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The Gobbler is not a Sex Act
37 Plays1 year ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about naps, WaWa’s food, popsicles, and question why large enemies move slowly in this week's episode!
Intro:
- No More Heroes – N.M.H. (Action Mix)
Outro:
- No More Heroes – Oxygen Graffiti
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Transcript
Introduction and the Myth of Turkey Tryptophan
00:00:48
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake and I am joined by my co-host is always Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? I'm tired. I'm so tired. Yeah. I took like a 20 minute lay down for my back. I didn't really sleep as much as hes kind of rested. um But even that, my body's like, is it full sleep time now? I'm like, no. It's like I could just I could just pass out. This is fine. You get it remotely horizontal. You just lean your head back for like a big sneezes coming. Your body's like, Oh, we're going down. We're going down. okay Okay. I'm good with this. Yeah. It's very funny. Cause it's like, it's, it's kind of the cliche, almost of like the, the older person at the family reunion just found a comfortable chair and then they're just out. But like i I empathize, I empathize with that stereotype.
00:01:40
Speaker
I think it might just be like someone who realized that they can feign sleep to get out of talking to people. That's a good strat too. Right? You're like, oh, the turkey turkey. Oh, I'd love to talk politics. Oh my god, I'm so tired. Trip to Kane's not even a real thing or whatever. Just made it all up. My sources, I made it in the F up. Yeah.
00:02:05
Speaker
yeah it is It is weird, like I've had turkey sandwiches and they've been like, I'm E P. Uh huh. Yeah, I think I don't know know. I've never actually looked up whether that's legit or not. I feel like there's probably some degree of... and like I'm debating size. Yeah. I'm sure it is, but I feel like it's more of like a ah minor effect. Right. It's just in conjunction with all the the overeating. Exactly. um Your body's like, I need to chill a little bit.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's the thing. It's like if you had, cause what you would need is you need a, you need a control group and you need do an experimental group. So you have like the full Turkey dinner, but then you also just have, a bunch of Cornish game hens and like Christmas dinner or something like that. Right. And you're like, okay, are you tired? The reality is, I think most people are going to get tired when they gorge themselves on meats and sweets and stuff like that. But, um, who's to say maybe it's triptocaine with air quotes. Is it triptocaine? That's, I think that's what they called it. It looks triptophane.
00:03:19
Speaker
I thought it was tryptophan. I was a tryptophan. Oh no, it's tryptophan.
00:03:32
Speaker
An amino acid needed for normal growth in infants and for the production and maintenance of the body's proteins, muscles, enzymes, and neurotransmitters. So Thanksgiving's good for you. Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't say it knocks
Napping Habits and Caffeine Consumption
00:03:47
Speaker
you out though. So maybe ah maybe too much of a leap. Who's to say? I've also been taking naps ah kind of recently, a little bit less now, but. Um, our cat is, he's gotten to the point where he like he used to just sleep like on the floor or in the hallway or whatever. He likes to keep an eye on possible passages of ingress and stuff like that. But there's he it's very adorable, but he's gotten to the point where it's like, if I wake up and like I'm working or something like that in the morning, he's like, excellent.
00:04:21
Speaker
And then he'll just like jump up on the bed and like curl up next to Jenny and like just go to sleep there. She'll put her arm out and he's like perfect. And just sleeps right there. It's the most adorable thing imaginable. um So ah occasionally, if I can sneak back at some point, like over lunch or whatever, it's like power nap. Well, I mean, at lunchtime, they're awake. But yeah, ah weekend or something like that. Yeah. Whatever is justifiable in the course out of the normal workday. um
00:04:53
Speaker
That's just too nice. Yeah, I'm appreciating them more and more. um Partially just as a way to kill time. Um, other times it's just, if I'm not feeling like a hundred percent, and like, Oh, let me just nap for a bit and then see how I feel after. And usually it's a little bit groggy, but after that passes, I'm like, Oh, the ibuprofen or whatever kicked in. yeah Um, more enough caffeine has hit my body to be like, okay, we're we're good now. Yeah, I think evening naps are still pretty dangerous, but like the the siesta approach, if you could like nap over lunch specifically, infusion of caffeine, take a nap, it hits you, you wake up, go throughout the day. That's like ideal. That's how that's how angels live, I think.
00:05:43
Speaker
I just knew the the IV drip of caffeine. So just a constant steady drip. Yeah. It's like, I'll have some in the morning. I'm like, oh, that's too much. And then my tummy's upset and then I want to have lunch earlier so I can offset the caffeine. um
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah, I just don't do it as much anymore. Yeah, that's fair. It's not the best thing for you. There was, um, we have these little like mixed packets, like, like lemonade or like mango tea or something like that. Just like a packet of powder. You add it to water, shake it up, whatever your beverage, right? And one of them had um caffeine. It was just like a mango sort of beverage thing. It was like 60 milligrams of caffeine for like just a single serving, put this in a drink. And I'm like that's it's like, it's approaching coffee, right? It's almost just a cup of coffee.
00:06:40
Speaker
And it's kind of wild that we just throw that in stuff now, right? yeah like not Not everything's Panera, but thanks some things, they they definitely pop off as far as caffeine content. Yeah. There was a bit when I tried to do, uh, just drinking a lot of water, my one week of being a hydro homie. And, um, I don't like to taste the water cause it sucks unless like you're dehydrated, like terribly dehydrated. It's like, Oh, I'll grab something like me. Oh, I'll flavor the water. Right.
