Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S3 Ep217: RSS - July - Dmooch
83 Plays3 years ago
Join Dave, Jake, and special guest Dmooch as they talk about food, the core beverage of the podcast, our listening demographics, doom, and even more in this week's episode!
Intro:
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Intro:
- Kirby 64 - The Crystal Shards - Adeleine Joins The Party
- Kirby 64 - Rock Star Quicksand
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:03
Speaker
I'll
Introduction and Podcast Setup
00:00:25
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going all right. Oh, P.S., I'm joined by my co-host, as sometimes they don't show up very often, but Demooch. Hey, hello. I am caffeinated. Ready to go. Yeah, just prior to the episode, prior to the recording starting, we got a Mountain Dew Baja blast.
00:00:33
Speaker
be right back.
00:00:53
Speaker
Um, zero, I believe exhibition. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not a big soda guy, but I felt like, you know, it goes with the spirit of this podcast. Just crack one open. So the only, the other thing I would have is, you know, um, those hard seltzers, which kind of say go at this point, but.
00:01:13
Speaker
Yeah, I become basic white bitch enough to like, I love a good white claw. I got turned on to truly recently because apparently they're like, I can walk over to my, what was it? Turkey Hill and they just have alcohol there and I can be like, so, so like once I went at 10 PM, I'm like, I'm getting this case of 12 things. You're like, uh, we're gonna have to card you and like look at me. They're
Alcohol in Convenience Stores
00:01:36
Speaker
like, that's fair. And then I just walked out. Is it like jarring to see just alcohol at,
00:01:42
Speaker
places in Pennsylvania that you don't expect it, but every other state, it's like, yeah, that's, that's normal. Yeah. I didn't know it was a possibility until I like traveled out of state. I'm like, what the fuck? Right. Oh, I wonder if we have anything cool in Pennsylvania. The other states you're like, why don't we have the 18 varieties of hard pretzels. You guys have all these potholes. That's so cool. Yeah. Right. Ironically cheesesteaks. I don't know. Um,
00:02:09
Speaker
Maybe pierogies? Yeah, pierogies probably. I want to assume that any tasty food is definitely under Pennsylvania Dutch. I'm not going to look it up. I just want to hold that feeling in my heart.
00:02:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely another good food. There definitely is, but I don't know if it's exceptional to us.
Caffeine and Coding Rituals
00:02:30
Speaker
I was going to say, though, you remarked that this is a soda drinking podcast and I'm a little hurt because for years I've been trying to cultivate a casual coffee shop vibe. Oh, so much so. Soiled it. But no, it is actually really funny.
00:02:49
Speaker
I would crack open something, but all I have are energy drinks. And from experience, I should not drink those past dinner unless I'm, you know, going full gamer 6 p.m. Cut off.
00:03:03
Speaker
I need to, this is why I like having seltzer around because it's very close to soda. I can still get enough sweetness that has flavor, but then I'm not up until odd hours. See, but the benefit of doing things on a Friday is that you could sleep whenever you want and you don't have obligations the next day, assuming you have a normal five day work schedule. That's true. Right after this, I'm going to sleep.
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah, the caffeination for coding is is much better. Oh, yeah. I like to hit the ground running with like caffeine and like work stuff. Hmm. It's it's that plus just like a nice playlist on in the background. Oh, yeah. Well, in question, do you like to do the same playlist or do you just have like, I just need something in this space, low fire, what have you?
00:03:57
Speaker
It depends on my mood. Sometimes, if I were to start coding right now, I'm going to pull up Kenny Loggins and just go at it and just like I have the high energy.
Music Preferences While Coding
00:04:08
Speaker
And then that's going to fade out within 10 minutes. And I'm going to go to my lo-fi playlist that I just always rely on. But thankfully, it mixes it up every now and then. But now I tried to ride the hype wave when it arrives because it's very infrequent.
00:04:25
Speaker
I understand that you really have to get on that train. You almost have to get on the highway, so to speak. Where would you say the highway leads? The construction zone, I think. Yeah, that sounds right. Oh, OK. It's better than no. Yeah, I think for me, if I was listening to music, if it's too much, the more lyrics
00:04:51
Speaker
And then the more I haven't heard it, the more distracting it is. So fewer lyrics or a song that I already know works pretty well for me. So I can get that kind of like, you like tone in on the beat. Yeah. And that kind of like keeps you motivated, keeps you going. But it's not enough to like distract you necessarily. I say this in the theoretical sense. It's been like years since I was legally allowed to touch a compiler. It's been banned.
00:05:19
Speaker
I can't do podcasts during it. That's because it's literally a new thing. Your brain's trying to interpret what you're hearing. That's why you can't do Discover Weekly in the same way versus like, oh, these are my jams. Because it's like, oh, it's something familiar on in the background versus, wait, what did they say? Or how'd that song go?
00:05:41
Speaker
video game music though. Oh yeah. That always is fantastic to use because it's like it's familiar and you get like some nostalgia tingly vibes when like you know something comes up that you weren't expecting and feel good even though you're cast in the hell of coatings. Oh yeah we had um so like at the office when Dave and I were working together we had we would all like pile in the car go to lunch usually like two different vehicles or three different depending on when people were leaving
00:06:09
Speaker
And like straight up just had after Undertale, the Undertale soundtrack there for like a couple of days. And I was like, I don't, I just realized it's probably not socially acceptable for me to just have something that's going to make me cry while driving the car, like in front of all of the coworkers. So I'll just not do that anymore.
00:06:27
Speaker
Video game OSTs are freaking great. Yeah, it's super good. I would argue probably a third of what is in my car right now, because I have a booklet and CDs. Probably a third of those are going to be from video games. For our audience, CDs are compacted. At least three of those are from Nier. Which is a good one.
00:06:52
Speaker
And I don't think I've ever played that. So is that something that should be on my to-do list? Yeah. Well, are we talking near and near automata? If you were to start one theoretically, I don't know the difference.
Gaming Highlights – 'Near Automata' and 'Hades'
00:07:05
Speaker
I don't know anything about it. You just seem like you're somewhat attached to it. So it's like, all right, well, if Dave likes it, should I try it out?
00:07:15
Speaker
So I will say like gameplay and storyline wise and how everything feels. I just really had a solid experience. I didn't have any other prior experience through those types of games before I played near automata, but Shane showed it to me. Like he showed me the demo and I was like, Oh, this fucking slaps. So I picked it up. Um, but I do recommend it. It was good. I could see you liking it. I would play specifically automata, like not to commit crimes against the near community, but like,
00:07:46
Speaker
All of the rest of them are a little bit harder to get into or they're just not as polished as Automata is. Even the remake. Are they going to come up with another sequel called Pia? It's going to be, it won't make any sense. That's the first thing you have to accept when you go into near universe is not going to make any sense. We didn't do an episode on that, did we? We thought about it and then it's like, it's a 60 hour long game or something.
00:08:11
Speaker
No, I think we skipped over that. But didn't we actually do near? We did the remake, yeah.
