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Introduction and New Year's Experiences
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 123 of the 6-1 indie cast, aka the 2022 PDs, celebrating another excellent year of indie games. My name is Mike Townrow. Tonight, I'm joined by Kyle Stevenson. Hello.
00:00:36
Speaker
Harry Lazidis. Hi. And Austin Ernst. That's me. Hello. Hello, gentlemen. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. We did it. We did it. We're still alive. We're still a company. We're still friends. Do well. Do well. I keep things professional, so it's fine. We'll see how these PDs go to, you know, judge that.
00:00:58
Speaker
Yeah, in about three hours, we won't be friends anymore. We're going to hate you, like, down each other's throats. How was everybody's New Year's? Chill. It was okay. It was definitely chill. I went to bed at nine.
00:01:13
Speaker
Hell yeah. Hell yeah. It's different when you have kids in the house because they're super excited, but like I hate New Year's Eve. So it is what it is. But did you, did you and the girls stay up to watch the ball? They did. I, I stayed downstairs. I went downstairs at like 1130. Oh, and was a terror. My nephew of no one knows. And he was crazy. I was like, I need a break. I need to go downstairs.
00:01:41
Speaker
I've never enjoyed watching those two-hour streams of like, let's talk about stuff that happened this year. Here's stuff that happened. I'm going to watch a circular sphere go down. That's never excited me, ever. I remember enjoying it when I was a kid. It's never when you're a kid.
00:02:01
Speaker
I saw a great parent hack on TikTok where they did a countdown, but it was at 748 PM. And the kids were like, yeah, what happened to you? Did you notice in the video it was a VOD of 2022? Yes, I did. Absolutely. They're stupid kids. They don't know.
00:02:19
Speaker
That's true. They are stupid. I hate watch the things now. Like I did the hack this year of like making a new Gmail account and subscribing to a YouTube TV to get the two day trial. You have to do again for the Oscars. I have to do again for the Grammys and do again for the Super Bowl. It's a whole thing. That's how I get by not paper cable.
00:02:41
Speaker
But I watched the Dick Clark thing, aka the Ryan Seacrest thing. It is horrible. It's just atrocious. Yeah. Like, I don't know why anyone would want to watch that. I don't know, but I do it every year. I think because I have like a background in music and whatnot, I like to see what's hot, quote unquote.
00:03:02
Speaker
There were probably like 15 performances or whatever. I knew like three of these fucking people. And apparently they're the biggest names in the world. It was very strange. We eventually then swapped to Miley Cyrus's thing with Dolly Parton. That was very good, very delightful. And then I was flipping between like during ad breaks to the CNN one with Anderson Cooper and the other guy, his partner.
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah. The other guy. Wait, those are dating. I think they're together. I didn't know. I didn't know that. It's the guy from the one that does the posts shows with all the reality shows on Bravo. Yes. Yes. I forgot his name, but I just remembered when I gave a hoot about those shows, I was like, Oh, this is fun and off hinged.
00:03:53
Speaker
It's not him. That's not his partner during New Year's Eve. Sure. Because Andy Cohen is the person I'm thinking of. There we go. Yeah, that's the it's because during the New Year's. No, they're not during the New Year's Eve thing. They they said something that like imply they were together. Like it sounded like they like had a kid together at some point. I don't know. Not correct. Anyways, breaking news on the piece. I was watching that because you hear this thing where CNN banned them from drinking.
00:04:24
Speaker
No. Oh, so every year they get blackout drunk on CNN live. I love it. And it's hilarious. It's it's incredible. But this year they blocked them. They banned them from drinking. And every celebrity that they had interviewing them were just talking shit to CNN live on CNN. It was great. So, yeah, that was that was our New Year's. Hey, watch all these things. It was great.
00:04:48
Speaker
And yeah, so yeah, they are close friends. Yes, close friends. Thank you Wikipedia. I love how Harry deep dove into this. Yeah, I'm investing in this now. I want to find more information.
Podcast Format and Indie Games Focus
00:05:02
Speaker
Speaking of more information about 2022, we're going over all the 2022 games, but first let me remind you that you were listening to the six one indie cast, a weekly video game podcast, highlighting the indie gaming scene and smaller games outside of the triple a space tune in live every Thursday night on youtube.com slash six one India at 8 p.m. Eastern.
00:05:21
Speaker
or catch episodes as they drop on all major podcast feeds. First thing the following Monday morning. If you're hungry for a little more, you can support us over on patreon.com slash six one indie and snag some extra goodies such as our bonus post show. The post show this week will be talking about our triple a game of the year is in our list and highlights and whatnot.
00:05:40
Speaker
But if money is too tight, no worries. You can still support in so many ways. Leave us a review on podcast services. Follow at six one indie on Twitter, subscribe on YouTube and tell your friends all about us. Shout out to the PD fans supporting us on patreon.com slash six one indie, Alec Bobko, Kobe Cortis, Jessica Sanchez, Nicole Humphrey and Cole AKA the good sir. Some housekeeping for you.
00:06:09
Speaker
January was always the rare time where I know the next like three episodes. So, uh, yeah, today is our 2022 highlights and hold the whole extravaganza thing. Uh, next week, episode one 24 is the big 2023 preview. That's usually me and Kyle in a room together for three hours going over the entire list. And Kyle, since we don't have dollar slice anymore, I think the post show
00:06:33
Speaker
We do our movie thing. Oh, exciting. So the potion next week, go over the movie lists coming out in 2023. Sweet. And then the following week, episode 125, we are doing our fantasy critic draft for 2023. Once again, guess what? I won. I slapped all these fools in the goddamn mouth. I wouldn't say slap. I said, I think you and me were very close until I made two
00:06:57
Speaker
What is that called? Unforced errors at the end where I panicked. I'm like, I just need to get games. I picked two games I thought would do well. And they pooped the bed really hard. So I thought I would have done better point wise, but apparently sports story. Isn't that great, I guess. I didn't actually don't even know what the score is. I don't know if it has a score. I think it's not great. Yeah. Yeah, I heard great things, which is a huge bump. Yeah, I played a couple of hours. I was enjoying it, but it wasn't so loud or anything. Yeah.
00:07:27
Speaker
Heard it was very buggy. Also, I didn't have any issues. That's good for the first couple of hours that I played. Sure. Sure. Speaking of. 53. Yeah. That's sports story. Correct. Oh boy.
00:07:44
Speaker
Okay. Oh, speaking of fancy critic league. Uh, we're doing our community fantasy critic league once again for 2023. Uh, you, if you are unfamiliar with that, it's fancy critic. It's the six one community. You hop in the discord, you should talk to each other all year long and you play for prizes. First prize gets a curated collection of indie games from us. Second place gets a six one D t-shirt.
00:08:09
Speaker
So the draft date for that is Saturday, January 14th, I think at 2 p.m. Eastern. We haven't set a lot of time yet, but probably 2 p.m. Eastern because that's good for the West Coast folks also. If you want to join that, hit up the 6.1 Indi Discord. You can find the link to that on 6.1indi.com. 6.1 Indi is powered.
00:08:30
Speaker
by you, patreon.com slash six one indie, but more on that later. Let's get into it. Ladies. I was about to say, ladies and gentlemen, what that still applies. Kelsey will be here later. Let's get into it. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, the 2022 PDs. I've broken this down.
00:08:48
Speaker
in three, well, it's really gonna be two parts. Spoiler behind the curtain, we're recording this in two nights. It's two parts. First part is our little cocktail hour, our little warmup, or cocktail minutes, because it's not gonna take an hour. I wanna go over our personal highlights, our personal lists, however you wanna go about this for the year. Who would like to begin?
00:09:09
Speaker
Cause I was talking for a bit. I'll start out. I'll make mine quick cause
Emotional Impact of Indie Games
00:09:13
Speaker
I didn't get to play as many indies as I thought I did looking back and I'm bummed out by it. And most of them are highlighted in some way on our awards here, but I really want to shout out a game that just took over my life for the day or two. I played it and that's escape Academy.
00:09:30
Speaker
We're going to talk about it later, but I only did an escape room once in person and had a good time with it. Even though I was, I was doing it for a vacation camp and I had like 20 kids in the room. It was madness. Um, you'd think that would put me off on it, but I just like dove straight into it. And it's so much fun to do those puzzles in that game. It's really well done. And having the, sorry, like DLC pack thing.
00:09:57
Speaker
I was just going to bring up, I'm not sure if it's out yet or not, but I, it is out parry. So yeah, I'm excited that there's more and I hope they keep updating that and getting more and more with that. Cause it's, it's pretty awesome. And I, I don't think a lot of people kind of like came out and went. Um, so I don't know if I had a lot of legs on it, but I hope people play it at some point. Cause it's great. I played it and it was a great afternoon. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what it's designed to be. Sure.
00:10:25
Speaker
Notably, the first I am a published game. Oh, sweet. So it's cool to see them getting into the publishing game. Austin, you want to go next? Sure. Are we avoiding things on the doctor that are nominated? You could. If it's on your personal highlights, you could say it, but it will go like more in depth during the categories.
00:10:49
Speaker
There's one on my personal highlights that isn't nominated for anything. So I will stick with that one. Arcade Paradise. That's a game I reviewed where you just run a little laundromat and you play a bunch of mini games and it's awesome. And I went into that game thinking like all these mini games are going to be like the, like the cabinets are going to be like my main stay. I didn't, I wasn't all panned out. I just got addicted to the fricking laundromat gameplay and trying to get the most money and discover what is going on with my deadbeat dad or whatever was going on in that game. So yeah.
00:11:18
Speaker
It's, you run a laundromat and then you have all these coin operated games that you can unlock the, the better you do in your laundromat and by like, what simulation was there's a word for this type of game. It's just a simulation game with, yeah, it's escaping life sim, something like that. Yeah. You're just running a laundromat and you secretly run a little arcade in the back.
00:11:36
Speaker
And it's dope. And all the arcade cabinets you earn are actually really genuinely fun. I found myself just skipping a full day at the laundromat duties and then getting destroyed for doing that, because I just got so into playing one of the cabinets. And I was like, what do you want from me, game? You designed this. But yeah, that game's great. And not enough people played it. Nice. Any others you want to shout out, even if they're on the categories that personally stood out to you for the year?
00:12:03
Speaker
We'll get into it more, but Vampire Survivors is one of my favorites of the whole year. Indie or not, regardless, it's in my top 10, period. I mean, it's indie. Like, despite... No, no, no, no. I mean, I mean... Oh, oh, like, long games. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yes, yes. And then Grappledog was a game that might remind me was this year, but that game rocks. Wow, right. Feels like it was 20 years ago.
00:12:23
Speaker
That game rocks. It's a blast from the past in terms of it feels like a Game Boy Advance game, but it feels like a Game Boy Advance game that like holds up today and it's they keep building on what they put mechanics into that game and it's great. Grappledog has slept on. Play Grappledog. Cool. Nice. Harry, would you like to go? Sure. So I like Kyle. I felt like I played way more indie games than last year. But like when I'm looking at my GG games,
00:12:52
Speaker
I only played about 60 games versus 85 the year before. So I think maybe I did less Fufufafa games and more games that I wanted to play.
00:13:01
Speaker
So I thought that was an interesting thing. I still, I'm still, well, what was the first? Yeah. Can you, can you, can you describe poof poof off games? Do you define that? Games? I play for the sheer purpose of getting a platinum trophy. Oh, okay. Like, like, like I rate them on GG app. I give them a one out of five and be like, it's a horrible game. Don't play it. But the platinum trophy is a great 20 minutes.
00:13:29
Speaker
So, yeah, I think I downsized on that quite a bit this year. So I played more indie games, but the quantity overall was lower, but I enjoyed more of the games. So that was cool. Still figuring out my top games of last year that I played, but out of the 10 I'm looking at now, eight of them are indie games. So it's clearly indie games is where it's at. A lot of the games that we're going to talk about, like Stray, Coromon, Tinykin, Squish, TMNT, those were my favorites.
00:13:59
Speaker
But.
00:14:01
Speaker
There was one game that came out this year that like no one talks about because it's a rally game, which is like ingrained on being like an easy platinum. But the game 10, which is like a really difficult but also has options to make it easier and accessible, is pretty much a non starter where it's a challenging platformer game where you enter rooms as like a pixelated like dude, like just a guy like running around and you have to survive the room for 10 seconds.
00:14:31
Speaker
After that, you go to the next room and you just keep going in like biomes familiar. Yeah, like it's super dope. Like I can't believe how good it is. And Radelica is definitely ramping their awesomeness because there's another game that we're going to talk about in the nominations. That's from them. But is there it's a cool couple hours? Yeah. And in in surprises.
00:14:52
Speaker
Oh, OK. Yeah. So it's going to be a surprise. But yeah, this that one just threw me through a loop where you play the game. You're just like, wow, this is really good. And it gets better and better. The end game is unbelievably frustrating. So like crank that level down to zero to just see what happens because you find out within because there's also a story. It's actually really encapsulated like you're just like, what's going on? Why am I playing this? And then you like you get the layers.
00:15:21
Speaker
unraveled very slowly, but meanfully. And you're like, Oh my God, this is like super dope. And there's like so many callbacks to the beginning of the game. And why is everything happening? And it kind of brings everything together in such a satisfying way. And you're just like, did I just like have an amazing time with this game? And you do because it's so good. And it's only like five bucks. If you want to wish list it to see when it goes on sale for like $2.
00:15:44
Speaker
Like it's really fun. And like, especially if you crank down the difficulty, just kind of see all the levels and the bosses and stuff. It's like a two hour. No, he said bosses like even Boston.
00:15:57
Speaker
I'm sorry. It's totally fine. So I Google 10 video game and it was been 10, been 10, been 10, been 10, been 10 all over the place. I was like, well, never mind. No, I would just Google 10 readily. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The the SEO for the name horrible. But the game is really good. I was shocked by that.
00:16:22
Speaker
I tell you before I transition to mine, did I tell you guys about the radical game that I played recently that I just decided to just take a shot on? No, it's called God Damn the Garden. God. God damn two words. It's like a retro FPS. I love it. It's frustrating.
00:16:44
Speaker
When you came in to clarify goddamn is two words, I thought you said goddamn to the garden. My mistake. My mistake. And they're saying it was like the sequel. I'm like, God damn too. Yeah, this is the one with the gremlins. What? Yeah, there's gremlins. No, you posted about it. Oh, no, no. Chop goblins. Fantastic happening right now.
00:17:06
Speaker
Chop goblins, if I put enough time into it, would have made my top list probably, but I didn't put enough time into it. You could have been riffing this whole time, just making up names the whole time. Absolutely. Chop goblins. Just imagine like a good Gremlins game and that's chop goblins. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's a great game. Yeah. I play Redux. Yeah. Kyle is equal.
00:17:29
Speaker
Chop goblins is a small, like, I think he made it in like a couple of days. It's a small, whatever game from the creator of new blood, the power of new blood. Okay. I know exactly what kind of game that is then. Yes, you do. It's very good. I think it's only like $3 or some shit. I do have a top 10 list.
00:17:52
Speaker
on this top 10, there are only two AAA games. Uh, so, so my, my favorite indie of the year, it was a tossup between two games and I kept going back and forth and I couldn't really decide. I thought like maybe one of the most more like recency bias, but I can't deny the kind of experience I have with it. And the other was like,
00:18:11
Speaker
Manages took over my entire life so I can't really deny it and that game is nobody saves the world. So that's my favorite indie game of the year. Well, me and Kyle were obsessed with this game when we were playing it for review like during the hush hush period where we can't talk about things. It just took over my entire life for that like 25 hours or so.
00:18:29
Speaker
And I had to do everything in that game. It got nominated for other stuff. So we'll, we'll talk about it later. After that is Islets, which I talked about a couple of weeks ago. Islets is, as I said, a couple of weeks ago.
00:18:45
Speaker
The most refreshing Metroidvania I've played in years. The way it handles traversing a map like a Metroidvania map is so unique. It's so it's nothing I've ever really experienced before.
00:19:01
Speaker
Um, where there's kind of like four zones, but they're all separate on kind of like a big sky map that you have to actually like fly to like a, a shmup plane. And you eventually connect each sector through, through magnets. Cause that's kind of like the main goal is like, you have to connect each biome or whatever together. And then you all lock kind of like the main and boss and stuff.
00:19:23
Speaker
It's just such a fun gameplay loop and put such a like, again, refreshing twist on the Metroidvania formula. And again, another game that just took over my life for I think it was like eight or nine hours or so over Thanksgiving break. Over the holiday break, my next pick highlight that came a little too late, so we didn't get a shout out in the categories, but little Gator game is fucking phenomenal.
00:19:50
Speaker
Is it everything you wanted? It is everything and more. It is so good. So little Gator game, it's, it's such an endearing, simple concept. Think of, think of it as breath of the wild meets a short hike, but really like
00:20:08
Speaker
downscaled very simple. The concept is you and your sister used to essentially play like Zelda IRL in this park, but she grew up a little bit and she started going to college and now you're back at this park and she's at the park doing her homework and you're doing everything
00:20:26
Speaker
in your power and trying to round up your friends to convince her to play Zelda with you once again. So the whole game is you setting up a bunch of enemies and doing quests and whatever to make the park a little more exciting to entice your sister to play Hero with you. That's the entire game. Is your sister also a Gator? Yes. Oh, okay, cool. Medium Gator. Okay. It's really fun. It's really endearing. The writing is so charming.
00:20:56
Speaker
The the enemies in the game, if you want to call it enemies, they're just cardboard cutouts that were like monsters drawn on with crayons because like all the friends are just setting up enemies in the park. It's really good. I cannot recommend it enough. What are we talking on play time? Quick, like three, four hours. Awesome. Yeah, I. I hundred percented it in like four and a half. OK, so 100 percent is like you have to like find a bunch of friends on the island and like talk to them, do all the quests.
00:21:26
Speaker
quote unquote kill all the monsters on the park. Oh, how could you? How could you? I know. It's really good. It's it's I like how it unabashedly references Zelda throughout the game, but like they can't really talk about Zelda because, you know, what do you call that? They call it Delta Delta.
00:21:46
Speaker
Um, next up, I have once upon a jester, which we'll talk about later, then I have end link extensions forever, which we'll talk about later. Faith, the unholy trinity, we'll talk about close the lamb. We'll talk about, um, and then it's only so low on the list because it's in early access and it's not like a fully fleshed out game spoilers. It's probably going to make my list for 2023 also exodiac. But again, we'll talk about it next up in this little warm up cocktail hour slash minute games. We wish we got to play this year that we didn't get to. Hmm.
00:22:17
Speaker
The one that sticks out for me is immortality. I have not touched immortality. I almost thought about it the other day. I was like, I don't know. I'll wait a little while longer, I guess. Yeah. And I know, like, I don't know. It's like every time I send Barlow game comes out, I'm like, yeah, I'll wait like three years to play this. I'm just like, I'm never in the mood to play that kind of game in the moment it comes out. But I know like if I started it, I will be all in. Like, I know I would be obsessed about it. But yeah, I haven't got a chance yet.
00:22:47
Speaker
I tried to play immortality and I think it's just, it's a concept that did not resonate with my brain in the moment. And I was like, I can't do this right now. Like it seems like something like you genuinely need to think through. And I'm just like, I can't, I'm just not in that mood right now. Sure. Another one that I would love to play, but again, unless this has been updated and changed or less, my knowledge is wrong.
00:23:12
Speaker
I've only played squish at packs and I want to play more squish. We bought it for actual life and we just did not. I know. I know. It's a bummer. That game's so fun. I still have not touched it. I have not played it. It's really good. Another one though, that has been like some recently gotten a lot of love because it's a later in the year release. I love the vibe of signal us.
00:23:39
Speaker
Yeah. And I want to play it. I played a few hours of it and I, it's something that it's one of those, like, it's not, not fetch question. It's not the thing where, but you had to find a certain item to come back and do a certain thing with a certain thing that you have to go this way to get a certain item. And it's like, yeah, this is a game that I'm really enjoying, but I am not vibing with that aspect of it, but I totally get it. I understand. I'm like, I'm going to use a guide and I'm going to come back. That's like old school PS one error type of gameplay. Yeah. It's, it's just one resi.
00:24:06
Speaker
But the horror vibe of it is fantastic. And the story they're telling very slowly, methodically is so good. Yeah, I started it, I think, over Thanksgiving break, weekend, whatever. Yeah, Austin, same. That's my kind of game. It did not work for me.
00:24:23
Speaker
Yeah, I intend to go back. I really I know I say I really do because I really vibe with that and I can see if I actually finished it that it could make my top 10, but I was just like I cannot do this back and forth stuff right now in the like the combat in the game really isn't really that difficult either.
00:24:39
Speaker
Like if you want to if you know you have to get to the certain room You can kind of just barrel through an enemy and take a little bit of damage get the item Go back through take a little damage get like you can you can just kind of push your way through certain segments You're not vibing with but yeah, regardless. I was just like I can't do this right now But I think that was more of a me thing rather than the game
00:24:58
Speaker
Nice. Nice. How are you today? Yeah, for me, I looked at my GGF again because it's so good. Three games that I think came out this year that I must like I I need to get to them as infernax. I still haven't played. Oh, my God. It's so good. It's been downloaded on my Xbox for like seven months. And I'm just like, I will get to you later. The time happens. Melatonin, the most recent game that came out like two weeks ago, I started the other day.
00:25:27
Speaker
Well, I can't believe I haven't played that game yet. I started it the other day. It's really going to be probably my favorite games I played this year. It's just time to get a roller drum. I haven't played yet, which is on my wish list on PlayStation. I'm like, I will get to you eventually. It's fun. It's incredibly hard to get you to at least for me. Yeah.
00:25:48
Speaker
You have to commit to like two weeks of getting good, being good and then having fun and moving on. Yeah, two weeks, but like sitting down for a day and just this is all I'm doing. Yeah, exactly. The biggest one, probably. Well, maybe not the biggest one, because vampire survivors would be the biggest one. But I feel like the second biggest one that's like heresy is a power watch simulator. I have not touched power watch them. Apparently fantastic. Unpopular opinion.
00:26:15
Speaker
That game's great. I hate it. I hate it. Okay. Here's the reason why. If I start that thing, I have to finish it. Like if I start a level and I'm not enjoying any of it.
00:26:28
Speaker
That is not a game for me. But if I start it, I'm like, I can't fucking I can't just leave. I can't do that. I can't. So I'm sitting here cussing, holding my controller like this is so stupid. I can't find the 1% on this fucking couch or whatever the hell I'm cleaning. And it drives me mad, but I refuse to leave. I hate that. But the overall that game is probably really, really good.
00:26:53
Speaker
What do you mean Harry by where's all the like you're looking for that one thing a little dot and yeah If you play power watch simulator you you're like owning a certain item and it's like 98% or 99% or whatever and you're like, I don't I can't I don't understand I had I will get into it later in the show But I had a very similar thing playing tidykin
00:27:18
Speaker
I played it in two days this past weekend. Six hours. Game pass. Yeah. Oh, I assume so. I played on PlayStation. I don't know. Oh, Sony pony over here. Don't make fun of me. It's almost like he, it's almost like he has a podcast. That's weird. It's almost like he has a PS trophy room podcast every Wednesday. Maybe I'm addicted to Platinum's. I don't know.
00:27:41
Speaker
It goes live every Thursday. Look at my fufufaba games and just add the tier list.
00:27:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's something I need to go back to. It's like I loved it when we previewed it and I loved it during the Xbox like demo fest thing. But then like when it actually came out, I didn't feel like playing the intro for a third time. Yeah. So I needed to like wait a little bit. I need to go back to all the other worlds. I'm like halfway through it. Maybe I love it so much. It's just something else came out. I think like I started reviewing Sifu, I think. So I fell off of it. Yeah, there were like a week apart or something like that. Yeah, timeline wise, that sounds right.
00:28:17
Speaker
Yeah. Cilt has been downloaded on my PS5 since April. Cilt, if you're unfamiliar, it's a black and black, gray, white underwater game, like an underwater metrophenia. You said you said Cilt in the image popped my head of like the underwater diver helmet thing. Exactly. Yeah. And I was like, why? Yeah. Doing the calendar has made just images. All right. A couple of quick ones.
00:28:47
Speaker
Is that I might re buy it on Steam. It's only now that I'm a boy. Or which is very specific. October 4th, the big silk day. So that would still do.
00:29:01
Speaker
Best month ever. Kelsey, I watched Kelsey played a PAX East. It looked like a really fantastic mother daughter narrative adventure kind of game that really interested me. Goodbye World. It was like a game dev, a narrative about like game devs. Apparently it has like a wild emotional impact. So it like really interested me. It really intrigued me, but never got to it. Sorry, I'm like going through like our honorees list.
00:29:32
Speaker
Endo parasitic. I wanted to play the other day. Endo parasitic. It's a horror game that starts out with something ripping off your one of your arms and both your legs. So you have to crawl around and kill enemies or defeat enemies with one leading. It's misleading in that way, I think, because you can actually move pretty damn quick with your one arm. It's really weird. There's like a dragon like crazy.
00:29:58
Speaker
No, but I watched I watched some YouTubers play it because it was just something that popped on and I needed something when I was driving. But yeah, fair. Yeah, it looked really interesting. I'll this one. I'll play in 2023 when it comes out actually out of early access, but dread delusion after Justin played at PAX East. Just I was like so intrigued by it. It's like this horror Skyrim by the dread people. Yeah.
00:30:24
Speaker
much like I should have started with. There are a lot of indie games that come out every single day and it's impossible to play everything so.
00:30:32
Speaker
Hopefully we got better in 2023. We say that every year, but yeah. I still need to play Coromon. Coromon, too, which we've already talked about. Yeah, same. As someone who loves Pokemon, I'm sure I would fall in love with that game. Here's the thing. I kind of want to wait for Cassepis this year because I don't want to burn myself out on the Pokemon formula. I can't wait for that to come out. That'll come out. Yeah, I thought it was already up. It had like random previews.
