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The Standout Game Mechanics of 2023 image

The Standout Game Mechanics of 2023

E3 · Windbreaker
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6.2k Plays11 months ago

On this week’s episode of Windbreaker, Yahtzee, Frost, and Marty chat about their favorite individual game mechanics of 2023, including Ultrahand in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the Lovecraftian inventory management of Dredge, and the orb-hopping puzzles of Cocoon.  

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Transcript

Introduction and Promotions

00:00:00
Speaker
Bare midriff, exposed shoulders, wind blowing across your nips. Cover yourself up if you want to. With second wind shirts. For a reason we can't legally discuss, our artists have had a little free time. So they've come up with brand new designs for our brand new channel and mostly new shows. Fully ramblimatic, design delve, coal take, and the second wind itself. It's some kind of bird.
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Speaker
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Podcast Begins and Rankings

00:00:44
Speaker
to sharkrobot.com slash second dash wind or click on the link in the description to check out all of our shirts today. And I think there's a desk pad too. That's fun.
00:00:58
Speaker
Hello, everyone. We should be live. Welcome to the Windbreaker podcast. I'm Gatsy Croshaw. I'm joined by Marty Sleever. Hello, everyone. And Sebastian Rui. Hello, everyone. Well, this is the weekly live podcast we do here on secondwind.com. Excuse my voice. I've been talking bollocks all weekend. And those things get stuck in your throat.
00:01:21
Speaker
remember you can support us on patreon and by buying our merch at shark robot or by user donating super chats to this stream as we talk which we will read out in the second half of things sorry about that nick keeps nagging us to uh nag you for money it's a good nag because now we all get that money also the podcast is available on audio services like spotify and itunes we are number one in itunes gaming currently we did good everybody i'm proud of us
00:01:46
Speaker
Oh Christ. Only down from here. That's, that's suddenly set off my imposter syndrome. Yeah. Marty, you're a bit, you're a bit quiet. People are saying, Eric, can you, can you give me a hot boost?
00:02:00
Speaker
I bet Eric can give me a hot boost. I believe in Eric. Oh, man, we've peaked too soon. We smoked too wide. That's like getting your third Michelin star.

Focus on Innovative Game Mechanics

00:02:08
Speaker
It is. But to get to our actual subject this week, we're talking about not so much the games we liked in 2023, but the individual innovative game mechanics that stuck out for us in the games of this year. For there has been many textured, interesting thing to talk about. Where do you want to start, lads?
00:02:28
Speaker
Can we start with the art? Can we start with the art? You want to go chronologically? Well, you guys came in kind of like just picking up sticks. You know, I should have done there. I should have like fingered one of you specifically. That was one of those ambulance moments, wasn't it? You don't say someone call an ambulance because no one does anything. You got to say you specifically call an ambulance. You don't need to say you should have fingered one of us specifically. That doesn't seem like a thing you need to say. All right. I'm fingering you now, Marty. Oh, no.
00:02:53
Speaker
What do you want to start with?

Tears of the Kingdom Mechanics Discussion

00:02:55
Speaker
I'm going to shock you guys, and I'm going to talk about the Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, which is on our box heart, and you see Link's cool hand, because in my opinion, that game is made and is incredible because of the amazing systems and mechanics that come from Link's new hand. Specifically, I think Ultra Hand, Recall,
00:03:16
Speaker
fuse and ascend, which are the main abilities in that game, which take ostensibly the playground we were familiar with from 2017's Breath of the Wild, and reuses it in a way that seems completely fresh by these new mechanics. And they are mechanics that feel like they should not work in a video game. They feel like they give the player too much power, and yet for me, it worked perfectly.
00:03:38
Speaker
They feel like dev tools and the challenge of the game was to sort of give you dev tools in a way that you could still translate into a sort of video gamey challenge arena.

Creative Mechanics in Games

00:03:50
Speaker
So it wasn't just Gary's mod, but with me. Exactly right. Sounds like Marty would love Gary's mod, but I think even you guys brought up once that Gary's mod is just like, dude, do whatever. You are God. Whereas the limitations are what makes it fun.
00:04:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think when it comes to that sort of thing, what a game needs to do if it's going to give you that sort of crazy mechanic is give you like on the surface relatively simple tasks and set you loose to see what creative solutions you find for it.
00:04:20
Speaker
I'm thinking of teardown. You guys played teardown? Yeah, that's like the game where the entire level is physics objects. And all that game really does is say, hey, go to this computer, this computer, this computer, this computer in order, and just activate them as fast as you can and leave the level. And then you have to like, create a sort of heist plan.
00:04:49
Speaker
where you mark out roots with spray paint and blow open holes at walls to give Grand yourself quicker access. Yeah, I think that's the big difference than something like Garry's Mod or even like a Minecraft. I feel like when you give me too much freedom and not enough of a structured goal, I don't know what to do with myself. But when you give me those tools for freedom and present them in a structured manner, like I think one of the smartest things Zelda does is in the shrines in
00:05:15
Speaker
in Tears of the Kingdom. It teaches you new ways that you can use the tools that you didn't realize. It teaches you, like, don't forget about Ascend, because there are so many times, because I played 500 Hours of Breath of the Wild, I'd be like, I need to climb over this. I need to figure out how to get above here. And I'm like, oh, I literally have the ability. That did start as a dev tool that could just zonk me out of this room. And let me tell you, if the game lets me zonk, I'm going to zonk. That zonk moves kind of the odd one out for me. As you say, you keep forgetting that you have it. Yeah.
00:05:45
Speaker
You got to put a sticky note on your TV that says remember to zonk. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I did.

Storytelling in 'Storyteller' Game

00:05:51
Speaker
But yeah, that was, to me, when I think about this year, that's probably the thing I'm going to think about. Although there are a lot of other ones, especially in indie games, that really stood out to me. Frost, did you have any in particular that you wanted to start with?
00:06:04
Speaker
I say, uh, cause I, I was nice about it and I put them chronologically. March 23rd was storyteller, little storytelling permutations. I'm not sure who played it there right now. It's got mixed reviews, but I think it's that mixture of like great game, solid two hours, maybe not worth the money. And that's like where the, that clash went because it is super duper short, but just this idea of like, here's three characters, here's a setting and you can stick them in different ways and that will change the outcome of the story. I was like, okay, yeah, I want to see more of that.
00:06:34
Speaker
That might be one of those games where the mechanic is the most interesting thing about the game. I feel like it didn't ultimately come together for me, but I love that idea of here are nouns and verbs and humans and backgrounds, and you need to figure out how to create a story that gets from point A to point B. I like the one.
00:06:55
Speaker
And this is where I agree with you. It feels like it just got it going, but didn't fully make a game, so to speak, and why it might not beat the tech demo allegations. Where it's got some where it goes, make a story where it's like lovers to friends to enemies. Or switch it around to rivals saving each other, still killing each other or something like that or whatnot. I was like, this is fun. This is fun. But I feel like it needed a bit more meat, but we are talking just mechanics.
00:07:25
Speaker
Yeah,

