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Star Wars: Roguelike One
17 Plays5 months ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about why we don't have a video podcast, question why it took so long for Binding of Isaac to have multiplayer, and talk about Star Wars like...a lot in this week's episode!
Intro:
- Roboquest OST - Radio
Outro:
- Roboquest OST - Connect
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Transcript
Introduction and Casual Banter
00:00:00
Speaker
are
00:00:27
Speaker
are How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host is always Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going good and cozy. How about you? Also good and cozy. Um, are you also wearing two pairs of pants?
00:00:44
Speaker
I shouldn't answer that. it's It's wrong to lie. He's like, zero is not two, so no. Yes. Oh, that's ah that's a much better off-ramp. That would have been a good save. No, I'm just wearing sweatpants and boxers and socks and slippers.
00:01:03
Speaker
Hot. And a shirt. There you go. I realized at a point. He's full on nip sale. He's describing all of the clothes except for his his torso. That's what I realized. I was like, if I would have said I'm wearing sweatpants, then he wouldn't be like, oh, he's only wearing sweatpants. Right. yeah But as soon as you start to enumerate everything on the list, you expect it to be all encompassing.
00:01:25
Speaker
I got my pasties. the There you go. Anyway. Again, ah for our our only fans, as we can get the premium video version of the podcast.
The Move to Video Podcasts
00:01:39
Speaker
God, I'd. I'd have to start wearing makeup. I don't like looking myself too close in the mirror because then I spent like five minutes trying to like unfuck some part of my face. It's usually just like a poor or like something. Yeah.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah, maybe someday. Maybe if there's ever ah enough call for it, we can have a ah video format. We've talked about it before, but it does complicate things a little bit. And it would also be.
00:02:09
Speaker
boring. It could be. like The only thing it's going to add is like when we're gesturing with our hands, you'd be able to see that. You're like, oh, he's being really emphatic. and I think this is jumping out of the hypothetical and back into real business talk for a second. There is some benefit to having a video version of your podcast because for a lot of people that are like visually stimulated,
00:02:34
Speaker
Just seeing movement helps them engage with the podcast more, right? Like, so for in my case, I can take it or leave it unless it's something that I really want to watch people's mouths mouths move move. But um it does also doesn't hurt at all for me to be listening to a podcast in video form. I'll just do something else, right? Like, I just need to pay attention to it. But for other people where it does help them, now it's available. Whereas what we provide is ah flat image of our podcast logo. You're like looking at a rock. And there you go. It's a rock. I think also like it kind of ties things together as far as I don't want to use the term attachments, but like when I was growing up listening to B 104 in the Lehigh Valley.
Expectations vs. Reality in Media Personalities
00:03:22
Speaker
Docks me. I dare you. But there was a radio person on there whose voice I heard all of the time.
00:03:29
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, this person seems cool. They have like this segment. And I kind of in my head imagine how they looked from their voice. Right. And then I saw like a billboard at some point. I was like, that's not the fucking guy. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So it felt weird to like start off kind of disconnected. And then later you're like, ah yeah, I think everybody has something like that, too. Right. Like if someone's just a voice, then they can be they can look however you preferred them to look almost right. Like whatever gets spun up in your head. Yeah, that's what they look like. Um, usually some stereotype in some weird direction. You just max out the character sliders and whatever you're perceiving the person has. Um, like the example I think of is Dunkey. Um, YouTube content creator, not actually black. No, that cut is, that cut his audience in half multiple times.
00:04:28
Speaker
I love that he's still doing stuff and that that is still like a, a running meme. Yeah, it is very funny.
Sponsorships and Revenue in Video Content
00:04:37
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it's, it's more effort. Maybe, maybe someday we'll see. Yeah. The other thing is like, we have advertisers a lot, right? We have a lot of sponsorships that we're, we're paid to do. Um,
00:04:53
Speaker
And that should continue. But um those sponsorships, they're just like, if you ever release a video episode, where we you won't see a send. Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:04
Speaker
And we we would like to see some revenue stream from or a continued revenue stream from this. Maybe a lot of money. It's very profitable. one ah A lot of money. If there's anything I've learned about the tech sector, and I think podcasting is like to some degree, we're in the tech sector because of it.
Tech Talk with a Nostalgic Twist
00:05:25
Speaker
um Pretending to make money is the most important thing you can do. Obviously, that has no bearing on us talking about making money, right? Like, but... It's like dress for the job you want, pretend you're making money from something. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Also, tech sector sounds like a very 80s or 90s action hero name. Right. Kind of B-movie. Uh-huh.
00:05:46
Speaker
Yeah, he's got like a sector with like a K or something something like that. Well, sector with a K is for moral combat. That's what it was. Okay. Gotcha. And by the way, the stuff that they're doing with moral combat, it's, I mean, I
Mortal Kombat Characters and Mechanics
00:06:01
Speaker
have no dog in the race. that I don't actually care.
00:06:03
Speaker
um It is always interesting to see what characters they add um because Mortal Kombat basically, I'm sure it's this before, like took over the horror franchises as far as going into their games because Street Fighter has their own characters and they might guest one or two like they put in Was it Terry or was that Tekken? Um, poof. Uh, I ah can't remember which one cause yeah, Terry. I think you went into into street fighter. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they had their cross king of fighters promotion. Yeah. Um,
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah, Tekken has their own stuff as well. They brought over Akuma or Akuma once yeah from Street Fighter. They brought Heihachi back. Nobody saw that coming. And no one has ever died in Tekken. And even like ah Soul Calibur definitely had some guest stuff. um But nothing has really pulled as much as Mortal Kombat because a lot of their stuff is like Hey, a violent. Oh, that fits our thing. Uh huh. So did you see the most recent a character? I have. I think the last one I was aware of was like Homelander. Yes. And um is that he is he the most recent? He's not the most recent. OK. OK. But Homelander's in it. Omni-Man's in it. and Pretty much it's like, hey, can we find any bad people? Let's put them in something. Yeah. um But the most recent is Ghostface Killer.
00:07:36
Speaker
But from Scream, really, really. this is This is very derivative of the game that I follow the most dead by daylight. Where Ghostface is the least played character in this month.
