kill Eddie in the original, because here's a little gameplay tip playing the original. Eddie will match whatever you're doing. If you fight him with melee attacks, he'll fight you with melee attacks. And if you fight him with a gun, he'll fight you with a gun. What if I give him a hug? He doesn't have he doesn't have a great knife, which is better than what he's using, right? Well, exactly. Yes. It says a good knife. Well, that's where I am in the original. So I appreciate it.
Speaker: Uh, patterned pipe gives $2 and says, would you say rocket league is a good, simple game? Ooh, that's a good question. Yeah. Simple game, but it goes deep. It goes, that yeah. The people who are good at it. I'm like, what game are you playing? I mean, at its core, it's simple. You can make it complicated because, uh, if you want to like unlock all the couldn't cosmetics and stuff. Yeah. But that doesn't really affect the core of it.
Speaker: Is like pickup and play, is that so like pickup and play synonymous with simple in your mind? Like something that you could just be like, yeah what's this thing? And then all of a sudden you're just like, all right, I'm playing it. Yes. Well, you just pick up the controller is like, let's see what all the buttons do. Oh, okay. This does this, this does that. All right. Let's get cracking. Yeah. That's what they said in the over done. Let's get cracking. Yeah. Ah, uh, gives one 99 and says Marty, the third operation in meta Ray is so good.
Speaker: a mess reantasio I think he's talking about that without spoiling it when you when you were sneaking, sneaking aboard a big old airship. I think that's the third one. I enjoyed it, yes. Yeah, because that's why it wasn't. Yeah, that's the third town you get to. I didn't even know i it was a fucking dungeon to look at the end of it and they treated it like I'd gotten to the end of a dungeon. Yeah, you do a kind of piecemeal and it's like weird little like micro sections.
Speaker: um Some of it's like a mandatory stealth section and some of it's like... Yeah, it's been a mandatory stealth section. Those luckily weren't annoying. I never got caught, so I never thought they were annoying. I don't know.
Speaker: an experience yesterday, similar to your dungeon experience there where I was playing the room and each kind of puzzle room is its own chapter. And after you finish it, it says chapter complete, move on to the next one. So somebody called me and i they were like, do you want to play games? And I said, yeah, I'm going to finish this next chapter. Do you want to watch? And then I'll come play games with you. So I loaded up the chapter, moved a boat forward, like two steps. And then it said chapter complete. I'm like, I'm fucking what?
Speaker: Did you get the, were you still able to be like, no, no, I get one more chapter, I get one more chapter. Yeah, we did, we did one more chapter. I get an actual chapter. I was just like, what, how is this a chapter? Like yeah this makes this sense. That's funny. It's funny as well. Uh, race car lock is fine to listen to. I think it would be a massive missed opportunity if classic seventies stroke eighties arcade games aren't included in a discussion about simple joy and mechanics. Oh, race car lock. Don't you worry. We talked about, we talked about Pac -Man's face invaders.
Speaker: And we didn't talk about space invaders. Oh, well, I thought about space invaders. Burger time. Did you know the virtual space invaders ah was pure white and they added like strips of colored cellophane to the screen to make it look like the it it had color? Oh, that's cool. No, I didn't know that. That's amazing. That's a fun fact for you there. Is pinball simple?
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. I'm terrible at pinball. It is shocking how bad I am at pinball. I think most people are bad at pinball. I think it's very hard to be good at pinball because, you know, the yeah if the ball just roll goes right down the middle down between the flippers, what the fuck are you supposed to do? And it's like built for you to lose and spend more money. Like, yeah. Yeah. But have you ever seen someone who's good at pinball playing pinball? Pinball Wizards.
Speaker: They are mental. Like yeah they can send the ball directly where they want every time. Yeah. like Wow. It's impressive. Well, you saw play a mean pinball, one might say. I don't like that you said a pinball. You play a mean pinball. Let me say, just the pinballs. There's ah a new game I got. I haven't played it yet. What called pinball spire? That's a pinball. Yeah. Maybe Gatsy tries it this week. Oh, that's too much. She got too much.
Speaker: Yes, it's like pinballvania. Yeah.