00:30:58
Speaker
like stuff like that to like get taste, I think, or I'm just confusing it with like videos, but it came out during our demo came out during next fest in October, I think. But it's been like, you know, it's been one of those games that's been at every packs for the past, however many years, many years, many years. Kind of.
00:31:21
Speaker
the last little bit of our little cocktail hour. Cole, AKA the good sir, writes in and says, the 2022 PDs are absolutely stacked and I can't wait to see how it shakes out. I know this is focusing on 2022 games, but I was listening to another podcast break impossible. Cole, we're the only video game podcast.
00:31:38
Speaker
And they had their game of the year awards as any game they played in 2022, regardless of release date. So I was wondering, what was your favorite game not released in 2022? For me, hands down inside Kyle, I played limbo many years ago, but for some reason, we never got to inside. That's right, Austin. That's why I've never played it inside. Despite all the positivity around it. Thanks for an awesome 2022. Can't wait to see what 2023 has in store for six one.
00:32:07
Speaker
Any non 2022 games stand out to you guys that you played, Kyle? I mean, I want to rectify this right now. Uh, inscription. I'm sorry for doubting y'all, but that is my answer for that specific question. Another game that just consumed my life for the week that I put into it. Like it is so good. Unbelievable. Then once you realize like the alternate reality game, that's also a thing, which is like not a game. Oh,
00:32:36
Speaker
Incredible. Inscriptions really good everybody. I have one. I haven't finished it yet just because other things came out and then I just forgot to go back to it. Dark. D-A-R-Q which Austin is a little nightmares like. You would probably love it. It's really good. It's really good. Impossible.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah, I have to get back to it. I'm thinking like halfway through it. I really enjoyed it. The only well, I wanted to play it for a long time, but notably, I finally want to pull the trigger on it because the dev just announced their new game, which is that I forgot the name of it. It's it's like a hotel sim, like a haunted hotel sim where you're taking care of a hotel. Sounds vaguely familiar. Yeah, I forgot the name of it.
00:33:29
Speaker
You got anything not 20 22 games. I finally played what the golf this year we think and that game is awesome. Yes. I didn't know it had like a multiplayer like party mode thing to it and that is fun as hell. I played that with my cousin and like it's this thing where you go through all these random like really quick mini game type.
00:33:49
Speaker
like get to the end first games like 10 or 12 or 15 in a row and then everyone you win that's a life you get for the end. So you can just dominate the entire time and have like 10 lives and then my cousin who I played has like five lives and then I still somehow lose on the end anyway, but yeah. So, but yeah, it's really, really fun. I loved what the golf and the concept like the actual like campaign or what have you the actual story game, how it has a bunch of video game references and references portal references a few others. Like I really enjoyed that. Yeah, it's wild how good it is.
00:34:21
Speaker
For me, my top top two that I can think of off top my head is before your eyes. I think of January was such an emotional journey of explore like it. Oh, I really thought about playing that game again.
00:34:37
Speaker
I played it again in July or August when it came out for Android and mobile. And I was like, yep, Harry's emotional wreck again. Now, Mike, let me just see if it does the same emotional impact. Oh, yes, it does. So my game is called Bloody Hell Hotel. Thank you. Awesome. Nice. And then I also played grindstone for the first time. I thought that was really good. Oh, nice. Very engaging.
00:35:01
Speaker
Same thing with Mini Metro, which is a game that's been out for almost a decade, but it's such a satisfying like loop and it's easy to watch music, sensational leave vibe. And then last one is before behind the frame, which is like, oh, yeah, story driven game where you're an artist, you create art and you try to find the mystery of your family and your next door neighbor and there's a cute cat. Cats are great. And plus other games, but we'll talk about them another time.
00:35:33
Speaker
Awesome. Uh, another thing, just cause I was scrolling through just to make sure I didn't miss anything that like didn't come out in 2022. Um, something I wish I played this year and I haven't yet, I haven't touched the Bugsnax DLC, even though I'm very excited. I don't know why that existed. Yeah. I previewed it for us. And then like, I was really impressed with what they were showing off.
00:35:55
Speaker
totally forgot about it. That's the biggest have not touched it. I didn't really make waves at all either. Really? Yeah. I think that sort of running into with like TLC just in general, like the same with Tom, like Tom had an expansion and just like people kind of.
00:36:10
Speaker
I don't even know when they announced that because I only heard about it like three weeks ago when you brought it up. I'm like, I mean, I reviewed that game and loved it. And I'm like, I have no idea. I announced it in a state of play or whatever similar thing presentation. I think so.
00:36:28
Speaker
I adored what I played of it. I think I forgot if I came out this year or last year, like the Tom DLC adored it, but I didn't finish it because there was a game breaking bug attached to it. And I don't think they update it because I can't get back into my game. It's just like a never ending load like a loop. Yeah. Maybe. Well, same thing when nobody saves the world have as anybody played the nobody saves the world DLC. No. No. Yeah.
00:36:55
Speaker
Weird. I didn't play that game for the record. Fair. So it's very good. It's leaving. I know I literally just typed it into Google to look at it because I think it looks like really, really cool and pretty. It is very, very cool and pretty. Well, speaking of very cool and pretty.
00:37:15
Speaker
funny enough. That's the first category. So now we're going category by category. Sorry. The first category is cool. The coolest and prettiest game of visual aesthetic. Yeah. So yeah, before our break, we, uh,
00:37:32
Speaker
We hashed out 19 categories. A little note for production back and stuff. I miscounted. I thought we had 20 today. I found out we had 19. Yeah, I did. I didn't want to. I just kind of rolled with it. Thank you, Harry. We'll just do indie game of the year and prettiest and coolest game. It's the same thing. They were just doing twice. Exactly.
00:37:57
Speaker
So the way we did this, first I'll go over all the categories first. We got visual aesthetic, we got debut, emotional impact, gameplay, social commentary, music, original concept, surprise, early access, action, RPG, multiplayer, horror, mobile, sports and racing, puzzle, narrative adventure, platformer, and rogue light slash like. So the way we did this,
00:38:24
Speaker
The nomination process is that we all tossed in a bunch of games per category in a giant Google sheet. After like once we're all done with that, Harry put together a lovely Google form for the team. We all picked four games per category. The four games that were ranked the highest are the four nominees that we will be reading off to you and that we will be deliberating over tonight.
00:38:53
Speaker
I was about to ask you guys if that made sense, like you guys haven't done this, but sure. What are we doing here again? It didn't make sense then. It doesn't make sense now. Everything again. Who is Petey? You sound like my students, thank you. What are we doing? I just spent 12 minutes talking about it. Yeah, but can you explain it again? But this time faster. Yeah. Faster, but also a little slower. I got places to be.
00:39:21
Speaker
So the first category up for discussion tonight is visual aesthetic. The nominees are Koromon, Cult of Lamb, Nobody Saves the World, and Tiny Ken. Who would like to begin the deliberations? Oh, I should also say if
00:39:41
Speaker
There is something you do want to toss in the ring at the last minute, throw a wrench into things that you are really fucking passionate about. Go for it. It's fine. Will you get shot down? Maybe, but why I would say so. Um, so yeah.
00:39:56
Speaker
Who would like to start? I kind of gave away my answer already for this one. Do it. What is it? Nobody saves the world. I didn't even play that game. But literally, doing the calendar, I saw the picture of that when I put it up. And I've literally just been like, yeah, that game's pretty as hell. So then I go in and I just Google that pictures of this game. So anything that makes me do that, clearly, the aesthetic is something that shines and pops. So that's what I put for my personal vote for visual aesthetic.
00:40:23
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you can't go wrong with that pic, Austin. It's again so colorful. I have not played the colors. Yeah. There's something there's something about like like the texture lines and then the colors popping. Like I love it. I love the look of the game. Absolutely. Something I really love is I'm going to say this. It's going to sound ridiculous. But Kyle, you'll know what I mean is the persona like character art like what they do with that.
00:40:51
Speaker
Like whenever there is dialogue happening on screen, there is a full like full page art of the character. And it's like so detailed. And even though it's not animated, it's so expressive, like they're just stills per expression. But you know what that character is feeling with every single word that they're saying. And there's maybe like two like image changes happening. It's really impressive.
00:41:18
Speaker
and kind of what you were saying with like the colors, it's really impressive how colorful the game is and it's not overbearing. Yeah, it's like there's nothing muddy on the screen. You don't get lost anywhere. Like you always see the enemies. You always see your character and there's like a lot of shit that's happening on screen at once. So it's pretty damn impressive that you could balance chaoticness with like visual like clarity, I guess is kind of a way to say it and ease of play.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, I just love how each form, right? Like you are changing to essentially like a husk. It has really no soul. And the fact that without eyes, right? Eyes are like the most expressional expressionable feature on a character's face and each one of these don't have eyes. So it's kind of hard to pull off emotion or whatnot, but it looks so normal and so unique to each other. Like each one looks different enough and cool enough on their own. Like I
00:42:18
Speaker
Loved switching between the two, not only because they played differently and whatnot, but just because I like to see what they look like when they're doing all these actions and whatnot. Yeah, it's cool. For the record, Matt also says nobody saves the world. Harry.
00:42:33
Speaker
Where are you at? I'm good with all four. So if we have a. I know, right. Nobody saves the world. Okay. I will say Coromone. I love the pixel, like pretty much pixel perfect. Yeah. Like description of like it. It looks like the Pokemon games from the game where the answer you remember only with like such more detail in its awesomeness. Yeah. And how they can looks great with a 2D characters with a 3D world. And same thing with Call of the Lamb. So like.
00:43:00
Speaker
Nobody saved the world. I would say it's top notch. Yeah, it's funny that calls the Lamb time again. Nobody saves the world are all doing very similar things. So it was interesting to see where we landed in the voting. I think.
00:43:16
Speaker
I think they all do very similar things, but there's something about nobody saves the world. I feel like they nail it the most, and they add a little more, like a 101%. That little more is what did it, because Cult of Lame is really pretty as well. It is. Coromon with the pixel art. I didn't want to leave Coromon out, but yeah, there's three of them there that I was like, all right, these guys know what they're doing with their visual style, and they nailed it. There's something about nobody saves the world that's more eye-catching, and it pops out.
00:43:42
Speaker
I think variety, variety of different biomes and characters, enemies. Yeah. You know what? That's a really good point. Yeah. Yeah. Plus the cut scenes are really nice. Yeah. I, my one thing with tiny kin, I love the visual aesthetics of it all. I wish the way the characters were drawn was the entire game.
00:44:03
Speaker
Hmm. Okay. Like, like the worlds are more 3d and like your main character is very more cartoony. Like it's paper Mario. Exactly. I wish the whole thing was that style instead of the 3d world. And then you're this really cool artistic character. Bum me out a little bit. Still great. So be tiny kin to all the walls in the house just fall down and it's all back there. And it's just, yeah, we can talk into break the walls down.
00:44:33
Speaker
Chris Jericho, Chris Jericho. That's the, that's my, the new me. I'm just going to call out references. That's it. Uh, Kelsey voted for cult of lamb for
00:44:48
Speaker
every I mean that's great. I love seeing the again talk about like the characters expressions and whatnot when they are upset you can tell it and it's so beautifully animated when they eat shit like you can tell when someone dies and they're like yes exactly.
00:45:11
Speaker
And then they instantly go into like the the bandage or no, they don't instantly go into it, but like wrapping them up into like a mummy and then bring it to a grave like everything in that game is fantastic. Yeah, like I said before, Cult of Lamb and Tinykin, I feel like are both at that 100% threshold where they nailed their their artistic style, but there's no place where I was at one on one. And I just think there's something about that. Absolutely. Love it. Cool. So it sounds like nobody saves the world is it?
00:45:38
Speaker
I think so. Congrats Drinkbox. Hey, Drinkbox. Drinkbox never misses. We'll send you your award in the mail. We won't. You get a week with PD. Just make sure you send them back. You might be like a Stanley Cup. Let's do it.
00:45:53
Speaker
Oh, I love that. Yeah. And then they tattooed, they signed a part of PD and then for give it back. I kind of love that idea. If it wasn't so frustrating to shift up. Absolutely. We got to get a miniature one or bring the packs. Yeah. Bring the packs, have them all sign it. Oh, that's pretty good.
00:46:10
Speaker
It's not a bad idea down in my little notebook. Yeah. I forgot to mention before we got into it, Harry, you wrote down a fun statistic when we were doing this process. There are 78 games that we put up for consideration in all across all the awards and 53 different games were nominated. Oh, nice variety. Yeah. Cool. So nobody says we're all them writing it down.
00:46:36
Speaker
Nobody says the world for visual aesthetic. Next up, debut. We got Coromon. We are okay. Stray and tunic. Oh, sorry. Wait for visual aesthetic. Also, other games up for consideration were TMNT Shredder's Revenge. Slime Rancher to silt hyperdemon mirages of winter and faith. The unholy Trinity.
00:47:04
Speaker
You are high for not voting for faith. The unholy trinity. But I understand I'm a very weird, disturbed individual. Hybrid demon. Is that what I think? Yes. You're also out of your minds for not voting for hybrid demon. I can't look at that ever again. Give that a Google search and watch the video for like two seconds and you'll be like, all right. Epilepsy warning. A lot of flashing lights.
00:47:32
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. Debut. We got Koromon. We are OFK. Stray. Tunic. Another round of really good games. Yes. Yeah. There's a few categories here. I'm like, wow, these like the horror category. Fantastic. The puzzle. We'll get there, but some of these categories are bangers. Can't miss. So to kick things off, Matt voted for Koromon and Kelsey voted for Stray.
00:47:57
Speaker
I like both of those. I also want to shout out tunic because it's such a Love letter to Zelda games plus it does its own thing In a very specific way without spoilers, but like that those really that really I think spoilers are fine We're game of the year. We could do light spoilers
00:48:18
Speaker
I mean, I thought the manual was really good. They told me which was really good. I wasn't, I don't know how it like, I don't think that's spoiler. I mean, I just showed the trailer with the manual as well. So I think we're good. Like it's in the announcement trailer. They flip the manual. I didn't, I didn't really, I wanted to make sure I go in and that game as blind as I could. So I wanted to know anything. So I was like, what the hell is this nonsense?
00:48:41
Speaker
Um, but yeah, uh, I'm, I'm definitely team Strayer Coromond. If I had to choose one of them, I would choose two. I do like, we are OFK as well, but like, I don't think, I think the art style was cool. The music was cool, but like as a comparing it to the other four, like it's definitely not.
00:49:04
Speaker
at the OMG level. Is that the OK level? God damn it. Yes. I was I was I was waiting for the pause to say.
00:49:14
Speaker
That is fair, Harry, but I think that we are okay is super ambitious though, where it's like, it's a new idea. It's a real band. Yeah. And they acting like a real band. And there's a, there's another reality where we are. Okay. Just blows it out of the water. And it's the best thing we've ever seen in India. Like totally. I totally agree. I haven't played. We are okay yet. So I don't know.
00:49:39
Speaker
I played the first episode. The first episode was really good, but I heard it kind of falls apart a little bit. I haven't finished it yet. Sure. I dabbled. I just appeared there. I love how the end of the first episode and the second episode ended like a musical video, like with a different gameplay style. Oh, one of those musical videos, huh?
00:49:59
Speaker
Yeah. One of those MTV, uh, music videos killed the radio. So maybe it just, it just reminds me of like sign are a whole lot. Yeah. I like the music and sign are much better, but like, Oh yeah. Yeah. I think the,
00:50:15
Speaker
the the chillness of we are okay was like a tone thing but sure both of them are great no i'm giving i just want a new album of we are sorry or sorry yes please just like every every like two or three years like just giving it like
00:50:29
Speaker
I don't know, like six to eight more songs. I'll be like, oh, yeah. I'm going to twenty, twenty three. My announcing our hearts to. Well, I was just going to say I was hoping a sequel is in the works. I'm very excited for Lorelei. But man, I really want to sign her to the next game. Lorelei and the laser eyes, I think, which looks fantastic. I think that's the black and white and red game, right? Yeah, I can be anything. This is what black and white papers, please. A penguin, you know, inconvenient.
00:50:58
Speaker
Another thing I forgot, we throughout the voting process or throughout the the break, you, the audience voted for games as well for visual aesthetic. Seventy five percent of you said Cult of the Lamb. Sixteen percent said Nobody Saves a World. One percent. Sorry. Eight percent said Tiny Kim. For debut. For debut.
00:51:20
Speaker
53.8% say tunic. 46.2% say stray. So the audience says tunic and I'm the audience. And like they're not wrong. Right. They're not wrong because tunic correct me if I'm wrong. One developer. Yep. Yeah. Main developer. One main developer. And obviously they have finji backing them. Yes. Absolutely. So on and so forth. But yeah, I think someone help with music and something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:50
Speaker
But like how wild is it that tunic was in the ether for so long? We knew about it for years and years and years and has been at countless paxes and whatever. How wild is it that it's actually good? Like this is a game that could have easily came out and was just such an utter disappointment, AKA.
00:52:13
Speaker
sports story for all intents and purposes. I think what's really cool about Tunic is he kept it really close to the vest. So we thought it was going to be one specific type of game. But then it blossomed into like, oh, wait, we only saw like 3% of this concept. But now we have so many more layers to it that it's that much better because we didn't know about all that extra stuff. I think it's that manual thing. The manual mechanic is so brilliant.
00:52:39
Speaker
Like, I really hope a lot of indie games copy that, like, or just like some sort of take on it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, do their own. Please don't copy it. But, you know, like be inspired to create something in their own shot. You heard that a teacher said to copy other people's work. The kids do it anyway. So I might as well call out their shit on it.
00:53:01
Speaker
I still think it's hilarious that I was like, dude, this game is really hard. And when I played the demo, I only use the stick, the stick sword. And I'm like, guys, this game's so hard. What are you talking about? And then I find the sword and I'm like, Oh, still hard. But yeah, no, but dude, I got so good though at the beginning because I was eating it with the stick. He's OP. I, you know, just to shout out stray a little bit because they've lost an audience.
00:53:31
Speaker
I felt, I am not a cat person by any means I felt for this cat's journey in this game. This is it's, it's pretty good. I just wish there was a little bit more, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I was ultimately a little let down with string, not because the, any part of it was bad. I just think
00:53:51
Speaker
They were trying to tell a story, and I feel like the story was good, not great. The gameplay was good, not great. The journey was good, not great. And I was like, you know, I don't know. The journey was amazing. Not good. Honestly, I had a wonderful time with it. I started. I like the ending. I like the ending. I think that's... A lot of people are like, eh, it just kind of... Whatever. I actually really enjoyed the ending, which is weird because I kind of met on the game as a whole.
00:54:16
Speaker
For me, I definitely love the world building too. I was constantly looking around and exploring. Yeah, I was a cat jumping up and down. I love that stuff, like nobody's business. But I will acknowledge that the gameplay itself wasn't super masterful. But the exploration and the story really hooked me. And I was like, I need to know all about this weird dystopian world.
00:54:42
Speaker
Yeah. And how the F there's just normal cats just to learn everything. I would almost love it more if they weren't like those little like insects. It'd be a completely different game. Like I'm just a cat. Yeah. I'm just a cat roaming around in the city. Yeah. But I almost love that more than like the chase sequences and whatnot.
00:55:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I feel like the chase sequences were there just because some like business person was like, we need some sort of antagonist. Sure. Yeah. And then they're like, let's throw in these circular blobs that come and try and suck you out. Oh, oh, oh, I mean, straight game in here. Let's go, baby. Listen, I'm down. Let's go.
00:55:25
Speaker
I, uh, I started. Sure. I play like an hour, maybe like 45 minutes of it. I was like, I am not into this and I have not gone back to it. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. I like the chase sequences for, for the record because those are sure. That's the great thing about indie games. You can love one thing and then someone else can be like, no, uh, it sounds like we're going for tunic though. If, if
00:55:47
Speaker
Overall, yeah, I vote. Yeah, I'm okay with that. Also shout out to Coromon. It's such a good game. Sure. So cool that this is their first out of the gate game and it was so good. But I didn't play it. Maybe my thoughts would be different if I played it. But yeah, sorry. Some time. Time's finite. So we can only play so much. Debut goes to tunic. Yeah. You'll get your little fox in the mail. Yeah.
00:56:13
Speaker
And then the honorees for debut were a little to the left, a walk with Yaya. Oh, and that's it loads of left and walk with Yaya. Played a walk with Yaya the other day. Very delightful, very heartwarming. Very sad. Speaking of speaking of sad, emotional impact, the tears, emotional impact.
00:56:42
Speaker
Stray. Endling extinction is forever. A musical story and a walk with Yaya. I'm definitely pro endling. I played it during holiday break. Oh, Harry, how good is it? It's really. It's one of those games where I play them like.
00:57:04
Speaker
I think I'm going to sit quietly by myself and just want it over here. Absorb my emotions, take it in and be like. That happened to me playing Fallout three. OK, like there's just like random type stuff from like, I don't deserve to live. Funny enough, similar game. Really? I mean, as far as like tone and stuff goes, like what's going on in the world. Yeah, like pretty similar game. That's crazy. I am.
00:57:30
Speaker
upset that I didn't get a chance to play a walk with Yaya because I'm sure it will hit like 100% of the beats for me. Yeah. Harry, you absolutely need to for very specific reasons. You need to play along with Yaya. Is this the one about the grandmas? OK, it's about as a Yaya means grandma in a language, right?
00:57:48
Speaker
in Greek. So it's about, it's about the protagonist taking his Greek grandmother out for a walk who is, she can't really walk too well anymore. And she's really anxious about walking bushes. It's the entire game is literally you walking around a small block.
00:58:03
Speaker
Guys, I don't I don't think I've ever told you guys this, but my grandmother who has now passed away, she raised me until I was eight. So like my hero in my life was my grandmother. I say the fuck away from anything to do with grandmothers. I cannot do it. Telling you right now. So if I'm like that off, I'm playing this game. Should I not play this game? Because am I going to be destroyed? It's more so. So I also I played it a couple of days ago. It's nothing like.
00:58:32
Speaker
It's not like the grandmother dies at the end or anything. It's a it's a I would say it's more of a like auto autobiographical game or like kind of like a documentary game documentary game about the developers grandmother. It's really just it seems like it's like authentic stories that he heard from his grandmother and she's just
00:58:51
Speaker
telling them through the game. So as you're walking around the block, you'll stop at moments and it's like, Oh, Grandma, do you need a rest? Yeah. And then she'll go off and like tell you a story about how, like what your grandfather's favorite thing used to be how like he used, he wants to be a pilot, but then he turned into like, he ended up being a car mechanic. And that's how he fell in love with cars or, um,
00:59:14
Speaker
back in when she first came to America and she used to hang out at this bar a lot and she befriended like this is back in the fifties befriended a black woman and her white friends would make fun of her for that. So like she eventually turned on her black friend and like that relationship just got shattered because of that for obvious fucking reasons.
00:59:38
Speaker
And it was really endearing stuff. You find a cat around the corner and you have to take it back home. Or you find a little kid who is crying and he can't leave his yard, but his ball is down the street. So you could find the ball down the street and kick it back to the friend. Kick it farther away. Kick it farther away. You can, technically.
00:59:58
Speaker
I do want to shout out the way this game was revealed or shown off at the developers sitting with his grandmother. Yeah. And just like talking about how proud he is of this game. And then she's talking about how proud she is of him. Just so awesome.
01:00:13
Speaker
And I kind of wish I realized this for visual aesthetic because I would just threw it in for visual aesthetic. Also, the game is fucking gorgeous. Yeah, it does the HD 2D thing that Square has been playing around with as far as the pixel art goes. But then during the stories that they tell.
01:00:32
Speaker
like, for example, the one that was just saying about the grandfather who used to be a pilot, but then turned into a mechanic during that entire story, it turns into kind of like a 3D sequence where you're just flying a plane around while she's telling the story. The last the last big section of the game where you're kind of reminiscing about your grandfather a little bit who has passed away like.
01:00:53
Speaker
prior. Um, there's actual footage of the developers, grandmother and grandfather, father, like on TVs and a very like surrealistic dream state sequence where like there's TVs floating around and it's actual like home footage of the family. All right. It's really good. Anyways, walk with the eye. That was really good. It's also only like 45 minutes long. Um, yeah, it's very good. That's the reason I stuck it in the other day. Yeah. Uh,
01:01:22
Speaker
Sorry, I was talking a lot. Audience wise. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, I was just gonna say, this is one of the categories where I haven't played the nominees other than stray just because I feel like I'm not emotionally ready for any of these games.
01:01:41
Speaker
I'm right there with Kyle, right? The only one in the category I played was Stray, and I'm like, honestly, I don't think Stray had that much of an emotional connection with me, so I- Oh my god. The ending's so good. I even liked the ending, but it's- Yeah, I definitely cried at the ending, but like, it didn't- It wasn't like-
01:01:59
Speaker
as emotionally impactful, I think is what I imagine Endling is. Right. No. Yeah. Another level like. Yeah. I'm definitely pro and lane with this one. The too long. Don't read on Endling is that you are a mother fox taking care of her four cubs in a like just essentially like dystopian America where like the world is just in ruins because humanity just fucked things up because of environmental waste and whatnot.
01:02:28
Speaker
And it's just it is horrifying. And a gameplay mechanic, this isn't a spoiler because it can happen in the first opening moments of the game. A gameplay mechanic is like the Cubs could die. This is a survival game. And like you have to you have to like deal with the repercussions of your cubs dying. And yeah, no, no, no. Listen, all my cubs survived. I'm a great. All right. Good. Good. Good. Did you have to like, no, my cubs died restart. Yeah. Twice.
