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The Puzzles of Blue Prince with IAmZamn
28 Plays17 days ago
Tony is back in the Game Lounge with Twitch Streamer, Coder, and the Oldest Guest the Game Lounge has brought in, IAmZamn! The two talk the THQNordic Showcase, The Nintendo Partner Direct, Indie World Showcase, Blue Prince and how the Indie Gaming scene has taken over to be more prominent in today's day and age! They also cover all the other headlines from the last two weeks in the gaming world, and what games are coming out soon!
Follow Tony: https://www.twitch.tv/tonysgamelounge
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TonysGameLounge
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Follow Zamn: https://www.twitch.tv/iamzamn
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/iamzamn
Binge Breakers: https://www.youtube.com/@bingebreakerstv
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Join the Official Tony's Game Lounge Discord: https://discord.gg/xXyvjaCsXp
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Disclaimer, all views expressed on this podcast represent the host and his guest and not the companies or agencies they are associated with.
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to Tony's Game Lounge, a bi-weekly podcast that covers everything in the world of video games, TCG, tabletop and more. Here's your host, Tony 14. Hello everybody and welcome back to another brand new episode of the Tony's Game Lounge Podcast. I am your host as always, Tony14, and joining us this week, we've got a brand new but you brand new Twitch streamer to the podcast.
00:00:36
Speaker
ah Also a Twitch streamer who has some of the coolest Twitch alerts, twitch Twitch gadgets I have seen in a stream in a long time. I am Zam. Hey, how's it going, Tony? Nice to be here. Hey, welcome to the podcast, Sam. Glad to have you here. And yeah, you have some really cool like Twitch pop-ups, alerts and stuff like that that I've seen
Zam's Streaming Journey and Techniques
00:01:00
Speaker
in a long time. How long did it take you to do all that stuff?
00:01:03
Speaker
Thanks, dude. Actually, it's funny. i When I first started streaming, I really, really got into like learning about OBS and like the tools of streaming, um especially like a tool like StreamerBot, which is like a bot system that you could build stuff off of.
00:01:18
Speaker
And I just started watching what a bunch of people did. And I thought I thought it was another creative outlet for me. I'm a designer by trade. um And so ah so I was just like, I don't know, let's have a little bit of fun. So it funny enough, like it's a lot of stuff took me a lot longer than I expected it to take me. But the hours would blow by really fast. So I didn't really keep track of how long it took me to build stuff. But like I have like my ping pong ball shooter that chat can shoot ping pong balls at me. I've got a bunch of stuff that pops up on screen.
00:01:46
Speaker
I just had a bunch of fun with like the little tools and stuff in um in OBS. um But more recently have been pulling it back out of OBS and building it into code to make it a little bit more robust and easier to do. wow Yeah, learning as you go, though. That's hey, hey, sometimes you got to use like AI tools to learn. But man, yeah, sometimes the the like the coding and stuff like that can really help with so I've learned a lot.
00:02:09
Speaker
but That's cool. And also that makes you smarter than me in that department because I cannot I mean, i like I've learned code in like a little. I say I learned code. I learned a little bit of code in high school where it's like, OK, we're going to like the basics of like C plus.
00:02:28
Speaker
or Yeah. Yeah. Hey, and that's ah that's a lot right there. That's that's good. and use Adobe Dreamweaver to make a web. No. Okay, I was gonna say, back in my day, back in my day, we did, ah we used to code our MySpace pages.
00:02:44
Speaker
so So you learn like, h that's how we learn like little bits of code, like a little bit of HTML and stuff is because like, i want to make I want to make my MySpace page play music.
Gaming Favorites Discussion
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah. kind of stupid stuff. I'm old, okay? So so that's just, we just got to get it over that part. But yeah.
00:03:00
Speaker
So i learned I've learned a bit over the years. And has like I worked in um ah user interface, user experience design. So I worked with at like um tech startups. So um So code, i had to know what I had to know enough so that I could communicate with engineers, right? So we could get across a point.
00:03:18
Speaker
um So I did learn quite a bit there. But after that, just getting into, want to build my own like widgets and stuff for for Stream. like That's when I started picking up code more. That's cool. That's sick. That is awesome.
00:03:30
Speaker
And to kick things off now, we get to do the loading screen, which you get to give us your favorite video game, video game character, and video game soundtrack.
00:03:42
Speaker
the most loaded It's the most loaded question we could ask a gamer and we do it first because I feel like it's the best way to get to know a gamer. It's brutal. it's brutal So good. You know, good questions. um Like favorite game, man. that's That's like telling somebody to pick a favorite song. Oh my gosh. It just depends. Like telling your parent to pick their favorite child. Yeah.
00:04:06
Speaker
so If they have more than one. i'm going to go with like like my mid-range classic. My mid-range classic is um i I'm going to say The Last of Us.
00:04:19
Speaker
I'm going to say The Last of Us is my favorite video game of all time. um and Mostly because Just because the way it made me feel like when I played that game for the first time, it was just incredibly captivating.
00:04:30
Speaker
um You know, nowadays, there's been and more way more incredible games that have come out. um There's one that just came out this year, clear obscure. and So so that's a tough one. But I like I'll rest it there other than like nostalgia bait.
00:04:44
Speaker
Like back in the day, what I grew up with was like I wrote one of the games that really spawned my interest and love into video games was Maniac Mansion on the Super Nintendo or the yeah, I think it was Super Nintendo.
00:04:55
Speaker
So Maniac Mansion was this really ridiculous like um scum style game. So kind of like um Secret of Monkey Island. Actually, if you you could flip it and say Maniac Mansion and Secret Monkey Island were like my two go to's as a kid.
00:05:08
Speaker
like I love those games. But but again, that's nostalgia bait. That'd be like my nostalgia bait favorites. But, you know, Last ah last of Us character, bro Oh, my goodness. What is my favorite character of all time?
00:05:24
Speaker
Oh, this um there's so many. I'm going to be so vanilla. I'm sure I'm going to be so vanilla here. What what am I going to pick? who's Who's my favorite character? I know I'm going to miss something. I'm going to forget something. I'm going to come back in a week and be like, fix it.
00:05:40
Speaker
We got to fix it so ah Let's say I'm just going to go in the same vein. We're going to stick with The Last of Us and we're going to go with but I'm going to go with Ellie, the original Last of Us Ellie. I really dug the narrative structure around Ellie and Joel. I love Joel, of course, but Joel is, you know, your main protagonist.
00:05:58
Speaker
yeah They're like, you know, they push the story along, but it's really, really interesting to watch like the side character, like Ellie build the relationship and stuff like that. So it's kind of a joint relationship between those two.
00:06:09
Speaker
But but yeah, Ellie. ost wise man um favorite ost i would say what have i listened to the most i think ori um and the will is it ori and the will of the wisps it's the first one ah blind ori in the blind forest blind forest yes blind forest i would say i listened to originally Like when I first started getting into OSTs, it was really ori in the Blind Forest and the sounds of that.
00:06:39
Speaker
um Though I probably would say now would be Claire Obscure. i think Claire Obscure probably has one of the best will be one of the best OSDs. Now, forgive me for I've sinned ah ah video game lovers out
Tony's Gaming Transition and Age Revelation
00:06:54
Speaker
there. I have not invested into any Final Fantasy games.
00:06:58
Speaker
That will come at some point in time in my life. I will get into the Final Fantasy world because I guarantee there's some in incredible ball games and incredible music from that. So I can, I can vouch for the incredible music. um Specifically. I am an avid final fantasy 14 player myself, yeah which is the MMORPG fantastic soundtrack all around with that one. And they've even gotten like outside artists to contribute.
00:07:24
Speaker
Like they had Sam from the architects as like the lead singer for the end Walker theme. And with the dodge, real expansion, they actually had a Chrissy Costanza ah do one of the raid songs. Oh, cool. Yeah, that's awesome.
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah, I really got to get into it. So it's on the radar. It's been out there. um But I just haven't I haven't dove into it because I wanted to make sure i get like a when I it's funny because I got back into video games in 2020. It's not that I wasn't. I was always an avid gamer. I grew up with video games. I played video games my entire life, but I had like breaks. You know, sometimes you just have breaks in your life where you're away from video games at different stages.
00:08:01
Speaker
And ah I got into um PC gaming in about 2020 when you know the pandemic hit. Yeah. And then I started. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing better. I built my first PC ever. I was a Mac guy up until I got my very first.
00:08:16
Speaker
I had a PC when I was like 16, 17. And then I got Mac. I had Mac all the way up through um Well, I'm in my 40s now, so up to about 40. So when I was 40 years old, I got my first like I built my first PC and became a PC gamer. So I'm stepping i stepped back into the the um PC gaming a stream of consciousness, I guess, is a way to put it. So getting to experience everything outside of because I was a PlayStation guy, too. So I'd only play but PlayStation for the most part.
00:08:45
Speaker
um Not that I didn't have Xboxes and stuff, you know, earlier days, Xbox 360 and all that. I did. But um at the the later years, I had basically PlayStations. And so getting to experience all these new games, all these styles of games.
00:08:58
Speaker
Of course, Final Fantasy was on the PlayStation, but I just kind of pushed it aside for other basic like games. um And so so I'm still learning. I'm i'm going back to that. i'm I'm jumping back to the Final Fantasy world at some point in time.
00:09:11
Speaker
Nice. Well, I'm excited for what you do. Also, I... what for as all I did not realize you were in your 40s. You look like some i mean i mean you look like you're in your like 30s. Yeah.
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah. No, no. i I get that a lot. I've been that's been that way. I used to get carded for movies. I'm like, bro. i'm I'm like 35, man. Like, why are you carding me a movie?
00:09:33
Speaker
um But yeah, no, I'm in my I'm 45. Born in 1979. Yeah. Wow. I think that makes also that makes is a stand. That means you have made a game of history today. za You are the oldest guest that we have had on this podcast.
Controversial Gaming Opinions
00:09:49
Speaker
yeah i believe happy ze my boy I believe you beat out my boy johns like John Flatters who is our voice of our ah segment our segment ah between but between the segments yeah that's awesome yeah ah so you you I believe you beat him out ah I don't know how much you beat him out by off the top of my head but ah you've you've made history today so congratulations awesome old high five that ah Last thing before we get into our headline of the week is hot takes.
00:10:22
Speaker
What is your hottest video game take, Zam? Dude, okay. I'm going to get flamed probably for this. At first I was like, I don't really know. like, what what kind am i i'm i'm like am I just like kind of mid on takes?
00:10:39
Speaker
But then I think there's two things that I like my hot takes. I think a lot of people could agree with. I have like two of them, but what am I going to pick? am i gonna I can either pick the one that's the most controversial or I can pick the one that I know people will be like, yeah, i kind of agree with that.
00:10:52
Speaker
I think I'm going to go the controversial one. Okay. is Hot take here is going to be, I think battle Royale video games are the most milquetoast gaming genre that exists. I hate them.
00:11:03
Speaker
I am not into battle Royales. I just, they're just not my bread and butter, dude. I just don't get Oh my God. I i can't, i I don't like them. I just, I don't, I understand the hype when they first came out.
00:11:16
Speaker
Now it's, to it's just let them, let the fad die. Dude, let the bad guy like I grew up with like COD and stuff like that, like ah like, you know, the early Call of Duties and stuff. So, i you know, I don't mind playing PvP games.
00:11:30
Speaker
I don't really mind. But when it's like repetitive, the same round, the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. And it's just, it's just spicy and just kind of sweaty.
00:11:43
Speaker
And, and I'm just, I just don't get it. I i just, it's extremely boring to me. So that's it's a harsh take. Yeah, it's a harsh take. Yeah. And some people are going to agree with it. A lot of people are to there's, but there's good ones. And I totally understand that.
00:11:58
Speaker
It's just not my bread and butter. The good ones were the Minecraft Hunger Games. Yeah, exactly. That's awesome. ah yeah I'll tell you mine because i whenever I do guests, i I like seeing what their reaction is.
00:12:11
Speaker
um My hot take is I think Mario 64 is a bad game casually. Dude. Okay, you just you just sparked a thing on me that you're right, dude. I think, okay, so you are 100% right.
00:12:27
Speaker
Like, look, the nostalgia par portion of that, we just have to give credit to that. We love the character. We love Mario. But man, i look, I'm going to... the most recent Mario 64 if it wasn't for Mario 64 we probably wouldn't be where we are with modern 3d platforming I will say that but like the game itself now it's not great in a casual sense I think speed runners do an absolutely incredible job with the game but that's they're playing at such a higher level of that that they know the ins and outs of how Mario moves and to make Mario move in the way to get to their thing that makes it interesting again
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's the beauty of speedrunning. I don't watch a lot of speedrunning, but when I do, it's you it's really interesting to watch. just like It's more of the structure. and It's a sport.
00:13:14
Speaker
It's really a sport when you watch them do this. and it's not necessarily like It's not like skiing is the most interesting thing to watch, but when you watch it as a sport that that like from the best of the best, it makes it interesting. Yeah.
00:13:26
Speaker
Same thing with the Mario. um Look, I will take it a little further. I'm not a fan of the Mario franchise. Oh, that's I know that's brutalizing. oh But like, like i grew up on Mario. I love Mario. I will play Mario.
00:13:38
Speaker
But like the most recent Mario's that have come out, I'm just kind of like, yeah. Like it's just like jump. budge I mean, I get it. Maybe I'm just old. Let's just go with that. Let's just say I'm an old man and I need to, I'm just, I'm out of the loop. An old man that likes his 2D Marios.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah. Like I love the classic 2Ds. Yeah, exactly. um But like the newer ones, I'm just like throwing a hat around and I'm like, what's going on? Don't get me wrong. There's a little, there's little nuggets of, of fun.
00:14:10
Speaker
In all games, um I can always find something generally in most video games that I'm like, this is a nugget of it. It's exciting, like ah like a little nuanced piece that's enjoyable.
00:14:22
Speaker
I'm sure even like Fortnite and those games have like little nuggets of fun that I would find in them. But, um you know, being battle royales or whatever. But um but like like at at its core, at its whole, in its whole, I'm just like, oh, ah this is just boring to me.
00:14:35
Speaker
um So I'm sorry, Nintendo fans
THQ Nordic Showcase Highlights
00:14:38
Speaker
um that love Mario. I'm so sorry, but that's my hard take again. that's it's It's a hot take, but it's also your take, and people are free to agree or disagree how they see.
00:14:48
Speaker
All right. Diving into our headline of the week, we had a couple showcases ah in these past two weeks, and ah one of them was the THQ Nordic Digital Showcase, and they announced a couple interesting things, ah some old, some new, some being brought back to life.
00:15:05
Speaker
ah Starting it off, we're getting another brand new SpongeBob SquarePants game from purple amp. These are the same devs that got us the battle for bikini bottom remake. And also ah last year's SpongeBob game.
00:15:20
Speaker
um The show. Gosh. ah It was the the cosmic shake. There it is. Yeah, I played it. I should know it. um We are getting SpongeBob SquarePants Titans of the Tide.
00:15:32
Speaker
And how else did they kick off this trailer? I think this might be one of the best trailers they've done for a SpongeBob game. They had David Hasselhoff back. ah For those who didn't grow up around the year 2004, David Hasselhoff had a cameo in the original SpongeBob SquarePants movie.
00:15:49
Speaker
um and they brought him back for this and they had him sing a sea shanty throughout the trailer and I thought that was absolutely fantastic ah in this game you'll be playing as Spongebob and Patrick um trying to stop both the Flying Dutchman and King and Neptune as the two of them are having beef with Bikini Bottom for different reasons So ah you're on a platformer quest to stop both of them.
00:16:15
Speaker
um They showed off what the pre-order bonus is. You get a costume as for naked Patrick from the SpongeBob SquarePants movie where Patrick flies in with a flag between his butt cheeks. Also get um ah ah the SpongeBob, but his the back end of his pants are flapped open. So you see his butt.
00:16:35
Speaker
ah Those are the bonus items. uh little costumes you can get as you pre-order the game which is absolutely charming and funny that's awesome uh and again this is purple lamp have been doing a good job continuing where iron galaxy oh god um where the original battle for bikini bottom and spongebob movie game devs
00:16:59
Speaker
succeeded they've been doing a good job uh continuing that legacy all these years later uh which is really great uh we then got a new trailer for a game called recreation which is which looks like it's from the developers of wreck fest it's a new wreck fest style game but instead of it being like oh yeah like a demolition derby races it's like high speed races but with like getting wrecked and like that old burnout crash mode yeah feeling which look which looks interesting. We didn't get any release date details.
00:17:33
Speaker
It was just, ah here's whats here's a ah thing that's going to come down the line. I'm like, that's cool. That's cool. um We got a new trailer for Tides of Tomorrow. This is from the Route 96 developers.
00:17:44
Speaker
um We did see this at Summer Games Fest. This is a multiplayer story where A single-player multiplayer story where it's a single-player game, but the choices that other players have made in the game, ah you can see the choices they've made, the past they've gone gone down, and you can choose to either go down that way, go down other ways, and see how they've affected your world and your playthrough and whatnot.
00:18:13
Speaker
And that is set to come out ah February 24th, 2026. twenty twenty six I'm so I'm actually excited for this game. I actually really, really enjoyed Route 96. I thought that was such an incredible game. Like I just it's a very simple game. It's not like there's a lot to it, but it was really, really like it was interesting story based adventure, you know, so um very, very cool.
00:18:39
Speaker
ties to tomorrow. I'm really excited to see what happens with it. I don't know if it's going to go anywhere. But I really hope they tried something new. I really hope that they do. They're like, we're trying to do something unique to maybe just give the rest of the developer community an idea of a direction to go down the road for games like that are multiplayer stories that ah Like, yeah it's a single person story, but it it has this massive effect through multiplayer levels. Because I still don't feel like we've gotten that yet, you know?
00:19:07
Speaker
That idea of a single player narrative, but impacted by others. other players in the in this galaxy in this world or wherever it may be the closest things we've gotten to it i can think of two one is no man's sky in a sense because you like fly to a planet and you find ah ah but a person that has inhabited this place and done a lot of things there to develop it like you have that in a sense and then you have the death stranding games where ah where both of the people take the same routes, they start to get more developed and you get to see the structures that they've put to help other people. But that's the most I can think of. Yeah, I was going to say the Death Stranding one feels as basic as you possibly can get. It's like, oh, well, if somebody has walked here, the ground has been treaded. It's like, okay.