Dredge's Madness and Inventory Mechanics

00:07:26
Speaker
it got a bit weird where one of the stories you had to create was a man kills his brother for seducing his daughter and you're going to spend like half the initial frames just establishing familial relationships, just with the one frame that says, you are my son.
00:07:45
Speaker
Yeah those that are always just like man kills man kills woman for wife or whatever and then it's like man is married to his mother. It breaks down like the pieces of storytelling and turns them into like mathematical equation.
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a flow chart at that point. Yeah. And he, the crazy thing about that is I saw, I hung out with the developer and saw him demoing that game in 2013 at GDC. So he had been working on it a very long time. He's worked on other stuff since then. And like, I think he's helped Jonathan blow with some stuff, which kind of makes sense where that thinking comes from. But yeah, I was, I was more impressed by
00:08:30
Speaker
the mechanics on paper than it was with the final product. But a cool thing I still think about. It doesn't feel like a game that was worked on for too long. Because when I think of games that were worked on for too long, I think of that Fortune's Run game I was playing on stream last week, where the designers just put 500 million references to different games that they liked in it.
00:08:55
Speaker
I think it might've been a solo passion project for a long time while doing other things to pay the bills. So I know 12 Minutes was similar. That was a game I saw a demo of five years before it came out. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God, dog cam. Dog cam's up, guys. Everyone be cool. Oh, there it is. Dog cam's up. Wake up. You're a star. Open your bloody eyes.
00:09:19
Speaker
Is he always sleepy? No, just always sleepy in the mornings when he knows I'm not going to be taking him for a walk anytime soon, so he might as well just pass out. Incredible dog cam. That's a mood right there. Super chat to support dog cam. Frost, what else? I like your chronological list, and then we can fill in gaps. Oh, you like some of mine then? I do. March 30 was Dredge. Ah, yes. Dredge, the world mechanics.
00:09:44
Speaker
The madness mechanics. That's not the one I was going to go to. No, I thought we were talking about the the inventory management stuff. That's what I was going to go to. Yeah. I think maybe I was the naughtier one. You said that during your playthrough you wanted to stick to curfew and stick to the shores and what not. Yeah, so I didn't really engage much with the the things that imply that you're going mad when you're out at night. Because that was the game.
00:10:12
Speaker
Because that was the game you'd link to me. Don't do this. Don't go out at night. We keep telling you not to. Why do you defy us? And because it felt like, you know, presumably something bad was happening that was gonna make the game harder. I assumed. Did you ever end up staying out too late? Or going mad? And what happened? Yeah, once or twice. I was mainly just
00:10:39
Speaker
weird wibbly wobbly red effects all over the place. Why did you go mad? Were you completing an objective? Was it saying stay out at night or what happened? I think I just got back to the headquarters island too late because I'd been out. I misjudged the travel time for getting back. I encountered the thing where sort of delusional rocks start appearing in the sea around you.
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those games where that mechanic is more threatening and scary when it's the unknown near the beginning of the game, especially when you have a slower boat. By the end of the game, I was like, I'm not scared of darkness. I've got a jet behind me right now. I could zoop wherever I want. I did like that there were certain things
00:11:29
Speaker
certain like side quests and things that could only be activated through madness like certain things in the world that appear until you were feeling the madness and I always think that's cool to where you have to like embrace the Punishment that sounded like a sex thing, but
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think the game sort of the madness and Lovecraftian stuff sort of gets demystified in that game. Because I remember the first time I ran into a giant fish, and the giant fish just sort of smashed my boat and kept right on swimming. And I was like, Hey, you asshole. So I'm the feeling of Hey, you asshole, that was my boat sort of quickly supplanted the feeling of Oh, my God is a giant fish. Yeah, I'm wondering how
00:12:09
Speaker
how well behaved you two were though because that's the thing. Firstly, my first playthrough I was definitely like I don't want to stay out at all but there's like more reasons to go mad. Be it you got back kind of late or hey these fish are more expensive.
00:12:25
Speaker
they get you more money if you do go mad. And then eventually I was just like, all right, let's see what happens in the full blown madness. So you have those fake rocks that come out. First time that happened, I was like, wait, that was not there. You know, I pride myself in sense of directionals. Like that was definitely not there before. And you say like, that's less scary as you as you get a better boat. But I slammed into so many of them because I was just going so fast. There was there's that power up that you can gain madness, but go faster.
00:12:52
Speaker
I was just slamming into those gaslighting rocks left and right and center. But then you also get like this phantom boats that look like they're coming straight at you and then they disappear right when they get into the lights. First time I'm like, okay, whatever, you get used to it. But then it came at me and I'm like, it's about to disappear. And then the light turned into an angler fish type thing that attacked me. I was like, all right, you got some tricks up your sleeve.
00:13:12
Speaker
And I think in the end it just becomes this cozy Eldritch thing where I'm like, oh, I need to make it to this island. And then the sun comes through and there is no island there in front of you at all. Like I went really far into the madness mechanics to see what they had. And I was just like, well.
00:13:29
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. If you're going to mess with my gas, like in the way that, um, what was that game we talked about last week? My volume slider and yeah. Yeah. Like you use the tech, use the mechanics to really like mess with me as a person, not just like my character. So loved it.
00:13:50
Speaker
Back when I was messing around with Adventure Game Design, I was playing around with Adventure Game Studio. And one of the coding commands I found in the manual was a command you could use to open the CD tray of the computer. Because this is back when computers had those. And obviously not every computer has one of those. So the manual was saying, this doesn't really have any use. And I was thinking, I beg to differ game.
00:14:17
Speaker
So I experimented with doing like a sequence in a like a game I was working on whereas like some crazy magician said, behold my incredible power and then make the CD tray go in and out. Look at that, your own cycle. I wouldn't get it because I don't have one.
00:14:33
Speaker
No, nobody does anymore. Back in the day. Yeah. Well, that's like reading a memory card. You're like, I don't have a memory card. I don't know what that means. What would you do? What would you do these days? Stuff like Doki Doki literature club do and Undertale like playing with files on your computer. And I will. What could you do with hardware these days? I give them a virus. I would overclock their CPU starts, you know,
00:14:58
Speaker
games. I've got one of those fancy gaming PCs with LEDs all over the box. And there are some games that override like the LED color for certain effects, like it turns them all red. If you're like low on health, you probably messes someone's head with that. I heard rumblings that one of the ideas for Hideo Kojima's Silent Hills was going to be a Yula that you agreed into that allowed you to
00:15:25
Speaker
I don't know if this could ever legally happen, but it would allow the game to tap into various networks in your house and say if you had some sort of smart lighting that the game could impact lighting in your house, you would give the game your phone number. The game could impact ringtones on your phone, couldn't change things like that. Again, all that sounds like a
00:15:46
Speaker
a meeting people have, and it's like, there's no dumb ideas, just throw things at the wall. And it's like, Norman Reedus comes to your house and punches you. But it feels like that's kind of the next evolution. I think Kojima won't be satisfied until he can legally like stalk you for a few weeks as the game's coming out. Until he can, yeah, he forces you to go in his soul sucker machine. But stick with dredge.

Unique Inventory in 'Backpack Hero'

00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's you mentioned the inventory system, which was the thing I thought of as well.
00:16:16
Speaker
Resident Evil 4 style inventory system where you rearrange stuff Tetris style into a grid. Although I think the game that did that in a slightly more interesting way that came out recently was Backpack Hero. Did you play that?
00:16:32
Speaker
I didn't play it. A lot of people have been recommending it to me recently. I don't know if it just hit a new platform or something. It just came out, I think it was big on the trial. It's interesting. It's a sort of Slay the Spire style, roguelike sort of affair where you advance through a dungeon and have different encounters. But the twist is, the main mechanic is that you've got a grid style backpack that you stick with the pack with things.
00:16:54
Speaker
And where you place things in your backpack has subtle effects. Like you might have a weapon that says every single object positioned underneath this in your backpack conveys an extra point of damage. Gotcha, gotcha. Or you've got a helmet that says how you get more armor points based on how high up this is in your inventory.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah. So you really have to... Go deeper than just fit everything into this space. Yeah. And like the different abilities interact. Like they got an artifact that increases the damage of every weapon that it's next to. But then you've got another artifact that increases the damage of the weapon as long as the weapon... But then the weapon causes the weapon to move upwards the space. So you have to sort of juggle things into the most optimal positions.
00:17:45
Speaker
you can know. Which I appreciated because I remember after Resident Evil 5 came out they sort of ditched the Tetris inventory management for just a flat nine spaces and each space can have just one thing which could be either a herb or an entire gun and you lost all that strategic placement of things. It's not strategic expansion too because it's like pick where if you want to expand your backpack vertically or horizontally. Did you ever do the wizard? I found that way too complicated.
00:18:15
Speaker
Oh yeah, the magic ability where you have to sort of network magic items together. Oh, you create a conduit almost? Yeah, no, that's exactly what it is, creating conduits on top of everything else. I was like, I'm a stick to warriors. That is confusing. Yeah. And one of the things I liked in Dredge was you would get the
00:18:34
Speaker
I can't remember the exact specifics. Wasn't it like certain items or certain fish that were like cursed? And if they were in your inventory too long before you sold them, they would start like impacting and the curse would spread to other objects in your environment or like things would eat other things in your backpack. I like games that do that. There was what game was I playing recently that someone gives you something and it turns out you have a bomb in your inventory. Oh, that's Metal Gear I think.
00:19:00
Speaker
like you get your backpack and you get a buy and there's like a bomb in it you don't realize that you need to like get rid of the bomb somewhere a bomb a bomb uh yeah i always think that's that's pretty neat i like the oh my god jc a bomb bomb i like the damage like if your boat
00:19:15
Speaker
Uh, hit in a weird way. Now you can't use that Tetris space. Uh, yeah, you lost or maybe you just ruined your engine type. Yeah. Yeah. That's sort of, that's sort of how some of the, like the enemy abilities in backpack hero works. They'll, um, they'll infect you with like, uh, like a slime that you have to place on one space and that multiplies every turn until you get rid of it. They've come a long way with that game. Yeah. Did you play it in the DLC for us?
00:19:45
Speaker
Dredge? No, we've got a different job. Started a new job. Oh, you did too? I haven't had time to play as much as I would like. Crazy. Crazy how we've all started new jobs recently. All right. What else do we want to bring up?
00:20:05
Speaker
I'm going down your list. I still got a bunch.

Accessibility in Street Fighter 6

00:20:07
Speaker
Street Fighter 6 June 2nd the accessibility that even the playing field between thinking fighters and execution fighters. I was just the biggest thing for the longest time because the there's a ranked mode and they always take it. It's like you're either.
00:20:21
Speaker
your mechanics are great but you suck at thinking you have no strategy and you just get away on pure execution alone or you're a great thinker but you're cack-handed so you also can't do much of anything else so really even that out but I say it stand out because it did it while not being awful it's still fun to use
00:20:40
Speaker
I remember saying in my review, it was a small thing, but I appreciated that they called it modern mode, when another game might have called it, you know, easy mode, or training mode for babbies. What was the old one called? Like, was it traditional? Yeah, I think it was just classic mode versus modern mode.
00:20:58
Speaker
Yeah, no, I couldn't do it. I was like, give me the classic. I was raised on this stuff. Oh my God, my hands are shaking. Another thing I said at the time was that if you were invading fighting games today,
00:21:13
Speaker
Would you incorporate that weird thing where every character's abilities have different bespoke weird combinations of button prompts, or would you just do it like Smash Bros., where everyone just puts the same inputs for the same, but have a different special attacks to the inputs? Yeah, it almost seems like those archaic, like, you know, quarter circle x, half circle y is...
00:21:35
Speaker
the way things are is the way things are. Like there's no reasoning behind it other than that's the way it's always been, which I guess you could say that's, that's ultimately elements of a lot of genres that have been around for a long time. That's the thing it goes because like for Street Fighter, every input plus a button in eight directions is a thing, you know, and sometimes even just pressing the button is its own input and putting a different one would do a different thing. So allowing that is like now we've got 10, 20 abilities that you can do if you're making these funky janky moves.
00:22:05
Speaker
Um, rising thunder, try to simplify it, but then it literally was just like three moves. Yeah. Three moves, rock, paper, scissors got really boring. Made by the same guy, Seth Killian, I want to say. Oh yeah. That's right. Yeah. So I'm actually amazed that they pulled this one off and I go, wow, that's, it's still fun. You still have footsies. You still have the basics.
00:22:24
Speaker
of those footsies. One from earlier on in the year that we didn't bring up, which I know Yazzie's not a huge fan of, was for me Pizza Tower, the structure, the mirrored structure of levels.