01:02:58
Speaker
Harrison. I'm restarting audience for this 50% one towards endling. 10% went towards a musical story. 30% walk with Yaya 10% stray. Has anybody else played musical story? Am I the only one I have not, but I started it like the trailer's going on now for everybody easily. This could have been an individual aesthetic as well. It should have been. It's real pretty.
01:03:26
Speaker
The too long don't read on this is that you are you play as a musician. That's very it's very much kind of reflecting Jimi Hendrix. And it is just this musician's downward spiral into drug abuse. And it is fucking heartbreaking. It is visuals like it is such a contrast towards like the narrative. It's telling the music that it's portraying and
01:03:54
Speaker
what is happening in the narrative and what is happening in this man's life. It is haunting how gripping this fucking game is. Phenomenal. Phenomenal, phenomenal. I know it's a different concept. What you just said reminds me of Florence. Does that make sense? It's just really emotional and they don't have to do a lot to convey so much
01:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean the gameplay it's the gameplay is it's a rhythm game. So you're not really doing anything. You're just you're think of it like a clock like hands on a clock. So like there is an invisible hands going around on a clock and you just have to hit X at the moment where like the where it wants to hit you on where the game wants you to hit on beat to like do a guitar track to do a jump track to do a bass track a vocal melody.
01:04:45
Speaker
So, yeah, it's not trying to do much gameplay wise, but it doesn't have to because it knows the story it wants to tell and it knows it. The developers are very confident in how they portray the story. It's like they're not beating you over the head with narrative and dialogue and visual cues and whatnot. It's very simplistic. The art speaks for itself. Sometimes the music speaks for itself, too. It does like a great job at portraying kind of like internal trauma through music.
01:05:16
Speaker
Um, and yeah, it is, it's dark and haunting and yeah, really heartbreaking. Um, but that being said, my pick would also be Edling. Well, musical story is a close second, but like, obviously Harry, I think is also endling. Yeah. Oh yeah. I abstain. So there's two votes for endling then.
01:05:38
Speaker
And also Matt and Kelsey. There you go. There it is. It's a nice ending. Extinction is forever. Thank you for making me cry. Yeah. That's what the name of that award should be. Thank you for making me cry. I like that. I like that. Actually, yeah, we talk around with like shenanigans and titles. Yeah. I think tears, tears and more tears probably go for that next year. We'll be a little more goofy with it.
01:06:07
Speaker
because these don't matter. The other the honorees for emotional impact, we had Goodbye World and Best Month Ever. Yeah, next up we have gameplay. Gameplay we got Infernax, TMNT, Shredder's Revenge, Koromon, Nobody Saves the World. I'll start with audience for this one.
01:06:35
Speaker
if I could find it was a gameplay. There it is. 27% say infernax 36% TMNT. Another 27% for nobody saves the world. 9% core mom. Oh, I like that with the audience. And what was that TMNT? Really? Mm hmm.
01:06:55
Speaker
See, I thought it was very simplistic on what they were doing, but I thought they made it work so much like it was way smoother than I remember. Games like that feeling, if that makes sense. That's the thing. It it redefines what a beat him up can be in modern day. Like the depth of field. I never had an issue with that in this game and that every other time I've played anything even remotely like this, like my brain was like, ah, like I can't I'm just dying from this one enemy because I can't understand where he's at.
01:07:21
Speaker
Even simple things of enemies not getting knocked off screen and then hitting you with cheap shots off screen. Yeah. Like there's so many quality of life things that they really took into consideration that I said this in my review because this is one of the last reviews I written reviews I did for six. Still mad. Still jealous.
01:07:40
Speaker
Sorry. No, you're not. No, you're not. I'm not. I'm jealous in the sense where I wrote three thousand five hundred words at like four a.m. to meet embargo. I still stand by the fact that I truly believe this is the best 2D brawler that exists easily.
01:08:03
Speaker
And it's mostly the quality of life stuff, right? Yeah. Is that what you're getting at? Yeah, because like even so, like I love that it's also just a straight up level to TMNT. So obviously if you're a Turtles fan, you'll get a lot more mileage out of it. But I love that every each stage has a different boss at the end. So it's always a surprise.
01:08:22
Speaker
Not even just that. Yeah, the characters all feel unique. All feel different. Completely different. Which shocked me. I was like, I got to go down and tell them, I got to do the reach. And then you find out, like, that's not really a big deal here because you can just find someone else who has, I think, I don't think he has the most reach. I think someone else, I don't remember who it was. I think someone else actually has more reach. It doesn't matter. But yeah. I think Casey Jones probably, right? Yep. That's who it was. And that's why I remember because you don't get him until after you do the campaign or whatever.
01:08:48
Speaker
But yeah, I'm like April's fantastic to play too. Like it's yeah, they're all fun to play us. I was excited to play as April, which I was like, why am I excited to play as April? It's weird. Yeah. But, but yeah. And then I played this with my cousin on game pass and smooth experience that I had zero issues ever. So like, that was really cool. I think the one issue I had was like, there's some weird stuff with like the UI and menus when you're going into a game, I think, if I remember correctly, where we couldn't figure out like we were doing, but after we, after we got that down, we're like, okay, then it was fine.
01:09:19
Speaker
To be contrarian, I thought TMNT's gameplay was fine. I didn't think it was super exciting. I didn't think it reinvented the wheel. I think it just honed in on stuff, which is exactly why I like Coromon so much, because it honed in on what made Pokemon or Pocket. No, monster catching games so good.
Game Play Experience and Preferences
01:09:38
Speaker
So I get all the hype that you guys have. I just have it for the exact same reason for Coromon. And that's totally fair.
01:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, which I get and like it's OK to be wrong. I will hold it against you. I mean, it's OK to go with the flow instead of make your own opinion. Now, I'll also say, did he get me? I don't know. I don't know. My sass is all tapped out today. I don't know. Fair enough. I'll also say in the world like that's so good, too. Well, yeah.
01:10:11
Speaker
real quick before it. Cause I feel like we'll go on and on with nobody saves the world. Infernax like kind of does the same thing with Castlevania games, like old school Castlevania games where like they really perfected that like very difficult side-scrolling action. That was actually going to be my pick for this. I love TMNT, but I think what Infernax did
01:10:32
Speaker
with an old school game, adding, you know, choices to it and the precise platformer, different items, whatnot. And for next is a fantastic game to play. So kind of to piggyback off that, that's why as much as I love TMNT as much praise as I just gave it.
01:10:54
Speaker
That's why going into this, I was like, yeah, and for an act is my pick. So even so even when I do myself put in a vote for TMNT, I acknowledge that it is pretty much just kind of like taking these small tweaks and perfecting those like faults in the formula. And that's why I like it so much. But yeah, so I understand if it doesn't win over. I'm not. OK, so so where we said I'm team Coromon. I'm team NT.
01:11:21
Speaker
Okay. I'm in for an X. So two in for an X, one core amount, one TMNT. We want it. Matt said Matt said core amount as well. Shit. But then TMNT with the fan vote, if we want to include that, it's a three way tie. If anyone wants to. Well, I'm just saying like, yeah, no, I think the audience vote your count. So like one of us has the budget.
01:11:48
Speaker
So we can just say real quick, just to give nobody says flowers. We talked about it already. Like nobody saves a world took over my life in January. Gameplay loop is so good. I.
01:11:59
Speaker
I remember being like initially overwhelmed. So like the gameplay loop, if you haven't played it yet, each of the kind of like husks that Kyle was talking about, like you play as a soulless character, but you could change. You could transform into like a mouse, a wizard, an egg, a dragon, an egg, and all those different skins have their own skill trees. Me and Kyle were obsessed with
01:12:20
Speaker
unlocking every single skill point for every single character. And you don't get sick of it. And the way things unlock is just you just kill character, kill enemies with that husk with like certain moves and whatnot. And what was great is that you can mix and match different move sets. So like if you like a core attack from one character, but you like a magical special from another character, you can mix a match and you can really make like your perfect character. It was so fun, like trying to figure out the like the perfect builds.
01:12:50
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, that being said, Infernax just fucking rules. Infernax is just metal as fuck. Should the tiebreaker be because like two people on this panel said Infernax? Does that make sense? Well, I mean, I wouldn't want to discount Matt's response either. Should've been here. I'm just kidding. I mean, if anything, I would say Austin is the one that's going to be the deciding factor. Oh, between Infernax and Kormund? Yeah. I didn't play either one.
01:13:20
Speaker
So it's a three way two way tie. It's like it's like a three. It's like two way and a half tie because TMNT is only because of the audience vote. So fair. So I will I will abstain TMNT is out. I will same but now we got a for an extra Coromon. We got to duke it out. I can see not vote for this one. I can flip a coin right now. Sure. I'll just do that. Why not? My.
01:13:48
Speaker
argument against TMNT and Coromon. Like again, like these are all fantastic games. This is not me like discrediting anything. This is just it is what it is. No, this doesn't make sense because so here's the thing. All three of these games like kind of just like perfect the formula of what of their inspirations. That being said, I think like so to add to my argument with Coromon. Let's just let's just give the win to nobody saves the world. Why not?
01:14:16
Speaker
I mean, there. I will say that with Koromon, though, it does ratchet up accessibility and approachability to like the umpteenth level where you can customize the gameplay to however you want to play it, whether it's like a Nuzlocke run or you want to increase difficulty or make tweaks to it. So you really can elevate it to another level, but it also customizes it to your own gameplay style and how you want to play it.
01:14:41
Speaker
I think TMNT does that too, or similar stuff. TMNT does that. No, but Koromon does it with tabs and tabs of tabs of options. It's not like seven things. You're like, all right, we're cool. There's so many intricacies where it's not just the five different levels. All right, here's 80 options to tweak on how exactly you want to play it and go from there. Kyle, you have anything else to add either way?
01:15:08
Speaker
I don't cause honestly my runner up as much as the love turtles was nobody saves the world. So that doesn't help anybody. Um, I'll flip a coin. I'll do it. I'll do it. You flip a coin, but keep it silent. Like, like don't say who the winner is. We'll say heads is Coromon tails is infernax, but I have something to say about Coromon. Okay.
01:15:32
Speaker
I don't know why we're doing like this. I don't know why I suggested that. Yeah, I don't know. Wait, so we will know what it is. I'm just curious what what the flipping coin does without me saying this. I have the verdict. OK, cool. I love that he'd use an app and not an actual coin. There's a coin shortage in the US. We can't bear for it. I can I can flip this coast. I have many coins in front of me.
01:15:56
Speaker
To Harry's point about the options with Quorumon, because I've I'm a lifelong Pokemon fan, I know and like going into the the E3 preview, it is very impressive how Taylor made you can make the experience of your own play style. And it is a lot of the stuff that Pokemon fans have been asking for for fucking ever. So. I'm OK giving it to Quorumon. Yeah.
01:16:24
Speaker
I mean, that's a very diplomatic reason. I don't think that is. What does the digital coin say? What does the digital coin say? It was heads. So whichever heads was, I think that was Korma. That was Korma. Well, there you go. So myself and fate lined up. There you go. Good. All right. Well, good job. All games. Does Korma have voice acting? No.
01:16:46
Speaker
Because that's one of the things that people really want. So I was just wondering. Wow. Oh, fair. In indie devs or indie devs. No, no, no. I didn't expect it to. I was just that that's the first thing that popped up. And I was like, I doubt it. I'm sure there's going to be a mod somewhere where someone's going to do the voice and be like, yo, no one did it. So we just decided to do it. Yo, yo, yo. That's the voice. Quick side tangent. Harry, I started Violet last night. How do you feel about it?
01:17:14
Speaker
Yeah, I like it, but I like RCS more. What I find so far, so we'll talk about this for like 30 more seconds. It's so funny how like the first hour of the game, so many like stuttering issues, but then it gets way better after that. So far performance wise, it's like.
01:17:32
Speaker
I mean, it doesn't run great, but like it's playable. I don't know. But it was embarrassing, like the first hour. I'm like, I don't want to play this, but I mean, there's a reason I started in January. It was like I was waiting for whatever patches that we're going to do. And I think this is just the state of the game now. I don't think they're patching anymore. Yeah, I don't know if this aspect was patched, but like apparently, which I understand the beginning, like the intro phase of the game, it was really buggy. It was really buggy for me, too.
01:17:55
Speaker
But like apparently the longer you play, if you have it in handheld, like the way the memory is stored for what you're doing, if you close it and go back into it, it will like reset it. So it's not as like stuttery. I don't know how that makes any sense. Yeah, there's like I think they said it's like a memory leakage where it kind of compounds on it. So I'm not a game dev, but I'm on my like fourth playthrough of Arceus. I love Arceus. So that's a great play Arceus.
01:18:25
Speaker
Anyways, the honorees for gameplay. You also have the door, Mr. I know, you can't close it. We'll talk about it later. The honorees for gameplay, all the Ollie world, arcade paradise, islets, you son of a bitches. Exodiac, session, skate sim, which I no offense to session, but I don't understand why that was whatever. And Cuphead, the delicious last course. Next up, we got
01:18:53
Speaker
Oh, that's what I missed. We did have 20. Did we skip one? Yeah, we fucked up or I fucked up. Oh, no, never mind. Never mind. God damn it. We're good. We're good. This is back and stuff. Never mind. Next up is social commentary. The nominees are Endling. Extinction is forever. Apico. No place for bravery and a musical story. Both Matt and Kelsey say Endling. And we already talked about Endling.
01:19:23
Speaker
Chatted about the fallout-ness of it. And like it's clearly like, yeah, you know, human suck. Harry, don't worry about it. It's a back end thing. We scrap the other one because it's too similar to the other one. Okay. Yeah, we're good. Okay. Yeah. Because I saw that. I'm like, I thought we did something.
Environmental Themes in Gaming
01:19:43
Speaker
No, we're good. Okay. Cool. Let's. Sorry. I was I as I was trying to talk about ending Harry's face was just distracting me so much.
01:19:52
Speaker
Anyways, we talk about and we talk about and link already. It's very much a commentary about just like recycling and like taking care of our world because we only have one goddamn planet and conservation and it really, really nails that messaging. We also talked about musical story. Appico, anybody play anybody play Appico yet? I played it at PAX East, but I haven't got to play the whole thing yet. I have not. That's a no from me.
01:20:20
Speaker
It's a it's a just a game about saving the bees. Oh, sweet. Very sweet. And it's like a sim kind of. Yeah. OK, you're just saving the bees. And then does somebody know the no place for bravery narrative a little better than I do? I know. Well, it's about a warrior who makes decisions
01:20:46
Speaker
Here's the thing. Justin's Justin's like the expert at it. And he always nails what the, like the actual message is about. That's what I was kind of opiate beyond the synopsis. I know the devs were talking to me during packs and packs feels like fucking like five years ago at this point. Um,
01:21:05
Speaker
It's a commentary on something that is kind of frequent in Brazil that a lot of daughters don't grow up with their fathers. Like if there's a whole like kidnapping thing that is really disgustingly common in Brazil. So.
01:21:20
Speaker
The whole narrative about a warrior father trying to get his daughter back is very much kind of reflecting what happens in real world Brazil. Yeah, it focuses on like a strong message to like roles of parents and parental figures and like consequences of things that happen because either a lack of it or an effort to try and get them back. Yeah.
01:21:41
Speaker
Um, with incredibly gory gameplay. So very gory gameplay. Um, the votes here, we got 50% for endling. 30% musical story. 20% no place for bravery. No love for the bees. That's the problem. That's the problem. That is the problem. That's literally. We're saving the bees tonight.
01:22:08
Speaker
I've seen from this one. I didn't play any of them. So I'm team and lean or nobody saves the world. Nobody saves the world. No place for bravery. You did say we could throw wrenches into this. All right. You did say that. Fair. You know what? Let's do social commentary. He does have pretty good social commentary, but I don't want to. I don't want that right now. Second wrench.
01:22:34
Speaker
Um, you know what? Let's do multiverses. That's social conferences. Indie game. I would. I want to lean towards musical story just because of how personal and how. Really?
01:22:55
Speaker
I'll just use the word haunting again and how accurate it is to what is happening in the music scene like every single day. And maybe I'm a little biased because I've seen it in real life. Like I've had a lot of friends and a lot of like fan mates and like people I've played shows with like go through similar things. So it's like really fucking terrifying. And I think it's a really important thing to talk about and something that hasn't really been talked about in games before as far as my memory.
01:23:25
Speaker
goes if that's how the phrase goes. So, yeah, I my vote would be a musical story. I again haven't played them, so I will also abstain. I mean, so it's it's I'm the only one with musical story, so it's Endling because it's audience Harry, Kelsey and Matt with Endling. That's fair. Yeah, which I'm totally cool with. Endling fucking nails that message.
01:23:54
Speaker
Enbling. Thank you for being a real one, you know. Yeah, extinction is. Thanks, Foxes. Thanks, Fox. Thanks, Sad Fox. Foxes in these games. A lot of Foxes. Foxes and cats. Yeah. The year of the cat. Is this year the year of the cat? I don't know. Hold on.
01:24:18
Speaker
Funny enough, clearly we none of us played enough games with your message. So there were no honorees for this. Those are our four nominees. Yeah. Just wasn't in the mood for sad boy games in twenty twenty two. Yeah. Want to escape. Not be real. Yeah. Music. This one, this was one of the ones where I was like putting the page together. I was like, how you motherfuckers? Music. A story did not get.
01:24:45
Speaker
I know, and I'm very furious about that. Cuphead, the delicious last course, Once Upon a Jester, We Are OFK, TMNT Shredders Revenge.
Indie Game Soundtracks
01:24:59
Speaker
These are some of the honors. Yeah, even the honorees, which we'll go over in a bit. All bangers TMNT for Matt, Once Upon a Jester for Kelsey. And I'm OK if We Are OFK doesn't.
01:25:15
Speaker
continue because I thought the music was good. Wow. We are done. All right. Yeah. Like, I mean, if we have to start narrowing it down, like I think we are like a pleasant experience. Sure. I think the other three musical scores and like even their own individual music, not just like riffs on other songs are so good that I'm just like, yeah, it's like these three are on another level compared to the year. Okay.
01:25:41
Speaker
That was Harry's Randy Jackson. It's a no for me dog. You know what's wild? And granted, this is our own fault because we didn't put it in consideration in the pre process. No neon white. Yeah, no one's music is a banger, but it really is. It's fine.
01:26:05
Speaker
That's really good. Um, I'll throw it out there. I think I've only played 15 minutes of it, but I know what kind of, uh, vibe they're going for from the previous title. Once upon a jester, the few songs that I heard in those 15 minutes, just delightful. So here's the thing, Kyle, you don't know what they're going for. Oh, I don't know. It is so good. So yeah. So here's where I'm at. I'm conflicted. So yes, once upon a jester,
01:26:35
Speaker
The songs in that game and the writing and the lyrics are so charming, witty, funny, funny, funny, and I'm coming home. Thank you. And just like warm and human like they're like it's wild how many emotions that could fit in a quirky two minute song, but they fucking nail it every time. It is really good. And it's generally very good music.
01:27:00
Speaker
Like music that would like I I'm waiting for them to drop the album on band camp so I can buy it and just listen to it Sorry the mayor intro do you remember? Oh my And then no spoilers but like how it instantly gets cut off it's really good It's so good. What a game. Sorry. Um
01:27:24
Speaker
where I'm conflicting is TMNT. Thank you. Cause fucking Wu Tang, Wu Tang and Mega Ran. And like they fucking slap and the way they're implemented in the gameplay, like when that Wu Tang track plays, holy fuck, it's the most hype thing in the goddamn planet.
01:27:44
Speaker
Here's the thing. I love Once Upon a Jester. I reviewed that game. I think that I said it was like an indie game. I will never forget. Yeah. Soundtrack needs to go to TMNT. Okay. And I love the songs in Once Upon a Jester because again, if they do drop the album, like buy it, it's totally worth it. It's so, it's so good. It's a human. Every word you just said, 110%. TMNT needs to win this category.
01:28:05
Speaker
Also audience DLC is really good. Cupid DLC really good. Yeah. Yeah. The music is of course. It's if you like that type of like jazzy 1930s. Yeah. The big band vibe. Yeah. Like it's so good. Like and that was my jam when I was trying to be like like cool Harry in high school and I was like, yeah, I'm going to be so cool. And then like bopping around this is Harry's cool version. Yeah. Like like like Glenn Miller and all that jazz. Like I was like, oh, like I didn't understand jazz and all this full
01:28:34
Speaker
fullness, but it was really enjoyable. Another I'm surprised that we voted for Cuphead with visual because like I was just thinking that what they do with the like obviously we all are very familiar with the Cuphead aesthetic, but what they do with the DLC specifically with the backgrounds like how the backgrounds are very like.
01:28:51
Speaker
I think it's real footage that they like the claymation in some parts. Yeah, it's really impressive. It's similar to that clip that they did with like the date announcement. Yeah, with the puppet in the background. Yeah, you know, we already had this long discussion about DLC and like who actually plays with this year or last year and we're like, yeah, like I didn't start playing it till two weeks ago. So sure, sure. And they came out and for me, I just I didn't write it in because I didn't play it, but then.
01:29:17
Speaker
The one I voted for, I didn't play for either, so it doesn't matter. But Cuphead for me is the best visual style ever. I think that has the best look of any video game I've ever seen. And so the fact that it got snubbed for that category, even though I was like, yeah, we're good here with these four. But yeah, it's okay. Audience for Music got a tie with 41.7% between Cuphead and TMNT, and then 8% each with VR-FK and Once Upon a Jester.
01:29:47
Speaker
So just one, one and two, two. There it is. Yeah. I'm, I'm pro team NT. If it went, I'm fine with that too. I'm pro team and T if it wins. What does that mean? Like nothing to fuck with PM and T wins best music. Well, team NT one. So Harry votes for it. Any sense, but okay. Yeah, I'll go with the tide with this. Yeah.
01:30:14
Speaker
Honorees for music. Stray producer 2021 got the producer 2021 soundtrack. Fucking what a banger. Same with gum plus gum plus what a banger. I know those are two niche titles that probably nobody played, but goddamn. Exodiac, Farewell Sen, Bamerang, Slime Rancher two.
Original Gaming Concepts
01:30:34
Speaker
Sorry, Kelsey. Next up, we got original concept.
01:30:44
Speaker
And I'm about to get very angry. Oh, one hand clapping Sifu a little to the left stray stray does not belong on this god damn list. There are so many goddamn games where you play as a cat. But do you explore and have an emotional connection while you're playing the original concept or damage little kitty big city a night in the woods?
01:31:11
Speaker
OK, first off, a night in the woods of humanoid like we can't even say that's a cat. I'm just saying as a title, little kitty big city is really good. Kit I.O. The purring quest. He had to Google it. He had to Google it. He had to Google it. He's fake. He's fake. And half of it markets like life sims or like non thing. I will say I think they're making them up now.
01:31:39
Speaker
A little is such a great game also has a cat. And it's it's so endearing because it's just like organ is organizing your life, the game. And we've seen unpacking, but it does it in a much more gamified way that I really liked as well. So I even though I love stray, I don't think it's the most original concept in terms of you play as a cat, if that's our baseline for it.
01:32:08
Speaker
even though there's so much more to it that I don't want to get into right now, but I really I'm I would vote for a little to the left. I would also seen vote for a little to the left. Kyle, really? Yes. After all that, after all that, you're just like, yeah, I'm going to agree with her. This is a nice tray. Yeah, of course. After all that, this is a original concept, correct? Correct.
01:32:35
Speaker
I feel like there's been other kind of like, you know, chill sorting things. Not as, as great as, you know, little to the left. Well, spoilers, Kyle, this category is broken because you all fucking suck. I didn't put stray in there. What are you talking about? I, I would find it hard, even though I have not played it, but just.
01:32:58
Speaker
reading the explanation of one hand clapping. How that does not win original content. Is this the fact that you have to use your voice and my voice? Yeah. Yeah. And it's a little bit. Have we not heard of rock band where you play the game? That's a rhythm game. I'm just saying how many versions of rock band are there? There's like 40 or whatever. It's not. I can. I can.
01:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, I actually get mad. Kyle, you bringing up that point where like, yeah, last year we did have unpacking. Yeah.
01:33:41
Speaker
Yeah. One hand clapping. You have the description in front of you. If you want to, do you want to read it really quick? Oh, I'll butcher it. Sure. Let me pull it up. Cause if I scroll down, yeah, if you have it, that'd be great. I can. I can start out by saying this is a Stadia exclusive that escaped Stadia. So kudos to one hand clapping for actually coming out. I will verify it came out on PC late last year. It came to consoles this year.
01:34:09
Speaker
One Hand Clapping is a 2D vocal platformer. Solve puzzles by singing or humming into your microphone. Find confidence in the power of your voice as it changes the world around you. So yeah, that's kind of like what the gameplay is, is that like the more, for lack of a better term, the more powerful your voice is. Like if you are getting over that stage fright, let's say.
01:34:30
Speaker
the better it will impact the gameplay. Granted, I have not played this game in a very long time. I played a little bit when I first launched on Stadia. But for what it's trying to do, it fucking nails. And is I've never played a game like that. Well, let's say.
01:34:49
Speaker
I've played Hey, you Pikachu before. Hey, sure. Very broken. This does Hey, you Pikachu very good. And there's like that other really simple one where you like scream to jump over gaps. It's just how far you can go. But that's like super basic. And like, I do want to shout out seafood because I do love the whole aging thing and how it's not just an aesthetic. It actually affects your gameplay. Yeah.
01:35:15
Speaker
I do really love that about Sifu Sifu is too hard for me. I haven't gone back with the update, so I don't know. I just, I really, I really love tackling a known genre and platforming and adding a twist on it with using your voice to go across the levels.