Speaker: ah KingDead42 gives $5. It says, there are several games I haven't ah finished that were worth the time. Big example is Stardew Valley. Having finished that were worth the time. So what are you saying? Well, I mean, is Stardew Valley a game that you finish? I mean, it depends how you define finish, I suppose. You sort of have to decide your own level of having finished it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: like the Technically, the game ends after you've like run your farm for three years and your grandpa shows up and says, right, now I will judge you like the judgmental asshole I am. Yeah, it's definitely a puzzle game. Then you just keep they just keep playing after that, making more and more money and shit. Puzzle games don't really, most of them don't have like a like Tetris, I wouldn't say has like a finish.
Speaker: A sweep again, doesn't have a finish. You just play until you get worse. Yeah, that's just crucial arcade design, isn't it? You just keep going until you die. No, just like real life. Fox League is $5. It says, a game can lose its simplicity during post release. Stardew Valley 1 .0, simple. Stardew Valley 1 .6, so many layers, it's practically Crusader Kings. Ooh, that is interesting. A bit about that in the past, because I think where Stardew Valley fucked up was that it started adding stuff that didn't really affect the core gameplay loop.
Speaker: Like that whole business was going to a tropical island and doing this whole bunch of different stuff. The first time I got there, I was like, I don't want to be here. I got a farm to look after. I want to plant. I want to water me fucking crops. It must be my therm. Is it one of those games? I didn't really follow like the post development that much like that. Started adding things that the hardcore fan base wanted. Oh, Stardew Valley's been in a constant process of adding more and more shit. Yeah.
Speaker: and I don tell my have update zone ah hear the townspeople have winter outfits now. Get outta here. Your waifu can be wearing a scarf. Ah, cozy waifu. Best kind. Uh, Alex Alveschonk gives $2 and says, how about minimal puzzle games like Hook or Osmos?
Speaker: I don't think I know what Hook is. And I tried to Google it and it's very hard. Hook and game. Yeah, that's a Robin Williams film, isn't it? It is. I like Hook. Dustin Hoffman? I like that movie. Not only would Hook game not bring you to anything but the video game version of Hook, the film, there's more than one video game version of Hook the film, so it will be doubly less likely. Oh my God.
Speaker: I played Osmos, yeah, Osmos reminds me, there's, ah God, there's ah games like 100s and um even like 3s, like a lot of mobile, I don't even know if this was mobile, but ah mobile puzzle games, I feel like have that kind of simplicity simplicity to them, which I really like.
Speaker: All right then, Alex Armstrong gives $2 and says, or even arty simple games that evolve like Braid. man I don't think braid simple braid is fucking complicated. when you stop It's not simple. Yeah. It's just, Hey, you can rewind time do that. But then it's all like, Hey, here's stuff that isn't affected by value time rewinding solve puzzles with it. Yeah. Yeah. And then here's a little ring you can drop where time moves slowly inside of the ring, but normal outside of the ring. Yeah.
Speaker: ah Phil Willis gives $7 .99, $8, and says, Pac -Man had no buttons. Space Invaders had one. Moon Patrol had two. By the time Street Fighter had six, that's more buttons than I've got fingers. there That's a new law, Phil. I like that. You can't have more buttons than you have fingers. Also, you only have six fingers? That reminds me of when I used to play a lot of Guitar Hero. There's like a stumbling block in moving from medium Guitar Hero to hard Guitar Hero, because you have to go from four fingers to five.
Speaker: And of course, you four fingers you have to learn you have to learn suddenly you have to learn how to move your hand and then keep in your head what buttons your fingers are currently over. This hand doesn't move for anyone. It's our hero i is ableist. Yeah. ah When I was like an expert guitar hero, I would like I tended to prefer a ah index on red setup.
Speaker: and move my index up to press green because one's index finger is more dexterous than one's pinky finger. So it's easier to move that up to green than it is to move a pinky down to orange. Yeah, very true. Yeah. Is that you playing guitar hero? It is. That's me playing guitar hero at a convention ah where they were doing a guitar hero like tournament. And they are and I was like a celebrity judge and they asked me to play a bit And I proceeded to suck while doing Cliffs of Dover in Guitar Hero 3. I mean, playing in front of a crowd doesn't seem great. Yeah. it's so It was a bit nervy. Yeah, but on the bright side, you've never looked cooler. It might trilby and leather jacket. Yeah, sure. He's funny. He can't be cool, according to Jack Packard.