00:07:52
Speaker
I think they're going to get a lot more play, maybe more combat for sure. It's a different genre because he's he's a stealth killer in Dead by Daylight. His whole mechanic, this is the reason he's the least played character by the way, his whole mechanic is not like running at survivors and just like cutting them with his knife or whatever, he like will hide behind something and then just peer around Corner Peak and watch the survivors. And if they observe him, like if they look at him, it actually keeps him from doing this. So you have to literally creep on them. um And if you creep on somebody enough, then you can instantly down them. um But that mechanic being stealthy, I don't think that would have applied to a fighting game.
00:08:38
Speaker
Where is he? I don't know. The timer is just counting down. He just hits you once and then vanishes. who Yeah, um it'll be interesting to see some gameplay of them. Yeah, because they have like they have, a I mean, even the Homelander and Omni Man examples, like both superhero types, but like they also had like RoboCop. They had Terminator.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yep, they had Predator. Yeah, I think a previous title. um It's kind of crazy. It's a little bit silly. Yeah.
00:09:18
Speaker
But hey, I'd rather them end up there versus like Nickelodeon All-Stars or something. Yeah. Oh, wait. They put Jason in Nickelodeon All-Stars. Or multiverses, I'm sorry. The other one. Did they actually? No. In multiverses, yeah. Like Jason. I'm going to Google Jason multiverses. OK. Because that's another DVD character. So while you Google this, Jason's power.
00:09:45
Speaker
is basically you want to get the survivors to fall asleep or they're more vulnerable.
00:09:55
Speaker
I got in the link, it says roster Jason. Oh, well, there you go. Okay, they actually literally do have any cell shaded Jason in this game.
00:10:08
Speaker
They've added a lot of characters. I'll be honest, I haven't really tracked multiverses. um Hey, fair. I don't think anybody's really doing it. I just saw a YouTube thing pop up. They have Raven from Teen Titans. And the Powerpuff Girls, all three of them is one character. That's cool. But yeah, I mean, maybe multiverses is also a little bit out there because there's the ones you might expect like Shaggy, Drake the Dog, Superman, whatever.
00:10:36
Speaker
But then, like, Arya Stark was really early as well. Yeah, it's weird, right? Are you like, art doesn't fit? We really find that kids love Game of Thrones. They're yeah, do they, though? I don't really know. Yeah, I mean, I guess like if you're just like a very young kid getting into it, you're like, oh, it's a character and you don't need to know necessarily what it's from.
00:11:05
Speaker
But I would definitely be more drawn to like ah playing Jake because I had watched Adventure Time. Yeah. So I'd be more likely to play them. But they also have LeBron, though. So we were talking about the characters that are out there and like a real life basketball. Admittedly, this is from Space Jam. It is. Yeah. Yeah. But also.
00:11:28
Speaker
man, I really, really identify personally with LeBron James and I'm a LeBron main. And if any game has LeBron, that's the game that I'm in. That's what I'm saying. Right. Like so plays one game. I mean, they have basketball games, right? I mean, what is that? Um,
00:11:51
Speaker
Like, I know there used to be basketball games on PlayStation, but I haven't followed that yeah at all. Oh, yeah. Oh, are you saying does the does the sport basketball like do basketball games exist in video games? Yes, that's that was my question. Gotcha. Yes, absolutely. They do. NBA Heat. OK. And every other basketball game that's that's hot. Yeah. um Because I think.
00:12:17
Speaker
the The thing I remember about NBA heat is it's it had similar mechanics to um we mentioned it like once before, but NFL blitz where you'd get like a power meter and an NBA in NFL blitz. It's like if you have your power meter, you and you activate it, you cannot be stopped by a single person basically. Right. So it's literally like one guy on either leg and you're still running to make a touchdown. Right. And NBA heat, if I recall correctly, it pretty much just lets you cheat. like You could just like knock other people over and just power through their moves and smash the backboard and other stuff. It's just like, yeah, OK, video games. so I mean, that's something I expect from like the the Mario sports games, like Mario Tennis. Everybody has a an ultimate. Yeah. But I think in that you always technically are able to respond. It's just very hard to write. Yeah.
00:13:18
Speaker
But yeah, fighting games, I mean, I'm I'm a fan when they don't really take themselves seriously.
Fun vs. Seriousness in Multiplayer Games
00:13:23
Speaker
Because I mean, like we probably talked a little bit about Guilty Gear, even when they're operating there in their own universe, it's not serious. It's just for fun. Like video games. Unless you're just trying to go for the this is kind of engaging.
00:13:41
Speaker
This is for adults, emotional response type gameplay or something. Like, just focus on fun, right? Yeah. I don't want my games to be serious unless it's specifically a storage of a thing. If it's multiplayer, lean on the lighter side, record. And I think you'll have a good time. Like, one of the things with Overwatch is It's very cartoony. Yeah, it's pretty easy to pick up and play. You have enough things you can do to like dick around like popping balloons while you're waiting for stuff or just jumping around and basketball. There you go. There's your basketball game. But yeah, just like adding more interactions for.
00:14:23
Speaker
people to mess around with is going to take you so much further than making some very serious characters and serious storyline. Exactly. same Like it's, it's moral combat. I don't get, I don't give a fuck when you say the story is about, I don't believe you. It's dumb. Yes. um Yeah.
00:14:38
Speaker
It is kind of funny because like you mentioned Tekken and Hachi's coming back or whatever. um and they kind of like Even their story, the Tekken story, look it up at any point. It is the most insane composition that has ever been made. um But they occasionally are just like, yep.