00:19:55
Speaker
And the same thing with Elden Ring or something like that where you can see other people's deaths on the screen. Yeah. You know, so those are very basic. As for um the other one was, wait, what was the other one? it was No Man's Sky.
00:20:10
Speaker
No Man's Sky. That one I definitely need to di dive deeper into because I'm super curious about it. It does feel like I wonder the the most difficult aspect is how can you have other players from other games impact the narrative of the game where it affects how you go through the world um outside of just like, oh, here's a place to craft. This is this is and this this like this person's interaction with the game has no impact to the actual storyline.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah, there's like that. That's I feel like maybe No Man's Sky is probably in that because it's a hard cookie to, you know, crumble. um to to develop that but i wonder if that's the case like it is cool that you can go to a planet actually no because like in no man's sky if you're going to a planet it's a totally unique yeah there's but there's also so many different planets and it gets massive with how many planets that there are yeah fine like there's a chance you'll find one but like those chances are like probably very low like depending on where you even are in the galaxy I love that. I'm actually huge i mean i'm a huge fan of the idea of No Man's Sky. I've played little bits of it. I've watched a bit of it. but
00:21:15
Speaker
ah you know not and Not to get off too too off subject, but i'm looking forward to there I'm looking forward to their future games as well. But that's tomorrow. Sorry, you finish first. you finished No, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. The the one game that No Man's Sky developers are now working on is like a big planet, like one singular planet that's like and like yeah everyone gets to explore. it like Light no fire.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's the one. Yeah. I'm excited to see what that's going to be. i i'm ah I'm sold. I am in immediately. Dude, I get to play as a bunny dude or like a beaver dude. No, I'm cool. I'm get i'm in I'm in immediately. Just hook me up.
00:21:52
Speaker
do me let me survival craft in this world. i'm that i love the idea. ah But ties it tomorrow, February 24th, 2026. We then got a couple just ah trailers back to back. No actual release dates for anything yet. Wreckfest 2 is coming to Steam Early Access.
00:22:09
Speaker
um Sacred 2 is getting a remaster. um We got a new trailer for The Eternal Life of Golden, which is a platformer Metroidvania that has a really unique art style that we saw at Summer Game Fest.
00:22:20
Speaker
This probably one of the most unique-looking games that's set to, I believe, come out this year or next year. ah Titan Quest 2 is coming to early access. um The Guild Europa 1410 got a trailer. It looks i like the strategy...
00:22:36
Speaker
that massive strategy like legacy type games i always say oh yeah that's a wiggles game uh in reference to my friend sir wiggles a great who plays a lot of those games uh his comment was why would you show this to me i'm gonna disappear for like six months playing this exactly ah exactly just order order some doordash and disappear Yeah. um We got another trailer for the Gothic remake, which is coming early 2026. And then they announced that Gothic classic Gothic to complete classic and Gothic three classic are going to be coming to Xbox and PlayStation systems ah next year. Sometime.
00:23:14
Speaker
um Probably through Games Pass and PlayStation Plus ah realistically, but you could probably purchase them as well. ah We also got a brand new trailer for Re-Animal. This is the new game from the Little Nightmare developers.
00:23:28
Speaker
um This is set to come out next year as we do have Little Nightmares 3 coming out later this year. uh yeah the we also got to see the collector's edition which comes with an exclusive box a figure of the character buckets an art book a statuette of pig which is just a pig uh stickers a keychain and a map poster as well uh and i get sometime in the first quarter of 2026 is when it's set to release um We then got a trailer for this game called Fatekeeper, which is being developed by a 10 person team, a small 10 person team. And we've seen what small dev teams have been capable of.
00:24:07
Speaker
ah We're getting first person combat. Very Skyrim like is what I would say, ah but a lot more gruesome, a lot of disbodied in this. And it's coming to early access this winter on steam.
00:24:18
Speaker
And then they ended the show revealing that Darksiders four is in production. Yeah, that's all darksiders fans rejoice. Yeah, absolutely. I've never played a darksiders game myself. ah Legit the most the thing i am most excited for in this is Spongebob Squarepants Titans of the Tide. ah But that that's just me um Yeah, I think I think Spongebob just just because it's such a you know, it's a it's such a heartfelt like it's a heartfelt game and we haven't had like good Spongebob games since Battle for Bikini Bottom. yeah exactly so that's a that's a big one like for me it's tides of tomorrow i'm just like super excited to see what what comes out from that and probably nothing it's probably going to be a nothing burger but man i'm just hoping for the best yeah absolutely well with that it's now time to dive into everything else that happened in these past two weeks uh let's dive into the week week in review
00:25:15
Speaker
Recapping the major stories of video games and the world of tabletop, looking over recent releases and reports from the Game Lounge crew, it's the week in review. and starting off some of the games that came out these last two weeks you had tales of the shire a lord of the rings game ninja guided rage bound demon slayer the hinokami chronicles 2 radius origins tiny bookshop and mafia the old country uh all of which are doing well aside from tales of the shire which people are are having there's some gameplay issues with that one yeah i think it was frames or just like a lack of stuff i couldn't
00:25:53
Speaker
fully remember which i believe it's frames on the switch version but then again uh every time we saw the game in any trailer they were showing the switch version and i'm like why the frames don't look good why are you like why yeah yeah i've heard i've heard all i've really heard is a lot of disappointment about that game so i haven't heard much more of why but i've definitely heard a lot of people are just kind of sad and and ah uninspired or uninterested because yeah um I mean, it's a Lord of the Rings game. You would immediately get a massive audience out of something like that.
00:26:22
Speaker
so You would, but also now the track record for Lord of the Rings games recently has is continuing that downward trend. Yeah, exactly. Like, I think the the the the the Legends of Moira or the one where your dwarf, the dwarf. Yeah, the dwarves. It was like the best of like the last three that came out.
00:26:42
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Which isn't saying much because like you have this one and you have Gollum. So like the bar is pretty low Yeah, it is. Yes. Yeah. I forgot about Gollum. I tried to wipe that from the memory.
00:26:52
Speaker
yeah ah In the video game news department, starting off with a big surprise thing that happened on Nintendo Switch Online, Mario Paint has been released on Nintendo Switch Online SNES.
00:27:04
Speaker
ah If you have the Switch 2, you can use mouse controls for the game. If you have a regular switch, though, you can plug they literally said you can plug in a USB mouse mouse into your switch and play with the mouse.
00:27:18
Speaker
I mean, that's cool. That's awesome that they like I don't know if that was like an update to the switch to allow for mouses to work or if it's always worked with mouses in the past. But that's awesome. That's an awesome little update. Mario paint. I mean, that's a classic.
00:27:32
Speaker
It's an absolute classic. So jumping back in there and having some fun with it, I think it's cool. Yeah. And they also put the music for the game is also on the Nintendo switch music app as, or the Nintendo music app as well. You can listen to some Mario paint tunes.
00:27:45
Speaker
Nice. ah On the topic of Nintendo. We also have the Nintendo direct to partner showcase. Okay. ah where we got to see, again, there's ah with partner showcases, there's no first party titles shown at these events. They specifically focus on like the Capcoms, the Bandai Namcos and all of the other partners that put up big games. That's what the direct is for.
00:28:07
Speaker
So we weren't expecting to see anything people were expecting. I mean, a lot of people are expecting anything Hollow Knight, Silksong at this point, because we're getting close to when the game is supposed to be out. Yeah.
00:28:20
Speaker
And people are getting scared because we haven't seen anything aside from reports that's like, oh yeah, there's going be a demo at Gamescom. And there's going to be a playable demo at a museum in Australia.
00:28:32
Speaker
I have a feeling that like this is just a like this is just a feeling I could my i i'm and I'm probably wrong on this, but I have a feeling like they're going to with that game. They want to take the um the route of almost like shadow dropping it.
00:28:45
Speaker
I feel not maybe not perfectly shadow dropping it, but announcing it and like a week later dropping it I feel like they're going to just they want a surprise. They want to really be big with it. And, you know, not and they don't really need to show anything. They know that that people are expecting it and they really want to just cook on the game.
00:29:02
Speaker
So I'm hoping for the best. That's me. That's a hopeful. That's the hopeful soul, you know, because Hollow Knight is fantastic. So hopefully that's that. And like because you we've seen these shadow drops, you know, we we saw like Oblivion and how excited people were just for like, yeah, that's so cool. I like that idea.
00:29:18
Speaker
um And so maybe they've been thinking about that for a while being like, I think we should just like drop it on people just like that it's like why pay for why pay for marketing? Everybody's already talking about it as for the past couple of years. Why pay for marketing? Let's just drop the game when it's ready.
00:29:34
Speaker
Well, and when they if they if they just announced it like a week before, you know, the the amount of noise it's going to make just in the whole like gaming sphere.
00:29:44
Speaker
There's no reason for advertising at that point. Sure, you can throw a trailer out, a small trailer out if you want, but people are just going to play it. They're going to want to play it. It's, you know, so hopefully, fingers crossed, it's good. And fingers crossed that, you know, they're they're just putting the the efforts that they need to do to polish it off and make it the best game they can.
00:30:03
Speaker
Absolutely. As for what was showcased at the partner showcase, Monster Hunter Stories 3 was announced and is coming out in 2026. Once Upon a Katamari, a brand new Katamari game is coming out October 24th.
00:30:16
Speaker
Just Dance 2026 was showing off and is coming out October 14th. Dragon Ball Sparking Zero is coming to the Switch consoles November 14th. Plants vs. Zombies Replanted, HD remake of the OG Plants vs. Zombies, is coming October 23rd.
00:30:33
Speaker
ea Sports FC 26 is coming September 26th. Pac-Man World 2 Repack was announced and will be dropping September 26th. Final Fantasy Tactics, the Evil East Chronicles got a brand new trailer in the direct as well.
00:30:47
Speaker
um That is set for September 30th. Persona 3 Reload is making its way to the Switch consoles October 23rd. Hyrule Warriors Age of Imprisonment was the only, like, I would say first party, but even though it's being done by Koi Tecmo and the Team Ninja and like but the Warriors people, because it is a Warriors game. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:07
Speaker
So I wasn't like expecting to see that. It was nice that we did. um it was more just cutscene stuff, though. not real Not a lot of gameplay stuff. But again, it's Warriors game. a Game comes out winter 2025. No exact release date yet.
00:31:20
Speaker
Madden NFL 26 comes out August 14th. And then we got, ah I'm going to say this, this was probably the dumbest thing they could have showed. Uh, if this was maybe five years ago, maybe we would have laughed on this very hard. Uh, chilling by the fire.
00:31:37
Speaker
And this is out now, by the way. Uh, this is a $20 game but on the switch to where you make a campfire.
00:31:49
Speaker
And sit and chat with your friends. That's it. but That's it. Oh, ah yeah. This is like a 2020 game. Like this is a 2020 game. Yeah. This is coming out of this current year as a switch to I i don't know it's switch to exclusive or if it's going to if it's ah a timed exclusive or whatever.
00:32:08
Speaker
This is no offense to the developers. man why yeah just why 20 bucks dude 20 bucks 20 bucks like if the price was lower like if it was like five bucks i'd be like okay that's fine it's whatever no it's 20 dollars canadian mind you yeah ah as a canadian myself because i had to ah look at the price i'm like wow that is ridiculous so it's a little bit for usd but still not worth it yeah probably not by much yeah ah Apex Legends is now out on the Switch 2 as well.
00:32:43
Speaker
um We got a trailer for Hela, which comes out 2026. Star Wars Outlaws is coming to the Switch 2 September 4th. Kronos the New Dawn comes out September 5th. Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Yakuza Kiwami are both coming to the Switch 2 on November 13th, which is awesome. Love that. Now you get to play the first three the The first three chronologically Yakuza games, Yakuza 0, Kiwami 1, and Kiwami 2 on the Switch 2, which absolutely fantastic series, would recommend.
00:33:15
Speaker
And it also sounds like Kiwami and Kiwami 2 are getting additional languages. oh So potential that they're getting the English dub treatment as well.
00:33:27
Speaker
um Interesting. ah Yakuza 0 got that, but only on the Switch 2 version. So it's going to make it's making me wonder if they're going to release the 3 HD, 3, 4, and 5 collection and have additional...
00:33:42
Speaker
voices for those games too on the switch too and then do it for yakuza 6 as well because if they do that means you could play the entire series in english for the first time ever yeah that's awesome That's awesome. I've never gotten to play a Yakuza game, but dude, if they, if they dub it in English or they get that in, I I'm down.
00:34:01
Speaker
i I would like to see them put, move the dub to the other versions of ah other hardware. The game is the games are on because that way it's just more accessible for those who do want that English dub experience.
00:34:12
Speaker
yeah I personally have played all the games Japanese because I, because specifically the karaoke mini game, all the singing is better with the Japanese version. I'm sure it is. And that is specifically why. That is the only reason why. is i i play i played Judgment and Lost Judgment in English because I'm like, oh, let's give it a shot. And I liked the voice acting in that because there's no um karaoke mini games in those ones. I'm like, yeah, that's that's that's the reason. like Otherwise, I probably would play the games in English if I was introduced to the games much later on now than when I got into them.
00:34:48
Speaker
They should have a toggle in settings that says karaoke original version. You know wide know what? I would be down for that. That would a great accessibility feature, RGT.
00:34:59
Speaker
Do it. Anyway, those come out November 13th. Then we had the rapid fire section. Goodnight Universe is dropping November 11th. and NBA Bounce, which looks a lot like um it's taking inspiration from like NBA Jam and stuff like that. Comes out September 26th.
00:35:17
Speaker
um hello kitty island adventure wheat flower wonderland is comes out sometime in the fall shinobi art of vengeance comes on august 29th borderlands 4 uh coming october 3rd for everything is gonna be on the switch too as well uh and then the show ended off with two announcements from square enix the first being the adventure of elliot the millennium tales which comes out next year and a demo is out now oh um It is in that HD 2D art style.
00:35:47
Speaker
Looks interesting. I might play the demo when I get a chance to later this year. And then they announced a brand new Octopath Traveler game, Octopath Traveler Zero, um being a prequel to the first two games. ah And that comes out later this year on December 4th.
00:36:05
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Yeah, I've heard a lot of but of Octopath the Traveler. I've never gotten to play any of them, but yeah, definitely heard about that. The Adventure of Ellie. Is it a JRPG? Is that what we're... we're Yeah, it's a JRPG where you play... It's a well jr action it's more action JRPG. So like oh ah like combat like isn't turn-based from the looks of it.
00:36:24
Speaker
Oh, cool. Cool. So i am I am very interested in this one to see how it is. So again, I'm going check out that demo when I get a chance to. Yeah. um But that was the partner showcase. And then literally earlier today, this day of recording, ah the Nintendo Indie World showcase happened. And everyone's like, oh, yeah, there's going to be Silksong at this one, right?
00:36:46
Speaker
but ah no No, ah there wasn't, but we did get a ah couple cool looking indie games. ah Starting off, we got another trailer for Mina the Hollower. This is the brand new game from Yacht Club Games, the developers of Shovel Knight.
00:37:00
Speaker
This comes out at the end of October, October 31st. We also got Well Dweller, which is set for 2026. This is a new Metroidvania game from the developers of Crypt Keeper and Islets.
00:37:11
Speaker
ah We got Neverway, which was described as a nightmarish life simulator. um This comes out 2026, and it features the pixel artist from Celeste and ah one of the musicians from Hyper Life Drifter working on this project.
00:37:28
Speaker
That's sick. That's actually really interesting. I have to look at that. We got a new trailer for Hurdling, which comes out August twenty first This is from the developers of the FAR series. um We got a short little trailer for Is This Seat Taken? A brand new puzzle game where you got to organize these little shape people to put them in their proper seats so that way they're all happy. That is out right now. And actually, right before the podcast started today, I was playing it on Steam because it is out everywhere because this was on my radar of a game I wanted to check out. And it's pretty fun.
00:37:59
Speaker
Pretty fun. It's a little short. There's only like five or six worlds and five or six levels in each world. um So I'm sure there's going some updates coming to the game to add more.
00:38:11
Speaker
um Or there might be a DLC pack that they put out. But overall, you can get the game for like $10 right now on Steam's Canadian. So even cheaper US. ah So give it a check out if you if you're looking for a nice little cozy puzzle game.
00:38:24
Speaker
ah Then we got announced that little big little kitty, big city, is getting another free update, adding cat customization, brand new areas to explore, digging, and more camera mode features. And as's the update is coming later this year.
00:38:40
Speaker
um They didn't give a specific date, but ah look forward to that. I played Little Kitty Big City last year when it came out. I thought the game was all right. ma So excited to see that. yeah um Content warning will be coming to the Switch 2 and Switch consoles sometime next year. This is the...
00:38:58
Speaker
co-op horror game from landfall who have recently given us peak with aggro crab uh this was essentially their version of lethal company where you make youtube videos in a deep dark underground scary place and uh it's great looking forward to seeing that come the switch I remember playing that. That was a good one. ah It's not a P it's not peak, but it is. It's still fun. It's so full fun. Yes.
00:39:23
Speaker
I'm so being the trailer makes me want to go back and like, man, I could we could play that again because it was a time to play through. Yeah, might as well give it a shot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like I bet they didn't realize as when they're putting this all out. They've been working on this for a while. I bet they didn't realize the aspect of like how like how exciting peak would be for people.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's very cool. Really took off. which Yeah, it's a fun game. It's such a fun game. ah Then we got a trailer for ball pit and there's an X between the two words. um So it's ball X pit, but we just call it ball pits.
00:39:53
Speaker
This is a game that features auto scroll levels with break with if the gameplay style of breakout where you're breaking the blocks in front of you to progress.
00:40:04
Speaker
But it's a roguelite style as well, where there's a bunch of different power ups and levels and things to it's, This looks like an interesting game that I probably will pick up.
00:40:15
Speaker
Comes out fall for Switch 2 and specifically October 15th for the Switch. I think it's a timed console exclusive as well. So Switch will get first and then I think everything else gets it.
