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Ep.183: PAX East '24 // Day Two
140 Plays9 months ago
Juice, Clive Owen, and Capri Sun: The PAX East Dailies continue with the one and only Asa Greenriver.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 183 of the Six Wet Indicast AKA PAX East Day 2. Yay! Tonight we are joined by Harry Lazzitti's. Hello. Kyle Stevenson. Hi. And for the first time ever? Yeah,
Green River's Journey and Current Projects
00:00:19
Speaker
yeah. What is a green river? We were complaining of having them on Indicast a few months ago. Yeah, it was like right before... Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Yeah. But some came up and...
00:00:34
Speaker
Right now, world premiere. World premiere. We're chugging in emergency, you know?
PAX East Reunion and Reflections
00:00:41
Speaker
We're playing to P.O.A.A.A. What's up? Yeah, it's lovely to see you this weekend. Oh, this is amazing. Last time I saw you was East last year, right? It's been a year. Yeah, that's a sad fact. We don't live back.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking about, I mean, we were kind of talking about this yesterday, where like, it feels like this year's a continuation of last year. Like, it doesn't feel like, I don't know, that feels like a continuation. It's Celeste was part one, part two. Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Indie Game Spotlight: Celeste
00:01:16
Speaker
Masterpiece. This is an indie game podcast. I don't know what that game is. Oh, shut it. You're wearing a mixed soul's dark again at Beanie. Get out of here.
Green River on Content Creation and Challenges
00:01:23
Speaker
Asa, for folks who don't have the pleasure of knowing who you are, who you be, I'm an enigma.
00:01:32
Speaker
No, you know, so I'm I'm all over gaming I'm all over gaming so I make content borderline entertainment twitch.tv spoil entertainment youtube.com slash for entertainment That that that drip is slow for those who don't follow me on Twitter or X whatever you prefer to call it at a green river zero seven My computer died
00:01:53
Speaker
So, the content drip has been slow, but I put stuff out when I can on those channels, so you should still follow. Absolutely. But you know, other people know me from the other side of games, where, you know, did community management, some game dev work, nonprofit. I'm just kind of like the person who you're like, oh wait, you're here too? The guy in your hometown who you see at every single store, and you're like, there's no way you need to shop at all of this. Yeah, that's me. Hell yeah.
00:02:23
Speaker
It's a pleasure to have you here finally. It's a pleasure to see you. I can touch here. There's a lot of touching happening. A lot of touching happening. With concern. With concern. Yes, yes.
The PAX East Experience: Games and Networking
00:02:31
Speaker
Let me start with you. What did you play today? What did I play today? This is where the day's been so long that it's like, let me pull up. We're also so quick. It's like so quick. It's going really fast this year. It's a little sad. Yeah. I'm generally kind of like, I'll be thankful once I'm home. But I'm kind of bummed we're not doing Sunday.
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah, a little bit, because there's so, I mean, we'll get into it. I only played two games today. Right, I play nothing still, spoilers. There's still so much that I want to get my hands on and people to talk to and hang it. The hanging out part is the bummer, because I just wanted to hang out with all of you at the same time.
00:03:12
Speaker
You're all doing different things in different locations. It's tough. Yeah. Yeah. It's a sad part. Yeah. Yeah. Going back to my little desk in the basement where you work every day and stare at a computer screen. It's not that small. I've seen it. Okay. Half of it has been taken up by doll houses and dolls. And so I got to look in my little corner. Okay. That's a great end again.
00:03:48
Speaker
I actually did play a good handful. Hell yeah starting off
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah.
Game Review: Animal Well on Steam Deck
00:03:56
Speaker
Wow. Let's talk about it even more. I fucking love this game. Wow. Can I just say that that game is a love letter to kids of the 80s and 90s. Interesting, yeah. The feeling of, and I don't know where everybody's at listening and also recording, where you were at during the 80s and going into the 90s. But when I'm playing The Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo,
00:04:23
Speaker
There there aren't prompts telling me where I've been and what I've done. Yeah, there are checklists telling me what I've done There isn't a map that I am getting little points grayed out. So I don't have to go back I'm having to write everything on paper and animal well Legitimately as I'm sitting there playing it on the steam deck looking beautiful as all hell. There's a OLED right? Yes. Yes
00:04:48
Speaker
The crisp, clear. Yeah, it's beautiful. The art style is, the art style, the sound design, all of that is phenomenal. The, it's hard, you know, it's got some challenge to it that I was not expecting, but
00:05:02
Speaker
Having to like write things down. Okay. Well, you know what back in this room I remember that there was something that I did. I need to go back to you know, hey, there's this ghost thing I tried this this and this and that didn't work, you know having to really keep stock of what I'm doing because I feel like gaming and I'm not calling people lazy, but I think
00:05:22
Speaker
doing everything for us. Tell me where to go. Pick up this item. Exactly. Critical thinking goes out the window. There's no hand holding and interviewing the desk today. That was intentional.