Exploring 'Pizza Tower' Mechanics

00:22:35
Speaker
And I know a lot of that's pulled from the Wario land games, but I love that the first half of a level is you taking your time, learning the layout, exploring for secrets. And then as soon as you hit that end point, it is a mad rush to get back through what you did. And it kind of reminds me of the,
00:22:54
Speaker
The way they were able to take a single location and present it in two completely different ways reminded me of how the run through a level in Hotline Miami feels like one thing and then needing to leave the level and sort of come to terms with what you've done and the silence of that feels like something else, although that's completely inverted where the first half of a level is relatively calm in Pizza Tower and then the back half is madness that relies on what you've learned.
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's a cool idea. I don't have a problem with pizza tower. I just found it a little bit too stressful for my for my liking. Those backups are very stressful. Yeah, it reminds reminds me of my time cooking short order. It was great. I was like, Oh my god, you need a cigarette after each run. Yeah.
00:23:39
Speaker
I did have them on honorable mentions just for nailing themes with mechanics. It just feels like the slickest, greasiest platformer I've ever played where you have a firm footing and no footing at the same time. It's amazing. Yeah, this goes down there. I'm gonna say July 18th, viewfinder.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah. Not so much like a single mechanic in a game as just one game that's one big mechanic. Yeah. But like that watermelon puzzle, beauty. Yeah. Yeah. It's certainly is unique. But as I said, sort of the super liminal problem where you can't really take lessons from that for game design going forward. It's one good idea. They did got as much as they could out of it. And that's about it.
00:24:26
Speaker
Yeah. I've never seen that used elsewhere. Really unfortunate. Yeah. And that, that kind of feels like storyteller to me where I, when I look back, I'm going to look back, I think I'm going to look back on viewfinder and storyteller fondly because of those like really interesting kernels and maybe like really great first impressions, um, that can't quite withstand the, the, the weight of the finished product. Yeah. It brings into two different things. Cause I love those where it's like, this will never go into anything else, but also, um, I guess,
00:24:56
Speaker
Last Hero of Nastogaya. I don't know if either of you played it. It was that satirical Soulsling. Oh, yes. Yes, I have played that. That's the Soulsling that was, you know, trying to be a bit meta and satirical, as you say.

Indie Games with Unique Mechanics

00:25:10
Speaker
I thought it like it failed on all accounts, except this one thing where the item would have the lore, as Souls games do. But if you could take it to where
00:25:20
Speaker
the lore was pointing you to, it would evolve your item. And I was like... Yeah, I remember that. That was pretty cool. Yeah, but that was from 2022. That's the only part of this game. I had to review it. Yeah, it was a bit obscure. Yeah, it was... It's a thing. That's almost like a lesson on satire as you could give later on, Jotz. I couldn't give lessons on satire. I mean, I could tell you the difference between satire and parody.
00:25:50
Speaker
Well, there you go. There's a semi-ramblematic. In my book, parody is usually done out of affection for the subject, whereas satire is more commonly used to criticize or deconstruct the subject.
00:26:07
Speaker
Watchmen. Watchmen is a satire of superhero comics. It's intended to criticize them. It does, you know. My friend Pablo. I think that's what the game was called. My friend Pedro. I think Pedro. If you know it's bad. I knew it wasn't Pablo. It's a Mexican name with a P. If you know it's bad, why are you doing it? That felt like too much of the last year of Nastogaya, unfortunately.
00:26:34
Speaker
Also, for a very long time, I just assumed that word was nostalgia because I got the first five letters and I was like, I assume the rest is nostalgia. And then I just looked at the Steam page and I was like, no, that has a Gaia at the end of it. Yeah, it's a bit. They're doing a bit.
00:26:48
Speaker
Oh, I love a bit. What would you say pissed? Do you remember the game pissed? P-Y-S-T? Yeah. Was that a parody? It was like missed, but it was pissed. Well, it was pretty clearly a fairly cheap parody. Okay, just wondering. I think the difference is that a parody doesn't aspire to be better than its subject or above its subject. That's a good way of putting it, I feel it. There you go.
00:27:17
Speaker
Yeah. Lovely. Oh, so October 17, Mosolina. A hostile interpretation of the Immersive Sim. I thought it was pretty like, there's some mechanics that I say innovate. There's others that it's like, all right, back to basics now. Yeah. This is like your tunics, so to speak, where it feels like the last Zelda game. I'm like, yeah.
00:27:36
Speaker
I like, like, just because there was a leap in advancements from this tech to this tech, maybe we could still find some of the smaller iterations. Like, sure, why not? Yeah, it's, as you say, personally, there certainly feels like, hey, all this, here's all this stuff we've been working with, let's strip things down and get right back to the nuts and bolts of it.
00:27:54
Speaker
Love it. And then you guys probably have more to say on this one, Cocoon, October 25th. Ah, yes, Cocoon. Cocoon, the in the indie game by the Limbo and Inside bloke.

World-Jumping in 'Cocoon'

00:28:08
Speaker
Which I was taking for like a fairly bog standard, you know, Mooney-eyed zero dialogue, indie game sort of thing, until you get to the bit where you jump out of the current world you're in.
00:28:21
Speaker
And the game becomes about rearranging these spheres that take you into different worlds and placing them in the worlds themselves to create these weird sort of circular, mobius-strip paths from one world to another in order to solve puzzles. And I thought it was jolly interesting. Yep.
00:28:42
Speaker
I agree. I also think it, uh, did a, did a great job of, I think a lot of puzzle games, you hit a puzzle and then you start overthinking things and you're like, did I miss something in a previous room? Where like, well, like how much information do I need to keep in my head? Which is something, you know, portal does really great. Cause it's like.
00:28:57
Speaker
nope you're in this room everything you need is in this room and cocoon does a really great job of not only kind of closing off environments so that you know everything you have but its sound design and its music slowly has a crescendo as you start doing things correctly and it's almost this like subconscious like um
00:29:17
Speaker
Kind of like cheering you on of like yes. Yes, this is right. This is right and you're hearing it in the sound design Which I was I was really impressed by I love that game also didn't outstay its welcome. Yeah, yeah I love that sort of thing. I love that sort of thing where mechanics You don't notice till they're pointed out but when you when they are pointed out you realize how subtly important
00:29:40
Speaker
A lot of sound design, right? Sound design is a thing where if it's doing its job right, it goes unnoticed, and it was doing its job poorly, then we criticize it.
00:29:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's my, it was my experience. I thought it was crazy because we were playing Planet of Lana earlier in the year. And I go, I feel like there's nowhere that that started like limbo and inside the move to the right of mups. I feel like there was nowhere that that genre could continue going except for like increase the cinematic effect of it. So like, was it Bramble Mountain or something like that? Yeah.
00:30:13
Speaker
And the line I was like these, they could just only get prettier, essentially. But yeah, cocoon feels like a Zelda dungeon to me more than any of that. Cocoon is like a big sprawling like a well made Zelda dungeon, which is I think one of the reasons I really like. Yeah, sort of with but with sort of like portal mechanics. If you like, yeah, side on limbo stroke inside platformer type thing. I really enjoyed American Arcadia. Although that didn't have any like new mechanics or anything.
00:30:44
Speaker
but it was a sort of quick keep running to the right platformer which did some interesting things where it was mingled with sort of a first-person game as part of the plot you were playing like switching between two different characters one of them in platform world one of them in first-person world and there's one bit where you have to
00:31:02
Speaker
where you're playing as the first person character who has to sort of navigate a difficult conversation with their boss at the same time as having their monitor up with the other character on and you have to like guide them through like a stealth section at the same time. Oh, that's interesting. I wish the game had more stuff like that. It's like the one time the two like gameplay systems cross over.

Platforming in 'American Arcadia'