01:35:32
Speaker
I will rectify a comment I made a couple of weeks ago or a couple of episodes ago where I gave seafood shit for making the category as well. Cause I was like, that's just a 3d beat them up. I forgot about the aging thing. Walk that back. All right. All right. I think, I think there's more to it than that too. Like it feels like
01:35:50
Speaker
There's parts to me that feel like an arcade cabinet game, where you have to really get to a certain point, and then you're just putting in another quarter. It kind of feels like that when you die. I don't know. So I think there's the whole encompassing, where it's really hard, the aging thing, it's really focusing on the kung fu aspect of it. And yeah, I was going to vote for Sifu, but I wasn't super passionate about it. So I was like, I kind of abstain overall, because I don't really think any of these, because the one-hand clapping thing,
01:36:20
Speaker
When I googled what that was because I'm dumb and I had no idea before going into this, I was like, Oh, I remember this game. That should win, but I haven't played it. I don't know. So that's where I'm at. Now, here's the thing. We could throw wrenches and I'm going to avoid. Oh, no. Fucking wrenches. I'm just getting steam descriptions as I fucking. Oh, what's I just blocked you from? Just so I can accurately describe things because you are out of your fucking minds. You know what I'm saying?
01:36:51
Speaker
No. One second, because I can't talk and type at the same time, but I could sing like one hand clapping.
01:37:06
Speaker
Y'all are out of your minds for not checking out Outshine. Outshine, a game I fell in love with during PAX East. Outshine is the cool version of what we will play in our second grade computer classes where you're just learning how to type. You are, there are words, it's like kind of like an endless runner. You are running down just a vibrant kind of res looking pathway. There's just like shapes and lights.
01:37:33
Speaker
vibrant, it's dark, it's wild. And words are flying at you and you have to type out the words to either attack, defend, jump. There are like paragraphs you have to type out to defeat bosses. It is so way fucking cool. It is so cool. Um, and it just, it was one of the games that blew me away at PAX East and you are out of your fucking minds for not checking it out. It sounds cool. Sounds great. Played it in a, what was it? Typing of the dead or whatever it was. Yeah.
01:38:02
Speaker
But different strokes is another one I would like to toss out there. Different strokes, chill art gallery game, the way they describe it, a collaborative online painting game where players can create, edit and rate each other's art.
01:38:18
Speaker
What a lovely fucking concept that hasn't really been done. Yes, there's paint games, of course, but like I've never seen like a collaborative art gallery kind of game and it's also free. So anybody could just go in and play and mellow out and just have a great time. And the last one is Neon Knives, where tons of games have done this. Sure, it is essentially like
01:38:44
Speaker
Well, it's kind of like where's Waldo. Like you have to find, there's like a bunch of characters on screening. I have to find out who is not the MPC. The difference is it is a two player game and both players have to play on one keyboard. Oh geez. So that is the big twist there. And it makes for such a chaotic fun, like really couch co-op local multiplayer time. Those are my three wrenches. My boat would be no, but we have four nominees. So we should stick with us.
01:39:12
Speaker
Sure, my vote, because I think the I think aside from little to the left and one hand clapping, I don't really think seafood stray belong, but it's fine. I rest my case. I'm going to throw off my camera really quick because I'm so we have so we have one vote for someone who wasn't even nominated. What happened? Sorry. Sorry. I'll be back. OK.
01:39:38
Speaker
Okay. I voted for one hand clapping. I'm still a little to the left. Okay. I will also for ease. I would I'll do one hand clapping. I was going to say with this category and the nominees, I think I'm going to go one hand clapping. What did the audience vote? By the way, thank you for reminding me Kyle. Yeah. If I could find you writing as well.
01:40:04
Speaker
I'm original concept from audience 41% say a little to the left 25 stray 33 seafood. Oh, nothing for one hand clapping popularity counts. Well, I yeah, I was going to say I think a lot of people. Yeah, I didn't know the name or forgot about it because I didn't realize it was from this year when I saw the noms. I'm like, Oh yeah, Matt said little to left. Kelsey said stray. Hmm.
01:40:31
Speaker
The sleeper, the sleeper win. Oh man. The town travel household talking about strays, original content. There must be, must be great times there. Somebody's snorting tattoo ink. Yeah, that's dangerous. I didn't know where you're going with that. Um,
Surprise Hits and Unique Mechanics
01:40:54
Speaker
so where we at? What was it? Three from one hand clapping and then Harry, Matt audience little to the left, three for a little to the left.
01:41:01
Speaker
I'm cool with one hand clapping if you need me to change my vote. Sure. Original concept, one hand clapping. All right. Good job. Shout out to you guys. We'll clap with both hands for you. I just love the. Sure. Well, I mean, like, am I really going to get that angry about these nominations and like winners? Like there are much more other things I can get angry about, which I have on the show, but.
01:41:25
Speaker
Also for clarity, I was playing up a character with the whole now honorees thing. Now, but it's like, even if games don't win, we're still talking about them and people should play them. Absolutely. There's a reason why they're on these. We don't nominate bad games. We don't nominate bad games.
01:41:43
Speaker
Um, that's why cruising blasting on here. Um, that was on sale for $10 at game stop. And based on your silver place, very obviously like this is a horrible game. I didn't buy it, even though I bought too many other games after that, but we both your wallet. Um, so yeah, honorees were out shine, different strokes, endo parasitic, which we talked about a little bit earlier. Um, neon knives and that's it.
01:42:10
Speaker
Kudos. One hand clapping. Bless you, Harry. Thanks. Next up. Surprise. We got what? Surprise. Surprise. We got El Paso nightmare. Flat Kingdom. Time loader. Trombone champ. Correction. El Paso elsewhere. No. El Paso nightmare. Oh, did I have the wrong? Oh, okay.
01:42:38
Speaker
I pass out elsewhere is the full game coming out this year. I pass a nightmare was the self drop on Halloween was like, hey, you want a taste of El Paso elsewhere? Here's a little prologue where you are stuck in a hotel and there's just fucked up demons coming around and it is such a great time. Oh, OK. I didn't even realize that that took over my Halloween. I was like, yo, these kids need to go the fuck home and eat their babies. I can play this thing.
01:43:06
Speaker
It's so cool. I was the trailer on the video right now. Yeah. Are you saying nowhere or nightmare? Nightmare. I'll pass with nightmare. It's cool. It's like one of those like retro inspired first person shooters. Yeah. And once I saw it, I'm like, Oh yeah, that game.
01:43:25
Speaker
Well, I'm not going to say the audience because it's overwhelming. Anybody want to chat about anything? Harry, I know you are in the camp of two of these games. Yeah. So I'm, I'm pretty sure they're not going to win, but it's worth bringing up a flat kingdom and time loader. So time loader released on switch this year, but it came out on like PC and other areas where you're playing as a robot created by a boy who got hurt and was unable to walk for the foreseeable future.
01:43:54
Speaker
He built this machine to go back in time fix that one incident and then kind of like live his happy go lucky life. Things happen and ends up being a really fun exploration game with a surprisingly like deep and emotional story that hits you in the feels way more than you expect.
01:44:13
Speaker
And it's like a three or four hour game that you can kind of see like repercussions of your actions and then the repercussions of those actions because of those actions and kind of compounds into more dire situations. And that really was like we played it while we were on our way to Paxi. So that was like one of my memories of it.
01:44:33
Speaker
And it was just such a out of the blue. I'm like, oh we got a code. I'll play it like whatever She'll be fine, but it like hit me in such a emotional chord I was like wow like this shocked the poop out of me and I had no idea they existed. Yeah, you had no idea you had poop That's good. Yeah shocked the poop out of me And then flat Kingdom is another Radolica game. Yeah, which is it's very Obviously inspired by like Paper Mario in terms of its aesthetic and even like it's early like
01:45:01
Speaker
like the early Paper Mario games where it's like 2D left and right. And it's another three or four hour game where you explore beautiful, beautiful levels that are like, it looks like it's handcrafted like origami and like 2D paper folding in such a really beautiful way. And the gameplay is fun. And I'm just like, another banger that I had no idea existed, got a code, said, all right, we'll try it out. And then we're just playing it. And I'm like, wow, this is fantastic.
01:45:28
Speaker
Um, so it's, and we've been saying this for like a past year and a half that like for out of league of games have been getting better or they haven't, or they've just been publishing so many games that they're finally getting some good ones.
01:45:41
Speaker
Yeah, so they still have the shovelware like games that you play for 20 minutes. It's a horrible time. You're like, well, he's got platinum. But you know, you had a category very quick. What did you call him? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. So we got Fufufafa.
01:46:04
Speaker
Well, he's writing that down. I don't see how this award does not go to trombone champ. Yeah. Here's the thing. Like, listen, like I'll pass a nightmare. Flacking the time loader are great. They're not trombone champ. That game took over my Twitter feed for like, that's the thing. Like it took over. Yeah. It fucking rules. Okay. I did not. But from what I've seen, I'm voting for that damn game.
01:46:32
Speaker
I, I think the, the most surprising part about this isn't that it's a trombone like rhythm game. It's the fact that you are collecting like historical cards. It's so good. It's so fucking funny of like famous, like trombone artists do. And there's like holographic cards and here's the thing also that like nobody really talks about. Cause like the gameplay is so like funny and goofy and whatever. Like it gets dark at some point. It kind of does inscription stuff.
01:46:59
Speaker
So maybe I'll check this out because it was so cringy that like like as a guy who like used to play trombone to McLaren and all that jazz like you are I was just like rolling my eyes like what the fuck is happening with like America, right? Dude, it's so good. But I guess if you guys are really raving about actually check it out. It's fantastic.
01:47:20
Speaker
Because I was just expecting it to be the corny thing that people play for three hours and be like, OK, let's find another thing to be like, here's the hot thing for the week. Yeah, no, it's it's fantastic. It's it's genuinely fun to play. Also, like it's. It really harps on the chaoticness of the gameplay.
01:47:41
Speaker
And like you cannot be perfect. You could really go all over the map, but you'll still be fine. You'll still pass the song. There's still that guitar hero element where like you could really try to nail and get like five stars or whatever it is. But no, you're really just like being as goofy as humanly possible and collecting these holographic
01:48:03
Speaker
famous musician, composer cards, like famous trombone player cards. And yeah, if you want to go into the deep inscription stuff, you can just want to get into is the, I haven't done it yet. I really want to mod some of the stuff. Cause like hearing faint in trombone champ by Lincoln Burke is fucking fantastic. That's fair. I do want to point out that before this trailer has like one of those, uh,
01:48:27
Speaker
You know, like those green images and say the rating for a movie trailer, but they have one for this one that says the following game has been rated by the international association of trombones and baboons. And then it says great. And then when it says a really good game underneath where it gives you like the description, why it's rated that way it's rated great for trombones, baboons, rainbows, horses, hot dogs, mild satanic imagery and other things. Oh yeah. Yeah. It does description stuff.
01:48:56
Speaker
Cool. Some of the legendary cards are baboons. I would have thought that would have been a joke, not an actual warning. Nope. That's wild. Nope. Yeah, it's both. I mean, it's definitely a joke, but yeah, it's both. Yeah. Matt also said trombone champ and with 72% of the vote, the audience said trombone champ and El Paso flat and time loader split the vote three ways also with 9% each.
01:49:25
Speaker
trombone champ, the biggest surprise of the year. Congrats. You did it. Um, Kelsey's behind me because next. Oh, sorry. Hold on. We got the honorees also for a surprise. Oh no, we didn't have any honorees. Nevermind. Um,
01:49:41
Speaker
Next up, we got early access. Hence why Kelsey is looming behind me with Boba because there's a very specific reason. Exodiac, Proteus, turbo golf racing, and slime rancher too. Kelsey is going to take my seat for a second.
01:49:56
Speaker
But really quickly, I just wanna give flowers to Exodiac. Exodiac is Star Fox all over again. They really nailed, like this is the only Star Fox like that comes close to what an authentic Star Fox experience is. It is still early. There's still only half the levels, but what it does, it really nails the feel. It really nails the visual style. The music is fantastic. And kind of what we were saying with TMNT and Quorumon, it really adds
01:50:26
Speaker
It adds an extra layer of mechanics where.
01:50:31
Speaker
It really changes up the gameplay like there are hidden collectibles throughout all the stages that you could collect and those will unlock bonus stages for bonus bosses and bonus levels and like all like there's so much to do in this game like similar to how like Star Fox 64 had the branching paths and hopefully this game will do that for one point now, but it's its own take on like the branching path system with sort of secrets and bonus stages and bonus secret bosses all that kind of stuff. So that being said,
01:51:00
Speaker
My vote is for Slime Rancher 2. I will give Kelsey my seat if anybody wants to talk while we're swapping. I don't have much experience with any of the games. So is Proteus a super scary one? Proteus is like the Doom like first person. I did play Proteus. I could talk about that once Kelsey stands up. Okay.
01:51:24
Speaker
I am also team Slime Rancher, even though I did play Exodiac, I liked it and I've never played a Star Fox game. So I kind of almost want to play more Star Fox games. Hi Kelsey, welcome. Hi, what if I told you guys I had a PowerPoint presentation on why we should choose Slime Rancher 2? I would believe that because I feel like I've seen it.
01:51:45
Speaker
I would say that's a bummer because ever since Mike turned off his camera, I can't see anything that Mike is showing me. So it's just a blank screen for me. So please don't actually have a PowerPoint. Did you only have that one slide?
01:52:05
Speaker
Yeah. I've really thought you're going to be got me ladies and gentlemen and everyone. And I immediately deleted it. But that was my. It was a good bit. So Kelsey, why, why is slime rancher to your favorite of this category? Oh, cause it's perfect.
01:52:21
Speaker
Why? Done. That's all you need. It's just absolutely perfect. I mean, Slime Rancher 2 really, I don't want to say improves upon what was great in Slime Rancher, the first one, because Slime Rancher 1 was perfect. But it really, it takes what was really good and makes it even better. And I thought it was perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, just overall,
01:52:52
Speaker
seeing getting back into that world seeing the new like the updated art style of like the kind of watercolor pastels and stuff man and just the amount of joy that comes from that game
01:53:07
Speaker
How much is in this early access built? Oh my God. So much. Yeah. Like if they weren't Mike's like violently shaking his head behind me or nodding his head. Um, if they weren't adding, if they weren't adding more to it, it would be a complete game. Wow. I mean, there are so many worlds. I haven't even unlocked the map, like the map fully.
01:53:35
Speaker
As someone who has seen gameplay of the first slam rancher and my wife played some of the first slam rancher and then bounced off, is it just more of the first one? Is it just that bit bigger? Yeah, it's almost identical. It's a lot bigger. I mean, it seems like it's a lot bigger.
01:53:54
Speaker
Yeah, gameplay wise, it's almost identical. The music is like you get some of the same music, but the music in this one is really like up a notch and a lot of new slimes. Do they have different like abilities to the slimes? I've never played, so I don't know. I wouldn't say no, they're not really abilities. They're more of difficulties in
01:54:24
Speaker
Ranching them. Oh, okay Difficulties and like obviously some of them are more valuable than others and okay. Yeah so you kind of have to like use different tactics to catch them like bug snacks Exactly. Yeah, like so there's some that like explode and do damage to there's some that like
01:54:48
Speaker
Michael, what are you doing? There's some that explode do damage to you. There's some that like they only eat a certain food and that food, you can't grow that food. So you have to keep going into their biome to like that you caught them from. No, they don't. I ain't doing that right now. Sorry. But aren't there like you, I mean, you mentioned the explosion one, but aren't there ones where like you can't put them together because like they'll like fight each other or something like that. I thought there was something to that, to that extent when I watched Halle play.
01:55:15
Speaker
If you put them together and they eat each other's essentially poop, um, they combine. And then if they eat like another poop, it just all hell breaks loose. And yeah, they turn into the bad slimes, the tar. Yeah. I knew there was some aspect to like not letting them. So it's like gremlins. Yeah.
01:55:38
Speaker
Yeah. Sure. Like you don't get them wet. Okay. No, but like don't get them wet. Don't feed them after been that kind of thing. Just kidding. Yeah.
01:55:48
Speaker
Yeah, don't feed them each other's poop, yeah. That was the unwritten, crossed-off rule that no one knows. Exactly, yeah, they didn't discuss that in Gremlins. It did make the cut. Awesome. Cool. I like that Mike is not involved in this, so he's just sitting back there in the Gremlins chatter. Harry, have you played Slime Rancher? I've played about two hours of it. I enjoy it. Okay. I don't think I could speak higher than whatever Kelsey has just said. Oh, no. Sure. Yeah, no.
01:56:17
Speaker
But yeah, like I said, I'm definitely going for Slime Rancher 2, even though I did surprisingly like Ex-Zodiac's game for never playing a Star Fox game. So I thought it was cool. Yeah, I will say Ex-Zodiac, pretty game. Yeah. I didn't play it, but it looked nice.
01:56:37
Speaker
Fairness. So is there any other votes or do we want to say yay for I abstained. I didn't play enough of these titles. I didn't play enough either. I know Mike wanted to talk about Proteus, but yes, hold on. Let me grab Michael back from grab Mike. I do want to shout out this turbo golf racing.
01:56:54
Speaker
Because it looks like such a great time. I did give that a go. You did. Okay. As someone who loved Rocket League. Same. This is not Rocket League. Oh, okay. They don't move in the same way. In certain aspects, yes, but there's something about it where you're just like, my brain is so wired to one thing that I'm trying to do things and it's just not correlating.
01:57:18
Speaker
And it took like literally like a half hour to get into a game. So I was like, I'm just, I'm not doing this again. Is this turbo golf? Yeah. Okay. Um, I don't know if you mentioned, sorry, Matt voted for Proteus. I played a little bit of Proteus. The,
01:57:35
Speaker
Elevator pitch is that it's Doom and it sounds weird. It's Doom meets Mario Brothers, Mario three. I'm watching the trailer now. There's no way. So I say Mario three in the aspect of the overworld map. It's very like it's a Mario overworld map.
01:57:53
Speaker
and you go through stage by stage. So it's yeah, that's where the Mario aspects come in. But it's it's a very good do like 3D Doom like like a Doom 64 like. Sweet. Yeah. Yeah, it does it very well. I if we weren't so flooded with games, I would play more of it. It's it's really fun to play. It's there's a lot of secrets that like you would expect an old school Doom like.
01:58:18
Speaker
But yeah, for everything Kelsey said, I think Slime Rancher is it. Mainly what really won me over with Slime Rancher is just how much content is in there already like. Yeah, it's a full game without actually being a full game. Like they could have easily released this as a 1.0, it feels like. That's what I was going to ask. If they just released Slime Rancher 2 and this was the product, you've been like, yep. And what's wild to think is that because it's in early access, the expectation is that it's just going to be even more expansive.
01:58:45
Speaker
Yes, so that's what when Ami Park said was that it's going to be there's going to be more slimes and more world and there was like more something else, but more slimes and more world. More slimes, more ranges, more toons, more poop. Yeah, I was waiting for that one. Yes. Other called ports there. But they're poop. Yeah, ports. Not.
01:59:14
Speaker
Audience was 46% for Slime Rancher 2, 23% Exodiac, 30% Proteus. Nothing for Turbo Golf. That makes sense. That makes sense. I'm sorry. That game did not do it for me. Yeah, that's a bummer. Slime Rancher. Yay. Yeah, that is the winner. Slime Rancher 2, congratulations. Hell yeah. Your ports are coming in the mail. I'm so happy that I didn't have to get aggressive with you guys.
01:59:43
Speaker
I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I can't see anything. That can mean anything. I don't know. She's holding a knife to the camera. Austin putting it right at you. Yeah. You guys are so brave. You haven't even like winced or anything. It's not like the ring where she's going to go through the screen. You don't know that. You don't know that. Yo, listen, if that happens, I'm glad we got it on recording clicks.
02:00:10
Speaker
Honorees for this category, we got Lapin, Peglin, Sinabi, Gloomwood, and Dread Delusion. I will say Gloomwood is something I really wanted to get into. It's not compatible with Steam Deck yet, and I don't want to set up my PC to play this horror stealth game. Sinabi looks really cool. 2D action game. Peglin is Pegle.
02:00:34
Speaker
I really want to play that. It looks great. And Lappin, it's on Game Pass. If you want to play, it looks like a really wonderful 2D platformer with a little little bunnies. It's nice. All right, y'all, that is.
02:00:51
Speaker
The first half of our categories and the first half of our PDs 2022 little wrap up or round up really quickly for the first half. Nobody saves the world gets visual aesthetic. Tunic gets debut.
02:01:06
Speaker
Endling extinction is forever. Gets emotional impact. Gameplay goes to Coromon. Social commentary. Endling extinction is forever. Music goes to TMNT. Shredder's Revenge. Original concept goes to one hand clapping. Surprise! Trombone champ and early access slime rancher 2. Surprise! Trombones!
02:01:30
Speaker
All right, we are going to take a quick break, but after the ad break, we're going to get into some genre specific categories to close out the show. Patreon dot com slash six one indie helps keep this pigeon flying. Becoming a six one indie patron means you'll be keeping the mics hot each and every week for the six one indie cast, expanding our indie game coverage and funding massive projects such as the mini indie showcase.
02:01:56
Speaker
Not only will you be supporting a small, independently operated company, but you get some bang for your buck as well. The Coop is a monthly vlog where I'll keep you up to date with everything that's going on with 6.1 indie and answer all of your questions, all while playing a super rad game I find on itch.io. Clocked Out is our exclusive indie cast post show that tends to go a bit off the rails at times. And last but not least, Indie 100, an exclusive podcast where we are ranking the 100 greatest indie games of all time.
02:02:23
Speaker
So if you dig what we're doing, you want a little bit more content and you want to support our vision moving forward, consider becoming a patron over on patreon.com slash six one indie. Welcome back to the 2022 PDs. You may notice if you're watching the video version, different clothes and Austin looks a little bit different. Welcome to the episode, Matthew Wright. Hello. How's it going? It's going good. Happy New Year. I haven't seen you in a long time. It's been a bit. It's been a bit.
02:02:50
Speaker
It's been a bit. It's been a bit. Oh, damn. So next up, we got the second half of our categories, which are genre specific. We are kicking things off with action. The PDS for action. And I'm going to keep saying action until I scroll down to the nominees. I'm an actor.
02:03:17
Speaker
Real quick, did you see the Reinfeld trailer drop today? I don't even know what you're talking about. It's Nicholas Cage as Dracula and you sounded like Dracula. That's why I thought it's just my my cheesy voice. Category, the nominees for best action game. Neon White, Tunic, TMNT, Shredder's Revenge and Nobody Saves the World. Who would like to begin?
02:03:45
Speaker
Oh boy. If this is not just the, Hey, Kyle, pick between what is your game of the year runners, like nominees in indie games. This is a stacked category for sure. And I'm trying not to
02:04:05
Speaker
you know, let recency bias take over, but neon white is just incredible. I realized it came out earlier on switch, but I just played it now on PlayStation. My God, it's incredible. So I'm about
02:04:25
Speaker
60% of the way done with that game. I think it's fine. Okay. Really? Okay. Yeah. Like I think the, the story is totally silly. So I almost ignore it, but I, yeah, I got to the point where I do the auto scroll. Like I almost want to, but like every once in a while there's a joke that I'm like, huh. Okay. That was worth the 45 seconds. Um, but
02:04:48
Speaker
I love the the fluidity of the movement and like once you get things going, it's going. But I don't know. I feel like I've seen games like this before, or maybe I'm just like blasé about because everyone hyped it up so much because I only played it maybe three weeks ago. OK. And I'm like, I enjoy it. And it definitely is top four and definitely deserve the categories.
02:05:13
Speaker
But if you ask me to think about this game in a year, I'm going to be like, oh, yeah, neon white. I almost forgot about that. But that's just me. As somebody who played it at launch, it totally like like I thought it was going to be good. I thought it was going to be a good video game. Then I. I threw away my first card and I was like, fuck this game rules. I heard that sound like granted. This has nothing to do with the music, but like just the the fluidity and the motion of that game and
02:05:42
Speaker
nailing, uh, timing in that game is so satisfying. And then discovering the, uh, the shortcuts is really satisfying. That's my favorite part is like, you do the level and then you find out a way, or if you do well enough, you get the hint of be like, Hey, yeah, you go this way. You can shave like five seconds off your time. And
02:06:04
Speaker
That's the part that I love is going back and trying to one up everything. Um, in addition to, I don't know if you guys have like, um, been collecting the gifts as you go. I don't mock like the
02:06:19
Speaker
the persona levels. Yeah. Yeah. Relationship thing. But those bonus levels are killer. They're like challenge rooms are also like challenge rooms. And each one is each neon has a different theme. So like yellow, you don't, you can't use the cards abilities. You just got to navigate through without using. So sick. And then violets is just like super chaotic and dangerous and there's no floor. Everything's an obstacle. It's really well thought out.
02:06:49
Speaker
And not to mention, I don't know if this is really tied to the action aspect of this game, but just like seeing, like beating a level, feeling really satisfied with yourself, especially if you nail it on the first try or second try or whatever, getting that platinum seal. And then you see like Kyle Stevenson, two seconds better than me, motherfucker. All right, here we go. That's kind of like, that was like last year with like me and Matt playing disc room.
02:07:14
Speaker
disc room and then blood roots and blood roots. Yeah. It's like it has that such like such just like satisfying hook to it, especially when you do beat your friends score. And it's just just this passive multiplayer game. And granted, like I does have to do with the action of the game. Who knows? But.
02:07:30
Speaker
Well, I mean, with all the stuff we say, it all leads up to the action. Sure. Yes. Parts of it. So yeah, I think that's fair to bring other stuff because it ends up being a complete package. You're not just like I'm ignoring everything else and only talking about specific action action. Yeah.