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's Japanese nonsense story, basically. But it's entertaining. That's the genre. It's not super tropey, which is usually my issue with a lot of JRPGs. It's just like, oh, it's big tits, dumb girl. Oh, it's your best friend. Oh, it's your right. It's just all these things. I'm like, I'm done with anime tropes. Yeah. But I think they do a good job stepping outside of that.
00:08:46
Speaker
Yeah. And I've been avoiding like those longer games just because of my schedule. So right now it's been Overwatch and then Hades because, you know, in and out. All right. I'm, I'm content. I can, I got some gaming and I can go back to being productive, but I'm looking forward to when I can go back to a story driven game.
00:09:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean. It's like the, it's the Roguelike style versus like the, the Epic, like you're sitting down, you're saving, you're loading your save type thing. I was committing the sin of listening to someone else's podcast, a video podcast on YouTube for the authors, Brandon Sanderson and Dan, I, uh, Wells is the other guy. And they were talking about Hades actually. And,
00:09:37
Speaker
they had conflicting opinions because Brandon Sanderson is a rational human being and was like, this game is freaking amazing. And Dan Wells was like, I couldn't get into it. I had all these issues, you know, whatever story wasn't that great and stuff. And he's just kind of sitting back and he's like, yeah, stories not that great. There's there's not much of a story there. Absolutely. There is. But can't win them all.
00:10:01
Speaker
Well, I don't like whoever this Dan Wells guy is now. I think he's a horror author also, but I haven't read it yet. Yeah, I would call him a horror for sure.
Ice Cream and College Memories
00:10:12
Speaker
So opinion is one for sure. We can't we cannot afford to have one more podcast rivalry.
00:10:20
Speaker
New York times hate us right now. Oh no, not New York time. We are the first number two best selling pockets. So what do you like to main on Hades these days? What's your ideal run? Like if you see that darkness boon on this web and you're like, Oh, fuck. Yes. Pretty much every time because I see the darkness boom and I'm like, Hmm.
00:10:45
Speaker
I much prefer. Well, number one, I hate the gun, the rail gun. I hate it. I know. I know. It's just it doesn't spark joy. But, you know, sometimes I'll
00:11:02
Speaker
it all depends on the boons though too you get because you'll start a run and you're like, eh, you know, I picked the shield and I'm not big into the shield, but then you'll get a bunch of boons that are just like, okay, I can be unstoppable with this. And that makes it so much more fun when things like that occur. So, um,
00:11:20
Speaker
I can't give you an exact favorite, but I will just say, I just hate the gun because of the reload mechanism. When I get the boon to stop me from reloading, then I'm like, okay, this is better, but yeah.
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think the I think the bad weapons people don't like in Hades are still like there's variants of them that are good or they just takes like a different play style a little bit to get into it. There's no like throw away weapon or it's just like if they didn't have the darkness buff that just gives you the advantage to pick one weapon and instead you could just like truly pick random.
00:11:58
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I wouldn't hate that because of the quality of weapons the game has But I will say guns shelter later we killed is amazing. I like throwing shield I've never used bull rush in my life
00:12:11
Speaker
Bull Rush is, it's really good too. I know it's strong. It's like you said, it's outside of my play style, so I don't try to win it. It's not the most fun, but it is just like ridiculously easy to beat the game with the shield. Like the shield having invulnerability without getting any of the...
00:12:29
Speaker
deflection buffs at all is just incredibly strong. Just back into a corner and just, all right, come on at me. I have one way to go and you're through it. I'm still very much a slut for a bow.
00:12:46
Speaker
I like figured out the timing and then when you get the the Daedalus hammer buff or boon where it's like hey You don't even have to charge your shots. You're just gonna automatically proc. I'm like yo Yeah, load load the crystals bow is always ridiculously good. Haven't tried that build. Mm-hmm
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's all good. Hades is a good game. We had an episode on it. It's freaking great. Need to stop bringing it up. We haven't talked about it in a while. At least we haven't talked about Dark Souls. Yeah, right? Game's trash. I've never played it, so. This podcast was actually founded to drive people away from the Dark Souls community.
Fast Food Adventures
00:13:29
Speaker
Not a good job.
00:13:34
Speaker
Really quickly before we move past beverages, though, I did want to say I had tried something novel recently, and I'm sure you guys have seen it. But liquid death, the fancy looking looks like an alcohol water. It's just sparkling water. I heard of that. Really? OK, I'm going to send you or Dave, could you find a picture of you know what? You can search it up yourself. If you just search up liquid death, you'll see the logo. It looks like it's an alcohol. The can looks like it's an alcoholic can.
00:14:02
Speaker
but i didn't get like to just plain old sparkling water i got severed lime is what it's called severed lime because the whole thing is like how hardcore can we make this sound while still just being water
00:14:18
Speaker
So I will say I've had a can when Justin and Rachel were up the other day. They brought some for me because I clinically like I'm always dehydrated. So like, oh, let's be hydro homies and get them this but this will be badass. It was actually pretty good. It's really good. I don't know if I'd go out of my way to get it. But like I did enjoy it. So I probably should try other didn't realize that other flavors or varieties.
00:14:40
Speaker
I do recommend the lime. That's the only one I've tried so far. But just a tall boy lime can just it's really good. So is this like La Croix's goth brother? It's it's less seltzer. There's just like sparkling. It's just like somebody like blew a raspberry near the water like and then that's what it is. It's very subtle.
00:15:07
Speaker
All right. So Dave spit in my water. My spit is weirdly carbonated. Earned the explicit rating. Whoops. No, that's fair. We mark them all explicit. Uh, but yeah, that was my only thing. I just wanted to mention that because I never really try new things and this was a new thing. That's good.
00:15:28
Speaker
Maybe I'll try and grab if they have it at sheets. That's where I got it. So I hope so. They probably do. That's when I try other beverages. I'm like, oh, I'm out of the thing. I'm already going to pick up some food here. Oh, let me just grab a drink from the cooler. That'll be like, oh, they have a new flavor of X. Let me try that. Yeah, I was doing a grocery store to be like, I'm going to commit to 12 of these.
00:15:50
Speaker
I was doing an emergency ice cream run for Jenny and I was like, okay, well now I'll pick out a beverage for myself and then start to look at all the caffeinated beverages. Look at the time, realize it's a work week and redirected over to water of some variety. So I had to melt some ice cream and I drank that. It's cold as refreshing. It was sweet. Yeah. What type of ice cream was it?
00:16:18
Speaker
Uh, we got the Snickers ice cream bars. Oh, okay. So it wasn't like anything with a spoon requirement. No, no. Yeah. Just, just the bars.
00:16:28
Speaker
Um, I do like, I mean, everyone I assume likes Ben and Jerry's, but like, man, it's $20 for container of Ben and Jerry's right now. It's not actually 20, but it's, I think eight at the gas station. Well, that's your problem. The last pint we got was only maybe like four bucks.
