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Ep.160: Where Were The State of Play Indies?
140 Plays1 year ago
CBDannyB joins the crew to discuss the Unity controversy, as well as the PlayStation State of Play and Nintendo Direct. Plus: Kyle reviews Eternights!
The Six One Indiecast publishes every Monday at 8AM EST on all major podcast feeds and YouTube.com/SixOneIndie. Be a part of the discussion live and catch Clocked Out: The Indiecast Post-Show exclusively on Patreon.com/SixOneIndie.
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Transcript
Introduction and Support Request
00:00:19
Speaker
What's up peeps and welcome to episodes 160 of indie cast, a weekly video game podcast, amplifying the indie scene and smaller games outside of the triple A space new episodes drop each and every Monday morning on all major podcast feeds and youtube.com slash six, one indie supporters on patreon.com slash six, one indie can tune in live as we record and gain access to clocked out the indie cast post show.
00:00:42
Speaker
But if money is tight, no worries. You can still support us with a simple click wherever you're listening. So go ahead and leave this podcast review. Follow at six one indie on your social media poison of choice. Subscribe and hit the bell on youtube.com slash six one indie and tell your friends all about us on tonight.
Episode Preview: Unity and Indie Reactions
00:00:59
Speaker
Sure. We're going to talk about the unity game engine fallout, which is nuts.
00:01:03
Speaker
some state of play and an indie Nintendo direct of indie reactions and a couple of what you've been playing stuff.
Guest Introductions: Austin and CG Danny B
00:01:13
Speaker
I played and reviewed Eternites over in trophy room. So I'm going to talk about it here, but I can't do that alone tonight. I'm joined by Austin on the six, one side. How are you doing? Awesome.
00:01:23
Speaker
I'm great. If you were to quiz me on what episode this was, no idea. Like you said, one 60, whatever, no idea. It's wild. It's absolutely wild. And joining us as a guest this week, a CG Danny B. Hello, Danny. Hi, it's great to be here. Yeah. I'm happy to have you. I was in that spot. I was like, at some point I should hit them up and be like, Hey, if you need someone, and then someone in chats like, yo, when are they going to bring you on dog? You're like the guy I'm like, wow.
00:01:48
Speaker
Don't put that on my shoulders. Like if, you know, if they wanted to, and then it's just like, Hey, I'm gonna slide in the DMS. You want on? I'm like, yeah, I'm okay. I'll be there. Absolutely.
Danny B's Indie Journey
00:01:58
Speaker
And they're not wrong. You are like the guy. I try. Listen, sometimes there's so many, right? And you look at someone's like, you don't know this one. I thought you were a guy or you see one and you're like, why do I know this? Where do I know this from? I have no idea. I can't link it back.
00:02:16
Speaker
And then you get the logo like, oh, that's what it was. And it's
Unity's Pricing Backlash
00:02:20
Speaker
fine. If people don't aren't familiar with your work, Danny, and where you're from, what do you do? But so my name is Danny CG, Danny B, formerly known as couch gnomes. And it's a whole story. We won't talk about that now. But I am a variety streamer over on Twitch. I make content on YouTube all under the moniker CG, Danny B in the last couple of years has been heavily focused on indie titles. I fucking love them. I guess we're on the show, right? I guess we're on the show.
00:02:43
Speaker
Um, you fucking a Ken Denny. Perfect. Uh, absolutely fall in love with Indies. I love the magic behind them. And one day someone just bugged me with like, dude, there's just nothing to play. I'm like, bitch, let me show you that you're wrong. And that's just where I stuck. And people are like, can you show me a game about this? I'm like, I got you. Let me find some. I can't think on top of my head, but I'll find some. Um, that's just been my platform on Tik TOK, Instagram, Twitter.
00:03:07
Speaker
X when you call it. And no, it's still Twitter. I still say. Yeah, I do. Yeah. The URL is still Twitter dot com. So it is until it's until I go to Twitter dot com. It doesn't take me to the website. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even though I promise to call Twitter.
00:03:21
Speaker
And we of course learned of Danny when he live reacted to our indie showcase in March. And Mike and I think we were watching at the Paxis hotel, like the live reacts, whatever. And we were all like, yeah, we found these Indies that nobody ever heard of. And Danny's over here. Every other chair, like, Oh, I know that game. I've been hyped on this forever. It's about time to talk about this game. Someone mentioned it. Yeah. So I wasn't going to do it.
00:03:49
Speaker
No, go check out Danny's live racks. They're awesome.
00:03:53
Speaker
as well as all his other stuff. You do great work. And I'm happy to have you here and talking about Indies. Yeah. This show, the showcase and everything are, it's not possible without the support of our Patrons. So shout out to the PD fans, Colby, Cordes, Jacob, McCourt, Jill, growth, Nicholas Johnson, Nicole Humphrey plate, Jason and the compound. And shout out to our showcase producers for our last one in August. So a few weeks ago, Cole, AKA the good sir, Jacob McCourt and Brett Griffin, quick little bit of housekeeping. The showcase returned on August 30th.
00:04:21
Speaker
Go to six, one of you.com slash showcase. The show is there. Dev interviews are there. Written pieces are there. There's a shirt with PD on it. Go buy it. All the things. Is that the one I bought? So I showed it to you recently. Okay. Yes. Yep. That's the one. It's a great shirt now. I'm not, but
Impact of Unity's Policy on Developers
00:04:40
Speaker
sorry. I own it. Yeah.
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah. It's great. Take our words for it. I was listening to a cart somewhere. I need to save the car. I'll get to it. I'll get to it back and stuff. You can wait for issues that I'll tell you later packs West content as well. Mike was at packs West. He'll be back next week to talk about it. But if you're curious about
00:05:03
Speaker
how he did it. Video game trivia hosted by our good friend, Jacob McCourt. That video is actually on giant bombs, YouTube channel. So go check it out. Watch Mike team up with, I want to say his name is Dave. I, if I get that wrong, I apologize. I've been hearing about
00:05:20
Speaker
No, it is not, but he is one of the devs behind the game. The big con was Mike's teammate. And they went up against some giant bomb folks and some other amazing humans. So go check that out over on giant bombs, YouTube. And also there's a cross play conversations, packs of West episode featuring Mike. And again, friends of the show, Luke Lewis, Jacob McCourt, Joseph Hooper, a bunch of really rad people. So go check that one out.
00:05:45
Speaker
Um, and just a little thing, just for you, uh, it'll be after we record next week, but, um, or maybe it won't. We'll see how it goes next Thursday. Then 21st, Austin, don't laugh at me. I have one eye the 21st, uh, Xbox is holding a digital TGS show, uh, showcasing Asian game creators. So there might be some indie news there. Yeah. I want to say we are six minutes into like this recording and we just got through high school.
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah. We have a lot going on. We got a lot going on. A lot of tech. We got to keep it up. Yeah. So video viewers, I have an eye patch on. Don't worry. My eyes fine. I'm okay. I just, just a random look like, Oh, what the hell happened to Kyle? I'm not doing a solid snake cosplay. I'm not doing any of that. I really, I was really hoping you just never touched on it. It was like, nope, this is such
Future of Unity's Decision and Developer Migration
00:06:37
Speaker
a good idea. I should have. Oh well.
00:06:43
Speaker
but the biggest piece of news when it comes to like indie games and it's pretty major is this unity game engine, Tom foolery bullshit. It's fucking awful. There is a games industry.biz article talking about it, but I do want to bring up the actual unity thread that they tweeted out.