02:07:48
Speaker
I know we talked a lot about tunics, like the manual mechanic. I do want the combat rules in that game. Like I remember when I first got my hands on it at PAX East 2018, 19, whatever.
02:08:03
Speaker
I was expecting a Zelda like I was not expecting this game to play like a bloodborne Dark Souls game, especially like that that first golem boss that you fight. I think that's the first boss in the game also. But the boss in the demo was like that golem with the three little gems on his face kind of looks like one of the Reggie's from Pokemon.
02:08:22
Speaker
Oh, my God. Right. Alternate universe. Oh, man, a guy can dream. But yeah, just like dodging, swiping, like really timing, how many strikes you could get in, like all that stuff, like the real like from soft combat system just on a smaller scale feels really damn good, especially when you do die, die, die, die over and over again. And then you finally defeat the boss, defeat an enemy, get through a room.
02:08:51
Speaker
It is that from soft satisfaction. And I do think like the combat does genuinely feel like really tight. And yeah, it's every enemy and every boss and even every boss arena feels purposeful, which is hard to do because you could just throw a shit ton of enemies at the player at once and just ruin the experience. And tunic does a very good job with enemy pacing, I'll call it.
02:09:18
Speaker
Coin that games industry got biz it's so good No, go ahead
02:09:29
Speaker
I mean like I was just gonna say like we've already spoke about like just how Incredible nobody saves the world is yeah from top to bottom. Yeah, we sort of talked about how statically pleasing yeah, but like every character has his own abilities and the fact that you can customize any Nobody in the game to do any ability that you want that you really love and then have like really cool combos so like a
02:09:59
Speaker
a dungeon might need a, you know, poison builds, but like you are love doing damage as the, uh, whatever the bodybuilder one is just like pure strength. And then just have that combo. Yeah. So like the flexibility and custom customization to actually make the game feel the way you want it to feel is incredible. Mr. Fixer, what do you think you've been quiet?
02:10:24
Speaker
I have been quite particularly because I haven't played most of these. All right. Yeah, I did play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Jake. And that game fantastic. But it's also it feels just like a beat them up. I don't think it really pushed the door or envelope too far in that respect. The music is fucking amazing in the art styles. Fantastic.
02:10:49
Speaker
but I agree with everything everyone's saying. I just didn't have anything to add to it because I personally haven't played most of them. I will say though, for Neon White, even though I haven't played it yet, did any of you play a Quake III Arena back in the day? Oh, yeah.
02:11:05
Speaker
Yeah, I did that now. The first time I saw Neon White, I was like, oh, this is like a challenge for Quake 3 Arena. It very much feels like Quake or Unreal Tournament or something like that, the way the motion and mobility works. It's really cool. Except it's like going from point A to point B, as opposed to being in an Arena.
02:11:26
Speaker
Um, we song TMS these praises, uh, before the ad breaks, AKA the other day. Um, but to Matt's point, like as fantastic as that game is, it is just, it's been, it's a beat them up. I still stand by that. Like it's the best beat them up ever made, but it is just a beat them up. It's some of the most co-op fun I've had in a very long time. Yeah. Which might be useful in a few rounds. Yeah. Um,
02:11:56
Speaker
To toss the audience in there, 38% said tunic, 30% said TMNT, 23% neon white, 7%, nobody saves the world. So audience says tunic. And then we got Austin, he put in his little responses earlier. Austin also said TMNT.
02:12:18
Speaker
Anybody want to lock in a boat? I'm tunic. You're tunic. Okay. Harry's tunic. Harry's tunic, everybody. Harry's tunic. I'm going to lock in neon white. Okay. I too am saying neon white. I too am saying neon white. How dare you? Which I get. And, obviously, as a reminder, all these games are wonderful. Absolutely. Right, of course.
02:12:42
Speaker
Hint hence these awards don't matter and the point is so we could talk about a bunch of games What is what is that like? Game show slash not game show where whose line is it anywhere? Yeah, where the points don't matter whose PD isn't anyway That's a good one. Yeah action neon white let's
02:13:08
Speaker
give a little respect to the honorees for best actor or our favorite action, whatever we're calling it. I let's hyper demon and for an axe moon scars never awake and hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi is really cool. I don't know if anybody's played high and for an axe is also really cool for an axe also very good, which I feel like a little snub, but it's okay. It's fine. A little bit.
02:13:34
Speaker
Blame everyone else stuff. Next up, we got RPG, and I'm so happy one of these games made it on this list. It's a swollen cross dark legacy of the devil bowler final frame. This is the sleeper, the last year of NASA Gaia and Coromon. Can you tell us anything about bowling cross? OK, yeah, that's what I say.
02:14:00
Speaker
going to say I'll start there. I know it's not going to win. That's my pick. I know it's not going to win. It's fine. Bowling cross dark legacy of the devil bowler final frame is a GBA inspired, or I guess game boy color inspired RPG. It's a bowling RPG. Think of golf story, except bowling.
02:14:19
Speaker
So split it up in two parts. There's one section that it's kind of like a Mario three overworld map. You are going from point to point. And some parts are like, you could go to a shop to upgrade or get new pieces for your bowling ball. Like you could
02:14:35
Speaker
upgrade the core of the ball, you can upgrade the material and that like affects the combat, which we'll talk about in a second. There's a few like narrative things, like a really fun back and forth between some of the Knights and some of the enemies and some NPCs in the area. I should mention also like this is a game similar to Pokemon, how like Pokemon games, like the world of Pokemon, like
02:14:54
Speaker
The only thing people give a fuck about is Pokemon. Like there's no like real economy or society. It's just all about Pokemon. Bowling Cross is that for bowling on another day. Sure. Bowling Cross is like bowling is the only thing that fucking matters in this world. And like there's this corrupt. It's it's like a kid in the bowling academy got kicked out of the bowling academy and just turned evil and he just like took over like as like a bowling dictator. So you are going to like defeat him or whatever.
02:15:24
Speaker
So the second half of it is the combat and it is a straight lane. Your character is on the bottom and the top half or like the top third is a couple of little obstacles and some enemies going around and you have to just bowl and like hit the enemies and hit the bosses and try to like do trick shots to get around different obstacles and barriers to like really nail an enemy.
02:15:49
Speaker
the way the mechanic works is, uh, or the bowling mechanic works is on the bottom. You have like a typical like, um, meter that like goes up and down to determine how fast you're going to ball. Yeah. Power meter. And like you hold a, and then just goes up and down, up and down until you let it go. Um, and then you have,
02:16:07
Speaker
left straight and up. So like on, sorry, the power, it's not really a powder power meter. The meter determines spin. So like, if you let go too much on the, if you let go on the left, it'll spin left. If you let go in the center, it'll go center, let go on the right. It'll spin, right. And you can move your character left and right. So you could like have your character all the way on the left and have it spin, right. So like you're going, it's going straight for a bit, but then you bank at the last second to get around like a rock or something to hit an enemy.
02:16:37
Speaker
The only way you take damage is, well, some of the bosses shoot at you and whatnot, but the only way you really take damage is if you miss the ball coming back. So you have to like kind of catch the ball once you, once you get back, which is not realistic for Boeing. Don't do that. This game is just such a blast. It's such like a wildness like similar, how we were talking about grapple dog, how it's such an authentic GBA game. This feels like I'm playing.
02:17:03
Speaker
in a weird way. This feels like I'm playing the dodge ball game for game boy color again. And it was just, it really nails that G the game boy feel. I'm probably thinking of game boy events, Matt. I know you're giving me a lot, but it really feels if it really nails that retro handheld aesthetic in terms of its presentation and its actual gameplay.
02:17:24
Speaker
Um, and it's a solo developer. This is an HIO release from over the summer. I think he's been updating it forever, but it finally hit like 1.0 over the summer or maybe a little earlier. Um, and it's just, it's a blast. Everybody should play this and it's free, which is also fucking wild. Like this should be at least a $10 game at the bare minimum. Um, but yeah, it's not going to win and that's okay. It got the nomination, which I'm stoked about. I don't know who the hell else voted voted for it. So it's great.
02:17:55
Speaker
It reminds me a lot of tributes first game. It might be the first game wizard. There was a it was an RPG game, but based around breakout. Yeah, similar. Yeah, that's bowling cross. Who wants to go next? Who wants to shout out another one?
02:18:17
Speaker
Kormont! I was waiting for you. Yeah. Well, first off, let me just say Heroes of Nastagalia also very good. I have not rolled credits on it yet, but that is a game that we saw at PAX East. And it's very souls like in that you are kind of like meticulously carefully growing through a 3D space as a pretty much stick figure with a sword and a shield. And you eventually start to uncover a mysterious thing that's happening.
02:18:46
Speaker
with like also a narrator describing what you're doing, which I thought was a really cool touch. You to interrupt really quick, you say it's like a soul's like it's straight up a soul's ripoff. Like it's it's very tongue in cheek in that it is a Dark Souls game. It's like with everything like the UI reference like the.
02:19:05
Speaker
regions pop on the map or pop up on the screen like it is Souls. And I played that before I played Elden Ring because I've never played Souls before. Yeah. And I was like, I really like this game. And I don't have that revelation so much. You might be like really good at Souls games. I'm like, I think maybe. And I'm like 100 hours into Elden Ring. I'm still not even close. I'm just like, this is so cool. But yeah, anyway, here's a guy like there's a lot of meat on it with the mystery aspect and like
02:19:35
Speaker
the self-awareness of it in not only the souls thing that Mike was saying, but also like as games in general. So I'm really curious how that kind of shapes up. Like I was walking around with Master Chief's armor. Yeah. Like you see green Hill zone in the background once you get out of the area. Yeah.
02:19:58
Speaker
was that Easter eggs. Yeah, it's really cool. But I have to get back to it. I saw something else came out and then like I kind of dropped off of it. I'm enjoying it so far, but like it's not. It didn't hook me the way I thought it would, but it's still I still stand by. It's the best feeling non from soft like Souls game. Like I think it's it's nailing that. Yeah, it got stuck in the early October. Exactly. So then everything happens and you're like, OK, it's January 3rd or something. I don't know. January 9th.
02:20:28
Speaker
But yeah, Coromon. Oh, so Coromon, like I mentioned before, is pretty much a monster catching game inspired by the old school Game Boy, Game Boy Advance Pokemon games. They created their entirely new universe where there's over 110 Coromon or like monsters that you collect trade. There's but.
02:20:53
Speaker
The game does such a good job of elevating the things that Pokemon fans have wanted for years where there's customization with how you want to play. There's level of difficulties. There's almost like checkpoints or like in-game rewards for doing stuff like battle a Pokemon 12 times, catch three different versions of this Pokemon.
02:21:15
Speaker
The attention to detail is insane. The game play is really fun. The game, I thought, was going to be like 10 or 15 hours into being like 25 hours. So there's definitely a lot of meat to it. The story is super engaging. It's not just, I want to be a Pokemon master or a Coromon master. There's actually like stakes to it. There's people who do bad things and actually do bad things, not just like, I'm going to yell at you. So that gets kind of wild.
02:21:42
Speaker
Um, and it's just a really fun game. The puzzles are mostly very good. Um, the, the progression is really good. And like I said, depending on how you want to customize it can make it into a brutal game with like plenty of options, or it could be a walk in the park and just having your time being a Coromon master. So good.
02:22:03
Speaker
Matt, did you play? I played a little bit. I liked what I played, though. It's real good. Yeah, I haven't. Sorry. It definitely harken back to like Harry was saying, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Pokemon games, which are my favorite.
02:22:16
Speaker
Kyle, you, Kyle, you'll call him my master. No, haven't touched it. But I love just how enthusiastic Harry is about it. And like watching the trailer and showing people gameplay while we're talking on the video version, I can see why Harry loves it. And, and everyone digs what they play. It looks like a really good Pokemon game that we used to play growing up. And it just looks like a good time.
02:22:42
Speaker
And I'm really happy with so much of it was build up with the demo, the pre-release, the betas, all that stuff. So they got most of the kinks out so that when you played it,
02:22:57
Speaker
day of date release, like 1.0 on PC. I had no issues. It was a smooth experience. The music was banging. The mechanics were banging. I was just like, this is insanely good. I want to praise it to everyone and be like, you need to at least check this out. If it's not your jam, that's fine, but give it a little bit. If you like it, keep going. Then once they got the version on Switch, which was supposed to be the same day as PC, but they had their issue, so it took a couple
02:23:27
Speaker
time after that. But once that happened, you're able to port your game. Yeah, I don't remember. I remember it was weeks or months, but just just a couple of times. Yeah. Did I say weird? Just a couple of time. Just sounds funny. Oh, yeah. OK.
02:23:41
Speaker
But yeah, the transition to moving your file was pretty easy. Like it was. Oh, that's good. I never asked you about that. I at first something wasn't working, but I think I was doing something wrong. Sure. So it wasn't super clear. But once you figured it out, you're like, oh, OK. Like, I think they tried going the minimalist route and it was so minimalist that you were like, I don't know what's happening. So that was nice. So then I just played it like a Pokemon game, just laying on the couch being like, oh, switch. Yeah. So that was really great.
02:24:12
Speaker
And it's satisfying. It's not like you're grinding for days. Because like I said, you can customize it at will. Right. 95% of the mechanics you can tweak at will so that you can kind of have the experience you want. So if you don't want to grind for 12 hours, you just be like, everyone gets experience. Everyone gets triple experience. Everyone gets movements much faster. You could just damage and not have abilities or whatever, whatever. And it gets, it streamlines it however you want, which is fantastic.
02:24:42
Speaker
I'll bring up the one we haven't talked about is anyone played citizen sleeper? No. That's another one where later on we'll come up with this discussion again. That's one where we're like, Oh, that's got a lot of praise. That's something we'll definitely play on break. And I did not play on a break. Yeah. I've heard a lot of people love it. It's one of the best reviewed games of the year. I think it's sitting in like the mid to high eighties. Yeah. So it's obviously a very well-made RPG game, but
02:25:10
Speaker
Yeah, I want to play it. It just, you know, yeah, we don't goof there. Tossing in the audience over here, we got 50% with Citizen Sleeper and then 16% split three ways between Coromon, Bowling Cross and last year of Nassau Gaia. Shout out to the 16% that voted for Bowling Cross. I love you guys. Yeah, guys.
02:25:34
Speaker
because of how passionate Harry is and because of how like being a part of that E3 presentation back in in the summer. I'm cool. Walking in Coram on here. Same. I am too. Same, but I do want to say I hate that there's only one glove. Like aesthetically. Oh, you mean like a power glove? Yeah. Yeah. He always has like one glove and I'm like, who's walking around with only one glove except for Hellboy? Like, what is this? So it's people in the world of karma.
02:26:04
Speaker
I forgot to say, uh, Kelsey voted for Nastal Gaia. Kelsey also voted for Neon White earlier. I forgot to mention it. Okay. Nice. RPG goes to Coromon. Your little monster is in the mail. They're so good. And there's also shout out to the amazing amount of customization you could do with your character. So it's not like you're either a boy or a girl. You could be whatever fluidity you want. Same thing with like any, like there's so much customization with this game. It's just really impressive. Go check it out. One Gloof.
02:26:33
Speaker
But you can also customize the color of the glove. You can customize the color, but not...
02:26:41
Speaker
Um, I'm really something I'm really excited about for this year. When we kind of have a similar conversation is with cassette piece. Um, the character customization and cassette piece is wild. Now I'm very curious. Harry, I think we have to put on the books. Whenever cassette piece comes out, we have to have like a core mom versus cassette piece discussion.
02:27:06
Speaker
I mean, honestly, we could just have a pocket monster off because there's also I forgot the name of the game. So I'm super sorry. But there was a game on sale that looked like an old like old school, old school, like Gen 1 Pokemon game in the Game Boy Color thing. So I bought it because I don't have impulse control anymore, but I have an opening. So it's like, all right.
02:27:28
Speaker
I got to play this eventually because it looks so cool. Like the art style on the cover is the traditional drawings that they have where it's like, oh, cool. Like almost like it's paint that water painting kind of art style. But then the game is just like the Game Boy game for Pokemon Red, Blue, Yellow, Green. So that's cool. Oh, too many, too many good ripoffs.
02:27:51
Speaker
The honorees for RPG go to Dread Delusion and Farewell Send. Dread Delusion, I have a feeling we're going to talk about again for 2023 because it's in early access currently. And Farewell Send, everybody should go play Farewell Send. It's free to play. It's on Steam. I mean, speaking of like old school Pokemon, it looks like old school Pokemon. It's not a monster catching game, but it has that perspective. Yeah. Really cool. Love it.
02:28:17
Speaker
Love it. Next up, we got multiplayer Kung Fu kickball, spider hack, squish, TMNT shredders, revenge. Now, I think we all know what's going to win again, due to Harry's passion. It's okay. Well, before, before we even talk about that game, we'll, we'll save that one for last.
02:28:45
Speaker
Um, I would like to give, I would like to talk about Kung Fu kick ball a little bit. Um, not, not too much. Cause I don't think, has anybody else played Kung Fu kick ball? No box. Thank you. Yeah. That's very helpful. Um, I don't think it's on game paths anymore. Is it? Oh, I don't think so. Or maybe I think a Kung Fu Academy.
02:29:06
Speaker
You think about as well. I got to be apologies apologies apologies. Kung Fu kickball is a multiplayer game where you are. I believe it's 1v1 or can be 2v2 where it is a 2D just you're just staring at a game 2D or staring at a plane 2D.
02:29:25
Speaker
2D 2D 2D plane plane on the left is a goal on the right is a goal and you are literally just trying to get kick balls to the other person's goal. And it's really chaotic. It's really fun. It makes for a it's a good like extra life game. And I think like we know what that means. If anybody doesn't know what I'm talking about, it's just a really good chaotic time where you will end up screaming at each other. Funny enough, this was one of the first games I
02:29:53
Speaker
covered as media. Cause, uh, me and Kelsey played this back at play on YC 2018, 2019, whatever year that was. Um, and it was, it's just so cool to see it finally out in the wild and people are playing it. And it seems like people really dig it. I'm glad it's getting received really well.
02:30:10
Speaker
It's something that I want to put in our our kind of stream slash actual life rotation going forward because it is a really fun like chaotic time that we will be screaming at each other because of like near misses and close calls. It's very it's like Nidhogg meets kickball.
02:30:27
Speaker
That's a, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. So I don't think, I think I'm the only backer behind it. So like it's, it's okay. It's not going to win, but kung fu kick ball. It's a nice shout out. And another nominee that is similar to a game that I love playing an extra life or just with friends in general is star wall.
02:30:48
Speaker
And I feel, I feel like spider spider heck gives off star wall vibes for sure. Really good. And one of my favorite things of Paxis last year was playing this on the big screen in front of everybody. It was a fun time. It just spiders with guns and lightsabers and just how chaotic and fun it is. And it's like the best vibes of star wall tower fall quick matches in and out. And it just,
02:31:16
Speaker
It's like that feeling where your voice goes up. Cause you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Cause you're so worried about rotating the wrong way and getting got, but it's such a good, good time.
02:31:28
Speaker
the aesthetic's super cool too. I like the art style, the fluidity, again, with the spider with all the webs and everything. Especially when you get into the rhythm, it's really fun to like zip-zap around, but then your arrogance bites you in the butt when you're like, well, and I just flew into some lava. So it's all about the balance with that. Yeah, it's really good. Real quick, TMNT, we talked about at length already. It's great.
02:31:54
Speaker
You know, most super cool, super fluid fun. So other than Matt, did you guys play team and team as multiplayer or did you do it mostly single? I when I reviewed it solo. OK, I I beat it solo. I've played it other times online with friends. OK, yeah, I was just curious because like I also played it solo because I'm like it's a two hour game. I'll just play it, have a good time and then kind of move on. I will say it is fun doing like the shell bashes with the with a friend and
02:32:22
Speaker
and, and using different abilities and whatnot. And it brings back that old arcade mentality of like, all right, you grabbed the pizza cause you need the health. Oh no, I accidentally grabbed it and then yell at each other kind of thing. It's just, it's a fun time. Me and Kyle played it multiplayer at packs. Yeah. Yeah. It was a blast multiplayer and it's really fun trying to, um,
02:32:43
Speaker
caught up with strategic combinations between each of the characters and how they interact with each other and what you could do to beat some bosses and whatnot. It's really cool. I love stacking abilities.
02:32:54
Speaker
But before Harry goes off, I'm actually with Harry on this one. I can't, I can't stop thinking about squish. I played in one set packs and that's it. And the only bummer, unless I'm wrong, it's still not online multiplayer. I don't believe so. It's only locally, which is a bummer, but it's just an unforced error for a PC game that like it would start as a PC game.
02:33:18
Speaker
Okay guys, let's all come to my bedroom and play it on my screen. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's a, an off thing, but it is multiplayer on switch and that's a great like local co-op kind of. Yeah. And it's a, it's a great time. So Harry, I'll let you describe it. Squish is so good. So you pretty much play as a ghost. Um, that is trap your grave.
02:33:38
Speaker
Yeah, you're a grave raver who's just rocking out with like a DJ and there are blocks that are slowly falling down. So it's kind of like you don't want to get hit by those blocks, but you can push the blocks, jump and push around to kind of either squish your enemies or survive long enough so you're the last person standing.
02:33:57
Speaker
however if you do get squished you become like a little like a flying skull head and you want to you could fall in and hit the people who are out there so it's kind of like a last chance so if you knock them out you're back in the game you replay it just like spider heck there are rounds so it kind of goes pretty quickly
02:34:16
Speaker
And it's so frickin' fun. It's very addicting, because it takes 15 seconds to learn, which is, I think, a little bit better than Spider-Head, because Spider-Head, you really need to get good with the swinging and the abilities that are constantly in your face. So that's kind of why I think it's definitely better.
02:34:35
Speaker
Um, and the, the quickness with the levels and the simplicity of the obstacles and like how you want to strategize over and over again can be really beneficial. And the, the final shot I think is a really nice hook that I wish more multiplayer games would do just to be like, Oh, here's the monkey rents. Like you thought I was done, but now I'm going to win. Uh, and that really was fun.
02:34:58
Speaker
And we saw this in, I think it was 2020, 2021 at play NYC. And then once I played it, I, every person I saw, I'm like, Oh, Hey, Mike, Hey, Jack, we gotta play this game. And I'm not at all jealous. You have that really cool steel book either that you won from beating everyone at tax at this game. Yes. That was so good.
02:35:22
Speaker
It's all the chaos of tower fall without the shooting and it makes it super accessible. Yeah. The, the one drawback I would say other than no online multiplayer is the left, the, the, the variety of the game.
02:35:39
Speaker
modes modes, thank you, are not super different. It's like time trial or survive as long as you can. Or here's four different versions. Try to go super fast. Like that was a little disappointing. And I haven't heard any like upgrades to that. But for a pure multiplayer, let's all hang out for an hour or whatever and play this.
02:36:02
Speaker
It is tops here. Yeah. And it's cheap. I think it was $10 digitally. So there's really no reason why you shouldn't try it. We got to hit them up and be like, Hey, whatever you have to do, get this on mine. I will give you $8, please. I will put 20 minutes worth of work. Can you make a new game? And obviously I know game design is super hard and you're all amazing and I appreciate all your work and effort.
02:36:28
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, this is Harry. I, I, a little bit of like behind the scenes stuff. Like I totally understand like the hesitation and the resistance to not do online, especially for a small team. Like, yeah, I'd rather not have their systems melt. Like most of them are online. Um, but yeah, and you can customize your ghost. So there's a lot of skins that you can be. Um, and there's some like inside jokes and then multicolor stuff. And it's really nice.
02:36:55
Speaker
And it ends up being like a cool thing, especially when we played it at PAX, like we were playing with mostly strangers and they're like, who's the rainbow guy? Who's the ghost guy? And I'm just sitting there quietly being like, I am, but don't attack me because I want to win. So it ends up being a really fun time.
02:37:10
Speaker
And it never got boring. It never got like annoying. It's all like, unforced errors on your parts. You're like, ah, this is on me. Not a glitch in the system. And it was like, after I played, I still stuck around there. Watch people play because it's fun to watch game. It's a really, it's like,
02:37:26
Speaker
people. This would take over Twitch, honestly. Like, yeah, it'd be, it'd be a huge hit. I was shocked that it didn't like blow up, but there's, there's always time. So yeah, absolutely. In the future, maybe if it goes on P PlayStation plus or Xbox game pass, like then that'll be the time where it like blows up and everyone's like, honestly, obviously it's not the same style of game. And like you said, the modes are limited, but like among us was out for a little bit before it caught fire. So like,
02:37:53
Speaker
So Squish hopefully gets that kind of rub at some point. It only takes the right person to stream it once and then it blows the fuck up. I'll start streaming it. There you go. My one fan, which is being a different account. It's Justin. Yes, Justin, my BFF.
02:38:13
Speaker
Matt, you got anything to add for multiplayer? I do not. I will say maybe squish is a similar story to the samurai gun. If any of you have played. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The first one was not online, but second one was. So maybe maybe that maybe squished to squish here or squishy squished squished squished squish squish here. And then the third one be squishes to wait out. We'll workshop that squishes squish. You did.
02:38:42
Speaker
Uh, for multiplayer, Kelsey said Kung Fu kickball and Austin said TMNT the audience 72% TMNT 18% squish, 9% spider hack. I am shocked that, uh, squish over spider hack for, for audience. So they know what's up. They do know what's up. Just a more popular game. I mean, it just might be one vote. So like,
02:39:08
Speaker
Like in the second extra life thing that I did, I brought spider heck and I downloaded it. I was like, all right guys, let's play for a little bit. And nobody wanted to. And I don't know why maybe it's fine. Maybe that's a spider heck problem. I don't know.
