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Episode 18: Joseph Mansfield (ThinkyGames.com)
212 Plays7 days ago
In this episode, hosts Alan and Syrenne are joined by Joseph Mansfield, the manager of ThinkyGames.com. Topics include discussions of thinky games we love, what Joe's been up to, and a long tangent about Bonfire Peaks and The Legend of Zelda series. The vibes on this one are immaculate.
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Welcome
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Drakkneck and Friends official podcast, where we peel back the curtain on puzzle games and the people who make them. I'm Seren, the producer at Drakkneck and Friends, and I'm joined as always by Alan Hazelden, the head Drakkneck at Drakkneck and Friends.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hey there. Today, we're joined by Joe again, who you may know from his work at thinkygames.com. How are you doing today? I'm doing good, thanks.
00:00:47
Speaker
Hope doing good as well. First returning non-employee guest. As we figured it out, yes. Yes. Thanks for having me back. Yeah, no, it's awesome. We had you on in case people are not listening to every episode, which I wouldn't necessarily blame you. There's a lot of episodes out by now.
00:01:05
Speaker
But they should be. Yeah, but... Obviously, it should be. A weekly podcast is a little bit ah hard to keep up with sometimes, depending on how life is
Joe's Return & YouTube Impact
00:01:15
Speaker
going. Anyways, we had you on to talk about the 2024 Thinky Games of the Year. Mm-hmm.
00:01:24
Speaker
That's good fun. Yeah, that was a fun episode. it was People were excited to hear some recommendations based on that. I immediately saw that your YouTube channel started posting ah videos of Bond.
00:01:39
Speaker
and Indeed, yes. that oh That's a good point. I did start playing that because Alan had mentioned it. On the podcast. So yeah even you're being influenced even when you're on the episodes. Indeed. yeah, no, we didn't actually take much time on that episode to chat to you about you.
00:01:58
Speaker
And so we figured just have you back on and we'll do that in a more structured, more normal episode.
Joe's Work & Puzzle Games Passion
00:02:06
Speaker
So outside of what I kind of just alluded to, can you sort of tell the listeners again, what do you do?
00:02:13
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. so obviously I'll be repeating myself a little bit from before, but I'm sure some people won't have listened to that one. So why not? So yeah, I run the Thinky Games website where we share lots of puzzly problem solving games um and you know help people discover great games through that website and the other things that we do there.
00:02:33
Speaker
I also run a YouTube channel called Joe Plays Puzzle Games, where I play puzzle games. I guess that's pretty obvious from the title. It's like pretty much unedited playthroughs.
00:02:45
Speaker
um So if you want to see like every single moment of me being stuck and not knowing what to do and just like umming and ahhing about everything it's there it's all there on my youtube channel um i also i guess i've made a few ah puzzle games myself um that are on my itch page uh ah like i guess my background my training is in software development in general um i've done a lot of like web development but also some game stuff um and yeah that's that's pretty much me Awesome.
00:03:16
Speaker
And yes, if anyone is listening, wants to watch Joe get very... ah start Start an episode full of hope on Lock Digital that he's going to like solve multiple puzzles in one video and then uploads a 45-minute long video of one puzzle, ah then do i have the channel the authentic Joe who plays puzzle games experience. Exactly. it's its yeah yeah it's what people tune in for.
00:03:43
Speaker
And yeah it's actually... It's like... it's it's It's kind of a problem because like the way I do my YouTube channel is I'm Like it's it's intentionally meant to be a kind of a low effort activity for me. It's like, I'm just playing games, I record them.
00:03:56
Speaker
I don't edit them much. I put them up on the YouTube channel. And so, and I also plan to kind of do like roughly half an hour videos every day. And soon as I get stuck on the puzzle, I am terrible at like moving away from it. I will just like keep pushing.
00:04:12
Speaker
I'm like, surely I've just got to do like, surely I'm really close. Even in games which have multiple levels unlocked, yeah where actually the optimal play experience would be to go, well, I've been stuck on this for 20 minutes. Let's move on something else and come back to it.
00:04:26
Speaker
ah huh Brain says no. Yeah, I just can't pull myself away from the puzzle. Joe loves his puzzle blinders. Yeah, and and it's it's also funny that you'd think after all this time,
00:04:37
Speaker
like there are lessons you learn when playing puzzle games, right? you you You learn that like, if you're like bashing your head against the puzzle for an hour, it's probably because you're on like the wrong path and there's like something you you've you've done wrong in your deductions, like earlier on in the puzzle.
00:04:53
Speaker
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how long I've been playing puzzle games for, that's still a problem. And I still get caught on the puzzle and then eventually go, oh wait, if I just do this thing differently at the start, suddenly it's it's possible. And if I just like,
00:05:06
Speaker
When, okay, now I've been playing for half an hour, I'll stop and come back to the next day. like that would almost certainly trigger me to like realize that I was stuck on the on a silly thing
Puzzle Challenges & Stubbornness
00:05:15
Speaker
like that. But nope, doesn't matter.
00:05:17
Speaker
i haven't learned anything over however many years it's been, six years whatever. i So, or very early on, like the first weekend after Lock Digital launched, one of the daily puzzles was legitimately unbeatable due to a bug.
00:05:31
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And I will be honest and say, I was refreshing your channel to see if you were going to post a video of you figuring out the hard way that that puzzle was unbeatable.
00:05:45
Speaker
I guess I didn't do it that day, did I? No, that would have... Lucky I think that was what killed your daily puzzle. it It's a coincidence, right? Like you didn't even try it.
00:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think I had tried that one. I think because it can be hard to like squeeze in a daily puzzle every day alongside all the other videos that I'm doing. Sometimes I like just drop off doing it. I think fortunately for me, I just didn't try that one.
00:06:11
Speaker
I mean, hey, we could just send you a build that has like 2% chance that any given daily puzzle is impossible. like Just to trap me. I'll be stuck all day trying to solve an impossible puzzle.
00:06:24
Speaker
If you want that experience. Look, you want if if you want to upload a 20 hour long video and as as I sit there delighted having the ability to scrub through it or play it at 2x speed. I love that that's the takeaway here, but that that's what I want.
00:06:40
Speaker
I want to be uploading a 20 hour video. and I don't think that's my intention.
Memorable Game Experiences
00:06:46
Speaker
I don't think that's what you as a creator are striving for. I think that's what I as a viewer... So Ren, you think you're representative of Joe's audience? No, not in the slightest. Well, funnily enough, like I was surprised because I did a playthrough of Tunic last year, I think.
00:07:03
Speaker
And there's one video in that where I'm like deciphering the language that's in Tunic. You don't have to do that as part of playing the game. You can finish the game without deciphering the language, but there is a language in it that you can decipher.
00:07:14
Speaker
And I did a video where very little of the video is in the game. It's mostly in Photoshop with me like making notes and drawing out these symbols and all this stuff. And it's like five hours long.
00:07:26
Speaker
And it's like the most watched video in that entire series. So people clearly like that stuff. I guess I wasn't stuck. I was making progress, but it seems that- Yeah, you're making progress. yeah ah To Alan's earlier question, no, I'm not. But also I feel like I tune in for possibly different reasons than Joe's normal audience. Because if I'm being fully honest, I didn't tune in until I started working with Joe. show had off And developed a pretty solid understanding of how his
Balancing Game Difficulty
00:07:56
Speaker
how he approaches problems and problem solving. So I have a very specific lens through which to watch Joe solve puzzles that most people on this planet do not.