00:07:08
Speaker
yesterday, because this was after many updates, many clarifications, whatever. And this is what it reads on their end of how they worded it essentially. We want to acknowledge the confusion and frustration we heard after we announced our new runtime fee policy. We'd like to clarify some of your top questions and concerns. Who's impacted by it? The price increase is very targeted. In fact, more than 90% of our customers will not be affected by this change.
00:07:36
Speaker
Customers who will be impacted are generally those who have had a substantial scale and downloads in revenue and have reached both our install and revenue thresholds. This means a low or no fee for creators who have not found scale success yet and a modest one-time fee for those who have. The fee is on new installs only. Once you meet the two install and revenue thresholds, you only pay the runtime fee on new installs up to January 1st, 2024. It's not perpetual. You only pay once for an install, not an ongoing perpetual license royalty.
00:08:04
Speaker
like a revenue share
Indie Game Showcases: Nintendo Direct and State of Play
00:08:06
Speaker
model, how they define installs is assuming the install and revenue thresholds are met. We will only count net new installs on any device. So no reinstall charges, no charges on fraudulent installs in case someone pirates the game trials and demos are not charged. Web and streaming are not going to count towards that either. And charity ones are not going to count either.
00:08:31
Speaker
Essentially unity came out and said every install, they're going to have to pay a devs are going to have to pay a certain amount towards them for every single install. And I don't know about you gentlemen. That's fucking nuts. It's bullshit. I'll say nuts. It's tech. And I just learned, I think the, the new CEO of unity is the former EA CEO. So like kind of line up a little bit.
00:09:01
Speaker
It's just like wasn't it like 20 cents or something like that? It's 20 cents. Yeah. And the thing I if you could love something out of this whole thing is I love the indie gating devs be like, listen, you fucked up. And there was do you remember who it was who had that at the bottom of their letter? Slay this fire. Yeah. The team behind that. I remember what their name is. But yeah, they literally said we've never had a public statement before. That's how much you fucked up. Yeah. But now we do. And I'm like, get them.
00:09:31
Speaker
get them. Absolutely. It's, I don't know. I just, I want to get your takes on it. We'll start with awesome. Like why? I mean, I
Nintendo Direct Highlights: Trombone Champ and Dave the Diver
00:09:40
Speaker
know why, but like, why just why? Because they want to make more money. Yeah. That's easy. Um, but yeah, it's definitely, cause they said like, it's very targeted and I'm like, well,
00:09:52
Speaker
You say it's targeted, but you're definitely not accounting for who also gets impacted by said target, and that is directly indie devs, because they're going to be trying their hardest to make these games and making as much revenue as they can, because they genuinely need it to stay afloat, and you're just going to take a huge chunk of that. 20 cents per download is a ton of money. Ton of money. If you do 20 cents per download and you have 100,000 downloads, that's like $20,000.
00:10:19
Speaker
right? I can do that math, but I'm pretty sure that's pretty close. I trust you. Harry's not here to fact check. That's too much money. Even if it was like one penny per download, that seems weird to me, but that's just me. I think it's, I think it's dumb. And I, my follow up question, and I know we want to get to Danny here. Do we think they walk this back? Danny, do you think they walk them back?
00:10:45
Speaker
I'd want to hope so. Also, before we do it, I know y'all can hear me. So I assume it's working. I don't see a waveform. So, so make sure it's not the audio is not fucked up. And yeah, I see it on my end. You're good. Okay. Cool. Sometimes you won't see your own. Yeah. It's weird. No idea. First time using this, it's always a discord thing. So just make it sure. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. As far as walking back dog, I would hope after that's it's all Twitter. Like I feel like every indie dev has made the cyberpunk delayed image of like,
00:11:13
Speaker
Hey, this is fun. Even if they don't use unity, like, man, unity is fucking dumb for this. And I feel like with this post of like the, Hey, let's explain what's going on. Like this was the moment to be like, you know what? We did fuck up my bad. And they did. The whole thing was like, let's explain why you're wrong and why you're still going to give us this money. And that's wild to me. That is like the most.
00:11:35
Speaker
I've not yet had the burden of internet hatred. Don't please don't bring it to me. But like this, this is astronomical. How many people are saying how dumb this is like, uh, called to the land, made a whole little post of like the frog making a pile of shit, being like, this is shitty.
00:11:52
Speaker
And straight up, they're going to deal us the game. If they don't like take it back. Yeah. And it's also called a lamb. So I was like, is this a meme? Are you actually going to, I can see it. I can see him taking it down. Me too. Like Agro crabs was the biggest one when I saw this whole thing. I'm like, that's pretty wild. Nah, I hope they'll walk it back. And then agro crab was like, Hey, we're going to be on game pass and like, not to shoot our own horn. We're
War Groove 2 Announcement
00:12:12
Speaker
kind of a big fucking deal. So like,
00:12:14
Speaker
We're screwed. We're screwed with this. If technically everyone with game pass downloaded it, like they go bankrupt, they'd be crazy. And then these ideas of players being like, Oh, I hate this. I need to let's fuck them over and uninstall, reinstall, uninstall, reinstall. Yeah. Which might sound like a crazy concept, but I don't know if y'all have been on Metacritic every once in a while. People do stupid things just to like throw a game under the bus for the stupidest reasons.
00:12:39
Speaker
Absolutely. You piss off one guy because you put like an LGBTQ character in a game or something like anything. You have no say in it. And.
00:12:48
Speaker
I know they've said in this post, like, Hey, you know, what fraudulent installs, you know, we'll check that. Um, one of my biggest ones looking at is they talk about like the charity ones. I don't know the backend of like codes and stuff of, you know, if you sell it through humble, does it actually track that it's a charity one? You go redeeming on steam anyway. And if you install it, how do you, how do they know? Maybe they know more than I do, but it just sounds like just political BS to be like, no, let's shut it down. We're not going to, you know, just, just deal with it. Go with it. And I think this whole thing is so ridiculous.
00:13:15
Speaker
Yeah. Even if there is like a system in place, who's to say that that system is going to work. And so like, if you're, if you're that dev and you're like, well, we cut, we crunch the numbers and we should owe this much. And where they're actually taking X amount. And it's like, just avoid all that. Like that's not something you want to get into like that. Yeah. It seemed very, very
State of Play Highlights: Baby Steps and Ghostrunner 2
00:13:32
Speaker
shitty to me. Yeah. Yeah. And not to mention when people are like, I've seen devs ask, like,
00:13:39
Speaker
what is your proprietary like formula to figure out like what the installed number is going to be. And they're like, Oh, just trust us. No bullshit. You gotta, you gotta tell people that you like the whole trust me bro thing is not going to work in this situation. Cause it's wild. It's like,
00:13:58
Speaker
It's so dumb. I remember like Baldur's Gate mindset here. I'm just imagining like unity is going for the pick pocket. Like, Oh, sorry. We tried to take your money, but like, listen, I'm still a good guy. Trust me. Let me, let me, let me raise my way out of this nuts. That's so dumb. I still flabbergasted that even like scrolling through Twitter every day. I'm like, is this is all a joke, right? This is, this is a late April fool's joke that will eventually be revealed.
00:14:22
Speaker
I just feel bad for all the devs dealing with this shit. It's essentially the meme of everyone dislike that. Yeah. Like I haven't seen one game dev and feel like, all right, I get it. Yeah.
00:14:33
Speaker
It really feels like them announcing it was strike one and two. Yes. Them being like, I'll explain this with strike three. Like y'all, y'all had an opportunity to walk it all back or at least, you know, say, Hey, we're going to workshop this. You guys are right. We're going to, we're going to go back in the, and have a huge team meeting and see how we're going to go proceed forward with this. But they didn't do that. So even if they do walk it back, like.