00:14:59
Speaker
and then we killed him. You're like, oh my gosh, they killed him. Like he's just dead. And they they never are, right? The character comes back because you don't want your hachi means to just not play the game. So I heard that there was some disruption about that because people were I guess a little upset because when they put Reina Mishima in the game, which, by the way, that's what I call my dog. Sometimes we're out walking because her name's Rain and I'm like, Oh, let me just extend it. That's her full name. Right. God given um honorific. But yeah, Reina had a lot of Hay Hachi's move set and like style. Gotcha. um
00:15:43
Speaker
So it was, I guess, kind of weird to them like, oh, also, hey, Hachi. Right. As they kind of just stare at the audience. They had the alternative, but they kind of no balls it added him back to the game anyways. Yeah, it's just it's so funny how it's almost like the encore thing at shows where like everybody walks off, but like they haven't adjusted the house lights yet. Right. And you're like,
00:16:10
Speaker
Okay, so we're doing the song and dance and then, you know, do the continuation of the thing. People are just standing to the side. Ted, he's not coming back. And they're like, he's back. Yeah. Surprise. I was going to say, though, the props of Mortal Kombat, even though we have talked about it and the violence is a little bit more than I appreciate um with how violent the game, the modern games can get. But They also don't pretend that it means anything. It's just like, oh, this character killed the other character after the fight, like in a more ah brutality or whatever. Yeah, that just happens. They'll be back tomorrow. right like You completed one of the stories. You probably killed 20 people on your way to seeing the credits. Expect to see them in the morning.
00:17:00
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's just
Fighting Game Controls and Player Skills
00:17:01
Speaker
the thing. Like it's so far removed. It's almost like an anime or something. Yeah. Like if the main character is like going around like killing bad guys, I'm not being like he needs to atone for this one. He's atone for that one because it's just. I don't know, it's fantasy action. Right. I don't need to like dig too deep into it, but that's why I like Guilty Gear styling of stuff, because Everything is so over the top but each of the characters have such a Distinct uniqueness about them where it's like this character does not play like this character or any other character. Yeah No, it's The most important thing is make it intro things two things. I said make it fun also make it interesting game design in general, but also for fighting games because
00:17:53
Speaker
You need to for fighting games, not that many people play them. And it's hard to get new people into them. So do what you can. You just have to buy a flight pad and practice for, uh-huh.
00:18:09
Speaker
Now it's just I mean to a lot of games credit, I don't think Mortal Kombat is there yet as far as I'm aware, but Street Fighter and Tekken 8 have had more modern loose controls as an option where it's hey, it's not going to be your high level optimize thing, but if you're new and starting out,
00:18:31
Speaker
Like these are going to be like your basic punches. yeah This will be your thing to like pop somebody up. This will be ah kind of like broken down a little bit. Yeah. Simplified controls. Yeah. And I think that's you cause if you're like really getting into it, you're like, oh, I wish you could make this better. Maybe you do learn the 10 hit combo.
00:18:51
Speaker
But until you get to that point, you can also just hold the special button. oh Yeah. And I mean, it's funny because that was as you would expect. Anything could be a controversy in the fighting game community. But um I know when Street Fighter introduced the simplified controls, there was a bunch of, you know, back and forth about it because like basically.
00:19:17
Speaker
It was much easier to execute special moves and grabs and things like that that otherwise would have required multiple inputs, but the downside was that you did a little bit less damage.
00:19:28
Speaker
when you use the moves like this. So if you were up against a player that was capable of landing all of these inputs um rapidly, and that's an important factor, um they could you know beat you um using the same moves because they were just more efficient when your opponent used them. um But rapidly is a very important factor when you're talking about putting in inputs that like you know 10 inputs 15 inputs to get like out of string or maybe even more you're like whipping the stick around you're making like all kinds of this is the motion I need to make to unlock my phone on your gamepad like
00:20:09
Speaker
um And then somebody else is just like, hey button A Sometimes A button's easier to do and it's faster. Like, I remember playing some fighting games where people were just like, find A thing that works and they just Hadouken infinitely. And like, yeah, that can definitely take out. It's like ah it's a pub stomping thing. You're playing against somebody else who's also inexperienced. Yeah, you can probably steal a win that way.
00:20:36
Speaker
But it's like if we use the Smash Ultimate equivalent, yeah, like, OK, maybe you can do. trying to think what you could simplify as an input. Maybe you even just string two moves together, right? Yeah. I guarantee somebody whose experience could still beat your ass sideways, even though you have a technical, like, macro button advantage on something. Right. Because knowing your spacing and knowing your timings for stuff is infinitely, infinitely more important than, oh, I can just use this one ability easier.
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's the case for top tier fighting games or top tier in other fighting games as well, is once you assume that players have similar technical skill, then things like positioning, then things like mindset or whatever become the other factors you got to watch out for. um Still learning how to create and backdash in Smash Ultimate. We're not quite there yet. Yeah. Yeah. Still trying to figure out the the slingshot. Mm hmm.
00:21:42
Speaker
Because yeah, Smash smash just deals. I mean, obviously, a lot of people would take an umbrage to comparing a platform fighter to traditional fighters, but like the variables you operate on are different, right? You hit somebody in Mortal Kombat or Tekken and advanced advanced game knowledge is telling you,
00:22:03
Speaker
ah This is how long they're going to be vulnerable. Here's what my optimal follow-up is. Here's as far as I can take the string, et cetera, et cetera, like all of this to get the most out of that situation. And in Smash, it's like, were they at 60% or were they at 100%? Like, did they die? Can you immediately finish them off with a different move? They're different things to track.
00:22:26
Speaker
I would say there's a degree of that in Smash where it's like once you find your opening, you're like, Oh, which moves can I get away with for free versus like, Oh, I'm going to try and charge a Smash here. And of course they have time to mash out and do something else. Yeah.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean it also is character dependent because there are plenty of characters in Smash where it's like it doesn't matter what your follow-up move will be. The key is to try to continually land hits on your opponent. Like you're not trying to combo anything necessarily or very few things. It's just almost entirely how do you use your advantage state.
00:23:06
Speaker
How do you get in ahead of your opponent to know what they're going to try to counter with in the rock, paper, scissors system that the game has? Would he try and inside me to ledge? let Let me look at the charts only. It's the only way you can get to ledge. That's the only option. Don't make the rules.
00:23:23
Speaker
um but Yeah. It's cool that they exist. um Fighting games. More people should play them, but not me. Do you know what I did play recently?
00:23:35
Speaker
Which is apparently a thing. um Binding of Isaac, ah the newest one, so I had to buy another DLC, ah has multiplayer. And it's not bad. What is the newest Binding of Isaac? Binding of Isaac, repentance plus. Okay, that does sound does sound like a new one. Because it went Binding of Isaac, after birth, anti-birth, rebirth. A lot of birth going on. Yeah.