00:08:07
Speaker
I think like the, I don't know whether this whether this is true. I've not asked my audience or or whatever, but my expert expectation is most people that are watching me, especially because I do it in ah this format where I upload like the complete experience, not edited down, is that they are there to see All the the the bits that work, the bits that don't work, whether it's like my fault because I missed something or it's the game's fault for not communicating something well. I think that is the interesting thing about it. And it's is the thing that interested me about other people's playthroughs, which is why I started that channel in the first place.
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah, so why dont do you want to dig into that little bit? Sure. So specifically, the thing that listeners may not know is it's not just that you post sort of daily videos unedited, showing the whole process.
00:08:58
Speaker
It's that you don't play Thinky Games unless it's for the channel. um That's true. i mean... i don't know I don't know if I have time beyond everything else I'm doing to play other games. like It's not just that I don't play Thinkie games outside the channel. i don't I basically don't play any other game outside of what I'm playing on my channel, um which is probably not great from ah the perspective of like I'm sort of missing out on lots of other genres or whatever. have But i I love playing Thinkie games, so ah so it's it's great in that sense.
00:09:29
Speaker
And yeah, I just don't find the time to do other things. But yeah, um at the this was kind of my, i guess this the beginning of the story into like how I got involved in Thinky Games.
00:09:41
Speaker
in general is that it kind of started with starting the YouTube channel. um And I had been watching other YouTubers like Alex Dina, who you had on the podcast the other week, um and like Keith Ballard as well. I watched his YouTube channel a lot and he plays like pretty much unedited playthroughs of games.
00:10:02
Speaker
And And I guess I had started getting into the Thinkie Games space, like starting to play various puzzle games and such. um Like I'd played The Witness and Steven Sausage Roll and Snakebird and Cosmic Express.
00:10:19
Speaker
And there was a game that was like on my like two playlists, like this is before I started my YouTube channel and it was Return of the Oba Dinn. just come out and I was like, I really want to play this game. But there was part of me that was like,
00:10:31
Speaker
like I'm also really interested in capturing that experience like in the same way that I'm interested in other people's experiences. And so I delayed playing Return the Obra Dinn until I bought a microphone. um And once I did, i started playing it. And that was the first game that i played on the channel.
00:10:46
Speaker
and Yeah, so it was I was definitely inspired by those other channels and just wanting to kind of capture a similar thing online.
Career Transition & Community Involvement
00:10:53
Speaker
Awesome. Now, Normally when we record these episodes with people, I try to immediately ask you a question about what you were just talking about. But I have so many questions and they're all firing off in a bunch of different ways. so I'm going to jump all over the place and I apologize.
00:11:09
Speaker
Of the games that you've played on the channel, I'm not going to ask you what your favorite one because i was. because i'm sure you I'm sure you get that a lot. Or a reasonable amount. My question for you is, what is a game that you played on the channel that...
00:11:25
Speaker
really reinforced your love of this space. Interesting. Whether through design or through the experience that you had or for any other reason.
00:11:37
Speaker
That is interesting. I don't know. I kind of just think it's like every game along the way. um so like, yeah, the first one played was Return of the Obra Dinn. And suddenly I was like, oh my gosh, like detective games are a thing and can be a thing. And these this is amazing.
00:11:53
Speaker
And I just got deeper into the Sokaban space as well. Like before playing Steven Sausage Roll, I would definitely have been somebody they've been like, oh, I don't like playing these games.
00:12:04
Speaker
And that was when you did before starting the channel, right? That was before starting the channel. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, the timeline's a bit all over the place. But yeah, before starting the channel, played Stephen Sausage Roll. um Sadly, there is no playthrough of it on my channel. And maybe I should revisit it at some point ah to put that on there.
00:12:19
Speaker
But yeah, I like before then I would not have like said I like I would not have expected to enjoy a Sokerman game, but it like it somehow convinced me was like my first one and it is like notably like a really hard one.
00:12:32
Speaker
But it like totally convinced me that these games are amazing and interesting and special in a way that I hadn't expected it. And i was like I was listening to a recent Eggplant podcast where they were talking about Block Koala. Is that what it's called? It's like one of the games in... Yeah, Block Koala.
ThinkyGames.com Development
00:12:51
Speaker
UFO 50. The infamous Block Koala. Right. And they were talking about that with Patrick Traynor. And the hosts of the podcast were like saying similar things I've heard a lot about Circle Man games. And it's like the same things that I felt about them before I'd like...
00:13:07
Speaker
that bit of my brain had been unlocked that made me love them. And I just like, like I wanted to like dive into the podcast and say, no, just like play more and you'll like find, you'll find the reason this is like fascinating. And you'll like get over, there's definitely a thing with, I think like Circle Band games is,
00:13:24
Speaker
that they can kind of feel a bit uncomfortable at first, a bit like you're lay in a tight space and you're just constantly hitting dead ends or whatever. And you you get used to that in the sense that like, not in the sense that like, oh, like the pain, but like you get used to the pain.
00:13:41
Speaker
You get used to it in the sense that you you start to learn like how to- the possibility spaces. Yeah, like what that means and how to deal with it. And yeah and it stops being a thing that you're like- like that's frustrating or even painful whatever um anyway that's a slight aside uh no you're good and yeah and then just like just everything along the way uh some like really notable games were like outer wilds um absolutely loved it perhaps my favorite game it's like hard to say like what is your favorite game but like outer wilds is definitely up there look it's it's up there for a lot of people
00:14:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it's just kind of like, it's it's beautiful. It's like narratively amazing. It's also really thinky. don't think I've you play the DLC. The DLC, I did play the DLC on my channel, so it's there. Yeah, just don't think I've seen that.
00:14:32
Speaker
but Yeah, I loved it as well. I thought it was just as good as the base game. And I'm definitely looking forward to whatever they make next. Outer Wild, I'm going to shout out Toki Tori 2. love that game.
00:14:43
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. It's like horrendously underplayed, but it's like, there's this concept of like Metroid Brainiac games that, you know, some people don't like that term, but I don't mind it at all. I think it's, it's a fun term.
00:14:59
Speaker
um But I think like Tokutori 2 is like the perfect, but I'm not saying it's like necessarily going to always be like the best example, but it's currently my favorite example of a Metroidvania. I think it executes it super well.
00:15:11
Speaker
And yeah, just loads of other games I played along the way. Just kept reinforcing my love of it, and I'm not tired of it yet. Awesome. ah What's a game that you played on the channel... What do you think was the hardest experience, either...
00:15:27
Speaker
Either in terms of the game was extremely difficult and so you found yourself like you're not sure if it made for great content or the game simply didn't click with you and it just felt like it was hard to get through or like however you want to interpret that question.
00:15:44
Speaker
Interesting. Gosh. Yeah, because you don't drop games, right? Like once you've started something... mean, actually, related question, is there ever a game which you started playing and were like, no, this isn't for me and just never uploaded it?
00:15:58
Speaker
ah No, that's never happened. I think I've become like really like good at picking the games that I'm going to enjoy playing. So it doesn't happen... And or stubborn. I guess so. i guess I'm also stubborn. Or you could call you could say patient. I think I'm...