00:31:23
Speaker
Otherwise, it's just switching back and forth.
00:31:25
Speaker
Yeah, that feels, just a few weeks ago, I think that game came out and you were like, has anyone played it? And we were all like, no, because we all separately started new jobs. But it feels like that and Talos Principle are two games of the last few weeks that have been sort of underappreciated because of coming out at the end of a crazy marathon sprint that was this year. Funnily enough, both games I'm going to be covering in fully ramblymatic sooner rather than later. I've got my own.
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah, I'm doing Talos Principle 2 this week, because as you say, that's another game that does really good stuff with puzzles. Really good, like, deceptively simple puzzles. Like, you go in, and there's like two or three elements, and you're like, oh, this seems obvious enough. And then you try to take the most, like, direct approach, then go, oh, wait, there's this one element we have to work around that's gonna make this, like, nine times more complicated than we thought. Yeah. Would you say there's any, without, you know, playing too much of the hand-of-view review, was there anything in Talos Principle that you think, like, had a singular standout mechanic, or was it more of just some of its parts?
00:32:24
Speaker
I think it was some of its part situation. It's really well told. There's a huge amount of detail in the writing that I appreciated. Puzzles almost feel like the lesser element compared to the storytelling and setting. I played it a bit in that tutorial world. I was like, fuck, it's one of that first one. But yes, it moved on from that. That's the trick it pulls early on.
00:32:49
Speaker
It was like, wait, did I accidentally play Tellers Principle 1 instead of Tellers Principle 2 when I first started that game? I felt playing Tellers Principle the first time where everyone's like, oh, it's amazing. It's the best game ever. I was like, I feel like I played the wrong game. The wrong kid died. The wrong kid died.
00:33:07
Speaker
Is there anything else on your calendar? I still got some honorable mentions. I feel like most people won't have seen these. I've got like a crime boss, Rokkei City. It was so shit it crashed, but then it uncrashed. That's the first time I've ever seen that. What does that mean?
00:33:22
Speaker
Jesse was playing with it, and he's like, my game crashed. And then out of nowhere, it just fixed itself without him doing anything. I was like, oh, so we love it when Kojima does things like that, but when crime boss Rakei City tries to do it. Kojima didn't make a game this year.
00:33:38
Speaker
Yet we still had the game awards in about 72 hours. Yeah. You never know. Yeah. A little Christmas gift. Yeah. It's a Diablo four monetization scheme. So predatory. That's banned in Belgium and the Netherlands and is constantly the face of lawsuits. That's a, you got to give my hand for that. I see where these honorable mentions are. But then there's exo primal, which was just like good old. Yeah. Throw those dinos at me. Have at it. Why not? That's like Marvel Avengers nonsense.
00:34:06
Speaker
Pokemon Sleep, fun and innovative ways to track me while I sleep. Venba, I don't know if I would like, it's not like it's done anything new. I just really liked and enjoyed that quick little story mechanic where it is open-ended cooking almost, because it'll give you your grandmother's recipe book, but its parts are smudged or missing because it's been handed down for a while.
00:34:33
Speaker
And then it'll, it'll go, okay, now try and figure out the recipe decipher this, so to speak, but, and you can solve it simple in a simple way, but then there's the like.
00:34:44
Speaker
Oh, you can try again and do it a better way. So this time, like the non bread comes out better or the doses come out crispier or something like that. I was like, that's interesting. Nothing else. Yeah, it's not much on that. So it's like the bake off where they give them ingredients, but I don't like really vague instructions. Yeah, I can make a make a cake. Yeah, I wish there'd been more of that. But again, like fun little it's a cooking drama that never states welcome.
00:35:11
Speaker
Cooking drama? That's not what that game's called. They should make that again. They need to remake this cooking drama. Yeah, it's a cooking, not cooking mama. No, cooking drama sounds great. Cooking mama got divorced and it's a cooking drama. I mean, yeah, this deals with immigration. Why not? Yeah. Oh, a little puzzle game. And then a weird science fiction object appeared in the sky and it became a cooking drama as well. Oh, that was a good one.
00:35:38
Speaker
It never ends, does it? November?

Contraption Building in 'Word Factory'

00:35:42
Speaker
No, August 3rd. Word factory. Have you guys seen that? I did play that. You know what? It reminded me of a game I made called the Magic Poo Machine. I wonder where we had to like create a sort of Rube Goldberg machine that moves things to the right place at the right time.
00:36:00
Speaker
It's quite fun. Your game or Word Factory? I'm talking about Word Factory, yes. My game wasn't quite as well put together. It is just that, where it'll give you a normal piece and then you can make this contraption that bends this piece to make different letters. I never went through the whole thing, but it was quite engaging.
00:36:24
Speaker
I think that's me. I come from like flash game backgrounds. So I like games that just take one mechanic and I was like, how can I just bend this over and over? Sometimes quite literally.
00:36:36
Speaker
Yellow Taxi Go Room, you didn't play this, Marty might have touched on this game. It is the most strangely explosive, like fast and furious, crazy taxi Mario 64 game I've ever felt. If Mario was a car. I think I did try this one. This was just the one that was in like the future city, the way you could fly.
00:36:57
Speaker
No, that was, I believe, mile high taxi. That one was just like crazy taxi. This is like a 3D platformer where you play as a car.
00:37:05
Speaker
No, I don't think I played this one. You need some good control on this. I recommend playing on a controller. It feels like the opening of Too Fast, Too Furious, where he's just like going through 50 gears to try and get as much control as possible. Let me see what I got here. Tamarack Trail. Marty and I tried that out. It's interesting because it's Slay the Spire, but now it's really leaning into the dice mechanic.
00:37:28
Speaker
where you can craft your dice, have them knock into each other, you can activate extra moves and damage for having them knock into each other. Good stuff all around there. And then to finish that one off for me, honorable mention, most dominant mechanic every year, always.
00:37:45
Speaker
gun,

Gun Mechanics Prevalence

00:37:46
Speaker
any game that's got guns in it, scroll with a gun, Power World, that's Pokemon with guns that's gonna come out, Wizard with a gun came out, which is just like don't starve together, but it's a gun, you're crafting with a gun, you're harvesting with a gun, and of course, Rusted Moss, which is a grapple hook Metroidvania with a gun, love it. Is that a gun? Just with a gun, Cooking Mama with a gun. That's cooking drama right there. It's a nice looking drama.
00:38:16
Speaker
I had a couple more individual ones.

Engaging Puzzles in 'Suica Game'

00:38:19
Speaker
A mix, so the two that go together are pineapple on pizza and Suica game. And it's because they both do one thing, one incredibly simple thing, and they do it very well. And pineapple on pizza is like an eight minute joke with a punchline. Yeah, that was a very effective punchline. Like when it pays off at the end, I was like, oh, you got me pineapple on pizza.
00:38:43
Speaker
Very clever and it's just eight minutes in and out of your life. And then Suica game, which is a puzzle game I've been banging on about is the most like Spartan game. It is just one mode. They had a second. They had a Halloween skin that they removed from it.
00:38:58
Speaker
I was like incredible like you were able to play it looking spooky and then they patch that out and they're like it is no longer spooky season but it is just a it's just a little bit of Tetris a little bit of threes a little bit of Pollo Pollo Yeah, it's the new flappy bird isn't it and there's like 900 ripoffs on Steam now.
00:39:19
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's because the only official one is just on Switch, which is madness to me that there's just not enough. They don't port Suica game to anything else because it's only three dollars. But it also only has like a 60 second song and you hear it loop ad nauseam. But it's so good. Also, this week is the I believe the third anniversary of Suica game. So HPD Suica game. Hmm.
00:39:41
Speaker
It only came here like a month or two ago, but it was third anniversary in Asia. It's the Kauai 2048. Exactly. Kauai 2048. I really like the scrapbook in season, A Letter to the Future. And I don't know if I like it. I like it with distance. I don't know if I liked it in the moment, but I like the idea that that game is about trying to, like the world is moving on from this time period. And

Scrapbook Mechanics in 'Season'

00:40:06
Speaker
they're kind of vague about what's going on, if there's going to be a flood, if
00:40:10
Speaker
if everyone's gonna forget what happened, but your job is to kind of chronicle the memories of this specific place and the people who live there before the world moves on.
00:40:21
Speaker
Yeah, see, I find I've got increasingly less patience for indie games that just say, do whatever you want, play it your way. I'm like, bitch, challenge me. Challenge me to fill in this scrapbook in the specific way that will set off the trigger that calls me a good boy. That's what I want.
00:40:45
Speaker
I want to see interesting game mechanics. I want to just piss about. I'll get a piece of paper and doodle on it. Oh, but the art is so pretty. I like pissing about. Give me more piss about simulators. There's tons of those. Invincible came out this year. Oh, that's a little too much. There's not enough pissing about on that. Oh, there's a fair amount of pissing about.
00:41:09
Speaker
But I like the like good vibe, Gessant has good vibe. What did you guys think of climbing in the year of our Lord 2023? In Gessant, yeah, it was pretty good in that. I think that game sort of lost interest in itself at the end. It just went, hey, space whales. I love a nice space whale. That's part of it. Yeah, it was pretty fun while it lasted.
00:41:31
Speaker
A few others, I know Yahtzee will call it lower tier Mario and then we'll mute his mic, but Mario Wonder, I think the Wonder Seeds allow the team to really go with like a kitchen sink approach to creativity to be like, in this one instance, we're going to completely change how you think about this game and how you play this level.

Creative Freedom in 'Mario Wonder'

00:41:52
Speaker
And it's not a theme we need to stick to for the rest of the game.
00:41:56
Speaker
the cape or Yoshi, it's not the cat suit, it is something that we can just deliver to you once and then move on with it. And I think that sort of emboldened a lot of creativity in the team, in the 2D space, which we don't see a lot of in 2D platforms. It's hard to be creative in a genre that's been around for 40 years. Well, fair enough.
00:42:17
Speaker
Don't we wrap things up and hurry along to super chats? Well, I got a few more, just a few more and then I'll be done and then I'll shut up and then we're going to chat. So many supers. The active time lore in Final Fantasy 16.
00:42:31
Speaker
Which was the game's way of sort of providing you an interactive Wikipedia at any time a character is talking, or at any moment in the game, you can hit the

Interactive Elements in 'The Last of Us 2'

