Transcript
Speaker: Thank you.
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 so fucking well.
Speaker: Awesome. Gonna cut you off there, because again, I'm trying to resolve not to use the how's it going tonight, and I forgot. um So, just redo the intro, wind that back.
Speaker: Um... I'll just edit out the intro and post. It'll go from music to... Anyways. Yes. And our first topic, yeah.
Speaker: um We got to get something like the... Oh, you know what? We already have the OVC intro sort of sound thing. If we ever got really, really lazy, you can just use that for the the intro and the outro. Just go straight to talking.
Speaker: Because it basically sounds like a newscast. like yeah see and but the but transition yeah exactly and be funny to use that for every edit regardless of context So you could use it to like bleep out an expletive. You could use it for like, oh, and they had like this really cool audio. We actually have a sample of it here. It's just that it's always the same favorite bit. Yeah.
Speaker: Any sort of external reference. It's just like the whole thing's been censored, redacted. But on the last episode, you you subvert expectations. So they're like, oh, Michael, wasn't that so cool that they did a bit for 10 years? Mm hmm.
Speaker: yeah i did think ah talking about like the lifespan of the the podcast i found the raw audio where we had a super cut audio if you yeah the radio i think is what we called it then a super cut of our intros yeah um and man I mean, this has been going on for a long time at this point, but I didn't realize how different it is now compared to when it what it was like when we started. my favorite My favorite intro there is like, I kind of just like stumble through something and then just hand it off to to you. And then laughing, you're like, we using this and then it cuts and it goes to the next one. And it's just it's just great. It's a fun time.
Speaker: Back when we recorded in person. Yeah. Though the audio quality wasn't as good. Dude. For real. Two sides of a blue Yeti is a choice.
Speaker: Which is hard when I'm sitting on Jake's lap and and we're kissing. If you listen closely, if you listen closely to those original episodes. it wasn't a drink slurp right right right back when it was the uh nacl salt cast i remember when i thought that was a cool name uh-huh yeah i feel like anything though if you look back five years you're like huh yeah yeah maybe maybe that wasn't the player yeah
Speaker: But today i do everything with such confidence and no regrets. That basically is the key. Sometimes people ask, they're like, oh, like, don't you need to do a lot of preparation or what do you do for what's your editing process look like? And we're like, well, we pass it through an industrial preset filter and we don't touch anything else. There you go. Here's an intro. Here's an outro. Send it.
Speaker: um There you go. There's the behind the scenes magic. i've I've been submitting two MP3s the alter.exe and the MP3s get deleted, but I do get this weird combined audio that suddenly works for podcast distribution.
Speaker: Uh-huh. Yeah. So i'm not going question the great exchange. It's a good exchange, honestly. um very, very far removed from when we started, we actually would only talk about a topic until we kind of like ran out of space. And as soon as we as soon as we got to like dead air, we actually paused the recording.
Speaker: And then we we'd have a sidebar of like, so where do we want to go? Yeah, what's the next thing? um And it's so like you could like just because we used audacity when we started, which is like fine. It's a fine starter, but it's like I think the name is very telling.
Speaker: Yeah, it's pretty audacious. um And you could see in our early recordings, it's just like cut, cut, cut. cut cut cut cut cut cut cut And Not so as much now, unless there's a drastic need to do so. It's usually just full bar of audio all the way through. Yeah, I think before, especially with the one mic situation, we had a lot of things where extra audio was being picked up and we're like, oh, somebody sneezed here. Let's just cut that out so it's not going to throw off the balancing, etc. Mm hmm.
Speaker: Yeah, it was also difficult, like the the upside, one of the technical upsides to having separate recordings. And this is a reason that in that traditional podcast audio room, you have your like plexiglass a separator is having noise isolated to just one audio track allows you to just mute that, you know, um you know, it's easier to cut it. It's there's so many more. There's so much more flexibility in what you do.
Speaker: But otherwise, you just have to like redact time. You just cut you cut something out of both people's audio. If the other person was talking, sorry, goodbye. right like You have to find a way to make it work. um and it's It's not good.
Speaker: Don't do that. This is my advice. Stitching my sketching things together fucking sucks. Because you also have to do it in order so that you're not... ah making the tracks desync. Yes. Which has happened at a point. That one was a fucking nightmare. Yeah. um
Speaker: But yeah, we're smarter, not harder as a general rule. Exactly true. And then if you get to the point where we're at, um it's barely even work anymore. It's just...
Speaker: money making that's all we do we just so we're just here we're raking in the money all of the sponsors we have just a couple of sigmas on that grind set um but we got to pay the bills so let's talk about video games video game uh that haven't sponsored us yet but any day now any day what we got to do is the problem part of the problem is we're a little bit too critical We have to only be positive about a game. We need to like just be effusive and only espouse the good natured attributes of the game. think there's any game I could be like only positive about.
Speaker: Undertale. It is really good. But like it's not.
Speaker: i'd have to like look for flaws um because it's hard to say like, oh, it doesn't have this. if you're comparing it to something else, but maybe was designed not to have that.
Speaker: So you can't always say the absence Oh yeah, I have one. I have one for you. So it's not for everyone because not everyone is perfect. There you go. It's a, it's a, it's a flaw that exists.
Speaker: in other people and that's the reason the game's not for them ah it's the old um the old switcheroo what's your what's your greatest weakness you're just like i'm really good have you committed no shit yeah where are the stones at where are the stones yeah um But no, I mean, we got to we got to stay critical because it's either the audience or the sponsors and we need to, you know, stay true to the fans.