00:16:14
Speaker
I'm able to give some like patience to every game that play, even if it's like there are bits where I don't gel with it very well. um I don't know if there's anything that's been like a real pain.
00:16:26
Speaker
um Sometimes, like ah like a common experience is that I will like be really enjoying a game and it will get difficult in a way that...
00:16:38
Speaker
um I would describe as like not a fun kind of difficulty where it's just like the complexity just ramps up and I like the puzzles just become intractable rather than like just like kind of deeper and more interesting which is the kind of difficulty that I tend to enjoy um and Then I can start to like bash my head against the game at that point.
00:16:59
Speaker
But like i yeah i tend to push through at my own expense. um And I'm kind of glad I do because ah like part of the point of the channel is to highlight what is it that works in a Thinkie game, what it that doesn't work?
00:17:15
Speaker
And I guess I'm kind of highlighting that by showing the bits where I do struggle. I don't think I've ever dropped a game though. I don't necessarily 100% a
Game Selection Strategy
00:17:23
Speaker
game. There's a few games I haven't 100%ed, but um like Animal Well, for example, i got to a point in Animal Well where it was already getting some of the secrets were getting a little frustrating to find. And i just knew the next layer beyond that was going to be more of that. so I was like, no, this is a good place to stop and I'll move on to another game. So I can put a game down eventually, but I usually at least get to the
00:17:48
Speaker
credit I think I've always got to the credits in every game. Hopefully that's true. That might not be true. I don't know. I'll let Alan ask a question now because I've been dominating. Oh, gosh. Pressure. I mean, going going back to the origin story for the channel, was it that you decided you were interested in puzzle games and then Oba Dinn came along and that reinforced it? Or was were you interested in streaming and then Oba Dinn came around and that, like...
00:18:18
Speaker
put you in the, oh yeah, puzzle games mindset? Or like- Oh, that's a really good question actually. these So, um yes, to begin with my channel was not called JoePlaysPuzzleGames, it was called just Joseph Mansfield, my name.
00:18:30
Speaker
um And I did not intend for it to just be a kind of puzzle game focused channel.
Monetization Experiments
00:18:35
Speaker
In fact, the, I think it's the second series I started on there was me playing, you know, the old like Commandos games.
00:18:44
Speaker
I started playing Commandos 1. I think that's the second series I did alongside Return the Abra Dinn. And, you know, it's it's kind of, it's like a, you know, tactics game. So it's in the same like thinky space, but yeah certainly at the time I wasn't thinking, I was just thinking like whatever game I'm interested in playing, I'll play it on this channel.
00:19:01
Speaker
I think what started to happen, I think the maybe the, I might be misremembering the exact order, but I played Dispontibus, which had just came out around the same time. And it's like a game from, you know, within the Thinky puzzle space.
00:19:16
Speaker
And it's like a, you know, it's a small indie game, you know, not like super polished, but I just like wanted to like play a game that was made by folks in the Thinky community. um And so I played that and,
00:19:30
Speaker
I just really enjoyed the fact that like in a way, like I was almost being helpful to the Thinkie community in in playing that game, um like kind of helping to A, like showcase it, but also it kind of acts as like playtesting.
00:19:46
Speaker
It's kind of too late, but it's like playtesting feedback for the developer as well. And I really liked that relationship that started building with various developers as I played their games. And I think those two things, like I was just really enjoying those games. and I was loving that relationship with the Thinkie community and the developers there. And it just kind of pushed me more and more towards that.
00:20:06
Speaker
And eventually I decided, like well, I'm I'm basically just playing puzzle games at this point. I'm going to rename the channel to JoePlaysPuzzleGames. Awesome. And but how does the timeline of this line up with um the Thinky Puzzle Games Discord? um Oh, that's a good question. I feel like i feel like I've known you basically forever.
00:20:26
Speaker
um But I think that actually i started to get to know you through that Discord.
Bonfire Peaks DLC Design
00:20:34
Speaker
Yes, that's definitely true.
00:20:38
Speaker
And I started that back in July of 2018. Okay. was going to ask, because that would help me like frame. So that was 2018. So I probably wasn't there for the first...
00:20:50
Speaker
couple of years. I should have looked this up beforehand, but I probably joined in... i might have joined in like 2019. Yeah, that that sounds about right.
00:21:03
Speaker
um And ah yeah, that's that's like... So I had been playing some puzzle games before then. Obviously, i I played The Witness, I played Steven Sussard Roll, Cosmic Express, Snakebird, as I mentioned earlier, Return the Obra Dinn.
00:21:21
Speaker
i Yeah, I don't know exactly... like Because I'd been playing Disponsor, surely I was in the Discord. I don't know the exact timeline, but they would have been around the same time that I was joining that Discord and then starting to...
00:21:32
Speaker
play stuff on my channel i think my channel might have been first but i i don't know for certain both of us have have worked with you in various different contexts yeah the first time around was working on cerebral puzzle showcase yeah uh so yeah let's let's talk about that there sure okay so yeah i think of my youtube channel as like the kind of the start of all this happening um But it wasn't I wasn't doing anything like professional in the game space until I helped with the first Cerebral Puzzle Showcase. Yeah, it was, right?
00:22:05
Speaker
um And so the situation there is that... you know So while I was running my YouTube channel all that time, I was also a software developer um and had been doing software development for eight years or something like that. I've been programming since I was a teenager, um but professionally I've been doing for eight years.
00:22:24
Speaker
And then i was just looking to, i was a a I was looking to leave that job. um And I was also thinking, well, wouldn't it be great if I could do something in the um kind of the puzzle space?
00:22:37
Speaker
And i didn't necessarily know what exactly that would be. And I was ready to leave the job anyway. And so part of me was thinking maybe I just spend, you know, some time not doing like paid work and just like working on my own little games or whatever.
00:22:52
Speaker
um But I think sensibly, I also reached out to you, Alan, and was like, do you have like anything that you're doing at the moment that you could like have help with? And it just turned out that you happened to be organizing this real puzzle showcase at that time. And I was looking for a way to leave my job and like do thinky puzzle-related things.
00:23:12
Speaker
And that felt like a great way to be able to do that without worrying about my bank account just emptying. um So yeah, so yes. A good like and message to take away there is ask people if they like need help with stuff or if there's any work going.
00:23:29
Speaker
like Often there won't be, but at least it like puts you on yeah on their radar and sometimes it works out and it can like literally change your life, which it did to me. It moved me out of like a software development career and led towards my like entry into the games industry.
00:23:47
Speaker
ah definitely like came through a side entrance. It's a pretty weird way to get into it. But ah yeah, it's the only reason that happened. so Yeah, and like there's a pretty direct line, but it's kind of not obvious from the outside. But like the the journey from the channel to 3-wheel puzzle showcase to what you're doing now at Thinky Games.
00:24:06
Speaker
um Yeah. Yeah, like how much how much do you want to talk about... Everything in between. Yeah. So with the Cerebral Puzzle Showcase, and the first one I was like helping out with the streams the ah that we run on the the showcase page, um basically like contacting streamers, seeing if they're interested in... in playing some of the games and was showing the streams on the showcase page.
00:24:30
Speaker
And so I was organizing all of that for the first showcase. um And then, so what actually happened, i guess it was probably while we were working on that, I don't remember the exact timeline, but I also applied for the Astra Fellowship um from what was then called Astro Games and is now called Astrological.