00:05:34
Speaker
this game isn't meant to hold your hand. There's a level in this game of do it yourself. And it's obviously not like completely throw you to the wolves because there are, you know, there are the modern things. There is a map, you know, there is inventory management and whatnot. But yeah, it just, it really set the tone for me today. And I'm like, it's going to be hard
Game Demo Impressions: Pioneers of Pagonia
00:05:56
Speaker
to live up to this. But then I played pioneers of pagonia. Oh, okay. And in
00:06:03
Speaker
30-minute demo that ended up being an hour and ten minutes. Oh my god. I Was so in love with this game. Yeah. Yeah, what's the pitch? The pitch is and I hate comparing games to games, but the pitch is I
00:06:17
Speaker
Sim city city skylines meets high fantasy. Okay, you know meets fable I think if you've played the fable series that aesthetic that is really on point for how this game looks but the amount of detail and The amount of work that this team, you know coming out and all those people coming out of Germany put into this. It's incredible
00:06:39
Speaker
And it's peaceful. So it's not like an RTS where you're just trying to conquer and kill and destroy. It's really city management, people management, community management. And when you're building these cities and you've got your resources, you can actually scroll in, zoom in really, really far, and count every single thing that you have. You can follow each little villager along their day. They have a button that removes the HUD.
00:07:05
Speaker
makes it kind of nice and dreamy and peaceful and you can literally just watch the people that you're helping And it is just one of those games that I feel like I'm gonna lose myself to it's gonna be one of
00:07:22
Speaker
I've heard of it. But that's one of those that I can just kind of sit if I'm having trouble falling asleep and I'll just play it for hours and probably won't let me fall asleep because I was too invested. But it's that peaceful that I can just chill back and play. That's nice. A little inside baseball. Funny enough, we were good.
00:07:39
Speaker
The Deathbound booth, when this situation happened, was linked up with Kate Sanchez on Thursday, I guess. That was only yesterday. I'm still convinced it's Saturday. She had an appointment with them. And on the physical map, that booth was right next to the booth that me and Kyle are working.
00:08:04
Speaker
But there was no booth there. It was just like, it's a hallway, printed map. Do we want to go hardcore about our frustration? The app on the phone says it's on the outside of the hall, and they didn't tell anybody. Oh, wow. So it seems like they were like, they shifted the map around a little bit. There's been a lot of issues with that. The big guys again, but I feel like it made me up. It's empty, it's empty. I kicked a thing.
00:08:39
Speaker
Do you need me to do calculus to prove it's not? I definitely don't need you. I'm kind of. This is literally what I'm teaching next week. I feel like with Nintendo dropping in at the last minute, it made people shift around maybe. I don't know. I didn't even visit Nintendo this week. Because there's nothing to visit. Yeah, you can take a picture with a Pokemon wall. Yeah, I literally did that for four seconds.
00:09:07
Speaker
Already out for months. Yes, I thought I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow. I think we said this on air last night I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow cuz it's the busy day But have they ever done this day for Princess Beach? I'm talking about Paper Mario and Luigi. No, there's no way they've made a way change. They've done that before I know but I mean, why not do it almost every day, you know what I mean? cuz I don't think
00:09:32
Speaker
are that confident in that game. I think it's for viewing. It's for viewing very well. Is it? Yeah. It is overall positive. OK. OK. I take that back. 7 through 9. No, but if you go down, like, when you enter and we go down the escalator, you can see there are, like, stations covered up. Oh, I know. Yeah. I have no doubt that I've probably planted something. Yeah. There's there's they have shit blocked off. Oh, see, I didn't give a second thought to look. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
00:09:59
Speaker
I'll walk around. Yeah, kind of. I'm like, let me look at the Larian castle instead of blank space. So that was my options. Uh, Harry. All right, so I'm going to start off. We'll do a little round robin. Banger of
Exploring Fretless: The Musical RPG
00:10:15
Speaker
a game. OK. Fretless. Yeah, tell me about it. The Wrath of Rifson.
00:10:27
Speaker
So it is a game developed by ritual studios. The publishers play dishes originals and they've been coining it as a guitar PG.
00:10:38
Speaker
Which is awesome because you're playing as a character who has this like powerful ability to use guitars and music to fight bad guys and the bad guys can be like mushroom monsters corporate suits Really bad guys with giant guitars that almost look like Buster swords. So that was really rad
00:11:01
Speaker
And it's a turn-based RPG, so every time you move, you have three rifts or abilities or attacks or whatever that you can use either in concert with each other or something to build up your power gauge to do a super move, which is kind of like the Final Fantasy thing.
00:11:20
Speaker
The music is an absolute banger. The variety of the music ranges from guitar stuff to piano stuff to electric piano, bass, and a few other things that they have under wraps until the game comes out.
00:11:36
Speaker
but there is no short supply of different types of music you can play as well as different play sounds. So like the acoustic guitar has a whole different game set than the bass guitar and those are the main two that you were able to play in the demo.
00:11:53
Speaker
And it was kind of a micro RPG because I asked like all right, this is gonna be like a full-blown 40-hour He's like no. No is the goal is like 10 to 12 hours. So it's a perfect RPG length of like, let me get in what I like Let's get the nuts and bolts of this story. The art style is terms of pixels But like really cool animated pixel where your character is doing really cool action poses and all the attacks are really stylized and the
00:12:21
Speaker
Chaining of all these abilities where it was where I got really interested in where one of the abilities was raise your shield another ability was raise your shield based on how much damage you did the previous turn or The final attack is do the amount of damage based on how big your shield is so it's kind of like all right they definitely want you to play with the compounding powers and how can I min max this and kind of like really break the game and
00:12:46
Speaker
And since there's four different weapons down the road with the instruments, I think there's gonna be a lot of variety and specific scenarios that you can use the bass versus the acoustic versus the electric piano. So I'm really happy for it. And the 15 minute demo turned into like a half hour and I was like, I'm just having the ball. And they made all the music themselves. So this was debuted during the future game show ahead of PAX, no, after PAX West last year or ahead? I remember watching from the airport.