00:42:41
Speaker
middle button on the PS5 controller and it opens up a little map that says, this is who the characters are in this scene, this is who they are, this is their relationship, this is where you are, this is the place in the world.
00:42:52
Speaker
I preferred the execution of that in Pyre where every time there was a significant element appeared in the dialogue, the text would just turn red and you'd just mouse over it and there'd be a little tool tip explaining who that was and what was going on. But the ones that did it first was Amazon Prime where you could just pause and it's like, who's this guy on screen? Oh, yeah. Who's this actor?
00:43:15
Speaker
the making of Karateka. Did you get a chance to futz around with that at all Yahtzee? Did you care about Karateka, the Jordan Meckner game, the pre-Prince of Persia? No, no, I only really played Prince of Persia back in the day. I know you also did Karateka, yes.
00:43:30
Speaker
Yeah, I never played Karateka. I don't care about Karateka. But the way this is an interactive documentary is fascinating. It is ostensibly a documentary on the making of Karateka. And as you watch it, you are interacting with it. And it gets to certain points where you can play the early build. And when they are talking about something, you can play through the thing as they are talking about it. It feels like a genuine evolution of the Valve interactive commentary.
00:44:00
Speaker
which is something i wish more games had because i think that's pretty cool learning more about the way things are yeah makes me think of the beginner's guide for some reason
00:44:09
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, yeah. And even like, I know everyone's rolling their eyes at the fact that The Last of Us 2 Remastered is coming out on PS5 next month, and understandably, if you're rolling your eyes, they're including work in progress levels and cut levels in the game in like sort of boxy form that you can play, which I think is cool. I think sort of empowering us to see behind the curtain and to see, you know, work in progress, unfinished things is something I wish more developers would do, honestly.
00:44:37
Speaker
Um, although I just wish with care tech. I wish it was in a game. I cared about more Uh, and then the the my last point was it's interesting how many games I really liked this year that I didn't really have a stand-up mechanic of and I think that's because this game This year had so many sequels and remakes um stuff like pickman 4, uh, resin evil remake, uh, mario rpg persona 5 tactic games i'm really enjoying or enjoyed but just don't have
00:45:05
Speaker
A single thing that stood out. I like the wingsuit in Spider-Man 2. That might be the thing I like the most in Spider-Man 2. You like Persona 5 tactical? I honestly really not liking that at all. I don't know if I like it. I like spending time with my pals. And I don't like playing the game. There isn't much of that in Persona 5 tactical. There's no real world piss about element that previous Persona 5 games have had. That is very true.
00:45:30
Speaker
I mean, I liked Strikers because they had the whole tour of Japan going on in the real world side of things. But Tatica is just like one metaverse fight after another, and frankly, I just don't like the combat much.
00:45:42
Speaker
And as a Sony who's not crazy about tactics, I'm going through it because I want to make sure my boys are okay at the end. I want to make sure Ryuji's fine at the end and that he gets through this in one piece. I think they've oversaturated the Persona 5 spinoffs. I don't care anymore. I'm like, how many bloody struggles for the heart of the human soul have these poor kids had to deal with in like a single year of their lives?
00:46:06
Speaker
Next year's gonna be eight years. So in a year? Oh my god. Yeah, they've had a year. They've had a year. Is it the same people? I thought they was just like... It's the same crew. The P5 people, the same crew. They're all adolescents. I thought it was more like Harry Potter. We're like next year and next year. No. No, sort of like three and four of different characters, but all the Persona 5 characters, they've been dancing, they've been fighting, they've been doing a lot. Yeah. They had those Q spin-offs, whatever they were. Yeah, little chibi characters. Wacky stuff.
00:46:35
Speaker
On that note, I think we can go to Super Chats. I'll be reading them out today because Yahtzee did a lot of recording over the weekend for his audio. Yes, people who keep asking about it. I'm recording the audio book for We'll Leave the Galaxy for Good, which will be coming out next year.
00:46:53
Speaker
Should have it wrapped up in next weekend's recording sessions, but it does mean my voice is a little bit overworked right now. So Marty's going to read out the Superchads. Your money maker. Both your voices are your money maker. We can run mine ragged. It doesn't matter. You guys.
00:47:09
Speaker
We got to keep that chocolate and vanilla. I'm not sure what that meant. Matt, welcome to the Green Gang. Matt, welcome. Thank you so much, Matt. And Mark Devis with the 4.99 pound dono. Thank you so much, Mark. Any news, I'm getting the Adventurer's Night IP or a second wind D&D series. Like a lot of us, I need more Jack Packard in my life. Love you guys. XOXOXO.
00:47:31
Speaker
It's still something we can't really talk about. There are still negotiations underway. Watch this space. You'll hear something soon, probably.
00:47:41
Speaker
Yeah. And we can promise you that in some way, shape, or form, we will be doing a live play D&D series in the future. And you will see more Jack Packer. Jack Packer is just doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff. He's doing just a lot of adult work that I'm going to be honest, I'm glad I don't have to do. He's barely having time to take his big boy pants off. Now he's talking to lawyers. He's getting incorporated. Oh my God. He knows so much. He knows so much. He's been jacking it. I'm going to be honest. He's been jacking it so hard this month and I'm so proud of him.
00:48:08
Speaker
uh voitec welcome to the tip jar welcome voitec we're proud to have you here uh dale mallows uh with a 507 uh don't know thank you so much good morning here are your dumb and funny words of the week obelis collingwood twat grundle and discombobulate keep it up gents i don't like when i say the word twat
00:48:29
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I don't like how I say it. No, I just don't say it. It's twat. Yeah. Well, you don't call it a SWAT team. You call it a SWAT team. Okay. Colin Farrell was in a movie called SWAT.
00:48:45
Speaker
The letters are pronounced differently based on context. I worry that you don't seem to have noticed that in your time using English. Words with jazz. Skibbity bop bop bop. Words with friends. Words with friends. Vulgar display of gaming with 10 Australian dollars. Thank you so much, Vulgar. This is for Frost's amazing last cold take. Such a great video. You really outdid yourself. Frost, talk a little bit about your cold takes. I just went up a few hours ago. Outdid, overspent. I was like, oh,
00:49:14
Speaker
This one almost took me with it is, yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't want to spoil too much. It's right there. Give them the link. Throw it their way. It's 40 bloody minutes long. Yeah, that's like four cold takes now. I get four weeks off.
00:49:33
Speaker
Is that how it works? I don't think that's how it works. But yeah, watch that video. It's great. It presents a scenario, does its research, and then gives you a little bit of opinion at the end. It's very good. Excellent. And then King Dead, welcome to the tip jar. Thank you so much, King Dead. And then Captain Seasick, thank you so much for the don't know. Seriously, here is some money for the doggo cam.
00:49:59
Speaker
Oh, well, Toffee sort of slipped off it right now, but... Oh, well, Toffee was... Give him a break. He's a sleepy boy. Oh, Ryan Small. Welcome to the Green Gang. Thank you so much for Ryan. Great green goo. Welcome to the tip jar. Did you guys see that this dude's making a goo game?
00:50:16
Speaker
This is a weird thing. Guy who works for Epic in his spare time is making like a goo or a slime game. Doesn't that look cool? He's playing like a little slime? I mean, graphically, it's very pretty. It hasn't shown much gameplay. I don't know what it's going to be, but I want a game where I play as goo. I can carry it as the closest thing to like being goo, but that was more of like amorphous killing blob. See, I grew up on Spew, which was like from the creators of The Binding of Isaac. Oh, Gish. That was a... That's the one, yeah.
00:50:44
Speaker
Yeah, Gish was the, like, Evan McMillan's first game back when he was a Newgrounds luminary. I've never even heard of Gish. Yeah, you propel yourself with your own vomit.
00:50:57
Speaker
Lovely. Darwin's dummy with a $2 don't know. Thank you so much. Gotta support the dog cam. David Dubois with a $5 don't know. It's just dog cam all in caps. Okay. Okay. You know what, Toffee? You're going to have to earn some of this money, but get back right up. Get back up here, you little prima donna. $2 don't know. Jackson Jewel, super chat for dog cam.
00:51:20
Speaker
That was great. That was wonderful. Clover and Anais, thank you so much for the $5 Dono. Tex Murphy, eat your heart out. There's a new detective in town and his name is Frost. Just watch Cole take well done. Hi Yachts and Marty. You have a trench coat. I should get one. See, I'm in Oklahoma. It's super windy. What are you going to do with a trench coat? Yeah, tie it up. I'm just going to walk around and I'll look cool, but then it'll be like a frog sack.
00:51:49
Speaker
I mean, the problem in trench coats... That's why trench coats have belts. Yeah, but modern trench coats, it makes it seem like you're going to go to a Kmart parking lot and show your doodle to some kids. I'm looking for modern ones, because I feel like the old ones, we can't pull off anymore. They're made different, number one, and to the connotations. You just look like a streaker. Yeah, or someone who collects swords.
00:52:12
Speaker
Unfortunate. Like, fedoras. I'm looking. I was very serious opinions about Legend of Korra. Legend of Korra and World War II. Yeah. That seems like weirdly specific. I feel like something's going on there.
00:52:29
Speaker
John Connor with 5 Canadian dollars. Thank you so much, John. Spider-Man's wingsuit mechanics is going to be the next grappling hook in adventure games, even though it died after Arkham did it years ago. Hey, Just Cause had a wingsuit way before Spider-Man did.
00:52:44
Speaker
That is true. Admittedly, it didn't have the flying through rings like Superman 64 mechanic. Sure. I really liked the wingsuit in Spider-Man because a lot of going into this, it was like, this is the same city. How are you going to make it feel different? And I did feel like the wingsuit felt a lot differently in the formation of the or like the position of those wings, those little
00:53:04
Speaker
wind tunnels, like you said. Yeah, like I said in my review, I was really expecting not to like it because I was afraid it would take away from the web swinging, but it didn't. It had its own little foibles to it. And it helped out because since like the entire kind of eastern half of the map is not quite as dense and tall as Manhattan is, so it makes getting around like queens and stuff feel more interesting, which is nice.
00:53:31
Speaker
It's running into a good game. Voitek. $5 down. Oh, thank you so much, Voitek. What game mechanics this year do you see becoming a new trend? Also, Dog Cam was a great idea. Yeah, do you see anything we talked about? The ones that really stood out were the ones like Viewfinder that I feel like you couldn't put that in the other games, really, aside from the novelty.
00:53:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think the grid-based inventory stuff is going to remain popular for a while, I think. Yeah, we're seeing it more and more make a comeback. I'm curious if, I know I always bring up Zelda, but so much of Breath of the Wild has been carried over into a lot of other games in the past six years. I'm wondering if anyone's really going to try the heavy physics and system-based stuff of
00:54:18
Speaker
the mechanics and tiers of the kingdom. I feel like it's going to be less. It'd be nice to have something like that on a console that doesn't chug the way the Switch does. A console that isn't 15 years old at this point. I keep banking on like vampire survivor mechanics being more, getting more into the mainstream, but I think the closest it's been so far is Deep Rock Galactic made a little spin-off game that's just vampire survivors. So I'm like, huh, it's awfully quiet. I don't know.
00:54:46
Speaker
Yeah, wondering, like, is someone, yeah, is someone really going to tap into this? One game, or a pair of games, I guess, we didn't bring up, Elizape and Lords of the Fallen. Do you think anything in either of those games, really, are going to be moving the needle? Like, what about the Umbral Lamp? That seemed like the... See, it's just a nice way of presenting old stuff, but I think that the interesting thing was staying in the Umbral World,
00:55:12
Speaker
Everything gets harder, but worth more money. It's kind of like an interesting way of this whole, if it's too difficult, go ahead and grind out, right? Like you can grind anywhere. So it's almost like a nice little accessibility feature, I would call it, which I wouldn't mind in other games.
00:55:31
Speaker
Um, speaking of those two games, Volga display a gaming, 10 Australian dollars. My favorite mechanic of this year was Liza P's ability to trigger off my Sekiro PTSD of the eight hours straight spent fighting a headless Yeti.