00:16:51
Speaker
But I will say and I'm gonna plug my alma mater but the best ice cream you can ever get is from Penn State's Berkey Creamery and it's just something I've always grown up with and it was it was Detriment to my health because it was right next to the business building. So as I'd be walking to class You know the giant ice cream store they might make ice cream right there
Pizza Preferences and College Days
00:17:18
Speaker
But for Father's Day last year, I got my dad some and there was some sort of shipping error and they're like, hey, you know, to apologize, we're just going to send you some ice cream. So they sent us ice cream and they accidentally sent us a double batch of it. So we had like 16 pints of all this ice cream. And it's it's really it's really
00:17:43
Speaker
great because the niceness of a soft serve is that it's soft, whereas the stuff you get at the grocery store tends to be, you got to jab it with your metal spoon. There's no way you're eating that with a plastic spoon. So this comes out like a soft serve ice cream. It's amazing. It costs an arm and a leg. So if you thought Ben and Jerry's at the gas station cost a lot, they have to ship it from State College.
00:18:12
Speaker
If anyone ever gets the chance, highly recommend it if you're like on your way to through, you know, State College through to Pittsburgh or vice versa to Philly. Stop there. It's worth it. Delicious. Thank you later.
00:18:27
Speaker
I appreciate the plug. Most of our listeners are from Europe and South America, though. So just so you know, they might not be in here. That's not summer. They got vacation. Where do you want to go? Penn State? What do you want to see an ice cream? That is I hate the idea of food tourism, though, like a lot of places I would consider going like, oh, there's this food thing here.
00:18:53
Speaker
Cause I'd look at a site and be like, that's pretty. Where are we eating now? Let me eat near the pretty things. Let me, that's what I'm saying. That's like the number one attraction to just any sort of vacation for me. It's like, okay, where are we going?
00:19:08
Speaker
And I need to make sure that the food there is fantastic because I don't want to have a miserable time. I don't want to be ordering, you know, Domino's every night because that's the only place that has food that isn't, you know, from the grocery store. So.
00:19:28
Speaker
I don't know, New York was fantastic because you can't have bad food there because there's so much competition and every place you would try. It's just like a new fun experience because they're just, they have to be on their, their game.
00:19:43
Speaker
Right. That sounds ideal. I'm imagining just going to Italy and you're like, do you guys have any Domino's chains around here or something like that? You know, how to get shot instantly. Jake goes like, hey, can we just down for like a quick meal, like a nice little 30 minute thing? Yeah. But the marble brownies. Where are the other toppings on this pizza? All I see is cheese and basil.
00:20:14
Speaker
I mean, sometimes a Domino's pizza can slap, but you know, if you have better options, it's just Domino's is always just the convenience and price, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have one down the road. So I don't know if I said it on the podcast before, but I've just gone back to doing carryout because it's so close. And so that's nice, but it's also like,
00:20:40
Speaker
loaded pizzas, what Dave was describing earlier, it's just like ingredients and things on top of it. And even if you get just like standard cheese, it's not like an Italian pizza, right? Where it's thin or anything like that.
00:20:54
Speaker
And you have to spread those out. Dominoes, if you check out with them, they're like, hey, do you want a coupon that you can use within the next two weeks to order Dominoes again? I'm like, who do you think I am? I have things to do, sir. How dare you. Speaking of pizza, I wanted to ask. So, Dumud, you've been in the area for a bit. How do you feel about your redacted pizza name? Just imagine it's better than Papa John's.
00:21:21
Speaker
Are we ducks for ourselves? Oh, slightly. Dolly, pork and pizza, you figured. I was actually searching this. I was like, how much of this is a dox? I think it is a unique joint. All right, I'll cut in the edit. But I will insert my exact address in case you're curious. Here we go. Let me put the time stamp here just to confuse everybody.
00:21:47
Speaker
But anyway, that's a pizza place where I have a friend who works there. I've tried their food once, enjoyed it. I haven't tried too many varieties of their pizza. But I'm curious to try more local pizza joints outside of like chain, because like I grew up with Domino's. Like anytime we had a college party, that was immediately the go to. You'd have your two liter of Pepsi, you get like two varieties of large pizza, and then you'd have a whole whole ton of booze separately. I remember that.
00:22:17
Speaker
Remember one time Jake said, watch this. He did a shot of like the garlic butter, which is weirdly from Papa John's. And then he just did a, did a shot, a shot of booze. Yeah. And he called it booze. That's me raging a garlic butter consumer. That's good.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah, the pizza around here, um, the stuff that I have had because number one, I obviously work in the, well, not obviously, I work in the town that I live in and every, every, you know, sort of corporate event
00:23:00
Speaker
Every corporate event, it's like, how do we reward our employees? Well, it's pizza. So there's like two very close pizzerias that are within like two blocks of the office. And it's
00:23:19
Speaker
All I could describe it is, it's pizza, it folds, it goes in my mouth, and I'm satisfied, and that's about it. It's not really memorable in any way, nor is it special. So that's mostly my exposure down here. Now, there's probably better pizzas that are brick-fired, a little bit more artisanal.
00:23:44
Speaker
But I don't find those to be the best pizzas. The best pizzas, and I still will say to this day, is from the land of Jenny, Ian, and myself. We were spoiled where we grew up with just so many great pizza options.
00:24:03
Speaker
And, um, they're all very unique to each other. So coming from, uh, a very diverse place like that, even though it was the middle of nowhere for whatever reason, they had great pizza making skills, uh, to like pretty much anywhere else I've been in my life. There hasn't been some place that I've been more impressed by, which is odd because, you know, that's sort of, uh, middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania.
00:24:32
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to make juxtaposition to what you said about like, oh, New York had like really good food. And you're like, but pizza back home. Yeah. Well, you don't eat pizza in New York. Nobody eats pizza. You can't compare the two. Right. It's like a town of maybe 5000 people versus New York City. Of course, there's going to be some some differences there. But, you know, the.
00:24:57
Speaker
pizza restaurant per capita ratio, the quality was very high. So I'm sure if you sort of did some sort of math with the population of New York City, you'd get on a similar level. So they could be equal in that manner, but I get it.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah, I was I was going to say one one shout out. And this one actually isn't even a docs because it's probably the second most popular name for a pizza place. Nick's Pizza. Dave and I went there when we worked together and like they had they did the Lux Pizza stuff. So they had like cheesesteak and they had like honey chicken with like banana peppers and they had cheesesteak and they had like chicken bacon ranch and all this stuff.
00:25:41
Speaker
And it was just so good. Like you were talking about how like companies order pizza and I don't know why that's like so much of a go. I guess it's because people like pizza and they don't want to just give money out. But like I was not really ever upset when it was like, all right, we got to work over lunch. We're going to order next.
00:26:02
Speaker
Um, that was good. Well, no, no utensils price per person is low cleanup pretty easy. So, you know, even getting sandwiches that can get a little more involved because then it's like, okay, well,
00:26:18
Speaker
Some people don't like mayo, some people want oil, so we're going to have sides over here and then you end up getting so many picky people that the only thing they come with is bread and the meat and then all the toppings are off to the side and you're building your own sandwich and it's like, why did I pay for food if I got to make it myself? Uh-huh. Yeah, it's a little easier to do something in bulk. And pizza's not really catering, it's just like, here it is, done. Uh-huh.