00:07:13
Speaker
But they also have things like that that also have caffeine in them. Uh huh. Yeah. And sometimes if I want like a little, a little night bevy, um, like, Oh, nice, cool, cold water. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll flavor it with, and I have to like, make sure I'm not putting the caffeine in it. yep yeah I try and go back to bed. Like, why, why am I awake? Yeah. The, uh, the ones you can just get at like the local, local grocery mart near here are like, um, There's like various flavors, but the one you have to watch out for is wild strawberry. That's the caffeinated wine. And unless you're really paying attention when you reach
Food Reminiscences and Cultural Wishes
00:07:50
Speaker
into that that drawer, you can get a kick that you were not anticipating. As again, it's basically a cup of coffee. so yeah it's It's too much.
00:08:02
Speaker
I still love caffeine though. I just need to ration it out more so my body is not violently ill. If I stop taking caffeine. Yeah, it's probably fine, right? Yeah, it's just fine. it's fine that This is what we do to ourselves. Um, I still have the, the one cup. It's like a drink tea. If you want to live peacefully, I drink coffee. If you want to live energetically, There's another one and it's like in drink energy drinks if you want to die. Yeah. Yeah, that's fairly accurate. It is it is crazy what they put in there. I have ah utmost respect for people who just do not engage with caffeine at all. Like friend of the show Lando, he doesn't, I think, have caffeine at all generally, maybe like a little bit in soda.
00:08:57
Speaker
But like, he doesn't do coffee. He doesn't do any of that. And I'm just like, how do you function? But there are people who legitimately, because they just are not there, their nervous system has not been like compromised by constant caffeine abuse that their overall energy levels state average higher because they're not so dependent on it. And I'm like, I don't understand. So it doesn't make any sense. But if I'm taking something to boost my energy levels all the time, shouldn't it just improve my energy stat? Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Shouldn't it? Yeah. How else are you going to get better? You got to train. because I want to have more energy. Therefore, I need to overload myself with energy so my body gets used to the new level. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. If, uh, if you're not vibrating through walls, are you actually living living events?
00:09:55
Speaker
What was the last time you actually had so much caffeine that you're like a shaky motherfucker? It was really, really dropping. um probably Probably near the the expansion launch for Destiny because we we we got like energy drinks and just like one energy drink unless it's accompanying a meal is kind of a bad play now. Yeah. it's like 200 milligrams of caffeine easy some of those are three like that's that's so much it's so much i kind of
00:10:36
Speaker
I wouldn't say I miss, but i I do have a fondness of remembering like my exact Wawa order when we do like the late night deployments for work. We're like, Oh, I have to start this at midnight. Let's go to Wawa at like 11 30. Yeah. I'd grab a. I typically wouldn't do chicken salad that late at night. I do like a little chicken parm type thing. And then I grab a monster rehab raspberry. I tried to get that ah recently at the store, but I just saw a berry tea as monster. I'm like, oh, yeah, cool. It was a wild berry tea. I was doomed because I didn't fucking read wild in it. I grabbed that and I grabbed the.
00:11:19
Speaker
The other one, it had bumps on the can. Ooh, OK. It was it's just another sugar free monster, but it had nothing to do with tea. Gotcha. And it had some carbonation to it. Yeah, there's a couple of good competitive brands there, but I find myself more in the um in the case of like downing an entire energy drink is a response to some external stimulus. It's not the norm, right? It's like half of an energy drink I recognize is about as much energy as if I had several cups of coffee throughout the day. So a full one is a problem, but yeah, I do kind of
00:12:04
Speaker
i don't I don't know if it's entirely sane, but look back on some of those late night ah working sessions and stuff like that where it's like, okay, I absolutely can justify ingesting caffeine, even though I know this is going to make me stay awake until three or four in the morning or whatever. Yeah. Or maybe beyond. um And beyond you get home at 830 you're like it's somebody else's fucking shift ah Yeah tag tag out oh man there was who was it I'm I'm not gonna name them anyways, but there was there was definitely a time when we were working together that someone they were up all night and I think I literally drove them home because it was like I
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, you probably shouldn't drive your cell phone, right? is It was crazy. They were just too beat. Yeah. Dang. Because I mean, they woke up at a normal time, worked an entire day, worked through the night. And then it's like, OK, yeah. It's not safe. Don't do that. It's not safe for you to drive your cell phone. Thankfully, it's a more sane environment now. but You know what I miss from Alma? The Greek
Seasonal Fast Food and Snack Humor
00:13:20
Speaker
bowls. I really miss the Greek bowls. I don't even know if I remember the Greek bowl period. They'd have like some hummus and quinoa and a little bit of like, I don't know if it was, I don't think it was vinegar, some sort of dressing or something in there, maybe a little bit of cucumber.
00:13:38
Speaker
Delicious. I mean, I like Greek as far as that's concerned. Um, no, I must've missed that entirely. Yeah. Cause I didn't really advertise it because it's not a hoagie. Yeah, exactly. You're not like going there to get a gobbler or whatever, which even though listeners, I know it sounds like a sex act. It's not. yeah It's just a Turkey sandwich type thing.