00:40:27
Speaker
It sounds kind of like ah like almost like a Vampire Survivors-esque style game. Yes, took a lot of inspiration from Vampire Survivors, yeah Loop Hero, and another game that they listed as like inspiration.
00:40:39
Speaker
That's sick. That's sick. We got a brand new trailer for ultimate sheep raccoon. This is the sequel to ultimate chicken horse, ah which is coming out winter 2025. We actually finally have like a release window for the game.
00:40:51
Speaker
And they showed off that this game has eight player support. So double the players um that it then it had for ultimate chicken horse. Unlike ultimate chicken horse, where you build like a platformer level where you try to screw over your friends to make it harder for them.
00:41:07
Speaker
uh it's a racing game where you're trying to screw over your friends this time it's absolutely looking i bet i'm looking forward to this yeah that's awesome uh we also got a trailer for glaciers which comes out holiday 2025 where the world has been frozen over you play as this like evolved species of dinosaur and it's like an open we're open world exploration underwater game with some combat ah looks interesting looks cool and then they finish it off with our rapid fire indie games winter burrow coming out 2020 winter 2025 undusted letters from the past coming out October tiny bookshop is out right now caves of QUD or quad comes out cu i think it's cut cut right
00:41:50
Speaker
I don't could be wrong. it Is this an old game, right? is a really old game. Oh, so I, you know, I'd have to look it up. But I thought I think I remember my ah like really, really nerdy engineer friends playing this a lot.
00:42:04
Speaker
um It was like a remaster possibly then. ah Or it's just for coming to the switch. I could be wrong, but if I was correct, yes, yes. Okay, I'm looking it up. it is, i think is it it was like it was done in like to ASCII originally, and then maybe they've upgraded or something. I could be wrong. It could be a different game, but you know I'm pretty sure Caves of Cut is like a classic, like a real, real classic.
00:42:29
Speaker
Well, that comes to the Switch in winter. Cool. That's cool. ah Strange Antiques comes September 17th. Opus Prison Peak comes out in the fall. Go Go Town comes out sometime in 2026.
00:42:40
Speaker
And UFO 50 finally makes its way over to the Switch and is available right now. Nice. Still in the world of Nintendo news, Kirby and the forg Forgotten Land Switch 2 edition also got a brand new overview trailer showing off of what's coming in the Switch 2 version as that comes out later this month hour or early next month, I believe.
00:43:02
Speaker
ah So the Starcross World is the brand new storyline that they are adding to the game where you got save the Starrys. ah Old stages can now be turned anew with the new starry stage feature. Basically, after you complete World 1 of Forgotten Land, you unlock the ability to transform stages into starry stages, which gives the stages new little twists and objectives to do.
00:43:25
Speaker
You get three new mouthful modes for Kirby, where he can turn into a spring, a gear, and a signboard. The spring giving him a higher he jump, the gear letting him attach to walls and like climb up them, and the signboard act acting as a sled.
00:43:39
Speaker
ah You can use the new star pieces that you collect to roll for new figures for your collection. And they added a brand new Coliseum, the Ultimate Cup ZEX.
00:43:50
Speaker
Ultimate Cup ZEX. Hmm. I think this is going to be fun. i like I've heard a lot of people love Kirby games and this just seems like it. It's going to as a guy who loves Kirby and the forgotten land.
00:44:02
Speaker
i am excited for this. ah You can purchase the game individually or of course if you already have a copy of Kirby and the for forgotten land. You can purchase the upgrade pack for much less money.
00:44:14
Speaker
nice All right, now we're finally out of the majority of the Nintendo stuff. ah In some Bioshock news, yes, Bioshock. So it turns out ah that 2K is working on a brand new Bioshock game.
00:44:29
Speaker
However, they're doing it without Ken Levine because Ken Levine is working on a brand new game himself called Judas. which we've been waiting. I've been waiting for. Yeah. Oh, it was supposed to come out early 2025 and we haven't heard shit about this. And I am very passionate because I want to, I love Bioshock infinite.
00:44:48
Speaker
I love Bioshock infinite. Yeah. Um, I've liked the first two Bioshocks as well, but like if infinite is my favorite by far. I think Judas is like on like the oldest on my wish list now um on Steam. It's probably one of the oldest games because I wish list that like as soon as like I heard about it.
00:45:06
Speaker
And it's probably like I've probably like gotten rid of I've gotten through all the other games that I possibly could have gotten. And that one's just still waiting to be announced. Kind of like, come on, give us some information on this.
00:45:17
Speaker
Yeah. um So anyway, Cloud Chamber, they're the new people working on the new brand new Bioshock game for 2K. ah Reportedly, they failed to review Buy2K Games with executives citing the game's narrative in particular as something that will be revamped.
00:45:31
Speaker
2K Games is said to have removed studio head Kelly Gilmore and reassigned creative director Hogarth De LaPlante to a publishing role. Cloud Chamber staff were reportedly told the studio must become a more efficient,
00:45:44
Speaker
ah directive which employees worry could result in layoffs yeah so things over there are looking little gray yeah over there for an official Bioshock game yeah I think this game is gonna be lost in perpetuity for a while I mean it's gonna be it's gonna be gone for quite a bit like yeah these studios need to unfortunately all these studios are just going through so much major reworks especially since like they're realizing hey, some of the stuff we're doing isn't working. Maybe we should revamp and scale down and and simplify. So who knows when we're going to get a Bioshock. But dude, it'd be so awesome.
00:46:21
Speaker
ah Back in the world of Nintendo. ah Starting off with some Pokemon news. The shiny legendary treasures of ruined Pokemon event in Scarlet and Violet, which finally gives us access to the shiny treasures of ruined Pokemon, ah is actually off to a great start.
00:46:35
Speaker
um Since ah we learned that each, getting each one will require 1 million clears for each raid, and the first raids going on, ah we did it. they clear The first raid was cleared over 1 million clears. I think they said it was like at 3 million clears ah currently.
00:46:50
Speaker
ah So everybody who has done it has gotten a shiny Wo Chien. um And the second one, I believe, by the time you're listening to this episode, should be ongoing. And we'll probably have an update for you on that one and the future ones as well.
00:47:04
Speaker
And Mario Kart World got a brand new patch. ah Versus Races now have a no computer option and a mushroom item only rule. ah You can now choose who you can spectate when you're knocked out in a knockout tour.
00:47:19
Speaker
Finally, which is kind of nice. The fact you couldn't do that before was kind of that's weird. You can only expect who is in first place. Yeah, that's just seems weird. Yeah.
00:47:29
Speaker
And lastly, on the free roam map, when you gather all of the P switches, question mark panels and peach medallions, the colors of the numbers will now change in their counters. I still wish they had a mini map of all the collectibles of like where you found certain ones, because, you know, then that would actually give me incentive to go play the free roam instead of just roaming aimlessly and hoping I find something I haven't done yet.
00:47:54
Speaker
Yeah. yeah It's the one game where I wish, like, I want to enjoy that free roam mode a lot. Like, I was looking forward to that and doing that. And it's like, oh, yeah, there's no counter or like. Yeah, I've heard that about. So I haven't played it, but I've heard a lot about like the free roam aspect. They're like, man, it's it's like you really want something out of it. And they just kind of missed the ball with it for now. Anyway, we'll see over the, you know, over the next months or next year, how much they update it. Hopefully just you add that stuff add a collectible list.
00:48:23
Speaker
That's all I want. Add the collectible list and I'll do it. I'll play it. I'll enjoy your free remote mode, Nintendo. I want to enjoy it. I spent how much money on this game and a Switch 2?
00:48:35
Speaker
Let me enjoy yeah it's But no! Please. Please. yeah yeah okay ah back to the other stuff ah Sony is suing Tencent because of a game called Light of Motor Ram a futuristic open world game from Studio Polaris Quest where machines rule the land tell me if that sounds familiar Koff Koff Horizon ah The lawsuit was filed July 25th and intends to block Tencent from releasing the game, which it argues violates Sony Interactive Entertainment's intellectual property while also seeking 150,000 in statuatory damages for each separate work in the Horizon series infringed.
00:49:14
Speaker
In its lawsuit, Sony calls Light of Motorham a slavish clone of Horizon that egregiously replicates some of the signature elements found in the PlayStation series.
00:49:26
Speaker
Yeah, I don't even know what to think about this. There's so much of this going on. I've felt i've felt this with Power World and everything. um It's such an interesting narrative, like the Sue happiness of like, oh, your game looks too much like our game.
00:49:38
Speaker
I'm like, ah one on one side, for small devs, I really wish like they have protections in place you know so that they get the chance to get off the ground so big companies don't get to... you know like bum rush them out of the games by stealing their ip but then these giant guys it's like dude relax and people are going to play horizon zero dawn are you really worried that tencent's going to come up ah it seems it feels like they're just worried that tencent's make a better game and it's like just make a better game then just i know i don't think so either yeah like looking at tencent's track record i'm like i was probably not going to be that great anyway so just yeah
00:50:14
Speaker
like I feel like this lawsuit is going to go nowhere or whatever. So like, you know, if anything, it's going to be minimal and what's going to be out of the public eye at some point in time. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Also, speaking of Sony, Sony revealed brand new details about its official fight stick.
00:50:28
Speaker
The flex strike. It's set for a 2026 release, but it did have an early access look at Evo. And we will we will be talking Evo a little later on. I did talk to my one fighting game friend about this, though. Shout out to the trash man.
00:50:43
Speaker
ah He said that this thing looks absolutely dumb and the button in placement is very weird for a fight stick. Yeah. Yeah. On to some Hollow Knight Silksong news.
00:50:53
Speaker
As I said before, the game they're going to have a playable demo at Gamescom August 20th to 24th. So if you're going to Gamescom in Germany, ah tell us how it is.
00:51:05
Speaker
yeah exactly yeah if it's so this is us for certain that they will be an actual this yeah that that this is a first certain thing there will be a playable demo at gamescom nice okay that is something to look forward to so maybe we'll be hearing about that opening night live maybe that's when we'll see the silksong stuff yeah yeah seriously um In Claire Obscure Expedition 33 news, ah their OST is getting a vinyl release.
00:51:31
Speaker
ah Laced Records opened up the pre-orders ah last Thursday. Well, so pre-orders are open now um for physical editions of the Claire Obscure soundtrack headlined by the 6LP box set.
00:51:43
Speaker
The vinyl has an exclusive edition featuring multicolored galaxy effects, um LPs in addition to the standard black version, um Both versions, whether you get the the the special colored ones or just the standard one, are both $145 US s dollars.
00:51:59
Speaker
I don't even have a record player, and I might end up buying this. thats I mean, I just want to show support. That that that's OST is just insanely good. Yeah, it is. And it's super cool to see that. And also, we also just learned that ah they'll be playing live at Gamescom Opening Night Live.
00:52:21
Speaker
as well really awesome dude gamescom is going to be really interesting then gamescom's got some stuff they do they absolutely do uh in another showcase battlefield 6 held its multiplayer gameplay showcase reveal The game is set for release on October 10th.
00:52:39
Speaker
It's going to cost 70 US dollars. There is an upcoming beta test October August 14th 17th. It's going to feature 64 player lobbies, nine maps on launch, including a new New York City map and a remake of Operation Firestorm from Battlefield 3.
00:52:55
Speaker
There will be a single player campaign. um Classes are going back to very simple stuff. Recon, Assault, Engineer, and Support. um EA is also adding a playlist with crash class restrictions on guns that you can go through.
00:53:08
Speaker
ah The Battlefield Portal custom game modes are back. And the new, more advanced tools make it look a lot like Halo Forge. EA also teased the return of Battlefield V's Firestorm mode, which I believe was their Battle Royale mode that they had.
00:53:22
Speaker
yeah Or it was like a similar to a BR mode. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I mean, Battlefield's back. ah People are happy for it. It seems to play pretty well from what I've heard from because they've had a couple beta tests already and it seems to play pretty well.
00:53:40
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah, i I haven't played a Battlefield, I think, in a decade, but, you know, there's so many of them. But but yeah, I'm always excited to see. Yeah, maybe I'm glad people have these as options for games that they really enjoy.
00:53:55
Speaker
Yeah. Blooper teams. The medium is being adapted into a film. the rights to make the film based on the game have been secured by coin operated, which is a production company founded by Gary Doberman, a screenwriter and the director whose credits include it and it chapter two, and also the movie adaptation of until dawn.
00:54:14
Speaker
So I think that's in pretty good hands. Yeah. I mean, and the, ah the until dawn movie, I, yeah, that's the one I'm like, I think it's, yeah, that was a bit of weird one, but like it, in it chapter two, which did really well. Yeah, exactly. Fantastic. That's more what I, yeah. Those are the credits you're like, yeah, yeah. I mean, everybody gets, everyone gets a bomb. You get one bomb at least.
00:54:37
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah. yeah uh peak uh added cannibalism to the game uh you can toggle it on or off uh this one yeah this cracked me up when i heard this i was like no because they're like they're like stop asking us for cannibalism and then like a would couple days later like they're like fine here you go like yeah it's ridiculous dude you eat your friends when they turn into a giant roast chicken yum yeah roblox a roblox copycat of peak emerged as well uh with all the roblox bullshit like microtransactions and the peak developers went on twitter and said we'd rather you pirate our game than play that which i'm like based based developers
00:55:22
Speaker
base i love I love them as a small development studio just for this kind of these kind of takes. they're like They know how to play in the new sphere of... like you know like They play the mental games that are out there on like social media and everything. they're just like They're not afraid to say something like that. I love that. Because like we'd rather you pirate our game than just then then play that Roblox crap. But, you know, yeah.
00:55:49
Speaker
ah after losing $200 million dollars on suicide squad um Warner brothers games has another live service game in the works based on one of the iconic IPs from the vast Warner brothers DC catalog.
00:56:01
Speaker
We don't know which one, um but we know this because a listing for an executive producer position was posted for Warner brothers games, Montreal, man. i Yeah, that we'll wait till that windows 10.
00:56:14
Speaker
Happy birthday, Windows 10. It's turning 10 years old. And just a reminder, three months from now is no longer being supported. So you got to upgrade to Windows 11. Yeah, I've been trying to tell like one of my ah the people one of the people i stream with, Piglyoof, to upgrade her PC. And she just isn't doing it. I'm like, dude, it's going to be so bad in three months. But she's like, why can't I get on my PC? Why can't make it work? I was like, you're going to have to update. Just up update. update it just up it's just It's a painful thing, but do it.
00:56:42
Speaker
So there's a thing you download to make sure you can. And then from there, it's like, all right, here you go. Let's install it. Oh, I think you're right. Now that I think about it, I think she might not have her PC so old. I don't think she can update. Oh, you that's not good.
00:56:56
Speaker
That's not good. Yeah. We'll have to see where that goes. That's unfortunate. um In some new game with a weird concept news. Hey, remember the guy who lost a Bitcoin wallet worth $1 million dollars in a landfill?
00:57:09
Speaker
There's a game about that now. It's called One Man's Trash, and it has you digging tunnels and holes in a landfill to find ah that Bitcoin wallet. And the game is out now on Steam. Yeah, dude, that's hilarious. I wonder if that game's any fun. That sounds like pretty interesting.
00:57:23
Speaker
It sounds like a like a more detailed version of a game about digging a hole. Yeah. game about digging a hole, which was that was a fun game. I enjoyed it. Short game. Yeah. i like Yeah, it was very short. It was just a it's a fun little romp. Yeah.
00:57:35
Speaker
But funny enough, that guy, too, I think he just stopped his search after like I forgot how many years, but it's it's he's finally given up the search. I think it's worth like 19 million or something. Now, if if I recall correctly, it's worth so much money.
00:57:50
Speaker
And I'm just like, that's so sad, man. That's so sad. ah Great news. Slime Rancher two is leaving early access September 23rd, 1.0 for the game fully releases. Congrats to the Slime Rancher devs for another great game.
00:58:05
Speaker
Amazon MGM studios is developing a live action TV series based on Wolfenstein. According to a variety report, ah the series is being held by the fallout producer, Patrick Somerville.
00:58:16
Speaker
I'm stoked for this. this is what This is more in my realm of like, I'm a huge movie buff. I went to film school too. Before I became a designer, I was a film school student. I was an edit doing editing. um So movies are my love, my passion. And seeing video games move into the ah into the movie sphere, kind of kind of taking place of the big, like not...
00:58:38
Speaker
Not pushing out entirely good for once, too. Yeah, yeah we're yeah. We're moving out of like the comic book realm and we're moving into like, let's make some video game movies. Let's test the waters. And so we got like a 24 and stuff producing like Elden Ring movie and all this kind of stuff. um So were seeing seeing TV shows, especially being helmed by the the Fallout producer, Patrick Somerville.
00:59:00
Speaker
I'm super excited for that. I think that's cool. Wolfenstein is going to wild one. I don't know how you're going to pull that off on TV for in 2025, especially because Wolfenstein had some pretty controversial, like and some dark stuff going on in it. So we'll see, though. I mean, Fallout, you know, they did Fallout well. So Wolfenstein might be just a fun, crazy but TV show. Yeah.
00:59:20
Speaker
Absolutely. Minecraft Sonic in Bedrock Edition got a brand new update adding the Chaos Emeralds, an Eggman boss, and Super Sonic and Hyper Shadow. And also Minecraft's new ah Java update or Java snapshot added shelves to the game.
00:59:39
Speaker
Nice. Shelves. Yeah. Shelves. um me prime Big news for Metroid Prime players. Metroid Prime 4 will have a playable demo at Fan Expo Canada, which is in Toronto later this month when the event takes place.
00:59:53
Speaker
So look forward to that if you're going to Fan Expo Canada. Yeah. Sick. Metroid Prime. That's awesome. And Red Octane Games, the publishers for Guitar Hero before Activision became the publishers, has been revived by old guitar and DJ Hero veterans and are currently working on a brand new rhythm game.
01:00:10
Speaker
Oh, interesting. I wonder if it's going to be a ah like a unique controller based rhythm game or if they're just going into like the rhythm game rhythm game um space and building a game out of that.
01:00:22
Speaker
That'll be actually exciting to see because I love a good rhythm game. I i am i am pretty solid at Hatsune Miku Project Diva. That's awesome.