00:24:05
Speaker
But I'm sure you remember back in the day, we tried to use the Steam link to be like, oh, we'll try local co-op for stuff. Yeah. And it felt very janky. It was done via Wi-Fi and everything else. oh But we tried this with people. And the only thing that was an issue is the griefing and having to deal with possibly up to three other people. um So is it like, is it three or four Isaacs? Or is this like one Isaac and three poop flies?
00:24:36
Speaker
No, it's for Isaacs or for playable characters. Interesting. So like you do have to kind of ration out like who gets which power up and stuff and you can like pay to revive people if they die.
00:24:51
Speaker
um Yeah, it seems decently fleshed out and seems to be working pretty well. I've only really had a ah brief chance to try it, but I would like to try it more.
Roguelike Progression and Mechanics
00:25:02
Speaker
Is it like the same size rooms, or did they make the rooms a little bit bigger? Because I almost kind of feel like you'd have to make some of those rooms a little bit bigger. Imagine the same game aha played by four people. OK. All right. That's the best way I can probably describe it. I mean, that's that's fair. um I could definitely see a special, I mean, one player late game binding of Isaac starts to get pretty insane depending on what's at play. So kind of following a realm of the mad gods example, and I'm sure it's not the first one. It's just the first one that came to mind. ah But you can set the other player opacity.
00:25:39
Speaker
OK, so you can be like, oh, here's me. And then here's three of my barely visible ghost friends. Right. OK. So that way, if stuff's happening, you're fighting a boss together, you can still kind of focus on your projectiles and the boss's attacks. And you don't have to worry about as much other people's stuff and unless somebody has something explosive like Ipecac, which always leads to her doctor fetus. It always leads to something bad. Yeah.
00:26:10
Speaker
It's kind of funny um because now that you're describing it I almost wonder like Why did it take so long? Because those are the games that are sort of like this in some respect. I'm thinking of Crawl. Yeah. that's um But those are kind of like a cooperative, competitive style game. like um And it does it doesn't play it doesn't have the same note to something like Binding of Isaac, which like it hits on some of those really core happy good brain feels um like type mechanics as far as like being a rogue like and making progression like the meta progression and all that stuff like tons of games have ah that now and I mean there's still plenty of examples of games that had those mechanics around when Isaac came out but Isaac also did really well with right and it's kind of crazy to think that it took this long to have multiplayer
00:27:06
Speaker
if it was just another person with another controller and they didn't change anything else about the game. um but I'm sure there are some technical things that I cannot speak to. I might have just been further down on their list of things that they wanted to address. ah Maybe it was always planned for a later DLC.
00:27:29
Speaker
um But yeah, I remember playing the original Binding of Isaac when it looked like shit and was fairly simple and it was still just like a kind of ah an old Legend of Zelda entirely inspired thing. Yeah. But you were Isaac and you shot tears and you had to explore through the basement and survive and.
00:27:54
Speaker
They just kept building upon it, um adding new items, new bosses, new areas, new plot things. um It's just become so alive, kind of similar to like vampire survivors, yeah where it started out like, this is good, this is good. And then they continue to build upon it. I'm like, it's yeah, it's really value. Oh, yeah. The difference being that like,
00:28:17
Speaker
Binding of Isaac if you buy everything Now probably cost you like 50 bucks. Yeah, whereas if you buy everything in vampire survivors now, it's like 12 or 15 tops. Yeah. No, I don't know how much different me DLC is I assume that's like 60 bucks on its own but yeah Yeah, just cool to see it grow over time yeah I am kind of curious, the what the the thing that I want, we had a binding of Isaac episode, but the thing that I want to see, all roguelite games should have this. It feels good when you're unlocking new items for progression. It feels bad when you dilute your pick pool with things that you don't want.
00:29:00
Speaker
All games, all roguelike games that use systems like this should have some option to disable a percentage of items that are available that you never want to see.
00:29:13
Speaker
Yeah. um Trying to think of one that does that. I played a wizard game. Something about controlling the dead. Not Crypt of the Necrodancer. No, is um it's the one with minions in it. um Bone Razor minions. Exactly. Yeah. You basically play as a necromancer and then you have these summons.
00:29:35
Speaker
um But as you unlock things in the metagame progression, you can say like, hey, I never want to see this item again. Yeah. Or this summon again. Like it sucks. Hate it. It's never been useful to me. And you can remove it from the pool. And you have a certain number of those. I think Vampire Survivors survivors also does as well. Yeah. where You can just be like, not this. But I think you have to banish per Run. I don't think you can outside of the game say not these. Yeah, it's not part of the meta progression part of it But you the meta progression could be giving you more banishments. Um, yes. Yeah I would say like I know some of that definitely falls down to hey, we want to have it be rng. Um, I don't think they really
00:30:22
Speaker
ever dick you over in something like Hades. It's like, oh, all of these things are terrible. Well, it's because Hades has a different solution, which is they tailor the drops based off of probability based off what you have.
00:30:38
Speaker
So like there's the pool of things you could start with and that's never like the full set of everything you get. But, and then like, once you pick a boon from a given God, then you're more likely to get boons from that God. And like, there's a chance that you get something else that's really out there and it doesn't matter. But, um, most of the time they're like trying to make it vaguely useful.
00:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think at least from my experience with Hades too, it feels like more so they want you to kind of have different gods and like intertwine things. Yeah. like Which I think is a good encouragement because you can find a lot of synergies across God relationships, just kind of diversifying your boons. Right. ah But there are definitely times where I've played a roguelike game in general. I'm like, oh, I can maybe go for like this type of build. And then the game's like, did you want something that's you very specific utility? Oh, it's a thing that unlocks any door. I don't need that. It's a map. Thanks. Don't need that. It's not damage. oh I mean, Isaac is honestly an excellent example.