00:14:07
Speaker
You open your mouth as wide as it can go. I'll be honest. Um, maybe it's just becoming older or maybe just the Wawa here. I think I told you like the past two thanksgivings, I don't really have plans. I don't have a lot of family nearby. It's like, Oh, I'll just do my own thing. Run to Wawa as you know, it's tradition because it has the gobbler. yeah It has all Thanksgiving in a sandwich and it doesn't do it for me anymore. Yeah. I'm not like, Oh, Thanksgiving. I'm like, this is like the most basic ass shit in a hoagie roll. And I'm, it doesn't hit the spot. I don't know. Yeah, it's, it was always good, but it was never like Thanksgiving dinner. Good. Like, so, all right. We should describe what the gobbler is. Um,
00:14:58
Speaker
Actually, you describe the gobbler. You've had that more recently than I have. OK, so Wawa is a gas station, but I also have food and stuff. They do a lot of hoagies. Seasonal thing is the gobbler where you have hot ah turkey, kind of like thicker slices and some gravy. You have some mashed potatoes. You have some stuffing and you have some cranberry sauce. And this is all within a sandwich. It's pretty crazy, but they they they put it all together. It's definitely not clean. I also want to translate um for people who are not from here, hoagies are just subs. That's the same thing. Oh, yeah, yeah. yeah
00:15:41
Speaker
I like to get some pop as well while I'm there. A little bit of pop, soda pop. It's a modern pop show. But yeah, they they're okay, right? like They taste good, but the issue was like it's not particularly balanced. The bread is literally just like, you need something to mop up the ingredients that we put in this. Yes. That's the function of the bread. But like you could just, have a fork and eat the ingredients out of the bread and like it's fine. Yeah, which is why they started having more bowls. It's like, hey, do you just want this without the extra 200 calories of bread? Here you go. But you you probably would want the bread on the side or something like that just to to mop it all up. But yeah, I don't know. I kind of wish that they would do more seasonal things. Yeah. Like, hey, it's cool you did Thanksgiving and all. But like, what about
00:16:36
Speaker
Hanukkah or Passover. I mean Passover is really the more food-focused Jewish holiday. You're saying they're racist. Yes. That's the reason Wawa isn't doing that. I want pieces of matzah ball in the sandwich. I want brisket. I want... They did brisket. Get filter fish? No, that's not. No, that's why.
00:17:01
Speaker
You know, you don't people who know who that is or people who know they don't like a filter fish. Uh-huh. Yeah, it's because they're the people who tried it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it sounds so close to filter fish and like that's not a coincidence.
00:17:19
Speaker
But would be cool to have some other. kind of mix up sandwiches where it's like, Hey, do you like this whole thing? Like even if you did like, Hey, here's our token. I mean, they have Italian subs. Why don't they have like a Chinese sub or a Mexican sub and just have more food styles from other cultures or certain holidays or events yeah and put those in sandwiches. Yeah. The holidays are inexcusable, right? Like, McDonald's thing that they, they oftentimes bring back is like the McRib. And that's a very specific thing. And like, I don't know what logistics are backing the seasonal McRib, but it's probably like.
00:18:06
Speaker
I imagine there's some offshore gray market facility where they're like growing all of this meat and then they're like, okay, harvest McRibs exist for for two weeks. Now they go away, right? I think that's the most likely explanation. Um, they can do that for other types of sandwiches. Yes. I want more mystery meat. Or the Shamark Shake. People do that. There was the, um, Uh, the grimace one that killed everybody part of the purge. I need something that's not shake though. I need like, yeah. Hmm. They have a, um, I'm, I'm literally just talking about McDonald's now because secretly I'm getting paid under the table or something. Um, but they have like, uh, grandmas McFlurry.
00:19:00
Speaker
thing that was out of stock for our local ah venue. But the um it's like caramel and like crumble and stuff like that. And it sounds really good. And I'm like, awesome. I know I'm never going to be able to get this because you can't manage your machines or something like that. Right. Like I'll never actually see this. um But it sounded nice. It sounds very sweet. It probably would be. Decadently so. Like butterbrickle is my favorite ice cream flavor. So I every time you say that, I know we've talked about it over like years. I don't believe it's flavor every single time. I'm like, ah no, it's not. It sounds fake. 50 percent butter and 50 percent brickel. Throw
Video Games: Trials, Mechanics, and Strategy
00:19:50
Speaker
it together. It's the brickel. It sounds like fae verbiage. You know what I mean? It's.
00:19:58
Speaker
I was attacked by a brickle mid-afternoon, yeah. have Follow the yellow brickle road. Yeah, exactly. And butter is yellow, so it tracks. Mm-hmm, checks out. I do kind of miss having some sweets in general. Mm-hmm. My decadence now is like, like specifically when I get like a sore throat or just feeling kind of like trash, the I'll grab. Well, I'll do that even when I'm not sick. Shout out to where our buddy, friend of the show and special guest ah dice. um But I was going to say popsicles. Ah, OK. Outshine, I guess, is like the most.
00:20:39
Speaker
popular upscale brand in like local grocery stores that actually has real fruit bits in there. I'm sure it's overpriced, but it tastes good. I don't like it. But like a nice little mango or strawberry or coke. Just give me a nice little fruit. It's frozen like. ah That does sound pretty refreshing. now Actually, you mentioning those reminded me that we got those like super, super basic like children's frozen water where it's like you ring a giant. um
00:21:17
Speaker
What's the term I want to use here? Like a quiver, a quiver of these like off several tubes. yeah Yeah. You just cut the end off. You're just hearing jing j like the most basic thing imaginable. um Literally forgot about them. They're just in the freezer somewhere, but yeah, realistically, I don't usually need too much more than that. If it's going to be more than that, I'm literally jumping to like cake or pie, but the things in between there are less. I'm not buying like a candy bar generally anymore.
00:21:52
Speaker
Well, another great thing about popsicles is generally they are not that many calories. That's true. Yeah. Like the ones you're describing are probably like 20, 30 maybe. That's pretty good. um Those are cottage cheese numbers. Oh, yeah. Frozen cottage cheese? Hello.
00:22:12
Speaker
Way better than hot cottage cheese, believe me. um But even the popsicles I get, it's usually 60-ish. The highest I've ever seen a popsicle at is like 100, which if you think I can't justify 100 calories, talk to me. I'll make up something. Those little health snack packs or whatever, those oftentimes would try to aim for 100 calories. So a popsicle is not even trying to hold back, and it's 100 calories. You know it's healthy. Versus like how many almonds you think are a hundred calories? It's it's way less than you think, by the way. it's It's probably not a lot. I remember almonds are a lot. So like probably 10.