00:14:58
Speaker
do people care? Like is the damage already done? Cause I think it is. I move on to their own engines. I know some indie game devs are saying, or move over to a unreal and, and learn that one. Like other engines out there that they can move to. But I'm stupid. If you move from an engine, can you use any of the assets or are those all just gone? That's a great question to know that.
00:15:24
Speaker
Yeah, depending, and then 3D 2Ds, all different things. Like if you make 2D assets in Photoshop and Illustrator and save them separately, I'm sure you can, as far as like how they're animated, coded, stuff like that, that might not transfer quite as well. I'm not too familiar with Godot from Unity to the other, but I know it's everyone's, most people's path is Godot because I guess they're fairly similar, but... So I think it's fair to assume a lot of that won't carry over.
00:15:49
Speaker
Right. That's a fair assumption. We're like, even if the one like this sucks, we have to move, which would be the right decision with your back against the wall. But so regardless, it's a lose, lose, lose for like everyone involved. So it's so stupid. Yeah, it's real dumb. I hope they walk a back. I don't have a whole lot of hope. But any deaths, if you're listening, please put the heat. Keep turning up the heat on. I have to like.
00:16:15
Speaker
This is just so uncalled for. So yeah. Can we give a shout out to whether it's again, small teams. So like CEO slash PR of all indie devs right now, cause they are absolutely killing it with this right now. So like shout out to you. You're handling it very well. Even like the one that I just mentioned, we're at least like you fucked up like.
00:16:32
Speaker
The way you went about it, you did it right. Like you could, you could have just been like, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're heated, blah, blah, blah. And like, you wouldn't, you would have had every right to do that. But like, I still think the way you handled it was with class and like the right way. So well done. And, and on that note also do not spew any hate towards the unity people either. I know their offices just shut down. Cause someone called in a death threat. Oh my God. Yeah. So they shut down the office, whatever. Don't be that person. Yeah.
00:17:01
Speaker
Everything we just said that that is not okay. Yeah, absolutely not. No, no, no, no. And the same thing to go is for like the unity community managers who are like the faces of like giving this information out. They're just doing their jobs. It's the people in the CEO positions are, are the ones that are making these awful decisions. So 90% of that company had no idea 1 million percent guaranteed. Yeah. Which is a bummer.
00:17:25
Speaker
Well, let's get to like some fun ID stuff. We got not only a Nintendo direct, but a state of play that was
00:17:34
Speaker
supposedly indie focused. They said the state of play is indie focused and PSV with PSVR titles.
Unity's Policy Revisited and Developer Concerns
00:17:45
Speaker
No, it was not that at all. But let's start with the Nintendo direct, which happened this morning, seven AM Pacific, 10 Eastern.
00:17:58
Speaker
There was some handful of indies out there. Like we got a new among us map called the fungal, which looked kind of cool. I thought that was really great. I like that a lot. In my opinion. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Trombone champ out today and on switch.
00:18:14
Speaker
That's super cool. And using the joy cons in an interesting way. Yeah. Horizon chase to Dave, the diver diver confirmed for consoles demo out today on switch. It's huge. It's huge, very big. Also switch exclusive, like switch console first.
00:18:31
Speaker
Yeah. And then it said, it's probably going to come everywhere else later, which is awesome. War tales, which also
Spotlight on Indie Games: Sea of Stars and Goodbye Volcano High
00:18:38
Speaker
I think dropped today. Eastward, Octopia DLC and war groove two coming out on October 5th.
00:18:46
Speaker
Eastward is a really good game. If you have not played Eastward, it's a, it's a must play. It's like a wacky anime, but in that style, it's really cool. Haven't finished yet, but I loved it. So yeah, I don't know if a DLC is what gets me back, but I can see like, cause I know I can smell what they're cooking and I know there's going to be a sequel. So maybe when they announced the sequel, then I'll jump on the DLC, get, get refreshed with everything. Cause they said you can play the DLC without playing the main, the main campaign, but you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So.
00:19:13
Speaker
Really? The Eastward's really worth the art is like so visually striking and beautiful. And if you don't, if you never play this game, just look up Eastward cooking jingle. It's so good. It's really, really good. Is it like a like a.
00:19:28
Speaker
Sim kind of game or is it? I always thought it was like a spooky. Aesthetic to it a little bit. You're just kind of walking around solving a mystery and then like it's been a minute, but I think there's like yeah. It's like real time or turn based battles. I can't remember. I think it was sweet. I think a traversal is very like mother earthbound type, but I think I'm just remember swinging the frying pan around. So I don't know if it's turn based, but it's just like.
00:19:52
Speaker
rolling in and running a sub on, but it's been a minute. Once I got my studio deck, I'm like, I think, I think you're right. I think you're right. I think it is like you're, you're in and it's not turn based, but I remember being slow, which that, that might be why I'm remembering it that way anyway, but it's really, really good. Like everything I'm like, I would probably, if I were, if I were to rake it, it'd get a nine. It was that good. Yeah. Very dialogue heavy. So you got to like, you know, if you're ready for some talk, but which I love, but yeah, Danny, what was your, what was your standout?
00:20:17
Speaker
Oh man. So watching, I was watching that little, I think it was the pixel perfect section of like, let's not show logo and then show like 10 things. Uh, that was my like geek out moment. Cause I'm, I love chocolate fish. So I'm like, Oh, sweet. Uh, eastward. I said the same thing. I got to finish this, but DLC is cool. Um, jumped right into war groove too, which I was fucking ecstatic for war groove one. And I'm like,
00:20:41
Speaker
As someone who didn't really grow up with Advance Wars, I don't know why Wargroove hit me so hard, but it did. And like getting a sequel and they're just like, by the way, mouse people. I'm like, yeah, no, that's that's pretty cool. I mean, let's go. I don't blame the first one. I know it's well-loved, though. It's great. It's really fun. I love the writing. The gameplay is dope. Like it is like if you like Advance Wars, it's medieval Advance Wars. And like.
00:21:03
Speaker
at the time when it came out, like advanced orders was just like dead still. Right? Yeah. Like war group was like the option and it was, it
Recent Indie Games and Impressions
00:21:10
Speaker
was really well received. People liked it. And then I got a sequel and people kind of stopped talking about it. If I, if I remember correctly, but it's still really, really good.
00:21:17
Speaker
Yeah. I remember like I had the whole you could build your own campaigns and stuff, which I thought was really cool. But when there's so many things come out, I'm like, yeah, someone make me something cool and I'll play it. Yeah. Everyone's kind of in the same like the dream situation of like, could you make it and I'll play it. But yeah, everyone just wants to play it and I'll make it. So yeah. But then, yeah, we're going to be immediately followed up by David Diver was just bang, bang, bang. I'm like, yeah, this is pretty awesome. This is great. Yeah.
00:21:45
Speaker
Yeah. I got out from bone champ for a second. Sorry. I know you're okay. I mentioned the like PC version having like mods to be like, yeah, we can put in our own music or whatever. And I'm sure we won't have that access on switch. Yeah. I was like, probably buy for steam instead. But if you're not worried about that, trombone champ was a cool surprise. I was really excited for that one. Yeah. Yeah. Also, what about you besides the Eastward DLC? Anything else speak to you?
00:22:08
Speaker
Trombone champ is something I haven't played. So like I was when they announced that is out today, right? Right. Yes. Yeah. Just really, really cool. They had a lot of those. Didn't they like out soon or something? Yeah. The war tales is another one out today. The Dave the Diver demo out today. Yeah. They had a lot of that stuff, which is good. They could. Yeah.