00:26:47
Speaker
It's very much the only people you screw over when you order pizza are those that are lactose intolerant. Everybody else, you're basically OK. Tomato pie. That's big. That's true. I will say I do not like tomato pie. I feel like it's bread with sauce and we can do better as a society. I know I had it. I felt underwhelmed. I had queued up. But you're not a fan of bread and sauce, Dave. And then you literally said bread and sauce and no.
00:27:15
Speaker
My follow-up is ruined. Well, it says something a lot about the sauce though, right? The sauce has to carry it. So if you're going to collect the cheese, then you got to put in the effort with the sauce. But it's just like red sauce. Right. I'll fucking dip Pita and hummus all day. I'll do various stuff.
00:27:34
Speaker
The tomato pies I've had up until now just haven't had that good sauce, I'd say. Right. Maybe it exists. Maybe I'm out there to be proven wrong. I think out of all of the things that I would like attached to the word pie, tomato is the least favorable. Well, amongst food. I'm going to put the qualifier on there. We did say that we hit the explicit modifier. Shit, amongst food.
00:27:59
Speaker
But like whoopie pie? Hello? What's up? I'm down. Lemon meringue. Really good. Pumpkin? Apple? Apple's kind of basic. But strawberry rhubarb. Also good. So good. Peach? Peach cobbler. Actually, if it's called peach pie, nobody cares. But if it's a cobbler.
00:28:18
Speaker
I want to pull back to something because Dave said something about, you know, what other type of sauce would you want other than like red sauce, which made me think of an alternate sauce at a different style of restaurant.
Secret Sauces: Enhancing Dining Experiences
00:28:31
Speaker
But, um, you two are familiar with Plaza Azteca, correct? Yes. You just docked the United States. It doesn't narrow anything down. Well, um,
00:28:43
Speaker
I don't know how many people know, but there's always that secret sauce that they supply or they can supply for the table with the chips, the white sauce. I don't know how many people are familiar with it. I'm not. It's fantastic. You have to order it every time. I don't know what exactly is in it. It's some sort of like
00:29:08
Speaker
I don't know, like a spicy, more like the sour cream. I don't know. I don't know. It's just amazing.
00:29:17
Speaker
No, it's not a queso. It's kind of like a weird sort of ranch. And next time you go there, and this is all you listeners as well if you're not familiar with it, when you sit down and they're like, okay, here's your chips, and then here's your very basic salsa that's always a little bit too watery. And you say, hey, can you get us the white sauce for the chips? And they'll know what you're talking about, and they'll go out and get it.
00:29:42
Speaker
It makes the entire meal experience so much better. And it's the free part of the meal. So this is actually really funny because the last place I went to go eat was with Dave to plastic. Like I haven't that that that is the most recent. So this is very topical. And also we've got to go again and ask for this secret white sauce. Yeah. Just just be like, can I have some of your secret white sauce?
00:30:10
Speaker
It's the weirdest thing to ask for. And if you look it up online, there are threads, people talking about it. And I'm sure if you're nice to the waitress and you ask, OK, what exactly is in it? Because it is kind of weird just to be like, hey, I would like the white sauce, the mystery white sauce. I'd be worried that I'd either get somebody new who's like, what? And then I'm trying to explain, no, it's a secret thing. You should know about it. I don't even know what I'm asking for. I've heard about it. I haven't gotten it.
00:30:40
Speaker
It's odd because you hear online about secret menu items and whatnot, and it's like, is it really secret if it's on the internet? But that's the only time in my life I've ever regularly asked for a quote unquote secret menu item. And it worked, and it paid off. Nice. I'm going to start doing this at all restaurants to see what they come back with if you ask for the secret white sauce. Hey, can I get some of that secret sauce on the side? Thanks. Yeah.
00:31:06
Speaker
It's just like a Taco Bell or Taco Bell, probably. Well, they have jalapeno ranch where you can actually get on things. But yeah, whatever stuff they put, I think on no inside the chicken burritos, I really like. I think it's some type of jalapeno ranch. Yeah. Yeah. If you if you ever go to mobile order, it like hasn't worked great for me. But you get to see the sheer amount of customization options and you're like, I am.
00:31:32
Speaker
really missing out on my customization here. But yeah, I think it would be funny to imagine that question in a lot of different restaurants and options. Like McDonald's asking for the secret of white sauce is probably not the right play. Why does KFC have tartar sauce? Yeah, I was going to say your best bet is you get tartar sauce.
00:31:57
Speaker
Or maybe. We're missing the fast food days now. I want to go to an Arby's again. I'll say it. There's one very close to me.
00:32:08
Speaker
Hey, have I told you guys the RB story? I don't think so. No, I don't think I didn't realize there was a story associated with our. OK, so the story always makes me laugh. So I apologize ahead of time. So our bees used to have a deal, a five for five deal where you'd get a ridiculous amount of food. You know, you get a regular roast beef sandwich. A regular person would be fine just eating one, maybe two max.
00:32:37
Speaker
I had a friend who would order five roast beef sandwiches. And he thought it would be funny to order five for five orders. So he had 25 roast beef sandwiches. What is in the world? So this is in a mall. So there's no drive-thru. It's in Arby's, actually, where Jenny's from. In the mall there.
00:33:06
Speaker
So he's stuck with 25 roast beef sandwiches and nowhere to go because he's in the mall, he can't take it anywhere. So he just has a tray full of roast beef sandwiches piled up with his friends and they're just trying to get this down. This is towards the end of the business day and there's only one other person in the restaurant.
00:33:26
Speaker
So, uh, they're getting ready to close and, uh, they're like trying to scarf down all this, this food. And the one person, they have the, the employee is asking, okay, Hey, we're closing in like five minutes. Find out the one person who's in the restaurant is dead. Uh, and he's sort of, you know, closer to the exit than they were.
00:33:52
Speaker
and there's only one really main exit. They still have food to eat, they can't take it anywhere, and there's a dead guy just there. Ambulance gets called and the paramedics come and it's sad in reality, but it's also
00:34:10
Speaker
they're stuck just eating these roast beef sandwiches, watching the sky get carted away. And it's the stupidest story of like, why would you put yourself in that sort of danger of having this liability of 25 Arby's roast beef sandwiches? And it's dumb, but it makes me laugh every time I think about it.
00:34:30
Speaker
I wonder what do you have to do to end up in that specific layer of Dante's Inferno where it's like you have to eat 25 Rosebeams and it is, well, paramedics, drag a guy out.