00:22:56
Speaker
I would guess somewhere between like 10, 15. Yeah. Yeah. Almonds are energy dense. Like I love grabbing a handful of almonds, but then I'll look at like the serving size and he's like, well, actually you really only want this many. And I'm starting to like to count these in my hand. Like, dude, come on. You just want the almonds. You're supposed to grind one of them up and then take a portion of the dust and put it on something. and Just rub it on your gums. Rub any gums and wait. Oh, that almond high. But that's the thing that like kills me about like the specialty almonds because, hey, it's so oh it's roasted almonds with like all this ah salt and other stuff. like That sounds delicious. But now each almond is 20 calories. and'm like
00:23:41
Speaker
I don't want to have five almonds. I'd rather have a popsicle. Try not to think about it. Yeah. You just tell yourself you need the protein. That's what you got to do. You just tell yourself you need the protein. I mean, legitimately, that's one of the reasons I have almonds is for the protein, because like for lunch, I had. uh, Shin instant ramen. And then with that, I added some leftovers of some beef I cooked last night, just some ground beef and some extra rice I had. And it was like this nice little meal thing. And it was cool. Um, but then afterwards, I'm like, I don't really want to eat meat. I still want some degree of protein and I want to cook eggs. Right. So it's like, I'll just grab a handful of almonds. Yeah. That's convenient for that. It is true. It is true. Um,
00:24:33
Speaker
I don't know what the next topic is. I thought about it. I was like, what's the acceptable amount of time to deliberate it before I just talk to fill the air? That was that amount of time elapsed and I started talking to fill the air. Do you want to hear about something I've been playing recently? Sure. Maybe if I just said no. I have nothing to talk about. No, I can't talk about that.
00:24:58
Speaker
ah Dusk though. Oh, yeah, it is a boomer shooter kind of like doom um Very low resolution, but they do a surprising amount with it and yeah It's been good. I've been really liking it Yeah, I think that one came out a couple years back. I want to say And I think it's very reliably been, you know, one of the top rated boomer shooters out there. Um, some of those games are like, they tried to bring back descent. I think it's called overload or something like that now. yeah And it like, I own it, but like, it was kind of hard to get into it. It's harder to, to make them land, but legitimately there are these indie developers out there, especially like in the boomer shooter space where it's like,
00:25:52
Speaker
The games that they're making are so much better than Doom ever was. Yes. Yeah. Like the just the movement tech alone, it just makes it feel so much better. um and Instead of having to do like this kind of jilted movement and then looking around. Yeah. But yeah, like the pace of it has been really nice and it kind of makes me curious about some other things as well. I know we were talking before about Ultra Kill. Yes. Which I've always known about, but never really looked into. I really thought my eventual definitely do want to check out list, but. So I have like fun trivia about utra Ultra Kill. The first time I played it was like for early access. I have not beaten it. I need to go back and beat it now that it's fully released. But
00:26:40
Speaker
Um, the settings for ultra kill are actually absurd, right? Like, you know how sometimes a game comes over from consoles, it gets ported and it's like, Oh, the FOV is locked or something like that. It's always like 70 or something absurd, right? Like, Um, you're basically holding your hands up next to your eyes, right? You're you're forcing yourself into standard definition. See no evil. See no evil. Like that's, that's what it feels like. And Ultrakill is just like, no, no, we're basically embracing the meme of this can be in super fast paced.
00:27:15
Speaker
skill based, like insane speed running shooter. So the FOV approaches somewhere near like 270 degrees or something like that. Like the screen just warps. The easiest way to describe this. You know the 360 cameras on top of Google cards? Yeah. It's pretty much that. You can see behind you the FOV is so distorted. The game is like unplayable, and it's awesome. like that That would fuck with me, Howard. Yes. This is the definition of a setting where like if you get motion sickness while playing games, do not do that. But you can.
00:27:58
Speaker
um And then like a lot of games, they let you D-Res graphics and all that jazz to make it look like garbage. I think one of the the the filter modes, the render modes was like PS2 or something like that. It just makes it all look really bad. and I thought the style of the game is supposed to be a little more polygonal. It is a low resolution. It is, but they let you make it even blurrier, basically. So it's not like it's high res originally, but yeah they make it like really demanding specs. And then I was just only seeing the ah the lower res versions. Yeah. If you if you wanted to make it look like you were playing on a Game Boy Advance, like you absolutely could.
00:28:41
Speaker
um So. Really fun game though and super, super hecking stylish. ah i I kind of love Overkill because when you're like on a hot streak, it's awesome. Like one of the um the core functions of the game was you can kind of like change your arm at various times. You're a robot. um It's like humanity is dead. ah Hell is full, blood is fuel. That's the tagline for the game. And so you can change your arms to like these different ones. One is this like concussive blast that like sends enemies flying back. The other one's like a big punch, but then like your standard arm is like deflection. And it's just time against almost anything and you can parry it. Almost anything.
00:29:36
Speaker
And this actually counts your own bullets if you're really fast. So literally, like if you want to just obliterate an enemy, you like shoot your shotgun blast and then immediately swing in front of it with your fist and you parry your own bullets to like add velocity and just obliterate something in front of you in an explosion. That's the kind of game Ultra Kill is. And I love it it rewards a fast pace, a high intensity gameplay. Yes, it it does. It's not necessary though. Like there are a lot of levels where they'll have like hidden challenges. It gives you like a letter rank at the end all the way up to like P rank, but, um, I don't know what that stands for either, but, um,
00:30:25
Speaker
Normally a level might take like a couple minutes to clear maybe like five minutes something like that. Yeah, and then you get to the end of it and it's like challenge beat the level in 30 seconds and you're like What? And but you can like watch a video online of someone who figures out how to like avoid all of the keys and doors that was necessary to go through to make it to the end. and They just slid, launched themselves and skipped right to the end. You're like, OK, all right, sure. um um And then the last weapon I want to mention, because it's just very iconic, you get it very early, is the ah it's a revolver plus coin.