00:31:50
Speaker
Isaac I've had in Hades as well where it's like in my head before I start the run I'll be like oh ah I'm gonna try and just specialize in auto attacks. I'm just gonna be hitting people with the X button, nothing else. I'm like, oh, so I'll start out with ah this trinket, so I'm kind of guaranteed to get a good boon from this one god. And then it's like, oh, hey, which tier, which of these three boons would you like? And the one that I want the most is often like, ah Such a low rarity where it's like we see what you're trying to do motherfucker. Don't try and break it this way. Yeah, I Mean that's fair um There's got to be some limit to how much you can shape the RNG But I feel like there should be RNG shaping and you described one of the other ways Hades does it like you pick your starting weapon That's not RNG at all but maybe you use an item that shapes your boons like
00:32:47
Speaker
um So there are ways where it's like, if if you so if you really, really care about this, maybe it's less optimal actually to take an item that shapes your first boon, because now you're not picking a different item that just gives you some material advantage. advantage yeah But like, it lets you choose the way that you want to play to some degree, while still maintaining the roguelike nature of the game.
00:33:11
Speaker
And that's awesome. That's what I want. right that's That's all I'm asking. What I don't want is I don't want to like be looking at a DLC. And I'm like, it says it says it adds 50 new items. And that scares me because I like getting, I'm trying to think of them Brimstone. There you go. I like Brimstone.
00:33:35
Speaker
And every single DLC that i I buy pushes Brimstone further and further off into the sunset. Yeah. um Anyways.
00:33:49
Speaker
But yeah, I think a degree of shaping is always useful for any type of game like that, where you're going to be having um some rogue like this and some resources. yeah And they also do a good job because like after you complete a room, you usually have two options like, but do you want this or this?
00:34:11
Speaker
We were like, oh, well, this one gives me more mana, but like this is a boom. This is a Daedalus hammer. I don't care what the other thing is. It's a Daedalus hammer. Yeah. So, yeah, like you can definitely take the ways you want to play or manipulate it or buy something along the way in a run.
00:34:29
Speaker
Yeah, having those options really expands it for replayability. Right. So I play it back to back, even just being like, this is the same weapon. This is the same starting, but it's not going to play the same. Exactly. Yeah. Which is what you expect in a roguelike. So congratulations. It's the same game every time.
00:34:50
Speaker
i Just keep playing the same single-player narrative driven game over and over and over what if they did that but they only made like one seed it's just everyone's playing the same one all the time like Hey, are you guys getting like the same stuff on your runs? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It is really funny. So there are There are games that do that sometimes. They'll force a specific run the first time. You're going to see the same items or something. Or you give people the same starting experience with the game. There's a now defunct, it was like the Wizard Battle Royale game. Can't remember what it was. Wizard of Legend? Maybe. I think Wizard of Legend actually still exists, though. There was another one that died. It could be Wizard of Legend. Magica.
00:35:34
Speaker
if That one's still over that one's not battle that one's actually believe it or not spell slinger one where it was like ah yeah OK, Magica is technically a cooperative game. Asterisk, it isn't. Like I said, griefing your friends continually cast crash to desktop on your swisters, though, is the one like it was ah an extract, not an extraction, but a fuck is Fortnite. It's a battle royale. Yeah, royale thing, but like with spells, but you have like go find spells or whatever.
00:36:11
Speaker
Uh, items were in the world. Yeah, but that one, and whenever you load, when you load it into your first match, it didn't tell you it always leads you in against bots. And multiple people in our friend group was just like, I love this game. Like I am a obliterating these people. And then they had the realization at the end that it's like, yeah, your first game is always against bots.
00:36:40
Speaker
And that's a decision, right? Because you do get that little bit of a high, but then you realize that you're never going to do that well again for as long as you play the game. ah Because you were playing against bots and you thought they were players. Yeah, I mean.
00:36:58
Speaker
I would encourage people to play bots before playing people in any type of game. That's fair. But maybe not necessarily force them at the start to get that false sense of superiority. Yeah, or yeah, tell them because like you have to do a bot match first. Here you go.
Training Against Bots in Games
00:37:15
Speaker
When I've been playing like Deadlock, I obviously started out with a bots match. I'm like, this game seems kind of cool and interesting. And then I played against real people, and it is infinitely more hectic, and they're shooting me constantly, and I hate it. Yeah, they're a lot better at that.
00:37:31
Speaker
I think I'm at the age where, like, when I play multiplayer games that I don't spend eight hours on a day, I'm playing as other people who care a lot more about the game than I do. I'm like, I've i've reached the old man's status from like, it moves too quickly for my eyes. I just can't process anything. I mean, that's the way that's the reason to some extent I had a break there, but we played some games recently. Like I play hot.
00:37:58
Speaker
is it never changes which is an old man that's another trait that i appreciate it's a dead game you don't experience new things it has not changed appreciably in a very long time I'm pretty sure like the ah the last ah the last real world sort of crossover character they had was Charlie Chaplin. That that is how long Hotz has not seen updates. So that'd be very funny, by the way, also. Because everybody else in the game, is this is not one of those crossover games like we've been talking about, if it's just like Blizzard specific. ah um And it's just like, Charlie Chaplin has joined the battle.
00:38:43
Speaker
So out of curiosity, across fighters, um battle royales and other things, yeah what's a character that you would like to see in a ah game outside of their own thing? So would you like to see, showing out random examples, like Tomb Raider in multiverses or Freddy from Five Nights at Freddy's?
00:39:08
Speaker
<unk> The Fazbear Freddy Freddy Fazbear from Five Nights at Freddy's. Yeah. ah That's tough because. One, I can't think of anything. My brain doesn't work, but two, it almost is a question of who's a cool character, right? Because that's almost like instantly the answer I could go to. Like we were talking about Venom recently and I'm just like, yeah, let me play Venom in Heroes of the Storm. It doesn't make any sense. It'd be cool. It's extreme, some grapples and stuff. Why not?
00:39:43
Speaker
um But I also, I don't know. I don't know if there's like a particular genre in the ones that you listed that I'm really chasing now. like I played Deadlock some. And I think like my last Deadlock game was you. That's not indicative, was with you. That wasn't indicative of anything. um ah But anyways, I'm a lesbian. No, I'm just kidding.
00:40:05
Speaker
No, whis where is he going with that? Well, no, what I'm saying is like I i don't play MOBAs as much as I used to. Right. Even when I talk about hots, like I'm playing against bots. I've tried extraction shooters and I realize like I ain't got it. That's a young man. Yeah, it's it's fun to try once or twice, but like.
