Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S2 Ep54: Minit
75 Plays6 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they struggle to get anything done in the time allotted!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Weather Chat
00:00:24
Speaker
He he he he he he
00:00:43
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host who's always Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going all right. Yeah? Could be better. I mean, the weather's kind of eh. It's been a bit rainy recently. Yeah, not my favorite. Yeah. It's, uh, it was raining like crazy earlier too. It was like down pouring, like insanity outside the office. I've gotten like a text every day where it's like, hide your wife, hide your kids. Cause it's like tornadoes, floods. Yeah. And I'm like, I just want to get home dry. Thanks.
00:01:13
Speaker
Yeah, we got the actual like, um, emergency alert for the tornado thing on the phone. Uh, which is, that happens sometimes, but usually it's like missing kid, something like that. I don't know if like, maybe they're related. Maybe the reason the tornado gets reported is because it like abducted a kid. You never really know. Oh, I, for some reason when you said that I imagine like the kid conjured the tornado, like it went out into the woods. It's like, I will show the world my destructive force.
Blood on the Shirt: Recording Mishap?
00:01:40
Speaker
But what game are we talking about? A minute.
00:01:45
Speaker
Blah! Ugh. Why is there blood on- Jake, what are you doing here? I'm here to record the podcast. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's a- You always have blood on your shirt, actually. I don't- I don't remember that. Okay. Seems normal.
00:01:58
Speaker
Like the week's been okay like nothing to write a home about I'd say earlier in the week better right later in the week and But then the weekends means weekends really where it's at. Yeah, you got your plans I was part of the group of everyone where everybody's working for the weekend
Weekend Gaming Plans
00:02:17
Speaker
And by working for the weekend, I mean playing video games I was gonna say boo because of the joke then I felt bad. I'm like, oh, maybe he doesn't have to work this week and that's unfortunate But now I want to say boo again because that was terrible. No, I'm playing playing some Rune scape a single-player stuff, but it's not related to what we're talking about today. I feel like It's probably better you can turn around about what are we talking about? We're talking about
00:02:47
Speaker
So that was really weird. I'm covered in blood for some reason, but I guess we should start this. How's it going tonight, Dave? I feel like you asked me that a lot. I feel like it's a kind of repetitive overdone intro type thing. I mean, are we just repeating ourselves? Does any of this mean anything?
00:03:08
Speaker
I don't know if I can answer that. We got to ask our listeners if it means anything, I think. I mean, they're not going to respond. I don't want to get all existential. Let's talk about the game. Yeah, I don't know. We should probably jump into it, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
Game 'Minute' Overview
00:03:20
Speaker
But the game we're talking about tonight is... It's actually... I had a kind of experience today at work. Oh? Yeah. That was a great time to talk about it. Right. Sorry about that. But I was giving a presentation.
00:03:35
Speaker
So, how long does that have to be? I mean, it was probably at least 10 minutes.
00:03:46
Speaker
Seriously, dude, what the fuck? What is going on? Like, there's more blood than usual, which is usually no blood. Yeah, that's actually true. Might have something to do with that sword on your back. No, this is my sword. Yeah, but I mean, nobody just has a sword. I got this at the run fair. I've had this for, like, fucking years, dude. That's no keyblade, Dave. I'm not a weeb.
00:04:12
Speaker
Debatable. Alright, it's debatable. I'm a bit of a weeb. As a weeb, you have this evil freaking blade on your back. The black smoke, it was cool. Shit, it might be cursed. Yeah, I think it's probably cursed. What's that ticking sound though? That's just my cursed cuckoo clock. Break it with your weeb sword. Alright.
00:04:46
Speaker
Anyways, so today we're talking about minute. I thought it was called mint ah No, that's how you come cuz this game was a breath of fresh air. Hey The boozlers babies wayless
00:05:04
Speaker
This is the box Venezuela, there we go Venetian I think I think we've lost the plot. It's not the passion for the novel. Yeah. Sorry
Game Mechanics and Style
00:05:17
Speaker
minute. Yeah, right. Yeah minute So this was a game that someone recommended to me For the purpose of playing me for the podcast. Okay, cool. I
00:05:28
Speaker
And it was only 10 bucks. Thank God. Cause I mean, you're usually recommending like, Hey, Dave, talking to yourself, talking to me with your name in third person, like pick up this like $60 game. It'll be great. Let me never cover it. That never actually happens. I think most of the games you've recommended me have been pretty good.