Speaker: so Yeah. But it's like I will always simp for certain games where I'm more willing to overlook certain things that could be considered design flaws. I'm like, but that's just how it is. Yeah. Type thing because I'm so ingratiated into how FromSoft designs games and I'm just so used to it that I don't see it as an issue.
Speaker: But separately, i would definitely concede if someone's like, I don't like this difficulty and progression of how things are laid out. I would say that's a fair opinion to have. Yeah, I think that's I think that's a reasonable take, right? Because at the end of the day, you probably have an overall view of the game and then you can dissect it. Then you could say like, OK, on graphics, on gameplay, on sound, on story, it's better or worse in these different areas or whatever.
Speaker: um But at the end of the day, the experience that most people have is the holistic picture. It is just the game was fun or it wasn't.
Speaker: right You have some distilled takeaway at the end. Yeah. um Real quick, the first time you heard the word holistic, did you think it was related to Swiss cheese in any way?
Speaker: I think I probably thought it was religious. Kind of has that that yeah like holy, holistic connotation. Holistic.
Speaker: Yeah. But no, it's just a big circle. That's all it is. Just a big circle. What other cheeses you want to talk about?
Speaker: So not going to take that bait because there's a mousetrap. Just a giant human mousetrap. Um, Some of the games that I played that Dave's been trying to get me to play were a couple demos.
Speaker: So I wanted to touch on those because they're coming up. One of them is releasing pretty soon, right? What's the one that is actually released at the point that people would be listening to this?
Speaker: I think it's going to be the Vampire Crawlers game. I think that's coming out. Within a couple of days.
Speaker: Yeah. I'm going to look that up real quick because there's a chance it's in the past. Like time is weird. It's not the past. I'm sorry. No, it's actually further out. It's April 21st. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah So we got a little bit of time. ah Vampire crawlers. So Dave sent me this trailer, ah not the same trailer, I think two different ah videos about the game.
Speaker: I was like, I really enjoyed Vampire Survivors. This is, you know, in the same space made by the same people. punk um Fun to say. ah But this is there.
Speaker: So i want I'm going to use the term roguelike, but it's basically because it's like rogue not because it's rogue like right you know what i mean um i mean they all have a degree of that where i mean you are gonna have like the randomness for pickups and things um but it is kind of laid out very much like a Here's your top-down overview of like a small dungeon. And then you move into enemy spawns to engage in your combat, which is kind of like a speedrun version of Slay the Spire. yeah felt like Yeah. Because there's a lot more encounters, right? There's enemy groups all over the map. And so...
Speaker: They didn't want to have the like the Slay the Spire strategy is usually fewer encounters, but they're longer duration. They're more meaningful in some ways. They could deplete your resources more. And they're also going to be more diverse, too. Yeah. Where they're going to and be like an active threat.
Speaker: So far from what we've seen in the demo, that is not the case. Yeah. um But it does feel good to just you can basically use a Poz D to move around the dungeon real quick. Yeah. And you can turn with Qua. Yeah. campt You can also just slam your body into walls without turning. you can drift. Yeah. And it will fright you as needed for like, oh they're having a combat engagement here or
Speaker: They just broke something and they're going to get money from this vase. So they'll have you turn and face it. Yeah. um And then you're just playing cards and trying to kill the enemies before they advance and start hitting you.
Speaker: Yeah, it's kind of... um Taking a step back from like a game design perspective, it's sort of interesting because it has nothing to do with the i don't know what we settled on for the term for survivor likes, but like basically that type of game, the sort of idle, almost bullet hell-esque auto shooter type of game that Vampire Survivors made really popular. This takes that entire like theming and like the characters and the weapons that that game had. And this just transplants them into a different genre, basically. it's like And a lot of the, from what I've seen, a lot of like the art and the level, things that might have been placed in the levels, um those are actually lifted from vampire survivors as well. They're just 3D now because you're walking around in this you know dungeon interface.
Speaker: um And it is really interesting because on one hand, it's an entire departure from the previous genre. As far as like the actual gameplay is concerned. Yeah. It really has nothing to do.
Speaker: No, it's completely different. um But they took everything else. Yeah. Like the characters so far, some of the areas like the enemies you'll encounter. Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of the cards are also going to be tied to different weapons, which you can get in game. Yeah. And similarly, they will have evolutions and stuff as well.
Speaker: um So I'm expecting that when the game comes out, it's going to be probably pretty fleshed out. But I am hoping kind of how they did with Vampire Survivors is just like they'll keep adding things on if they think of it or yeah make time for it feature wise because...
Speaker: vampire survivors at the start i did enjoy it was pretty straightforward right where it is now holy shit um it's too much for me actually it's i i literally have avoided going back to it because i know there's so much um if you're trying to achieve and hunt in that game it can it can be a lot so maybe not that one but Yeah, like it never really changed mechanically. They just did more cool things within that space. Yeah.
Speaker: Like having more insane animations or boss fights. um Yeah, it was just cool to see where it went from just a here's your top down. There's some zombies crawling at you.
Speaker: Yeah. And it is worth noting, like they're not allergic to improvements in the space. Like the gameplay plays kind of like Slay the Spire light, right? There's not so far I've i've just done the demo and I didn't even do, you know, all of the content in the demo yet.
Speaker: Um, but there were options like, oh, you get a bonus if you play your low energy cost cards and then the next highest energy cost or something. So there's, there's incentives to sequence your turn, which Slay the Spire is like, that is kind of the core element of Slay the Spire, honestly.
Speaker: um But here it seems like, like you said, faster paced. So it doesn't have the same vibe necessarily. There are times when you're playing Slay the Spire in co-op and you're like, okay, everybody pause. I'm going to have like, I think I can i can dig for a source of...