Eternights: Gameplay and Narrative Exploration
00:22:26
Speaker
Timing all that up is really good. But Trombone champ was like a.
00:22:28
Speaker
stand out for me because like that was one that people would not show up about rightfully so and it's really goofy and wonky and it has the four player multiplayer looks really fun and doing that and just laughing the whole time and trying to actually That stood out to me. I want to actually give that a try. I have not downloaded it yet, but I will it will happen. Yeah
00:22:44
Speaker
That was my stand out. And I know it's not an indie, but like the F zero thing that looks really, really cool. I'm sorry. I personally love the 99 games, like actress back then I love them. So like I'm 1000% going to play this. It looks really, really cool. Um, that is the F zero game though, for everyone that loves us. That was an interesting trail to see if we were sitting there watching chat and I saw like the, the, uh, the cars hit and start to drive. I'm like, Oh cool. We're about to have that.
00:23:11
Speaker
that wipe. It also cool 3d. We finally got F zero. It's like 99. And my child was like, this ain't it. I wanted F zero. You gave me this, this, I don't want to battle out. Look, sorry guys. It doesn't look pretty though. I don't want to take too long on this, but like, I don't think a modern episode would work. So I do think this is the closest anyone's ever going to get. And I guarantee you, they're like, please shut up now. We did this thing.
00:23:36
Speaker
But yeah, it's cool. Did this one get that exclusive? I think Mario 99 had like the it's here for like a year type deal. Did this have that type deal or no? I don't know. I don't know when they talked about.
00:23:49
Speaker
I think they definitely mentioned like this is exclusive to switch online subscribers, but I don't know if that was just for the controller or if that was for 99. I don't remember. It's a good call. I know that that sentence was said. Yeah, I imagine the game is why I think Tetris 99 was the same thing. For me, I think the standout is just knowing that I'm going to be able to play Dave the Diver on my PlayStation at some point in the future.
00:24:17
Speaker
to like dredge. Everyone talking about dredge. Everyone's talking about Dave the diver. I got to know what's going on. And I personally would just rather play on my PlayStation than my switch. But I'm just, I'm just happy that it's coming down the line. I have plenty of games I'm playing right now. So no rush whatsoever. But I'm very, very excited about that.
00:24:40
Speaker
Yeah. Trombone champ. You absolutely will see me play it during extra life. I feel like that is a perfect 4 AM while we've been up for 20 hours playing that game. It's going to be a good time. And then we got the state of play just a few hours ago as of recording again.
00:24:58
Speaker
count it as an indie focused. I didn't know. Yes. We are. I heard the three, the third party thing. I didn't know. Yeah. Third party Indies, PSVR kind of thing. Yeah. I didn't know it was supposed to be indie focus. That's hilarious. We got to maybe not like the main focus, but they did specifically shout out Indies being part of it. Where is little devil inside? What the hell happened?
00:25:22
Speaker
It's inside somewhere. It's waiting. It's a little devil. I am legit hopped on the trophy room. And I was like, listen, I am. We are guaranteed to see three things here. Stellar blade, a rise of the Ronin little devil inside. And did we get any of those three? Guaranteed. Oh, okay. It was about like stolen blade is technically still a 2023 game. We're running out of time.
00:25:48
Speaker
those may be TGS next week, maybe, but yeah, the, the main two indies that we got on the state of play where it started off with baby steps, the new Bennett Foddy game, a creator of getting over it. I thought was a really fun way to start the state of play.
00:26:05
Speaker
Totally agree. I thought they opened it really, really good. And I'm not here to gush over PlayStation. That's what that's what Kyle does. Yeah. But usually they do some they have some more choices sometimes. But that was a really, really cool open. And then in these other games, like they're humorous, but they don't really lean into it like this. Yeah. Yeah. The first time they're kind of leaning into it in this fashion because they have. I feel like this is the first one of like dialogue.
00:26:28
Speaker
I know getting over it had a little more like there's the posh British guy like, Oh, you fail. Oh, fair. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But then like, thank you. That's terrible. I'm sure someone in the chapter like, Oh, you British accent was awful. Shut up. Put that on the real. No, no, no, no. Put that on the real. Listen, let's go for it. But yeah, watching this one, we were, we were cackling, bro. And he was like, look at a grappling hook. It's like, what a fucking, I'm going to fucking get it. I'm dying. Like this looks great.
Upcoming Indie Releases
00:26:55
Speaker
I wonder if it works.
00:26:56
Speaker
that swimmingly like because he's like reacting to what you're doing and stuff so I wonder how it works in practice because I I can imagine it's not that well but you know yeah it was a good trailer a good showing so I'm curious I'm definitely intrigued you my interest the the grappling hook part was good but I just loved the whole like when he was falling down like oh shit oh man yeah all right pull pull just the moment to moment just talking to yourself
00:27:20
Speaker
Tied with like the, the debut trailer that we saw at the Devolver. Um, uh, I forgot what they called the volvi return showcase, whatever the name of that one was where it's like, yeah, you are a mama's boy that it lives in your parents' basement playing video games and you get ripped out and have to discover the world on your own legs, jiggle physics. Sorry. I'm not that guy, but this guy was picked up.
00:27:49
Speaker
And then the other big indie from state of play is ghost runner two with an official date of
Closing Notes and Listener Gratitude
00:27:55
Speaker
October 6th. Yeah, absolutely. That's correct. I don't know. I should write it down. There is a demo now. So you can go play the demo right now, which is very cool. I don't know. Did either of you play the first one?
00:28:11
Speaker
Ghost runner is not my thing, but I will say this, everyone who I follow in the industry who has played ghost runner, like the original was like, why is no one talking about this? Like this game fricking rocks. So like two can only get better in my, in my eyes. And like, even with the year that we're having, don't sleep on ghost runner too. I can, I can see that sleep that like sneakily sneaking into people's top tens for the year. I think it has genuine potential.
00:28:34
Speaker
And when they dropped that first trailer where it was like, I was like, what is this? And it was like, I'm on a motorcycle going up a building. I'm like, Oh my God, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Like it was, it looks really, really cool. It just looks like ghost runner again, but better. Yeah. Um, I did play a good bit of the first ghost runner. I played the demo during a next fest, loved it, picked it up on PlayStation when it dropped. I.
00:28:54
Speaker
haven't finished it. I think it's super fun. And it's like, I fucking hate souls games. I hate to die and do it again. Cause you fucking suck, but like ghost runner has me. I'm like, I want to, I want to beat this, but man, I can only get curb stomps so many times in an hour. So let me come back in an hour in a week that turns into two, three years. I'm like, you know, I gotta,
00:29:13
Speaker
I tried going back and finishing it before too. And I'm like, fuck, I suck at this. But even you, it sounds like you're like, there's something about it. There's something about it where it still peaks your interest. Like even this long, like I should probably get back to that. And you can't say that at all. Also like, so sometimes you're just like, I'm done, but this one it's, it's gotcha.
00:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, not to say it's a soul's life, by the way, but also like it's very difficult. It's like that Doom fast paced first person kind of action thing where if you're not used to it, it's it's tough to get used to. Like I I played it. I loved it. The style, the movement, everything was great. I just sucked at it. That's me in every game ever. Yeah, every game. Except there was a time in Rocket League. I was really good. There was a time. Oh, same time.