00:31:08
Speaker
It's like, and the coin is important because they regenerate over time. But every time you hit the coin button, I think it's just like right click. You'll fling a coin up in the air. You'll like flip it like you're they're you're seeing whether it's heads or tails. It flies up in the air. And if you do nothing, it flies up in the air and then falls to the side, right? That's literally nothing. But if you shoot the coin, it will always deflect your shot to an enemy and do critical damage. So you're literally just like, coin, coin, coin, and like just obliterate all of the enemies in front of you because you just reflected all these shots.
00:31:47
Speaker
um And because it's overkill, eventually there will be an opponent that shoots your coins if you threw them in the air. And it's just like, of course.
00:32:02
Speaker
Or the mechanic you relied on? No, no, no. That's mine now. Uh-huh. It literally becomes like, I think they also throw coins. So it becomes like coin dominion almost, where you're like trying to steal their shots, but not let them take yours. It's very, very cool. Hi. Can you play some more of these games? um Yeah. Did you ever get a chance to play Neon White? I didn't, although I watched people play neon white. and did you Did you go through it yourself? I did a decent portion of it, apparently 4.5 hours worth. um It's much more laid out as far as, here's the path you go. Here's the things you do. yeah um Because the system works on the cards you get it will give you weapons. right oh This card is the pistol. And you have X amount of shots.
00:32:56
Speaker
um But you can also burn the card for a different effect, usually a movement effect. um But the way the levels are designed, and in the order you do things, like it feels well when you're doing it correctly. Right. And there's still ways to abuse the system, as there always are. But I would play through a level, see that like Lando had done it faster than me. I'm like, I've got to go back. And then you can optimize, find better ways to do it. um
00:33:29
Speaker
Yeah, that one's a lot less crazy. yeah It's definitely paced out. um But the difficulty does ramp. I think that's probably why I stopped the deployment. I don't know. That's fair. I like the art style for it. And I do kind of like that the the runs were like deterministic for neon Neon White. It's like, if you were planning out a run how you wanted to approach it, um You could choose to like do something a little riskier, but that would always be available for that run, if I remember correctly. like They didn't have RNG for the cards. Yeah, there's no RNG. All enemies, cards, and stuff are in the same place every time. um So that is cool. I do like that, the kind of like time trial-esque nature of it. um I know we both played it, and I do not believe either of us have completed it.
00:34:24
Speaker
i But ghost runner two is yep. I knew it was coming. Yeah Because we played and had an episode on the first one And I think two has it still had definitely has some potential for that but they also tried to like Expand certain elements that makes it a little bit less of a pure time trial pedal to the metal it's kind of stupid that i said it that way because i think the thing that actually slows it down it are the bike segments by i know that never not a fan of
00:34:58
Speaker
um But yeah, I liked something like Ghost Runner's design of like, hey, you have your sword, ah you have you can run off walls, you can jump and you can dash. Yeah. But when you dash, you can slow time. If you put some points in that into that, ah you can deflect shots and you have points in that. um And like you go and try something like, oh, I went this route. Oh, I fucked up here. Let me try that again. Okay, keep hitting this roadblock, maybe me try a different route. Maybe we need to kill enemies in a different order. right And just figuring that out and then having it be successful. I think one of the most satisfying things about those types of games is after you've struggled so much in a thing, or a level or a section, and you go back to it later and you're like, oh yeah, yeah, easy. yeah Because it just becomes muscle memory as you get more used to it.
00:35:50
Speaker
yes And the game trains you also, right? like The difference between, in and that game specifically, i I believe it's any projectile, um unless there's powers or something that changes it. like If you take any damage, you die. like You just do not get hit, yeah basically. um And so the difference between success and failure is just like a razor's edge. And so it always stays intense because there's not really that much room to like forget to parry or you ah slid in to make an attack, like a slight attack with your sword while the guy was about to shoot you or something like that, right? Like there's so many ways to lose that when you get it right, you're just like, it feels like an action sequence.
00:36:39
Speaker
I kind of wish that they would give you like a third person replay, a GoPro cam or something like that, or over the shoulder drone cam of just the absolute nonsense that you inflict. um Because I'm sure it would look really cool. i Something i what I liked from back in the old days of speedrunning games, so a Super Meat Boy. Oh, yeah. Uh, I think they were the first to do, or at least my first experience with it, where you do a level, you maybe fuck up a couple of times, you eventually finish it, but then it would show you, Hey, here's all of your runs. Yes. Kind of played at the same time. And you see the ones that fucked up and then you see the one that was successful, uh, kind of succeed. Like it was a ah genetic, not a genetic, uh, it's evolution. Right. Yeah. But what's the term for the algorithm thinking over here?
00:37:30
Speaker
like a like a learning algorithm or something like that. Yeah. A genetic algorithm. Oh, well, sure. Like a genetic ah algorithm. I think it would be cool to have something like that for a ghost runner type game. Yeah. ah You definitely need a different camera angle to try and encapsulate all of that, especially in like a three dimensional space. um But it would be cool if like, hey, here's where you consistently kept fucking up. And you see 50 attempts that fall into the pit or something. Yeah. Yeah. I just like that measure of progress. It's cool. It feels really cool and super meat boy as well. When you start, they're like, all right, this as soon as you see the replay, you play for the winning run. And it's like 100 guys already at the same time. And you're like, yep, on one hand,
00:38:21
Speaker
It literally did take me that many tries, but on the other hand, I know what's over it. Right. So you kind of get to sit back and appreciate it. It almost feels like sometimes you have to kind of pay into the level. I need to sacrifice this many lives to get to get a successful. Yeah. Yeah. That was definitely the case for that game.