Speaker: ah vulnerability that I can put on the boss. So don't use any of your attacks yet. And you're just sitting here like shuffling. You're just like, I'm imagining you guys can't see me, but I'm imagining like a magic player just like rapidly moving their cards around like on the on the table trying to find something that's buried or whatever. looks yeah This this is not so far based off the demo.
Speaker: not necessarily that complicated but i expect they'll add more complexity as time goes on yeah i think the only major mechanics we've seen right now are the as you're saying with the um cost card cost yeah incrementing ah you can get bonuses from and there are also some permanent cards which like there were passes and vampire survivors So if you play the, is it just a leaf?
Speaker: Mm-hmm. Spinach, yeah. Oh, yeah, spinach. Ah, Popeye, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. I like how that's still in our in our culture. It's many years later. Keep alive. But like that will sit with you for the duration of the combat.
Speaker: Yeah, it will always have that effect on. You can keep stacking it over time if you keep redrawing and playing that card. um Because I don't believe it works the same way as it does with Slay the Spire, where you put out powers and they stay out, but you don't get to play them again. You've expended them for their effects.
Speaker: Yeah, I think in some ways. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, because spinach could cycle through. It goes to your discard pile and you can draw it again and and slay the spire. Yeah, it's it's been used, but both for the duration of the the round or the combat or whatever.
Speaker: um And they had the the crawler cards, which I didn't experiment too much with, but it seems like it could kind of like. You could build your play style a little bit around which hero you kind of pair up with.
Speaker: yeah i because they're each going to have their own starting weapon and kind of play style loosely right where one person i believe is more focused around duration ah for effects um i think one person does specialize in knockback there's the xp growth that was the character was going to try next too yeah um And that is interesting. I do like the idea of I mean, it's the it's the same idea. You get the basic mechanics down and then you start introducing complexity that will allow for more deck building and stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah. And for how advanced deck building has gotten in video games, um I expect there's going to be ah a good amount of opportunity to do stuff there. Yeah. Mm hmm.
Speaker: Yeah, the other the other thing that's a little bit different from Slay the Spire is like cards have gem slots and um different types of gems could be slotted for like a different effect. So some that I saw were like the card would deal double damage.
Speaker: Seems pretty good. um Another gem I saw was ah when you play the card, you'll draw another card, which you might want to like put on a low cost so you can kind of like cycle your deck.
Speaker: And that's different than Slay the Spire because Slay the Spire, generally, you just upgrade a card and now you have the upgraded state of it. And then there were only certain ways to modify the card beyond that.
Speaker: And they're very rare ah comparatively. Yeah, this lets you tool a little bit more for sure. um i think it is possible to get your deck full of modified cards, but you can only have one modification on so Right, one slot per card.
Speaker: don't want to go or at least currently so you don't want to necessarily burn a good effect on something that i'm like oh i wish i had saved this later yeah yeah and i think when i picked up gems it made me use them i feel like it made me slot them into the cards if i remember correctly But you could also choose to just like take the money. it's it's It's like one of those 90s game shows or something. It's like, here's the here's the prize. Or you could walk with the money. you want the guaranteed $1,000? take the money. I'll i'll spend. right Let me let me spend. um When I've gone to the gym
Speaker: around like think it's ten or ten thirty they'll have the most recent
Speaker: is it the price is right ah With Bob Barker, Drew Carey. Yeah, I think it's... um Oh my God, I'm going feel so bad. I forget his name. Wayne Brady is hosting this one.
Speaker: And like so many times the people will listen to the audience. He's not Family Feud, right? He's not the host of a Family Feud, no? No, that's um Steve Harvey. I know Steve Harvey is the original host. I wasn't sure if he was still there because I don't know what...
Speaker: I'll look it up. I'll look it up. but you're talking about the audience. But yeah, like a lot of times if people aren't sure what to do, they'll just kind of go with the crowd of like, oh, go for the prize. Like, see what it is.
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. The the influence. Yeah. And it's let's make a deal. don't know. so it is.
Speaker: It's just gambling at a point. So it's like, do I want to able to blame the audience or myself? Yeah. Yeah. He's the host of Let's Make a Deal.
Speaker: oh um the new The new version of that. Because apparently it first aired ah as the all new Let's Make a Deal, which is hilarious. That's funny. 1984 to 86.
Speaker: And then there was Let's Make a Deal Primetime. in 2020 to present and it's just called let's make a deal i really like how they're very locked in on this one specific game show format uh-huh and they're not like should we come up with something new they're like no no we can we can keep doing let's make a deal we just have to we just have to make a deal uh-huh i mean part of it is that it's that core dna though right it's like it is this sort of gambling audience interaction, you know, um format that game shows are are known for. Yeah.
Speaker: So I will say as a kid, I was definitely drawn in because it seemed like such a fun, cool thing. Yeah. Where it's like, you can just go on TV and get prizes. Yeah. Me not knowing anything about the world. i' like, that sounds awesome.
Speaker: Now I watch them like, Did they take time off for this? Uh-huh, yeah. They'll, like, fly you out, but they have, like, an entire training session about exactly the way you have to act and stuff like that beforehand.
Speaker: You're not just grabbing people off the street and being like, you want to be a million dollars? do you Would you like to become a million dollars? Please, please, please don't say a slur. Yeah. That's half the training, I think. Yeah, I think that's about it.
Speaker: um But, yeah, ah game looks really good. uh vampire crawlers vampire survivor crawlers uh prime ultimate turbo mode and whatever full title is that'll be one of the elcs yeah um it's got a pretty long actual name i think but vampire crawlers i think is the seo that'll get you there but i really do just like some of the old arcadey simplicity and aesthetic yeah um
Speaker: Again, it's just now cool to see the vampire survivors, air quotes, universe in another medium. The EU, yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, because I can't say that, like, for all games changing genres that I would necessarily be... i think it might be a misstep in a lot of cases. Yeah, think that's fair. But this...