Speaker: oh um Yeah, it's funny you mentioned Pinky's being useless. That's one of the reasons whenever I have to do something mouse and keyboard, I'm just like, my I don't think my Pinky, I don't have control over my Pinky, I think. I don't know. where well like I don't know. I mean, I do, but I don't know like what what I'm hitting, like what's hitting where. My Pinky doesn't move from shift like ever. I usually bind left control to crouch because that's what Half -Life did. Yeah, I think oh yeah.
Speaker: I'm a vehement, not left control Croucher. I'm at the sea Croucher all the way. You monster. but see because i still like get on first to like he's water when i take one of these and Like, like a gaming fucking.
Speaker: weird MMO hand pad thing and they don't have left control on it. So I... That's our that's our next big debate. jack Let us know, are you a sea croucher or a control croucher? X crouchers, get the fuck out of here. yeah Yeah, actually fuck off. Finally, we found common ground between the two X crouchers. We will crouch and die on this hill. That's the next civil war.
Speaker: That was, uh, acid nerve. Uh, they ended up doing Death's Door. Which was like, they're like, Oh, we'll make a full top down Zelda EU game. You okay? It was great. Death's Door.
Speaker: Well, how very nice. Yeah. Uh, Doran Grossman Naples is $5 and says in math. I think you mean maths Doran Grossman Naples. I think adding an S to the end of math is so funny. It's mathematics. It's not sort of a mathematic. Listen, I think it's great and I think we should all do it. And I just think it's very funny and I love it. Okay. Can I read the super chat now? You say it again.
Speaker: In math, we usually conceptualize elegance as a ratio. The more you can get out of a simple concept, the more elegant it is. It depends on both sides. Okay. hi i like that I like the idea that elegance is a ratio. It needs, if you can get across relative complex ideas or mechanics in a simple way, that is elegance. Okay. I actually want to look into that.
Speaker: Somebody send that to me in the, in the discord. which is super chatt Just the knowledge to my brain from, from discord. Somebody do it. Fox day gives $5 and says city builders cannot be simple games. They can start out that way, but they must eventually fold in lots of complexity. See city skylines. Yeah, I agree with that. A city builder. You can't have a simple city builder. Name one. Bull walk.
Speaker: but um I think it's called Bull Walk. Played it at GDC with the dev. It came out recently. It's relatively simple and it's focused on ah less the the structure of the the cities and more on the, I guess you would say, complexity of the the relationships between the peoples and the islands and stuff. Um, it's, it's fun game, but it's nowhere near as complex as like city sites, skylines or Sims. so Yeah. And there's certain things like you, we like we played tiny Glade the other week and that's not a city builder that like ah sort game. That's just a very fun boy. Yeah. Um,
Speaker: I think it's a game, but would I digress. that is That is a thing that is, ah I think it masquerades as like at first glance, it might be like, oh, there's a city builder. And it's like, no, it's just kind of like a neat level editor. Yeah. But again, it's got complicated systems running below the surface because it has to like, proceed to generate all the yeah doors and windows and architecture and stuff. Since they were the same stream, would you would you say 10 bells was simple?
Speaker: Yes. Considering your, your options are walk forward or go backwards. Yeah. You literally only use an analog sticker. Yeah. A run button. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of, hmm. Cause when it comes to like ah anomalies, that's where it gets complicated and the anomaly is are sort of different every time. So, you know, that's not particularly elegant design wise, but yeah, it is a simple premise. Yeah.
Speaker: Um, local a potay K gives $5 and says, are there any games that benefit from heightened complexity? And how is it usually or always a drawback? I would say, as I said, like RPGs benefit from complexity because yeah it's, it's enjoyable in the way of sticking your hands in a big bag of dry rice. It's like, Oh, look at all this stuff I'm buried in. Oh, oh, it's all falling over itself. I'm having fun. Yeah.
Speaker: um I think there are specific genres we've even mentioned, the city builder management forex. Yeah, and people like who like city builders appreciate that sort of shit. Yeah, like traditional MMORPGs feel like they have to be complex, right? Yeah, you have to build up that stuff. Puzzle games ah naturally do this if they're exploring the same mechanics. So Paul, for example, will add you know, fake surfaces that aren't actually intended to be used in the puzzle. They're just there to obfuscate the actual solution. They're making themselves more complex so that you can feel confused so that when you do find the solution, you feel satisfied. Yeah. Detective puzzle games like Obra Dinn and such, like, uh, uh, the way you make that satisfying is you create as many possible wrong options as you can.