00:24:52
Speaker
I applied for the Astra Fellowship because they were they were basically giving grants to people working in the space. And ah so the the thing I applied you know for was to kind of, like I've been interested in like, what does the next generation of PuzzleScript look like? Because I've been using PuzzleScript for a long time as well.
00:25:13
Speaker
And I applied with a kind of a version of that. I got rejected from that though, but like almost almost immediately after getting rejected from that grant, I emailed Astra to be like, I'm i'm also interested in like starting a website about Thinky Games.
00:25:30
Speaker
Would you be interested in in in this? And it just so happens that Astro was working on that project at the time. They were they were already you know working on making a ah website about thinky puzzle games.
00:25:45
Speaker
At the time, like internally, the project was called Puzzle Central. So there's an alternative history where it would have been called PuzzleCentral.com or whatever. But yeah but it was it was also like, they were nominally working on this, but it was kind of in a space where like it was happening without like actually much progress happening on it, right?
Zelda-like Puzzle Games & Potential
00:26:07
Speaker
I think it had been... i like i don't know the full details of everything that was going on, but like I think it had sort of been in the works for like a a year or even two, but probably mostly just being discussed. I'm not sure how far along things were, but yeah, I was kind of...
00:26:23
Speaker
I think what basically happened when i emailed and said, I'm interested in starting this kind of website, I think the folks at Astra were like, oh, you might be able to help us actually like get this out of the door and get it done, um which is effectively what my job became when I joined Astra, was get ah that website launched. And we ended up actually launching it as thinkygames.com.
00:26:45
Speaker
ah Yeah, like so after that, um I was doing various other things at Astra. So I wasn't just focused on the games. um I was ah in general, I was doing what like what we call like genre growth.
00:26:57
Speaker
um So any activities related to like growing the audience. And after about a year, but so would this would have been the end of 2024.
00:27:07
Speaker
three we decided to like the best way for me to focus on growing the audience of thinky games would be to just like focus on thinkygames.com um and that's that's ultimately what ended up happening and now i've just been doing thinkygames.com stuff for the past well since then past couple of years basically or past year in a bit yeah Awesome. So not to turn this into like a postmortem, but like, how do how do you think the launch went? Like it's, thinkinggames.com has gone through a few different evolution since its launch. yeah Exactly, yeah. I think probably, correct me I'm wrong, the most obvious and notable is the Thinking Games database.
00:27:50
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. So, yeah. Like, how how do you think it was originally? How do you think, like, the role of the Thinking Games database is? And if you can explain it. And then how do you view it now?
00:28:02
Speaker
Sure. So yeah, so originally when we launched the site, it was effectively a blog about, you know, Thinky Games, um like with news and reviews and things like that.
00:28:14
Speaker
It was a WordPress website. And so, you know, it was what you'd expect from a pretty typical WordPress website. Yeah, it's just a blog with articles on it um and, you know great articles, great news and all that stuff.
00:28:24
Speaker
ah But that was like what the focus was. Then the the so the biggest like shift that's happened is when
Integrating Rhythm in Puzzle Games
00:28:30
Speaker
I started to focus entirely on thinkyames.com is that we you know we started to do new things, new activities, new events and things like that. So I guess before the database, I'll get to the database in a second, but we you know we started increasing like the number of like events we were running. So we started the Thinky Awards program.
00:28:53
Speaker
We did the first one last year and we're running the second one now. And we did a developer conference called ThinkyCon as well. We started doing more, like we we should be doing more of these, but we started doing more like kind of giveaways and and things like that. And I think we got more on top of our by socials as well, all that kind of stuff.
00:29:13
Speaker
But then, yeah, during that time, we were also working on the new version of the website, which includes the Thinky Games database. And so that the idea behind the database is that like the most common problem I found when trying to, you know, encourage more people to play thinky games is that they'd be like, okay, this sounds interesting, but like, where do I find out about these games?
00:29:37
Speaker
And obviously we could point them towards the articles, the news and the reviews and such, but then you're like just getting a kind of sliver of what's available and it's only new stuff. um We could also point people towards like Discord or follow like certain people on social media and you'll probably you know hear about stuff. But what I wanted to be able to do is send people to a place where they could just be like, I'm not in this space.
00:30:03
Speaker
I want to know like what are all the best games on the Nintendo Switch. Or I want to know, like I really like detective games. What are the best detective games? And that's why we started building the the database.
00:30:14
Speaker
um And it lets you do those things.
Upcoming Projects & Community Engagement
00:30:16
Speaker
you It's a You go to the the database on the website and you can immediately filter down to what platforms you own. You can search by genre. You can search by difficulty. If you like would prefer an easier game or a harder game, you can do that.
00:30:32
Speaker
If you want a game that's got hints, you can search for that. like I also like really love that by having a database like this, we can really tailor the searching to what... I mean, it's mostly book based on what I believe people who enjoy these games tend to care about when playing these games.
00:30:48
Speaker
um There's a few things I'd like to add. Like, we don't currently have a way of searching by, like, how long the game is, like how long it takes to beat. um I would like to add that at some point, but, you know, we're adding features as we go.
00:31:02
Speaker
i mean, yeah that's... I've said on this podcast a few times that I get more and more excited over every year when I hear a game be described as, it's great, so my colon, it's three hours long.
00:31:17
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And that that ah applies to me as well. like I've had a couple of games that people really want me to play, like um Maxwell's Puzzling Demon, and I Want a Lockpick. Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
I'm just like terrified because I know it'll be like an entire year of my channel dedicated to one game. Obviously, I could start a new policy where I stop playing games, but apparently that's not possible. I have to play a game through to completion. More and I'm like 20 hours fine as well, 100 hours? Maybe less so.
00:31:49
Speaker
you know i don't like twenty hours is is fine as well but ah hundred hours ah maybe less so Yeah, i mean, I guess that was one of my questions I had um related to this is like, is there or could there be a game that like you're interested in playing, but that you wouldn't want to play for the channel? And so you like you just feel that you couldn't play it at all?
00:32:14
Speaker
Interesting. that I don't think that's that's happened yeah yeah ah Oh, well, sorry. I guess i guess i just gave an example of it with like Maxwell's Puzzling Demon and I Want to Lockpick. But I guess the reality there is that like if I wasn't doing my channel, I'd have exactly the same feelings about it of like, this is going to take me...
00:32:32
Speaker
80 hours to complete. And I know it's going to get really difficult. You could you can just play them and go like, oh I'm going to play for five hours and I'm going to stop there.
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah. this could do that. Yeah. And on occasion, I have done videos where it's just like, I'm just going to take a look at this game. i could do that. And I'm interested in doing that. And i i I might even do it if I find the time for it.
00:32:54
Speaker
But I know it won't really appease the people who are asking me to play it. Because what they want to see... They want to see you struggle against the end game game but puzzles. 100%. Yeah, exactly. but like um They want me to see those mind blowing moments that are like- Just full sicko, Matt. 60 hours. Yeah, I yeah i could.
00:33:14
Speaker
And I've done it on occasion. I played through all of Bean and Nothingness, which was a really long game and really difficult. I played through all of Babber is You, which you can get the credits quite quickly in that game. But if you play everything, it's it's it's a big game.