Speaker: and Like if you watch the trailer, you're like, oh yeah, i remember Vampire Survivors. I think that's a lot of the vibe. It's honestly it's kind of similar vibes to when like Dwarf Fortress did their survivor like, like Dwarf Survivor or whatever.
Speaker: not sorry, not Dwarf Fortress. ah Deep Rock Galactic. I was going to say. Yeah, different. yeah they but They all have dwarves. I mean, it's fine. um But yeah, Deep Rock Galactic into like Deep Rock Survivor.
Speaker: Um, and you're like, oh, this is just entirely the same universe, but completely different genre. Similar kind of idea here. And I, I do think that, um, it shows a lot of confidence from the developers because they're just like, basically what they're saying is we can just make a good game, right? Like people don't need to have a new IP from us. They don't need to have fresh ideas. They don't even need to have different locales.
Speaker: We already have all of that established. People liked it. We can make something completely different in a completely different genre. And you know what? I bet we'll be successful there, too. i And they're right, right? Because I agree. like there could be There are plenty situations this could be a misstep, right? If Call of Duty was like, hey, by the way, the next one is going to be a turn-based RPG.
Speaker: duke Do you guys like tactics? um It would get my attention. i guarantee you that i would be like, what's going on here? Or if KFC was like, hey, we've been making food, we' going to make a dating simulator. I'd be like, wow what's going on here?
Speaker: They would never do that. Never do that. Who killed Sonic the Hedgehog anyways? But yeah. um Good game. Looking forward to it. Fall under my like have some time to kill guilty pleasure type thing.
Speaker: And I think you could easily play it on a tablet as well. oh yeah it's going to be incredibly mobile friendly you can left you can either drag cards in like uh slay the spire traditional control scheme or just click them yeah which is just absolutely i mean it's gonna be perfect for a tablet steam deck whatever switch to who knows don't know i think that will help it yeah because i think the more barriers to entry you have for something Again, this is a fairly minor one, but I think it's... It makes it more approachable for people who don't have game backgrounds.
Speaker: Yes. cause i know a lot of times, like on the holidays, you get to talking to like an uncle, an aunt, or a cousin. like what are you going up to? Like, oh, I'm checking out this game. Like, oh, what's that? And you show it to them. They're like, this is so far beyond my scope of possibility and imagining. Yeah. Versus like, oh, you can just move around. me You're like, oh, I'm doing the thing. Yeah.
Speaker: I'll finish my joke because I shouldn't have talked over you. i should saved my joke. But your your your your your family, your extended family, like that's a lot of naked anime girls. You just don't understand the gameplay, Pop Pop. but You need to seduce her, Pop Pop. Things were different in my time.
Speaker: But yeah, yeah. I mean, they're going be successful. I don't really need to hope for their success. ah How much money is this game, Dave? I think it's $9.99. I think that's correct. Yeah.
Speaker: Go check out the trailer for it for to to get the reference. But that's a very low price point. That's the price of, I want to say, one small soda. um cut 50 with water these days so you know i think like two or three of vampire survivors og that is actually i don't know what the base price of the game is now because they've also added some dlcs but which are also very inexpensive yeah i'm sure the castlevania one was like 50 bucks but everything else i think was pretty inexpensive all the dlcs were like three bucks
Speaker: So I think I've spent maybe like $12 or $15 in the entirety of all Vampire Survivor stuff. Well, I guess I'll just give some points to Konami then.
Speaker: Or would you rather give an e-girl your money? Think about it. Think about it. Think about it. But not too hard because then you'll just give the e-girl your money. I wish you could play games.
Speaker: aha What else have you been checking out outside of the Vampire Crawlers demo? Excellent segue. The other thing was the dungeon experience demo, which opens with the most traumatizing intro for me and then went on to be pretty enjoyable a Pretty enjoyable game.
Speaker: That's it. But no, it's... a I would probably categorize it as like a narrative slash walking simulator type game. There are some like mini games. There's some things to do that keeps it from being like a pure walking simulator.
Speaker: But just like Stanley Parable, you're basically here for the writing, I think. Oh, yeah. It's at no point has it been mechanically demanding from the demo. It was just showing a lot of.
Speaker: the universe and the writing. And I, I just found it to be, mean, granted I was in a very good headspace when I first checked it out. Yeah. So that always helps, but I really just enjoyed, it felt very wholesome. Yeah.
Speaker: And cute. ah The humor was quirky, but not in like ah an annoying way. Yeah, it's not like rolling on the floor laughing type interactions. It's just some some some witty ah moments in the game and things where it's like, OK, that was kind of high high effort or it's just like, OK, that is funny. You got me with that one.
Speaker: I agree. It's cute. And it's got like, it definitely has that indie vibe to it. You're like, I am definitely playing an indie game, but somebody cared a lot when they were working on this and actually spent some time getting the dialogue and the setup. Right. and Yeah. Cause I mean, it does look like an indie game. Like it has its own unique art style. At no point would you'd be like, this is a triple a game. Uh, there's always very high fidelity on visuals. Uh,
Speaker: But yeah, it definitely felt like a passion project and they actually give a shit. Yeah. And I also do think it's cute how the main character of the crab that you keep interacting with. hmm.