Speaker: station yeah So it's more satisfying to figure out the one correct one. hundred um Yeah. But you got to build up to that. You can't introduce a mechanic and obfuscate the shit out of it. Cause then people just get, they start to blame the game rather than their own like lack, lack of knowledge. Yeah. So you got to build up to that complexity.
Speaker: Venemon killer gives $10 and says just here to thank and curse Jamaite for mentioning Gunpla on a podcast about a year ago. It has given me a fantastic hobby for my ADHD but has been killer on my wallet. What's Gunpla? Okay, Gunpla is um The act of making model kits of Gundam, which are Japanese robot mechs, and they require no glue, they require no painting, they all, you just cut the little plastic bits off the sprues, and then they effectively snap together. But they are some of the most complex
Speaker: like bits of mechanics I've ever seen. It's like you feel like you're engineering when you do it. Um, but I like it cause I like fiddly little things that I have to like put together and toy with. Um, you so I really enjoyed them zo really liked those kinder surprise toys you have to put together. weren yeah It's like adult Lego.
Speaker: like way, way more complicated, way more fiddly. But at the end of it, you have a fully articulated mech and um like being able to, when you bend their legs on um some of the ones I have, ah you can see like the, the pistons and rivets between them, how they would operate if they were real. But that one costs 150 quid.
Speaker: like they're expensive. Are there some that actually have like lighting systems in them too so that like want like have ex simple circuitry for set the eyes light up or whatever? Yeah. Oh God, I'm surrounded by the weebs now.
Speaker: I've never watched a Gundam thing in my life. I just really buy a robot that looks cool. Well, my friends, my friends are really into it. They watch it and they build it. And then one day a friend was talking to me about why they love building them. And I was like, that actually sounds like something I'd enjoy. So they just bought me a kit and then yeah I built it with them. Um, and yeah, I i don't know who these mechs are.
Speaker: But man, are they fun to put together, you know? Yep. I built a like when I was in like high school, I built a couple. I think they were simpler than the ones that are now, but I built it a couple ah based on Gundam Wing. And I just recently finished watching a show called Gundam, the AFMS team, which is just like, what if the Vietnam War had a couple sick mechs in it? And now I want to build one of those guys.
Speaker: Yeah. I don't know. one They're too small. I'm not good at little circuitry. Oh, I love that little fiddly. Fiddly shit. It's my big fingers. Fingers too bad. Like you get out of it what I get ah out of coding as a hobby. I just like things working because I've strung them together correctly. Yeah, I think that's exactly it. Yeah. Uh, Alex Armstrong gives $2 and says Sonic stroke crash is simple till you go for 100 % complete.
Speaker: of getting all the extra gems and stuff. Yeah. I always, uh, like a lot of 2d, um, platformers, even 3d platformers, I would say, uh, have that design philosophy where it's, uh, it feels like you can get to the end of the game and like a parent can play it with a kid and the kid can find enjoyment and get to the end of Mario wonder or, you know, get to the end of, of.
Speaker: I don't know, any 3D platformer like that, but then they throw in those real pain in the ass, like Astrobot. I think like a kid can get through Astrobot, but then there's some of those pain in the ass levels that are like the triangle square circle ones to wear. I guess they really have to treat it the way Shrek treats humour. It's like, yeah, you got to have it for the kids, but then you got to have some secret stealth gags for the mums and dads as well. I'll just Shrek.
Speaker: we had ah We had a conversation while playing Metroid Prime the other day with Casey where I asked if Shrek lives underwater because I forgot Shrek has a home because I thought Shrek was a frog. And then I corrected myself. I was like, no, Shrek is an ogre and he has a home. And it's ah that's like a plot point in the movies. I don't think i a lot about Shrek. i All of my Mike Myers thoughts go to Austin Powers. All I think about is Austin Powers.
Speaker: No, he's not in the water. He does live in a swamp. He lives in a swamp. So we fell in a swamp in Metroid Prime. And I was like, I bet Shrek's down here. Well, that would imply that perhaps he has amphibious tendencies. Isn't he a frog? He seems frog -like because he's green. He's got weird ears. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He does seem frog -like and he does have those, those ears are kind of froggy. Yeah. Well, tendrils. I dig that. But he doesn't live in the water. He lives in a little house. Has he ever seen him jump? Does he lay eggs?