00:29:56
Speaker
So everyone had a fly. I'm like, I'm done. I'm out. Oh yeah. I never flew in. Absolutely not. I was doing that with the best of them. Yeah. So that was our indie debuts, unveilings today from both showcases. Um, obviously Nintendo had more, but you know, TGS is next week. I'm sure we'll get even more indie stuff. So too many games, not enough time. What a year. What a year we're having. What a year. Fantastic.
00:30:25
Speaker
And before we get into what we've been playing, we're going to kick it to Mike, who's going to tell us about why you should support us. If you've gotten to this point of the six one indie cast, that means you must enjoy what we do to some extent. So with that logic in mind, if you're enjoying this, why not support us over on Patreon dot com slash six one indie? We are a tiny company with huge ambitions to help amplify the indie scene one game at a time.
00:30:48
Speaker
That includes our massive production of the Mini Indie Showcase, a bi-annual indie game showcase for indies by indies. Not only would your dollar support our efforts into spotlighting indie games, but you gain a few perks for the podcast. First and foremost, you don't have to listen to this ad every single damn week. Secondly, you can watch the podcast live as we record it and join the discussion in the chat. And last but not least, you gain access to Clocked Out, the weekly indie cast post show available exclusively for patrons.
00:31:17
Speaker
This is where we get to talk about AAA games and films and get a bit unhinged and talk about like the Scorpion King and Wombats and getting hurt and stuff like that. Anyways, if you're able to and sincerely only if you're able to, it would mean the world to us if you considered supporting us over on Patreon dot com slash six one indie. And we're back. Let's start off with Danny. Why don't you tell us about the good old sea of stars? Matt and I spoke about it last week.
00:31:48
Speaker
Oh man, I'm loving this game. I'm, it's I'm kind of big old web of like yarn on the wall type deal. I'm watching the Indian council the other week. Um, they're talking about kind of like the levels of indie and like the triple eyes, the little eyes. And I don't see a stars has its triple eye title there with sabotage, but man, I just,
00:32:12
Speaker
out of the blue fell in love with the messenger. So right now sabotage is just, they could do no wrong. Hopefully please do no wrong, but like, man, I was waiting for this game for so long. I've, I've loved every second of it. And I'm usually not big on like turn pace RBGs, but like it's in the world of the messenger. I have, I have to love it. I've been such a sucker for the moon orang and I'm like, chat, chat, count count. How many like 28 now I can do better and I keep going.
00:32:42
Speaker
absolutely loving it. The music is great. Uh, avoiding like too many spoilers. There's that those moments where I'm like, hold on. I know this place. I recognize this place. And then the track from the messenger kicks. I'm like, yes, yes. Okay. Absolutely. Love and see the stars. I'm still not much further than I was started talked about last week, but
00:33:06
Speaker
I still think about it every day. Yeah. It's one of those kinds of games. I'm also playing it. I'm going back and forth between a triple A that I won't, that I won't mention and then see if stars and the usually RPGs are kind of hard to do that with like going between a back and forth. See if stars you pick it right back up. Like the combat is so simplistic, but like optimized that I think it just, it just makes sense. You pick it up and you're like, Oh, there's like, I don't, I haven't missed a beat. Like I jumped right back in it.
00:33:33
Speaker
And I tried to play via game pass like on my PC. So like I was like streaming it to my PC like via cloud or whatever. Don't do that. When you're trying to do this, you said like a moon orang it's called or whatever. Yeah, you have like timing stuff like
00:33:49
Speaker
Did Super Mario RPG have that? Were they the first one that had something like that? I could be wrong, anyway. I think so. I called it out today, I was like, wow, Mario RPG stole that from CSR, that's fucking very easy. Yeah, so you have like turn-based timing where you can, they even tell you at the beginning, like if your timing is like off, honestly, don't worry about it. Like you're still gonna do significant damage and stuff, I think that's really cool. So timing is like an added thing. It's really fun, but yeah, you don't really miss a beat as long as you can
00:34:18
Speaker
somewhat hang with like rhythm style stuff, then you'll be totally fine. It's fun. It's great. I love it a lot. Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:26
Speaker
Besides not playing sea stars, I started goodbye volcano high the other night that came as stellar. It is so, so good. The music is incredible. Obviously the art styles is still as gorgeous as when I first saw it, when it was first unveiled at the PS five showcase in 2020, like the first one when they unveiled the con the console.
00:34:54
Speaker
And it's amazing. Yeah. The story you play as Fang, who is like the front person of the, their band. And it's about trying to navigate a coming of age kind of high school story with high school relationships while finding out that there is an asteroid on its way towards earth to ruin everything.
00:35:16
Speaker
Um, and you gotta like choose what's important and all that characters are written extremely well. Uh, I talked about it when I played up the demo at packs East and I'm doubling it down on here. My favorite thing about this is when you have to make a tough choice, it forces you to put in more buttoned inputs.
00:35:35
Speaker
to like confirm that you are OK with making. Yeah. Are you sure you want to go this route? They literally gamify the are you sure? Like, yes. Yeah. So like it's you choose the dialogue options with like your left stick and then it will stop halfway through with confirming and then I'll be like L2 R2 to like really lock it in.
00:35:59
Speaker
Um, and even someone's in some other choices you can go to. And if you stay on it too long, it will interpret your hesitation as like, Ooh, maybe I shouldn't say it. And it goes all scrambling like, uh, and like inner thoughts pop up in the box. It's very clever. It's super well done. Um, and the, the music rhythm sections, when you are playing songs,
00:36:23
Speaker
are super fun too. And they're not too hard, but I found myself like jamming out and really missing, you know, playing the music when the music ends. And I don't think there is an option, but I would have loved an option to just play the songs over and over again, like just the mini games. Did you beat it? No, I'm at the start of episode three. I think there's seven total. Okay. Maybe when you beat it, you have like a replay. Maybe that'd be cool. Can we just briefly, can we talk about the launch?
00:36:53
Speaker
It was a weird launch, right? They just kind of like, here's the game. Like there was no PR. It was, it was really odd. So earlier in the, earlier in the summer, they, they announced a delay to the August. Yeah. And then when it did come out, yeah, I'm kind of with you. Just kind of like, here it is really weird. I just felt weird. Like even cause I, I watch kind of funny often, even they were like, is this game happening? And I was like, I was like, wait, is it
00:37:18
Speaker
So unless you were like really into it and like trying to keep up to date on it. Yeah, it was kind of tough to learn ones coming out, which is a bummer. Was that the same day I see a star since twenty ninth? Yeah. Yes. That's why I missed it. I was like, there's nothing else. It doesn't matter.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yeah, no, it was also a week before Baldur's Gate. Like, you know, yeah, it just felt like a weird launch to me. It also was the banger year we're having. You probably couldn't have been a successful PR stunt anyway. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. No, I got you. I got you.