Speaker: is like asking you to play the game. huh. Separately. Yeah. Outside of the game and inside of the game. But there's a moment like the halfway point through the demo where he's like,
Speaker: You could play the rest of the demo. Like, I'm not saying you shouldn't, but if you're already sold on it, you know, you could just quit now. we Like, wishlist it, quit now, and experience full game edging, I think they said. Uh-huh, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: um But it is funny. Definitely give it a look. I think you could just check out the trailer to basically know whether it's going to be right for you or not, which is great. It's nice when you actually get that out of a trailer. Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, if you get to, if you do the demo, if you are sold on, on doing the demo and you get to the end, saxophone,
Speaker: that's all I mean. Just saxophone. Yeah. Um, yeah. Otherwise I guess not too much to say on that one. Um, but it is interesting. It's kind of just like, I was about to steal a segment from someone else's show.
Speaker: That's blasphemous in podcast universe. Yeah. Yeah. They're a commercial one. We're not though. But like my brain was just like, Oh, it's just something to like, keep on your radar. Keep this on your radar. i was like, Oh no, this is literally skill up saying, Oh no, it's literally their segment.
Speaker: Um, uh, Something to be aware of. There you go. That's awkward enough Just put it on your wish list and Steam will notify you, basically. Yes. Yeah. I was just thinking of how we could package the segment and that it basically is just a full ripoff of one of these other, you know, rapid fire gaming awareness segments, but with a completely like proprietary name that there's no way it could be used. But that's OK. We'll workshop it. We'll come back to it.
Speaker: Yeah. The last one that I've been playing and completed, actually, because it's not a super long game. Probably like eight hours and change, maybe like nine or ten, ah was ah Dispatch.
Speaker: How did you like Dispatch? I enjoyed it.
Speaker: And then it's just like asterisk, asterisk, asterisk. Have you ever ever heard a comma out loud? Yes. So like... We've covered um how many Telltale games? I know we did The Wolf Among Us. I'm not trying to think of other Telltale games.
Speaker: while like Walking Dead. Did we cover it? I can't remember. We probably did. I think we did. We had to have at least referenced it because I feel like if you played it, we covered it. We've had so many Clementine will remember that. Jokes were like, we definitely talked about it some point. It's the original. Yeah.
Speaker: But um so this isn't made by Telltale because Telltale doesn't exist. However, as marketed, it's made by people who were in the studio. Basically, it's like the remnants or the people who went on to form the janitor who turned off the lights at 3am. Yes. ah Ad hoc productions in collaboration with Critical Role made dispatch. And they do say it's like, hey, from the people who brought you um one of those games and The Wolf Among Us. And there is even some references to the games.
Speaker: Um, not like, uh, high value references or anything like that, but like you'll be doing dispatches and someone will have a reference where it's like, ah, the werewolf within me or something like that. you're like, uh-huh. Uh, I get what you, I go i get i get what you're doing.
Speaker: But I really enjoyed the game when I started. i enjoyed the game in the latter half towards the end. And then I thought about it a little bit and enjoyed it a little bit less.
Speaker: So I want to I want to intercept here briefly just a expectation setting and also put in my two cents. Yeah. I did not play it, ah but as mentioned before, at some point, did just watch a playthrough on YouTube.
Speaker: m um And I had this conversation with Jake ahead of time. I'm like, and that was the way for me to experience that. Uh-huh. Yeah. Because I think the the writing is good.
Speaker: the the characters are interesting. There's enough to have me invested in what's going to happen. But as far as the moment to moment gameplay, it didn't really feel to me that there was anything substantial that I would get from doing it firsthand versus watching a Let's Play or a VOD of somebody you like playing it on Twitch. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and unfortunately, i think that's that's pretty accurate. I'm not going to spoil anything that happens in the game, but I will say, i guess if you are planning on playing it and you don't want to hear any bad vibes, then i thanks for listening. Basically, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to break some of the magic a little bit because.
Speaker: just by saying that it has the same issue that other Telltale games had, you can kind of guess where it's going, right? Like, um which is to say they've gotten a really good at portraying the illusion that it's kind of a living world, and there could have been branching choices, and there could have been all this variance.
Speaker: But there are really only a few choices in the entire game that functionally have a real impact on where it all goes. um And to be fair, it's probably more than like some of their previous games in the series, but it's still a lot less.
Speaker: I'm getting a head shake from Dave. What's what's the counter argument on that? My counter argument is so much stuff with the Walking Dead game. Like there's so many times you're like, oh, I need to try and save this person or this person or or who am I going to agree with?
Speaker: And it does because they're going to remember that like it does always come up later. It's true. It's partially true. One, they will remember that does not always have a payoff. Sometimes it's literally just to make you think you made like you. saoid Yeah.
Speaker: But i will this is a particular this this is a tailor made critique for the Telltale games. But there's both a decision, consequences to the decision, and then a duration for the consequences to the decision.
Speaker: And Telltale, like in a game like Baldur's Gate 3, where like decisions actually matter. Um, you're looking at lots of decisions with sometimes immediate consequences and consequences that persist for the entire rest of the game, right? You have with this decision, you have s severed the threat of fate and doom this world or whatever, right? Um, again, we killed off most of the main cast before we left the the beach or whatever, um,
Speaker: um Telltale doesn't generally do that. And in The Walking Dead in particular, they would put you in scenarios where it's like, who do you want to save between these two people?
Speaker: And then the person who survives will have content for the duration of that episode. And then they're gone. There will be a factor. There's something that takes them out of the picture.
Speaker: They have trimmed the necessary ah debt and burden on development of needing to keep these two characters being persistent through the rest of the series. So they just kind of keep it bookended. They prune it. Yeah. they So they give you two two two options and then they they prune it off so that it all goes back to the main branch of the story.