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah, now I want to know which ones weren't. I feel bad. Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest. I have nothing in that set. I'm just hedging my bets. Oh, God. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. I've got like Undertale and Minute. Both at Portions, kind of like Black and White as a game. Would you say Undertale and Minute are the same game?
00:06:13
Speaker
I have an exact knife on the desk. I'm not saying I would use it against you. I'm just reminding you it's there. But no, it is similar in that it is top down. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's about it. They have hearts. Both have hearts. Okay, yeah. Your character in-game does have a health bar shown via hearts. But you're not the heart in this one, so.
00:06:38
Speaker
I feel like this isn't in your pocket. This is all I've been prepared for is the comparison to Undertale. That's a lie. I mean, it's a top-down kind of adventure game with a twist.
00:06:50
Speaker
Yeah. Um, it's very reminiscent, which we'll cover more of Zelda or anything that was early on side squirrel. You have a room at a time. Yeah. So like you spawn in your house, you kind of explore around as some like obstacles in your way, like bushes and shits. You can't explore too many areas. Right. Yeah.
00:07:09
Speaker
And they're clearly like, I would say, Pokemon obstacles, or it's like, there's a path behind this. I know I'm going to break that. If you use like the slightest amount of parkour, you're there. Right. Or you just used any type of vertical momentum.
00:07:23
Speaker
Also, I don't know like what you play as in this game because it's kind of like a blob or something You have like these big-ass and duck lips. Yeah, I I don't know what the protagonist is I don't know. It's just a dude or a dute. Yeah, it's a simple little guy. Mm-hmm
00:07:42
Speaker
So pretty basic graphics, standard kind of style. Not a lot you can do off the beginning of the game. Not a whole lot. You dodge crabs. Yeah, there's crabs. And then you pick up a sword. This is where a path is diverged.
00:07:58
Speaker
So Dave chose to dodge the crabs. I chose to hit the crabs with my body, which as it turns out, arms me and not the crabs. So I actually died before the timing requirement was placed on me in a minute, which I personally think should have been worth an achievement, but I got nothing.
00:08:20
Speaker
No, you're just bad. Yeah.
Minute's Timing Challenge
00:08:22
Speaker
But the timing mechanic that Jake's talking about is when you pick up the sword, it's like, Hey, it is a cursed sword. And essentially you see a timer over the top and then you have exactly one minute before you die. Yep. Um,
00:08:37
Speaker
It's pretty rough. It's a short game. Then you die and the game closes and it's all over. That's kind of the beginning of the cycle that will repeat throughout the game. So the goal then becomes get as much progression as possible before your inevitable death so that overall you're continuing to work your way forward. Because you don't lose everything when you die, right?
00:09:06
Speaker
Right you just would respawn at the last house you were at and then Certain things that you might break like bushes with that sword now you have a sword you can cut down bushes Easy peasy and you can now go to that next Room, I don't want to call them runes like a tile screen. Yeah screen screens a good word for you next area So that would regenerate those bushes you'd have to cut them down again But the fact that you have the sword means you can cut down bushes right so you can get further than you did before
00:09:35
Speaker
And then as you go through the game you start slowly picking up these tools to get over those Pokemon esque obstacles Yeah, like oh you can now cut down trees. Yeah, you can go further. Was that a glove is gardening glove or something? Yeah, yeah I'd like that they give you all those obstacles and then one of the first items that you can actually unlock is
00:09:59
Speaker
You get the you get the water watering can pretty early. Yes, which is for me was used in two three situations I think in the entire you wanted the plant at the beginning I did I did the heart piece watering the plant because I was like, please do anything right? Yeah, so you nurture this like little pixel over time and it grows into this flower which gives you an extra heart tank and
00:10:20
Speaker
Yeah, it was pretty nice Um, and then I was like, all right something's got to actually break through You know these like tree stumps that are all over the place Um, there's got to be another upgrade thankfully right in the nick of time. I got the camera completely worthless as far as I don't say concerned I guess like your pictures get uploaded online or something. I tried going there. I It was just hey, it's the game website and like
00:10:47
Speaker
But is there like a specific thing for me here? Right. Because I've already bought the game. Is this a scam? It's like, yo, follow me on Twitter. I'm like, stop.