00:37:50
Speaker
Also, have you been playing other anything other than see the stars and you eyes just see if stars and then another triple-a starfield Okay, I've been playing those two games go back and forth. All right. Yeah, it's okay. You're allowed to No, you can never tell me Danny tell me about umbrella
00:38:11
Speaker
Oh, man. So I've I've not played too much new for a gun, bro. I played the demo again. I think another next best demo a while back, which is just the intro of the game. So I pretty much caught back up to that. You take out the first boss. I love the it's weirdly fluid, fluid, fluid. The fluidity is also very heavy at the same time where you're like,
00:38:33
Speaker
you're kind of like a hefty dude. And if you like get down to like your last bit of health, you get like really chomping. You're kind of like dragging yourself. You have to find, you know, bandages or apples to heal yourself up or get more health. Um, but then you just like plot this umbrella and just like launch yourself forward and kind of glide around almost being like Kirby or like peach in like a Mario game. We just have that like levity to it. Um, I love how
00:38:56
Speaker
crunchy brown and dark the game is visually. Um, and then you get to like a boss or you like blow up an enemy or there's like, uh, I think it's cult 45 is like the main enemy group and they're just all red and fluorescent, but then you pop them and there's blood all over the walls and the floor. And it's a, I love the flow of it so far. I'm excited to get to something new, having like basically replayed the same part from like a year ago. Um,
00:39:19
Speaker
Yeah. Really, really enjoying it. I'm looking forward to what the narrative is going to be because I think so far it's just like, Oh no, the towns and blocked off because they kidnapped the mayor. You save the mayor. Good. Enjoy the train. And like, that's where I'm at. So I'm just going to grow more. Or am I going to fall in love with the gameplay over anything else? Yeah. I have, I have two follow up questions. You said that it feels like fluid yet heavy. Does that feel right for this type of game? I think so. Okay.
00:39:43
Speaker
because that can be an easy miss at least for me with those type of games. Like it has to feel right or I just I can't force myself to play them. Second, is it really hard? You only play that much, so maybe you don't know yet. Yeah, I think it's I'm in the spot with like the muscle memory where I remember struggling before and now I'm like, OK, I remember this guy's going to jump from the thing. And I wouldn't say it is. It's not easy. It's definitely not easy, but I don't think it's
00:40:08
Speaker
Super I'm talking like the less level of difficult. No, no, I don't think like that. Yeah, I've yet to die. Like I haven't died yet going back and playing it. I've come really close, but I think the healing items are close enough. Like in between, you're not going like, I can't find bandages or like the shop is a little overpriced. Like you roll in, I think you start again with like 80 bucks and the first six inflation, dude, $20 for an apple. Oh my goodness.
00:40:33
Speaker
Why is that Apple so fucking expensive? Oh, man. Yeah, I think it's definitely there's definitely challenge to it. You're not going to go in and like, you know, it doesn't have select accessibility options, but it's definitely not like it's going to knock it out, dude. This is fucking kicking my teeth in.
00:40:50
Speaker
Yeah, that that is that is like a doing soft staple. Yeah, it is a great name. They made got a Roboto and demon throttle. So yeah, their games are kind of good at naming everything. They really are. Yeah, I can't wait to play. I've just haven't like used my switch in a while. That's the issue.
00:41:14
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm like, this is my steam deck game. I'm going to show our team back and hopefully stick with it. Yeah. Sorry, switch. You're a machine for now. Let's do is coming around the corner. We all know it. Come on. So I mean, after that direct, we know it's coming.
00:41:30
Speaker
Before I get to a turnites, I want to learn about this game called body boaty. Yes. Body bite land overclocked. Oh, okay. A horrendous title. Terrible to say. I did my review over the weekend. Jesus Christ. Following going soft. And then when you have this body bite land overclocked is an amazing, it's, it's
00:41:53
Speaker
Man, I wanted to love it so much. I wanted to love it so much. And there is so much there that could be good. And I know that the devs emailed us, they gave me this code like a month ahead of time. And that was just me like a terrible time of getting to it. And I'm like, this weekend's the one I got to knock it out.
00:42:12
Speaker
It has that Astro bot charm to it. We're like, I think if you like Astro bots play or anything like that, you're going to enjoy body. I will say it's super vibrant. Yes. Stunning. Like the whole the whole narrative of the game is basically like you're inside of a computer and you're seeing this personifies not the word, but you're seeing this like animated version of like, oh, my chips are upside down and someone ran out of data and you're collecting all these little like data packets to open doors and access new parts of the PC. I really like.
00:42:40
Speaker
I like the narrative. I like the journey. I like the gameplay, but like off the rip, there's like a like a Batman detective mode. We kind of like scan the room and like see what's going on. I think the first time I did it, it glitched. So every obstacle in the room stayed highlighted.
00:42:56
Speaker
So going through the entire level, I had these big blue spinning wheels and I'm like, where's my platform? That one's through the wall. That's not the one I want. Dialogue. There's two little like characters in your shoulder, one and zero. It's like star fire and Raven, like super happy, super like emo type deal. But like if you go near an enemy, they're yelling at you like the ones just like body, watch out. There's a dropper body. Watch out. There's a dropper. Like, please shut up. I saw it. I'm killing it. Please shut up. And it's.
00:43:24
Speaker
There's so much there that I think will be good when it's fixed. But right now, I couldn't suggest someone go grab it. I'm like, wait for sale. Wait for those cash notes. All right. So the core is there. They just need to clean it up a bit. Yeah.
00:43:40
Speaker
comes out tomorrow. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like Bobko over in that shared screens. What is that? He also got a code and reviewed it and I think he enjoyed it. Is there a collectathon element to it or am I? Yeah, I would think so. Yeah, it's it's there's like each level has like the there's three of these heads you got to pick up. There's secret, you know, caches you can open and get extra data. Absolutely. It's very nostalgic bed because I think I said Astrobot meets Ratchet and Clank meets like the Lego games.
00:44:09
Speaker
Very fun pitch in my eyes. There's something there. Yeah, for sure. Someday. Someday.
00:44:19
Speaker
on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. I think I played the horniest game I've ever played. Oh my God. You're talking about Eternites, right? I'm talking about Eternites, baby. Talk me you're off because I am so interested in this game. You are. Okay, cool. Yes. Eternites horny. Okay. Not what I expected. All right. I will let you know exactly why I got this code through chart from devs providers to code to review. This is what I played all weekend.
00:44:49
Speaker
The I'll get it right out. I'll just pull the bandit off. The action part of the gameplay is not the best, like the actual combat. It's, it's a little basic and the Dodge roll, whatever is a little too stiff for me and a little unforgiving. Like the window of opportunity is so tiny that when it came to like the end boss battles or whatever, it was just completely unfair. And I wanted to like throw my controller.
00:45:17
Speaker
Is it too hard or just too stiff? It's just too stiff. Well, it's specifically like the Dodge, the defensive, like get out of the way maneuvering. That's the stiff part. The attacking with your, your magical arm that can turn into a sword, which is how you attack enemies in here. That's pretty fun. And using the, the abilities is nice as well. It's specifically like the Dodge roll that I did not have a good time with, but
00:45:43
Speaker
the dating sim element of it, like the horniness, the horniness, the, the, the reason why I think persona fans should play this game is pretty, pretty terrific. I wish there was more of it. Yeah. The important part's good. I do wish there was more of it. Cause if you're not familiar with like the persona, you know, hanging out with friends or to raise your confident, confident level with them. That's how you choose to spend your days before like,
00:46:13
Speaker
your main mission deadline pops up. There are multiple times where it will just skip ahead like five days and you miss out five days with hanging out with characters like, Oh man, that's a bummer. Also like when you are having to do like that combat focus main mission, there's no like a penalty for losing. Like if you die, it just sends you to the checkpoint and there's no day loss.
00:46:37
Speaker
So like having a countdown for saying like, Oh, you have five days to do this. It's just kind of pointless. Yeah. Like you can just do it. I'm the last day. They're like, there's no sense of urgency. Yeah. I do. And I can, I haven't had hands on, but I don't know. I do like that. They're not punishing you for that, but I totally see what you mean. They're not, they're not fully utilizing the mechanic.