00:34:43
Speaker
It was an unforgettable meal for sure. I wasn't even there. And it's like every time I hear Arby's, I think of that story. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, he wasn't going to finish his fries. Well, also, I'm surprised that the other guy was the one that died. You think the guy that's eating 25 roast beef sandwiches would be the one? Like, what the fuck did the other guy have where he's just like, oh, my body's done now? Did he have a pre-existing condition or was it like
00:35:12
Speaker
the Arby's just sent him over the edge. Right. I the way you were setting up that story, I was just imagining this as like a focal point along world lines. And there was a lot of humorous alternatives like the ambulance personnel come in and like you offer them some of the roast beef sandwiches. Like you're sitting there peacefully and
00:35:37
Speaker
My friend was probably like 17, 18 at the time. You're in the middle of puberty and you just can eat your weight and food and not gain a single pound. Paramedics are there trying to get this guy off a seat and you're just peeling back at the wrapper as quietly as possible to eat another roast beef sandwich.
00:35:59
Speaker
Yeah, I imagine facing everything that's going on here. He was your observer mode. Yeah, right. I don't think like once that starts to happen, you can be like, oh, let me just turn away and quietly. You're just like in the background.
00:36:15
Speaker
You're just like nervously checking. What was he eating? Oh, he's having the mozzarella sticks. Thank God. We're good. No one's going to touch those. It's like airplane like everyone had the fish. Oh, man, we got to watch the airplane at some point. It's before I have. Well, yes, I think I've either seen it or I've seen watch the movie on YouTube. But I don't know. It's so good.
00:36:45
Speaker
Have you guys been on an airplane recently since the Backstreet Boys event? I haven't been on an airplane in three, four years. No, I also have. It's been literally forever. I think 2017.
00:37:05
Speaker
Just for reference. The Backstreet Boys tour, I believe was a reference that Game Grumps was using rather than saying pandemic every time. They're like, Oh yeah, Backstreet Boys tour is going on. Oh no. Those coincided, presumably.
00:37:21
Speaker
Yeah, that that's what's brought on the pandemic. Oh, I think the return of boy bands. Who's got Covid? Everybody. Yeah. Oh, I
Supporting YouTube Creators – The Importance of Ads
00:37:32
Speaker
can only make that joke. I keep hearing that fucking commercial on YouTube. I don't want your fucking phone. Get out of here. I don't know who you are, TikToker. Stop it. Your issue there is having commercials on YouTube. Yeah. But he wants around that. I like to support the community.
00:37:48
Speaker
If we skip YouTube ads, people are going to skip our ads. And I mean, you guys do get our ads, right? Yeah. One person's like, Oh God, did I not get your free seven day trial of crunchy roll. Wait, nevermind. I should know this entire obvious audience has a crunchy roll account. So that doesn't work.
00:38:12
Speaker
Yeah. I just saw recently that Game Grumps had their 10-year anniversary. Yeah. Which I guess is, I assume that's like of Aaron and Dan, or is it of Game Grumps? No, as a whole. It was as a whole. OK. So still, it's been a decade, which is crazy. Oh, yeah. I remember watching way back, dating myself. But when it was just like an early thing, I'm like, oh, it's two funny people playing video games and laughing and having a time. And that was, at the time, a very novel concept.
00:38:41
Speaker
But I remember like watching so many of the Sonic 06 episodes where they had like 125 at least and then watching like the animations of the I can't I can't do it. Yeah, I think those are those are two of my favorite types of outtakes. Also, like the community around Game Grumps is great, like watching Game Grumps animated and just the creators for that stuff. Freaking amazing.
00:39:10
Speaker
but like a game that's so boring that they have to entertain themselves talking about something else or just like sheer.
00:39:18
Speaker
unadulterated pain from the game itself. Those are like the two, the two highlights. I think the most recent thing I watched from them was like their monopoly gameplay. And as you said, it was just unadulterated pain of just Dan kept on getting just like the worst community chess, just constantly taxed and jailed.
00:39:41
Speaker
I don't, are those community chest options? It's been like a hot minute since I played Monopoly, but that's a lot more hardcore than I remember. But I don't know. I mean, we live in a Monopoly world, so I don't need to play it as a board game.
00:39:58
Speaker
I'm just trying to keep passing go. You know what I mean? Give me my $200 and I'll see you in a week. Yeah. It's not going to, it's not going to do it anymore. $200. Just, uh, it's like what a pint of ice cream. And we're back on the ice cream. I was going to say, it's a video game, a pre-order video game. Not too far off in Australia. Really expensive thing. Yeah. I think their money is also worth more. That's true.
00:40:28
Speaker
No, that's incorrect. So if you look at anything like Australian wise and hurry go into finances, uh, everything is very expensive there for, for many reasons. So you'll see, one of the things I've always have my, my finger on the pulse is, is the Lego and you'll have a Lego set that is 200 us dollars and it'll be $479 and like, uh,
00:40:54
Speaker
Aussie dollar reduce because of shipping logistics and whatnot. Yeah, that was so that's part of it. But like video games don't have scarcity in the same way. Like if you're digitally releasing a game, they're just more expensive in Australia. I looked it up conversion rate as of right now.
00:41:14
Speaker
One US dollar is 1.44 Australian dollars. But so, point to Dumouche, he's correct. Dave was wrong. And I was technically also wrong because I agreed with Dave instantly. We were like, but like, Dave has an inherent financial background. Let me see, what's the retail price per game?
00:41:37
Speaker
Because in the US, it's what, 60 now? I assume 60 for a new release of a major title on latest gen consoles, platforms. So how much do you think a game costs in Australia? I assume $80. Yeah, I would assume $80. I think it's AUD is what they abbreviate.
00:41:57
Speaker
That's very close. Eighty nine to one hundred and five dollars. Jeez. Do they have any like restrictions? I swear they had some sort of like violence restrictions on some video games like they couldn't have a or M games.
00:42:14
Speaker
I'm not sure exactly. It's just coming to mind that there's some sort of legal limit on some sort of violent aspect of it that that might involve some additional work by the video game developers to remove something. Yeah. Yeah. So they might upcharge that for that, you know, tax per se. Well, I don't think
00:42:40
Speaker
That gets factored in as a fee. I don't know if we talked about ratings agencies, but I suggested this to a topic with Dave and Dave was like, that would be far too dry. Never bring it up again. So the Australian rating agency basically doesn't have a mature category. So if a game would be slated as mature, say like Red Dead or GTA or something like that, GTA might be a bad example because of the hot coffee debacle, but in general,
00:43:06
Speaker
GTA hits mature. They can't sell it in Australia because it will be refused classification. Just like if in the US, if you get to AO rating, you never see a game that's actually rated adults only because retailers will not pick it up. Steam probably would at this point because Steam is a platform for degeneracy.
00:43:29
Speaker
In general, it's harder to get it anywhere else. So does that mean all those games typically just have to go digital and then don't really have physical releases? Because I don't know where else you'd get a physical copy outside of like a retailer like games. I mean, obviously like Amazon or some other online company could ship it. But I don't know if most people shopping in online for physical copies. Right. Yeah. In Australia, they
00:43:57
Speaker
it's actually difficult to sell the games at all if they're not classified. So this has led to notable censorship such as like Left 4 Dead 2 did not have zombie dismemberment in Australia, which made the game more difficult.