00:13:15
Speaker
It looks incredible. And yeah, I remember them noting music. The music is killer. It's phenomenal. I think that it seemed like they are former musicians, like professional musicians. I think they definitely know what they're doing. Yeah. Because we're like talking about. Yeah. Because I was like, well, how are you guys making these risks? Like, is it digital? Like, well, we we we do it and we put it through the computer. So like they're being cheeky about it. But it was really cool that.
00:13:39
Speaker
Like people who know how to the ins and outs of music are now doing the ins and outs of a game. Yeah, it's so cool. It's Rad AF. What's up? Rad. You played two video games? I did. Give me one. Only one? Well then you can come back to you. Oh, okay. Give me one. Uh, I'll start with um side scrolling pixel art beat em up.
00:14:05
Speaker
From Dental Cake is the dev. The game is called Obsolete Souls Zero, Episode Zero, Operation Haiti.
00:14:15
Speaker
That's a video game title.
Celebrating Culture in Gaming: Pixel Art Beat-em-Up
00:14:18
Speaker
Obsolete Souls, maybe I said zero one too many times. Obsolete Souls, Episode Zero, Operation Haiti. They made an RPG called Obsolete Souls and this is just an additional thing. Yeah, like bringing more life into the world. So Obsolete Souls. Yeah. But it's like that was an RPG. This is a beat-em-up.
00:14:43
Speaker
They when I was watching it into the sea because Baron from level up was like, hey, you should go check this out. It's super dope and He was pitching to me. It's like, hey you like
00:14:55
Speaker
like Double Dragon, of course. How do you feel about Devil May Cry? It's like, I'm real bad at it, but I enjoy it. And it's like fast, it's smooth. How's that emergency taste like? Yeah, just if you hear me make weird noises, I'm nervous saying it's an emergency. It's fucking awful. Yes, the raspberry I think tastes great. I think it's ice-cooled water. Sure.
00:15:18
Speaker
it's like you also have to chug it dude like you can't actually do that you gotta do that it has the texture of milk but fruity yeah i'm so curious how the way your brain works milk kind of sucks it does right chocolate milk fuck chocolate milk milkshakes okay who doesn't love sugar with anything like but uh as long as the milkshakes don't taste too milky
00:15:46
Speaker
We had this conversation the whole day, I feel like. So yeah, because we had no choice. That's like molds. I don't know what that is. I like a thick shake with two C's. Okay. What's a mold? The mold are typically more milky, unless I'm incorrect on that.
00:16:03
Speaker
Like you comment for the algorithm about malts. What do you like? I like beat them ups. Cool. Yeah. And so it is, it's fast. It's stylish. There's a huge combo system like devil may cry. Um, what I really, really love about it is it is a Haitian American dev team. And, uh, the game is
00:16:27
Speaker
celebrating Haitian culture and Haitian music and everything. The reason why I love it so much is similar to like a space for the unbound where they celebrated, I'm going to get it wrong, Thailand, Indonesia. Thank you. Indonesian culture and like a slice of life where you learn about different culture, whatever. They're going to do the same thing here. And it's just, it's a fun time. I got my ass kicked.
00:16:49
Speaker
I had a fun time doing it. It is difficult. And the really cool thing is they launched their Kickstarter today, I believe, to help finish the game, even though it was like, we're going to put it out anyway. A lot of the project funding is going to go for Hope for Haiti, because I love when devs do that, similar to like, oh my God, dog.
00:17:15
Speaker
the corgi short hike corgi corgi corgi hike no cozy corgi cozy corgi whatever i'm pretty sure it's like animal shelters they're here yeah they are here and i love how they've been doing that for like five years yeah any dev team that wants to give back with their game is awesome and the team is super excited and energetic about it and it's just a fun beat em up we need more beat em ups yeah beat em up exactly it's a good time
00:17:50
Speaker
It's just like that character from that Anyway, it's called a corgi's cozy hike. Thank you. Okay. Yes We got the words also there's three characters to choose from once like the princess of this world and I forgot who the other two are but each character is like your difficulty and
00:18:13
Speaker
So like one is for like easy players, it's not that hard to kind of like control medium super hard, like very intense combos. So like that's kind of how they're going that way. It seems it's a good time. Cool. Very small booth, small team. And say through soon the RPG is out. I believe the RPG is already out. Yes. And this is upcoming. Yes. Cool. Yeah.
00:18:38
Speaker
Say that one more time. Obsolete Souls. Okay. Episode 0, Operation Haiti. Obsolete Souls is the series, got you. Sick. Yeah. See, I kind of cheated last time. I gave two games. That's fine, because you're the guest. You're special. You do. Hold on, Mike, was there a game you saw that looked cool?