Speaker: um And usually towards the end of the games, they get a little bit lighter touched with that. They'll like, they'll burn it a little bit less. They'll allow it to branch a little bit more.
Speaker: um They don't do that a whole lot with dispatch. Usually you're kind of just, you're sort of, creating, it's almost like a role-playing game and that here is your version of the character that answers in this way. But don't expect to see a game that other people haven't seen.
Speaker: Right? Like... Yeah, it's... Again, i like it as a movie because if you're giving me a generic everyman who like, don't necessarily like the character.
Speaker: m Like I don't want to be them. So like I'm not tied to what responses they have. If they're going to be quippy or like more of an asshole or just very overly friendly and polite.
Speaker: Yeah. um I don't give a shit. Again, for me personally, in this one instance, I'd much rather be like, show me the movie that you guys worked so hard to make and animate and all this stuff.
Speaker: um Because again, do think the universe is cool and the characters are cool, but a lot of the choices are like A or B. What does A do?
Speaker: Kind same thing that B does. You're like, ah okay, but it's different. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, they I think that there is power in just giving people choices, even if it doesn't necessarily lead somewhere, because you're basically the more choices you have, the more dialogue options you have, the more you're making it into an RPG, the more people are allowed to like tailor their experience and it gives you input.
Speaker: But don't confuse that with something that's actually having significant downstream effects on what's going on. If you go into it with that,
Speaker: that clear mind basically that you're here to experience the story that they wrote for dispatch it's a pretty great game i think you'll have a lot of fun with it i'd still pick it up like on sale i say that even though it's like a 30 game already but like um it's clearly most people like it has overwhelmingly positive reviews on steam it has some weaknesses I'm not going to get into because they're kind of like related to the plot and, you know, how much the story might focus on some characters versus others. But like overall, it's good.
Speaker: Unfortunately, in the rearview mirror, my hope was, especially once I saw the actual dispatch game, which is kind of the first time there's two decisions, actually. Sorry. There's two things i want to mention about this. One, it has actual gameplay.
Speaker: in the dispatch portion where you're determining which heroes go to respond to various crisises um crises and crisis make craies and crisis too there you go and um i actually enjoyed that for the most part there's a couple points where i was like ah not too interested in it the hacking's like fine it's a fine mini game and as far as hacking many games go that's actually like that puts it in the top 10 if you have a passable hacking everyone's like fuck bioshocks that's not that long there we go pipes with water as long as you don't have pipes with water we're doing okay um
Speaker: But I didn't hate that. I wish it did kind of like almost anything to the gameplay for the most part. Instead, it's kind of separate from a lot of it, not entirely and anything more as spoilers. But like if you don't get anything out of the minigame, then it really just makes the game longer.
Speaker: Yeah, um I think.
Speaker: Again, my outsider opinion as ah nobody who has no experience in this stuff, but again, outsider looking in, I feel like they focus very much on the story writing, as we've said.
Speaker: And then once they have the story, it feels like how can we gamify this to have people interact with it? Mm hmm. And so like, oh, we need to give the player agency here. we need to have them do a thing. Oh, let's add this hacking minigame in.
Speaker: Yeah. So it's not just however many minutes or hours of cutscene. Yeah. And that it's hacking the dispatch screen, basically, like while you're working on your shift and then the cutscene stuff.
Speaker: And they do interleave. Sometimes like something will happen in the middle of the shift and it'll go back to cutscene mode and Unfortunately for me, a lot of the times where it's like back into cutscene mode, like the game has really good graphics. It pretty much is just like um an animated show. I'm not really an anime, but it is just like an animated show similar to um Invincible or something like that. was going to like Invincible as well. Yeah. Yeah. Clearly driving or driving a lot of inspiration from that. But.
Speaker: but Yeah, i I feel like unless all of these points land for you, you're going to find something that you you prefer. you You probably either enjoy the cut scene a little bit more or your you're looking for something with a little bit more gameplay. I think that it's probably going to be rare that you're just like both of these are awesome. But, you know, I'm sure that I'm sure a lot of people exist like that.
Speaker: They do have a setting in the the actual settings. It's just turn it into cinematic mode instead of like interactive mode. And they have these like joke QTEs in the cut scenes whenever there's like an action sequence or something like that, where it's just to give you something to do with your hands. Like there is no consequence to failing them.
Speaker: Some of them are like designed to be failed. Everyone loves that, right? It's just like, oh, it's the impossible QTE because they actually, you were always going to get hit by it. There's no way to avoid it.
Speaker: So they just represent it with a hard QTE. I hate that. That would fuck with my brain a little bit because my instinct would be, all right, what did I do wrong to have been killed by the boss? I thought I could.
Speaker: Let me try it again. well and And then I would do it multiple times until I was like, ah oh, yeah. In this case, there's like, it's never going to set you back because the story is moving forward when you got hit by that attack. It's just if you switch it from interactive mode to cinematic mode, they just strip out the QTEs and you just watch it.
Speaker: And it's so much better. It's actually like, I don't know who would turn on QTEs knowing that they impact nothing. Right? Like, it's literally just giving you something to do with your hands.
Speaker: And maybe it's because I'm not Gen Z exactly. I think I'm Gen X. Should be. I'm Gen X. Yeah. millennial because i don't have broccoli hair yeah um gen x behind us millennials us and then gen z and alpha and beta and boomers behind us yeah yeah okay boomers in the in the houses the that are higher quality that we'll never own man back when they made products when they get gave a shit and put money into things oh yeah anyway um
Speaker: What were we talking about before we got into? Yeah, we were talking about um interactive mode versus cinematic mode QTEs. Oh, yeah. I don't need subway surfers when I'm watching a movie, you know, like if it's well written and engaging, I'm going to be sitting quietly hands on my lap just paying attention. Right. Yeah. um Whereas if it's a game.