00:38:42
Speaker
Super Meat Boy is a good example for that too, because that's the first game of that type that I really got into. Because it's so almost a meme at this point, but I have to say, it anytime we mention the genre, but I don't generally like platform games. But I did get really into Super Meat Boy because it's like instant retries, which is the other thing Ghost Runner does. It's like, oh, you died? Press a button. There you go. You're right back into it. If they had like two seconds more delay between the retries, I would maybe consider like rage quitting the game at certain times. But because it's literally like, oh, just go again, just go again. Oh, you died? No, it's so it's right here. You're right there. You're going to stop like you're you're in the game, right? Like it almost there's no zero on your failure.
00:39:31
Speaker
It's not a souls like in that regard. Yeah, the souls lecture like you died warm And it's like hey, this is you Uh-huh. Yeah, but also like you then have to spend a lot of time typically and some of them like going back to Where you were to do another attempt? You gotta go up that hill again. You gotta get collect your souls or whatever. Mm-hmm Gotta dodge certain enemies get at the boss door Brothers just go I think that like that that's one of the key differences though is like souls like games generally they give you that time but they also force reflection during that time right it doesn't necessarily you can just die in the same way over and over and over again in souls like games.
00:40:19
Speaker
because I do that a lot. Boss fights, you know, sometimes it takes me a while to realize like, okay, I'm not gonna be able to just win this by attacking. I need to sit back and learn what your moves are, right? But they specifically give you that time so you can reflect on what happened and try to avoid the scenario in the future. Super Meat Boy, Ghost Runner, they take the exact opposite approach. It's like, like, If you're doing reflection, it's gonna have to be very fast because we're thrusting you right back in it. We don't want you to quit.
00:40:55
Speaker
Dark Souls is just like, hey, you can quit if you want, you know, if you want to give up, I guess. Well, Super Meat Boy is such like a fast paced game that like it wouldn't even make sense to try and analyze your stuff. You literally just need to throw your body against the wall at well yeah again and be like, oh, I need to hang on here a little bit more before I jump or I need more momentum before I do something. Yeah. um That's something you actually just need to feel out. Right. And in Dark Souls, it's usually knowledge building, right? You died because something happened that you didn't expect. So now you should expect it. Hopefully you don't die in this exact same way. Right. ah But look, looks at Melania. aha Yeah. Blade of Mikala.
00:41:47
Speaker
yeah ah Why did you keep dancing? I don't know. Make your stuff. I just love her millennia specifically, like, it's not strictly true that she cheats. Like, but she does play differently than most of the bosses do. And that was enough to basically have so many people in the community be like, oh, she actually is reading inputs or something like that. like ah zuli did this is exact This is a very specific topic on Melania. But Zuly did a video on, or Zuly the Witch, for those who are unfamiliar, on YouTube, look her up. ah Excellent analysis videos for the show. i She had a specific video on input reading in Elden Ring and whether it's a real thing or not.
00:42:36
Speaker
And it is, it's kind of like, because people, when they think of input reading, you think of like a fighting game, right? Where it's like, Oh, you went to punch the AI knows that you press the punch button. So they're just going to like block and then grab or something like that. Right. Like they just instantly cheat basically faster than a human would. But it doesn't do that. Instead, the bosses react based off the actions you take. um But it's like, as soon as the animation starts, it becomes valid. So a common example is, I'm going to take a chaga estus or whatever, whatever it's called in Elden Ring. It's something to do. Attach this. Yeah, it's estus. And then the boss always does the same attack that'll hit you when you were healing. And you're like, oh my gosh, he's just reading inputs.
00:43:34
Speaker
Technically as soon as you start healing he can hit you with that But you can also like try to do it at the end of a different move or something like that where he's not going to use that move, right? So Milania was infamous for that. She really loved to mess with people when they took certain actions ah Yeah, but it's I think that's a good example of like fun, difficult boss design because it will always keep you on your toes. Like I don't want to ever have a boss fight where it's like, I have the opportunity to like run, hide, count how much ammo I have. Chug, chug, chug. Yeah. Like I don't want to have to come back like, aha, I've eaten all my wheels of cheese now. Because then there's not really stakes as much. Yeah. There's,
00:44:27
Speaker
It adds like layers to it, and I think some people don't necessarily expect it if you're just like, I'm learning what moves the boss will do, but you don't consider, oh, the boss has certain moves that they'll hit me with specifically if I try to heal. like Maybe it gamifies it a little bit. Maybe that would be a valid criticism, right? Like, cause it feels kind of arbitrary if you were fighting some guy, but then every time you're like, you took a breath or you looked a little bit weak, he's like, he goes in with a very specific attack or something. yeah Um, cause you can't faint chugging Estes as far as I remember. You can't, you can't roll out of it. No, exactly. Yeah. This isn't, uh,
00:45:10
Speaker
It would be a Souls-like game that allows you to do that, but generally not a Souls game. um Except Bloodborne, but that doesn't count because it's like a two it's like a half second animation to heal in that game. um You just jab your epi-pan your leg and then you move on? Uh-huh. That's actually what the damage is in Bloodborne. It's just an allergic to reaction to everything that's going on. I don't like all this madness. I need my meds.