Speaker: Well, he wouldn't. His ah lady friend would. does he fur does he Does he fertilize Fiona's eggs? That's the question. Well, that's a missed opportunity, isn't it? Getting to watch Shrek jerking off over... they see This is one for the adults. the kens go have a sort Why does he have a port an old outhouse? He's coming out of an old outhouse there now. Yeah, you'd think he'd just go directly into the swamp. I mean, the swamp won't care.
Speaker: it was filled the fish All the fish will be like quids. But then at that point, if we're asking, why is he like not shitting on the floor? Why is he wearing a shirt, a belt and trousers? Was Shrek a man? And then he got turned into a ah for Shrek's always been an ogre, I believe. But what's her name? Cameron Diaz was a woman who got turned into an ogre. girl That's because she was cursed. Wait, wasn't she originally an ogre and then turned into a princess? No, she was a princess that was cursed to turn into an ogre.
Speaker: Okay, well clearly I'm not as in -depth on my greatest Shrek lore as somebody else. Does she shit on the floor? Donkey definitely shits on the floor. He's a donkey. If Shrek's wearing clothes, why isn't Donkey wearing clothes? That's the Pluto Goofy thing. Why is Goofy treated as a man and Pluto is treated as a beast? Donkey has fur, and Shrek doesn't. So Shrek presumably gets cold. Well, I'm sure he's got fur on his downstairs parts, so... Well, we don't know. Checkmate, atheist.
Speaker: Well, he didn't, he never seemed to grow a beard or have the capacity to, because he had that sort of frog -like skin. Can frogs not grow beards? but and Frogs grow beards is my favorite thing from this podcast.
Speaker: and google it
Speaker: I mean, I guess Shrek was just supposed to be like a hillbilly. Like he lived in the in the middle of nowhere with an outhouse and didn't really take care of himself, but he wasn't like literally a creature of the film. I think we'd get into the allegory of ah one, can frogs grow beards and like the the the ethics and like. guys Yes, some male amphibians can grow facial hair like beards. Granted, this was the AI overview.
Speaker: So I don't know if we can trust them. I don't know if we can trust Google. I won't believe it unless Eric can bring up a picture. Can frogs grow beards? Well, moving on. Frogs are gross. Oh. Kudlak13, member of 10 months in the green gang, says Pokemon is rock, paper, scissors with 12 hand signs. Exactly. And you guys have 12 hands. So it's not simple.
Speaker: and then catch fifty seventy nine member of six months in the tip jar thank you very much And then gives $5 and says, simple games can be fun, but making a game fun is usually not simple. If a developer wants to make a simple game instead of a fun one, I won't enjoy it. um
Speaker: Let's not open that can of worms. What makes a game fun? No, that's not. Yeah, I mean, that's gonna be it. There's a ton of different ah ways you can do platforming. Why is the jumping in Mario fun, but not the jumping in, say, load runner? Also, there's no universal fun, right? Like, no, no, of course not. Yeah. Well, what I made, like, i I found the movement Astro Black to be a lot of fun. So I had some universal fun with your mum last night. No!
Speaker: Damn. Did she grow a bit? Uh, she is an amphibian. So you possibly, according to that Google AI search.
Speaker: Uh, I think the only universal fun thing is that experiment where they rigged up an electrode to the pleasure center of a rat's brain. So they could press, press a button and, uh, it would just turn some assault in ecstasy. And then they gave it the choice between pressing the button and activated that electrode and food. And they just starved to death every time.
Speaker: Cause they were just too busy flipping, like absolutely just doing backflips and joy. That's how I want to go, baby. Like hook me up to the one pleasure machine and just let me do the most fun thing in a game. What is the single most fun thing in a game? Uh, the hook shot and just cause two. Tim, you had an answer so quickly. Yeah, that was crazy. I like getting blowing off a peasant's head in Resident Evil 4. I was worried about to say a shotgun headshot.
Speaker: Yeah. Waiting till we get up close and new film that are playing. I've been playing, uh, yesterday we played obscure with Jesse. Um, the co -op, uh, some of the horror game and man, you can smash a very well -known horror game. One might almost describe it as, uh, not totally well played game.
Speaker: like like
Speaker: Um, but smashing shit with your bat, like windows and and stuff like that. That's really satisfying. Oh my god, yeah, that's what all I'm doing in Silent Hill 2 remake. I see a window, I'm like... I was about ah hard to bring up, I mean, in that first part where I was trying to find that bloody coin that you need to put in the fucking jukebox, I was going up and down the street smashing windows with a bit of wood and I was like, I feel like we're getting away from the essential theme of the game here.