00:46:58
Speaker
No, no, no, no. But, but yeah, let's, let's get to the horniness of it all. The game starts with you and your friend, Johnny creating a dating profile for you. And you're these two kids, I think fresh out of high school. And Johnny is the one, the ladies man, you know, touting like, Oh, I've been getting all these dates, whatever, which in reality, probably are not. And then you do like this dating profile set up and whatever.
00:47:25
Speaker
And it's really fun and it's a good time. And then as soon as your best friend leaves, you can like walk around your apartment or whatever. And I noticed I went over to his computer desk and I saw there was something to interact with and I clicked on it and it was a tissue box. And it says, Oh man, at least I have you tissue box. I signed up for here.
00:47:48
Speaker
So it's that kind of humor throughout. It's very self-aware. The first like love interest is Yuna, who's a pop star, which you find in a bunker because the drug, there's a drug called Eternites, which kind of goes haywire and turns everyone into zombies, which are the enemies that you're attacking. It's very weird. Did some of the enemies have really cool design? I thought enemies are very cool looking. Okay.
00:48:16
Speaker
My, my only issue with that though, is it becomes repetitive. Okay. It's like the same enemy designs every single like dungeon, quote unquote. Sure. But yeah, the, you could hang out with every confidant, you know, by doing that, you unlock new skills using persona terms.
00:48:35
Speaker
do they call it? Okay. They do. They do. Yuna is like heal your base. So like, if you raise your max level with her, you get access to her healing you in battle being able to regenerate, like action points faster in battle, whatever. And then the other ones have like defense base ice power base and other like stats or whatever.
00:49:01
Speaker
But you hang out with them. You can scavenge for like personal items throughout the world, which will raise your level with them. And some pretty awesome, funny, debaucherous moments as well. Like there's a moment where you walk in on Yuna and you get a glimpse of her bra. It's got like teddy bears on it.
00:49:20
Speaker
And later in the early on in the game, you're like falling from like a 30 story building or whatever. And she's yelling at you like, please do something to save us, please. And you get a flashback of the bra.
00:49:35
Speaker
into her bra, which is a giant parachute. And you, and your friends are on top of the parachute bras. You're floating. Got to think quick. There's another instance that I wrote it down. Cause I thought it was really funny. The first boss fight you wake up and you, you think you're dying. So it's you and your best friend having this chat. And you're talking about the porn you stole from his grandpa.
00:50:01
Speaker
Your friend vows to burn it all because you think you're dying. And then you just getting right there is like, stop it. You perverts. And then it cuts to a black screen and the text on it says you realize you aren't as hurt as you thought you were. You get up and brush off your clothes. It's awkward. That's really good. I like that. The writing and that stuff, it might be cringy to some, but I enjoyed every second of it. And the fact that I didn't get to explore every single person's full line.
00:50:31
Speaker
kind of bummed me out. Cause I wanted to see how everyone, how, how deep it went with everybody. And there are some really like heart touching moments between them too. Like where they get, they get vulnerable with you and talk about like their shortcomings or the things that they are on edge about or insecure about. So that part of the game is awesome. And I would play just for that. If it's even, if you're even slightly interested in it,
00:50:54
Speaker
I would say for that, but the replay ability where you have to essentially start over from the beginning. If you want to see everybody is a bit of a bummer, but it's well worth your time. Does it sound like because you made the persona comparison. I know when I played persona, I was just really bad with.
00:51:12
Speaker
a delegating time where I'm like, I want to focus on these two. And then by the end, I'm like, I'm halfway and I don't have time to meet these other three. Yeah. Is it more like the game doesn't allow the pace or it's like, you're going to pick like two or three you like, or is it like if I had spent five days here and three days here, then I could have spent two days with her and seven days with him and it all went up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think if you want to achieve the max level with one of the characters, you're going to have to like go all in. Okay. I'm one of them.
00:51:38
Speaker
I think at the end, what was that? Awesome. So that seems a little off to me. That seems like it needs to be retooled a bit, but a little bit at the end. I think I was able. I don't want to spoil anything, but I was able to pick between two out of the four ish. So.
00:51:59
Speaker
I do like, yeah, I wish there was more time in between each, like the random time jumps. I wish just weren't there and there was just time to just hang out. I'm sorry. New game plus or sorry. No, like honestly, the ending is a bit of a bummer too. It does the thing where it's
00:52:21
Speaker
And like it, it's just wall of text like, Oh, here's where this character is now. Like, you know, like those freeze frame things, like on a second, like so and so is that's how this game ends. And then after the credits goes new game or load game. And that's pretty much it. This seems like the perfect game that would benefit from a new game. Plus pick up from like this part or whatever with everything, you know, with the current levels and combat and then just kind of being even higher. Yeah. Yeah. But two questions. Yep.
00:52:49
Speaker
How long is this game? Because with the year we're having, I'm super interested in it, but if it's too long, I just can't. Yeah. I think I beat it in, I want to say 12 ish hours. Oh, that's perfect. Oh my God. It's not bad. That's not bad. Really, really good. That's really good. It was essentially the weekend. Okay. That's perfect. I was hoping it was around 10 to 15 hours. So I might, I might jump into this second.
00:53:14
Speaker
They're fucking in this game. There's implied it cuts the black. Yeah, that counts. There are also some really great cut scenes where it is anime like drawn, like the characters drawn that way. I wish there was way more of that. It pops up randomly. And I wish there was more of that too. Those are expensive.
00:53:40
Speaker
I did also a very small team, so I don't hold it against them. But when they do pop up, it's like, yeah, that's super cool. I enjoy this. So that I do find it really funny, right? Because you said like, I was playing a turn. So I'm like, crazy. It's horny. I was thinking of I was thinking of Ember Knights. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. I never thought that would be funny. I got to know so that I'm like, Oh, no, it's turn nights. Very different game. Yeah, very different.
00:54:05
Speaker
I was like, these little fire dudes are horny? Hold on. If you didn't believe us about how Danny knows his shit, like he knew what Ember Nights was, so let's be over with it.
00:54:14
Speaker
Oh, that's incredible. Oh boy. That, I mean, in Ember nights, they just have the hots for each other. Listen, I'd listen. I'll take it. I need to turn ice, but I need the Ember nights in it. I need a little fire people. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's the title of horny little fire copies. You can max level your, uh, your best friend too in the game. Uh, and it's like ultimate bro.
00:54:42
Speaker
It's kind of like the bromance kind of. Yeah, I mean to that.
00:54:47
Speaker
So that's what we've been playing this week. And so let's get into this week and indie for the upcoming week for you guys that did not write them in the doc. So I apologize. I ran out of time. So I'm just going to read them off of here. First game is a game called Calix coming to PC on Monday, the 18th Calix is a chaotic furniture building two to six players co-op game in which only one player can read the instruction manual at a time experience. What should be, what should have been a one person job and lose friendships forever.
00:55:17
Speaker
Sounds chaotic. Sounds like, um, what's that bomb game? Um, where one person has the manual and the other person's trying to diffuse the bomb. Keep talking. Nobody. Yes. It's kind of that vibe of furniture building like Ikea furniture. So I was going to, I almost just said, don't blow up. That's what it's called. Yeah. Uh, on a Tuesday, the 19th you suck at parking comes to PS4 five switch, Xbox one and series X again.
00:55:44
Speaker
prepare to take part in the world's most extreme parking experience. And you suck at parking. The only game where you're driving skills aren't as important as your parallel parking skills race against the clock to yank your hand, break in over a hundred wild levels of every increasing difficulty. That is a wild statement.