02:39:23
Speaker
Spiders I mean, honestly, yeah, there's no arachnid like customization with that to be like I want to make it less spidery and more squishy as a man with eight arms Underground is that name the Xbox game? That has like arachnophobia mode. Yeah, you can kind of customize it up the wazoo real quick are fine for you real quick antidote
02:39:50
Speaker
anecdote anecdote. Thank you. I know that's why that's why I paused because I knew I said that wrong. I played Evil West over the break, which is the best Xbox 360 game of the year. But there is there's an arachnophobia mode because there are there are moments where there are just spiders just roaming around.
02:40:11
Speaker
I just figured I'd try it just for the hell of it just to see like the difference. Like, I mean, obviously like the difference is spiders versus no spider. So like, let's say there was 10 spiders in the area, turn it off. Spiders are gone. Cool. But spider webs are there. This is why I did it. Cause there's a boss or like a mini boss that is like spider themed and there was like a spider on his back. And I was curious if like they would get rid of the spider on his back, but they don't. So I, it's weird. Um, but when I turn it back on, just like,
02:40:38
Speaker
300 spiders, spiders galore. It is fucking terrifying. So, yeah, if you turn off and turn it back on, it punishes you. That's crazy. Oh, man. Decent game that Evil West. Go to your board. I mean, it squish, right? Yeah. All right. Squish.
02:41:04
Speaker
Your grave raver is in the mail. Yeah. No, we said we said glow sticks. Glow stick is in the mail. Yeah. Where is it honorees for multiplayer go to the past within, which has anybody played past within yet?
02:41:22
Speaker
It's really cool. It's just super quick. It's a kind of like an escape room sort of situation. It's a venture game. It's a point and click adventure where it's co-op. One person plays on one platform. The other person plays on another. I mean, it could be like PC, PC, but like
02:41:38
Speaker
You can do like me playing on a PC and Kyle playing on an iPad and it's all about communication. So you have to like Kyle has to tell me what's going on his screen for me to figure out a puzzle and vice versa. I like that. Oh, yes. I definitely know exactly what game we're talking about. Really cool. Yeah. Golf gang. Ponder panic. Neon knives and bammering. Bammering also fucking awesome. Yeah. It's a.
02:42:04
Speaker
It's just one be one boomerangs. It's fun. It's fun. It rules and plunder panic is basically killer queen time. Very good. Next up, Matthew Wright. Oh boy.
Horror Gaming Category
02:42:19
Speaker
Horror. Yeah. We got Mothman 1966. It's Nala's the mortuary assistant and faith. The unholy Trinity.
02:42:32
Speaker
Matt, you haven't been talking a lot. I want you to start with the signal is signal is is a game I've I've been following back when I was on Twitter for years and finally came out this year. It is a retro inspired horror game sci-fi horror crispy crunchy looking polygons on not static, but
02:42:57
Speaker
They look similar to like pre-rendered screens back from like Resident Evil, but not to that detail, because it is dark. I haven't played through the whole game, so I haven't gone to the other areas. So you're going around trying to figure out what's going on, but there are creatures around. You got to shoot them, you got to live. I've been waiting for this game forever, and it's absolutely fantastic.
02:43:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's very much a OG Resident Evil-like, kind of that term we've been throwing around this past year, that grunge horror aesthetic that's very inspired by PlayStation 1 polygons. Top down. Top down, very slow, very methodical. It nails the vibe. Nails the vibe. Yeah, because there are rooms, too, where you enter and then it's first person. And you're looking around, trying to find clues about what's going on.
02:43:52
Speaker
Um, I started it around Thanksgiving. It didn't click for me right away. So I put it to the side. I need to return to it once I'm like in the mood for something like that. I say that now I have a feeling I'm never going to play it, but, um, just like right away, it wasn't working for me, but I can't deny just the vibe and the aesthetic and how it looks and its tone. Um, even some of the writing already is really, really just
02:44:19
Speaker
dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty dirty
02:44:37
Speaker
Um, real quick with mortuary assistant, cause I haven't, I don't think anybody's played it personally, but I've seen people, right? It might as well have played it. I mean, mortuary assistant took over like tick tock and Twitch this year mortuary assistant is creepy as all fuck. And it's really fun to watch. Um, I do want to play at one of these days right now. It's not compatible steam deck. So I will not play it yet. Uh, I refuse to sit here on mouse and keyboard like a schmuck. You fucking see gamers.
02:45:05
Speaker
I can only imagine playing this game and just that feeling of like something's right behind you. Oh yeah. I can't. I don't think I can do that. That main like character design, the, the culture. Oh my God. One of the most horrifying fucking things of the year for sure. So that dude is barely in that game too. Yeah. Which is great. Like don't overuse it.
02:45:31
Speaker
I love that a lot of good scares in that game. You guys have fun with these games, but I will say I think Stignalis looks cool like a like an ominous horror game, kind of like The Last of Us and part two, where it's like unease. Like those games, I don't mind, but like the moment there's a jump scare, I'm out because I don't want to deal with that. So like think like dead space, just remove the action. OK.
02:45:59
Speaker
I never looked at what Dead Space looks like. So I think it's the most everyone like that space alien. OK, I dig alien. It's very alien. Yeah, it's masterpiece level movies that that I can get around because I like the sci-fi elements too. I'm like, all right, this is enough for me not to like run to high heaven and be like, oh, no. Mothman 1966.
02:46:24
Speaker
Matt, did you play it? I haven't played it yet, but it's on my list. So yeah, Mothman 1966, a wonderful visual novel by LCB Studios. I think that's the apologies, guys.
02:46:42
Speaker
It's the first of their three pixel pulp series. So like short form pulpy horror narrative. So this one obviously based around Mothman, the next one, Barney Lake, Barney, I think, Barney Lake. It's like a romance about vampires, which sounds really cool. And I forgot what the third one is called and what it's about. But yeah, it's a trilogy of these short form horror stories. Mothman takes place.
02:47:11
Speaker
in, obviously in the sixties, um, and centered around, uh, an actual like meteor shower that happens back in 66 or it happens every however many years. I forgot the history of it. And this phenomenon in this narrative, uh, slight spoilers, uh, brings about all these cryptids into the real world. And there's like a secret society or whatever that like protects earth from Mothman and like these like
02:47:40
Speaker
rabid creatures and shit. Game is really cool. The game just oozes style. It like I think the color palette palette is literally red, black, green, and it just like leans into that so hard. The writing is really cool, really authentic.
02:47:56
Speaker
The use of audio is really interesting. There's not, there's not necessarily a score attached to the game, which is really interesting. There's ambient sounds on and off during, from scene to scene. And then once in a while, when there's like a dramatic thing, it just does this really low fi like, and it's just so stark and sharp sounding that it tenses you up.
02:48:18
Speaker
that really, uh, there's that and, uh, a mechanical thing, which I'll talk about in a second that really makes this kind of like a new approach as to what horror can be moving forward in video games. And like, it doesn't have to be all jump scares and whatnot. It could be something that really integrates the horror within the gameplay. And, and I know this game's plenty of games that do that. Like for example, dead space or resident evil that like takes ammo away or like there's limited ammo to like make the situation more tense, but.
02:48:48
Speaker
With Mothman being a visual novel, one of the sections in the beginning has the two of the protagonists face a pack of wolves, and it's a little puzzle of how you have to kind of just shoot the wolves away without getting killed, and you have to make it back to the car. And just being in that situation, just trying to figure out, okay, you
02:49:11
Speaker
through a rock at the wolf on the left. So he's away. But the wolf on the right just approached further. And the wolf in the center is like just staring you down while the wolf on the right is moving towards the right, moving towards you. Trying to figure out that situation from moment to moment is so tense and like it makes your palms sweat. It's so I never thought of visual novel could scare me like that. And it's purely for gameplay reasons.
02:49:39
Speaker
And even when you do die eventually and that bling sound pops up, it's like a little bit of a jump scare, but it's a very earned jump scare. I hate cheap jump scares. That's one of my least favorite tropes, even in horror films. But it just does it so well. Everything feels so earned in this. And even when this eventually does go slightly like Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 6, in the best way possible,
02:50:04
Speaker
It's still like it still feels earned. It still feels authentic. It came with purpose. It wasn't like it doesn't ratchet up the action just to make it more exciting. Like it feels like a thoughtful or a thought out experience from start to finish. And LCB should be super proud of what they achieved with Mothman. And I'm so excited for the next two and more people need to play this game. This could be a Harry game could be a Harry horror game.
02:50:34
Speaker
I like the I like the Muff the cryptid angle. Yeah, it's super cool. So I don't have cryptids in games now. Well, I mean, MetaZoo, that whole card game is all about sure. OK, don't forget about the Jersey Devil bear, which is we have a copy of the Jersey Devil.
02:50:51
Speaker
I used to back in the day. Yeah, it's one of Kelsey's favorite games. Yeah, I feel like for me, I have no stake in this. So sure. Nothing, but I feel like I'm getting better with horror games, but I do not like jump scares like for like, like you said, cruddy jump scares just for the sake of being like, like, like that, that isn't fun and it's super annoying. But the unease and the.
02:51:16
Speaker
The test and dread. Yeah, like that. I don't mind because I feel like I do that with like half the games I play now and in life. So we'll do like I'm a big like horror is my favorite genre across all media, like books, comics, games, film, anything. Horror doesn't have to be scary. I know that sounds silly, but like horror is one of the most like
02:51:38
Speaker
It's it's the one genre that like really doesn't really have rules and it could really play around with the medium like I don't think it's Shaun the Dead. Shaun the Dead is not necessarily scary. Anna in the apocalypse, not scary. Even things like a horror movie. I will figure it's comedy now. It's a horror comedy. It's a horror comedy. OK. All right. That's fair. So maybe I do like horror. Yeah. Like there's obviously there's things like I don't think of last year like there's things like smile or
02:52:07
Speaker
the Cronenberg movie coming out in, I think, this month. There's things like that, but then, yeah, there's things like Black Friday with Bruce Campbell that came out a couple months ago or maybe two years ago at this point. Or even Better Watch Out, which is Home Alone.
02:52:24
Speaker
more murderous, which is basically accurate to all the shenanigans that happen to him. Sorry, I got off track a little bit. My pick though, and I briefly talked about it before the break because it is one of my favorite games of the year. Faith, the unholy children, Trinity is fucking phenomenal. Matt, have you played this? I've been watching this game for a while too. Haven't played it yet.
02:52:51
Speaker
I'm going to take a sip really quick before I go on. Why do that? The aesthetic for Mothman reminds me a hell of a lot for for reminds me of Apple II. So like Oregon Trail on the Apple II, like the green, the stark lines. Yeah, even all of them are going to look like that. These pixel pulp. It's really great. It's a cool style to lean into. So Faith, the unholy trinity.
02:53:20
Speaker
Faith is a trilogy of micro games that have been in development for the past, however many years, maybe a few years. They've been releasing one by one, chapter by chapter on itch.io. New blood published the whole trilogy together once chapter three was done. I think it came out in October.
02:53:43
Speaker
Man, there's so much to say about this game. First off, visually, this game has such a wild fucking aesthetic. Yeah. Video viewers are watching here right now. So it's wild. It's this very, Matt, how would you call it? Like MS-DOS sort of.
02:54:00
Speaker
It's yeah, Apple is drawing a line between Apple two and MS-DOS. Yeah. So like if you ever played Harry's House of Horrors in the story, very floppy disk game. Yeah. Figured me out. He's about to pull it out right now, but I might. Yeah, it's a very minimalistic like what like literally just there. Oh my God. Look at this motherfucker.
02:54:25
Speaker
That's hilarious. Of course, Matt would have a floppy disk at the ready, like like a very specific floppy disk. Anyways. Yeah, visually, it's very much akin to like that era where it's literally just like lines, lines and colors. It's the Atari vibes a little bit. Yeah, like the Atari vibes. It's like, yeah, it's before we get into any like eight bit, 16 bit, like it's very, very basic and minimalistic.
02:54:57
Speaker
And man, does it do it to a perfection? This game is beautiful. Like I like I know it's such a weird thing, but like I think this game is fucking gorgeous in its simplicity and the way it utilizes the retro technology to really execute the vision to.
02:55:14
Speaker
It's its fullest potential. The coolest fucking thing is that, oh, my God, I'm blanking on the fucking technique to do this. Describe it on Google.
02:55:32
Speaker
It's a technique where you trace somebody frame by frame and then rotoscoping. Thank you. Rotoscoping. So rotoscoping is a technique where you film something. Obviously like in the film world, you film something and then you trace frame by frame to create like a very realistic sort of animation. Faith does this for the cut scenes and it is in the MS-DOS like Apple 2 format where like
02:56:01
Speaker
It is like hyper realistic, quote unquote animations, because it is films of like these just demonic figures, like blood dripping face ripping, just crawling demons. Oh my God. It's like the some of the most horrifying imagery I've ever seen in my life. And that's something wild to say with a game that looks like this was such a limited palette, like
02:56:23
Speaker
I grew up watching horror and like I've seen some fucked up shit at starting at a way too young of an age, but like I could confidently say 30 years later that like the imagery and faith has haunted my dreams for months now. Like it's, and I can't get enough of it. Um, yeah, like I'm, I'm not showing this cause it's been shown already. I'd scream, but there's one where it looks like just a priest takes like a key or something, just stabs himself in the eye. Yeah.
02:56:50
Speaker
It is incredibly haunting that to just like the actions that get portrayed like the key gang stabs like I said, like dripping and tearing and just like screams and the action that gets portrayed on this in these cut scenes are some of the most brutal fucking things like shout out to I think the developers air dwarf shout out to air dwarf for having the most fucked up mind imaginable.
02:57:17
Speaker
So as terms of the gameplay and like kind of the narrative, you play as a priest and the gameplay itself is very simple. You are just, it's a, it's an adventure game. You are moving around and the only action you could do is hold up a cross. So you move around with the sticker or D pad or whatever, and you press a to hold up your cross. That's like your only attack, I guess attack or defense.
02:57:40
Speaker
each chapter is a little bit different, but they do kind of like tie it together. So the first one, for example, you learn about a little girl who was acting funny and it turns out like it's kind of like a cliche like exorcism story. But just, it's such a unique take on the exorcism story where like you enter the house, you go into the basement, then all of a sudden like,
02:58:03
Speaker
Like fucked up shit just happens around the house and you start uncovering a mystery about what happened to the family. Why isn't the mother and the father there?
02:58:12
Speaker
Through like certain actions like if you see something like that's a little out of place Let's say like there's a frame like a picture frame with like that seems like it has like a weird image on it You can hold up the cross to it It'll flash and it'll drop a note and like it gets really extensive with its storytelling through Notes and letters kind of similar to from soft games
02:58:33
Speaker
The boss battle, like this game has boss battles, which is like really mind blowing, but the boss battles are really damn cool. Like you have to, they're kind of puzzling in the sense where like this first chapter, when you're eventually like, you have to face this little girl.
02:58:45
Speaker
She moves in very specific patterns and you as a character move very slowly and which again, similar to Mothman, the action that you are doing in the game kind of adds to the tension in a very unique way, similar to like Mothman as opposed to what like Resident Evil or something like that does. So you're moving very slowly. So you have to be very precise and methodical with where you need to be on screen when this little girl is fucking floating around.
02:59:11
Speaker
And like the first time I was like the first few times I was getting a little frustrated because I was trying to treat it like a typical boss battle. But the I got into my own mind where like this is this is just a demon. There's not of this planet and doesn't really have like cohesive thought and or whatever like why?
02:59:31
Speaker
why would he know strategy? He probably is just on autopilot. And it turns out when I started thinking like that, I see that like, oh, the demon girl is moving in a pentagram. So like, if I like envisioned a pentagram on the floor, I was good and I was able to hit her with my cross until she eventually like popped out.
02:59:50
Speaker
Um, where kind of the horror comes in a little more, um, obviously, I mean all of its horror, but where the horror comes in a little more, um, is like, for example, with this first chapter, like.
03:00:02
Speaker
And I know I'm like saying a lot light spoilers. Another cool thing is that each of the chapters have multiple endings. I think like five or six endings each. So like branching paths, branching narratives like there's things like one of the endings for the first chapter is like you could pick up a gun and you could choose to find the little girl where like the demon eventually like takes her into the woods. You could find her. And if you want, you could shoot her and get rid of the demon. And like you eventually get picked up by the cops and stuff. And that's like one of the endings. It's really fucked up. There's multiple endings like that.
03:00:32
Speaker
And yeah, the second and third chapter are just as expansive and just as fucked up. I will. Last thing I'll say is just highlighting. And I'm talking a lot and I'm talking fast. I apologize. I just love this fucking game. I've noted like at some point in the second chapter, this game does kind of an inscription thing.
03:00:57
Speaker
where you pick up a note and it's just like, it's like an old newspaper article about like something that happened in the town. And eventually like, eventually it goes from like a newspaper article to something more personal.
03:01:13
Speaker
And that's something a little more violent and vile. Then all of a sudden the note is talking to you and it's the demon talking to you through the letter while you manually as the player is scrolling through, like scrolling down in the text. And eventually the game forces you to only go line by line. So it's like the demon being very methodical with like, when you, uh, when you read something, how you read it and
03:01:38
Speaker
It helps pace the score going on in the background. Just like there is like a little bit of like a
03:01:45
Speaker
one bit kind of tone going around or like a piano score going around that all of a sudden just becomes like a buzzy tone as you're scrolling further down and down and down and then just like you get out of the note and then like the lights are out and there's just fucked up things happening and it's just so good this game fucking rules anyway my votes for faith I mean how can you not vote for faith after that like the passion is there
03:02:13
Speaker
Audience said a 41% signal is 41% Mothman 2% sorry 16% mortuary assistant Kelsey said mortuary assistant Austin said just signal us I Have no opinion Oh out of breath
03:02:34
Speaker
I think we give it a faith because the way you were just talking about it, it's doing something unique and interesting in a format. No one would expect from a horror game. If that makes any sense. Yeah. I change my mind. I will also vote for holy. Holy. Holy quadrilogy.
03:03:01
Speaker
Well, unholy. Sorry. I told you Trinity. Yeah. So, Harry, let's play one. Never. I would love. I would love it. I mean, it is pixel. So it's unless there's super horror. Oh, my God. Did you look at the trailer? Well, you were also describing it. It sounded like.
03:03:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You can't look at it that way because as we're learning like less is more with horror games like you can't really say the latest Resident Evil remakes were scary. They were fun. Fantastic games. But I don't think I was ever scared of playing them. I feel like these indie horror games. Mm hmm. Do any more man. Like if I could find a script of the story, then maybe I'll read it and be like, there you go.
03:03:53
Speaker
so I can know what's happening. The novelization. Yeah, I'll read it and it'll be like sunshines and rainbows as I'm reading it. Harry, can you can you look up a trailer on your phone? Well, if you guys did that last time, I don't remember what game it was and it was horrifying. I know that in like point eight seconds. Because you guys were mean. We will give him the faith.
03:04:18
Speaker
I'm cool with that. I'm cool with that. My vote is first acknowledge, but I'm cool with giving it to faith because that two years ago, I've been watching for a long time before the second chapter was out. I was watching that on itch, but yeah. Faith, the unholy trinity, the PD for horror. Your upside down crucifix is in the mouth. Honorees for horror. We got the unturned. Matt, have you played the unturned?
03:04:48
Speaker
Sounds familiar. No horror comedy. It's just really chaotic, really goofy. It's fun. It's like you have to you find yourself in a hotel and you have to make it to the make it to your it's sorry. The purpose of the game is to get into your room of the hotel, which is on the top floor. And there's like the innkeeper, whatever, like is clearly deranged or whatnot. And
03:05:13
Speaker
the elevator, he like tells you go in the elevator, go to the top floor or whatever. And then the whole game is that like the elevator keeps breaking down and you have to go into like different floors to do this like platforming puzzle to like put the power back on. And then it just gets like really weird and whatnot. And each floor is like a little different. It's fun. I think it's on itch. No, it's on Steam. I might be on itch also, but it's on Steam. I'm scared. Twenty, twenty two update.
03:05:40
Speaker
So security booth directors cut stay out of the house. Man, if you play stay out of the house yet. No, I'm having that one. Yeah. Impasto source of madness. And that's it. Banger year for Horace. Oh, my goodness gracious. Yeah. Source of madness was the fun game that we played at PAX where it's like it's good lovecraft. Yeah. With procedurally generated levels and monsters, which I thought was really interesting.
03:06:08
Speaker
Probably still available by the time you're listening to this a physical release available through super run games if that's your jam Next up we got mobile game Boss game the final boss is my heart pocket champs point B and nightscape Also, not
Mobile Gaming Highlights
03:06:28
Speaker
fucking point B. I can't not laugh when you say point B
03:06:32
Speaker
Fucking point B. What's up? As it says that all the source of madness are sold out, but I was able to add it to my cart. So I'm not sure what's going on. Oh, well, actually, I'm not buying it because I need to start doing it. But maybe I don't know. I feel like this is another one that's mostly me, but has anybody have a horse in the race here? Most of my nominations were not chosen, but I do love point B.
03:07:03
Speaker
Tell me about Point B. What's Point B? Point B, you're pretty much playing as a cute little creature that has I think it's almost like a hammer where you're bouncing around the walls and gradually going up, collecting fruit. And every few seconds, there's specific parameters you have to fulfill. So you might have to get two blueberries and a lemon, three strawberries. So you're manipulating by going left and right in the air. You have to collect certain things all in one jump.
03:07:29
Speaker
Once you hit the ground, your numbers reset and you kind of lose all your current things. Fruit.
03:07:36
Speaker
It was created by the developer who made Downwell. Oh, one of my favorites. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, what was it? The same developer? Yeah. Can some of that? Yeah. Right. I know. It's just like the trailer says from the creators of Downwell. Oh, shit. I knew it was like everybody said like, oh, it's just Downwell. I didn't realize it was the same developer. And in my opinion, it is leaps and bounds better than Downwell because I feel like Downwell was
03:08:00
Speaker
in my opinion, hard for the sake of being hard and like very unforgiving. This one, in addition to its aesthetically appeal, you feel like you're getting better as you're playing it. It's not just the look of the draw and how you're falling or how you're rising.
03:08:15
Speaker
Um, so then you get better with the angle jumps, you get better with what creatures you hit to get further up. And then eventually there'll be like boss battles. Um, and it's, it was one of the games that are on the Netflix subscription as well, which I thought was pretty.
03:08:30
Speaker
Good as well as some other games that we'll talk about as our like notary honorees. But yeah, like out of the four, this is one of the four I played and I really enjoyed it. And I think it's in terms of mobile games, you play for four minutes, you get a game over, you're like, OK, I'll move on with my life. It's not like a 45 minute commitment that you have to play. And then it's a game over. Yeah, played it a lot on my flight home from the game awards. Yeah, it's a good time. It's I really enjoy it.
03:09:00
Speaker
Please welcome back to the PDs, Kelsey Lintounder, to talk about pocket champs. Hey, PD! She decided to lift a cat, which is a bad choice. No, it's not. Now he wants down. Okay, hold on. Thank you for blessing me. Hello. Hello. I was texted, do you want to talk about pocket champs?
03:09:28
Speaker
And obviously you do because here you are. I mean, you know, it's just chow racing. Is that what is going to be as passionate about pocket champs than I was about faith? Were you very passionate? I don't know. Yeah, it's just chow racing. I got really addicted to it. That's that's all I got. Nice. It's cute.
03:09:51
Speaker
It is not even my phone. Hold on. Hold on. So is it just like is it like an unreal race or you just move your character or is there? No, you don't even have to. So it's almost like auto check. Have you never chow race before? No, I don't move the chow. You pray that it wins. Yeah, Kyle. Yeah, it's just a lot of which which cameras is it's that one. Okay.
03:10:16
Speaker
Also, just for the record, I don't know how to read source of madness. It says out now not sold out very different words. So I'm just like staring at like, wait a minute. No, I love that. I love that. Yeah. No, I have no idea how chow racing works because I'm not a fucking nerd. Wow.
03:10:40
Speaker
Wow. So for the uneducated, chow racing is from Sonic 2, right? I believe so. Sonic Adventure with the level that's like, wow. Mike can't even hear you making fun of Sonic right now. Okay. I'm having flashbacks of that now. Okay. There we go.
03:11:02
Speaker
It's I haven't played in a bit so it's taking forever to to update but it really is just like you train your little character which which kind of you can't really see but he kind of looks like that a little bit no it's there looks kind of like a bird penguin well yeah that so you can dress them up hold on I'm getting there I was dropping the phone
03:11:39
Speaker
All right, so that's like you can dress up your little people to look like I think that's it's like but and you get little power-ups and stuff and Oh God, we're back to play. Okay
03:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, you you can train them to excel in different things and then you just set them loose and race them. It sounds very nice. It's mindless and I like mindless. That's what you want in a mobile game. Yeah. Yeah. But it's also like there's a little bit of strategy where like, OK, this is a like water level. I'm not going to use my bike. I'm going to use my
03:12:17
Speaker
What are those things called? Jet ski or canoe? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Going up against a jet ski and a canoe. You're going to lose her. I don't know. Point P is really cute too. And there's just enough challenge to make it engaging. I played point P for all of like 15 minutes and I deleted it off my phone. How dare. Oh, see, I got so mad I dropped my phone.
03:12:45
Speaker
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you that angry over point. That's fine. I don't know how to read. So I'm not going to say point. He was bad. It just wasn't for me, which is fair. But pocket champs is for me. Yeah. How like how many customizable options do you get in this game? Oh, an insane amount. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's like you can play with like people all over the world and stuff or play against. So you race your pocket champ against them.