Speaker: she'mash I mean, I don't i don't feel like a person tragically being dragged into horror beyond my understanding. I feel like I'm a dumb twat running up and down smashing windows. That's the entire game for me in the remake. Like with all of the combat, like that's how I feel. You've just described my experience.
Speaker: ah less have false game lock it into those animations. Feels good. Chris. Far less than too many frogs. Member for five months in tip jar. Thank you very much. Alex Armstrong comes back with another $2 and says gunpoint. Simple hacking design and no full damage. That's gunpoint. That's the game by Tom Francis gunpoint. Yes. That was one of his early games. Oh man. I played that forever ago. and I don't, I don't, I don't remember.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's pretty simple 2d pixel art. Yeah, I don't I remember one satisfied thing that game is you could just smash through windows. I like jump through windows like it ain't no thing. Yeah.
Speaker: So now we do she gives $20 and says nothing as is his want. Thank you tsunami do sure. And then witticism comes along with $10 and says Cuphead is a simple game that feels more complicated given the strength of its animation. Or is this the simple versus elegant discussion? Also, happy Indigenous People's Day from Columbus, Ohio, ironically? Nah. Nah. Yeah, Cuphead. Because Cuphead, you don't I guess when you you start unlocking a bunch of different verbs, right? In like your special shot, your different movement abilities, but like you your your core kit is
Speaker: Yeah, pretty simple. Yeah, shoot and move. Jump and shoot. What do you think they're gonna do next? They did a shit ton of DLC. Yeah, like do you think they're painted into a corner? Like ah they' they've become like a one -trick pony. Like they're gonna be typecast. Yeah, I think so because even as someone who's a big proponent of I love devs, like completely taking a ah a right turn when they make their next project and do something different. I personally would be kind of, because the art style is so unique and so well done, I would be kind of upset if it wasn't in that style. Yeah. But I mean, can they do, like, would it almost be too difficult to do another genre in that style? Like, nah. You can do, like, a first -person shooter with that visual style. I mean, that mouse game's coming out, right? That mouse game's coming, yeah. Yeah. It doesn't look nearly as good as that. um I'd like a narrative, narrative -based game.
Speaker: They are working on a new game says this from last week says Eric. I feel like if they do put out like a platformer or Metroidvania in that style, people would just complain that it's not a boss rush like what Cuphead was. Yeah. I mean, they could do a Metroidvania with bosses like a classic Castlevania. Yeah. Yeah. I'm always, I'm always Intrigue to see when someone has such it's the same thing with the concern date and Stardew. Like, what do you do after this? And what do you do after Undertale? Like, what do you do after a game that is so what is the Outer Wilds team do after Outer Wilds? Like, um yeah, you make another one.
Speaker: and call it something different. No. and And so, I mean, that I'm sure some people thought the same thing after papers, please. And then you get over it and you're like, oh, wow, that's like incredible. And so like, like yeah, more the Lucas Pope has the advantage of being an insane auto genius. And I love him and I want to kiss him. but Sure. If it's like the Eddie boss fight, he'll want to kiss you back if you approach him with kiss. No, he's the same way.
Speaker: Alex Armstrong gives $2 and says, a Nintendo alarm clock. What's next? A smartphone. I would probably buy a Nintendo smartphone like a big dummy. I mean, yeah, alarm clock is one of the many technologies that smartphones destroyed, isn't it? No, they just sold the alarm of the Nintendo Alarmo available now for $100. Well, I have a bedside clock, but I have that because I don't want to have to go like wake up my phone to find out what time it is. I don't send alarm on my bedside clock.
Speaker: Do you want us to get you an alarm? No, like I just said, I already have a bedside clock. What if we get you an alarm and it, the alarm sound is just the sound of Pikmin dying. So you, that's how you wake up. The first thing you hear every morning is the Pikmin go, wait, Marty, do you know what is so special about this morning is kickstart my heart. Don't know about you.