00:18:57
Speaker
That you didn't play? Listen, there were so many games I saw that looked great. The Sonic Stabletop game. I've been getting a lot of targeted ads about that. And I really told them that. I went to the booth. You know what they're doing? I see your ads. They know what they're fucking doing. I don't know. It's been tough to really... The way I do packs nowadays is very chaotic and different, I guess.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, but you're hardcore working with a team that's showing the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, like, it's a bunch of familiar faces. Like, Venture to the Vile continues to look incredible. I'm very excited for their launch. They... main... 7th or 9th? I think... Animal Well's 9th. So I think they're 7th.
Anticipation for Animal Well: Visuals and Gameplay
00:19:44
Speaker
I mean, yeah, we keep talking about Animal Well. It looks incredible.
00:20:13
Speaker
Lucid just like looking from a distance like Yeah, I Eric needs to answer my fucking DM and give me a hug before I leave Boston Yeah, get out of that hotel room Eric These average is great Yes, I would use a great obviously Let me in
00:20:13
Speaker
Star Scramble Crossing, we linked up with them again. Oh yeah, I still gotta play that. Absolute banger.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot of cool stuff. I'm hoping, I keep saying this, but I hope I have some time tomorrow to go hands-on with some stuff. But yeah, it's also just like I'm fried and like I mentally don't know if I could hold a controller, but yeah.
00:20:57
Speaker
What do you got? You want to talk about fraud. I love that you say that you're fraud. You can't hold a controller. Because the last two games I played today, that was my state. So let me apologize to Forest Hills. And to Deathbound. Full disclosure, Mike Towner here, Kyle Stevenson, Tape Multimedia, and Undaunted Games are vicarious PR clients. Ace of Continue, Mike and Kyle are going to stay silent.
Unique Gameplay: Deathbound and Forest Hills
00:21:21
Speaker
So I had a lot of fun playing those games.
00:21:24
Speaker
Was dead inside so if you know devs people working if you saw me It looked like I was not enjoying myself. I was I just might my soul was gone Yeah, four souls was fun. I'm all for the
00:21:44
Speaker
I'm not a huge, spooky, scary game person, but put me in a convention floor with thousands of people, and I don't feel so scared. And so that was fun, and I was able to just run around and hit a fire ghost with a pipe, and I had a good time. But Deathbound, that one was a lot of fun, and that's where I really felt the guilt of, I've got some RBF, and I promise you I'm having a good time. I promise you.
00:22:12
Speaker
And I love the spin that they put on the Soulslight game. I'll play just about anything that takes up that format.
00:22:21
Speaker
But I love the spin that they did Let's put all of these characters into one and you just switch in between them and not only that but The souls that you're picking up might not really connect with each other. They might be enemy factions so if you're playing with one and they've got the I can't remember the names because of my mental state, but the one with the white guard is
00:22:44
Speaker
They are like a religious sex, you know, they're kind of like the Knights Templar They got that vibe going if you are playing as the road light looking person with the daggers They don't fuck with you, you know, so in if and the way he was describing it and I actually went tried it if you walk up to the ghosts that are there and
00:23:04
Speaker
as the Templar person, they're like, oh, wow, I thought you died. How are you, friend? But if you roll up, because I died quite a bit, if you roll up as the little thief looking person, they are like, let's attack. We hate this person. If you start to walk up and you switch,
00:23:22
Speaker
they don't trust you. And that little bit of detail I thought was so cool. So, like I said, give me that soul born feeling, but put a new spin on it and I'm there. I'm there. And let me just shout out to my sister that mage with that beautiful white frog, from the kamekameha ice ball. That was incredible. I want to see more death bow. That's why. Hooray. I will say yeah.
00:23:52
Speaker
Me too. No one else say it downward. Thumbs up. If I carry a snack, Gil got me in my pocket. I don't know what I'm saying. Anyway. Harold. Speaking of Harold, have you heard of this? You're about to say Harold Hellbent here. I was going to say Harold with the purple crayon, but you know. Is that a game? It's a children's book. Sure. OK.
00:24:20
Speaker
transitioning away from that. Have you guys heard of the game called Rusty Rabbit?
00:24:25
Speaker
I passed by it today, it looked sick. A rusty rabbit? Yeah. Imagine a world where humans have left thousands of years ago. And for some reason, rabbits are the dominant for us now. This has been true. Yeah. However, it's not a comedy. It is a hardcore game where you play as a little ruddy bunny in a- A little runny bunny. A little runny bunny. But instead of playing as the bunny, you're playing as the bunny inside a mech suit.
00:24:54
Speaker
Oh, okay. Right. I'm like, what was that other game? No, no, no. Oh, there was a game that we played that you had on shoulders or no. Oh, the shoulders of giants shoulders of giants. You ever played that like the full I play the new demo. It's rad AF, but time is a flat circle. I don't have time for it. It's been out since probably last fall, September ish early access.