00:44:15
Speaker
Because zombies cannot attack you if you cut their limbs off. But in Left 4 Dead 2 for Australia, you had to deplete their entire health pool. Dismemberment didn't help you at all. Yeah, they must fucking hate dead space. Yeah, that's a good joke, actually. That's good. I think dead space was entirely banned. I assume you have not seen the dead space yet?
00:44:40
Speaker
I think I've played a little bit of it. I just knew it was like the game that everybody referred to as sort of a benchmarking game because it required a lot. And I believe I tried it a couple years ago and I don't know why I dropped it, but I'm somewhat familiar with it. Couldn't tell you anything about it though.
00:45:01
Speaker
It's kind of slow and old. Still holds up, I think. And they're also doing a remake. But one of their main selling points was you basically had to shoot off the limbs specifically to disable or take down a monster. So the enemies were designed to have different attack patterns where they would extend parts of their limbs or they'd be quick and you have to shoot off a tentacle or something.
Gaming Mechanics in 'Dead Space'
00:45:28
Speaker
That was always the thing. They actually touted it as one of the selling points at E3 or wherever they talked about it. Strategic dismemberment is what they called the system. Because the Necromorphs is what they're called in the game. But space zombies, essentially, and body horror stuff is super adaptive.
00:45:51
Speaker
It's like, oh, the arm, don't freaking care about the arm. I'm going to just like crawl on my neck appendage thing at you and you're like, I don't want it. But like the ear just is it, is it that precise? Okay. I'm going to just kind of rip this guy's ear lobe off. Not quite that much. He has a hang nail. Let me get that form real quick.
00:46:15
Speaker
Like a standard like human to what is usually like you'd take out their kneecaps But they'd sort of crawl after you and they'd like shoot off an arm that was usually enough But if you just were like panicking and firing shots at the body You were burning through ammo that you could not get back easily. Mm-hmm
00:46:35
Speaker
But I assume head shots would be the great equalizer, right? Wouldn't matter. It's the opposite in dead space, yeah. The head is a completely useless appendage after being transformed. I eat bullets. Yeah. So they had laser weapons. He plays Isaac Clark. He's an engineer. And he has a plasma cutter. You can fire these beams of plasma. Really good at cutting through things.
00:47:01
Speaker
They kind of set them up for success. But you could also get like an assault rifle. And for the most part, it's kind of trash against most of the enemies because it's not going to take off their arms or legs to impede them. So you're forced melee'd pretty much? Well, it shoots like beams of like a disk. Yeah. And you could toggle the gun between horizontal or vertical mode.
00:47:30
Speaker
So if you want to go for legs, you try and do a horizontal sweep. Yeah. So is it like saints pro when you can like hold your gun, horizontal and starts playing music in the background? Kill shot. It's a kill shot. Yeah. It's a, it's something like that. They, they played around with it later in the series and like, you're like, Oh, you want to upgrade your gun a lot. Here's a big laser, a wide, a thick, thick plasma cutter, but you can't spin it anymore. That's the trade off.
00:47:59
Speaker
So like BFG, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. A less impactful and impressive BFG, if I get your call for it. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to compare with BFG. That's a game I need to go back to, because that was...
00:48:15
Speaker
You know, Dave, they've put me on to doom again. And, uh, you know, I played. Whatever the one that came before this one, it wasn't like, man, this is, this is fun. Like the music's going, uh, having fun, just rip and tear and whatever. And then, you know, the. Sequel or whatever, just the next one that the most recent one that came out 2016 and then eternal. Yes. Yes. Um.
00:48:43
Speaker
That one is just like, OK, this is this is a great follow up. And it's just I'm a bit of a baby anymore. I'm not looking to go hardcore mode on anything. I'm just looking for fun. I don't need exactly a huge challenge to promote my self worth, but.
00:49:07
Speaker
Yeah, that was the one scene where you get the BFG and you're like in the space center and you just sort of rip it out and like, all right, this is my new weapon now. I remember these scenes and I very rarely remember things from first person shooters. But in 2016, the BFG is in this like secure chamber with like laser walls and stuff like that. And you retrieve it and it's like freaking the BFG. How do they how are they going to up that for Doom Eternal?
00:49:36
Speaker
The BFG is encased in a massive cannon that is itself a literal space anti-warship weapon. It was the Death Star, pretty much. It was basically the Death Star. And it's just such a classic scene where you try to turn it to Mars.
00:49:59
Speaker
And the Doom Slayer is like mashing the fire button, trying to like blow a hole in Mars. And Vega is like, do you want me to disable the security controls? And he just mashes the button faster. And Vega, then he disables the controls and you blow a hole in Mars.
00:50:16
Speaker
glorious. I will say the Doom Slayer is like one of those perfect examples of like a silent protagonist done right.
The Thrill of Doom Games
00:50:22
Speaker
Because everything that they emote, you're like, Oh, I get who that character is 100% just okay, that's who they are. And you don't need to water it down with dialogue. Like when I think it's either in 2016, or the start of eternal,
00:50:38
Speaker
where he's going through one facility and he just grabs the one guy's I.D. All the guys like sitting on his office chair just drags him over to the door. It's an eternal access. Yeah, I think that's on the way to the BFG, the planetary station of Mars. Yeah, I should go back and play those again, too. Games are great. There's also like there's nice storytelling in that. And like all of these people are terrified of him, like freaking terrified of him. And they started establishing this in like the optional
00:51:07
Speaker
basically audio diaries you pick up in Doom 2016 where you're in hell and they're like telling you the stories of the Doom Slayer and the super dramatic voice. But like whenever he's dealing with humans, he's just like,
00:51:23
Speaker
he's not you know putting up with their nonsense for the most part but he's also like he could just like rip this guy to pieces to get his id card but he kind of like slowly drags him over by the by the lanyard then you have all these like you know sort of
00:51:39
Speaker
macho man aspect around him. But you go and find like the little tiny mini action figures of himself. And he's like, Oh, look at it's a mini version of me, but I'm yellow. Like the little fist bump with the fist bump. I tried to collect a lot of those because like you have a toy shelf and eternal like here on my collectibles. Mm hmm. That's so cool. Who would have thought that Doomguy was into Funko Puffs? Yeah.
00:52:09
Speaker
Well, they had to establish a merch brand. So you get those there and then they can sell them on the side, which they're fools if they haven't done that. I assume they have. Well, at least speaking of cosmetics of Doom, I remember I was really hyped when the Doom X fall guys thing came out and they had Doom Slayer and at least one of the demons. That's pretty sick.
00:52:32
Speaker
Fall Guys kind of went towards like that Fortnite sort of role of, hey, we have all these now other IPs coming in and you can get, you know, some skin that's tied in and that's, you know, it's pretty cool. Like if you want a little Ezio little bean, you can be that. And it's fun. I've been picking that up recently and playing with some friends occasionally as a sort of pickup game.