00:11:00
Speaker
Um, so yeah, the camera I didn't use that much. I could see, so like you can take a picture and theoretically I think it's supposed to end up online or something. Didn't, I didn't check. I don't know. It wasn't part of like core gameplay. You need to beat the game because I didn't really use it. Um, but it's just.
00:11:19
Speaker
It's from Devolver Digital, so you know it's like some weird-ass idea that's gonna be pretty awesome. They always find these niche, unique titles to publish. Yeah, they published Hotline Miami for people who don't follow Devolver, and it's freaking great. Freaking great. Jacob is a big fan.
00:11:41
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I mean, I'm not a huge, uh, proponent of, this is a single player game, especially like a short, relatively single player game, pretty indie. And then here's the multiplayer, like share pictures of black and white settings with your friends. Like.
00:12:00
Speaker
Right. But why, you know, like, right. Well, who is the person that I send that link to being like, wish you were here in this hour and a half long game or we'd never actually found the true purpose for it. Yeah. Maybe it's maybe there's a secret or something. I don't know. It's probably like a picture of a ghost and I don't know. You take a picture of a ghost and then you can vacuum it up. Yeah. I think that's traditionally how these kinds of games work.
Puzzle Solving in 'Minute'
00:12:31
Speaker
But the mere mechanic of like being restricted to a minute, it's kind of cool. Because like you're saying, you have very limited space, but then as you get tools and try to make progression within that minute time span, it expands your horizons. But you can access other areas.
00:12:51
Speaker
First of all, you can access them, and second, you can go back to things faster than before. So you can actually do more within that minute. Are you saying that minute is the dark souls of time-based games? I want to remind you of the exacto knife.
00:13:08
Speaker
But it's actually I feel like relatively apt. I mean shortcuts have existed in a lot of games. That's true. But then it has a very connect areas in multiple ways Sort of element to it. There's getting shortcuts such as just being able to Like thin swimming swim fins you get eventually so you can just cross water Makes it so you can easily go to your your home base from like another map or another screen
00:13:37
Speaker
You usually can't access that easily. And then there's the teleportation room, which is just go to any of your homes except the RV. Yeah, once you have the lord vessel. Right, once you have the lord. Exactly! It's freaking Dark Souls! Finally we've cracked the code. Everything is Dark Souls.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, the interconnectedness is really nice. Um, also because I found myself going back and forth a little bit. Yes. Cause I might get something over here. I'm like, Oh, this might be useful over here. Right. Because it doesn't really clue you in where to go. It's a lot of trial and error.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yes, um, but I also really love that they play with the timing mechanic Um in like a tongue-in-cheap way like very early on. Um, if you go a little bit left past the sword or west for the layman You talk to this guy at a lighthouse, but he's very old and his speech is very slow So it takes like the whole minute as soon as you get to him for him to like spell out his dialogue. Yeah
00:14:38
Speaker
And he talks about like a treasure or something, which I didn't even do anything with. So that's a minute burned on my speed run. Yeah. Uh, did you not, did you not, you must've eventually followed his directions either indirectly. What is the treasure that is yielded from his quest?
00:14:56
Speaker
You know what? Maybe I never got it either. It's not going to be a big game there, Jake. He gives you directions through the shark infested waters, like past the rock. Okay. So maybe the treasure... I never went that way. Is the island? Because again, the shark... Oh, there actually is a treasure there. Yeah, yeah. I did get it. I just forgot about it. Also, you get an achievement if you sit there and listen to his whole spiel beginning to end, which is kind of nice. I did get that, yeah.