00:40:29
Speaker
The thing that really killed it for me, I remember we were playing, ah it was you, actually you might have been in it, we were playing with special guests in front of the show, Eric, yeah and some other people, and somebody literally wall hacked and like went into terrain, so that they could shoot out, but they couldn't be hit. Yeah, hide in a rock, the classic video game yeah strategy. And it was,
00:40:58
Speaker
a terrible time yeah um because like we tried to you know kill them and like get our people out and it was just pouring money down the sink. like The more we tried, the worse it was. Yeah. um Also, I'm just generally bad at those types of games. I can't see people a mile away and be like, we should sneak around. Uh-huh. Yeah, i don't I don't know. Because it like specifically, the Call of Duty one. All right, I got to answer your question first. I'm getting too far off track. OK. OK.
00:41:31
Speaker
Venom, there you go. for her For any of them, I like Venom. um Also somebody in some sort of Isaac Clarke. Give me Isaac Clarke and let me dismember people in a PG rated game. ah So um I am reminded of, if anybody remembers, there is footage on YouTube, but I think it was one of the debtor lives, they brought in not Master Chief, but like a Spartan. And that was so fucking cool at the time, especially because Red versus Blue was still going on. Mate, rest in peace. um And they actually used footage from that. Right. In one of the seasons, I'm like, oh my God, the future is yeahs so fucking cool. um But that was like a really cool crossover because
00:42:20
Speaker
um I don't know, how the fuck are they gonna fight? Yeah. Master Chief was one of the, when we were still hypothesizing about who the last characters added to Smash Ultimate would be, Master Chief was kind of a meme, kind of a meme, but still like they added some characters that were really out there. Like maybe they could do it, right? Especially when it becomes like, pick the character pick a really iconic character, right? And Master Chief is. yeah he Master Xbox Chief, that's his full name.
00:42:51
Speaker
I would like the god from God of War and something please. Thank you. Yeah. but yeah well Wasn't Kratos in one of the fighters? The PlayStation one? Yes. Yeah.
00:43:02
Speaker
Whatever PlayStation's equivalent for Smash was. It also fucking had Big Daddy. That was Soul Calibur, right? No, no. There was a platform PlayStation fighter and the collection of fighters they had was so weird because it's like, who are these people? The only reason I know about this because I had this huge vacation away from PlayStation was there's actually a line in God of War.
00:43:33
Speaker
where they're talking about like his experiences prior to coming to Midgard. And he makes an Easter egg response to like the PlayStation fighter or something like that. Or the crap. I can't remember the name of the talking head and that kind of hurts me a little bit. Um, anyways, very well acted, great character talking head. Um,
00:44:01
Speaker
He's the one that makes the reference. He's like, I heard that you were involved in this this ah fighting with all these legendary characters. And he's like, I don't talk about that. was right like When he got his ass beat by Parappa.
00:44:18
Speaker
yeah you don't know it's I do you like this. What about you? What's your character that you would like to see in these other fighting? If it isn't Master Chief, if that was your answer, that could be now.
00:44:31
Speaker
but That's definitely an iconic one. Since we're talking about a Hades, it would kind of be cool to see Zagreus in something. yeah ah He just has a lot of flair about him. it's almost It's almost difficult to pick.
00:44:44
Speaker
Azagrius, right? This is the hero problem when he was added to smash where it's like yeah, but like what weapons should he use? What magic should he use? No, no, no. Here's the thing. They put Kirby in. Kirby is known for having a bunch of different abilities. Right. But like they gave him cutter as his up. They gave him the hammer as a side. They tried to pick like The most iconic ones in their mind. That's fair. So i guess the your dash attack is you turn it through a fireball. You could make an argument that the weapons Agri should use is probably the sword that's named aspect of Zagreus. Maybe. I feel like, yeah, you could probably go with like a.
00:45:31
Speaker
a starting weapon and maybe have some other ones for like different aerials. If we're talking about so yeah special, be something like snake or whatever. Well, isn't it? I mean, bilath by life, by life, by life as a bunch of random shit because technically, yeah, it's technically all the same weapon. Yes. But it transforms. um Yeah, which is a great thing to be. I think that'd be cool.
00:45:59
Speaker
Yeah, I know I'm looking at my steam to see if I'm gonna have a quick ah change answer. I like Zagreus. That's a better one than Venom. Much more adaptive. um Oh, I changed my answer because I need to maintain my edgelord cred and Venom is not edgy enough. um Mercer from prototype.
00:46:21
Speaker
There you go. Venom was not going to kill enough people. Now we are going to play the protagonist from prototype who kills everyone.
00:46:32
Speaker
I would like a star killer in a game, please. Thank you. Most powerful Jedi. The guy who plays star killer is like the nerdiest Star Wars guy. There's a There was a ah an interview where he's talking about like when he was um applying basically for the role, when he interviewing, I guess, whatever. Additioning, that's the word. Additioning for the role. He's like, they're like, okay, we need you to like meditate, you know? And he's just like, he's he's like bawling his fists up and he looks like he's constipated and all this stuff. And they're like looking at each other and then they look about back over at him. They're like, what are you doing?
00:47:14
Speaker
And he's like, oh, well, like, Starkiller is Darth Vader's apprentice. And like, Darth Vader would never teach him how to meditate on peace. That's true. And they're like, they're like, look at each other and like, OK, it's like he's he passes the nerd gate.
00:47:33
Speaker
oh Kind of a great character, actually. um Fun game, too, for some reason, at least. and The ah the Imperial so Star Destroyer. Pulling it down to crash it into the city scene is so like burned into my memory because I don't remember anything else from the game. I remember like force throwing a couple of guys. ah That's it. I remember no. And that he held his lightsaber backwards. Yes, he uses reverse grip. OK, if somebody is currently
00:48:10
Speaker
giving me shit, I think actually Star Killer was in a fighting game. That could be true. Because they had Yoda and Darth Vader in two different versions of Soul Calibur IV. I feel like Star Killer had to be in something. Yeah. Wouldn't surprise me. um Pretty, pretty iconic character. And also was like,
00:48:38
Speaker
There was kind of this, like, and bad boy-esque vibe to being like, hey, you saw the movies, right? Like, you saw what a force push looks like. You know what force lightning looks like, right? I like how force push is. You just put your hand out. Force lightning? Weirdly the same thing. It's a lot of kind of ah directing your intent at somebody and hoping it picks the right element. Uh-huh. But it's like,
00:49:05
Speaker
If you saw the movies, if you saw the old movies and you're like this Darth Vader, perfect example,
The Force Unleashed and Starkiller's Power
00:49:11
Speaker
right? Darth Vader is supposed to be a very high practitioner, very high function Sith. And he does very little with the force. He does choke a guy out that's like in a different starship, which is pretty impressive.