00:55:45
Speaker
Is it Amy in the midst of that PTSD? She's been there for a bit. It's not post, it's just traumatic stress disorder. It's mid-traumatic stress disorder. We're in the mid, in the throes of traumatic stress right now. Did you beat all that? Yeah, it's saccharin. Did you beat all that saccharin? No, I didn't get around to finishing that. What did you get?
00:56:05
Speaker
Not as far as the big monkey that everyone keeps talking about. Awful thing. I had to look it up. Sekiro Boss is ranked like hardest to easiest. He's number five. So I was like, oh, strange place to put him. Okay. Oh, no. I believe in Amy. She's a pro gamer.
00:56:23
Speaker
obsidian watch with a $5 don't know thank you so much obsidian watch hey gents good to see you all loved the cold take frost i found some i agreed with and some i had to comment on in the vid keep up the good work lovely lovely lovely yeah love the discussion have it in i like when videos are about the or when comments are about the video
00:56:44
Speaker
I feel like a lot of my old, my younger videos were just like, Frost voice is cool. But yeah, I'm more than just a voice. Yes. I'd like to see the comments on fully rambulamatic sort of get over the fact that it's not zero punctuation anymore and go back to talking about like, uh, criticizing me for not liking people's favorite games.
00:57:04
Speaker
Dare you say something mad about the subspace emissary. Spencer K, $20 don't know. Thank you so much, Spencer. Joining in progress, I see the production value is increased with Toffee Cam. Thank you so much, Eric. That is all Eric's doing. I just finished Frost's ice cold take and really love the deep dive. I agree with your observation that too wide a net was cast on defining games. Yeah, what is a video game?
00:57:29
Speaker
If it's a spectrum, there's a game that is more game than other games, and then one game that is almost not game. What do you think the most game is? What's the most game? You're cruising, no? Resident Evil 4.
00:57:41
Speaker
Resident Evil 4 is the most game. Yes, it is the most game. That is a lot of game. Resident Evil 4 is several game. Pepper Blood with a 249 euro don't know. Thank you so much Pepper Blood. Happy Monday. I'll have a fantastic week. Thank you so much. Well, I like that sort of super chat because we could just blow it off and move straight onto the next without wasting too much time.
00:58:03
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, it was funny that you commented on that. And then I commented on the comment and the time ended up getting wasted, but we'll talk- You know, I like comments like that. I do. Yeah. The comments are nice. Does it remind you? Is there any games that it reminds me of? Moving on. Peace March. Five dollar don't know. Thank you so much, Peace March. Don't know for the puppy cam. Also, Yahtzee, will you, speaking of, will you be reviewing the new Yakuza game?
00:58:26
Speaker
I think I realized after I played like a bunch of them that they all sort of blur together in my head and it's kind of like the Ace Attorney problem in that you really only need to play one and all the rest are just sort of slight retellings of the same shit. Well especially we've gotten two this year and one is coming out in like two months.
00:58:45
Speaker
Yeah, the one that was in like real Japanese period we got the one that was just to cure you spin-off Yes, I haven't played that and probably don't intend to I might play the like a dragons equal Yeah, and that's in January where it's like before like these
00:59:00
Speaker
These games can't be real. There's this thing in me, Gamer Brain, where if a game in a franchise releases too close to itself, I go, those were expansions or offshoots? Are these actually main, chunky installments?
00:59:18
Speaker
I mean, well, the two this year have been ostensibly spinoffs, because one was set in feudal Japan. So it was kind of just like a side story. And then this one that just came out was kind of like, here's how one of the two main characters of the upcoming sequel got to that sequel.
00:59:37
Speaker
So like the one in January feels like the next capital G game in the series. It's like ostensibly Yakuza 8, like a track 8. Just reminds me of when Assassin's Creed was like, all right, we're done making games. And then they released the, was it China, India, and Egypt? Russia. Russia. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Those little, those little 2D ones. Yeah. If you make games like that way too close to each other, I just assume they're not real.
01:00:01
Speaker
Assassin's Creed Chronicles, I think they were called. Just to work through all the really generic subtitles. Yeah. Yeah. Jeez. Darwin's Dummy with a Five Lord Don't Know, thank you so much. If you need more air to fill any standout bad mechanics, like everything in Kong. We absolutely do not need to fill more air. Anything in Kong, excessive enemies and lords of the fallen, et cetera. Yeah, everything in Kong. Everything in Kong is bad. I'm trying to think of like a single, like in a game I liked this year that like the mechanic was like,
01:00:30
Speaker
Well, you apparently liked Persona 5 Tacticare, and I'm writing my review of that at the moment as it happens. And I really don't understand why they included the usual Persona fusing mechanic, like what Persona always has. Because enemies don't have elemental weaknesses, and it doesn't really matter what special ability you use on them, they all just have the same effect of getting them out of cover, so you can...
01:00:57
Speaker
Yeah, they have like simple status effects like despair which makes an enemy run away a little bit or forget what makes an enemy forget to attack. None of that really matters because all the status effects just make them weak to being attacked and that's the only thing that really matters to setting up your all-out attacks and shit.
01:01:14
Speaker
It's definitely lower on my personal ranking of the Persona spinoffs. It's definitely below. I love Q and I really like Strikers. This is below that. It's about dancing, though. I haven't played Q. I do like Strikers quite a lot. Q is great and Q is like a gameplay focused and dungeon crawly focused and building your own maps, which I really like, like the Etrian Odyssey games, but they're on the DS, which are
01:01:41
Speaker
hard to play now, and I don't know. I don't like emulating DS games. I don't think you don't get the tactile feel of it. You need to play it on the hardware. Old Hunter, with a $5 Dono, with a game we somehow didn't bring up at all. Dave the Diver helped popularize the half rogue light, half management sim game, Sea Cult of the Lamb, and Boyfriend Dungeon. I hope this becomes a growing subgenre. It feels like David Diver had so many mechanics that there's not one that stuck out, even though I really like David Diver. Like a charcuterie, if you will.
01:02:11
Speaker
Yeah. Nice little charcutte. I think, uh, cold to the lamb was cold to the lamb was way before David ever, wasn't it? Yes. And before that was moonlighter. And before that was a Racketeer. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Or Racketeer is like almost ancient now. I mean, that's, oh yeah, it's took a while, but it's been a thing for quite a while. Wouldn't Hades even be that?
01:02:34
Speaker
Not really. Because nothing from out there impacts your hub world, so to speak. Yeah, as you meet characters, they enter the hub world. Well, like you see them, but it's not like it's doing anything. You're not building up the shop so that you can be more powerful in the dungeons. Yeah, it's the duel thing, like Persona, funnily enough, where what you do in one world affects how you do in the other world as well. Gotcha. It feels all interconnected. Yeah.
01:03:00
Speaker
Uh, Doran Grossman Naples with a $2 dono. It's a me, Mardio. It's me. Very clever, Doran. Uh, Hunter Roge with a $10 dono. Thank you so much. Nothing to add this week. Thanks for the content. Keep up the good work. Hunter, thank you. That's the kind of comment we'd like.
01:03:18
Speaker
No response. Lizard, with a five pound dono. Thank you so much. Spent the last day watching a four hour video from H-Bomber Guy and a separate two hour video on James Somerton. So a 40 minute video fell short. Yeah, H-Bom really lit up to his name and dropped a bit of a bomb over the last week, didn't they? Did you watch it yet? Yeah, it cooled out like 15 different
01:03:39
Speaker
like name youtubers for plagiarism the bit where he was he was uh zooming in on a photo one guy had put up and it showed the plagiarized video i was like what because i was on podcast mode and he's like it's right here i was like what the hell is this
01:03:57
Speaker
That's that's amazing. Yeah, I know. We, we like the end each other in the past. He's popped in. He's popped in our chats before. Yeah, he's popped in the chat. We should get him on the podcast one of these days on plagiarism. Fantastic. Yeah, I almost didn't release this cold take when I saw his was four hours long. I got to make it bigger. Maybe feel impotent. Yeah. Yeah. I've like I've said to before, that
01:04:26
Speaker
I wish I had his audience because he gets like millions of views every episode. And he pointed out that I probably get the same altogether. He'd released it. I think it's been like a year since that Roblox video. Yeah. Yeah. If you were to release one video a year, what do you think yours would be on yet? Uh, chunky topic.
01:04:51
Speaker
It's hard to say. I feel like I've used up all the big chunky topics on extra punctuations and such. Yeah, I feel like you're a grand minstrel of short form, you. At the end of a year, you can just review every game of the year. Save it all and be like, starting with High-Fi Rush, let's go. In video essays, I don't feel I could go on for a two-hour video. But, controversially, I prefer writing novels to short stories.
01:05:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny. Yeah. For some reason, that all reminded me of Hi-Fi Rush. We didn't talk about Hi-Fi Rush in terms of mechanics.
01:05:30
Speaker
What did it do? Yeah, what did it do new? I mean, besides the fact that it was a rhythm battle applied to spectacle fighter style hack and slash mechanics rather than any of the previous games that have been. Yeah, I guess it's less new mechanic and more of like new combination of familiar mechanics. Yeah. Nice presentation as well.
01:05:54
Speaker
Very nice presentation. Yeah, I'd say like Hi-Fi Rush is the most charismatic of those type of games, but like Geno Kids was the demo this year that is Hi-Fi Rush, essentially not nearly as much like production elsewhere, but the core of it. I was like, wow, this is like the way people talk about Hi-Fi Rush. That's how I felt about Geno Kids. Geno from RE RPG.
01:06:13
Speaker
probably different, you know, probably probably gotta be a different, you know, uh, snake of the garden. Uh, speaking of with a two year old donor, thank you so much snake H bomber guy makes me want to celebrate your creativity. Huh? Yeah. So I certainly felt, uh, better at being a creative after I saw the plagiarism is so much work.
01:06:34
Speaker
It just seems like it's more work. It's just it's less work to just come up with it yourself. Well, well, this is his point, actually. He covers this in the video. He talks about, like, people like us, people who are genuinely creative, think it's easy to write great things because that's what we do. We're all geared for it.
01:06:51
Speaker
So we see someone plagiarizing and go, oh, what's the point? Why don't you just write down your own thoughts? But it turns out it's not quite as easy for people who haven't done it as much as we have. Yeah, and then it's like a slippery slope. And then you're like, I gotta release a video every week. And then all of a sudden you just fucking.
01:07:07
Speaker
The one point where he was saying like it's more it's more effort to plagiarize it's actually less if you have to get the big brunt of the work is contacting sources and like hey can I like that's the part that eats it all up so I can I'm not justifying I can just understand the laziness to where even I go I'm gonna make this shorter or I'm not gonna make it at all because I'm not gonna plagiarize it but it would be easier if I did so
01:07:35
Speaker
Gigawatt Fox with a five dollar demo, thank you so much. Gigawatt, a little bit of a broken record, intensely curious about your thoughts in regards to Dragon Warrior Monsters, the battle, the Dark Prince. This game has just come out. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one on here who gives a shit about it. I've not gotten a chance to play it yet.
01:07:53
Speaker
Okay, I don't know anything about it. Dragon Quest, but the monster series is kind of like a Pokemon critter wrangling side of it. A couple of people I know have enjoyed it. I don't feel like it's gotten glowing reviews. I think coming out in beginning of December again can be a detriment to trying to get people to have eyes on your game. So I feel like a lot of times at the end of the year, you get a game that comes out that just kind of like shoved out the door.
01:08:22
Speaker
Oh, it's a good time because of the Steam sales. I feel like a lot of indies sell when they see the big green 50% off. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no thoughts on Dragon Quest monsters yet. But maybe if I play it at some point in the near future, I'll talk about it on various shows and whatnot. Brick in the head with the $2 demo. Thank you so much. Tell Toffee he's a good boy. Toffee. Toffee, look at me, look at me.
01:08:49
Speaker
You are a good boy. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. Brick in the headset, sir. There you go. Thank you, Brick in the head, for creating that moment.