01:00:33
Speaker
Yeah. I've got to try more rhythm games. I haven't done them in years, but man, I used to love those games. I played a lot. like some I like the the final the theater rhythm the new Theater Rhythm Final Barline that came out a couple years ago. Loved that one.
01:00:47
Speaker
Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory aced that one. ah Project Diva, I'm great at. Taiko no Tatsujin, I'm great at. um I'm not great at Guitar Hero with the guitars and stuff. like I was great on the drums as a kid, but like that was about it.
01:01:01
Speaker
One of my first ones of that, one of my first ah rhythm games was when I had a Sega, no, not a Dreamcast, excuse me. I had the Dreamcast and it was Bust a Groove. Base Channel 5? No, was just Bust a Groove or Bust a Move, Bust a One of the two. One's like a ah like a marble game and the other one is actually like a dancing game. think Groove is the rhythm game because Bust a Move is the bubble game.
01:01:25
Speaker
Yeah. So it's Buster Groove. So I played, we played that religiously when I bought the Dreamcast. Nice. um Moving on to some ongoing game news, starting off with Final Fantasy 14 patch 7.3 is live finishing the main Dawn Trail post Dawn Trail story.
01:01:44
Speaker
which means patch 7.4 and 7.5 will be setting up whatever the 8.0 story will be. I'm looking forward to it. The finale, the final cut scene 7.3 has me excited for what they're setting up with the villains specifically. I am very, very excited to see.
01:02:05
Speaker
Also, if you're a fan of FF9, you're going to like the new trial boss that they put in there. ah because as we all know 7.3 7.0 Don Trail has had a lot of ah ah Final Fantasy 9 references and things in it throughout the game so don't and know don't murder me but this is an ongoing this is an ongoing Final Fantasy that they're building into this is the only ongoing Final Fantasy because Final Fantasy 11 has finished it still has support where you can play the game but it's not receiving like major updates anymore
01:02:38
Speaker
That's it is the current one that's still receiving updates. That's receiving updates. And all of that stuff. Well, cool. That's awesome. And also the moon fire fair event starts August 13th with the return of a Orsia Ninja warrior.
01:02:56
Speaker
And the reward for doing the quest is a lifeguard glam. um So get your sons out, buns out, and good luck to those climbing the tower.
01:03:06
Speaker
You can watch me and my friends climb the tower from a couple years ago over on my YouTube channel ah and see the pain that the tower brought us. Because platforming an MMORPG isn't the cleanest thing, it sure can be funny.
01:03:22
Speaker
Yeah, it can be a good time. In some Fortnite news, the Power Rangers, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and the Megazord are coming to Fortnite. I saw this. I saw this. I also saw somebody like, I think they were estimating how much it would cost to get the whole crew or something. It was insane, but yeah.
01:03:38
Speaker
Yeah. Awesome. In Blizzard news, fans claim that Blizzard's new Diablo Immortal and Hearthstone art was made with generative AI. Yikes. nikes And in Marvel Rivals news, Marvel Rivals has started screening your in-game voice chats for moderation purposes to make, quote unquote, the game a better place for everyone.
01:04:01
Speaker
Players using inappropriate language will be penalized to make the game a better place. Dude, I mean, Marvel Rivals has been like the game that I think everybody was really, really happy with for the most part. It does have a lot of like...
01:04:15
Speaker
you know, um they're like you, you can't type in certain things for names or whatever the case may be or in chat. Yeah. But yeah. So this is, this is right on par. I'm trying to clean it up for those in public lobbies. Beware.
01:04:28
Speaker
yeah exactly ah In e-sports news, there was a lot. Evo 2025 and Las Vegas came and went ah here. Here's everything that was announced and who won all the top eights or top sixes.
01:04:42
Speaker
Starting off with, ah starting off, Capcom Fighting Collection 2 is getting a free title update that adds Cap Jam songs, more museum gallery items, and other additions. and It's out right now, actually.
01:04:54
Speaker
It also added ah Street Fighter Alpha 3 upper new characters. ah Eagle, Ingrid, Maki, and Yun are added to as playable characters, and a mode select option on the character screen as well.
01:05:07
Speaker
Fatal Fury City of the Wolves. um Ken is out now as the next DLC fighter. Granblue Fantasy vs. Rising, Willness will be a here is out now for the game, but and the 2.20 update to add EX characters is out as well.
01:05:24
Speaker
Guilty Gear Strive showed off the first trailer for Lucy, um the first guest character from Cyberpunk Edgerunners. Joining the cast, ah she comes out August 21st, and the 2.0 version of the game will be arriving sometime next year.
01:05:39
Speaker
That's cool. That's cool. I didn't know they threw in Cyberpunk, Edgerunner's guy, the characters there. That's cool. Hunter Hunter Net Impact, the season pass DLC characters, will be kicking off with Neferpito in fall of this year.
01:05:53
Speaker
um They also followed up but with showing cheesers for Finks McCub coming in winter, Shizuku Murasaki in spring, and Zeno Zoldek in summer.
01:06:05
Speaker
I have not watched Hunter Hunter, so I have no clue who any of those people are. Yeah, same. ah Invisible versus revealed Omni man for the the roster.
01:06:15
Speaker
ah Yeah. ah Marvel token fighting souls. They dropped a huge basics video on how the game will play and you can register for a closed beta for PlayStation 5 users only and that beta is set for September 5th through 7th.
01:06:28
Speaker
I might sign up for that because the game looks interesting but I don't know yet. Hmm. That code warriors was announced as a new arena fighter coming to PC.
01:06:39
Speaker
Street Fighter 6 showed off the trailer for Crimson Viper. Sea Viper. um The trailer dropped. She's coming out fall 2025. And swimsuit outfits for the first batch of characters are out right now.
01:06:55
Speaker
Had to happen. This includes ah Luke, Jamie, Kimberly, Aki, Cammy, Chun-Li,
01:07:07
Speaker
And one, I think if like either that was it or i'm missing one or two. I can't remember who else, but those are the ones people were really excited about. Yeah. Tekken 8 showed off the Armor King gameplay trailer and Armor King arrives October 16th and they announced their final DLC character for for the character pass to Miari Zo or Miari Jo.
01:07:32
Speaker
How it's, it's, it's, it's Madagascar in. Yeah. um there She's a new character coming alongside the stage Balbab Horizon. And there was also an article reported that because of this, it's helping keep an ancient Madagascar fighting style alive.
01:07:49
Speaker
Oh, that's cool. That's actually neat. Which is very cool. Under Night In Birth 2 announced Izumi, who is coming August eighteenth on PlayStation and PC versions of the game, and August 20th on the Switch.
01:08:04
Speaker
Virtua Fighter had some big news, starting with a new trailer for the new Virtua Fighter game. um And they said that more details will be revealed at the Tokyo Game Show in September.
01:08:15
Speaker
And Virtua Fighter 5 Revo World Stage um is coming to the PS5, Series X, and PC on October 30th. and say And the Sega announcement also confirmed it will be coming to the Switch 2 eventually.
01:08:31
Speaker
Now we get into the actual games themselves and who won. Well, of all the tournaments, I actually only watched one, um which was the top eight for Tekken as tuned in at just the right time with my homies in this court chat.
01:08:46
Speaker
Yeah. Tekken top eight was pretty, pretty sweet. um Arslan Ash won again. This is now the sixth year in a row that Arslan Ash has won Tekken and they took home $16,000.
01:09:01
Speaker
Nice. Industry Fighter 6, Mena RD, who also won EVO Japan 2024 and earlier this year at EVO Japan 2025, took home the the championship and won Fatal Fury City of the Wolves, Goichi won that tournament, winning $15,000. Guilty Gear Strive, Keishu who won that, taking home $12,000. For Granblue, Koji took home $13,000. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 saw winning taking home $13,000.
01:09:29
Speaker
poor grand blue kozy coco took home thirteen thousand dollars bar versus capcom two saw chaos winning that taking home thirteen thousand dollars under night in birth to saw defiance which was apparently this was like the hypest match of all i saw the twitter clipping god damn it was hype in the absolute final round like it was two round two matches a pop for each of them like this was down to the final match of it all defiant was down they were like one hit away from death wow and they came back to win it taking home 13 000 dollars
01:10:04
Speaker
That's sick. That's wild. Especially if it was like ah like a, like one hit. Uh, and then like the guy had a pretty decent health bar left. That's wild. That's a, that's, that would be a wild match to watch.
01:10:14
Speaker
Yeah. ah In Mortal Kombat 1, to nobody's surprise, Sonic Fox defends his title and wins his eighth EVO championship, taking home $13,000. Rivals of Aether 2 was at EVO, ah and Plump won that, winning just over $6,000.
01:10:34
Speaker
BlazBlue Central Fiction saw Excalibur Blades winning $996 as champion. saw Bass winning in his winnings.
01:10:47
Speaker
Virtua Fighter 5 Revo saw Akane Shiwapo taking over $3,000 in their winnings. King of Fighters 15 saw ET taking over just over $2,000. Samurai Showdown subs saw Scrub Saibot winning just over $1,500.
01:11:03
Speaker
Guilty Gear XRD Rev 2 saw Vogue winning $540 in their winnings. And Killer Instinct, which is also there, saw Roman 22S taking home $472.
01:11:16
Speaker
it's it Yeah, small, but small pockets of money. But I mean, that's awesome. When in like a when like an event like that. Yes. ah Some other announcers that Evo made Evo France, which is going to be held in Nice, takes place October 10th to 12th.
01:11:30
Speaker
ah Evo Singapore was announced and will be happening 2026. And Evo Vegas is being moved ah june twenty six to twenty hey Which people were like, whoa, wait, isn't that when CEO is?
01:11:44
Speaker
Well, CEO will be taking place August 14th to 16th. So basically, the two tournaments are swapping their dates. ah So Evo happening earlier.
01:11:55
Speaker
Interesting.
01:11:58
Speaker
In the world of TCG news, starting with Pokemon, the Mega Evolution set comes out September 26th. And in Pokemon TCG Pocket news, there was a scandal.
01:12:09
Speaker
The Ho-Oh EX immersive card was traced from fan art. So the team removed that art and are now working on a brand new Ho-Oh and Lugia immersive arts.
01:12:21
Speaker
Until then, though, the cards are just blank with filler text saying new art coming soon. Oh, wow. That's wild. Yeah. was Trace from fan art, dude. But this has been happening a lot. It seems like in in different industries, like people just pull in from ah fan based like stuff and then be like, oh we'll just throw it in the video game. We'll throw it and on the art. That's wild.
01:12:44
Speaker
Yeah. In the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! Justice Hunters is out now. The 2025 Mega Pack Bundleton is coming September 4th. Doom of Dimensions comes September 26th. The Chronicles deck, The Fallen and the Virtuous, comes October 24th.
01:12:58
Speaker
Legendary D's decks, based off of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, not the D heroes, comes November
Upcoming Releases and Announcements
01:13:03
Speaker
7th. And Phantom Revenge comes December 3rd. in Magic the Gathering. Edge of Eternities is out now.
01:13:09
Speaker
The Spider-Man set comes September 26th and will be featuring three action figures as well with a foil version of the card that the figure is based off of. A battle-damaged Spider-Man, and iron spider Mary Jane Watson, and Man-Wolf, who is the beauty ah son the son of J. Jonah Jameson, but got mutated and turned into Man-Wolf.
01:13:30
Speaker
fun facts that I didn't know about but I'm like okay and the Avatar The at Last Airbetter set comes November 21st in Lorcanna retail releases we have Fabled coming September 5th Whispers in the Well coming November 14th and Winter Spell coming sometime in quarter one of 2026 And in Digimon TCG, the extra booster Sinister Order comes September 19th.
01:13:53
Speaker
Hacker's Slumber, which features cards from Digimon Hacker's Memory, October 18th. Billion Bullet sometime in October. And the Tamer's Evolution Box Rise of Digimon in December.
01:14:05
Speaker
And in tabletop news, starting September 16th, in time with the release of Heroes of the Borderlands, all D&D Beyond registered users can run games on the map's virtual tabletop without a ah without a subscription.
01:14:20
Speaker
Oh, that must be new. Like, I've been doing D&D Beyond for a while, but I was always hoping for a digital tabletop. So that's super cool. um And in big content creation related news for Critical Role, well, Matt Mercer announced that he will not be the Game Master Dungeon Master for Campaign 4.
01:14:40
Speaker
They also announced it's a brand new world, brand new characters, no longer in Exandria, I believe is what their world is called. Oh, really? Exandria, yeah. Exandria. It's no longer there because...
01:14:52
Speaker
The new dungeon master for Critical Role Campaign 4 is none other than Brennan Lee Mulligan. That's he will be running the game and a lot of people are excited for this.
01:15:06
Speaker
um Yeah, and I think it's great. I think it's a great place for new people who want to get into critical role to come in because you don't have to know anything about the other campaigns. It's 100% and new it sounds like yeah, I like I'm just catching up on this basically from your news here, but I knew Brendan Lee Mulligan was going running the game. I didn't know it was a totally new world.
01:15:24
Speaker
um Totally new environment. That's awesome for anybody who's new and wanting to get in because that's always been the barrier for most people is critical role. You have to watch hundreds of hours, if not thousands of hours by now, ah just to get up to par with what's going on in this universe.
01:15:41
Speaker
So absolutely fantastic and nice to see Matt stepping down. um Like, of course, I love Matt. I think Matt is probably the best person. game master I've ever seen um or DM um but ah him him stepping down so he can play the game and allowing Brennan to take take over for once I think is I think that's cool I think that's a really cool experience so no longer the forever DM that Mercer exactly it's also a good thing because i as a former DM myself you get burnout hard
01:16:14
Speaker
Oh, um absolutely. Even if that's your passion. and And even if you're a Matt Mercer, who is literally just a genius at building universes um in his mind and playing them out, ah you've got to be just burnt, burnt.
01:16:29
Speaker
and So good to see him stepping down for a bit. take that ah yeah having but time if you If you still want that ah Matt Mercer DM role in your in your feed, go play date everything and romance your D20.
01:16:41
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I bet also, to be honest, um because they do a lot of one shots and one offs, I'm sure Matt will be back at the table leading, um you know, a crew ah the multiple times.
01:16:53
Speaker
um Yeah, critical role has expanded to such a big, ah like it's such a big business. It's I'm so excited for that, that crew. And I'm i'm glad that they're doing as well as they're doing. And that's all the gaming news for these past two weeks.
01:17:08
Speaker
And now it's time to look ahead to the next two weeks. here are all Here are a good chunk of, if not all, the games coming out that should be on your radar from August 22nd. twenty second From AAA titles, indie hits, hidden gems, and hot pieces of garbage, here are the games coming out that should be on your radar.
01:17:27
Speaker
ah Starting off, no games releasing on the 11th, but on the 12th, Abyssus comes to the PC, Echoes of the End comes to the PS5 Series X and PC. Fallen City Brawl Shields of Loyalty and Fresh Track comes to the PC.
01:17:40
Speaker
Ra Ra Boom comes to everything but the Switches. Senua Saga Hellblade 2 makes its way to the PlayStation 5. And World War Z VR comes to the quests 1 through 3 and the PC. No releases on the 13th, but on the 14th, Thorfromantik finally makes its way to the ah PlayStation and Xbox systems.
01:17:57
Speaker
Dragon Drive comes to the Switch 2. Madden NFL 26 comes to the PlayStation 5, Series X, Switch, and PC. Warhammer 40K Dawn of War comes, Definitive Edition comes to the PC.
01:18:10
Speaker
Ovis Loop comes to the PC, as well as Fistful of Yankees. On the 15th, Bendy Lone Wolf comes to everything but the Switch 2, and Off comes to the Switch and PC.
01:18:21
Speaker
No releases on the 18th, but on the 19th, Shantae Advance Risky Revolution comes to everything but the Switch 2, and Sword of the Sea comes to the PlayStation 5 and PC. On the 20th, All Systems Dance comes to the PC.
01:18:33
Speaker
Black Myth Wukong makes its way to the Series X. And Void Breaker comes to the PlayStation 5 Series X and PC. And on the 21st, Discountee comes to the PS5 Series X Switch and PC.
01:18:45
Speaker
And Inazuma 11 Victory Road comes to everything but the Xbox One. And those are all your games coming out. The big ones, starting back at the top, I gotta look again. There there was, ah drag starting with Dragon Drive, I'll start there.
01:19:01
Speaker
This is the wheelchair basketball game that uses mouse controls on the Switch 2. That's why it sounded familiar. was like, which one was that? And that's that. That's the one where you you slide your controllers across the the table. yeah Yeah. I fear for a lot of Switch 2 Joy-Cons with this game. Yeah. If you're not careful.
01:19:21
Speaker
Or tabletops. Yeah. I see a lot of scratch tabletops. Yeah. I see a lot of moms being like, what happened to my table? That's what I'm feeling. But yeah.
01:19:33
Speaker
ah The one game that I'm interested in just based on its title alone is a fistful of Yankees. Yeah. Just, that I was like, what? but is Looking at this game right now, it looks like it's a Western.
01:19:45
Speaker
It is a Western game. Oh, interesting. Yeah. ah Yeah, this is a Western looking looking game. um The only two that really are three that sound I recognize was sort of the sea.
01:20:00
Speaker
ah Bendy Lone Wolf. I've heard of that one. And yeah yeah it was the third. Sorry. What's the third one? no no no no go ahead I was like it i was getting reflect like black yeah uh plenty alone wolf this is the spinoff to Benny and the ink machine where you yeah the wolf character in the bendy games it's usually based around them or the dog character and this if I recall correctly this is kind of like a uh rubber hose animation style video game like cuphead style in a sense yes of like old classic cartoon yeah of old classic cartoon style that's a good way to put it yeah
01:20:37
Speaker
ah Yeah, very similar to that. Yes.
Blueprints Game Deep Dive
01:20:40
Speaker
Awesome. ah I don't know what this one's about because I haven't paid attention to Bendy and the Ink Machine in years. Yeah. ah But it looks interesting.
01:20:49
Speaker
Sword of the Sea. and That's the one I'm most excited for in this list because it's from the creators of Journey, Abzu, the Pathless. um The fact that this game is also going to be free on PlayStation Plus and with the subscription when it comes out as well.