00:15:22
Speaker
But yeah, if you go down in the water near the lighthouse and then to the west for the layman, and then south past a rock, and then south past like a sea screen, then you end up with an island, which I think has a coin.
00:15:42
Speaker
In a chest so hmm. Yeah, you can get a coin which is used elsewhere We need seven coins to unlock sneakers which allows you to go faster I
00:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, and then actually after you get the sneakers, it's like hey if you had nine coins You could buy this I think it was like a heart container or something I didn't get that I may have even ended the game with nine coins because it doesn't consider It's the weirdest shop. I think I've encountered in a game. They don't take your money. I
00:16:19
Speaker
when you buy
00:16:38
Speaker
Kind of situation where like Obama was on reddit and he says thanks Obama and people give him tons of reddit gold. It's just like He has the connections. He can get he can get reddit gold. You don't need to give it to him. Give it to me, you know Similar situation with this shop, I think The sneakers are good though
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah, I know there's certain areas where it's like you get on this windy ass maze. I'm like My little baby lungs. You're not gonna allow me
Speed and Upgrades in 'Minute'
00:17:07
Speaker
to you. Just can't go faster. Right? I got these worthless baby long Waste of an inventory slot. Well, it depends which game you're playing. All right Yeah, I did end up getting the sneakers going through the the windy path in a temple And I think you got a heart piece out of it at the end
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of challenges kind of like that or maybe not a lot. There's several challenges like that where usually what you can accomplish can be done in well under a minute if you're specifically going for that task. The game does have some events or things you have to do that take very close to a minute.
00:17:49
Speaker
So one of them is the obviously the maze going to the chest at the end. The other was there's a boat you can hop on. Yeah. After you help. What's his face? I don't know. None of them matter. And pieces. Yeah. But the boat trip is not all that quick. And if you don't get there immediately, like run there at the start of a run, you're likely to die before you get getting to the next house.
00:18:18
Speaker
yeah and it's kind of funny because it's like it's macabre in a way because oh is death macabre to you yeah yeah definitively macabre yeah quite yeah welcome to the podcast
00:18:36
Speaker
Didn't mean to do that in such a way But that was a well played that's part of the podcast I understand no, but Like so as soon as you find a new house, that's your new respawn point But they're paced out in such a way that you gotta you gotta rush
00:18:52
Speaker
Most of the time to get from one house to another unless you have a shortcut. Yeah, so it's like finally a new home and then usually die Jumps on bed wakes up. All right, okay They also have a quick reset mechanic while we're talking about like
00:19:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's not a very long transition. It's almost dark souls has a decent one, right? Because it's you die died pops up. Yeah. And you know, yeah, you don't have to load back into your game. So it's very snappy in that way. And it needs to be because
00:19:26
Speaker
It's like I said, it's not a super long game. Yeah. So having that quick downtime, like, all right, let me go to the next thing. Let me go throw a shoe of fish and see what happens there. Do I get achievement? Does that give me progress or am I just using fish? Yes. I think it's it's also important in this this kind of game because
00:19:45
Speaker
Especially this one where there's not always clear indication about what the next task is You will find yourself in situations where you need repetition like it takes several cycles before you really figure out what the next thing to do is Yeah, and in a game where you hit like a loading screen or it takes just a few seconds too many to respawn it quickly turns into Why am I not playing Starcraft, you know or something like that? Well, yeah, then you feel like you're being penalized
00:20:14
Speaker
Yeah, you want to play the game. This is the same thing like Call of Duty. Same thing they did with making checkpoints really forgiving and their single player campaigns. It's unlikely that you go
00:20:32
Speaker
Every time you shoot a bullet, you can't save. You can find yourself in some bad situations. But every time you start a firefight, there's basically a checkpoint right at that point. So if you ever cleared an encounter, quote unquote, in Call of Duty, to borrow some terminology from those D&D nerds, or anybody who uses that word,
00:20:54
Speaker
then you don't have to repeat fights at all. And I, as a filthy casual, appreciate that because I don't want to replay content in games unless there's a purpose to it and I'm still striving for something.