00:25:23
Speaker
it's definitely on epic games that was something oh yeah while we transition out of that yeah so this is at first i i saw the rabbit and he was doing it was a highly photo realistic like cutesy wootsie
00:25:39
Speaker
Rabbit with a like red bomber jacket with like the puffs on the shoulders and I'm like this rabbit looks so effing cool It almost looks like smoking a cigarette, but it's a carrot and like the cooler the cigarettes, but it's nice Yeah, it's good for your skin health I'm pretty sure there's that of karatine, right? Oh
00:26:09
Speaker
There's that
00:26:28
Speaker
No, he was... No, he's talking about the Clive Owen movie where he's carried. He's carried, so he can shoot people. I'm pretty sure he'll shoot them up. There's the My Chemical Romance song, House of Wolves, that's featured in that. Off of Black Ray 2013. Well, there's also this one episode of Scrubs where this guy was eating carrots, snacking on carrots, and drinking tomato juice, and his skin was orange. I ate too much sweet potatoes as a baby, and I had orange skin for like
00:26:57
Speaker
If you eat too many carrots, your skin turns yellow. If you consume too many tomatoes, your skin turns red. Isn't that scurvy also? I thought scurvy was a lack of vitamins. Yeah, but you also turn like... Oh, you turn a color because you're just depending on the vitamins that you're losing. I also thought scurvy was the pirate thing. I think the pirates definitely own it, you know? Yeah, they do. They definitely like...
00:27:24
Speaker
We need to get to Harry's rabbit game. Really quickly. No, I like this tangent. January 2023. Wait, wait. What's January? 1.0 or? I mean.
00:27:36
Speaker
Buy now, base game, 20 bucks. So we must have seen it, like, three years. So we must have seen it in 2021 then? Times a flex. We saw it, I think, what was it, playing what we see? We saw it twice. So it was probably 21, 22, and it came out 23. Wild. Rabbits. Yeah, so yeah, rusty rabbit.
00:27:57
Speaker
Yeah, like the conceit is you're playing as a rabbit in a mech suit and each of the levels have a theme, so like it could be a mechanical warehouse, it could be a mountain, snowtop, whatever, but the areas are generated and it becomes a rogue light where you're traversing through levels and air quotes until you are comfortable enough that you've accumulated enough
00:28:21
Speaker
resources, coins, energy, etc. to bring back to your homies. From there I'm not super sure what happens because the demo is like you just play until the game explodes and whatever. So it's like you play as much as you want then walk away. But the loop of finding your way through the area, the different weapons you can use in the mech is like a
Rogue-lite Mechanics in Rusty Rabbit
00:28:46
Speaker
a grapple, a regular sword thing, a missile thing, but then you can also do like a dash where you gain momentum and then you can kind of almost platform to certain areas. Yes, Kyle. I mean. Hi, yes, hi. I'm going to defer to Mike. Thank you, Kyle. No breaking.
00:29:10
Speaker
Mike. What outlet are you from real quick? The indie council. Okay, thank you. 2D platformer, right? 2D platformer, yep. Yeah, 2D platformer is pretty much just like a left to right thing.
00:29:25
Speaker
There's wolves jumping. I was surprised how many different ways to traverse there were, but that might be because someone was playing this for hours and hours throughout the day. There is progression in terms of a skill tree, but I didn't really mess with that since I was more focused on experiencing the gameplay in terms of maneuverability and combat.
00:29:45
Speaker
Now the combat is very, very simple, but the animations look pretty cool where they're all bugs, but robot bugs. So that was a, I'm curious how that dives into the lore, because other than just knowing that its rabbits have control of the world, I'm not really sure what's beyond that.
00:30:04
Speaker
But I was very impressed with the fluidity of the gameplay. The game itself in motion looks a little muddy, so maybe it's still in the works. The audio didn't work, so I heard nothing. So yeah, I was curious if it was going to be like, side comments. First hand, I know booth woes all too well.
00:30:39
Speaker
And I think what it did was it immediately caught my attention the game I played it and I'm more positive than when I was before I started discovering it Which I think is like the goal of a good demo. So yeah
00:30:53
Speaker
and I hope to see more of it. And just to shout out the game dev, it is Nitro Plus from the publishers of So Fun. So fun. So fun. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, that was definitely one of my like, whoa, what is this game moments? Awesome. So, heck yeah. Heck yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Mike. It's me. Yeah, hey. Appreciate you, Justin. How scary.
00:31:21
Speaker
I miss you buddy. The creator of hide and seek. By the way, shout out to hide and seek. They got picked up by Daedalus. A lot of people have been playing the game every time I walk by. It's been great seeing them. I played a game called Legends of Starcadia from Doom Turtle. The same devs that made Ember Knights. I walked up, I was like, this looks like an RPG.
00:31:51
Speaker
My jam, let me talk to him. Let me talk to you. Let me talk to you. Yeah. Think Super Mario RPG combat, where you have to stay involved, similar to like, see a star is like where you pick an action. There's bonus things to make you do double attacks or more damage, whatever. And the world, he sold it on me immediately. He was like, take the Goonies, which is my favorite movie ever.
00:32:17
Speaker
and mix it with Guardians of the Galaxy and the Yes Please, because it's the kid who gets transported into an alien world, and he gets these colorful characters, and the game is so gorgeous. I didn't, again, I don't think there was too much audio. There are no headphones or anything, so I couldn't really hear it in action. But from the items to the attacks to the characters to the enemies, it was just so vibrant and charming and colorful.