00:49:28
Speaker
um But you kind of get the impression that he could only do that because he's like watching him in the screen right at the time.
00:49:37
Speaker
But otherwise, Darth Vader for the most part does the whole old style lightsaber combat in the movies where it's like fencing. It's closer to fencing than like um acrobatics is what they kind of, they like judo throws and things like that. Like ah Taekwondo and everything like that. That factors into the newer version of what Star Wars fighting looks like.
00:50:03
Speaker
But like the power level for the source powers or the Force powers seemed so much lower. And then they just kept creeping on it, and eventually they're just like, Force Unleashed. Before you could throw someone across the room with Force force a Push, Starkiller is going to pull a spaceship into a city from low orbit. Why not?
00:50:28
Speaker
Hey, who's going to be the strongest force sensitive person? This person we're going to write out of Canada. Yes, exactly. Well, you almost could immediately almost couldn't be right. Like I think it's like I like this cannon. It feels wrong to just spoil the ending of the game right now. It's so long. It's been so long. Yeah, it it doesn't matter from a. Gameplay perspective or anything like that, but if I recall correctly,
00:50:59
Speaker
um Star Killer ends up being the inspiration for the Rebels. Their insignia, their logo is taken from his family crest when he canonically chooses to betray Darth Vader and join the light side. It's been so long since I played that. He's a real loser move to do, honestly. The dark side of the Force is so much more interesting than the light side.
00:51:27
Speaker
Uh, unless it's stupid. That's the other thing. they yeah They were in control of the entire galaxy, basically, as this neutral council that the government literally respected on their home world and stuff. And they're like, there's a prophecy that someone is going to restore balance to the force.
00:51:50
Speaker
And they're like, we think it's this kid and we're going to invest resources in this kid and all of that stuff. And like, none of them realized that they were like at 99% galaxy control. yeah And the prophecy is to restore balance and you're at 99% power. Are they just going to have a lot more Sith? Should we kill the kid? We should kill the kid.
00:52:18
Speaker
Or at least not like free him from captivity and steal him from his mom. Whatever. Anyways, that's Star Wars and Star Wars too much. But like, that's one of the things that like I've never liked about it because it's hey, what are the rules and lore of this? And they're like, well, I guess it depends on which adaptation you're looking at and which story. And it's just like, all right, if you don't know, you don't just say you don't know.
00:52:46
Speaker
um But from like a space fantasy thing, lightsabers are cool. Never going to deny that. They are. Yeah. I've always thought about like having one as any young boy with a stick has done and will continue to do. I hope. Yeah. I mean, and why why wouldn't they? The here's my hot take. Right. Now that this is the Star Wars episode. um Old Star Wars.
00:53:14
Speaker
is not, okay, we' goingnna I'm to toning down the hot take in real time. aye It was good for introducing creative world building and design and stuff like that. It didn't do anything special with the story, really, as far as tropes, um but it was so out there, literally, from the opening crawl, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, because they could have just said in a galaxy far, far away. The long time ago,
00:53:41
Speaker
actually doesn't mean anything. And it's never meant anything in Star Wars. But because they tell you that, they're like, wait a minute, why is it a long time? like it starts ask It starts you asking questions really early, right? That's the important thing.
00:53:56
Speaker
um can we Can we still tap into Force, or did that die out? Yeah, exactly. Is that the reason we can't? Well, I guess it's a long time. Maybe it's really far away, so maybe the Force doesn't reach here. I don't know. But like as far as the stories that are told in the original Star Wars, like in the original movies, and then some of the stories and developments that have been told since in Star Wars, I have almost no connection to the original Star Wars. It's the most boring part.
00:54:26
Speaker
of Star Wars. From a storytelling perspective, it's just a stupid farm boy who does a hero's journey. Yeah. That's it. He just is his sister. There you go. Cool. Yeah. In the United States. That's really prevalent. Exactly. We respect this. Fight for it. now um ah But yeah, like some of the games, like the old Republic and what Bioware used to create back when they were a company, like all of that stuff stuck with me, like the stories of Revan and Darth Nihilus and all of this old
Star Wars Lore: Lightsabers and Origins
00:55:04
Speaker
pre Republic stuff is just like so much more gray and interesting than like the bad guy has a red lightsaber. Can you guess the color of the good guy lightsaber?
00:55:20
Speaker
And then there's actually two correct answers because they're not even willing to let you be wrong. It's blue or green. Yeah. Who gets yellow? ah The Sith actually. Thank you for asking. and ah Eventually yellow kind of becomes a little bit more neutral, but like.
00:55:36
Speaker
the cool stuff that gets filled in for like lightsaber crystals coming from these like even just so Sith use synthetic crystals it's the reason that their blades are like volatile and they show up as red it's because like they just literally manufacture them whereas Jedi have to go into these caves and they have to like basically bond with one or find one that matches them attunes with them in the force And they're like, it's all the hippie stuff the Jedi do where the Sith are like. I'm going to pick one that kills people. All right. this knife sharp? Sweet. And like none of that's in the original movies. It's just the cool stuff that got filled in since then. Yeah, because like it was an interesting space universe, obviously very huge for the time um because like a lot of special effects, a lot of
00:56:29
Speaker
I guess they're still doing like a lot of puppetry back then. Oh yeah. and It was like, it's cool because a lot of effort was put into that and having like scale models and things. Um, but the story is shit. It's dog shit. yeah It's really bad. Now, if you enjoy it, I'm not saying you're a shitty person. I'm just saying the original story, not good, but like I did enjoy reading some of the side novels.