01:21:05
Speaker
Oh, cherry on top. Yeah, that's awesome. and And if anything, if it's got, what's his name that did the scores for some of those? um I think it does. I don't know their name, but think it does. Yeah, yeah. um i'll have to I'll have to remember. ah to oh you know austin is it austin wintory austin wintory that's got to be it i did yeah austin wintory is i think the the score like um um let's see austin with tory yes yeah that's him yeah he did the soundtrack for journey and uh and a bunch of the abzu and stuff like that so if it's got that dude chef's kiss i'm ready for that excellent
01:21:44
Speaker
um this county is one of the last ones that i kind of have an eye on um we've seen a couple things with this at like a couple i think it was both at summer game fest and in a nintendo direct where it's like you're running supermarket but there's like some scummy stuff going around too where you could totally like there's some comedic tastes to it so oh yeah i think i've seen bits of this yeah i think i know what you're talking about this this one looks like it might be fun yeah And of course, if you're a fan of anime soccer, Inazuma Eleven Victory Road, new Inazuma Eleven game.
01:22:16
Speaker
Nice. ah Well, those are all the games coming out in the next two weeks. And now it's time for us to dive in, chat your ear off about some indie games. Here's what we're talking about this week in the Game Lounge.
01:22:30
Speaker
conversations of past and future games, the state of the gaming industry, how big decisions affect gamers and anything else that's important to us. Here's what's going down this week in the game lounge. And our first thing of the day, um it's finally nice to actually get to talk about this game on the podcast. I've wanted to for a while, but none of my friends have played the game.
01:22:50
Speaker
Oh, blueprints. Yes. This yeah game came out of nowhere. And then people were reporting as like, yeah, this is like the highest rated game of the year right now. We're like, what?
01:23:04
Speaker
Oh, wow. Yeah, because that's how people like found out about it was the highest rated game on Metacritic for the year. um i think it was like just a point higher than Expedition 33 as well.
01:23:14
Speaker
Oh, wow. I did not know that. That's wild. um And I'm like, all right, I'll check it out. It's free on PlayStation Plus. I'll give this a shot. And um i fell in love with this game.
01:23:29
Speaker
Yeah. How did you come across the game? You know, interestingly enough, I had I heard i think I heard like something about blueprints like through probably like some kind of game um announcements a while back, but I didn't think anything of it was just another title on the list of thousands of titles of games that come out.
01:23:51
Speaker
And it wasn't until I think I saw somebody on YouTube like had a short where they played it. And I was like, oh, it's a puzzle game.
01:24:02
Speaker
I was like, oh, it's and then it was like a roguelike puzzle game. was like, I have to check this out. My audience hadn't heard and my my general like streaming audience didn't hurt hear anything of it. But Very oddly, my audience doesn't hear about a lot of stuff, which is wild to me. They like they have their very niche games. And then when i what i'm like oh when I show them something, they're like, whoa, this is amazing.
01:24:23
Speaker
you know like I didn't even know this existed. I was like, what? ah like How am I on it? i'm like I feel like I'm supposed to be the one that's like out of it. And you guys are the ones that should know more about this. But... um So I played it and then we just are my my audience just grew. it just became like filled with people that were like blueprints stands.
01:24:43
Speaker
They were there to watch and just like just consume it. And I was like, this is right up my alley. This is right up my alley. ah We will be spending time on this. So um and it just grew and grew and grew from there. he So it's it's it's amazing. So yeah, I just found it kind of through some random clip on YouTube.
01:25:02
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, that that is the way to find games like nowadays, though, because I have seen some games that have granted me on TikTok or YouTube. I'm like, that looks interesting. And then I play it. I'm like, that was a great time. I'm glad I did that.
01:25:15
Speaker
Honestly, like I find that I i um this is like a little off subject, but I find that I find majority of the unique independent games that I am interested in checking out early before most people figure it out through Instagram.
01:25:29
Speaker
through through reels and stuff like that so all there will be somebody who's talking about this new indie game that's coming out and they're you know i follow a bunch of these guys that are just doing like indie game reviews or indie game reveals and they'll just post something they' like hey these games are coming out this week maybe you should check them out and like absolutely i'm gonna check that one out so yeah um it's very cool to see it go from that from like instead of me being like oh i'm gonna game informer or you know any of these like ah sites Metacritic or are these places to find the games I'm now going to an earlier source and playing them for myself first and experiencing them before they even get reviewed which is really cool nice so how many hours do you think you've put into blueprints
01:26:09
Speaker
Oh, I know because I looked this up the other day and it was like, so I don't know hours, unfortunately, but I can tell you how many days I've played the game.
01:26:20
Speaker
How many days are you at? Six days, six full days of my life. Oh, you mean, oh, you mean in our days? our days. yes.
01:26:32
Speaker
yes Yes, it is. i was like, oh, wow, that's a lot. Yeah. Six days. I've been playing for six full days. Like so on Xbox because I'm playing through Xbox Game Pass.
01:26:43
Speaker
um So playing through Xbox Game Pass, it doesn't show you the hours. I'm sure there might be a way to to figure out. Over 144 hours. Yeah. Yeah. so we've been playing it for a while, but I've only played it on stream. I've never played it off stream.
01:26:59
Speaker
Never once. So very, ah very wild that we've played that many hours on stream specifically because I only stream like, you know, four to six hours a day.
01:27:10
Speaker
yeah. yeah Wow. Yeah. but So we've been we've been at it for a while. That's that's that's pretty good. I don't think I have that many hours in the game as you. I probably have like.
01:27:23
Speaker
I don't even know how many hours I have, though, like I know that like in my in-game day counter, or I'm like a day. in the high 80s or low 90s since I last played it, if I remember correctly. Yeah. So funny enough, you should check your numbers because guess what day I'm on? I'm on day 80 right now. I'm on day 80 today.
01:27:43
Speaker
Like like yet last night we we hit day 80. 79 is actually that when we ended. So we're on day 80 now. Wow. ah What are your thoughts overall overall thoughts on the game? Gameplay wise, difficulty wise, replayability stuff?
01:27:56
Speaker
Like what would have been your general thoughts going through this game? Yeah. So, okay. So my take on this game, um I absolutely love this game. I think it's an incredible video game. I think it's an incredible experience. I love puzzle games. I think everybody should give ah a puzzle games a shot, especially if you're a non-gamer because they're very low barrier to entry because they're mind games.
01:28:18
Speaker
I'm a huge board game fan. I'm a huge tabletop RPG fan as well. So I really dig in. i really dig into core mechanics of games um and, you know, um and and narratives. And this game has both of those as a very, very interesting narrative as a very, very interesting hook.
01:28:36
Speaker
um you know Basically, what you're doing for anybody who doesn't understand is you you you get present you're a little young you're a young kid who's presented in front of a mansion. And when you walk into the mansion, you you basically, when you open up a door, you have to choose between um ah selection rooms.
01:28:52
Speaker
rooms that ah that are drafted. You just get to pick through through one of one of three rooms and you have to select that room and then it gets drafted, put in there and you explore that room.
01:29:03
Speaker
And then you when you open up a new door, ah new room is drafted and so on on and so forth until you try to get to the end of the mansion. So very interesting mechanic. Very there's a lot replayability. You exhaust based of you have so many steps a day. You can earn steps in many ways, but ah you exhaust yourself at the end of the day and you have to start the day fresh.
01:29:22
Speaker
The mansion resets. So ah very, very interesting replayability is is high in that sense. But you're not it's not replayable. I feel like this is a very interesting game where it's replayable in the sense like each day is a new day and you have a new new map.
01:29:39
Speaker
But um replayability after you beat the game, like fully 100% the game, I think is very low because yeah there's the the beauty of games like this, like game, I would, I kind of, it's not exactly the same, but it's similar to games like Outer Wilds where the the journey is the knowledge that you achieve.
01:30:00
Speaker
And by achieving that knowledge, there's no way to play that game again. um You know, I mean, you can, you can, but you're going to know everything. It's not going to be the same experience. So um this game is very much like that. You learn the puzzles, you learn the outcomes.
01:30:13
Speaker
There are thousands of puzzles there's puzzles and puzzles and puzzles and puzzles right most people think that just getting to the end ah ah to what's considered room 46 no spoilers but room 46 is the end no that's barely that might even be not even be 50 through the game i would say that's i would say that there's like three endings to this game three primary endings to the game yeah it's getting to room 46 getting the i mean ah here's what i'll do i'm gonna put a spoiler warning for a small spoiler we willer we'll try our best to not talk as many spoilers yeah but i'll put a small spoiler warning on what the ending names are the throne room ending and then the true ending okay
01:30:58
Speaker
yeah which I'm on the throne room. I believe. Yeah. I believe you've also been slowly working on those getting rid of the boxes in the tunnel. If I'm correct. Yes. A hundred percent. True ending is past that. I'll say that. That's all I'll say.
01:31:12
Speaker
um Okay. There's a lot more steps involved. That's all I'll say with that. Don't you say that. Don't you say that. You said there's thousands of puzzles. There's even a more another thousand after that. No, I can't.
01:31:25
Speaker
My mind can't take it. So that this is that's what I i was going to get to, actually. It's great you you bring that up because I think that's the one beauty and flaw of this style of game is the puzzles get get richer and richer and deeper and deeper but more difficult yeah in ways that you you get into puzzle fatigue especially if you're playing it consistently or or like you know as a streamer you know playing it every single day that you stream
01:31:57
Speaker
um it can be like there were there's been one or two times where i literally because because there's a lot of rng there's a lot of just random number generation stuff going on there's a lot of just like just oh there's some things that you like the game wants to just torture you and i've i've thought i'm like i'm gonna throw my controller i'm gonna burn my house down I don't want to be here.
01:32:21
Speaker
i was like, what is going on with my life? i have to, I can't do this. um But I'm like, stick it out. You just got to keep going. And it it always rewards you. It rewards you if you pass through it.
01:32:33
Speaker
it Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it rewards you with another puzzle. And you're just like, your soul is just crushed. You're like, I thought I was going to get something, but all I got is another mystery. and yeah and that but that's the beauty of this game that's what's so awesome i've never played a puzzle game this deep before and i've tried you know uh one of the biggest ones that i can think of that's similar was which is like narratively or um environmentally uh puzzles uh driven puzzles are is the witness from like
01:33:04
Speaker
I think early 2015 era. I think it's right around that stage. Oh no. Oh no. It gives me fucking nightmares.
01:33:16
Speaker
I'm going to say this. I have nearly platinum to the witness. Now here's the thing. Here's the thing. I am not, I was not smart enough for the witness. I tried, i gave my best shot at everything.
01:33:29
Speaker
I eventually just looked up a guide to do everything. And then there's this two things that that are blocking the Platinum. The first, the final puzzle of the game to get to the ending, the the like the the normal ending, you is RNG-based of what puzzles you'll get.
01:33:47
Speaker
And I'm like, well, and the second is a challenge run in like a tunnel or something that is also RNG-based. And those were the two things that blocked me from Platinum-ing that game.
01:34:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I got a whole man. then i played the And then I played to the looker, which is an hour long game inspired by The Witness with a lot of comedy attached to it. Yeah, I've heard of that. I've got to play that at some point in time.
01:34:13
Speaker
But yeah, it's great. One of the walkie talkies is a ad for a Ford truck. That's awesome. Dude, I love that. I love it when people make stuff like that. Seriously.
01:34:24
Speaker
um But yeah, so The Witness, I think I ended up looking up some puzzles at the end there too. I was just like, there's just no way. And the nice thing, the the beauty of like, it's really hard sometimes to recommend games as a streamer, especially games like this.
01:34:37
Speaker
Because a lot of people just ask you like, oh, can I play it solo by myself, you know, playing video games as I normally would? i was like, yeah, you can. But the beauty of playing games like this as a streamer is you have an audience and you have a lot of diehards. Now, that's a that's a what that's a pro and a con, because as much as you have this wonderful audience that wants to enjoy and see you experience this game.
01:35:01
Speaker
You do have the occasional people that just can't help themselves and they have to spoil things. They have to. They're like, ah you just have to do it the way I tell you to do it. You know, but and I get that. I get why that is there. I've watched people bumble through games. I'm like, oh, just let me help you.
01:35:15
Speaker
Just let me just let me help you get there. so like I just tell you this one thing. that I'll just help you. a gri Yeah, it's just one thing that you got to do. Just do this one thing. just just just just do this one thing just I promise it's going to help you out so much. it's like But that's the point. That's the beauty of video games is stumbling through them, being crushed by them, getting back up and redoing it, you know figuring out your own way, um finding ways to do it. like This is off subject, but like me playing Cyberpunk, I remember people used to come in in droves and they'd be like, you're playing it wrong. You're playing it wrong.
01:35:47
Speaker
You're supposed to be using these guns and you got to use this. And then they would see me because I did a knives run. I just did knives. Oh, nice. and And then they watched me play Knives and they're like, this is the funnest freaking thing to watch ever because I'm one-shotting dudes with knives running around just like slicing people up. And they're just like and it's like, there this is like chaotic. This is crazy to watch.
01:36:06
Speaker
I've never seen someone do this. and We've always seen them play the way I play. And I'm like, that's the beauty of video games. You can play them in millions of ways. Especially games with builds where it's like there's thousands ways you can play this game. like There's no one true way to play the game.
01:36:20
Speaker
yeah Yeah, if you want me to min-max, I mean, like that's kind of boring watching someone min-max. But back to this, you know, like... um Oh, crap. where was Where was I with that? ah but Yeah, basically, um it's just an incredible... like narrating and going through this game, going through the different rooms and stuff, exploring the different puzzles, deep diving into them.
01:36:42
Speaker
It's very cool with an audience. They're there to help you when you're stuck. So playing it solo is, I bet, a hundred times harder. As long as you know you know how to play your games and you know when you want to go look up spoilers.
01:36:55
Speaker
like Exactly. Just be smart with it. Pick the pick and choose. there's There's a lot of places out there that are really good about hiding the details and only revealing as much as you need to know. So um but yeah, that's the beauty of playing it is that you have this incredible audience that there are some people out there that are like, we will only give you hints if or directional help if you ask for it specifically. And that's my that's been my experience on all of the beautiful games that I've played that have puzzle elements to them um from the beginning of my streaming career, which is like little, um maybe little under or little under three years ago, or maybe a little over three years, I forget.
01:37:33
Speaker
But but since then till now, I've had so many like Tunic, Outer Wilds, this game, um such incredible audiences that will just be, hey, we're here for you. We want you to experience this as we experienced it.
01:37:47
Speaker
And we're here for you if you just need the slightest of hints or direction. As a Tunic enjoyer, I am so glad you brought up Tunic. Tunic is, but honestly, Tunic was for a while, probably one of the best video games I've ever played. It's an incredible game.
01:38:02
Speaker
Oh my God. Yes. Yeah. Like that was my game of the year come 2022 when it came out. Yeah. Oh, what if like in like when I played blueprints, I was taking notes. I'm like, I haven't done this since tunic.
01:38:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I still have like clips of tunic pop up on my like, cause I have bunch of, you know, your clips feed on, so on stream. Yeah. I have Tunit clips out there that I'm just like, i they just they're so heartwarming. because it was I believe it was either the second i believe it was the second game I had ever played on stream.
01:38:34
Speaker
um And I built like ah a pretty decent audience just off of hanging out and playing that because the Tunit community was such an incredible community of people that just loved that game, the passion behind it. I mean, it's very Zelda-esque. It's very just beautiful.
01:38:50
Speaker
It's like, you go in, it's like, oh it's so Zelda-like. You get your first boss, oh, this is Dark Souls. Yeah. and And that is like all the puzzles around, oh, this is more than just Zelda Dark Souls. Yeah.
01:39:04
Speaker
And one way to understand like my passion for theses those kinds of games is I'm not very much of a collector. I don't like to collect a lot of trinkets or things like that. i'm very minimalist. I have...
01:39:15
Speaker
You know, I have the stuff I i really need. And sometimes I collect like small little things occasionally. But I have the Tunic game manual in book form on my desk, on my like display case back behind me. Those are all the everything on this display case behind me basically are things that I'm really passionate about. I really love.
01:39:36
Speaker
I've got critical role books. I've got my Tunic book and I have like a Tunic key up there. Um, you know, and then I have some last of us, um, like, um, you know, stuff and, and it's just, and then like a grounded item because ground, it's also a game that I'm really, really passionate about. I love that game, but yeah, but to Nick man just has such a, a special place in my heart.
01:39:59
Speaker
Um, along with like Outer Wilds and stuff like that. And back to blueprints though, that's very much those puzzles are very reminiscent of that. So it's, it's very, it's very warming to be in that environment and to see these puzzles, but also they just brutalize you in ways. Sometimes you're just like, oh I can't believe it.
01:40:17
Speaker
Yeah, they do. Um, I guess like, progress wise have you found every room type yes i yes i have found every room so i at least in the house i have definitely found every single room um cool okay good because i'm like i'm like i want i want to make sure i could talk about certain things like even though you have like a lot of hours i'm like ah just need to i need to make sure ah the so That's the other interesting thing about that game. Sorry not to cut you off, but like ah right before you get to that point.
01:40:48
Speaker
That's interesting about this game. It is so hard to talk about because there are so many ways to go about this game that you never know where somebody's at. And it's really hard. Like you're like, it's really hard to even find milestones. You're like, that milestone they could have got too early. But, you know, it depends on how they figured it out. So you're always worried about what to say.
01:41:07
Speaker
Yeah, no, exactly. Like, for me for me, like, the big things with this game is, like, okay, how many rooms have they found? um how And, like, which of, like, the trophy challenges have they completed yet that I can talk about? And that's my next question. How many of the trophy-related challenges have you found?
01:41:25
Speaker
Or completed? I think we are... I think I have the, I believe I'm like two or one away from the dartboard.
01:41:36
Speaker
ah oh nice. Treasure trophy. Yeah. um And I think the only ones I have left are the replay, like replay the game ones. Like, like do like get to um get to the antechamber in less than an hour.