Listener Interaction and Scottish Game

01:09:01
Speaker
Coffee Koala with a 4.99 pound dono. Thank you so much. Howdy from Windy Edinburgh. My partner and I love your content and so happy second wind has had a fab start. Keep up the great work. Thank you. Thank you. Have you ever been to Edinburgh? Edinburgh? Yeah.
01:09:19
Speaker
yes it is a city in scotland yeah i've been playing a scottish scottish themed game island song oh yes but i didn't like it very much i like it a lot i think i can't talk about it i guess i like it a lot
01:09:37
Speaker
only call to tail end of this looking forward to watching it and the cold take keep up the good work gents yeah do you should cold take be a single sitter or should it be like remember when the irishman came out they were like you could actually break it into four separate episodes even though it's one movie
01:09:57
Speaker
40 minutes doesn't seem like that long. I'm very much like sort of one track minded, even though it's like five tracks at the same time. They're all it's a braid, if you will. Jonathan blew it. But we've got chapters if they're in there if you want to go bit by bit. We do. There you go. So coffee has left the building. Well,
01:10:20
Speaker
Rest in peace, dog cam. And fittingly, Captain C-Sick, thank you so much for the dono. Here's some more cash for Eric, appreciation fund. Keep up the good work, you strange, invisible cameraman. If the production value on this looks any better than it used to, which it does, that's all thanks to Eric. So thank you so much, Eric. He has it now. Yeah. Well, I don't have to. Yeah, I was about to say more time for the goofs. Doran Grossman Naples again with a $2 dono. Thank you so much. In honor of Firelink Podcast.
01:10:48
Speaker
Link the fire or no?

Humorous Dark Souls Debate

01:10:50
Speaker
What kind of sucker links the fire if they know the full story of Dark Souls? But if you always replay it, do you always do the same thing? I am that sucker. Pretty much. I always want to be the Dark Lord and watch all the big penis headed dudes bowing down to me. Why would I want to, why would I not want that instead of setting myself on fire? I was role playing. I was a pyromancer. So I was like, this is just kind of my thing.
01:11:16
Speaker
This is truly in character. You think a pyromance will be like more bloody fire? Jesus Christ, I'm so sick of it. No, I can't get enough of it. Let's go. I like how they were talking about how Frant can be trusted. I don't trust any of those guys. They look weird. I don't like how they look. They do look weird. Well, they do look weird. I don't think that's weird. Well, maybe they think you look weird. I wouldn't doubt it, but not in comparison to them.
01:11:42
Speaker
In case you guys don't know Firelink podcast is we are launching our new weekly another weekly podcast this week Wednesday evening 6 p.m. Central here on the main channel and it's gonna be Nick Casey and myself so if you were a fan of breakout over at The escapist check

New Podcast Announcements

01:12:00
Speaker
that out. We're gonna be chatting about the GTA 6 trailer which is going to be revealed tomorrow morning and break the internet as well as a last-minute game award predictions and all that jazz and
01:12:10
Speaker
And then we'll be also doing a live watch-along to the Game Awards on Thursday evening. So tune in for that. Plug plug. Synth McPoet, McGeePoet, thank you so much for the $5 Dono. A tip for Toffee, the good boy. Toffee is a good boy. I just scratched his head off screen. Aww. And then Robbie Montague with a $5 Dono, thank you so

Chess Scandal Discussion

01:12:31
Speaker
much. I really loved the butt plug mechanic in chess that showed up this year.
01:12:36
Speaker
What's he on about? You guys didn't hear that. Okay. Yeah. That was the chess champion cheating, right? Yeah. The chess, the newest chess champion, I believe he was cheating and they're like, how could he have done it? Butt plug vibrate. Yeah. It's like a vibration butt plug that. Yeah. This is the legend. I don't think they ever proved it, but he is awfully shy, the lad. But there's this one YouTuber who does like mad man engineering type stuff who also invents a butt plug for chess to give you moves.
01:13:06
Speaker
Okay, but how is that cheating? It's just like someone who's like really good at chess in the back room watching with a hidden camera and sending like vibration signals to tell the game out using AI and being like, this is the move to play right now. This is the move to play right now.
01:13:26
Speaker
Yeah, they tend to just use AI. Just enter the moves and it's like, oh, here's what you do. I don't know how you come up with a code that doesn't just annihilate your prostate. Yeah. It's like, oh, not that night again. Oh, I shot myself. It's like when Res came out, they had the vibration suit and then the vibration chair that you would sit on and it made it 100% by vibrating like that. Think about it.
01:13:54
Speaker
Kojima, we got a new idea for Death Stranding 2. Doreen, thank you so much for the dough now. Cute dog, pet, pet, pot.
01:14:04
Speaker
Okay. I will pet him again. Beautiful. His walks. Hurry up. It's coming soon. It's coming soon. Don't worry. My sweet boy. Black emolli with a $5 don't know. Thank you so much. Glad you're all doing well. Question for Yahtzee is your quote painkiller with apologies. Quote skit the cannon first meeting between Elizabeth and Dr. Diableri. Sure. Let's go with that. Boom. Okay. Is it Elizabeth from Bioshock?
01:14:32
Speaker
No, it's characters from my books. Trying to show how in they are novels.

AI Biography Revelation

01:14:41
Speaker
Have any of you read the Yahtzee Croshaw biography? I found a very obviously AI written biography of me on Amazon, which is completely factually inaccurate as AIs tend to be.
01:14:57
Speaker
That can be a, that can be a, a Patreon goal, as you are reading the audiobook of your fake biography. Hey, it's still there. How's it not taken down yet? Did you? I don't know. I actually like sent a report myself saying this is obviously AI written, and completely factually inaccurate to boot. Did you say it was you? That probably would have prioritized it.
01:15:24
Speaker
I'll just post it in the in the chat right now, actually. There you go. Barbara Streisand. Barbara Streisand.
01:15:38
Speaker
Hunter is tired with a 4.99 dono. No message, but thank you so much, Hunter. Appreciate it. And then Alex Armstrong, two separate messages. I'll just combine them into one. Appreciate the dono. Marty and Frost, hope it's okay to ask, but what are some of your old jobs before joining the escapist and then second

Hosts' Previous Jobs and Future Plans

01:15:51
Speaker
wind? And Yachts, now that ZP is no more, what will you call the second wind version of the occasional guide to our word moments in gaming history if you ever make one? That's funny. It's not letting me post a link. Sorry, what was that? Yes.
01:16:06
Speaker
What would I call the, I don't know, like I said earlier, I think Frost's series Chronicles probably kind of takes over that particular job of talking about the R-word moments in gaming history. Yeah, you could send me some if you like, or have your own spot. It was tough enough trying to come up with new ones every time it occurred to me to make one. Right, yeah. Because there was a gap in the release schedule.
01:16:29
Speaker
Do you hear the story about the chess dude who put a thing up his ass? That's a good one. It's not really a video game related, is it? It was gaming space. There was a Star Wars chess. I played that on the PC.