03:13:16
Speaker
All right. Nice. Are you rewarded often with new stuff? Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, there's different, like,
03:13:26
Speaker
What are they called? Challenges. There we go. There's different challenges. And every time you have the opportunity to win training points so you don't have to train your pocket champ, you can win outfits. You could win different power-ups, different vehicles and stuff. Nice. That's cool.
03:13:47
Speaker
Does anybody else have any other thoughts on other games? I'm going to I'm going to give Mike back the mic so he can he can talk about anything. I'm just here. I was just for pocket champs. Bye. Oh, God. Honestly, I didn't play any of these because my mobile game was Marvel Snap.
03:14:07
Speaker
Oh, we're doing game of the year for Marvel snap for that game. That's all. That's like where I go to for mobile. I haven't played any of these because that has taken over my life. Yeah. I only played point B before Marvel snap occurred. And yeah, just to impose how good Marvel snap is, I've barely touched Pokemon go in like three weeks.
03:14:27
Speaker
Oh, wow. That's usually a daily for Harry. I will say though, and I'll just bring this up because I'm showing the trailer right now. Night's gate looks like a great time. Yo, night's gate fucking rules. It looks so good. Night's gate is as simple as fuck skater. It's one button. You jump and you land on rails and you just avoid pitfalls.
03:14:52
Speaker
That sounds like Mario run. Yeah. It's way cooler than Mario run, but it's kind of like a, like a Game Boy aesthetic. Yeah. It's, it's old school GB, uh, almost a GBA. It's old school Game Boy. Uh, and yeah, it's just a really simplistic, uh, skating game with a fantastic score. Um, really cool aesthetic. You are something I love that you could do with these kinds of like Game Boy inspired games is you could change the filter on it and you can just mix and match filters with different levels. Um,
03:15:22
Speaker
It is like it's more in depth, like feature or not feature content wise, where like there are multiple levels with different levels of challenges and like a lot of music, a lot of different filters. It's really cool, especially for like, I think I paid like, I don't know, $3 for this game. It's so cool. And it's such like a fun, just like,
03:15:43
Speaker
one hand, like you're, you're on the train on the bus or whatever, got one hand to play a video game. And yeah, it's a good time. I love that. You can, uh, Ali off of, uh, seagulls. Yeah.
03:15:57
Speaker
Kyle, it's very, I guess Kyle and Matt, it's like Ali Ali, right? It's very like OG Ali Ali. That's what it looks like without, without the challenge. Like, I mean, it's still like the longer you go, the harder it gets, but, but no, no worry of having to move the analog stick to pull off certain tricks. Exactly. Yeah. It's a auto scroller and you're just worrying about your jump timing.
03:16:19
Speaker
And obviously like when to like land on certain rails to do certain tricks when like, and obviously there's things like, I think the rails I played in a bit, the rails, um, like ramp up your speed and they, it affects like your jump height. So you could like go from a rail to a high wall and you could find like different secrets and hidden paths and whatnot.
03:16:38
Speaker
It's very involved. It's not what I expected when I pulled the trigger on it. Like I just I tossed the two dollars at the devs just because it looked really cool. And I got way more of an in-depth experience than I thought I would. It's awesome. Super cool. The last one I've never even heard of. Boss game. The final boss is my art. Boss game rules. So solo developer Lily. I think her name is Lily. Just double check. Lily Valen.
03:17:08
Speaker
It is about two demon hunters who are dating, and you're just going around the city and just crushing demons. You're just fighting demons. It's really cool. It has the same kind of presentation as an Undertale kind of, or an Everhood, like that kind of like very dark,
03:17:28
Speaker
rigid lines, one bit aesthetic, really beautiful character art for each of the protagonists. What's really cool about it is the battle system, which are, are you showing your trailer, Kyle? I am. Yes. So I know Kyle's the only way we could see the trailer at the moment, but the, when you're in a battle,
03:17:48
Speaker
You have one character on the bottom left and one character on the bottom right. So you're holding the phone like, you know, like landscape mode. So like one character is one thumb, one cards you the other thumb.
03:18:00
Speaker
and you have multiple attacks, you can just do normal attacks for like quick swipes and you have special abilities that take a little longer to hit. And you are doing this while balancing essentially what is a stamina meter. So you are just making sure your stamina meter has enough
03:18:21
Speaker
juice to make sure you are executing these attacks, but also to make sure you could defend when an attack comes in. So like you could hold on to your characters themselves and not take any damage and only take stamina damage. It's, it's, it's pretty in depth for a simple like mobile combat game. There's things where like if one character
03:18:49
Speaker
the other character could use some of her stamina to revive the other character back. It's a balancing act of being strategic in when you should defend, when you should attack, defend with one character, but attack with the other.
03:19:05
Speaker
do team up attacks. Uh, it's really cool. And it's really gay. It's very gay game. Sorry. It's unabashedly gay also, which is one of the taglines that popped up in the trailer that I absolutely love is lesbian devil hunting action. Yeah.
03:19:21
Speaker
It's it's I'm in it's sick as fuck. Yeah, that's cool. I know I described it not great because I was getting a little tongue-tied But no, it's super cool. It's I again It's I think like a couple bucks on the App Store. It's also on itch. It's also on Steam But yeah, I would say in my opinion like out of the out of all the games like it's the most
03:19:47
Speaker
Most like, yeah, most in-depth experience on mobile. It's something that feels like an actual like. Anything I say is going to sound bad about the other games, but like it feels like this game was purposefully made for mobile and to deliver a deep experience with like. A really fleshed out combat system that really makes sense for mobile, like it's tailor made for mobile.
03:20:17
Speaker
So it's not on Steam yet, but it is coming soon. It's coming soon. Okay. Soon. Soon. Exclusively theaters. That's a threat. Well, for me, my vote would be for the boss game. Just from you describing it. That's my vote. I'm still team point B. Team point B. And I love the look of it. I'm team Night's Gate.
03:20:45
Speaker
So we got, uh, Kelsey obviously said pocket champs, uh, Austin abstained and he just said play vampire survivors. Uh, yeah, don't. I just tried it. No.
03:21:05
Speaker
While we were talking man, I will get there well in terms of mobile. I don't like how it feels on mobile. Yes When they have a game on a system, and I play it on the system I
03:21:18
Speaker
They shouldn't be upset when I don't like it. We'll get there. We'll definitely get there. We definitely will. Audience had 45% for point B, 18% across the board for pocket jams, night's gate and boss game. Can you say that one more time? I don't know. 45% point B, 18% for the rest of the games. OK, so point B took it for audience. Yes. But we are tied, right?
03:21:47
Speaker
Uh, I think I did night skate and then audience and Harry do point B. Well, I mean, I mean, I'm cool with whoever wins, but so we have two votes for boss game. Yeah.
03:22:05
Speaker
We have more than one vote. Well, also sometimes we included the fan. Yeah. But it's like a kind of a tiebreaker if we needed it. Yeah, I'm cool with the other game winning. They all sound red. So yeah, they all turn you sound red. Boss game. The final fight is in the mail. Now the final boss is my heart. I really hope the final boss is a heart.
03:22:31
Speaker
I haven't finished it yet, but yeah, I really hope they like brought like that'd be for pretty funny like broadcasting and be like, it's been there the entire time here. I pulled up the itch page while we were talking just to describe it a little better about what's going on in the narrative.
03:22:49
Speaker
Maman City could be a rough place to live. Devils everywhere and the only decent job in town is hunting them down. Take charge of Sophie, Sword Priestess and generally anxious mess and Ana, Fire Witch and localized disaster. As they fight, flirt and just try to pay the rent. Hunt horrifying demons, confront your corrupt employer, uncover the horrible secrets behind Maman City and prove that evil doesn't stand a chance against the power of girlfriends.
03:23:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's real good. I recommend it. We got for our honorees for mobile game. Desta loose nozzles. Anybody familiar with loose nozzles? Loose nozzles is something me and Kelsey played at. Remember when Pax or when play crafting did pre gamer before Pax East?
03:23:41
Speaker
So loose nozzles was at one of those. And it is a it's kind of like, I guess, flappy bird ish, except it's a thruster game where you just hold your thumb on the screen and it like makes a thruster on a rocket like. Hover. OK.
03:23:59
Speaker
to pack. Yeah. The twist is that the father programmed like program the game, but the his like six year old son did all the illustrations for it. Oh, it's really cool. Oh, I love that. It's available for free. Go play loose nozzles fight space, which me and Justin really dug at packs gloom grave.
03:24:27
Speaker
And Shovel Knight Dig. Shovel Knight Dig. Shovel Knight Dig also great, but I better play it on consoles. Well, I mean, I use my backbone and it's not bad.
Sports and Racing Games Discussion
03:24:38
Speaker
It's great. It's great with the backbone. Yeah, it's great with the backbone. Yeah, I would never play that with touchroom because I did it for once. Oh my God. No. Whoa. Real bad. That's kind of like I know we were like close with Shovel Knight Dig, but that was like my argument in my mind. It's like, yeah, it plays great with a controller, but not everybody has a backbone or a Razer Kishi or anything.
03:24:57
Speaker
Next up, sports and racing. We got cursed to golf, ollie ollie world. You suck at parking and buck up and drive. Would anybody like to start?
03:25:13
Speaker
For me, my vote is going for Ali Ali world. I think is what it did to move an already fantastic IP and franchise that they have there in Ali Ali and added so many cool things like
03:25:32
Speaker
It's like depth of field, but like switching lanes, the vertical verticality on like a 2d plane branching pass. Thank you. It's just, it's everything you love about a skateboarding game and it's vibrant. It's colorful style. Oh, it's so gorgeous to look at. And, and the music's awesome. You feel like a bad-ass, the wall rides, the, the, the, oh my God.
03:26:01
Speaker
verding, verts, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just adding those little things, just make it so much more complex and stringing everything together is so fun. I had a great time with this. You know, like the different missions is really cool. Even adding like customizing your, your character customization is really awesome. Even as like,
03:26:24
Speaker
for lack of a better term, shallow as it is and silly as it is, like adding the little bit of lore and the characters. It's really fun. It adds to it. It's really feel good, too. Like, yeah, it's very positive, very bright, vibrant. Yeah, it's just it's great.
03:26:39
Speaker
I have to go back to it. I never, I never finished it just cause it came out at a bad time. And I think, I think we mentioned it earlier. That was when see who came out. I had to jump off of it to get that review going. And it has a really cool thing where it has like a
03:26:56
Speaker
uh, procedurally generated like level. Yeah. If you just wanted to do something real quick and new, like go for it. It's there. It's really cool. Yeah. Even outside of the procedural stuff, like everything feels very purposeful. Like everything feels like, um, it was built to with challenge built to like string in one combo. If like you're skilled enough and like being able to string things in one combo is so satisfying.
03:27:23
Speaker
Yeah. And like you said, it's just like, it's wild to think that this is Ollie Ollie three. Yeah. Like even very pretty as a part of the steam sale, the winter sale, I was going to double dip on Ollie Ollie to just to have it on steam deck, but
03:27:39
Speaker
Um, at the point, like first off, like just the reminder of how all the alley used to be. Um, but like seeing that, I was like, man, I just, I really just want to play more worlds. Holy shit. It's so fucking good. I, I've actually attempted to try to go back to the older ones and I just, I prefer a world. Yeah. Yeah.
03:27:59
Speaker
I think they really perfected the mobility, the mechanics, the feel. Like, I think, I mean, this may be like a wild statement, but like, I think this is up there with Tony Hawk as one of like the best arcade skaters. Yeah, it really came into its own. Finally, like, yeah, it wasn't trying to imitate life kind of like it. They just chose a sound went with it. Yeah.
03:28:21
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like unfortunately, like it got lost in the conversation because it was an earlier game and like it started. It like came just at the precipice of like the fucking flood of video games that came out in 2022. Yeah. So it sucks that it seems like you got buried a little bit, but yeah, it was like a week or two before Elden Ring. It was February, right? Was it Elden Ring end of January? No. Elden Ring was the end of February. It's February. It's right after my birthday. Yeah. The 28th. So yeah.
03:28:52
Speaker
and horizon and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It got buried pretty quickly. Yeah. Um, Kyle, crystal golf. Hey, yeah. Uh, we loved it. It packs. It's, uh, a really fun golfing game that reminds me a lot of sick man golf, which I love to play. Um,
03:29:15
Speaker
I didn't, uh, admittedly didn't get super far in the actual like home release on console. Big same hard game. It's real hard. It's very difficult. And, uh, the fact that you pretty much have to start over if you don't get it there in time is, uh,
03:29:36
Speaker
bit of a bummer. Yup. And I know Harry feels, feels me on that one. Yeah. You reviewed it for us. Like overall, I'd say it's a good game. It's the moment to moment gameplay is really satisfying. Trying to find combinations of golf maneuvers and powerups and abilities is really fun to traverse through. But if you
03:29:59
Speaker
are stuck in a spot, you can just spiral and just totally lose four hours worth of progress. And to me, the length of the runs becomes so long. I think I had one that was almost six hours, and I eventually lost. I'm like, all right, well, that was cool. I'm just going to walk away for the day. And not enough, ooh, I'm so close. Let me try a four-hour run again. It was like, I need to stare at a wall for a minute. Yeah.
03:30:28
Speaker
or that like the narcos meme where he's just like standing in the wall at the outside just like sitting on a swing just staring in the distance. Like it's definitely a fun game to play for like moment to moment but if you want to do it from start to finish and be like I want to f-ing win you need to be really good and really lucky with some of the pulls.
03:30:51
Speaker
Because I eventually made it to round I like I didn't get to 18 like I said it when we did our video of it Like I got to 17 like four times. I'm like, it's so brutal. That's not fun anymore. Not mine. Sure Okay, unless there's a cool trick at the end. I never figured out and I never really went back I went back for maybe like five more hours just to be like, all right, let me do like one or two more run before I like Walk away and uninstall it but yeah, like it's it's definitely fun. Yeah but I think
03:31:23
Speaker
I like Ali Ali World 2. I'm stuck like I said I want to I want to give one of those to my main vote because the other two though they are enticing like I really don't have that much affinity for the calamity of I will say I played a little bit of you suck at driving the demo came to PlayStation around game awards parts where I played it. Thank you. You suck at parking. Thank you. Driving is just what I get you all that going to work every day.
03:31:53
Speaker
It's a, it's a good time. Like the fact that you can't go in reverse and you, there's like a fuel meter. It makes it super chaotic. And it looks like you can play up to with other people online, which I think would be a lot of fun. And the whole goal is you have to get to the parking spots on the map.
03:32:13
Speaker
like precisely, precisely nail it. You have to nail it. And it's very quick. They go by very quickly and there's multiple parking spots in each level. Yeah. And it does the Mario three thing where they're like, it has overworld map and like, it starts out like pretty tamed, but like not tamed. But then like, as you move progress into the game, you get like,
03:32:35
Speaker
You're going through fire and you're going through all these fucking like crazy scenarios and they get, they get really creative with the, uh, the parking, uh, levels. Yeah. Um, and I like that it does like the, the whole like three star thing. Like, so you'll like, sometimes there's like.
03:32:50
Speaker
Let's say three parking spaces and you'll get three cars to do it. If you are, you'll get like five tries to do it. Like five cars. If you nail all three spots in three cars, like you'll get three stars and so on and so forth. So like it does that neon white thing where like you always want to try to one up, like try to perfect that score.
03:33:09
Speaker
And you really get into that rhythm of like really trying to get into it and nail it. And you're, you're telling me, this is the first time I've heard of this game. Buck up and drive. I've been telling you to play this game all goddamn year. This came out back in January. I bought it on the six way in the account and nobody fucking played it. It fucking rules. It's one of the best games of the year.
03:33:31
Speaker
I'm sorry. It's, it's like literally just car Tony Hawk mixed with a cruising USA. Yeah. It's an auto modelista meets cruising USA meets Tony Hawk. Yeah. So buck up and drive is a very dingy, like grungy looking racing game. Well, not even racing game. It's an outrun sort of stage five is called the fucking moon.
03:33:55
Speaker
game fucking rules. Oh, this is awesome. Yeah. The whole purpose is you're really racing against the clock and you're you know, you're adding time to the clock by bashing other cars out of the way or you're bashing cops out of the way. You go off ramps and like grind on the guardrails. It's so good. It's so fun. It's just one of the like in recent memory, one of my favorite arcade driving experiences. I fucking hate that we played it.
03:34:26
Speaker
game rules. Matt, did you play it? I haven't played it, but it is another long line of games that I saw some, the developer put the first look on Twitter and a gif of a car flipping and grinding. That's who's like flip. It's so good. Anyways, my votes for buck up drive. It's not going to win.
03:34:49
Speaker
Um, audience goes, uh, Ali Ali world, 54%, uh, 36%, cursed to golf, 9%, you suck at parking, nothing for a buck up and drive. You fucking cowards. I'll vote for buck up and drive. Yeah, Matt. I'm going, I'm going to Ali Ali world. I will be team Ali Ali world as well. Okay. And then we got tiebreaker Kelsey got cursed to golf and yeah. So it's all yeah. Much deserved. It's Ali Ali world. Yeah.
03:35:18
Speaker
You'll playbook up drive everybody. Yeah, please. It's eight bucks. It's so good. And if you're on the six windy team, it's I bought it out with my own money on the six one in the account. Well, go away drive, drive honorees here for sports and racing. We got roller drone.
03:35:40
Speaker
Fantasia, which I haven't played it, but trippy as fuck. It looks so wrong. Jerome was an honoree for sports and racing. It's like Tony Hawk. It's, it's fucking rollerblading. I would think of that more actiony. You should have, you should have nominated for action. So I didn't know this is not the task force right now.
03:36:07
Speaker
Harry and Mike were very explicit with how this works.
03:36:13
Speaker
Uh, we got session, which I don't know who is session. I don't agree with session. I don't think it's good. I, it breaks my heart. I don't think it's good. Uh, sports story. We know how that went. Fake racing, which I haven't played yet. It looks fucking sick. Looks really cool. It's like a, another one that's like very, uh, purposeful with his art style. It's like, it's rendered in 3d, but it's, um, kind of textured in one bit and it's all just black and green. Like OG game boy looks sick. Um, to do key sunset.
03:36:43
Speaker
where you're you're skating down a hill as a raccoon. It's OK. It's more more vibe than the substance. And then something that broke my heart that didn't make it to the nominees. But I obviously understand why. White water wipeout, one of the most delightful experiences of the year. Play day, play day, play dead. Jesus Christ. Play date gem that took over my life.
03:37:13
Speaker
for a bit.
Unique Puzzle and Strategy Games
03:37:16
Speaker
Puzzle game. We got Dorf Romantic, Escape Academy, Freshly Frosted, Princess Farmer. Who would like to begin? Fine. I'll go.
03:37:34
Speaker
I talked about it earlier. I think escape academy is super cool. And the way that it hooked me in for a weekend and I could not stop playing until I did every single escape room. Each one is unique and different. And you have to use your whole brain to figure them all out. The only downside is, is once you solve an escape room, you know, the solution and it's
03:38:02
Speaker
There's not a whole lot of replayability there, which I guess is the same for all puzzle games really, but this is pretty much like a one and done kind of thing. I'm not saying it's bad because the experience is awesome. And I, and I hope the DLC lives up to it because I haven't played the DLC. I know it's out. I just want more escape room games like this. And, and I think they nailed the vibe of an escape room. It's great.
03:38:31
Speaker
I also like the premise of it where it's like an academy of it. Like it's literally like it's not just the name Escape Academy. It's like a school for like this kind of thing. And I thought that was really cool and how like people can make them and people can perform them and stuff like that. So I thought the premise was really enjoyable too.
03:38:48
Speaker
Yeah, which is always a nice touch when you're doing a puzzle game because you can either go just give me the FM puzzles and play or oh, I like the story behind it with some puzzles. So absolutely. I'm definitely team Escape Academy for this as well.
03:39:02
Speaker
Matt, you want to talk about have you played door? I just bought it. OK. But I have been looking at it for a long time. Like, just just look at this game. Like, it's gorgeous. Hexagonical tiles kind of reminiscent of. Oh, or that. Yeah. Yeah. What did you say? Was it Carcassonne, Carcassonne, Carcassonne, Carcassonne? Fuck's that game called? You're right. But I think you were thinking Catan.
03:39:31
Speaker
No, it's it was it's I think it's Katana, but it was on the XBLA at like launch for 360. Carcassonne is a French fortified city in the in the department. I don't know. That's that's a deep dig. Carcassonne Carcassonne. Yes, I don't even know about this game.
03:39:51
Speaker
Yes, you do. Anyways, keep talking about it. Yeah. Beautiful hexagonal tiles of like grassland trees, farmland cities. So you're just, it is a strategy game, but it's very relaxing. You're just building this landscape out. And I've been wanting to play this ever since it first got shown and I bought it and I just bought it. Steam decks. I'm really looking forward to just wasting hours away in this game.
03:40:20
Speaker
Yeah, I play a little bit of it. Kyle can't see this because he's running the show like a man. Oh my God. The cats are like running amok outside this room. I don't know if you hear that bashing. I heard that. I heard that. That's that's all the cats. They're being off you.
03:40:35
Speaker
Um, anyways, I tossed Carcassonne in the pocket. Yeah, that's literally a French town. So, so is door. I think door from city. No, door for magic is the saying, uh, uh, is, um, yeah. Uh, door for magic is, um, it's cool. It's just a really relaxing puzzle game where you're just like kind of expanding a little town. It's a really, it's a good vibe.
03:41:06
Speaker
Austin is the one that played freshly frosted. It's the conveyor belt donut game. I have not played it. I don't know if I played it during like an Xbox demo Fest. Okay. I think during the pandemic and it was 2020. I remember that. Yeah. It's a good time. It really is like it's that.
03:41:26
Speaker
essentially those like, uh, I know them from like mobile games where you have to connect like the green to the green and you can't overlap the red, like everything has to match the colors and you can't cross wires or whatnot. I believe it's string theory, but there, I don't, yeah, I don't know the game of five version of that. Yeah.
03:41:44
Speaker
But this is literally just conveyor belts. Um, and you have to get the donut underneath the correct crossings into the right ending. Um, and it's super fun. It's a good time. The only reason I didn't pick it up cause I was frustrated at the demo cause the puzzle broke. I couldn't, I couldn't solve it because there was no answer. I was like, what's happening? Is this the whole game? It's, but it's cute. It's a good time.
03:42:14
Speaker
I would like to imagine, and this is a, if it's also one of the highest rated games of the year, I think it's like a 91 is an open critic. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It was, it was top tier. Like people were raving about it. I know Austin really loved it. He reviewed it first. Um, this little comment is a, if you know, you know, comment. Uh, I would like to think freshly frosted and everything everywhere, all at once are in the same universe.
03:42:40
Speaker
That was cute. Thank you. I'm glad all of you smirked at that. I thought I was going to be the only one. Oh, my God. We can talk about everything and for all at once for hours. Fucking incredible. We'll do that soon. But Princess Farmer just to watch that lightly touch on that. It's a white thorn joint. Very pleasant.
03:43:01
Speaker
different kind of take on a match three puzzle game. Uh, you play as little rabbits and yeah, it's matched three puzzle, except instead of dropping, um, like dropping blocks down from top to, to, you know, like Tetris style, I guess we'll say it. Um, you are digging up little vegetables and like you are essentially working from the bottom up.
03:43:23
Speaker
And you could like dig up vegetables, like move columns up and down, or you could place the vegetables back into the ground to move columns back down. Really fun, but like really like it takes a lot of fucking thought. And it's like a really intricate puzzle game and a really intricate different spin on that sort of a style of puzzle game. It's cool, though. It's very cool and very cute. I yeah.
03:43:53
Speaker
Audience, 81% Escape Academy and 18% Freshly Frosted. We got Austin that obviously said Freshly Frosted. Harry and Kyle are Escape Academy? Yes. Where are you at, Matt? Do I feel romantic? I mean, even if I say Dorf, it's Escape Academy. Yeah. Escape Academy.
03:44:21
Speaker
Your. B to an escape room is in the mail. Your lack is in the mail. Find the key. That was cute. Honorees for puzzle game. Please fix the road. Control alt ego, which is a mad ass fucking game. Check that out, Matt. OK, it's Kookie.
03:44:45
Speaker
The pinball wizard, which is a Kyle ass game. Kyle, check out the pinball wizard. All right. I'll write it down. How to say goodbye, which I think Harry has demoed, I think. I don't remember. Maybe. That's fine. Gum Plus, which is a really sick HIO puzzle game.
03:45:03
Speaker
One of my favorite puzzle games of the year, which was one of my choices, pick pack pup, which is another play date joint, super fun little, uh, another take on kind of like a match three game. Fresh, uh, sorry. I had a different squish, not the squish that one multiplayer. It's a squish that's spelled differently also for the play date.
03:45:21
Speaker
Also, how to say goodbye is a game I demoed. I really liked it. Yeah, it's something that like I just totally missed. Yeah, my game is here. Yeah. And now it's on mobile. So if you want to check that out for four dollars, I might impulse buy. No, I'm not going to impulse.
03:45:39
Speaker
Right. You got to stop. I need to stop. I did not impose by anything any tonight. So I want to write it down. If I have desires in the future. Yeah. You have desires in the future. Narrative adventure. We got once upon a jester, immortality letters, a written adventure, sucker for love, first date.
03:46:02
Speaker
Uh, let's, let's get the elephant out of the room. Uh, this is another one we thought we would have time to play immortality during break. We nominated it just because of all the praise it was getting. Uh, yeah, none of us played it. Nope. And it's a sucker. Uh, it's a sucker and it sucks because it looks sucker for love. Looks awesome.