Speaker: What's so special? What's so special about that alarm clock, Marty? Because I don't get it. It's $100. What does it do? That's what makes it special. It tells the time. It tells the time. Yeah. It also chirps out some Nintendo sounds. It has alarms. Wow. Donate the money. If you want to get that, just donate the money to charity. I had a Mickey Mouse watch when I was a kid. His little hands pointed to the numbers. Is it like that? What are you going to say? His little hands touched me. And I was like, damn, dude, take the watch off.
Speaker: Also, the alarm will hear you if and and know if you've been talking about the Pokémon leaks. Oh yeah, the one of the funniest things is it tracks certain certain certain kind of movements of yours, like while you sleep. So it's sort of like a sleep health thing, but it specifically doesn't work if there's more than one but bed i well as there's no fine sleeps with another person I mean, it's just kids and massive nerds. Big two.
Speaker: Um, but I believe in doo doo man gives $2 says kind words to released open source vibe therapy. I am less than three. It but It really shocked me that I believe in Doo Doo Man, that name, the first game they dropped was Kind Words. ah Which, yeah, i'm i'm I'm excited for Kind Words too. and words what What Kind Words is. What is Kind Words? It's, according to you, it would be a non -game, but it was a game where you wrote little messages anonymous messages to other people and they opened them and the messages were really nice. And I believe it came out during the pandemic. And so it was these like little messages you would open and it would just be like really like these neat little
Speaker: affirmations written by another human being in a digital have like a really strong profanity. filler I think it was just everyone who bought it it. At least when it first came out, we're like very much like. The the pandemic is sad and this hasn't broken the the quarantine yet of like getting into rabble rousers. I would be immediately be saying some terrible things. Well, that's why I never broke to you.
Speaker: Yeah, that's why I didn't even hear of it. Yeah, you rabble too much rousing. I know. Too busy rabble rousing. Kind words, lo -fi, chill, beats to write to, to give it its full title, according to Steam. Yeah. So how are they, like, gonna expand on that in Kind Words 2? I think it almost seems like more like an MMO -ish? I don't know. it just It just came out a few days ago. I haven't messed around with it at all.
Speaker: It looks very nice. am i a week ago Well, okay then. Ryan Betts member for eight months and tip jar. Thank you very much. And then They didn't have to do this, but they also gave us a super chat for $2 and said, played 10 bells, loved it, thanks for recommending. I'm glad you did like the round, but you enjoy this part as part of spooky season, I'm planning to play a little digest of other anomaly hunt games now that I've learned that it's apparently an increasingly popular genre. Ooh. I love them. You're looking for a co -host, hit me up, because I'd love that. Oh, you co -host everything these days. Give it a rest. ah
Speaker: Roasted i was on the end of Every day last week, you know, that's how it is including Sunday. Yeah ah End of the month is 10th anniversary of Sunset Overdrive. I'm just saying ooh Anyone wants to play some sunset overdrive HBD sunset overdrive HPT so first anniversary of a little a YouTube channel called second wind that oh oh my god Porche more chief Oh Who would have thought we've roughly shared an anniversary month with Sunset Overdrive, a game I took the piss out of many years ago and would like to stop thinking about, but Marty keeps fucking bringing it up. What if we sign a contract and we say this is the last stream, either of us will ever talk about it. And then I break the contract because I keep talking about it. Wow. Would we also have to say not allowed to talk about persona or time or two? No, that's a good one.
Speaker: We need to. You guys can just choose to not talk about it. we bring it You know what? You could theoretically choose not to eat cakes, but it's harder than it sounds. Think about it. Think about it. Anyway, that was the last super chat. So yay, we got through it. now i couldn't And my fucking eating period has just started. So finally I can get some fucking lunch. the Delicious. Eating menstruation.
Speaker: Yeah. Oh, what this was like before we started talking, wasn't it? Yes, I'm experimenting with intermittent fasting, Chad. It's good for you. if Maybe lose a bit of weight. I've been getting a bit round around the tummy and by increasing middle age.
Speaker: ah You said you did it as well, Jay. Yes, I did intermittent fast and have done for years and years and years. Well, I guess it works for you. it did cuts the tiny and like The tiniest bit of exercise. It's it's crazy what it'll do for your body. I walked the dog twice a day. All that to do. ah Pretty much, yeah.
Speaker: right the dot yeah does like rollland joe zone It does mean I don't get any breakfast except for a black coffee. So now I'm fucking starving. So, one is used yes, thanks for watching the Windbreakers podcast. I was Yahtzee, that was Jay, and that was Marti. Boosh. Three names, rattle them off. Beautiful. ah If you like me, and why wouldn't you, then you could watch Fully Ramblimatic this week as well. It's on the subject of metaphor, Rifantazio. Not Silent Hill 2, because Atlas actually gets their review codes in i on time.