01:41:54
Speaker
i don't think that's a replay one. I think that's when you just have to focus and just that's all you do is get to the antechamber in one hour. and replay the game i'll get to the antechamber in day one that's that's the one i have um and then the other one is the red rooms one like did the dead ends yeah get as many dead ends as you need i think those yeah it's the like the it's like you need 20 different dead end rooms i think like yeah it's like the sweepstakes or whatever yeah the drafting sweeps sweet sweep sweep sweep yeah sweepstakes yeah exactly sweepstakes yeah yeah yeah the drafting sheet okay well we actually wow we're actually very similar of where we are for those because i i need the drafting sweepstakes still um i need the speed run the game and day one the game which basic people do those two together basically yeah yeah i learned because uh actually at this most recent summer games done quick event
01:42:46
Speaker
blueprints was there on the docket. And I learned the first if you draft your first three rooms on day one within 30 seconds, the first 30 seconds, ah the game changes its RNG to be to benefit you to help you get to the end a little bit better.
01:43:08
Speaker
ah It's a hidden secret ah that the dev put in. This is something. Look, I've been talking to my chat about this and I swear it goes over everybody's heads. Sometimes I feel like I'm just talking to an empty void, but I swear to God, I've been talking about RNG and the nature of the engineering behind the RNG in this game and how it's not quite as RNG as people probably expect it to be.
01:43:29
Speaker
There's a lot of logic that I believe goes into the RNG and that they are shifting the RNG at various times in the game. to either make it more difficult or benefit you in ways.
01:43:41
Speaker
And now we know this from simple things like drafting rooms off of other rooms are definitely like it's a higher likelihood that you'll draft one room off of another room for certain rooms. um or Or that there there's ah there's a an opportunity to get a room off of certain rooms. There's all those.
01:43:57
Speaker
But at times, I also think that they know key factors in the game. Like if X, Y, and Z have occurred, the person's probably looking for item one.
01:44:08
Speaker
And therefore, we're going to make it a little harder to randomly generate the room to get to item one. And like, like I've been like, I really, really needed the observatory, for instance, and I had always gotten the observatory for for the first three weeks of the game or four weeks of the game.
01:44:26
Speaker
I'd gotten the observatory within like the first three to five pulls of rooms, like yeah always on the first round on the first floor or on the second floor. I'd always get it there.
01:44:37
Speaker
And then day I actually needed that for a for a very specific reason. I won't spoil, but you know what it is most likely. Oh, yeah. I'll tell you this, folks. And this is a small spoiler.
01:44:48
Speaker
Just wait till you're at the 50th day. Yes. 50th day that you've got drafted that room. Yes, because like I, so I went, I did, i went, I set it up where I had a I had a special thing where I could get blue rooms to pop, right? Because it's a blue room.
01:45:06
Speaker
And so I'm like, yeah set it up. So blue rooms pop. I went the entire map. I filled the entire map and it never once popped, never once popped up on the board.
01:45:17
Speaker
And I was like, that is uncalled for. It's I was so mad. i was so angry at the game. mom' was like, how could I feel? i filled the entire map. And then we went into the next day and it didn't it didn't come until I until it was too late for me to use it.
01:45:36
Speaker
It was like literally minutes too late for me to use it. And I was like, I am so disappointed in this. I have no idea why you're doing this to me. Because the game had been so... a to had that That room had shown up so rapidly previous to that. so The game just... I think they i think they do generate RNGs at different states. They change the the generation rates of certain rooms at certain states in the game.
01:46:00
Speaker
Which I get because it's making the game more interesting. Yeah. But it's brutal. It's so brutal. It's so it's amazing, though. It's honestly, i keep saying it's brutal, but it's probably it's such an incredibly fun game.
01:46:12
Speaker
And most people will get a lot of satisfaction out of just playing the first portion of it, never deep diving into the later end of it. Yeah, like with tunic, right? Tunic is very similar. Like you could go through all of the incredible puzzles or you could just play through the beginning and for a bit for an everyday gamer who doesn't want to think too much and they just want to play a fun game. You can play tunic and enjoy it um for the base level the game. But if you really want a deep dive, you're going to find a much deeper, richer, beautiful game under it Yes. So.
01:46:45
Speaker
the fun The fun difference between Tunic and Blueprints is Tunic's Platinum Trophy requires you to find all the secrets. um Blueprints' doesn't. Oh, really? okay Interesting.
01:46:58
Speaker
Yeah. and With Blueprint, the like you don't have to do the throne ending or the true ending. um You do have to do challenge runs, though. Both the challenge runs and the speed run.
01:47:10
Speaker
Basically, if there's a trophy in the trophy room, that's what the achievements were based on. Yeah, I was figuring, like I was like, i wonder if they're just based off of like the trophies. Yeah, that's that that was essentially it. So I'm like, oh, this doesn't seem too bad. And then i've I've done a couple of runs to try to do it in a day because I'm like, I'll hold off on the the blue the blue mode. There's a blue challenge mode and a red challenge mode.
01:47:32
Speaker
It's like, I can't remember what they're called, but like the blue challenge mode, it's like you have like five dare mode. You have five dares that you have to basically do... by the time you reach the end.
01:47:44
Speaker
Um, and then there's curse mode where it's like each room just has a curse to it. And, uh, like, that's all that is. and Like, they're both hard in their own sense. Uh, I'm just like, I'll just try the speed running one first.
01:47:59
Speaker
Um, I tried to do to see if, uh, the PlayStation version or the console version could do the exploit that the PC version could do where you can go under the map and get all the way to the, uh,
01:48:12
Speaker
the end oh wow oh yeah and the speed run for the game is like three minutes now oh wow that's interesting yeah for through a but a game break right yeah yeah it's it's cool as fuck it's one of the coolest things ever and i'm just like can't do that on console sag because i would i ah the luck is some is just because there's a lot of like to do it in a day you gotta get to the antechamber because it's you it's room 46 in a day it's not just the antechamber Oh, so you get it yeah, then you have to get you gotta to do that. You gotta you gotta to hope you like the the the dream route is you get the garage and then you have to have at least some dice and you got to get the crypt.
01:48:52
Speaker
ah Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you got there's like a lot of there's a lot of steps that actually go into getting the day one clear. Jeez. Okay. That's, that's crazy.
01:49:04
Speaker
It is crazy. It's so, so crazy. It's like, it's like legit. Just those challenge runs and the, the, the 20 drafted dead ends that are holding me back from the platinum trophy of this game.
01:49:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Other than that though, I've done everything else. I've only missing one upgrade disc. Okay. To my knowledge, which is the one in the freezer.
01:49:30
Speaker
Oh, okay. oh it So you haven't you haven't done the freezer yet then? I mean, like i mean yeah it's it's draft luck that you need for that still. Oh, is it? like Okay. Because, I mean... Oh, you mean to get the freezer to interact the way you want it to?
01:49:45
Speaker
so to to To melt the freezer. Interesting. So I do have... i have a i have a i actually didn't melt the freezer when I got the freezer to work.
01:49:55
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, wait, there's you like more to it. I love it. You're like, huh? but So I didn't. So I had the torch on me. Oh, of course. That was the other. mean, that's the other thing, too. I forgot there's a torch with that, too. Well, yeah. Or like the well, not sorry. I shouldn't say the torch that you would get, you know, from the armory. I got the one that you got to craft. Yeah. Yeah. The crafted one.
01:50:19
Speaker
So I had the crafted one. i got the freezer. I was like, dang it, dude. ah We need a we need the you know, the room to thaw this out. And ah and I walked up to an item and it was like interact. i was like, huh?
01:50:33
Speaker
And I interacted with it and my torch came out. I was like, oh and everybody was like, oh I didn't know you could do that. i was like, sick. Okay, cool. Streamer luck. We got this. And so we we kind of like explored that way.
01:50:45
Speaker
Yeah. The other way to do it is if you have the furnace right next to the freezer. h Well, heat and ice don't mix well and it melts the freezer for you. Yeah. Interestingly enough, too. So, um you know, the freezer, the freezer's interaction is that it freezes your assets, right? Yes.
01:51:03
Speaker
So it was just great at the end of a failed run. Yes, it's great at the or when you just have a lot of money, but you don't have enough to get something. So that's one thing I'm working on right now is getting the blue tents from the um from the what is yeah a gift shop.
01:51:18
Speaker
the gift shop so and that costs 400 coins and i'm just like i don't have that so i the last night last night we set it up so i have like 356 coins and and everything is set up for the other stuff too the throne the the throne room and all that kind of stuff so we're like golden which is awesome have you discovered the secret of the church um No. OK, so well, well, let's say there. I don't know if there's two secrets or not.
01:51:47
Speaker
I'll tell you the one that I know of. OK, thinking of are you thinking of pig? ah Oh, pig. Yeah. OK, so there's another one then. So the way you say that it makes me assume, you know, one more pig is pig is the one I was referring to.
01:52:02
Speaker
OK, pig is the one you're referring to. OK, OK, it's the one I was referring to because that's how I got the blue tents. Okay, yes. So i didn't have the blue tents and I also got the clear out the the expensive store with that.
01:52:14
Speaker
Yeah, I cleared out the expensive store with that. i didn't get blue tents with that as well. and I didn't have that much money in it um because I was very good at avoiding that room.
01:52:25
Speaker
um not i would get the room I discovered that I'm like, oh, and every day at the end of the day, I got that room. I ran to the room and just in and out, in and out, in and out. Take my money. Take it. Make it rain, Jesus. Exactly. You do the the coin mamba.
01:52:43
Speaker
Yeah. It would be like back and forth. ah So I learned that too. Someone taught me how to do that. So we did that. But my I think I had like 160 coins in there when when we actually cracked it. oh It was like... i I had like 500. Yeah, that's amazing. See, that's amazing.
01:52:59
Speaker
um So we've been playing where I bought out all the books. and that's That day I bought out all the books I needed and I bought out all of the items from the um the specialty so what yeah the high hi yeah high gold store. Yeah, store. Yeah, so the last couple of days we've been trying to get the 400 coins.
01:53:18
Speaker
People like, casino, casino, casino. I mean, yeah, at that point it's like you just got a gamba. Dude, I gambled so hard. People were like, you've got a problem. You've got a problem.
01:53:29
Speaker
Because we were just like, we were spending so much money trying to get that and it just didn't work. Luckily, like I said, I'm at 356 coins today. Thanks to the purse, the the special purse, whatever it is. Right. Yeah, that doubles your coins. but That doubles your coins. Or whatever.
01:53:45
Speaker
So, but I had to get rid of that. It's no longer in the, it's no longer in the coat check. ah For anybody who has never played this game, I'm so sorry. You'll never know what it's talking about they're like what are they they're just talking about rooms what jargon is this oh it's it's the best jargon you'll ever exactly so for those those that don't know the game coat check allows you to check an item that you have in your inventory and then it saves it so that you can pick it up the next day in game because you all your items go away at the end of the day yeah have to you have But Co-Check lets you save one.
01:54:14
Speaker
So i would put i put the special key I need into Co-Check, but I had to take out my lucky purse. The lucky purse basically doubles all your money. So anytime you pick up money, it doubles it for you.
01:54:26
Speaker
So i um I got very lucky and got that there, but i it's gone now. The purse is gone, but the money... Luckily, we got the freezer. We got it the money stored. So... We're going to do it unless the game is like, oh, you have 400 coins? I'm not going to give you gift shop now.
01:54:42
Speaker
and So, oh, it's brutal, dude. But I'm hoping we're like, just please, please, RNG gods. Don't hurt me here. i just got to buy that blue tents. I need those blue tents.
01:54:55
Speaker
That's the last thing I have in that shop. At least the Dirigiblox is the only thing that I don't think anybody knows how to unlock. Yeah, i I think so too. yeah um What's been your favorite puzzle in this entire game? Favorite puzzle or like favorite moment that you've had in this game?
01:55:12
Speaker
Hmm. This is tough, man, because puzzles stack on puzzles. So it's like hard to determine which puzzle was like the greatest puzzle.
01:55:23
Speaker
I think, I think it's the aha moments. Like you're just like, oh my gosh, I've got this. I've got this. Right. So like, for instance, like the, like walking into the freezer, having it freeze my stuff and then thinking that we were screwed, but then the torch working,
01:55:42
Speaker
And me being like, oh we did it like that was such a hard because we've been trying to get the freezer in the boiler room kind of situation set up so many times that and then I was just like heartbroken.
01:55:53
Speaker
The game loves to rip your heart out and then like let make you stare at it. And then it's like, OK, we'll give it back to you but like and then like something good happens. You're like, yay. um So that was a really cool moment because I think everybody was just like super surprised.
01:56:08
Speaker
But I'm trying to think of the best puzzle. I really i really enjoyed the two i enjoyed the tomb puzzle. I like the idea of it, this um you know figuring out. like That was very simple, though. but it was It's funny because I look back at it, and it's like that was a very simple puzzle. But at the time, I was like, oh, this is kind of intriguing, like figuring out the order of which these...
01:56:29
Speaker
these like arms need to move and all this kind of stuff and and realizing that doubles i think that's also it sorry i'm going on i'm i'm going in so many tensions but let's go ahead and say puzzles that actually have two folds to them like one where you like oh if i push the buttons this way it opens it opened a door but i but if i did it a different way it opens an even secret or door Yeah, that was sick. I was like, a that's rad.
01:56:59
Speaker
Like you think you're done with something. You've passed on something. You're just like, I'm done with this. And then you realize, no, no, there's like three more puzzles involved with that. Like you need to you need to think about that in multiple facets. I that's just the beauty of blueprints.
01:57:15
Speaker
um But as for one specific puzzle, I don't know.
01:57:20
Speaker
yeah no i i think i'm the same way i think like for me one standout one was the reservoir puzzle yes uh yes of like oh i can empty the whole thing oh but if i don't empty the whole thing there's a secret yes yeah that's the puzzle on a puzzle right you empty it and you find like all the chests and you're like sick i found it and then you and then all these keys too what do you mean Yeah, exactly.
01:57:46
Speaker
Exactly. um And the funny thing was down in there, you know, with all the treasure boxes, you're going to need keys for it. I was like, you know, my soul kind of left my body because i was like, I only had like four keys.
01:57:57
Speaker
And I was like, oh, I'm going to have to do this again. and <unk>s like I'm going to have to do this again. This is going to be brutal. And then like, and then like, I was just like looking around. I was like, okay, which box would I pick if I was to hide something really, really important?
01:58:11
Speaker
Which box would I do it in? And I scoured the entire area. And someone kind of accidentally spoiled it a little bit. They're like, Oh, it might be in a box you wouldn't expect. You know, kind of thing. And i was like, oh, okay, I'm going to pick the box that would I'd least expect. And so there was a box like in a certain spot that was behind something. And I was like, this is the one.
01:58:31
Speaker
And I immediately got it. And chat got chat turned into like, they were going to string up this person. They were literally like, I can't believe you told him you've ruined it. You spoiled it. And I was like, no, no, no. He just kind of, cause he didn't do very much. He just said like, Oh, it might be in a place that you didn't expect. And everybody was like, you said too much.
01:58:52
Speaker
He went straight to it. And I'm like, I just got lucky. I got very lucky. I picked the right box and I didn't have to go through any of the other boxes though. I i picked maybe one or two other boxes and I got some allowance down there.
01:59:04
Speaker
But, um, But yeah, figuring out that you you can raise the water and actually find another secret place. I was like, oh oh my gosh, this game. This game. I'm glad like a game like this exists now.
01:59:17
Speaker
I'm glad that it's free on like PlayStation and Xbox if you have their service. Yeah. Yeah. uh
Indie Games Impact and Evolution
01:59:25
Speaker
this game i have seen two of my friends pick up this game and play it recently and they're like whoa like watching now that i know everything i like just sitting on my hands and watching my friends play this yeah yeah watching people kind of struggle through it a bit and seeing where they're like where they go with it and what they decide to do it's it's great it's a great time
01:59:49
Speaker
One final question before we move on to our second topic of the day. If you had to pick one favorite room out of all the rooms in Blueprints, what room would that be? Hmm.
02:00:04
Speaker
I think...
02:00:07
Speaker
Hmm. Which room would it be if I had to pick a favorite room? Well, so there's like there's there's like the most you ah utilized room. Like I would say, like foundation is core, right? Like that's a you like if you're thinking of utility, it's like foundation.
02:00:24
Speaker
Like hands down for me, foundation probably would win out in a in a battle. um But favorite room.
02:00:35
Speaker
I think I like...
02:00:41
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. um I think i was just excited when I first saw Tomb, which is weird because it's not like it's like... Tomb was just like... When it popped up, it was like, ooh, this is interesting.
02:00:57
Speaker
Or like Treasure Trove, like the black rooms. yeah i thought that was just so dope. I was like, whoa, we're getting into something... deep now something yeah something i think that broke the narrative that broke out a deeper narrative that i was like oh this game has some lore to it like some serious lore you know you get out of these because i i understood like the especially as a designer understanding like the color spec like blue green purple yellow you know um
02:01:28
Speaker
yeah different room styles and then how those correlated with different regions and stuff like that but then when you got into like black i was like wait a second what like what's going on here there's like only three black rooms with yeah there's only three black treasure sh trove and i believe it's it's the third one right the third black room which one the throne room throne room uh trove and two Tomb.
02:01:55
Speaker
Right? yeah Yeah. Yeah. Throne, Black Room, Tomb. Yeah, I think those are the Black Rooms. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um very, yeah, very interesting, like, just to see that. So I think maybe Tomb, because that was the first I stumbled across, and i was like, oh, this is a deeper, deeper game.
02:02:10
Speaker
Fun-wise, it was Rumpus, just because, like, you have Alzara in there, and you get to see, like... like video feeds and you know like you scared me the first time gave me fear he made me fear the game because it was like 2 a.m in the morning when I was doing the run and I finally find the rumpus room like oh cool and then there's alzara and i'm like why do I have a bad feeling about this and then he starts talking and it's just hair standing like I can't sleep now. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, Oh, this is so cool. That's I, I think I, I, I'm just a story rich. now I like rich narratives. I love rich narratives and games.
02:02:45
Speaker
So I think that's probably where i probably would say my favorites are. I'm puzzle wise. i I can't even think right now, man, there's so many puzzles. It's like, they just fall on top of each other. yeah I actually have an entire document, like where I share on stream.
02:02:58
Speaker
for it's It's in a tool called Figma, which is a design tool. But I basically have all of my notes in there. And everybody and people can like literally like log in and take a look at all of the notes and the wild, just conspiracy theory nests that have occurred over that. It's really awesome.