00:21:12
Speaker
Like Dark Souls has you replay content probably more than any other modern game, but you get to flex on knowledge that you've learned. So you get to like not make mistakes. You're like retreading your old stomping grounds type thing. Yeah. And you're rewarded with more souls.
00:21:33
Speaker
Yeah. It's not just for the sake of it. Yeah. Like now drive Benny back to the other side of town. Exactly. It's not filler content. Exactly. Whereas like if there was a longer respawn time or like a countdown until you started again in minute, then it would just be waste time. It'd be time. I'm like looking at YouTube, like on another screen or something like that.
00:21:58
Speaker
I feel like we've talked more about the game's quick restarts rather than like graphics or gameplay. I mean, it's fair, but I mean, like the that's true, but the game is built based around time. So like if they don't nail that mechanic, if they don't nail the pace, then like rest in peace game because it has to be right.
00:22:20
Speaker
and the controls are kind of wild tangent. The controls are tight but like a little bit loose. I would say they're not great. They're snug. Yeah. But yeah, it's meant to be a little clunky. Yeah. It's kind of your WASD as far as directions. That would probably be better. So like when you're in simple combat and you're swinging a sword, you got to get lined up with like old
00:22:45
Speaker
You know the old arcade fighters you're doing side-scrolling you're like I punched him. You're like nope He was three pixels up my back. Yes on me that type of stuff. Yeah, I played with them wired Xbox controller and For most of it. I used to joystick and honestly the Xbox has that like kind of not strictly four directions d-pad and
00:23:08
Speaker
And so I found myself in situations where I was screwing up some of the angles and WASD would have been way better for certain things. The game has you do like push boxes into the water to like form a bridge. There's a cave that's dark until you get like a flashlight with a bunch of snakes in it. And it, and it could be, you could tell me if the same with PC controls, but whenever you move to reposition your character, you essentially always move in that direction a little bit.
00:23:38
Speaker
So if I wanted to point the sword at the snake, I'm like, hug the snake. You know? Leaning clothes, draw your she's blade, slit its throat. It could have just because I was using the controller that the controls didn't fit that tight. It felt kind of that same way on keyboard. Yeah.
00:24:00
Speaker
But like you said, a lot of it is it lends itself to Cardinal directions. Yeah. And nothing else because it's again, it's a very simple game. The beauty of it is in the mechanic and how they played with it. Yes. And it's also very cute. It is. Yeah. Like it sounds like nice. I mean, music or some Amy, it's suspenseful music or things. And all the characters are fairly.
00:24:25
Speaker
Linear right, but they'll have like a cute witty thing to say or make some joke and you're like, mmm I got it. So it's not undertale, but it's it's like undertale light They've put the knife away but And I actually to a certain extent mean that as far as the characters are concerned They just go for that like light cartoony not in the direction of like Sam and Max but minimalist Kind of personality
00:24:55
Speaker
You mentioned like west of the first house, there's the lighthouse. If you go not as far, there's a shack you can go in. And that's where there's this guy who's a quest provider, I guess, sort of. He's like, oh man, I really wish someone would kill those five crabs. What's funny about this is you're pretty much never gonna, without knowledge, kill the crabs and talk to the guy.
00:25:23
Speaker
Right. You're going to talk to him and be like, ah, he wants me to kill the five crabs, kill over dead, respawn and kill the three crabs near your house and then run over and kill the crabs near that shack. Yeah. There you go. Five. Now you can get the one coin from him. Um, like you said, they're playing with that. Respawn. Uh, but there's also a jukebox in there. And did you, did you interact with the jukebox at all?
00:25:46
Speaker
I did, I talked to the one guy and he's like, man, I wish some good music would be put on. So I punched the jukebox and they have like 10 different tunes you cycle through. Yes. Until you get to like, uh, I'm not gonna say it's a bad track. It's a bad track. It's not as much of a banger as some of the others. And he's like, this is my jam. Yeah. I'm like, ah, okay. I gotcha. Yeah. I don't think he gives you anything.