00:45:39
Speaker
But that would be if they, if they ever wanted to take it a little bit further and make it so you could like cancel out of healing, I don't know. It's, it would be a way of making it feel like it's a little bit more fair versus bosses. Cause you could maybe, I don't know. It could be a good gameplay experience to feel like you actually baited the boss into something, which you can really do in the souls games. Like you can, specifically. You can. I want to argue you can. OK, I'll hear the argument. I'm right. OK, strong. I can see the point. ah Basically, a lot of bosses in games, Souls included, will have certain, like you said, triggers for attacks. Right. ah lot And you can do this with enemies as well. And that's how you beat a lot of enemies in Dark Souls. It's like, oh, I'm going to get within their range.
00:46:38
Speaker
Oh, the sharding attack, I'm going to move out of it or plan to roll through. But basically, you're baiting out the attack to then respond in kind in some way. Yeah, it's almost the core gameplay, actually, is forced going back to argument one. I'm right. You had me in one, but you got too locked it in. um Yeah, that's definitely true, because the the fights are You lose control of the fight when you're no longer the one really dictating what the boss is doing or you're not in a position to respond to it. Yeah. So that's fair. But I think it would take away um if they made it.
00:47:22
Speaker
At least in Dark Souls, like it's a very slow middle thing. I was going to use Hollow Knight as an example, but with Hollow Knight, you still have to find those windows to heal, but you do have the option to stop channeling the heal. If you're like, oh, this is a really bad time, let me not do that and dash through, you have the option to. But it's also a platforming game and going to be a lot quicker. I'm not familiar with the AI in Hollow Knight, but I don't think it like I don't believe any of the bosses like punish you specifically for healing. But you can ah cancel out of your heal. Yes. Yeah. So it's kind of like it's still not the game state I was maybe talking about where it's like the boss reacts to you going to heal, but you have the option to early cancel or faint it or something like that.
00:48:15
Speaker
I don't necessarily think it's the next big thing, right? It's fine if the next game, if the DLC for Elden Ring doesn't introduce heal canceling, I'll be fine. um I think it would be funny if you have both the player and the bosses, they keep fainting at that, getting closer to each other. ahha Who's going to swing? That's the classic though. That's one of the things Elden Ring was actually really known for was like, um, misleading misleading attack animations. Yes. Bosses love that. They absolutely. Specifically, Margit. Uh-huh. He's just like, I'm going to raise this up. And it's like, OK, you're going to hit me with it, right? And he's like, any minute. And then once he does, he's done with his super, super slow attack. He's like, and quick stab with a knife.
00:49:10
Speaker
ah Yeah, there's nothing there's nothing more evil than a boss that has a mix of fast and slow moves and then not obvious tells between the two. Yeah, nothing induces panic and me more than those types of things. Yeah. Cause you're like, Oh, should I always constantly be expecting it to be a fast move? Okay. I'm going to have this roll primes. Oh, he's, he's still holding up the sword. Oh shit. Um, Oh, it's a slow move. Yeah. There was a, I've been playing a a souls like game that I won't, I won't mention yet recently, but it has elements of that where it's like this move is telegraphed. It's got the, it's got the, the, the, the, the second row death congee. I know something bad is is about to happen. I think I wait a minute and then I dodge.
00:50:02
Speaker
ah But other ones are just very fast and you have to react to it. It's good to have a mix I think keep people keep people on their toes Yeah, I'll be silly if every enemy and boss play the exact same leg trick. Oh One two miss it. There we go, Mississippi. All right. Good. Yeah Like I'm sure that there are souls like where the enemies do generally just attack really fast and then they just Adjust the rest of the gameplay around that but I find a mix is nice. I Yeah. it's It's like that common archetype of like bigger enemies should hit slower. and Their tails should be a little more obvious. And then certain small enemies might be a little more quick and erratic.
00:50:45
Speaker
hu I know there's an enemy in Elden Ring. It's like a little gargoyle thing yeah but where it kind of like flies in and then it kind of like starts to like spark and twitch as its ah gears kind of go out of sync and it starts like freaking out on the ground towards you. um And I don't know how to parry any of that. So I just try and kill it beforehand or run. aha Yeah. Yeah. Where does that trope actually come from? Because The first game I can think of that had like super massive enemies that move slowly. Obviously, there's Shadow of the Colossus, right, is is one of them. But um ah God of War, the Colossus fight, it's just this giant stone statue. And this is not the new God of War. There's the old one, giant stone statue. And it's just like, oh, wow. Drag like like all of these super exaggerated movements.
00:51:44
Speaker
I think it would terrify me if because it doesn't make any sense, right? Like big things can move fast, too. Yeah. But I would be terrified if I ever had a boss fight against a giant fast opponent. What do you do then? Man, that would make your completely different experience. Uh huh. Because it's just full booking it, even in like um Marvel this is the one time I'm gonna reference ant-man he gets like really slow in the movies if he's giant Like he's just a lot slower And I don't think there's any like reason it should be that way I Don't know You made me aware of something that I had never thought about and now I'm just thinking back to all of these large-person fights and
00:52:42
Speaker
But I bet like we're super fast to insects.
00:52:47
Speaker
That's true. But also, like, actually, no, no, no, that doesn't make sense. Yeah, we have to be super fast to insects. A giant, quick-moving entity. Yeah, no, it's terrifying. I think it's probably for balance purposes. That's the reason big things are slow. It's because it would really just suck. If you're like, all right, Kratos versus the Colossus, and then it just like crushes you and you there's no way that you can escape it. Imagine if Donkey Kong just had like an insanely fast back air, you know, wouldn't be fair. Wait a minute. As soon as Donkey Kong throw out a back air with like two frames before he hits the ground and there's still active hit box on it, so.
00:53:34
Speaker
He can do it on the ground. I don't actually think he has to be in the air to do back airs. I, I don't think so. At least he just sticky his leg. Yeah. We just reach back with that. Yeah. This is the super, super niche smash bros slash Elden ring frame data content that our listeners come for.