00:56:54
Speaker
yeah Like in the same way they had stuff for Halo, Combat Evolved, like they had a book about something. They had like little stories of for Star Wars as well and they were interesting because yeah it explores the universe a little bit more.
00:57:11
Speaker
Like, I don't want to take everything away from George Lucas because he provided basically the seeds for this. But the coolest stuff that he introduced was like, this is what the Millennium Falcon looks like. This is the Death Star. This is like some of these concepts and things um that were like fertile ground for other people to rush in that were good at telling stories.
00:57:32
Speaker
like um And so he provided the setting basically, right if this was a tabletop game he wrote a book space yeah well Space plus a lot of a lot of this other stuff. Here's the stuff that's out here out there And then other people were like great now that it's space and you've filled in like oh this planet has two sons That's kind of cool. Like what if we do this and this and this and this and this and the stories they told was much they were much better um ah Would you say that Clone Wars is better than any of the movies?
00:58:04
Speaker
I mean, so i I to my disservice I have not seen Clone Wars. I've seen clips of Clone Wars specifically the one where the ah commando um Just absolutely goes ham on droids. I think they're like under a loop. It's a gif He like shoots a couple of the choose one on the ground and shoots this other one. I don't know if I've seen that on um The one thing I remember things for Because I think they introduced General Grievous in Episode 2? Yeah, it would have been it would have been pretty good. It wasn't the first one. wasn't I can't even remember the order of them because there's Phantom Menace, the actual closest.
00:58:45
Speaker
um
00:58:47
Speaker
General Graves in the second one. I think that's correct. Yeah, there was ah an arena fight. I don't remember anything else about the movie. Yeah, I'm sure I think he was really cool because he was ninety nine percent mech. Yeah, you could tell he still had some life in him, some biological matter, but he had fucking four arms and like four lightsabers. Yeah. And then he would steal other people's lightsabers after he killed them. But he also fought in this very Spider like way he was very crawl on also attack with like four limbs at once and it was really cool um But they always had him like kind of coughing But in clone wars they go back and like they show you that like Mace Windu kind of like crushed his chest as he was like flying away on a ship.
The Presence of Darth Vader in Games
00:59:40
Speaker
Gotcha like Oh, I just can never breathe normally ahha And as an asthmatic
00:59:46
Speaker
I always related to. Yeah, that's so much of that is, I guess, what the the takeaways are. Star Wars has really cool characters. And the stories that get told like clone, I'm sure that Grievous's role in Clone Wars was more interesting than in the movies, because in the movies, he basically looks cool. He has he has a fight loses and it's done. um And it kind of always again to give him like a little bit of credit. The reason Darth Vader is such a cool character and I was about to spoil is something that I actually don't want to spoil um in the video games in general is because people revere him from his role in the movies.
01:00:34
Speaker
So there is a foundation there. And same for Grievous, right? They're like, OK. Well, he kind of just died in a scene, and we really want to flesh this out a little bit more. What makes Grievous cool? How do we explain that? Yeah. Yeah. Man, Darth Vader always just, they did a good job of kind of establishing, hey, he literally has like an aura about him. He can choke people whenever the fuck he wants to. Like, he's just insanely strong, and he never like,
01:01:04
Speaker
gets angry. He doesn't like raise his voice. Yeah. He's very calm and collected and just dripping with power. Yeah. So yeah, he never needs to do more stuff than he would want to. But that's the thing, like you always know he's holding back. There is um
01:01:29
Speaker
I'm going to provide a spoiler for a recent Star Wars game, but not the one that just came out. I can't remember the name of that. It's like Survivor or something like that. But a spoiler for the one before that in the series, I think. I can't remember exactly. Is it Jedi Outcast? It's not Jedi Knight. Is that the one with a... the redhead protagonist. Cal. Cal. Calcastis. Yeah. Yeah. Spoiler for that game. So if you care about playing that game, go do that now. Send in your stuff to the All right, spoiler alert said, there is a scene at the end of that game where Darth Vader shows up and he is not an opponent that you can fight and everybody else recognizes this. It's like the best you can possibly do is run away strategically in such a way that he can't immediately kill you as like
01:02:24
Speaker
everything is being enc crushed and destroyed around you is he's like pulling up terrain with the force and it's just the coolest I am so outclassed by the villain type scene because he does not even chase you um And it's, a he walks at you, right? It's literally that trope of like, he could catch you if he wanted, but he's walking at you because you you see hes you're not worth the exertion. Yeah. And it's such a cool freaking scene.
01:02:59
Speaker
ah And he hads he had like a couple lines, just like ah a few lines. It's just, I think you can, the protagonist tells him, he's like, I'm not afraid of you. and you qui Quivering, you know, pre pubescent boy voice or whatever. Not really that bad, but like Darth Vader's like, then you will die braver than most.
01:03:22
Speaker
And it's just, it's, it's the, those are such a good character. ah So good. Like I don't remember anything. I couldn't remember Cal's name, but I remember that exchange, right? Um, yeah, I think depending when you do certain stuff, um, you can do a lot with a little and then let the gaps kind of be filled in. Yeah.
01:03:47
Speaker
yeah and Yeah, I think they do usually a really good job of that with Darth Vader because he's just the OG. Yeah, it is. It is. It is really cool. But I'm also just a fan of the super powered bad guy that you really can't fight um because that makes stories way more interesting than, oh, the hero is so strong, you can do whatever he wants. He's always succeeding. um But yeah.
01:04:14
Speaker
I don't know. We're going to name this because the last last 10 minutes was very Star Wars focused. What we want is your your Star Wars fan fiction. um Star Wars roguelike one. You don't have to pay. That's good. All right. Do not have to pay me for that. Star Wars roguelike one. All right. Add that to the notes. If you guys like so who's your favorite Star Wars character? There's a lot of cool ones. Lando Calvissian.
01:04:44
Speaker
There you go. I took most of you guys's answers. Now you got to come up with a different one. Uh, send in your favorite Star Wars character soapstone podcast at gmail dot.com. Or you could post that to Facebook, facebook dot.com slash soapstone podcast. Uh, HK 47 is mine.
01:05:03
Speaker
Jen, go on change. Bye.