00:33:28
Speaker
I did not play the expansion for Babri's U for the same reason. It's like, well, this is probably going to be another 80 hours or whatever. So yeah, those kind games end up not, like, I just don't end playing them. And I don't think the channel plays a part in that decision really, because I'm just playing what would want to play anyway.
00:33:49
Speaker
I mean, I appreciate that, like, looking at your channel, the exact immediate play order of not a crawl into Bonfire Peaks, into Trace Undos, into Metroid Dread, into Vita Nothingness is very funny to me. I like to like shake things up and like jump between genres. Metroid Dread is like... An action game.
00:34:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of the few games they've played that like doesn't really fit the theme of the channel. but I mean, just the theme good-ass games. Yeah, exactly. like um like It's definitely like tangentially related to some other games that I've played.
00:34:28
Speaker
ah The same was true with Subnautica. I played that as well. Yeah. Yeah, like i sometimes I just like to mix it up. and And most of the time I am just going like, well what would I like to play next? And ah one thing I've noticed is that sometimes that is just based on, like if I've just played like a Sokaban game, sometimes I just want to be able to like run around and jump.
00:34:53
Speaker
in a game like uh and just have that freedom and then after doing that i'm like but no now i want to play like a really systemsy um like on a grid or whatever like like yeah i just like like i go through different preferences and it i think that also helps the channel in a sense like so okay i will 100% say i do not run my youtube channel in a way that is like the best for its growth like there yeah There are other ways to do YouTube channels that like... They're not telling me to like and subscribe three times a video, so yes. yeah
00:35:29
Speaker
I didn't do any of that. Like the most I do is like, I now say ah like, welcome back to whatever the game is and goodbye at the end of the video.
00:35:40
Speaker
um How dare you make those confessions to YouTube. Exactly. But if i if I were thinking about like what is best for the channel, playing more games is better. but like The most viewed video of any series always the first one because people just want to see what a game is like.
00:35:56
Speaker
um And the most sensible thing I think you could do is play a different game every day. And then if there's like a game that like really captures people, maybe do a longer playthrough of that.
00:36:09
Speaker
But... i'm I'm intentionally not treating my YouTube channel as like a job that I'm like going to optimize perfectly for getting getting all the subscribers. That's not the goal there. I just want to play some games and record them and put them on.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Do you monetize it at all? I have started doing that. I i started doing it as... an experiment, I was kind of like, I just kind of want to know, i have no sense of like how much much money you do make from ads on YouTube.
00:36:37
Speaker
So I turned it on for that purpose. And I keep meaning to like reflect on that and decide whether I should just turn it off again. Like I'll be upfront, like I think I make 30 pounds a month.
00:36:49
Speaker
It's kind of like low enough that I don't know if that's worth me blasting products in people's faces every time they watch my video. like it's It's still something, though. You've just got to be sponsored. You've got to partner with NordVPN and GFuel.
00:37:07
Speaker
I mean, that is where the real money is if you're doing YouTube stuff. If I don't hear you say Raid Shadow Legends in in the next six months, I'll be disappointed, Joe. like having Having, like, you know, in previous work, we've we've sponsored you like YouTubers to do videos. yes And yeah, it's ah it's like it's expensive for the sponsor and it's great for the YouTuber. Yeah, exactly. yeah What's a game that you played on your channel that you wish you could have gotten more content out of? Like, either because you really enjoyed how it turned out as videos or because you just wanted to play more of that game?
00:37:49
Speaker
Oh gosh. Bonfire Peaks. Has Joe played the DLC for that? Yeah, I definitely played the DLC and I'm very, I mean, yeah, like it's a good example. Like, I guess a lot of games I would say like, oh, I guess it depends on the game. So some games when I get to the end of them, I think, I don't think there's really much more they could do with that.
00:38:11
Speaker
I don't know whether I'm just like primed with Bonfire Peaks, to because because I know there's more DLCs coming, and I know... There sure is! And let me tell you... This is the second podcast we've recorded in 25 hours where I'm talking again about to the track development of the Bobbier Peaks DLC. However, ah every every week that this podcast but podcast continues, we get closer and closer to ah the remainder of the DLC coming out.
00:38:46
Speaker
It'll be worth it at the end. Yeah, and it's it's one of the situations where like as soon as you tell me, like, oh, we're going to make a DLC that explores this like other idea, this mechanic that we wanted to explore in the base game, but we weren't able to.
00:38:57
Speaker
because Seren was a bully. ah Oh, that's why. No, that is exactly why. That is, we needed to ship and I wasn't going to delay the game like six months to include three more mechanics. And then it turns out it took years to come up with all of the puzzles for those mechanics. And I was right. I mean, the problem is... We were already leaning towards cutting those mechanics.
00:39:20
Speaker
um I was not the first person to bring it up to bring up the decision. i was the person to basically slam it down on the table and say, it's it's this way or we don't shift.
00:39:34
Speaker
do Do you think if those mechanics had been in the first game, there would have been fewer puzzles for each of way, way, way fewer. Yes. there would have been shorter sections that didn't fully explore.
00:39:46
Speaker
but So we're still not talking about the mechanics for the second and third parts. ah But the first one has been out there, and that was um Vertical Eros.
00:39:57
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And there were, like I played a bunch of those puzzles, not those puzzles that finally shift, but like a bunch of puzzles with that well before we launched.
00:40:08
Speaker
But I'm going to be blunt. They also just weren't as good of puzzles as the ones that ended up shipping in the DLC because the DLC had more more time to yeah explore that concept and really like โ when you're playing a game like Bonfire Peaks but you where you have so many mechanics and also in theory every single puzzle in the entire game is optional outside of the first three. Mm-hmm.
00:40:34
Speaker
Uh, which I, hate there are development stories on that one. Um, not, not what you're thinking. It's a lot harder to tutorialize that kind of mechanic. And I think the Bonfire Peaks does really, really well with it, but because it's the DLC and you can suddenly have a first level that everyone has to do.
00:40:56
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, the difficulty curve was definitely ah forced to be better when we took it took it out into a into the DLC. But also we just got more thorough about exploring all the interactions with all of the base game mechanics in a way that I think in the context of the main game, we would just not have yeah made sure to explore the full design space.
00:41:22
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess the problem with kind of systems-based puzzle design is it's often like combinatorial. Like a good mechanic is combinatorial with every other mechanic. And so every single one you add multiplies the size of the game by a significant amount. Unless you're like really constrained and say,
00:41:39
Speaker
we don't necessarily want to explore this deeply. I guess I listened to the the um podcast you did with the furniture mattress folks about a ranger. And, you know, they they said like their kind of ah philosophy with the the puzzle design is that they just intentionally weren't trying to explore things deeply. They just wanted to give you a little taster of like what a mechanic is like and then leave it.
00:42:01
Speaker
But that's not the Bonfire Peaks philosophy. It's... Oh, the bonfire piece philosophy is we're going to wring out this towel until there is no moisture left. oh like What a great towel. Isn't it amazing, though, that you can do that and your players go, wow, every puzzle in this is amazing? like That I credit to Corey.
00:42:22
Speaker
um And the i like i know Alan made a lot of those puzzles, but also Corey went through and dictated a lot of the mechanical direction and like the curation of that.
00:42:34
Speaker
um It's also something like inherently beautiful about systems puzzle design is that that's possible. like Like adding vertical arrows, like creates, I don't know how many puzzles were in the first DLC, but however many puzzles it was, and they're all really good puzzles. I don't know.