03:46:22
Speaker
Yeah. It looks like it looks good. Yeah. Event. It's an eventual thing, but like it's Sam Barlow, right? Yeah. Sam Barlow fucking masterful genius. So I didn't play his other game either. And it's always been on my list. What telling lies, right? I don't know. Shatter members. No, definitely not that one. Cause that's Sam Marlow. No, I know. But no, it's definitely not that one. Like her story. No, I haven't.
Narrative Adventures and Storytelling
03:46:48
Speaker
Which other game did you play? Telling lies, is that not Sam Marla? Yeah, that's the one that I own because of the Anna Perna collection.
03:46:59
Speaker
Yeah. Where would we like to start? Harry, I forgot, did you review letters for us? I did. So let's do a quick premise. So you're pretty much playing as like a little 2D character who walks around letters that a girl, a little girl is writing and receiving from her little pen pal in Switzerland.
03:47:22
Speaker
So they're kind of exchanging like pleasantries and stuff that's happening with them. And you're eventually given options on how you want to fill in the blanks. So you might have a pet dog or pet cat or pet like parrot or something. I don't remember that that's actually accurate, but you're kind of filling in the blanks and it does a really beautiful job of it's writing out the words as you're kind of scripting it. But then it also portrays various images and drawings of those
03:47:48
Speaker
scenarios in the letters. So like, let's just say, the girls having a rough day, Sarah, and she's like, Yeah, I'm feeling really cruddy. And it's been raining all day. So my moods all over the place. So she'll have like raindrops on the letter, and then that'll start trickling in to the actual words, and they kind of get all jumbled up. So then it's up to you to figure out, okay, where do the correct words go in order for the letter to be complete for me to continue on to the next part of the story.
03:48:18
Speaker
And it's all, from what I remember, it's been a while, but it's almost all written and portrayed through that type of text. I think there's a few like micros cut scenes, but it's mostly you're figuring out the puzzles of filling in the blanks and it's telling a story about like girls growing up and kind of living through their experiences.
03:48:42
Speaker
And speaking on the narrative bit for a second, it's a great portrayal on, it's a great commentary on the trauma behind divorce that can have the effect on a young child. And like kind of like sibling trauma also like just like it kind of portrays like a semi-abusive
03:49:08
Speaker
relationship between two siblings, because like the older sister is just kind of a fuck pain. Yeah. And like, does she get better at the end? I forgot. I don't know. There's like a resolution. There's branching paths. There is branching paths. Yeah. Like which parent you decided to live with, how you decide to reconcile with friends, with siblings. And then it kind of does like cute little pastels at the end of like
03:49:35
Speaker
10 years later, stuff like that, without any spoilers. But I thought it was short. I think it was only a few hours. A few hours. You left with a satisfied completion of an adventure. It did a great job of actually making the branching narratives purposeful and actually meaningful. You could have significantly different outcomes and different scenarios, depending on your choices.
03:50:03
Speaker
And I'm sure there's not like a lot of them, but like, yeah, that's it. It continues throughout them, like the relationship you start forming or the romantic relationship that you start forming in the as you were saying, like who you decide to live with. And even like things like I was able I I love when games allow me to be a little emo kid and like, yeah, there's like there's a fantastic like songwriting scene or songwriting chapter in the in the story. That's really damn good.
03:50:31
Speaker
There's a bunch of good moments in it. It's not overly obtuse either, so the slight puzzle with the storytelling is really meaningful, but not enough to roll your eyes and be like, this isn't fun anymore. Simple but effective. Yes. I'll quickly talk about Sucker for Love first date, because I think I'm the only person that played it. I'm going to play it soon. Is that the Cthulhu one? Yeah. So it's a visual novel dating sim.
03:51:01
Speaker
where your character, here's a knock on the door and you get a book delivered and you start reading some funny language. And all of a sudden Cthulhu pops up in your room and is this Cthulhu, Kyle, real sexy. It's on screen right now. I know it's a real bust.
03:51:24
Speaker
Um, so the whole, it's a very bite-sized game. I actually played it, uh, start to finish at Paxis. Um, the whole purpose of the game, uh, again, like branching narratives there, there are fail states and whatnot. The whole purpose is to make sure your new Cthulhu girlfriend is satisfied. If she's not, she will end the world.
03:51:46
Speaker
It is fantastic. The writing is brilliant. It is overly horny and to a T and very purposeful. This game knows how absurd it is. And this is another great example of how horror doesn't always have to be scary. This game fucking rules. It's so good. And I think like start to finish our maybe.
03:52:10
Speaker
It seems like it might be a it might be a prologue to something coming down the line. There's a there's a sequel in the works. There is a sequel in the works. Yeah, I can't fucking wait for the sequel. Solo Dev. I believe one of the devs behind one of the Dread X games. That's where this came from. And that's where Dread published it. Yeah, that's where they are. Yeah, they're funding it.
03:52:36
Speaker
But my vote, because we talked about it a little bit already, it's on my top 10 for the year. Once upon a jester.
03:52:45
Speaker
Once Upon a Jester is a real special game. It is Kyle knows how much how charming Bonta Yvonne is as just I mean as people in general but like as a studio and their talent and their writing they know like Kyle knows how charming they could be. And Once Upon a Jester is the culmination of all their games and all their like micro sized adventures and all like their quirky little songs and just their character as human beings put together in a
03:53:15
Speaker
Uh, really fun, really heartfelt, really charming, hilarious. Uh, let's say I think it was about like a three, four hour adventure. Um, I think Austin described it early on the other day slash before the ad break, which is a quick like summary. Um, you play as a jester and you're in this town with your best friend Sock, who's literally a
03:53:40
Speaker
man sock. I know that's a spin off of the Cthulhu game. And you are
03:53:57
Speaker
You have this big plot to make it to the King's castle to steal this prestigious diamond and just like make out like bandits and like live out the rest of your lives. And the way to do that is that there's this talent competition going on where in
03:54:15
Speaker
If you gather five bouquets in each of the towns that this show is touring in from the audience, you'll be granted access to or you'll be prized the opportunity of putting on a performance at the King's Castle. Something that is the star of this game is the writing and the music.
03:54:39
Speaker
Just it's such like a niche form of comedy that like is so blunt and sometimes dumb, but it works so well. Like, for example, like in the second chapter or the second city, just very brief spoiler, like you hear about this character in the first city and they're like hyping up so much to be this like like knight in shining armor kind of thing.
03:55:06
Speaker
And they introduce him and he's just this microscopic little little lad and just a real scrawny motherfucker. And there's just like this grand epic music going on has a big fanfare, like epic lyrics saying how brilliant of a man this this character is. And then he gets stepped on and dies. And that's it. There's there's no rhyme or reason after that. It's so fucking good. Yeah, I know.
03:55:35
Speaker
something from, uh, from their previous game, everybody wham wham. Uh, they record all the music like in their apartments, they're, they're all musicians and they,
03:55:45
Speaker
They tend to keep, especially in every way, when, when they tend to keep the mistakes in the game and this game does that, like they, they, they break character at times. There's laughter in the back. As I said earlier, I'm only like maybe 15, 20 minutes in. And one of my favorite things in everybody, when, when is like hearing them try to hold back the laughter as they're singing about ridiculous things. I'm happy that that's back.
03:56:11
Speaker
Yeah. This game is such a delight. It's so fun. And even just the mechanic of playing. The gameplay part of this is you put on a stage play. You have to figure out in each performance what the audience loves and what the audience hates. So they could hate horror, but love romance. So you're making choices on stage and building a narrative and a performance. And that will determine how many bouquets you'll get.
03:56:38
Speaker
And there's like a little quick time actions and stuff like that. But it's so good. Yeah. Also, Carl Jacobs, a voice in. Yeah. I'm just very wild. It's very cool. Yeah. So that's my vote. Once upon a jester. I would say all once upon a gesture.
03:56:57
Speaker
That's my vote. Cool. Okay. Audience was 83% immortality. Of course. And then 16% once upon a jester, we will pay attention to that 16%. And then Kelsey said sucker for love. Austin said once upon a jester, parentheses, immortality probably deserves it. It's our show, baby. Once upon a jester. It's our favorite. Not the best. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So.
03:57:25
Speaker
Monte Yvonne, your sock is in the mail. Yeah. Got it. And there's also, there's this whole man sock is in the mail. Well, as they all say, there's this whole bit about like a cashmere scarf that like just appeared out of nowhere. And like Jester is accusing sock of stealing it or like losing it or something. And that just goes on the entire game. Oh, cause that's not the game open. So it keeps going. The four hours. It's great.
Platformer Games Exploration
03:57:52
Speaker
It does not get old.
03:57:54
Speaker
Um, honorees, we got tux and Fanny, whichever way should play frog detective episode three time on frog Island. Perfect tides, which I have not played yet. I know Matt has a little bit. Yeah. It's a, it's a,
03:58:10
Speaker
It's absolutely worth playing. Yeah. Yeah. It's a rough one, though. And like the best way, the best way possible. It's yeah, it's yeah. Another play date joint casual birder. The case of the golden idol, which I've heard amazing things about, but on my wish list. Yeah, I haven't played it. And then tunic, which is the odd man out, but tunic. Two more platformer. Grappledog.
03:58:41
Speaker
The web tiny kin and freedom planet to. Who would like to begin? Grapple dog yo tiny kid yo.
03:58:53
Speaker
No. Yeah. Grappledog. It feels like a Game Boy Advance game. Kind of like a Bionic Commando in a sense where you are able to swing around Grapple. Very simple, but I don't hold that against it. Like the levels are pretty quick. You got to find some items in there too, but I had a blast playing it. It was an easy bike.
03:59:15
Speaker
Harkening back to just more simplistic, fun, quick games, like a like a what Game Boy games used to be like you would play it for a little bit because you're going somewhere or so on so forth. But I love it. This is something I want to repurchase for Steam Deck purposes, because, yeah, this is a handheld game. Yeah, it's great. Speaking of grappling, I'll just I'll shout out Webbed. Webbed is a platform where you play as a little spider. You are webbing around like Spider-Man.
03:59:45
Speaker
And you're just trying to save your spider boyfriend from a bird. It is really cute. It's really good. I, I was shocked at how cute I was. Like I didn't know anything about it other than it being a spider and you're called webbed or whatever, but I was like, I enjoy this. It's great. It came out last year on PC, but it came to consoles this year. Not like that matters, but, um, it's really good. It's really fun. I I'm, I got like halfway through it. Then as always something else came out, but, um,
04:00:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's really good. The actual like webbing mechanics are it's really fun and it's like kind of deep like there's like side quests branching paths like stuff like that. It's a good time. Yeah.
04:00:25
Speaker
Uh, we talked about tinykin, which also has webin. So I thought that was funny. I thought you were transitioning to tinykin. So I was like, yeah, it's a great game. It's it's fun. And it's gauging live exploration with the platforming platforming is lighter than the other games. But the exploration and the bopping around is really the fun aspect for it. And using the tinykin is how you get around and solve stuff.
04:00:52
Speaker
Yeah. If you're somehow unfamiliar, it's Pikmin Pikmin. Yeah. It's a good time. I just have a issue with the collecting stuff going for the platinum. It's cool. It's so frustrating. You missing like five pollen pieces and you go around the entire level five times and you can't find it. Like where the hell is it? And it's hidden somewhere. You walk by four times.
04:01:18
Speaker
But it's a good time. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Yeah. I'm always a fan of 2D figures in a 3D world. I love that aesthetic so much. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm like what? And Freedom Planet 2 played a little bit of it. Matt, did you play the original? No, but I know about it. Okay. Freedom Planet is and I know you're rolling eyes. Yeah, go to say it.
04:01:45
Speaker
It is a it's a spiritual successor to the original like it's a spiritual successor to 2D Sonic. Man, it feels fucking great. It feels great. Yeah. Oh, you can tell by looking at this trailer. It fucking rules. It looks like a Genesis game. It's yeah. Yeah. It's unabashedly Genesis unabashedly Sonic. That's great. Are you collecting rings? What are you collecting? I forgot.
04:02:14
Speaker
Things you collect. We got 75% for tiny. Can 25% for grapple dog. My vote is her grapple dog. Grapple dog tiny kid. It's the one game I played from this list. So tiny kids. I am. Well, do you? Oh, sorry. Kelsey says web. Austin says Grapple dog. Yeah. Grapple dog takes it.
04:02:42
Speaker
It's fine with me. I'm fine with it. Grappledog takes a platformer. Your puppy is in the mail with some air holes. John Wicken this. I'm just kidding, Peter. Don't your.
04:03:05
Speaker
Uh, the honorees here, we got wappin haiku, the robot, which really good robot Metroidvania. I played it a little bit during game or season game or season, played it while I was in L.A. Hell pie. And that's it. Finally, we got we're OK, there it is.
Indie Game Impact and Critiques
04:03:30
Speaker
Rogue light slash like vampire survivors loot river.
04:03:35
Speaker
One bit adventure. Shovel Knight dig. Let's just start with it. Who is in the camp that doesn't like vampire survivors? I think it's perfectly okay. Same. Yeah. Oh, I'm the only one here that really likes it. No way. Okay. Here's the thing. And this is, I guess my own issue and like whatever I'm bringing my day job into this a little bit. Um,
04:04:03
Speaker
One of my clients is Soulstone Survivors and take what I say with a grain of salt, Soulstone Survivors fucking slaps this game in the fucking face. And like, it ruined it for me. So I have no joy in playing Vampire Survivors. I think it's boring and slow. That's exactly what I was going to say. It's so slow until like there's an upgrade that you can double the time. Yeah, you got hyper mode and stuff.
04:04:27
Speaker
But I like I don't angry play it. I just like, well, I'm watching an episode of TV that I already watched. I guess I can zone out and play this, but I don't feel satisfied while I'm playing it. I don't feel satisfied after I play it. So it's like it's almost like junk food video game where I'm just like, OK, I would throw a deep dig at this game. Robotron is more exciting than vampire survivors. Only matter understands that.
04:04:55
Speaker
vampires like robotron is like that. Like you have a very basic ass plane and you're just going around and enemies show up and you go. That's it. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. That's what vampires think. That's literally. But that's that's the whole point. It's an idle game. Yeah, I I don't play idle games. I play games to play games. No, this is I don't. I wouldn't say this is a game. I don't actively move around. And the only one is the one. Okay.
04:05:21
Speaker
You're just like, you have to move around. You have to make choices like this. I don't think I don't think it's a bad game. Like I do enjoy playing it to some extent. It's just like I got spoiled by this other game that like I think does the vampire thing better. Yeah. And my main thing, my main complaint is and again, it's not my vampire survivor's fault. It's not like it's just my own taste. I like being able to insult someone, for example, or even 20 minutes till dawn. I like being able to aim with the right stick.
04:05:50
Speaker
And like, it is still auto fire and still auto everything. But like, I like being able to aim certain attacks. And with vampire survivors, I feel like I get killed very cheaply because I'm trying to like line up like the whip or something. Yeah, I don't like attacking the right. Yeah. OK, so some. Sorry, Kyle.
04:06:11
Speaker
It's whatever I'll say my piece. It's, I love just the, the, the gem collecting, the endorphin rush of, of collecting things and the amount of things that are on screen at once. It is a rush that I enjoy. I do not like playing it on mobile. I much prefer playing on console. It is, it is idle in the way where yeah, you just do have to move around, but like the attacks or whatever, just go on their own, which I do enjoy.
04:06:39
Speaker
And I enjoy the strategy of, of choosing what powerups to pick and the combination of each and doing two certain ones will unlock this super ultra version and different characters or what I have different effects. So like it's a very deep game for what it is. It's definitely a game that I just love playing. Just when I have like 15 minutes and it's like a warmup kind of thing.
04:07:07
Speaker
And I it took me by surprise. I really do enjoy it. And like to its credit, like obviously like this is like the indie game of the year, like unabashedly and essentially it did essentially create a new genre to some extent. Obviously there's things like I made a game with zombies in it that like does something similar but doesn't have like the roguelite elements and popularize this.
04:07:33
Speaker
Yeah. And like now, like there are so many survivors likes out there. Yeah. Um, like soul stilled survivors, toy missile, dawn, bro, Tato, um, rogue, rogue, Ganesha, I think it's called. Um, and I liked that all these games are doing like slightly different versions of what vampire survivors is doing. And dude, I'm so excited to see
04:07:55
Speaker
Further content updates, I'm super excited to see what Potential Vampire Survivors 2 looks like if they ever get to that point. They deserve all the praise and all the flowers in the world. I think it is something special. It's something... It is this year's Among Us. It just blew the fuck up. It really took over everything. I will say it's a very fun game for me to watch. I've recently watched Dan Reichert's or Giant Bomb's
04:08:25
Speaker
overview video of the DLC. And it's wild what you can do in that game. It's just for me, it just it just didn't click with me personally. Like, did you know you can kill the Grim Reaper? Oh, yeah. Dan Dan is very good at that game. I keep freezing them. And I'm like, it takes a lot. It takes a lot to kill them. Yeah. Yeah. Sheldon, I dig. Very good. I'm going to get a very good.
04:08:53
Speaker
I loved it. I thought it was really fun. I thought it was really engaging. The loop, it was really satisfying. And it kind of spoon feeds you just enough to be like, OK, I think I got it. And then something else happens. You're like, OK, let me reevaluate how I'm going to tackle this. And I love it. The Shovel Knight games, for the most part, don't miss. And this one definitely doesn't see that. That's the thing. I mean, this is just Shovel Knight with rogue elements. Yeah.
04:09:20
Speaker
And yeah, it nails it. It's really cool. So rogue elements. Plus, it's more vertical, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's rogue plus steamroll dick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Game is a blast. And like we were kind of talking about earlier, playing this on the backbone via Apple Arcade is so good. So yeah. So yeah. If you like shovel light. Yeah, it's it's shovel light. It's one of them. It's one of them shovel light games.
04:09:50
Speaker
What was the other one? Uh, Lou River. I'm so bummed. I didn't play this. Here's the thing. I played it a little bit. Yeah. It disappointed me. Okay. I think the, it was like confusing to play. Like I don't think maybe it's better on PC playing it with a game pad. Cause I think it came to game pass. So playing with the Xbox controller,
04:10:17
Speaker
It felt very convoluted and very confusing. And just like, no matter how hard I tried or like.
04:10:24
Speaker
whatever, like I would just get my shit rocked just cause yeah, it feels like they didn't really think out gamepad controls. Um, that being said, maybe mouse keyboard is way better, but fair, super cool concepts, super cool visuals. Like, yeah, we were very stoked for this game. So that's why I'm bummed that it wasn't like included in my top 10 of the year. Cause I thought it would be. Um, the final one I hear is one bit of venture that anybody play one bit of venture?
04:10:53
Speaker
I've heard it, but I've not enjoyed it. I'll just read the steam description. One bit adventure is a casual turn based roguelike where your adventure as far as possible to where you adventure as far as possible to level up and battle against rogue monsters. Your primary goal in one bit adventure is to survive and loot. Choose from a variety of classes and build the ultimate class.
04:11:16
Speaker
So, yeah, it's funny enough. It kind of looks like a bowling cross, kind of like a vertical vertical stages. And yeah, it's kind of just a looter rogue like you eventually get to little bosses that has like the very satisfying like damage numbers popping up. It's it's really cool. And another game that just dropped out of nowhere for free. Well, at least in my mind, out of nowhere. But I'm sure they had a following beforehand. Right.
04:11:44
Speaker
It's free to play on Steam. Perfect.
Audience Favorites and Award Summary
04:11:52
Speaker
Obviously, audience, 63% vampire survivors, 18% lubar, 18% Shovel Knight Dig, nada for one bit of venture. You know my vote, it doesn't matter though. Well, I'm curious what everyone else votes. But yeah, definitely Shovel Knight Dig.
04:12:14
Speaker
Austin says vampire survivors. Matt wrote down vampire survivors because I don't really have a vote for this. Okay. Brogue light likes. I don't jive with the only one in recent history. I love is a loop hero, but yeah. Oh, so good. So good. My vote is shovel.
04:12:36
Speaker
So Matt, are you picking me? Well, I mean, even if he didn't, it'd be a tie. And then we bring it to the. So it's vampire. Yeah. Yeah. It's vampire. All right. Could you have vampires about? Oh, I would have been so fucking. Oh, that would have been great. And vampires where I've lost this. It's funny. I was I was ready to go into this until Harry said something like not even having a discussion about this. Like, oh, yeah, vampires are obviously. Oh, no.
04:13:01
Speaker
I kept my opinions close to the vest after I played it on mobile, because I'm like, if I post this anymore on social media, I'm gonna get lots, yeah. But yeah, for me, and I think we said this before, if you bring it to a console and it's not the best version, don't be upset with people when they don't like that game. Because everyone who played it on not mobile, it's better on console. I'm like, all right, well,
04:13:30
Speaker
I wish I didn't play it at all, then. Because now I have that indelible thing in my head. I'm just like, this is a mobile game for me. And sure, I'm curious if you try it on Game Pass, if you feel differently about it or even just try it anywhere else because maybe I'm cheap, but we'll see if I have time in life in life. Kudos, vampire survivors. Your bat is in the mail.
04:13:56
Speaker
Uh, we got for rogue like the honorees dome keeper, which I know also like took over the like reviews and stuff like everybody fucking adores this game. I know nothing about it. Nevermore at the chamber door. Ship of fools. And that's it.
04:14:15
Speaker
Wow, y'all, we did it. Those are the categories done. We'll do a full round up. We got visual aesthetic going to nobody saves the world. Debut to tunic. Emotional impact to endling. Extinction is forever. Gameplay to Coromon. Social commentary to endling. Extinction is forever. Music to the Wu-Tang Clan and TMNT.
04:14:39
Speaker
Original concept to one hand clapping surprise to trombone champ early access to slime rancher to action to neon white RPG to Coromon multiplayer to squish horror to face the unholy Trinity mobile to boss game sports and racing to Ali Ali world puzzle to escape Academy narrative adventure to once upon a jester platformer
04:15:05
Speaker
to grapple dog and rogue light slash like to vampire survivors. Some good games on that list, boys. That's a good game. Some very much. Real quick, just because we are running long, I did not expect that.
04:15:22
Speaker
With the audience choices, we had some folks include some of their favorite games or some of the favorite indies of the year. Microclamorous says Norco, which another game that was praised by I slept on. Citizen sleeper and something I'm really interested in. I know he adores this game. It might be his game of the year. He fucked the girl out of me, which yeah. Yeah.
04:15:43
Speaker
You know, sorry, what I briefly saw this when I was adding all these games to my wish list last week. Yeah, I want to play that game. Yeah, definitely. So so free on mobile. I'm sorry. Free on HIO. It's a browser game. No description or anything. Yeah, I'm good. Here. It's a game about it. OK. OK. It's a game about the description. If you just Google it, a game about sex, work and trauma.
04:16:14
Speaker
I'm super into that. Interactive story, part retro style game, part graphic novel describes how events unfold about those things. Hey, it's Carlos. Your doctor recommended dose of dose
04:16:32
Speaker
Whoa, I read that weird. Hey, it's Carlos. You're right. Your doctor recommended dose of nerdiness, AKA nerd today. Hey, Carlos says his favorite of the, your hands, his favorite of the year hands down has to be a TM and T shard as revenge. Everything you know about it was beautifully spoken by Kyle and Mike on the endcast. Hey, Hey.
04:16:51
Speaker
Alex says Grappledog is the best Sonic game of the year. The case of the Golden Idol is a masterpiece mystery game that more people need to know about. Rogue Legacy 2 is great as expected. Freshly Frosted is the best game when imbuing recreational substances. We have some wild fans over here. Yeah, right. Well, what do you expect with the way we fucking produce shows?
04:17:21
Speaker
to the left. John S says shredder's revenge brought me back to the days of hanging at the local pool, putting so many quarters into the TMNT arcade cabinet. Uh, Jill Grot, uh, who runs a fantastic indie site, by the way, um,
04:17:39
Speaker
Case of the golden idol, little gator game, melatonin, lost in play, paradise, marsh, project, detective three and beacon pines, which another one that has been on my list forever. Somebody didn't listen to the question and didn't write their name, but they said nobody saves the world and tiny can. The good sir.
04:17:58
Speaker
Call. I didn't get to play as much as I wanted this year, just like everyone else. But a few standouts that personally touched that I personally touched were a musical stories. Parentheses should have been nominated for best music. You're goddamn right. Call for tales. Lost in play. Mothman 1966 parentheses. Thanks to Juno's review. Nobody saves the world. Stray and Tiny Ken. Somebody else said trouble. I dig. Wait. Very confused. Oh, wait. Maybe that wasn't Cole.
04:18:30
Speaker
Nice. So the person I thought, the person I thought was Cole.
04:18:34
Speaker
didn't write a name. And I just assumed it was cold because of the best music nominee, but Cole actually writes in. Is it possible? Cole wrote in twice. Possibly. Uh, salutations, PD pal Cole, AKA the good sir here. And I what a year for indies. It was so many great indies dropped in 2022 FOMO really kicked in for me as I didn't get to play half as I wanted that said personal standouts were yes, it was cold. Just cold. Yeah. Yeah.
04:19:00
Speaker
Musical Story Stray, Once Upon a Jester, A Walk with the Aya, Return to Monkey Island, Mothman 1966. On a personal note, I'd just like to thank you for all the hours of entertainment you provided this community throughout 2022. Can't wait to see what 2023 has in store for 6.1 indie. And on that note, let's get the fuck out of here into a very quick post show. Thank you all for listening to this over four hour podcast.
04:19:26
Speaker
I've been Mike, that's been Matt, that's been Kyle, that's been Harry. Follow along with us, 6.1indie.com at 6.1indie on socials. Next week is your big 2023 preview. And then the week after that, we get into our fantasy critic league for 2023. Like, subscribe, share with your friends, all that good stuff. Goodbye. I love you. Love you. Play more indies. Play more indies.