Speaker: Yeah, we had plenty. Actually, they got actually we got better for in ages ago. It was like a month ago. Yeah. That's why I've been able to play enough of it to review it. They needed to so bloody long. ah know ah see I I mean, I hasten to add, I still haven't fucking finished it, but I got like all the party members. and That's like a million hours in. Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, I've also got Yahtzee tries this week with, in which I will be playing a pinball, whatever it was, I think. And I think I'm going to give that a Europa game ago because Marty says it's shit and he's really easily pleased. So now I'm curious. That is a perfect game to where it takes the formula of journey, which I think was simple and it adds complex complexity to it. And the complexity makes it worse. It's very pretty.
Speaker: Uh, so there's a, that's that, um, no semi -ram this week, but we had one last week on the subject of dad games. Check it out if you haven't already. And check out last week's fully ramblymatic as well while you're at it. It was on the subject of the plucky Squire, which we brought up earlier. Check everything out. Yeah. um Why not? And on that note, what else have we got to plug for this week? Uh,
Speaker: I've got a design delve coming out this week on the subject of Silent Hill two and my experiences with it. Um, and you can listen to me complain about not liking survival horror games. Apparently we've gone to that conclusion. Um, but I've got a lot of criticism and and a lot of praise. So look forward to that. Um, also got our resi seven stream this week and more obscure on Sunday and You'll be joining Darren and I tomorrow for the rewind. Yes. Oh my God. If you want to hear me get incredibly nerdy about ah rings of power and complain about law. I'll see you there. I've watched six of the eight episodes. I watched six episodes this weekend. So I just have the last two. I'm going to finish tonight.
Speaker: um But yeah, speaking of that stream wise, later today, 6 p .m. normal time, the Hengens crew will be back tomorrow morning, 9 a .m. Central, before the rewind at noon. Jesse and Jesse, Jesse Schwab and Jesse Galina, gonna be playing a little OG resi too. Why? Because they can, because it's kind of spooky. All the Jesse's. Crunchy spooky. Yeah, and then rewind at noon. Jack has jury duty, so he will not be on the show, but Jay will be joining Darren and I to chat rings of power.
Speaker: I'm sure Darren will have some more Joker thoughts, all that good stuff. Yeah, normal streams throughout the week. I've gotten like three jury summons. And every time I just ah go online and say, I'm not a citizen, piss off. yeah I've never been summoned, which is weird. Apparently it goes by driving license records. Yeah. So if you've got a driving license, they might send it to you even if you're not a citizen and are therefore ineligible. Oh, interesting. Do you need an American driver's license to drive in America?
Speaker: um Well, I did, but then I didn't have any driver's license from previous countries. If you're visiting, you can drive. Yeah, if you're visiting, you can drive. If you have a driver's license. Yeah. Because I've got an English one, so I'm hoping I can drive. Yeah, usually be fine. And then, yeah, like Jimmy said, more Resi 7 at noon on Thursday, more Metroid Prime at 7 p .m. on Thursday. And then I think you, Jess, and Tina might be doing Night in the Woods on Friday? Yes. Yeah, it's a normal dev heads time.
Speaker: Yeah. I think I just said yes to being on a stream. Apologies. Apologies. Yes. Yes. I don't think I actually looked at the date. Yeah. that let him i've got by by agree You become a stream fiend. Yeah. Stream fiend. I'll get enough. ah just yeah We'll have the updated schedule in the discord there. Eric keeps up to date. So, um, yeah, just he tune for all that. He's the ceaseless discharge of streaming. Oh my God. Oh no.
Speaker: one last super chat came in in the last minute from our old pal fungus finder gave us two dollars and says i'm getting ed ed and eddie vibes from y 'all today chuck and eddie which one do you use? i don't know i just do them i forgot no i've never watched ed ed and eddie i think i'd be the the dumb the long the dumb one the dumb one the long dumb one yeah i think you're the sunburned one yachts and i'm the the the twat in the back Yeah. All right. Fine. Whatever. I don't care. Well, that'll be Mustang. Thanks for watching. Bye. See you all on Wednesday. Everyone. Bye.