Frost's Career Journey

01:16:40
Speaker
And then, Frost, what were some of your old jobs for getting into this? Farming, construction, I was a cook, business consultant, marketing. How old are you? 28.
01:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, you squeezed a lot in. Yeah. Is that when you were like 14? Yeah, no, yeah, I did. 14. And then at 20, I was like, I really got to crank it up because there's, there's more you can do and more your body can take in your early 20s. Then I was like, at 50, I'll not be able to travel as well. Whatever. At 70. So let's just cram it all in now. There's a time. I've always just sought stability myself.
01:17:16
Speaker
I did a grocery store, library, school newspaper, coffee shop, and then games industry. I was grocery store, video game shop, data entry clerk, and then mainly just data entry clerk after that. Library was my favorite job before. Like a non public facing job was the job I found I preferred the most.
01:17:46
Speaker
People like it when you do all their data entry for them. Because they because people who are extroverted get really bored by it. Even when I worked retail, I was produce. So I could just stay in the back. Yeah, I'd fill in all that data happy as a clam. I thinking about my creative projects.
01:18:07
Speaker
Yeah, I was about to say, then you're like kind of working in your head while doing it. I felt excited. Yeah, because it requires so little of your like higher brain to just enter data all day. You can be wherever you want. Absolutely. Just a couple more don't know solipsism crisis or the 169 euro pound donation. Thank you so much. No message. Appreciate the don't know solipsism mobile with a file or don't know. Thank you so much. Heard you like super chats that are light on questions. Have a good rest of the day.
01:18:36
Speaker
Will do. No notes. And then the last one we have for the moment, William Matthews with a £5 dono. Thank you so much. Yachts, will you do a Ramblo on the Talos Principle 2? Remember you saying you enjoyed it. It's in my top three of the year, though Hi-Fi Rush is still my numero

New Review Announcement

01:18:52
Speaker
uno. You know what, William Matthews? Just because you asked, I'm going to do a fully Ramblomatic Talos Principle 2 this very week. We're tossing out the thing we had originally. You're going to put it together in the next 48 hours. Perfect.
01:19:05
Speaker
Because there's just something about you I find compelled to obey, William Matthews. I think it's the I think it's the last name Matthews is powerful. I think it's the money. I think it's the money. Give me give me money. Yeah, I am an enormous whore. Yeah, that's exactly how it works. Just make it rain. I'll do whatever the hell you want me to do.
01:19:29
Speaker
No, that was obviously the review I was always going to put out this week. Asshole. Who'd you just call an asshole? Everyone. Everyone. And then solipsism, again, with a 169. No, no, thank you so much solipsism. No message, but we just appreciate it. Well, the message got retracted. I don't know what's happening over there, solipsism. You can just write a message and I'll just read it out if you want. You don't need to even pay at this point. You've paid a couple times. At the moment, that's it for Super Chats. We did it, guys.
01:19:58
Speaker
Hey! Yeah, Yahtzee, what do you got going on the rest of the week? What should folks check out in your neck of the woods? Oh, did I mention I've got a review of Tell Us Principle 2 coming out in fully-rampomatic on Wednesday? I didn't hear that. Whoa, Matthew Brooks quit. But on the same day, I'll be doing a Yebi Yahtzee tries stream. I think we're going to play some Lethal Company this week, so I'm going to be gathering some allies before I venture forth there. Yeah, that's the hot new multiplayer game.
01:20:27
Speaker
Yeah. Well, we have decided, incidentally, that Yahtzee Tries is going to have its edited highlights video out every two weeks because we thought, like, combining two streams for the last one that we put out on Friday made for a nice meaty video for everyone to enjoy. That was nice. So we'll be sticking with that going forward. I've also got a semi-ramble magic coming out this week on the Thursday. That's pretty much ready to go. It's looking pretty good. You'll all enjoy that.
01:20:55
Speaker
It's on the subject of what not to do when titling a game. Love it. I love it.

Cold Take Series Update

01:21:04
Speaker
I think that's it for my stuff. What else we got? Yeah, for us. Obviously, Cold Take was your beef stir today. And it's back. This is going to be the normal Cold Take day and time, correct?
01:21:17
Speaker
Yep, once every two Mondays. Yeah, I said that right. And this one is the 40 minute banger. Not the coldest take, but the most cold take so far. AAA Studios sued for addictive games. I had a lovely time playing with my whiteboard. That's a good old time. Yeah, so the next one would be come Monday and we've got a bunch of other projects on the back end to look at it because sometimes you do get a beefy deep dive other times. Maybe it's something shorter.
01:21:43
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. In terms of other streams and whatnot, we have going on this week.

Upcoming Streams and Podcasts

01:21:50
Speaker
Schedule is still in flux for a couple of days, but aside from Yahtzee's, Yahtzee tries on Wednesday, we're going to be doing, like I said before, the premiere of Firelink on this channel at 6pm Central. That'll be Casey, Nick, and myself chatting about all that good stuff.
01:22:04
Speaker
And then on Thursday, I believe around 5 30 p.m. Central, we're going to be going live with our game awards watch along. So that's that's always that's always fun. Maybe we'll see a Kojima, maybe not. And then maybe on Friday, we might be playing some avatar because the avatar game comes out at the end of this week. And we want to see those blue folks are up.
01:22:25
Speaker
I don't know if we can get a review code in before I want to start playing it before next week so I can do a review of it. I haven't seen any comments. I feel like Nick isn't watching blue boys. The blue boys. Oh, and then Shawshank. We can't announce anything officially, but fans of Casey and I playing devil may cry. We'll be very happy in probably next week.
01:22:54
Speaker
with a thumbs up. Alex Armstrong, $2 down low. Thank you so much. Marty, favorite cocktail and why. Dirty vodka martini because it makes me feel fancy or in old fashioned because that's what every bar in Wisconsin serves.
01:23:09
Speaker
Whiskey sour, baby. Beautiful. Frost. Jim Beam. Ooh, I like a mascot. Especially when you get in one of those little copper mugs. Yeah, it's good to come in a copper mug. And then you steal it and then you smelt it down and you sell the, you sell the cup, you smelt it. I've never smelt it, but I do have the cup. What's the difference between melting and smelting?
01:23:28
Speaker
Well, it's only smelting if it was awe before you smelted it. Oh, look at that. See, I like how like him not having gone to school made him so learned. He knows so many things. Yeah, I could ask questions that anyone could have the answer to and he has an answer to it, which is great.
01:23:43
Speaker
Well, I read a bunch of books after I left school. It just in my spare time. There you go. That was part of it. It wasn't just the fact that dropped out of school. That means I now know a lot of things. Were they smelting centric books? The history of the smelt? He probably just got curious. Be Who Smelted dealt it? Real quick, though, it was a solipsism crisis. The one that retracted said, sorry, I forgot a question. If you could create your own cup of soup, what flavor would it be?
01:24:13
Speaker
We create our own cup

Ideal Cup of Soup Discussion

01:24:16
Speaker
of soup. Yeah, we can make our own flavor. Oh, a cup of soup. Yeah, instant soup. An instant powdered soup, you just add boiling water to it and it makes soup. Yeah. I really like a homemade in a little colander in the oven French onion soup with the crouton and the melty guillère cheese on top, but it's a lot of work to do it. If I can somehow have that joy instantly, I would love that.
01:24:42
Speaker
Well, you know, that's asking a bit much. You said if we could invent it, what? This is just a flavor. I don't know if you get like the texture and everything. Well, French onion soup is like all everything but the French onion, isn't it? It's like all the cheese and croutons and stuff on the top. It's like saying my ideal soup would be grilled cheese and tomato soup. Put forth what? None of you put forth an idea and I'm being persecuted for my beliefs.
01:25:08
Speaker
All right. Cheese and onion. I'm honestly, I'm quite satisfied with the flavors of cup soups that are out there. I don't think I can make any one. Both those answers were bullshitting. There you go. Oh my God. Oh, that would be good. And then Tyler Larrabee, $10 don't know. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be supporting second win Frost. Do you have any plans for another series like the stuff of legends?
01:25:32
Speaker
Yes, actually. And we're going to use the very generic name that I am not going to bar go bust, but it was hinted during this podcast. You can go rewind. Ooh. I was going to say it wasn't even hinted. I think it was just straight up said. Yeah. I think I might've just said it at one point. I think we've said it several times, but I like being coy as well. So yeah. Um, I think, I think that's it. I think we did it.
01:25:55
Speaker
All right. Well, thanks for listening to Windbreaker podcast almost said slightly something else, then that would have been putting

Podcast Conclusion and Thank Yous

01:26:02
Speaker
my foot in it. And no mistake. I was yet to crucial. I was Marty, I was Marty. And I am and we'll still always be frost. And thank you so much, Eric for doing an incredible job of producing this episode.
01:26:19
Speaker
Thanks, Eric. Thanks for trying to centralize the camera on toffee as much as was possible. Yeah, we'll see you guys next time. Yeah, thank you guys so much. Thanks everyone chat. Bye everyone.
01:26:48
Speaker
you