Speaker: I want some cut scenes to be like, oh, holy shit, this what they had to envision for this world and these characters and like the setup for this boss fight is fucking awesome. Huge. And then it's all right. Gameplay time. Let's go.
Speaker: But I want it to be more gameplay focused.
Speaker: That's my favorite Christmas Carol, by the way. no yes oh Oh, holy shit. um But yeah, they have to that they they've made some interesting decisions with the cinematic mode. And if you turn that on, some of the minor decisions where you could like respond um with dialogue will actually just be picked for you.
Speaker: Like they'll just not allow the selection between the three. And in this game, there is no be silent if it times out like there was Wolf Among Us. Which, by the way, I don't think it's super funny to do a i completely saddened playthrough. What do you think, Bigby? Just a blank stare. and they're yeah ah ah All right. Anyway, let's talk to somebody else. Why is he here in this planning meeting? Yeah.
Speaker: um but really that's like the the fourth option and some people are honestly like bothered that there's no choose to be silent thing but it's fine it was really always the fourth option um but you'll just pick the the leftmost option if you let it time out now and i think that's what happens if you just do cinematic mode okay it'll just progress just the default yeah a slightly faster clip because it's not basically pausing waiting for you to respond um with ah with a countdown.
Speaker: um But the other thing that they changed, and this is very minor, but it shows that they actually, they understand something that could be improved, is in games like Wolf Among Us, they would have you like explore a 3D space to like investigate, to find clues, to talk to people, to do that.
Speaker: I don't care. I've never cared. that gives i get nothing out of that. ah Most of the time you had to find everything anyways. This isn't like L.A. Noire where you could like miss a clue and then fail an investigation.
Speaker: Because you can't fail the investigation. It's the main plot line. It's the only thing they have. Yeah. So instead, they just got rid of that entirely. There is no walking around in a 3D space and dispatch.
Speaker: i don't My knee-jerk reaction is I don't like that. but That's because I just want more interactivity in general. But as somebody who did grow up playing a King's Quest here and there, it fucking sucks to just be like... Yeah, this is another great example of just like clicking around you're does this do anything?
Speaker: does this What if I put the ham and the stopwatch together? like Where it just felt so...
Speaker: Like you weren't given the tools to figure out what you needed to do. You were kind of like put there and they're like, it's trial and error. Yeah. yeah yeah And sometimes that can be fun. If you feel like you have a clue and you're like, okay, maybe I can start piecing these things together. And you feel like you're unraveling something yeah versus just like,
Speaker: taking a hammer and you're like, want to find an in in ah invisible wall on every single pixel. And you're like, but bla but bla bla ah yeah it's just, ah it feels very tedious if you don't have something to go off of a direction, you know?
Speaker: But I guess the the place I was, I would agree with all those points. They didn't do anything for me. I would rather have like some actual gameplay, but it's just because I don't really enjoy the traditional adventure game trappings. I would say, um,
Speaker: I really don't have in my steam library, a category for like just adventure games. I usually would end up putting those under like indie slash oldie type games, uh, things like, uh, um, monkey islands or salmon max and stuff like that.
Speaker: Um, but in big B's case and the wolf among us, that's narrative, right? You'd put that in your, your, your narrative game space and within narrative games,
Speaker: I don't get anything out of walking around. It's fine. But, you know. Yeah, I... I want to take ah a moment to do a complete drive-by on The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Okay, all right. Fuck off, dude. That game was shit.
Speaker: um Fair enough. right. There's also, like... One, I think around that time where walking simulators were getting big, where you were just on an island, and you kind of walked around, and it was mainly narrative, but you would just go to different points, and it would trigger the next part of the narration.
Speaker: Gotcha. Again, fuck that. Like, nothing from it. You could make an argument. I never actually played Firewatch. It was fine. I feel like it was one of, like, the early...
Speaker: people knew what it was and like oh that's that genre type thing yeah um it seemed to be more engaging yeah as far as like having you involved in events happening within the game so like they were giving you a sense of urgency that you need to go over and check on something because you're trying to prevent forest fires yeah um well firewatch still it's firewatch in particular it does have one point of like shared dna with dispatch which is like it's very character driven okay like firewatch is you are pretty much alone with a voice on a radio bio helping you get through this kind of yeah right classic walking simulator
Speaker: there's There is a lot of walking in Bioshock. They just put a lot of things between here and there. And if you put enough things, you're actually just a first person shooter. so it's um um But yeah, both of these games, like the characters are great.
Speaker: And that's that's actually the point. I'm going to like, no, I won't for Firewatch. I'll tell you after the episode because there's one specific. I only remember like one thing from the game and it's just kind of funny and sad.
Speaker: But um otherwise, I enjoyed it. Like it was a good time. And Dispatch is also a good time. Incredible. I really like the music. I really like the the art style. I really like the graphics. Gameplay, take it or leave it.
Speaker: um Every time I play a freaking Telltale game, or in this case, the remnants, the descendants of Sons of Telltale, um I am like, man, they could really just knock the next one out of the park.
Speaker: Like the next one, they could definitely get it right. like yeah I don't know what the missing piece is. Yeah. I feel like they just need to add more ah meaningful interactions or mechanics. Uh-huh.
Speaker: Because, again, the further you are away from that, the closer it's going to be to a movie. Yeah. And then I'm like, all right, then just show me the movie. Don't give me a movie where I need to, like, keep skipping the ad. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Speaker: Because right now it's just like it's an illusion. They specialize their entire type of game is selling you an illusion, the illusion of choice, the illusion of consequence.