00:32:47
Speaker
I loved every second of it. The combat was fun, the skills were awesome, the little minigames suppressing the action button to continue your attack or to double up or extra healing all felt great. One thing that I noticed that this game did that I wish all turn-based RPGs did or it's a feature that I love is when an enemy is planning to attack it will tell you
00:33:16
Speaker
who it's targeting and how much damage their attack is going to do to that character. So it adds a level of strategy, okay, do I need to heal him now? Or am I gonna lose a character? Can I buff him up, debuff the enemy, whatever? It's very, very cool. And at the end of it, I was like, I can't wait to play more. And then he turned on the, I think it was just like play competitive mode or whatever it was. And it's literally just,
00:33:45
Speaker
one of the combat minigames and you just got to time it and try to get the high score and I did it like 20 times because it was just a dopamine like I got to do it. It said the high score of 20 I got to it I got to 10 and he was like that's really impressive for like just starting out it's like you don't understand I see 20 I need to get to
00:34:07
Speaker
but it's really, really cool. They just announced it this week, and it's here. It's definitely the highlight, I think, of all the games I've played so far. Yeah, it's really, really cool. Hooray. Hooray. I also, when I was walking around, another one I noticed that caught my eye, and something that's weird, and not something we typically talk about on the show, we like weird games, obviously. Yeah. I need to revisit the booth. I couldn't really comprehend what was going on.
00:34:38
Speaker
but it was like a different take on air hockey. It was like a neon glowing air hockey. And what I mean, when I say air hockey, it was a physical table. Really? Yeah. Um, sort of, obviously it was like more towards the tabletop sort of area. Sure. I want to go back to that booth. It just looked really interesting. I, I, I'm assuming a different take on air hockey. Okay. Forgot the folks name. Talk about tomorrow. TBD. What you got?
00:35:06
Speaker
That was it. That's all I played. Wow. Gamer. Gamer. Really? We got awards to give out tomorrow, y'all. Oh, I got like eight more, but. No, I know. I'm just saying out loud, like. Yeah. We also got to figure out what it just did. Yeah, we got it. We asked the panelists last night how they feel about this PAX. The general consensus seems like it's a weirder PAX. How are you feeling about this PAX?
00:35:36
Speaker
At the top of this, we said it feels like a continuation. In the social aspect, it feels like a continuation. If we're talking about the show floor and the people that are here and just how it's operating this year, it is a weird one. There are things that I feel like are working well.
00:35:58
Speaker
I feel like there's a lot of great games here. And that's one thing. I feel like the games this year, they're popping for me more than they did last year. I had a lot of great fun last year. There's nothing against those games that are some really good ones. But I feel like generally overall, I didn't have as many down moments.
00:36:21
Speaker
I can easily think of a good handful actually. I'm like, you know, that just wasn't for me. Even if a game this year isn't my style, like Forest Hills isn't necessarily my style, but I still had a great time. I haven't had an experience where I'm like, yeah, I don't like this. I have not said that once. Just to add to that, there have been plenty of times I was playing a demo and I left before the demo was over.
00:36:47
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like, for the timer, like, like, or the nip's like, hey, demo's over. Like, there's been playing times I've played it and within a few minutes I'm like, all right, I had a case and not make the thing gone. So far the three games I've played, that was not the case. I was like involved the whole time. Yeah. And, and you know what, like to that, to go the other direction, there've been three games this year that I went way past the time and they're like, Hey, we only had 30 minutes and you've been here for like,
00:37:14
Speaker
kick me out I'm just having a good time so it's this weird juxtaposition of solid solid gains wonderful people but then structurally
00:37:33
Speaker
That's a good analogy. I love that. That's a really good one. Yeah. Cause we were talking about last night, not to like beat a dead horse, but like you, you feel devolved or not being here. You feel eastward enough to being here. Like some of those staple publishers that you pretty much expect to automatically have a presence out of packs, just not around. And that's not to discredit, like.
00:37:55
Speaker
Dread XP, New Blood, like somebody's like Toge, like somebody's killer publishers that are like doing some of the most interesting things in the indie space, or just the industry in general, especially with those three I just mentioned.
00:38:08
Speaker
But yeah, it's interesting. That big hallway in the middle, it's getting bigger and bigger every year. I also want to shout out freedom, because freedom is a truth. Freedom is a truth is a great job. Shout out to Dez. Dez! Love you, Dez. Dez is amazing. Yeah, handled like the booth and stuff. Yeah, I know. They have like 15 games that they're showing off, like insane. It's awesome.
00:38:34
Speaker
They're doing giveaways. So your dad's hook me up
00:38:57
Speaker
Like this is not bad just weird different. Yeah, I feel like it's what what this has been this has been like a projected change
00:39:06
Speaker
like the past five years because you know I remember the time when they're like oh PlayStation Xbox like they're not here Nintendo's presence is very lackluster and that's just kind of been like continuing and I feel like you know as like the big Titans were leaving you started to see more of like now we're expecting Devolver like they're the big Titans yeah they're gonna pick the slack yeah they're gonna pick up the slack and whereas we had that last year and
00:39:31
Speaker
Not having it this year and then you starting to see like big displays of companies. You have no idea who they are You know what I mean? Like it's It's kind of giving me the vibes of is this why
00:39:46
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like I don't necessarily, like I do feel like it's a PAX problem, but I feel like it's more of an industry problem more than it is just an isolated incident here. Yeah. And you know, it doesn't help that this week. Like literally today was the end of GDC officially. Like it doesn't help with that.