00:42:52
Speaker
ah There's something kind of magical in that. Yeah. If you had to guess what the next two, what the mechanics are based on your memories of Bonfire Peaks and like what you could imagine those mechanics doing, but weren't in the game, i would love, i mean, this, this podcast has just turned into geeking out about Bonfire Peaks without Corey.
00:43:11
Speaker
So this will be really funny for him to listen to. Are we okay? Like talking about mechanics that were in the first game? Yeah. Yeah. It's been out for years and years. Okay. Um, this is tricky. So we had, we had water. Yeah.
00:43:24
Speaker
Yep. We had, like, charring blocks. Yep. Are they all... Oh, we had spikes. Are they all... So the two DLCs, are they all based on the mechanics from the first one, which is, like, changing them? No, each one adds a new mechanic.
00:43:38
Speaker
Sure, but are they, like, in the same way that Vertical Arrows is, like, a variation? okay. No, no, it's it's it's variations on existing... Okay, it's variations. Alan, the reason I said no was because 3 is a little...
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah, i'd I would say that DLC 2 is like along the same lines as DLC 1. Okay. okay And DLC 3 is like a bit more out there.
00:44:05
Speaker
3 is the one I'm very excited to see Joe ah explore. And I also don't want to release any screenshots or video of DLC 3. Interesting. So yeah, this is like asking me to put my puzzle design hat on. Like, where would I go? um There's like the things that feel like the simpler...
00:44:24
Speaker
way to go that are natural extensions what you've done. but But I can't immediately say whether they would actually be interesting or not. So like one example would be, oh, like what if the crates, because we've got like single block crates, we've got two block crates. What if they're like three blocks? What if they're like weird shapes?
00:44:41
Speaker
But also know with the way that Bonfire Peaks is implemented, doing rigid bodies of like complicated shapes might be an absolute nightmare. i so i mean, it is, but it doesn't stop it being possible. Yeah. I mean, i would say that like very early on in Bonfire Peaks, you are combining the crates to form that's true L shapes and S shapes and all of this other stuff, both for bridges but also and like for stairs, but just also in general with the game design. and that ah That also gets explored in the vertical arrows. Yeah, that's very true. Yeah.
00:45:18
Speaker
But I would also say, interestingly, and this is not about DLCs 2 and 3 anymore, this is just like a metagame design thing, is the more you do that, the more you rely on that, the increasingly hard it is for players to plan one step ahead.
00:45:36
Speaker
Because they're you're starting to overload how much... Too many possibilities. too many possibilities, but also like, okay, well, now it's going to be this. Well, now it's going to be this, right?
00:45:50
Speaker
I'm going to make Alan groan here. Like, when you think about Tetris, like, the way that you get good at Tetris... You mean that famous thinky puzzle game Tetris? No, not a thinky puzzle game. It's a puzzle game, but it's not a thinky puzzle game. It's an actual puzzle game. It's not a puzzle game. It's a puzzle The way you get good at solving those puzzles is through the repetition because there's only seven pieces.
00:46:12
Speaker
And so you learn very quickly how like the S shape um like but can hook on to a T shape, right? like you You learn that interaction and then the the the interaction can repeat and the interaction can repeat and it will show up in different contexts because the drop order is randomized. In Bonfire Peaks, because everything is a little more handcrafted and it's not โ it's not as consistent and persistent from level to level to level. What you end up getting is this fascinating, like, you get you get a eureka moment every level, which is a great thing from a game design.
00:46:47
Speaker
But then the other thing is it can become mentally taxing. Sure. But I guess with regards to, like, rigid body blocks being weird shapes, whatever, you've almost got...
00:46:59
Speaker
<unk>s It's more open when they don't... like If you start a block already in a weird like L shape, whatever, yeah you're actually removing options that you would have had yeah and true if you designed the same puzzle with like the smaller blocks that you have to attach together.
00:47:14
Speaker
i guess the other thing with like weirdly shaped blocks and like having made couple of like little rigid body puzzle games... before like the kind of weirder the shapes get the weirder the things you can do with them like especially when you've got like yes you've got water in bonfire peaks and like water pushes things along and then what happens if like something's like standing on something that's being pushed along while there's something behind them yeah all of that is fine the cardinal sin of bonfire peaks is the rotation oh yeah 100% like for some reason cory keeps doing it
00:47:49
Speaker
yeah every other decision in that game if like really elegant and like sure it might throw up some really complicated edge cases but those edge cases are like like you can you can work through them and go like oh yeah this is logical and this is logical and this is logical but the rotation just like i'm never doing it again it blows the possibilities space so wide open but It also just like the the problem I see with rotation is that like rotation is inherently continuous. Like the yeah places that a block sweeps through as you rotate is yeah no longer grid aligned. no and And sure, you can you can like calculate which cells of the grid does this block pass through as it's sweeping, but that's not ah like an inherently intuitive thing.
00:48:38
Speaker
and Additionally, there's like the physics of like a rotating thing hitting something that's like in a different row or column. How should it move that thing? And it has to move it in a way that's still grid aligned, which doesn't physically make sense.
00:48:51
Speaker
And so, yeah, that ah yeah ah Corey, please, and the next game, get rid of rotation. I will say, to close out the Bonfire Peaks conversation quickly, Melanie, who is the editor of this podcast, sent me snippet of a conversation that she was having with a friend ah literally two days ago at time of recording, which was, Bonfire Peaks is the only Drakonet game I struggled to get into because the introduction of the Z-axis was just too much for me. Reply, doesn't Patrick's Parabox kind of have a Z-axis?
00:49:24
Speaker
Patrick's Parabox has a W-axis. In like graphics programming, there's the concept of a like is it homogeneous space or something like that. It's like a 4D space in which you do graphics. Basically, Patrick's power box lives in that space. it's extremely Extremely just remembering that Mario 64 speedrun video that's like, but first we need to talk about parallel dimensions.
00:49:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Awesome. Are there any questions that you have for us? I know that, you know, we're usually are available to you outside of the context of this podcast, but just like in general, either based on the conversations we've been having or just in general, what the podcast about our project about anything.
00:50:08
Speaker
I've got a really easy question for you. Yeah. How do we get more people playing Thinky games? ah You said easy. That's easy to ask. Could you just solve everything for me please? That's a question to ask. just Just give us... Hey, Seren, would 10 million do or do we need a bit more we We need a bit more. So what we what we need to do... ah Here's step one.
00:50:38
Speaker
Get like $25 million. dollars Step two, work with Nintendo to acquire the rights to make a Zelda game. but Step three, make a Zelda game that's all puzzles, no action. Step four, make it the best reviewed game in the franchise. This sounds like a great plan. Everyone points to that and says, why are all games like that?
00:50:58
Speaker
You know what i really want as a Zelda-like game to do? Here's game idea. yeah mean, it I guess it's like a thing that could happen in a in a game. So you've got Zelda-like dungeons, and you're solving puzzles in these dungeons.
00:51:10
Speaker
And then eventually you realize that you like you like knock down a wall or something, or you like hook shut over a gap, and you realize the dungeons are literally next to each other, and you can go between them and solve puzzles across dungeons.