00:53:59
Speaker
Well, no, I think it's just, for one thing you said, it does have to be balance reasons, because using the Shadow of the Colossus example, imagine trying to climb one of those if they were always insanely fast yeah and didn't have any type of slow interactions. It'd be insane. Uh-huh.
00:54:22
Speaker
No, it's probably for the best. I'm not suggesting that it's different, but one of these days we're gonna face giant fast thing. Actually, I can think of one, it's not super, super giant though. Um, or the company super giant, um, the, it's an owl, I believe in Ori and the blind forest, but they don't play it the same way as like traditional boss fights. It's just don't be seen is the, uh, is the mechanic.
00:54:55
Speaker
Cause it's just like, Oh, you were seen, ah you die. That's closer to what it would be like.
00:55:04
Speaker
Points for that game for realism. Yeah. Oh, another example I was thinking of, um, when the much was, uh, streaming a Halo two, he got to encounter the scarab, yeah which is, uh, the giant slow walkers through the city.
00:55:23
Speaker
And one of the parts of the segments of it is you have to like jump on and take it over. Um, remember that being way cooler when I was younger and now I'm just like, okay. But again, it's like this larger than life thing. Uh, and I think some of those slow exaggerated movements kind of make it more impactful and larger than life. Exactly. Yeah. The, um, I think all of the equivalence, right? Because Half-Life has their their Strider like walkers. Those are a little bit faster. But I was going to say, the reason it's a cool thing in Halo was because like prior to that, what shooter had you board a giant vehicle that wasn't just like a tank section or something like that, right? like It's very novel to be like, oh, you're used to just being down there on the ground and shooting people around walls.
00:56:14
Speaker
This is completely different. You're now fighting inside of this thing as it moves this high above the city. That's awesome. That's just a little less novel now. Yeah. Unfortunate. Even the Reapers in Mass Effect are generally very slow when they're kind of like ambling about on top of planets and stuff.
00:56:43
Speaker
And those guys are supposed to be dangerous, right? So I don't know. I don't know. I want to throw a bone here and say with using Star Wars as an example. Sure. Oh, sorry, I have to get. Yeah. OK. Terrible franchise. But the AT-ATs, right? Yeah. They're these giant walkers and they're very slow. But I think the reason there is it's like This is such a huge, big thing. It requires so many moving parts where it literally can't just be booking it. Uh-huh. It takes a lot to have this gigantic thing tapes, take steps in the direction. Yeah. I think it implies scale, right? Yeah. If things go fast and they're big, they actually just seem smaller. They seem less weighty. Yeah. Because like ATST's are
00:57:43
Speaker
Comparatively, I mean, it's still pretty slow but stuff is kind of slow in the old Star Wars movies ATS. These are a little bit faster um But yeah, anyways, I don't know where I'm going with that ATS. These are the two-legged walkers. Okay. Yeah. Yeah the chicken walkers Yeah, exactly cuz that reverse joint leg. Uh-huh very iconic like Also a lot more pragmatic than an AT-AT. The AT-AT is like almost entirely, it's a camel.
00:58:19
Speaker
don't know light came I don't know why you would look at a camel and be like, this is military peak, right? Like we're not doing better than a camel nature's most dangerous creature, the camel. No one's lived to see a camel and tell about it. So I guess that's true for, um, Anyways, those are, those are large enemies in video games and food. and I,
00:58:50
Speaker
I miss some of those things. The larger the life and amazing games. Oh, yeah. I mean, I guess it was kind of like a staple more so back in the day, and then it kind of got looked at as a bit hokey or trite along the way. But there's still like a cartoonishly entertaining part of it where I do want an Andros. I do want whatever the fuck they the icon of sin that they put at the end of 2016. that's good Again, it's not for like, Oh, this is very serious and deep. I'm like, it's, it's just fun. Sometimes it is fun. yeah I just like having that here and there. It's also kind of a nice flex. Like when you can throw that at the end of the game specifically and be like, bet you guys didn't even know we could do this. Right. Like, and then you hit them with a massive scale boss fight or something. Um, that is cool. That is cool.
00:59:51
Speaker
It'll become less trait, I think, as as time passes and we get further away from the God of War games again. um Because they like to do it there. Again, I wouldn't mind just having it come back around again a little bit. I think that's fair. Some of the old game design principles, I mean, because they're based on those existing limitations. Hmm. Which is just fun. Yeah, why not? Um, honestly, I think our listeners should send in ideas for bosses that should have been giant. That's what you guys should send in. Which individual bosses do you have?
01:00:42
Speaker
oh What is, what is a boss in a game that you've played where you think that it could have been a much more impactful boss if it was gigantic?
01:00:51
Speaker
Excuse me. Are you asking me this now? Oh, no, that's that's thank God. That's I didn't have an answer. q to i'm I'm honestly just rambling while I try to think of my own. What would be a funny boss? It would be like gigantic. Hmm. I don't know. It's tough. Armored core. Armored core. I mean, armored core has absolutely gigantic bosses. It has the ATAT basically. Like it actually does. It's just, it's cooler than the AT-AT.
01:01:25
Speaker
um Yeah. Haven't played enough, enough of that recently. I'm just scrolling through here. Remnant 2 had a big boss at the end. That's true. Yeah. Although I also like, I don't and remember too much from that boss fight because there was so much going on so fast that I was like, Anyways, you can go to the room now if you want to hear more of the thoughts of the final boss for that It got to be a bit much so that's why you gotta to slow them down ah Send in your big bosses soapstone podcast gmail dot.com or join the discussion on Facebook It's a fairly big platform. Maybe not as big as it was though. Who's to say facebook dot.com slash soapstone podcast and as always
01:02:13
Speaker
We'll see you in the next one. Have a big night.
01:02:55
Speaker
Oh.