00:40:04
Speaker
I agree. Yeah. Yeah. The poor folks that be there, I'm sure here for another four days. Doing the gauntlet is just... Well, it's also like how many people can be spread thin before things start tearing through the space. We were talking about the blessing earlier. You had something before GDC. Yeah, you had a preview event. The preview event then had to go to GDC and then had to come here. So it's like,
00:40:31
Speaker
Then put on a mix showcase, right? So it's not like these people, you know, we're just going to the two events like there's other things Yeah, like behind the scenes like next week I'm launching a game the weekend for that I'm launching to others like there's always something happening She's like so just be mindful at least of other events at least of other events good. It is too much. I
00:40:55
Speaker
And yeah, it doesn't help with, you know, we're all feeling it to some degree. It doesn't help with the burnout. It doesn't help with the exhaustion. Like, yeah, we all love the hustle. We love the grind. But like, we're getting old. I like sleep too. We do like sleep. And I saw that golf cart up there in the second level. I was like, hey, can we just borrow that tomorrow? And it's no secret that it's expensive to do these shows. Very expensive. So like,
00:41:24
Speaker
You know, you have to kind of pick and choose your battles. Well, what's going to turn into is no one's going to want to do the battle begin with.
00:41:37
Speaker
I sure do, sir. So one game that I thought was pretty rad AF was the game, Duck Paradox. Cool. Yes, so it is a game in early access currently. Okay. By a Magic Games, which is a developer in Europe who's still in school, which I thought that was rad to hear too. So that was actually super fun.
00:42:04
Speaker
Paradox, yeah, so it's essentially it's like a
00:42:08
Speaker
a rogue like where you are a professor or a doctor, like a scientist who really likes ducks. And you've somehow figured out a way to go to other dimensions and you want to save as many ducks as you can. But since you're in these rifts, anti-ducks are here to kill you, which are just ducks that look derpy in terms of like,
00:42:35
Speaker
prisms like I don't know how to describe it like it's like The elbows looking fibrous ducks. Okay, that's probably the easiest way that they're glitchy and they're like I get rid of you So you so you are going through these like created levels and there's about 25 they said Where you go from point a to point B where the duck is bringing the duck back to the vortex once you do that
00:43:02
Speaker
a green circle emerges and you have to kill a certain amount of the bad ducks before you die. Um, but the conceit with all this is with you shooting the bullets, if you don't hit one of the ducks, the bullets will continuously bounce around the area. So you have to now be careful with your shooting. And then if you F up, you have to be like, all right, well now I have my bullets. I gotta keep track of.
00:43:26
Speaker
So then every level you complete, you get like a bonus that you get to choose from, whether it's like more health, more power, more speed stuff, more boosts. And it was really fun to play. It was definitely a new muscle to flex in terms of the rogue legs and being mindful of how you're shooting instead of just doing chaotic shooting like most rogue legs where you're just like, I was going to spam the shoot button. Hopefully I get lucky. So that was really intriguing.
00:43:52
Speaker
What I did notice is it was supposed to be a 15-minute day. I might play for like 35 minutes, so that's been the theme of the day. I did notice a lot of the levels started repeating already, and I'm like, oh boy. But it was cool that at least with the different power-ups I got, it made each level feel fresh enough.
00:44:11
Speaker
And I don't expect this to be a 400 hour game, but I could definitely see myself sinking in and like a couple of weeks on and be like, all right, let me see how far I can get. Let me see if I can get all 25 in a run and go from there.
Duck Paradox: Strategic Rogue-like Adventure
00:44:23
Speaker
So I'm definitely going to pick this up whenever I have time in the future. And it's only like $10 now on early active. So it is magic games. And it's really like cool pixel art.
00:44:39
Speaker
Seems like a cool vibe. Music seems rad.
00:44:42
Speaker
Heck yeah. I'd be terrible at that game. I'm not accurate when it comes to shooting. Well, and it's hard. So if I went towards the end of day two of PAX, the furthest someone got was seven rounds. And I was like, I got six. And they're like, oh, you're really doing it. I'm like, no, I'm going to mess up eventually. And then immediately I die. I'm like, well, there we go. But yeah, it was really cool. And it was one of those games where you lose, game over, and you're like, yeah, I'm absolutely not going to put the controller down. I'm going to do it again.
00:45:11
Speaker
and see what happens and see what other abilities are because the abilities almost every time I got different abilities so that's at least a cool part where yeah some of the levels repeated but there must be well more abilities than where the amount of levels there are so and it's quick play so and they confirm Steam Deck so I'm like hell yeah let's do it so get hyped. Harry concludes yeah my phone got hyped and fell down
00:45:42
Speaker
Well, you're the only one that played any other games. Give me two more. If that's OK. If you want to do more, go for it. He's like, actually, now I just want to give you one more cheese. Kind of. No, we'll do two. I'm just thinking about everybody's sanity and exhaustion levels. I will be concise and say two.
00:46:04
Speaker
I don't think I know the names of the developers. Who? You say the name and I will pick it up. So, Let's Revolution. I think it's Rock. Block. Book. We'll get there. It's four letters. I apologize. The game's great. So, Let's Revolution is just a game where it's a similar to Minesweeper as well as a defeat all the enemies on a grid kind of thing.
00:46:31
Speaker
where each character has their own set of abilities, one could be like a sneaky character, one could be more of a brawler, and the goal is to find the king who you're trying to rise against, because he's a bad guy who's being douchey. Good bet. Yeah. Rise against. Rise against the douchey. I love that pants. I heard that game is incredible. Oh my god, it's so pretty. Yeah, yeah. It's like. That's a revolution yesterday. It's like really nice,
00:46:59
Speaker
animation style where it's really vibrant colors. Each area is a distinct like vibe so that you might have
00:47:09
Speaker
the sand place that looks like it's from the skies or a forest place or an arid desert place and it's really vibrant, poignant colors. They are getting their console release in a few weeks. I think it's April 11th. Yeah, so it's coming to everything.