Speaker: And then you look up like the decision tree afterwards and you're like, this is just a bear trunk. There was there was there was nothing here. Yeah. And but you're like next next time next time they'll have enough money. They could put slap some branches down on this thing.
Speaker: But like I don't think I don't even think they need more branches. I think it would be good for that. Like if you specifically wanted to do the telltale.
Speaker: Here's what people chose type thing where you're trying to essentially filter people out based on like moral decisioning or other things. It was interesting to see where you fall on that.
Speaker: So yeah, like make big fucking trees in that case. But I feel like if they want to like really succeed, they need to do something additional.
Speaker: Yeah. And to be fair, I mean, for what it was, this is like their reformed project, right? This is kind of their, Hey, we need money. ah because our last thing didn't work so well for us and this is existential. So I'm glad they succeeded.
Speaker: Um, pretty dang near everyone from critical role is on it. If you care about their stuff. Um, um, They have a lot of interesting characters. I do think it's worth playing, especially like on sale, but go into it. Like Dave saying, like expect the cinematic experience. And I encourage people just turn that on. I actually wish that the cinematic experience just took out the dispatch minigame or gave you the option to skip it so you could just watch it because it's a pretty good watch.
Speaker: Um, but we'll see what they do. will say when I watched the playthrough, I skipped over with the actual quote-unquote gameplay. Yeah, the dispatch part. Because I'm like... i mean, it it is characters talking to each other, so like there is stuff going on. I just didn't think it was going to be so pertinent that I needed to watch it. You didn't. any Anymore, and I would be even getting into spoilers, so I won't. But there are not that many variable counters in this video game. Let's just put it that way. Yeah.
Speaker: But all in all, it was fun. I did enjoy it. um So we'll see. The next one, though. Next one. Sons of Telltale will knock it out of the park.
Speaker: um Or Ad Hoc Studios. will also say that, well, yes, we have been dunking on a lot of the stuff. I am glad that it succeeded. Because, again, this is one of those games in a genre that...
Speaker: doesn't really exist all that much. yeah It's kind of just been Telltale that's been doing those narrative choice experience type games. yeah um So I'm glad to see more general success with it. And it's not just in its own niche, it kind of blew up.
Speaker: yeah So more power to them. I just hope that with their next title, whatever they end up doing, that they just keep building upon yeah stuff.
Speaker: That would be and absolutely perfect transition to end the episode. Make it VR. When I was reading about this on Reddit, as you have to afterwards, someone... i just have to disagree with one person, and then we can end the episode. really hope there's one person listens to the podcast. Go off, King. Someone was like...
Speaker: um You know, this is so much this is so different than a game like Detroit Become Human. And like and that's like why Detroit Become Human sucks or whatever. It was something to that effect. It was some sort of ragging on Detroit Become Human. And there's a lot of things I think that are fair to rag on in that game.
Speaker: That game actually had choices that matter. They were so confident in having choices that matter that they had a visual tree that represented everything that you could have done that would have set you on a different path with a different outcome. Like, there was so much more effort put into the variance of that game than Dispatch that they are not the same. Like, so... Also, I feel like...
Speaker: What they were the two games we're trying to get across were different. Yeah. Because Detroit Become Human, again, is not like the most mechanically involved thing. But the main drive is you're invested in what's happening with these characters. You're invested in like exploring the transhumanism side of things. Yeah. And figuring out your your moral boundaries along that. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And it just, it kicked so much ass and was so in depth as far as the choices and then the impact that they would have as they would carry down.
Speaker: I'm a sucker for game. Also not comedic. That's the main thing of it all I want to highlight. Short become human, ah no comedy really. ah Yeah. Yeah, in Dispatch, you're only ever two degrees separated from a dick joke um or like a dick punch joke.
Speaker: those are the Those are the two types of jokes that they have. Legitimately, there is a lot of well-written dialogue and stuff like that, but like... the people at critical role sometimes just have filthy minds.
Speaker: If they're not literally role playing in a fantasy setting, if they're talking afterwards or something like they have very little filter for a lot of this stuff. And they it's clear they had a lot of direction in the dialogue for this game. um Detroit become human a little bit less.
Speaker: That's just an um Android family story. So.
Speaker: Yeah, um also would like to see more, I guess, online creators that I'm like loosely familiar with. like because They had Moist Critical, Alana Pierce, Jacksepticeye, other people who are also famous, but I can't think of their names at the moment. Yeah, they're pretty much the entire cast is either critical role or in it personality.
Speaker: But I think it's it's cool to do stuff like that because like the people they have on there are talented enough to do voice acting, clearly. Yeah. um It's just nice to see somebody outside of the immediate game site guys are like, oh, I recognize from something else. And it's not like specifically Jon Hamm for a product placement type thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: No, it is. It is. ah It's definitely nice. It's also good to see a Moist Critical get something other than the Hunger Games credit. It was like background medic for whatever it was. Oh, I didn't know he was involved. though He never. you don't think he mentioned that. He doesn't talk about it very much. No, no.
Speaker: A lot of fun, though. And like I said, end result, recommend it. I critique it, but still recommend it for people pick it up on sale. It's good time.
Speaker: That's the episode.
Speaker: Have good night. As always, all of our socials are down in the description. if you want to reach out to us, if you disagree with our internet opinions, um we'll receive that as feedback. But honestly, we get so much positive feedback. It's it We might not even see it. We might not even see the negative feedback. It was just so much.
Speaker: So much positive positivity out there. um And that's because we don't have any sponsors. So if you're interested in sponsoring us, also reach out. And otherwise, we will in the next one.
Speaker: Have a good night.
Speaker: decisions.