02:03:16
Speaker
so um But yeah, yeah the all the puzzles kind of run today run together at this point time. Nice. Well, I'm excited to see more of your playthrough ah to see you hit ah the other endings whenever they the luck will be on your side.
02:03:31
Speaker
Yes. With that, we're going dive into our second topic, which will be a little bit shorter just because of time constraints here. bo This is your public service reminder that most FPS shooters are in a three-dimensional space.
02:03:47
Speaker
So you have to look up once in a while because that camper that you were complaining about has been standing on the same light standard the whole time because you refuse to look up. You're letting your whole team down.
02:04:01
Speaker
ah But we're going to talk a couple other indie games as indie games in the past five years have been, i would say, nothing but incredible for the most part. Mm-hmm. um What are your thoughts on that?
02:04:13
Speaker
ah Yeah. Just the indie game scene. Now I am so excited. i am an indie. I'm I'm an indie fiend. One of our um yeah I'm creating like our like ah channel bitch breakers where one of our things is basically we love it We love everything indie.
02:04:28
Speaker
And it's true. We just the heart of indie is the that's where the creativeness, the art comes into you whether it's gaming or movies or you name it. um The indie nature is just like, that's where we get to experiment. We get to play.
02:04:42
Speaker
We get to see things really take shape and form. You get to take big risks, right? Because that's how an indie is successful. is It takes big risks. That's why Blueprints is successful. That's why Peak is successful. That's why Claire Obscure is successful. That's why games like Tunic or Outer Wilds are successful.
02:04:59
Speaker
um These are beautiful games that have basically said, let's do something different. Let's take some care and love. and just really put it out there and just ah take risks, show that we love games and do something new.
02:05:13
Speaker
And I love that. So it's been incredible the last five years, um an indie explosion, especially since AAA is really done like not dying, but it's, it's, it's at its weakest point.
02:05:24
Speaker
Yeah. know because Yeah. For safety reasons for, you know, for safety and for budget reasons, I get get it. You've got three, if you got $3 billion dollars in a game or whatever the heck it is nowadays, um you've got like 100 million, 300 million, $500 million dollars into a video game, you you have to be as safe as possible at times, right? Unless you're a rock star, rock star games where you're like, the like, you're going to take some risks, but it's going to be a lot of the same stuff that you've experienced previously.
02:05:50
Speaker
um You know, um just, you know, people want that. um But yeah, so AAA is just dying out. So indie games are the place it is for me, for me anyway. No, I think it's it's slowly taking me over too because I was actually just looking at my list of like games that came out this year that I've played that were indie. I got 14 of the 25 games that came out this year that I've played.
02:06:12
Speaker
Oh, my total list of 62. I've played 62 games this year so far. 14 of the 2025 releases I have played were indie. Interesting. That's wild. Yeah, that's that's absolutely nuts that I like. i like I'm like, I'm counting that as probably more.
02:06:29
Speaker
If I look at my games that didn't come out 2025, but I actually played this year. um hu Yeah, exactly. Like at least probably another like probably 2025 is what i'm at then.
02:06:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think this year alone, i think right I think like this year alone, like i I've I focus on primarily like because i I only game on stream really. Well, that's a lie. I game outside a stream a bit now just to relax. And i've because I like, for instance, stream didn't really pick up on Claire Obscure, but I wanted to play Claire Obscure. So I played that in my off time.
02:07:01
Speaker
um I just don't have a lot of time because I'm filling it with as much as I can. But made sure i i made time for Claire Obscure. I've been in and I'll play I'll play like Phasma with people. like off off stream for fun and ah we play a little bit of grounded to now off stream for fun but but like the three the games that I played this this year were like peak Claire obscure schedule one repo and blueprints dude bangers All bangers.
02:07:27
Speaker
You know, I remember when schedule one first came out and everybody was like game of the year, game of the year, game of the year. And we're like, there's no way anything's going to beat this. You know, and it was so funny because it was such a basic game by one. It was such a basic game. Yeah. But yeah, one dude.
02:07:41
Speaker
Shout out to I think his name is Tyler. Tyler. yeah to Tyler. Ty, we love you, dude. Keep building games, bro. I had your cartel updated. I'll come back to the as like people we can shoot in the game. and I'll probably come back to check that out because the gameplay loop did kind of.
02:07:57
Speaker
Yeah, like it was like, unfortunately, it was just like once you're through the gameplay loop for long enough, it just gets a bit. Yeah, Monana. It's the same. It's same season. It wasn't really there. Like, don't get me wrong. I think we were saying, and honestly, you look back at schedule one and is it the greatest game of the year? Absolutely not.
02:08:14
Speaker
But man, do I want Tyler to get his props? I want him to get the ability to finish this game and build whatever game he wants in the future. um Because I think he's got he's got what it takes to take risks and make a game. That's interesting.
02:08:28
Speaker
I think everybody was just primed for that. we were looking for that. It didn't. the The beauty with gamers is we don't need perfect. We need care. We need care and consideration for games.
02:08:39
Speaker
That's all we need. We don't need the the bucket of water to sploosh when we walk by it. like We don't care about like those. like the That's cool like Physics and and micro details are cool.
02:08:53
Speaker
but if you're if you're adding ah hundred million dollars three hundred million dollars your budget so that like the that like you can generate leaves a little bit better stop make a better game just make a better experience for people whether it's narratively or um or gameplay wise because that's what people are buying schedule one hit people in the fields because it was ridiculous it was stupid it was wild it was silly it was repetitive You know, we, but we gave it grace for that. Right.
02:09:26
Speaker
At the end of the day, we still like, this was a really fun game. Am I going to play it a hundred hours? No, but you know, it was such a fun experience. Then you got like repo and then like repo. Cause I wasn't very big on lethal company in those games. I was, I don't, I i don't like games with this, uh, like a loop.
02:09:41
Speaker
that was continuous that's just constantly the same thing over and over again but phasmo and repo are two that i like i can replay i replay those all the time i repo was such a fun silly game i think it's so ridiculous because you're laughing with your friends and that's what makes the game beautiful it's not the world itself it's you and your friends there um and then of course you know we get p then we get peak then we get peak Which I like what we saw, like essentially levels. We saw the evolution of the quote unquote friend slop genre grow because we saw it start because like if you really want make it start, the friend slop started with Among Us.
02:10:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it's grown. it grew to Lethal Company, which then spawned the the lethal clones of like yeah content warning, content warning, headliners.
02:10:32
Speaker
um and then But then Repo, Repo kind of topped that with like making like the best of all of it. Yeah, exactly. they They basically were like, okay, how do we piece this all together to make this something ridiculous and silly? They found their hook, which is perfect.
02:10:45
Speaker
And that's not to give any negative, to but like big props to Lethal Company and those guys for taking the risks and making the games that they made. yeah yeah the they're the they're the the groundbreakers the yeah the ones who led the way for the others to follow yeah exactly exactly and then peak just was just like yeah what if we what if we put a mountain there and it's just like wow That's the whole ass mountain. This is the beauty of what they did. they they like
02:11:18
Speaker
Peak was like a... It was a Hack Week project. So if you work in tech, you know anything about tech. Oftentimes, big tech companies have these Hack Week projects where like, just go do something interesting and new. It can be whether it's part of the company or something random.
02:11:31
Speaker
They did it like a hack week and they pulled in another, I think another studio to like throw down on this hack week. AgroCrab who gave us ah another another crab's treasure. Another crab's treasure, which is awesome.
02:11:44
Speaker
And Landfall who gave us ClusterTruck, Content Warning, and Haste, which Haste was another great indie game that I played this year. Exactly, exactly. So you get that and then all of a sudden, like they simplified it down to its core. Like they were like, well, how do we make something silly and ridiculous? Let's just to take our minds off of these more difficult projects that we're working on.
02:12:04
Speaker
Let's simplify the game mechanics down. And they did. They simplified it down. And that's the beauty of if you think about like any good product is simplifying it down to its inherent like like basic level and finding the beauty in that. Like, so they were like, well, let's just, you know, you just climb a mountain.
02:12:19
Speaker
Like that's all we're going to do Just climb a mountain. That means they have one bar, the stamina bar. And, uh, you've got these goofy characters and you just build upon that. You start building on upon the physics. You start building upon like the simple, ah simpleness of the characters.
02:12:33
Speaker
And they're like, you know what? We keep at like, let's add personality. Let's just make sure that the characters have silly faces. Uh, they look like little stay puff marshmallow men and their mouths move when you talk. And honestly, at its core, that's what sold everybody. I think everybody thought they're like, oh, my gosh, this is so silly. I get to hang out with my friends on this little island. We get crash landed. Everything's so goofy.
02:12:55
Speaker
And all we got to do is climb up that mountain and and sometimes cause a little bit of chaos along the way. And it's it's just beautifully structured. i I really am such a fan. Like it's because of peak that like, I mean, this game was on my radar prior to it, but its I feel like it's because of peak that a lot of more people are now looking at next year and house houses, ah big walk.
02:13:18
Speaker
Oh, a big walk. That's come. That's coming out next year. ah hundred percent. I am you have no idea how excited I am to just walk around a forest with my friends for no fucking reason. Right. So I think that at its core is what people want when they come to when you play with your friends, you just want to have good experiences in a virtual world.
02:13:40
Speaker
Right. And I think the pandemic really kind of solidified that for brought a lot of people into the gaming sphere and kind of gave that narrative is like, we just want to hang out with our friends and have a silly time. And a big walk, I think, is going to be really brilliant on that. I think everybody it's funny because I think at our core, everybody's thought like, what if what if we just had a game where I get to walk around and explore a world with my buds, with my friends, like online and find silly things to do?
02:14:06
Speaker
and we've all had this like deep down in us and seeing a big walk. It's like it's you know you have a good product when everybody goes, that's what I've been wanting, you know, and like, but it's never been made, which is so ridiculous. Like, we're you were talking about the fire game. Like, we were talking about that, like, $20 just sit around a fire game. Yeah.
02:14:24
Speaker
Like, they could have done so much with that. Like, they could have had done it where, like, it was a really silly universe where, you know, they could have just expanded upon that narrative and been like, what if it's like everybody sitting around a fire terrible telling a story, but every time you tell a story, that drags all of the players into a new universe.
02:14:40
Speaker
that they have to experience together. Like, there's a video game for you. Like, very simply, they could have gone a little bit further, but instead they're just like, oh, let's just have people sit around fire and talk. And it's like, oh, you all you were almost there. Everybody would wanted it, but Big Walk's a great example of that.
02:14:54
Speaker
You get... yeah and And it's about like using the environmental aspects and building upon those. like like Like, sure, you can have it where it's just like, oh, a bunch of friends walking around. But the fact that there's like, ah there's an echo in the distance when you hear a friend in in the distance.
02:15:10
Speaker
There's, you know, um be if they're behind an object, you hear a muffled. Like that's the that's those are like the little like the little things that they've worked on to better the product, but to make it the experience like a better for people.
02:15:25
Speaker
It's not just because they're like, look how cool we are with like how pretty this environment is. They're just like, it's a co goofy, cartoony environment. But look how much detail there is when you interact with your friends like that's that's the beauty of those games. I'm so stoked for big walk and those. Yeah. you know Like, yeah.
02:15:44
Speaker
Like I'm looking at my steam wishlist. I would say like 90% are all, all of these are indie games. Like the exception of like, what's not an indie game. Oh, I have Sonic rumble, which by the way, Sega, what are you going to put that on steam, please?
02:15:57
Speaker
yeah um And a Digimon story time stranger. Those are like the only two that are not, uh, um indies i think uh everything else is in india i'm like very excited for when they eventually come out i will give my money to indies uh like consistently i'm happy to do so because i want to see these because they're also cheaper as well too uh that's that's i think that's the big hang-up for most people they don't care where they most people aren't gonna think if you're not an If you're not like us, you're not thinking about the devs and all this kind of stuff. You're just playing video games. You're just out there. I'm going to pick up a video game, especially for your standard gamers, you know, and that are especially console gamers that are used to like, oh I'm to pay $70, $60 for a video game.
02:16:43
Speaker
Nowadays, people are starting to realize like they're like, I'm not getting the value I want out of this. I have a friend who's not a very big gamer, but he has like a switch and he has like a PlayStation um and stuff.
02:16:54
Speaker
And he'll play like Last of Us and things like that. He's like, oh, these are the best games ever. Then I brought him into Peak. I brought him into Repo and he was floored. He was like, because he we built him a PC.
02:17:06
Speaker
He was like, I didn't know video games could be this good. And I was like, for $20 or something like that. I was like, i was like welcome to the welcome to the revolution, my friend. you have and You've been brought in because it's exactly what we're looking for. $30, $50. I'd pay $50 for a good indie game.
02:17:25
Speaker
$30, you know, but when you're getting to the $80 range for these AAA titles and it's just slop, it's just garbage and it's microtransactions and all these kind of goofy little systems and not really pulling you into the story or giving you a world that you really want to be in.
02:17:41
Speaker
It's just sad, it especially for how much talent goes into that, how many thousands of engineers and people have been working on those things for so long. And to have it come out, you know, and I don't even blame them. i blame like the the the heads.
02:17:57
Speaker
ah up being like, how can we maximize value out of this out of this player base? Instead of thinking about how can we tell a good story that will get us money, that people will make we'll make money because people want be to invest in this.
02:18:11
Speaker
It's just sad. but ah But again, AAA is good triple a is doing it and that's why I'm so excited for it. Yeah. No. ah Last question I have before we move on. What do you think will take the best indie game award at the Game Awards and best debut indie game at the Game Awards?
02:18:28
Speaker
Um, okay. So this is where I always get confused. So debut, the difference between debut the difference between is debut. Indie means that it's the studio's first game. Indie game means it could be a studio's second game or something. So like, okay. Silk song would be up for best indie, for example, but not for best debut. Okay. Okay. not Prior for them.
02:18:50
Speaker
I think this year is hands down just a sweep. I can't imagine it not being a sweep. I think Claire obscure is going to decimate. I have a feeling i did the math. I believe it is eligible for like seven or eight awards.
02:19:08
Speaker
And I think it's going to take maybe all but one. Yeah, yeah, I could see that. I could see that because that game is just peak video game. Like I think that a real competition would be for best indie.
02:19:26
Speaker
which, and it comes down to if Silksong actually comes out this year. Oh yeah. I can see that. Because then it's like, okay, then you have like a clash for that one at least. Yeah. Yeah. and Everywhere else. I think it takes it.
02:19:39
Speaker
So for the most part, here's the realisticness of the, like the detail. So I'm, I've always been really good. Like I'm, I've, I'm like one, I'm, I'm like, uh, I'm, uh, usually 100% on like movie review awards, like Oscars and, yeah and like stuff like that. I've, I usually get that a hundred percent.
02:19:55
Speaker
I always win the pool at work or something like that for those. For indie games, and it's going to be very similar. As much as we wish these were like tried and true just based off of like good good gestures, these are these are people the people that vote on these are you know inside the industry.
02:20:13
Speaker
And so they're going to vote for things... From their heart at times, but also they're going to think like, we can't let Clare Obscure just sweep. We have to give somebody else some, some, ah you know, some ah presence in the awards because that wouldn't be fair.
02:20:31
Speaker
So I can see them letting them sweep for the most part, but then giving it to like ah giving best indie game to another, you know, i mean another game. We that now, but then there was that one year where it was God of War and Elden Ring that took everything.
02:20:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It was like, how much is it actually true? Because I mean, last year, I think last year was a great year because essentially if it was the main nominations for game of the year, aside from the DLC,
02:20:56
Speaker
which the fact that they let that be a nomination for the first place. Yes. Was ridiculous. Very aside from that, everything else at least what took home one award. Yeah. Which I'm like, it was like the most like spread award, like game awards in a long while.
02:21:12
Speaker
I'm like, that was a great show for like who won and everything. Well, biases will come into play because like the the so narratively speaking, like if one year like there there was a wash and it was all like game like it was all like AAA titles and gamers were really upset about that.
02:21:31
Speaker
The next couple of years, the people who are voting on that are going to be thinking like, oh, I really don't want to upset like everybody on the Internet, but also screw everybody on the Internet. I get to vote the way I want to vote. Yeah. So and I mean, to be fair, the people haven't been happy with people. The people who are loud about it, not being happy about it are always in like the vast minority.
02:21:50
Speaker
It is truly they're the loudest. It truly is. But the and that's 100% a fair take. I actually I 100% agree. Like vocal minorities are always problematic.
02:22:01
Speaker
um But I think as we've seen like studios and I think there's been a rude awakening recently in the industry. of understanding that gamers like though you have the vocal minority that are speaking out but if your game isn't doing well if it's not performing well if you're not making money off of it that means that the majority of gamers aren't interested in spending the money on whatever it is you're building um and so they're starting to take like a
02:22:32
Speaker
a wider perspective of the internet's values and associate that to like, just like the logic of like game awards and stuff like that. So I feel
Game Awards and Nintendo's Legacy
02:22:42
Speaker
like there's going to be like a push for more indie style stuff for sure, especially at game awards, but also like, how do I say this? Like people are going be cautious. I feel like it's like we're in a real kind of wild west time where,
02:22:56
Speaker
like Claire Obscure could literally just sweep. And I think they'd be happy. I think people will be okay with that. I think everybody will understand that there's going to be people out there, especially your vocal minority that are gonna like, that's not the Donkey Kong should have won, you know, or something like that. But i think Donkey Kong will give Claire Obscure a bit of a run for its butt. money a little bit with music with the the ost award or soundtrack award because it was a really good soundtrack i'm not gonna lie i do kind of hope i would like two live performances at the game awards this year one for claire obscure one for donkey kong because i think we'll get that yeah i i because honestly the the the one big song of like that pauline sings that like the end credits is it's a banger of a song
02:23:41
Speaker
Or if they just come out and sing like one of the Bonanza songs, that would be cool, too. i i i would be happy either way. Yeah, I think that's the thing is like so as as soon as you put a ah massive Nintendo title out like Mario Kart World, like you're going to see some nominations for Mario Kart World and for Mario Kart World be up for family game and multiplayer and you know, and and Donkey Kong.