00:56:04
Speaker
I would tell you to piss me off about that one. It's tomorrow's self plug. Uh, I'm posting and someone asked like, can I get some games on game pass? And I talk about you suck at parking, like it's only on Xbox and PC. So this is coming to PlayStation. I got to fucking fix that. Eh, sorry, Danny. Just do the, just do the crude thing where you do a little edit. It's only on just like edit over it. It's only on everything. Exactly. Perfect.
00:56:29
Speaker
a bigger, it's a bigger side, a size of indie, maybe the quadruple indie Liza P comes out on Tuesday, pretty much everywhere minus the switch inspired by the familiar story of Pinocchio. Liza P is an action souls like game in a dark bell, a poke, a poke world, whatever it is. Guy Pinocchio on his unrelenting journey to become human. I played the demo. It's awesome. I can't wait. I'm happy to get good reviews.
00:56:57
Speaker
People are saying it's the closest thing to blood-borne since but born. Yep. Absolutely. I know, Danny, you said you're not a Souls fan, so you're probably out. Oh, the gameplay definitely. I played the demo. Gameplay didn't hit for me, but like that doesn't stop me from enjoying the world. Like I love blood-borne tonally and Liza looks awesome. I love the big toy dudes. Super sick. I just won't play it. I'll probably watch someone play it. Yeah, I get it.
00:57:19
Speaker
Also on PC on Tuesday a bit trip rerunner comes out bit trip returns reimagine as bit trip rerunner and runner maker experience the iconic rhythm platformer now enhanced with fresh mechanics mesmerizing visuals and a pulse setting soundtrack. Additionally, the introduction of a level editor is a treat for budding game designers. So go check that bit trip runners been around forever. So it's for that. It's getting like a level maker in there. That's pretty neat.
00:57:49
Speaker
disclaimer. I work for vicarious who are supporting this game. Party animals comes out on Wednesday, September 20th, PC, Xbox one and series X fight your friends as puppies, kittens, and other fuzzy creatures in party animals. Paw it out with your friends, both online and offline interact with the world under a realistic physics engine.
00:58:13
Speaker
game is awesome. Yes, this game is like so freaking fun and cool and just like the best kind of fun to where there's not a lot to it. You're just getting in there and you're having a good time. Absolutely. Disclaimer just receives my codes for the game. Can't fucking wait. I don't think I don't think it's an embargo thing. I can't play till tomorrow. I think it's one that I'll check. I should know. I'll check.
00:58:37
Speaker
But we loved Gang Beasts. We played it all the time. And this is just Gang Beasts with more polygons and cute animals. Very excited. Very, very, very excited for this one. I think we're just going to lose my voice, cackling, throwing cats and dogs off of giant ships. Yeah. Yep. When the demo came out and.
00:58:56
Speaker
Granted this only had like one map or something in like three modes or something. It took over YouTube for like a week. Yeah. Like people not stop playing this game. Like there's something to this one. There's, there's some kind of magic to it. So give it a look. Great.
00:59:11
Speaker
Also surprising to see released next week on PC on Wednesday, the 20th game called the witch fire. I don't know if you guys are familiar with which fire is a first person shooter game created by the masterminds behind painkiller and bolt storm. So rogue light that caters to players who don't typically enjoy the genre, offering a challenging and gratifying gameplay experience with multiple paths to victory.
00:59:34
Speaker
Set a world ravaged by an ongoing war against witches, the church resorts to forbidden pagan magic to transform willing sinners into immortal witch hunters called prayers. Armed with powerful spells and lethal firearms crafted by the best Vatican sorcerers, your mission is to locate the notorious witch of the Black Sea, obliterate her phantom army, and secure a mysterious artifact that could turn the tide of the conflict. This one's been cooking for a while, right? Yeah. Yeah, this one looks incredible.
01:00:04
Speaker
Game Awards, 2020, 2021, maybe something like that. Yeah. I fell in love. I know that first trail was like from the creators of Ethan Carter. I'm like, Oh, another walking sim. Yeah. I've been very excited for every time I see a trailer for this one. Now it's in the spot of like shit right now, right now. But I definitely will get an early access some point for this one.
01:00:26
Speaker
I keep telling people like if it's coming out this year, they didn't have a better option. All right. If it had to come out this year, there's no right answer, maybe December, but then even then it's like, they're going to buy all the bigger triple A's from holiday stuff. So who knows? Yeah.
01:00:38
Speaker
Also on Wednesday the 20th, Moonstone Island comes to PC. Moonstone Island is a creature-collecting life sim set in an open world with 100-plus islands to explore. Take on the role of a young alchemist starting a new life on a floating island in the sky. Armed with simple tools, alchemical recipes, and the ability to tame nature spirits, you'll build a home and prove yourself as a true alchemist in a land threatened by dark forces.
01:01:03
Speaker
Pokemon alchemy. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much Pokemon Stardew. Yeah. Thursday, the 21st super adventure hand comes to PC and switch hands down the most adventurous and handsome hand in the world. You play as a hand on a gripping hand venture where you single handedly face numerous obstacles and avoid a handful of terrible feet. Haha. This is Glover with the gloves off.
01:01:32
Speaker
Oh, it is uncomfortable. It's man. It's like, I don't, I'm not Adam's family guy, the, the, the, it's the thing. Yeah. It's, it's literally that the game and it's so like, fuck, I'm going to play this, but that's so gross. If you've ever seen the Elden ring footage of the hand spiders and freaked out by that, don't play this game.
01:01:57
Speaker
Also on Thursday, the 21st, or in the last child comes pretty much everywhere. Uh, join Ren, the last child of the creator on a journey to restore others or restore order in a mystical world to collect aspects and ruins, craft spells, and confront powerful bosses. Your transform siblings, the fate of the world rests in your hands. Can you restore harmony to this enchanted realm? Another Metroidvania that looks awesome. So yeah, this one's enemy, but I like the art style a lot. Yep.
01:02:26
Speaker
Absolutely. So yeah, that's been this week in indie and no shortage of games to play. Absolutely not. So find some time, I guess. Good luck. Yeah. And that's been indie cast episode 160. Danny, thanks so much for coming on. This absolutely will not be the last time you'll be back.
01:02:47
Speaker
Yes.
Extended Discussion: Audition Praise and Social Media Outreach
01:02:48
Speaker
Yeah. You nailed your audition. Thank you. No, absolute blast. I loved it since the first mini indie showcase. Like this is great. I like always in the spot of not enough people. The play it needs to talk to about them. So I'm like, yeah, sure. I'll just sit here and talk until someone tells me to shut up. But now this is great. Thank you for having me. This is a blast. Can't wait to come back. Absolutely. Also, where can they follow you? I know we never asked that, but I'm going to ask you that.
01:03:13
Speaker
They can follow me everywhere. Threads, Instagram, Twitter slash X, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch. I think that's it at any B. That's my everything. I try and use the same name for everything. I post any game recommendations. You're looking for certain type of games. Sick and tired of the triple A stuff. Tired of losing in Fortnite because you're bad at it. Me too. He's describing me. Awesome. What about you, buddy?
01:03:41
Speaker
What about me? Where can they find me? So is that the question? Austin Ernie on Twitter and all the other stuff, but there's an underscore in some of them. Cause I didn't take Danny's a, you know, smart business branding, you know, branding. You know me. It's fine. And share those screens. Follow shared screens. Yeah. Yeah. You know where to find me too. Mr. We're, we're nearing 500 subs. I know that seems like a small thing, but we're, we're getting there. That's a, that's a big step.
01:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Go follow shared screens. You know me, Mr. Case up everywhere. And until next week, we love you. Play more Indies and stay safe. Bye. Bye.