00:53:00
Speaker
Sorry, that friend wasn't Dave, Dave. Yeah, Dave gestures wildly. Whatever the reverse of a pop-off is, is what Dave just did in the background. You're telling me you have other friends? I've played a couple times recently with some of the Dota people, but they always add a lot of content. I don't like how microtransaction it's getting for how you get a lot of the cosmetics now. But the gameplay itself is fun. Game's free. And I would still do it with people, for sure.
00:53:31
Speaker
It's a fun little quick party game playing as a bean. I never play it and I'm like, fuck, this game sucks. I'm always like, yeah, I'm losing. It is a lot harder now. Like it's definitely grown over time. Be like, okay, you guys, a lot of you guys have been playing for a couple of seasons. Uh, let's throw those, you know, there's now just.
00:53:51
Speaker
slime climb is even worse somehow, but that's also part of the fun as well because you don't want it to be stagnant for your long-term players, but it's still friendly enough for people who are new to get in there and still have some fun. I think that's the nature of any game that can have a competitive component, but I feel like if it's CSGO, for instance, people that play that long time, they're going to
00:54:17
Speaker
They're going to destroy me. You don't even have to play it a long time to destroy me. I usually kind of exert rush out of spawn, and that doesn't work in CSGO as much. But for the people that play, and I'm going to put this in quotes, casual games long term for years, like with a lot of time in it, just disassociate from them. Like in your life, stop being friends with them. They're dangerous. You can't trust them. It's like something like Fall Guys or Among Us or like
00:54:48
Speaker
What was the, uh, the hit them with the ball and they're out game. We played dodge ball game knockout city knockout city. Thank you. It's like, they're going to get really good. You know, it's, it's going to get really hard.
00:55:04
Speaker
Yeah, and the skill creep of a lot of games is why I haven't gotten sort of involved with them. Like, I know you guys love melee. I won't. Whoa, whoa. It's smash. We're not good. OK.
00:55:19
Speaker
But things like, okay, I'm not going to pick up Dota either, right? And it's just like such a cliff of you go in as a newbie and it's probably not going to be fun for a little bit. It'll be better if you're coming in with friends who can sort of teach you and give you advice. But if you're going in as like just solo queue,
00:55:50
Speaker
That's why like good mmr systems really help so you can put new players with other new players Because it sucks like if i'm a seasoned veteran and they're like here's uh, they this is their first time playing today Here you go and you're like fuck. I got to babysit
00:56:06
Speaker
It's less fun because I'd want somebody who's on my level. And if somebody was starting out fresh, they won't start with somebody fresh. They don't have someone being like yelling at them for like doing something wrong or somebody doing something perfect on the enemy team. That's just destroying them. They're not learning or having fun. So a good balancer is always really key. I think if, if, if I were in the nebulous position of needing to find an on ramp for Dota at this plate,
00:56:32
Speaker
I would be like, play with friends, play against bots. Start with that. Because then you can actually learn how the game works before you do it. But in any situation, I didn't have a gun to my head. I wouldn't really recommend even that on-ramp. Play hots with me and some other people on Discord. We've almost got a full stack at this point. And half the time, we play against bots anyways.
00:56:55
Speaker
and see that's I think hots would be more friendly to me just because I'm familiar familiar with a lot of the characters in it I know like League and Dota they can have a ton of new characters well you know it's an entirely new game to me I'm coming off with zero skill but
00:57:14
Speaker
going into hot, it's like, okay, I know who Diva is. I'm generally familiar. The kit's not going to be exactly the same, but you're going to sort of get the picture. There's a familiarity to the play style. If you're like, oh, this is so and so from Warcraft. I kind of remember what they do. Yeah.
00:57:32
Speaker
The other, the other advantage to it right now is I think as of the last episode of the episode, right prior to that Blizzard officially put it on long-term support. Um, so much like people who wait to read a series until all of the books are released, hots is not going to change. Like they're not going to add heroes and aren't going to add maps. There's not going to be anything new to learn. They gave everybody a mount and then just closed the door. All right. Well, maybe I'll, I'll look into that.
00:58:02
Speaker
I'll take that as a hard commit. I will say if you're looking for that type of game, hots is definitely the easiest one to get into and has like the least cliff as
Blizzard's 'Heroes of the Storm' Transition
00:58:13
Speaker
you put it. Cause there's, there's no items. There's not like denying or anything. It's just, here's your character. Here's your abilities. Go kill stuff with your team. So it's pretty nice at that. Yeah. It's a shame. It's an absolute shame that like Blizzard mishandled it as much as they did.
00:58:30
Speaker
Um, cause there's still stuff about it. They have a good track record with everything and the things that they handle, they should not be handling, but I'm getting, I'm getting the eyes from Dave. Yeah. Is that a Elon Musk joke? Yeah. Um, looking forward to Overwatch 2 though. Hopefully that's good. I'm not, I don't know. We'll see what it is.
00:58:58
Speaker
Yeah, i'm I don't have beta access right now. I don't either so it's it's It is what it is when it comes out. Will I play it? Yeah, will I be happy? Yeah, it's with you guys probably but playing on my own that's not going to happen mostly I will I will play at least once with people
00:59:20
Speaker
I'm Friday night if I'm feeling oddly social or if somebody forces me to at a LAN party. I'll do overwatch too That's the thing It'll actually be slightly more convenient for a LAN party if we did have everybody in it because we never really had enough to grab 12 people Mm-hmm, but we could probably get close to 10. Yeah. Oh cuz they changed the party size Yeah, the team size. Yeah
00:59:44
Speaker
I miss the idea of doing lobbies. It's like we always have enough people for TF2, but I've never loved that game once in my life. So it would be so much more acceptable if we could do something like Overwatch or another type of game. It is go full on, friends be friends.
01:00:00
Speaker
TF2 is like an obligation at LAN for me as well. It's just like, okay, I'm going to go in a dock or engineer and eventually just get sniped by Jake 11 times. And then people get a... More Justin than me. I don't play that much sniper.
01:00:19
Speaker
It's usually spy. Spy, yeah. So, but, you know, I'll play it just for traditional sake, but it's not going to last longer than half an hour. It's playing. It's paying homage to like the previous generation at this point, right? Like, yeah, the greatest generation were obviously the people playing DFT back in the day. So, yeah, they live service. But yeah, I also get to the point where
01:00:47
Speaker
I try some different classes early on in the session to not be pure toxicity. But then Ian and I have this unspoken agreement where he's like, I'm done. I'm going to play engineer in a hard turtle. And I'm like, I'll help you kill this lobby and go spy. And between the two of us, there's no fun to be had for us or anyone else.
01:01:10
Speaker
I will say I do like that transition though like I was recently playing Soul Calibur 3 with my one of my buddies Chad and like we grew up playing Soul Calibur 3 together he first picked up Astaroth and kicked my ass and I was like I'll see you in a week and I secretly practiced the fuck out of the character so it's good to like go back and play each other again but like we were playing some games the other night and
01:01:34
Speaker
Like you just you pick some like random characters like, oh, it's been a bit. Let's see what's up. And then you get to that point where you're like you like you lean forward. You're like, all right, I'm picking my main. And you just you go to dominate the fucking person to like prove your point. I love that that mental switch. It's fun. But then you switch your main and then you still get slot and you're like, not crap. We should try this other game. I picked up Mortal Kombat 11. So.