02:24:02
Speaker
Now, I love Nintendo. I've always loved Nintendo. Am I happy with everything Nintendo's been doing? Maybe not. But again, that's Nintendo. Nintendo's been Nintendo for generations. So it's not like... Exactly. It's like anything they're not going to they're not goingnna change their ways just because the internet's saying bad things about them. Because... and Yeah.
02:24:21
Speaker
Because they're Nintendo. Yeah, they're Nintendo. They've... they of the olden days eras of video games they are the ones who came out essentially unscathed from that and they they're gonna keep doing what they're doing yeah yeah yeah exactly they have like that that um they have they've got the scarred exterior so they're capable of just handling anything. They're like, whatever. We're were we' bruised and brittled. We can handle anything.
02:24:44
Speaker
But um so Game Awards, like just because they exist, just because Nintendo has a game, it's likely that they're going to be pushed on the wards. Like, I don't know. I've not played the Donkey Kong game, so I don't know if it's the best game in the world, but it it feels very much like...
02:25:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's what happens with a lot of the Nintendo games lately. It's like, it's a solid game. like Like, of course, Tears of the Kingdom, you know, um you know um Breath of the Wild.
02:25:10
Speaker
Like, those were, like, Tears of the Kingdom was an advancement on Breath of the Wild, but Breath of the Wild was a real shift. Yeah, I like, honestly, I do prefer Breath of the Wild over Tears of the Kingdom, just because, like, there were aspects of Tears of the Kingdom that felt like you could like that that felt like overlooked yeah like like rather the wild it was like the perfect size of everything breath of the tears of the kingdom it's like there's like a little bit too much almost yeah well they just what really comes down to a Nintendo did something new they took a risk and they did something really new and everybody loved it right but then we had like Mario no offense I think it was galaxies is that what it is Mario for the switch yeah I think it was the one with the hat the cap that you throw
02:25:53
Speaker
ah Mario Odyssey. Odyssey. Thank you. Odyssey, not Galaxy's Odyssey. Sorry. Galaxy was the Wii era one. Yeah, it's the Wii era. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I played that one, but I was like, oh this just feels like everything we've always had.
02:26:07
Speaker
And I don't get me wrong. I love that. I love that that can exist. But best game of the year kind of like mentality. like i was like, I would much rather see games that have, you know, done something to change the like the pace of games, not just another of the the same stack that we've gotten a million times over.
02:26:26
Speaker
So Donkey Kong, I bet it's really good, but I feel like, and maybe this is someone that hasn't played it, Probably is very similar to some other games that we've had with maybe some new mechanics, some new basic mechanics, but very much like that puzzler level or style game, you know, same story, baby, same kind of vibe. but um So hopefully like it, I see, i can see it being up for nominated, but man, if it wins over like clear obscure, which has changed like so much of the gaming things, I'll be like, that's rough for me. That would a rough choice, but yeah,
02:27:00
Speaker
But respect it. But I respect it. I respect yeah the idea that like it's okay to have multiple games. And my opinion is not always going to be like the winner. of like In fact, oftentimes I disagree a lot with what wins in whether it's the Oscars or Game Awards and stuff.
02:27:15
Speaker
But my votes go towards what I think will absolutely win. And then I have my pool of these are the ones I wish would win. um Yeah. Yeah. Like, I think I've only ever been mad with two. I've been like, I was slightly disappointed with one win, but understood why it won.
02:27:30
Speaker
I've only been mad with one. that won i'm trying to think if it was that i was disappointed on the year that um uh stray one game of the year thank you but only because i'm like you look at the indie games that year it it was stacked like you had that you had tunic you had neon white and you had two others that i do not remember what it they were because i was like tunic or neon white tunic or neon white and
02:28:01
Speaker
Because that's those are the I like i played straight to I liked stray, but I thought to Nick and the on white were better. i i have to agree what I was going to say the one time that I was actually mad like I was like this is disappointing.
02:28:16
Speaker
Right. Most of the time I'm like, that's awesome. You know, whatever happens, happens. And I'm happy to support just games in general. I like to see them win. Do the awards matter all that much? They do help studios a bit.
02:28:27
Speaker
But at the end of the day, like these are just ways accolades to say congratulations. You guys did fantastic. yeah so So that's what it is. But i was really i was really thrown and upset at the Stray situation. No offense to the creators of Stray. I'm so happy you created that game. I think you created a wonderful game.
02:28:46
Speaker
But i' let's be completely honest. Stray wasn't really a video game as much as it was an interactive experience. There wasn't a whole lot. There wasn't really like... there wasn't really like any risk or worry because it was on rails so much. It was a, it was ah massively on rails experience, hidden, hidden very cleanly to look as if it was like this interactive experience where you get to really, you know, choose your path or choose your destiny and be, it was, it was really fun. It was really beautiful. I had a cat that was really cool.
02:29:19
Speaker
But at the end of the day, it It was just, it was a narrative experience. And that was cool. I love that. I love narrative stories. I do. But comparative to the games that came out, like so compare that to Tunic and holy moly, just night in fact, I played Tunic and then the next game I played was Stray.
02:29:41
Speaker
um on stream and and I was just like people were like oh isn't this amazing I was like no I mean yeah it's fun i like it but it didn't really it didn't change yeah like it was I was heartwarming it it was very cool i I connected with the characters but that's not all I need from a video game I need gameplay um that's the beauty of the difference between a movie and a video game like like narrative interactive games are cool and fun experiences and sometimes they could win awards but depending on what's available that year but tunic just was insanely good and insanely deep and i thought i just got robbed in that situation yeah that yeah that's like the only time ever i've ever been like mad mad ish but like i'm like it's good i know straight is gonna win because cat
02:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, and that's fine. And i like I said, respect it it. It is what it is. But man, i like Tunic was ah just... I really hope they do. i I don't think they're going to make a Tunic 2 or like another experience based in that world. but ah I'm excited to see what their next game will be.
02:30:49
Speaker
Yeah. I think a lot of them have disassembled, though. I'm not too sure a lot of the same people are at that studio. um But we'll see. We'll
Interactive Gaming Segment
02:30:58
Speaker
see. Yeah, that we will.
02:31:00
Speaker
ah With that, I think that's a good place to wrap up this conversation ah as we will start closing things out and head on into the bonus level. Crazy lists, great deals, and recapping gaming history. It's all here in the bonus level.
02:31:18
Speaker
And to kick off the bonus level, we've got game clash. This is a small little tournament exam where you get to decide the winner of the little category that I pick every episode in today's category.
02:31:30
Speaker
I decided to grab eight random blue rooms from blueprints. And you're going to in a nice little bracket style tournament. You're going decide what wins. Are you ready?
02:31:40
Speaker
Yeah, sure thing. All right. Round one. We got the foundation versus the workshop. Okay, I love the workshop just because the creativeness of it and like making stuff but foundation just hands down has to take it because it is such a core element to yeah you have to use the foundation like all the time. It's it's very important to the game. So foundation.
02:32:03
Speaker
ah The attic versus den. Okay. Attic. Oh, ill have to say attic for items. Den for access, but attic.
02:32:13
Speaker
Attic will win in that one for sure. Because you get eight items in the attic. Eight nineteen items. ah The dining room versus the drawing room. Look, drawing room is great early game because, you know, being able to wait. Drawing room is wait, wait, wait. Drawing room is where you get to redraw the rooms. Yeah, the redraw the rooms.
02:32:35
Speaker
No dining room. Hands down. You need those steps. I need those steps so bad. Dining room. I got to take dining room. Conference room versus security. um
02:32:48
Speaker
I don't utilize conference as much as I'm supposed to. ah security. the Okay, so here's what I'll say. Conference room, because you can access security via computers later in the game.
02:33:01
Speaker
And I don't need to be in that room otherwise. All right, moving on to the semi-finals, the foundation versus the attic. Foundation versus attic, definitely foundation. You just have to stick with foundation.
02:33:14
Speaker
And the dining room versus the conference room.
02:33:21
Speaker
Dining room. You just need, I need the steps. I always need the steps. You can't go without the steps. All right. Grand finals foundation versus a dining room. What wins dude? Like, so they both solve a similar problem, but, but foundation is not foundation foundation, just foundation. Like it's just like an easy pathway.
02:33:42
Speaker
The foundation wins. Congratulations to the foundation. yeah are the champion of the blue rooms. I love garage though. I want to say garage was on the list. Garage is great.
02:33:53
Speaker
I had to pick eight and I'm like, well, and those are the gate that I decided to go with. but By the way, I just solved the garage puzzle last night, like where you run power to the garage.
02:34:04
Speaker
And I was so excited. i thought I thought I was going to get something special, like it was going to open up something. And that my my community was just like, don't be happy. was like, what did it do? It's like, it just powered the garage. And I was like, no, no, no,
02:34:16
Speaker
no i've been trying to get this for weeks i've been trying to get power to the garage for weeks and all it does is power the garage which i already do so i'm like okay this is there' this this is just wrecked me that's funny yeah uh moving on to this week in gaming history here's what some stuff that happened in the past from august 11th to 24th plus some game birthdays starting off with some major events august 13th and 19 1991 Nintendo releases the super Nintendo entertainment system in the U S it features 256 color graphics in 512 by 448 resolution.
02:34:52
Speaker
The processor is a 16 bit version of the n NES 6502 processor, but the new system cannot use game cartridges from the original and NES. The price is nine 199 95 USD includes two controllers and super Mario world.
02:35:08
Speaker
Remember those pricings? Remember that best price? You remember them? August 14th, 1989, Sega of America launched the Genesis home video game system in LA and New York in the US.
02:35:21
Speaker
It features the 512 colors in 320 by 224 resolution. 80 animated sprites are possible with up to 16 colors per sprite. Included is the video game Altered Beast.
02:35:31
Speaker
Priced $189 US dollars. Man, I had a genetic Genesis. i've i've I've had so many consoles. I had the Sega CD. I had all i had everything. i had the... Nice. Yeah, so, man, I remember these.
02:35:46
Speaker
August 18th, 1982. Atari and announced it has obtained exclusive worldwide rights to market the video games based on the film. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. No, no.
02:35:56
Speaker
This is amazing. And now, if you were able to get a copy from the landfill. Yeah. yeah Congrats. and you found You found what the Bitcoin millionaire guy couldn't. Yeah, exactly.
02:36:10
Speaker
That magical, magical game. I actually played E.T., ah way back when I was a kid and it was horrible. I think I, like back I think I walked E.T. into a pit and then I couldn't get out of the pit and I ended, i i turned off the game. I was like, I don't know what to do now. I can't get out of the pit.
02:36:27
Speaker
And then that was it. It was the worst game ever. um Moving on to some game birthdays. Happy birthday to these following games. August 11th. Chrono Trigger turns 30.
02:36:38
Speaker
Oh, thirty Uh, yeah, we still haven't heard anything about a possible remake or just an HD re-release of the game. Uh, you know how I feel old. I remember playing Chrono Trigger when it first came That's freaking, that's wild. Uh, also August 11th, Mario Kart Super Circuit turns 24. That's the Game Boy.
02:36:58
Speaker
what, uh, oh wait, no, Super Circuit's the original one, I believe. Um, August 14th, Darksiders 2 turns 13th. On the 16th, Chrono Cross turns 25.
02:37:10
Speaker
Also on the 16th, the Sonic Gems Collection turns 20. twenty August 21st, Bioshock turns 18 and can legally go into a bar here in Canada. ah ah On the 22nd, The Legend of Zelda turns 38. Dude, that's wild. I actually, that was the very first Nintendo cartridge I got outside of Hogan's Alley, the Hogan's Alley Mario Brothers.
02:37:34
Speaker
a duo cartridge that came with the Nintendo. I got Legend of Zelda, the gold, the gold cartridge. Ooh, nice. Yeah. Incredible game. Also, also on the 22nd, Nintendogs, Labrador and Friends, Dashound and Friends, and Chuela and Friends all turn 20 years old.
02:37:53
Speaker
And on the 24th, Mafia
Gaming Deals and Recommendations
02:37:55
Speaker
2 turns 15. bafia two turns fifteen wild happy birthday to all those games and all the other ones in between as well uh moving on to tony's game poll this is our seasonal poll that every every season we have a new poll and this year's poll uh this season's poll zam what game franchise deserves a new game 2025 2026 that has not been announced yet that has not been announced yet hmm is this for me to guess or are we or is this a poll that you run with everybody it's for you to answer it this is a poll this is a poll i'm gathering the data at the end of the season i reveal what the top answers were what what franchise deserves new game in 2025 that hasn't been announced oh oh my goodness um
02:38:43
Speaker
What's a good ah franchise? What hasn't been announced that deserves a new game? um
02:38:53
Speaker
Oh my gosh. i'm I haven't even, i haven't prepared for this one. Let's say, ah you know what would be good that's in my vibes, ah my vibe house?
02:39:07
Speaker
Let's see. Well, well, to Nick, of course, but that's never going happen. I'm going to say Cuphead. a new cuphead, right? Like that's not something that's, that's, that's all like they could easily could do a new one, which, uh, which, so you know what I'm, I, but ah that's a pretty solid answer.
02:39:24
Speaker
I think, i think that's probably what I say. What franchise deserves a new game in 2526? Well, does it deserve one? Yeah, that's about as good as I've got right now. i've got to let me let I might shout something out randomly in the next few minutes. but to Fair enough. yeah ah Moving on, your deals of the week. Starting off with your free games on the Epic Game Store. ah Your free games from August 7th to 14th are 112 Operator and a Road Redemption. And your free games from the 14th to 21st are Hidden Folks and Totally Reliable Delivery Service Standard Edition.
02:39:56
Speaker
um So you can pick those up for free over the next two weeks. ah On Steam, there's a couple sales going on. The Komodo Publisher Sale and Kemco Publisher Sale go on until the 20th of August.
02:40:07
Speaker
ah The 101 XP Publisher Sale, Curve Splash Sale, and io Interactive Publisher Sale end on the 14th. Grab the Games Publisher Sale ends on the 15th of August.
02:40:19
Speaker
And the QuakeCon 2025 Sale and Capcom Midsummer Sale end August 13th. uh you're for playstation sales or your free new free games on playstation plus that you can pick up uh for the month of august lies of p my heroes one justice 2 and day z are your free games you can pick up and own forever as long as you have a playstation plus account and the summer sale ends august 13th on the playstation store um Your achievement of the week is in Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, the way of the Hayabusa clan, which is to slay 500 enemies with hypercharged attacks.
02:40:53
Speaker
And your game of the week is going to Sword of the Sea. And Zam, if there is a one game, old or new, that you would recommend it to the audience at this very moment, what game would that be?
02:41:04
Speaker
um I'm going to go ahead and recommend... I i highly recommend, since it's on Game Pass... Claire Obscure. I think people need to experience the narrative of Claire Obscure.
02:41:17
Speaker
Either that or go watch it on YouTube, honestly. like Like that game is ah is just incredible. from From start to finish, it's got so much incredibleness to it. So it's worth checking out so that you're familiar with a game this year.
02:41:33
Speaker
That would that would be my game. Other than that, it would be Tunic. If there's a classic game, go check out Tunic. It's such a beautiful short like I'm not short, but such a beautiful, simple game that you will love.
02:41:45
Speaker
Nice. I actually have a guest game recommendation for our guest of the podcast today. Sam, I have a game recommendation for you. don't I think it might be interesting for you.
02:41:55
Speaker
ah is called The Root Trees Are Dead. I've heard this one. Yeah. Yeah. I would highly recommend it. I played this earlier this year. ah It is it's it's a cool time where you're discovering fam, like filling out a whole family tree. And all you have is your in-game computer to find all this information.
02:42:18
Speaker
Oh, is it kind of like, um is it like more of a story narrative? Like the driven, like, like like story progresses when you find like after you like x amount of like information for the people.
02:42:32
Speaker
It's it kind of like Edith Finch in that sense. No, it's not like Edith Finch. No, it's very much ah like I would say even like simpler than that. Like it's okay. You find stuff. Once X number have been found, people, the the people will like, we'll give you some dialogue and stuff like
Closing Remarks and Future Content
02:42:48
Speaker
that. And then you'll continue on your search.
02:42:50
Speaker
awesome i'm definitely very simple it's very it's very a very interesting game very cool game and the developers actually are working on another game uh that i've wish listed as well that i'll shout out it is uh called the incident at the galley house it's coming out next it's set for next year as well um so definitely uh check those games out uh if you haven't yet absolutely With that, that does it for another episode here in the Game Lounge. Zam, thank you so much for coming on. This was an absolute pleasure to talk.
02:43:24
Speaker
Dude, it was so much fun. Thank you so much for having me. i had such a blast. Where can we find you on the internet? Well, okay. So you can find me at on Twitch. I am Zam. I-A-M-Z-A-M-N.
02:43:38
Speaker
Like some people like to say, i am Zalman. But it's I am Zam. Zam actually stands for Zombies Ate My Neighbors, by the way, which is a classic video game, Nintendo game. yeah Nice. so ah So you can find me at IamZam on Twitch. you know zaam on i've I've got Zam on Instagram and on TikTok. Or sorry, ah ah X or Twitter.
02:43:57
Speaker
um And then I'm starting up something new with a buddy. We're going to be doing binge breakers. You can find us at binge breakers.tv. Excellent. ah And you can, of course you can find me at Tony's game lounge everywhere. Twitter, ah X blue sky, Instagram, Tik TOK, Twitch, and YouTube.
02:44:14
Speaker
ah Fun facts about the YouTube channel. um My next piece of long form content getting uploaded this, this first week that you're listening to the podcast sites. on the platform new you long form youtube video coming out and of course new shorts uh from highlights of this episode every monday wednesday and friday for the next two weeks so be sure to keep your eyes for looking for that and we we're streaming some digimon hackers memory still check that out as well over on the twitch channel zam thank you so much once again thank you so much it was such a pleasure
02:44:48
Speaker
And thank you, the listener, for tuning in. Be sure to like, share, and follow the podcast what on whatever platform you're listening to this too. And we will be back in two weeks' time with another brand new episode right back here in the Game Lounge.
02:45:02
Speaker
Bye! Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Tony's Game Lounge. New episodes release every two weeks. Make sure to follow, like, and share the podcast on your streaming service and follow us on Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, and X.