00:47:31
Speaker
In the studio that did it, it worked on Spider-Verse. Yeah, so they can make the animation really, really cool. It looks so good. How did it feel? I'm assuming you played with the controller. How did it feel with the controller? Fine. I would have never thought it was a PC-only game beforehand. It just seemed like just... Yeah, I can totally see it being a clicky game, but you're just doing up, down, left, right for the vast majority of the movements.
00:47:55
Speaker
And it was really cool because you're almost doing deductive reasoning, like minesweeper. Like, all right, I have two safe spaces here. I have four spaces here. How can I make sure I don't mess up too many times in order to kind of advance the game? So there was like five levels in the demo. And it was quick enough where you figured out the map, how to play it. But then by the end, you're like, all right, now I get the patterns of the minesweeper because I've never liked minesweeper. But this was a better version of minesweeper.
00:48:23
Speaker
inspired and then you can upgrade weapons like a typical like light RPG and it was really fun. It was maybe 20 minutes overall and the development team was really nice and they were kind of explaining like yeah like we're even having fun still trying to figure out like when you get in this scenario sometimes you're just totally effed and you can't figure out how to do it but there's always a way to do it. It's just every move at that point is super precious and you make one mistake you're done.
00:48:50
Speaker
So, I really liked it. Yeah, it's been on my radar. I really want to pick it up. It seems like a great deck game. Oh, for sure. That's why I'm like, give me that switch. Or deck, whatever, I'm giving it. Anyway, moving on. And then the last one, which I feel like some of us have played, or I just remember it from a Nintendo Direct, Zoe Be Gone by PM Studios. Oh, hey, Harry, guess what? That was the showcase game.
00:49:22
Speaker
name. Yeah. It was Joey. That's why I'm like, why am I having such a brain fart on? Yeah. We all played it. Yeah. Okay. So Harry's thriving today. That's why I'm like, why do I know this game? So yeah, 100% agree with everything we've already said. Well, it's been a while. No, I mean, yeah. So it's pretty much you take down and like you are playing as this triangular creature who's
00:49:54
Speaker
Let's start over, it's a shooter, that's what it's about, kind of, or art was a shooter. Yeah, where the art, the arts. To be clear, I like QQQ-ing. Sure. Okay. My favorite genre. Yeah, where the art style is, you are pretty much like on a reel with paint. Yeah. I think that's the general gist. And then the boss is literally a painter's hand with a paintbrush and you're like, all right, how do I survive and get to the next level? Ooh, maybe that's what the name is.
00:50:16
Speaker
Pew pew pewing.
00:50:28
Speaker
I am blanking on his name, and I'm so sorry. I met him last year at West. Very tall human. And a very great game. I don't think he's here. Which you can also see at youtube.com slash six one, didn't he? And the showcase March 2023. Yeah, that's where Zoe was. Okay. But six one.com slash showcase. If you want to watch the March 2024. That's more great.
00:51:02
Speaker
Yeah, thumbs up in case you didn't already know I Will say something a priority game. I want to hit tomorrow at some point speak at p.m. Studios. You're right Harry. I can't believe I forgot that I Mean we have like a hundred games under our belt. Yeah, we officially crossed on yeah, so Damn, that's why I can't believe I forgot that I'm sorry
00:51:30
Speaker
Speaking of PM Studios, I'm blanking on the name of the game, but they have that, like, Yo-Yo GBA. I have. Did you play it, Harry? I was waiting on line, but it, uh, Pip Strelo and the Cursed Yo-Yo. Yeah, I really want to play it. That's on my, I want to play it tomorrow. Yeah, so I'm going to hit that, and I forgot, just because they're right across from our booth, I think, I think Joseph mentioned it last night. Uh, Juice? Yeah.
00:51:59
Speaker
Go I start where I was shadow with the devil a little bit it looks stellar juice Juice world I Also like caprisa
00:52:33
Speaker
We have a 6-1 indie cast, day two of PAX East. We will be back tomorrow for day three of PAX East. Who will be here? You'll have to listen to find out. You can't tell me you don't like Caprisa. No, I love Caprisa. What's the go-to flavor, Harry?
00:52:52
Speaker
I like the great because they're so ridiculous Pacific coolers only what I know That's the like their go-to Oh Hell yeah, they're there they have a partnership with Nintendo. They're like on the front of the caprisons now. Yeah, it's weird. Oh
00:53:11
Speaker
You know there's Sunny D vodka now, or something like that? Yeah, and it looks just like Sunny D, and I'm like, some kid's gonna drink no-no juice and get in a lot of trouble. Arizona, Iced Tea, also. They have alcohol version of it? It's like white clogs at the Arizona. Yeah. Dangerous. Drink responsibility. Pew, pew, pew. And with that, drink responsibly. Good night. I don't condone cigarettes, just to be clear. Thank you. Eat carrots. Thank you, Clive Owen. This one's for you. And Juice Worlds.
00:54:01
Speaker
and tupac. Ciao tupac.