01:01:59
Speaker
That's the good thing about Smash though is the game has over 100 characters I think at this point or close to it.
01:02:05
Speaker
Yeah. And if ever you're like, I'm oppressively good with this, or I feel like I've mastered this and you never feel like that really. But if you're like, I'm doing too well with this, you can always switch to someone you're a little bit less comfortable with and grind them out a bit more for friendlies. I don't find myself in this position much because Dave's just generally better than me. But we got to the last match was within seven kills at the 100.
01:02:33
Speaker
game mark I think something like that it was close you know you say there's a hundred characters but my limited experience with smash is that I only see Jigglypuff and Star Fox that's definitely melee
01:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, Ultimate has a... Maybe eventually it'll get to the point where the meta is refined to that, but I was watching... This is mostly more of a comment for Dave, I guess, but I was watching Riddles versus someone else in a tournament, and Riddles was on Kazuya and the other guy.
01:03:04
Speaker
his doctor or something. He was playing Incineroar and he three stocked Riddles on game one, which means for the people out there in the audience, me. Riddles got no kills. He just died. He switched to Richter and, you know, ran it back. But and then did come back with Kazi to win the set. But there's so many viable characters right now. It's pretty crazy.
01:03:36
Speaker
I can get that. That can be fun. But Waluigi. Yeah, that's right. I will occasionally play Mario, but just pick the purple skin. Yeah, that's the closest we got right now. Is Luigi in the game? Yes, Luigi Luigi Luigi. I suck with Luigi. He does. And I will. I will play purple Luigi, but like I I'm trash with trash with Luigi.
01:04:06
Speaker
Spam inside these hoping for a misfire. He was a secret character in Smash in 64 all the way back then. That's how early the game was. So I think it was random past the point. I could be wrong on this because the unlock methods have changed.
01:04:25
Speaker
As time goes on and ultimate, like if you do the campaign, you can actually unlock the characters by beating them in a world of light campaign. But I think for N64, after each match, there was a chance you'd get challenger approaching and then you have to defeat him. Now they're unlocked. That's such like a fun little mechanic. I feel like we've kind of lost a lot of these, uh,
01:04:49
Speaker
Sort of just fun little Extras in games anymore because it's like hey we put in the work You're they're gonna pay for it or we're not gonna do the work, but you know I booted up like Tony Hawk the other week and I forgot there was like all these little little cheap modes like big head mode and like I
01:05:13
Speaker
Iron Man and whatnot. It's like, man, that's that's fun. Like it's like those games have always been a little creative with their extras. But I feel like we've sort of lost that little spark of joy that we used to get.
01:05:30
Speaker
Because they want money now. Yeah, I do think that's that's a big part of it. If you're doing games as a service, then why are you not charging people for your Easter egg type content? But also the other factor, I think, is games take a long time to develop now and combine that with crunch and like who in the last year of development when they're pulling 60 hour weeks are going to be like, we should add some Easter eggs.
01:05:58
Speaker
you know like this is the right time but like there's that you know at the end of the day it's a business and like you're trying to get sales and whatever but something like that is sort of just like game or goodwill that like your audience is going to remember and you're going to have
01:06:16
Speaker
a longer success pattern if the game does pick up. So from a very business-like standpoint, yeah, we don't want to put in an extra month into building out some little dinky items, but that month may accrue some goodwill with your audience that would gain dividends over time for the series as a whole.
01:06:41
Speaker
Um, so yeah, is it an investment? It could be, you know, it just depends on, you know, who's running the show, but I don't know if the, the quantitative people who, the, the bean counters were like moving dollars from one pile to another have put a dollar on fall guys again, like 40 to 60, I think. Uh-huh. But like putting it on, putting a value to, um, brand loyalty, for instance, right? Like I don't think Bethesda calculated.
01:07:12
Speaker
how much it was going to cost them in brand loyalty when they released Fallout 76, for instance, right? Or Konami doesn't even care about that metric, but if they did, they probably wouldn't have released Metal Gear Survive, right? And then charge people for save slots. Like these are the opposite side of the situation you're describing, where people are putting fun things in the game that you can just experience and people will appreciate it.
01:07:36
Speaker
What we're also sort of getting to is AAA gaming services versus someone who might be maybe a small indie group. Those are the people who are probably going to do those little bonuses because it's a personal project. They have more to gain and more time because they're not on salary for the most part.
01:08:01
Speaker
And then that's why, you know, people should appreciate indie games as a whole and not just write them off just because, you know, maybe they only sold 10,000 copies and they're not huge on Steam, but you're going to get that little extra that you won't get from the big publishers. Yeah. Would you say heart matters, Dave?
01:08:23
Speaker
Yeah. I will again remark. All right. Dave showed his tattoo. It said stay determined with a heart and an arrow.
The Impact of 'Undertale' as an Indie Game
01:08:31
Speaker
From Undertale. From Undertale.
01:08:34
Speaker
Toby Fox, Toby Fox. I was like, that's to his friends. This guy. That's definitely an example of an indie developer who sold more than 10,000 copies, though. He could have stopped forever and he would have been fine. He could live off merch for the next 200 years. But yeah. That's a good topic. Good topic, Ender. You guys have any words of wisdom for our listeners before we close this one out?
01:09:06
Speaker
Let me defer to Dave first. Well, I think. Okay. When these temperatures get so hot, be sure to be mindful of certain surfaces, specifically plastic or metal slides. Metal slides can typically get up to 40 degrees past what the air temperature says for the outside. So please be safe with your children and small pets. That's good advice. I actually stole from the radio the other day. It's like, I want to memorize that.
01:09:35
Speaker
Well, I don't have any children to be endangered by metal slides, but that's good. Yeah. Uh, stay hydrated. Um, say hello to someone you haven't talked to in a while, maintain those friendships and be good to each other.
01:09:50
Speaker
That's good, and that's touching. So I have to go the ironic route. Start a podcast. That's my life advice. I'll just circle back to the friendly thing. Force your friends to be guests on it. Thank you to Mooch once more for coming out, being a guest on Soapstone. Always glad to have you. Thanks for coming. Yeah, thanks, guys. I'll see you probably next year.
01:10:13
Speaker
Hopefully before then, but maybe for the podcast. We'll see. We'll bump some people off the list or something. Fair enough. If you guys have suggestions, now not actually bumping people off the list, but you have suggestions for future episodes or ideas for advice, we should probably give at the end of the episode. Maybe you need advice.
01:10:36
Speaker
We can provide that not in any meaningful useful capacity, but in a technical capacity Send those questions in to soap some podcast at gml.com or join the discussion on Facebook Facebook.com slash soap some podcast and as always we'll see you in the next one Have a good night. Love you. Bye
01:11:16
Speaker
you