00:51:25
Speaker
and yeah you're solving like multi-dungeon meta puzzles and it's like amazing. That's what should happen. This is what I'm saying is give $25 million dollars and the rights to make a Zelda game and the rights to put that Zelda game on all platforms yeah so that everyone can play it and then we'll like make sure that it hits like a 99 Metacritic yeah and then it'll revolutionize everything about this entire industry forever. You've got contacts in Nintendo, right, Sarand?
00:51:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i could I could call someone up and they they would kind of chuckle at me, I think. That's how you get the Zelda IP. Yeah, i just i just talk to people who are employed at the company that own that technically owns the IP and they would feel like, not to be clear, do I have contacts on the development team of Zelda? No.
00:52:14
Speaker
I have contacts of people who have an at Nintendo.com email address? Yes. Yeah, that's how we get foot in the door. Let's do it. Sounds like a good plan. Oh. So you you hit it here first.
00:52:26
Speaker
back next Next game after the electrifying incident will release in 2030. It's going to be PS6 Zelda game. PS6. p six Oh, God.
00:52:41
Speaker
Anyways, Joe, one of the games that was on my list for the Think Game of the Year podcast we didn't get to was I had written down the Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom just in case I could complain about it on the air. Oh, it's going to be complaining. is Interesting. I think...
00:53:02
Speaker
And I'm actually going to like... I've not played I know, because it's not on in your channel. Good point. You can look up what I've played. Exactly. I'm going to actually like shut up about my feelings about this right now, because I genuinely think that would be such a fascinating one for you to walk place to watch you play Interesting. Yeah. Maybe I'll get around to it at some point.
00:53:25
Speaker
it ah me It's very interesting. Like, there's a lot of ideas there, and it's almost a brilliant puzzle game. Like, like like it's it's not even that far from being a very pure puzzle game.
00:53:39
Speaker
yeah So, the, yeah, I mean, the...
00:53:44
Speaker
you know how You know how in like an action game, ah you can have like a million different attack combos, but if if square, square, square beats every enemy, then you're not incentivized to learn anything else? Yeah, I think I've seen like comments about, like oh, you can just like place beds and then climb over anything. it's not even just beds. There's one specific, there's an item that is ah you can traverse this, you can enter this from any direction, including from, you can put it above you and jump up into it It's like a water block.
00:54:19
Speaker
And then you can exit it in any direction and you can chain them. Yeah. to make To make a mid-air floating hallway to where you want to go. Yeah. And suddenly nothing in the game matters.
00:54:32
Speaker
like I love that at least you you know you you are saying like it is like a kind of interesting, a fascinating game as well. Because like that is true with Nintendo, I think. is that you know yeah um like i grew up on Nintendo games.
00:54:43
Speaker
And of all the AAA stuff, like I don't play AAA games very often anymore. But of all of them, I'm most interested in what Nintendo does because, you know, they do like fascinating things and interesting things. I think that I don't think that Echoes of Wisdom is ah phenomenal game.
00:55:02
Speaker
But what I will say is it's also like in conversation with a couple of other games on your channel in a very interesting and maybe accidental way. Sure, yeah. And like, maybe games like that will inspire something that we- Oh yeah, no, i have I have no doubt that someone is going to have played Echoes of Wisdom and and come away with a great idea for a game that we're going to see in two and a half years. yeah And then they're going to say, oh yeah, I played Echoes of Wisdom and I took note of the things I liked about it and the things I didn't like about it and then I made this. That's a great way to come up with game ideas.
00:55:34
Speaker
Yeah, is I'm going to play the latest Zelda and then fix it. It's like perfect for marketing as well. It's like, well, like there's loads of people that played that game and probably quite a significant chunk of them also thought the same thing.
00:55:46
Speaker
Yes. One of the things i I thought while I was playing the game, and I i didn't finish it, but um the games it really made me think of... were all of the puzzle script, like, side-on with gravity games that exist. Interesting. Because so much of that game is, like, 2D Zelda-y overworld, but then you go into a cave, and then it's, like, a side-on cave, and it's really, like, grid-based puzzles. And, like, you could just take that structure of, like, oh, yeah, you're exploring an overworld, and then you go into these places, and there's standalone puzzles. Yeah. im like And, that is in rupture yeah like... like gold.
00:56:29
Speaker
And that structure is in conversation with the last time they attempted that and it turned out very bad, which was, not the last time, the first time they attempted it, which was Zelda 2 Adventure of Link on the NES. Oh yeah, interesting. where that game is top-down in the overworld, and then it's a 2D hack-and-slash game. Yeah. I mean, also, Link's Awakening had a few weird platformer... Link's Awakening was the attempt to refine that, and this is the attempt to evolve from the Link's Awakening 2D sections. Link's Awakening is the best Zelda game, just gonna put that out there. I mean, this is in the same engine as the remake, developed by the same team as the remake.
00:57:11
Speaker
So if there's if there's one Zelda game that this is in conversation with, ah it's Link's Awakening, and if there's two, it's Link's Awakening and Breath of the Wild. ah I was also reminded of like when Alan was saying about the the structure being really interesting.
00:57:27
Speaker
It made me also think of Isles of Sea and Sky again. Because obviously, you know that's you know that's taking inspiration from Zelda games. Mix Awakening specifically. Mix Awakening, exactly. and I love that game. But one of the things I did come away from it feeling is that that game is like very...
00:57:44
Speaker
Like, the world is the puzzles. Like, you go to an island and it's puzzle, puzzle, puzzle, like, room to room, just every single thing. Right, there's no downtime. Yeah, and, like, one of the things that I think Zelda games do really well is there's that element of exploration and going...
00:58:02
Speaker
you know, to a village and you speak to some characters and they give you a kind of direction to head in. And then there's this cool item you find that opens up like a waterfall and then you get to like the mountains and there's but there's that kind of feeling of like, it's not even like, I guess it's downtime from the puzzles, but it's like that feeling of- It's differentiation and pacing, right? it's yeah if if If every verb is puzzle, then the reward for puzzles is puzzle, right? Which I love often. Puzzles are like, look, we're we're on this podcast. Of course, puzzles are great. we We love puzzles here. I think the bigger thing for me is like when I look at A Monster's Expedition, which is in some conversation with that kind of game design structure, um
00:58:48
Speaker
you like the reward for solving puzzles is โ like Yeah, you're going to โ it's obviously going to more puzzles because that's most of your verbs. yeah But like there are items in the overworld that are like direct and like specific reprieve โ like mental reprieves, focus reprieves, and like also landmarks to that you want to navigate to specifically for reasons outside of what the hell am I supposed to do over there? I should get over there.
00:59:19
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. i like Part of me believes there's a way to do a Zelda-like world where you're kind of just adventuring through it and yeah exploring, but still have a kind of stronger puzzly feel to it of like like navigating that space. And like maybe there are little puzzles to figure out to to get from one thing to another, but without it feeling like you're in a dungeon the whole time.
00:59:43
Speaker
Yeah. and yeah i think we're basically this is our this is our pitch for nintendo right we just send them look look if alan has a ton of ideas i have a ton of ideas and like i feel like everyone who's played more than half of the zelda franchise has like a thousand ideas for what they would do with the zelda ip and then somehow the best zelda game on switch is cadence of hyrule featuring crypt of the necrodancer And you're like, hell yeah. ah Have you, last Zelda question, Joe, have you played Cadence of Hyrule? No, I've not played it.
01:00:22
Speaker
Is it because it's a rhythm game? um and as thats I don't know. I don't think it was ever really... Because in the settings, you can turn off the rhythm game and it becomes a Sokobomb. Oh, that wouldn't stop me from playing it. No, but it it becomes pure puzzle.
01:00:35
Speaker
That game is pure puzzle. if Because every combat encounter is a puzzle. and the only way that and they And by default, it's a everything is rhythm puzzle. And then you can and then you can remove the ah timing. And then every every single thing in the world becomes...
01:00:52
Speaker
the world advances one step forward when you move. What do you, do you think that's a better way to play it ah No, but that's because I'm a professional musician.
01:01:04
Speaker
I like rhythm games. I think if I were in that situation, I'd be like, no, I'm going to leave it on. I think that the real-time aspect of it gives it a flavor that is then missing yeah when you're playing without... It presents attention.
01:01:23
Speaker
Yeah, because I... played that game and I'm not a rhythm player. So I turned off that that setting and playing it without the the timing meant that the puzzles just weren't particularly interesting puzzles for me. They felt a bit samey. They didn't carry the game.
01:01:44
Speaker
They didn't carry the game. yeah And like, there's still a great vibes to it. And like, I'm sure there's some really cool late game puzzles probably, but. Yes. ah yeah to to be Again, to be clear, not only have I been a music teacher in a past life, but like literally yesterday at the time of recording, this is just going to exactly exactly say what we're recording. Yesterday at the time of recording, that team's next game, Rift of the Necrodancer, came out.
01:02:10
Speaker
And i I have played that a little bit at the end of last year. That is a game that is so far for rhythm sickos. Like...
01:02:22
Speaker
to the point where like you're playing triplets and oh it's so much work it's so much it's so beyond of that joe it's it is syncopated rhythms yes it is it's they have like you you should watch a trailer at some point there's a demo you can play this tutorial this tutorial will explain exactly why this is a rhythm game for pure sickos yeah um but it's like oh like time signature changes every bar to the it's it's it's It's ridiculous, but like it's it's a genuine evolution over like the note highway type of rhythm game. okay
01:02:55
Speaker
And I love it. And also, I'm like, there's no way this could be popular with most people because this is this is like so out of reach for most game players. Yeah.
01:03:08
Speaker
It's interesting, interesting like the like talking about like puzzle games with rhythm elements, it also reminds me of Temple of Snake. A game came out a few years ago, which had exactly the same thing. And it's it's interesting that it like I think it does inherently like split your audience into two. It's like one half of the audience is like, oh, I love the kind of rhythm aspect of this. This is great. And then there's the other that's like, thank goodness they put in an option to disable the the timing element. I just want to play the puzzles.
01:03:34
Speaker
ah Yeah, i like this it I'm curious to see more in that space and what they do with it. ah And I wonder if it's possible to make a version that doesn't divide the audience in that way. I don't know.
01:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, ah maybe. maybe i Yes, I would say that like Echoes of Wisdom is a game that There is genuine, like, I do think that that should be on your to-play list, but it should it should be much, much closer to present on your to-play list than Cadence of Hyrule.
01:04:06
Speaker
ill add I'll add it to my list of 80 games. Yes. Cadence of Hyrule can be 81. okay five Yeah, the way I organize my list is I have a like priority list at the top, which is like five games usually at time.
01:04:21
Speaker
And then there's a 75. Echoes of Wisdom should be probably near the top of the 75 and Canes of Hyrule would be the last it's it's It's not that puzzly, but the rhythm element guiding the puzzles and like the navigation through the world, it's it's a lot of fun.
01:04:40
Speaker
Alright, we should wrap this up because yeah this conversation is not raf is without feeling like it's going to wrap up. And this is really just underscoring- We could make it the longest podcast you've ever done.
01:04:51
Speaker
The alternate- we might we might already be near there. um This is just underscoring the alt history where the podcast was always the three of us.
01:05:03
Speaker
And it wasn't an interview podcast. Yeah, this is just the the discussion podcast. Yeah, this is... ah Gosh. All right, now that I'm looking at the fo and we'll get to final episode lengths.
01:05:14
Speaker
Thinky Game of the Year is longer than this far, but that's also Joe. Yeah, sorry, it's my fault. I think I'm the common thread. Yes, and then this is basically the same length as the episode with Harry. um Hey, Joe, what's next for ThinkyGames.com?
01:05:32
Speaker
What is Yeah. Well, good question. we So we're doing the Thinking Awards at the moment. I'm not exactly sure when this episode's coming out, but the results might be out um by the time. Like digital snubbed.
01:05:47
Speaker
No, Lock Digital's eligible next year. That's what we get for releasing in December. December, yeah. So it is interesting running an awards thing and realizing how complicated it is to line things up with the year because you kind of want a game of the year category because that's a good label to have.
01:06:02
Speaker
um But it's like impractical to actually line up with the year. So Lock Digital will be eligible next year. You can nominate it. Anybody can nominate it. and I mean, I love the game. I think it has a good chance. So...
01:06:15
Speaker
at the very least of becoming a finalist in the categories. So we'll see what happens. um But what is next? So we also have like a kind of secret project on the go that I can't talk about, but I think it's going to be really fun.
01:06:28
Speaker
um Yeah, we'll be doing another ThinkyCon this year. and you know, there's going to be a kind of focus this year on reaching more people and getting them to, it just getting more people interested in ThinkyGames. So that's what we're focusing on at the moment.
01:06:45
Speaker
yeah Awesome. And where can people find you? um People can find me on socials usually by my name, Joseph Mansfield now, but sometimes by my username, SFT Rabbit.
01:07:01
Speaker
I'm sort of like slowly ditching that username. Or on Discord, I'm usually just, yeah, Joseph Mansfield on various Discord servers. Obviously, anything related to thinkygames.com, I'll be there.
01:07:13
Speaker
And my YouTube channel, JoePlaysPuzzleGames. just search for that on YouTube, you'll find it. And I think that's pretty much it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again for joining us.
01:07:24
Speaker
It's been lot of fun. i don't think there's going to be much to cut out for this one. Yeah, let's ah let's do it again in two weeks, right? Yeah, and indeed. Happy to have to join again. um ah My only hope is that there's a Nintendo employee listening to this and it's going to like take it to their management and say, see, this is what we should be doing.
01:07:46
Speaker
ah Look, look, if they if they want to come to us with $25 million dollars and the rights to put the Zelda game on all the platforms, like... Yes, please. i See, I mean, we've we've talked about making a Zelda-like game before. like i are you Like, on this call, I opened up my document that's titled Dracnex Amazing Puzzle-Like Zelda that we can definitely make in a reasonable length of time, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
01:08:12
Speaker
ah And one day, one day, one day we'll do that. but yeah. Yeah. yeah and so yes All right. Thanks again.
01:08:24
Speaker
And thank you for listening to the Trackneck and Friends official podcast. Our music is by Priscilla Snow, who you can find at ghoulnoise.bandcamp.com. Our podcast artwork is by Adam DeGrandis.
01:08:36
Speaker
Our podcast is edited by Melanie Zawadniak. Please rate and review us on your podcast service of choice, and be sure to tune in next episode for more interesting conversations. And just to keep this going, like one minute longer, like...
01:08:52
Speaker
Thank you.