00:26:06
Speaker
You get an achievement for it, but I don't think you get anything either. Yeah. It's just a waste of the life. When people said like, you're wasting your life, I would always respond with, yeah, but it's like 60 seconds anyways. Why are you worried? Flies have it easy. Um, they only live like a few days, I think.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That is true about Flies, Jacob. Thank you for joining us for the flycast. It's a fishing podcast. I mean, you can, you can cast the lines. Yeah. Cast online. Line cast. Lancaster.
00:26:47
Speaker
There you go. Got it. That's the podcast now, but, um, I don't know. It's got, it's got some, some indie charm, I would say. Yeah. Uh, really kind of carries it some, uh, diverse locales to different music kicks in. So you go into different areas. Um, did you, uh, did you ever stop and appreciate the music in your playthroughs?
00:27:14
Speaker
Kinda because I didn't Like I know I Did notice difference between some of the areas and the music but none of it? Stood out to him like oh, yeah that track. Yeah type thing So you had a slightly different experience? Yeah, I didn't really there's probably a couple tracks where I was like, this is nice but I didn't remember them in retrospect none of it seemed super memorable and
00:27:39
Speaker
I went back and listened to the the OSD on YouTube in preparation for this Or listen to some of the tracks and like these are actually really good. Like I would actually listen to these Ambiently, I'm not saying they're
00:27:53
Speaker
It's under-tailed light, as far as the soundtrack is concerned. It's not Dark Souls. But no, it's pretty good. We've got some good beats to them. And I feel like the reason I didn't appreciate them as much when I was playing the game was just because I was rushing through it so quickly.
00:28:18
Speaker
Every time that you leave your house, you are either exploring to like figure out new, new screens. Yeah. And if you do that, you assume that you're not going to make progress necessarily to like the next objective. It's just this life, I figure out what I can do next life. I specifically will spend it doing that.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what it is. Yeah. So it adds content in that way. So your first one, you're kind of just exploring the neighborhood. You see like a girl with lemonade stand. She's like, sure. Hope somebody would buy my lemonade. It's so delicious. And you're like, and then you die in the street and you respawn and then you book it over that little girl. You throw like, what is it? 10 cents? I don't know. Insulation. I think it's a hundred bucks now, actually. Did you ever have a lemonade stand real talk?
00:29:15
Speaker
I remember it, but I don't know if that's just a flaw of human memory. Like, I've seen, you know, in movies, kids have a lemonade stand. But did you do one growing up? I don't actually know. Like, I remember having a lemonade stand, but I don't know if that's just a movie I saw as a kid. Hmm.
00:29:40
Speaker
Like I don't trust memory. It's, it's super valuable. But Jay, we grew up. Yeah, it's probably, I think it's probably a quarter, maybe 50 cents now. I feel like a quarter is not anything. I don't even know if you can get like those sticky hand things from dispensers for a quarter now. I think that might be up to two.
00:30:01
Speaker
That thing is just asking for sure They're they're absolutely abysmal to Adam like The problem is the oil residue. We had white. Oh, yeah, don't touch your walls Yeah, we had we stuck into the ceilings and like left it up there for a little kids and Later came back cut it down. It's just like there's just like an imprint in oil in the ceiling. That'll be there forever
00:30:29
Speaker
next tense of the house be like, all right. Why are there tiny hands all over the place?
Appreciation for Game Music
00:30:37
Speaker
Tiny shadow hands is what they would look like. That got funnier than what I thought about it. But it does feel good to actually know what you want to do in the game. Yeah. You're like, oh, I can do this now. And then you go and you make that progression. You make that loop tighter. Yeah.
00:30:55
Speaker
And yet, like you're going to say props, I was thinking about like, how the fuck you design a game like this? Like, all right, guys, we're capped out at a minute. Yeah. How long does it take to get from point A to point B? Oh yeah. All right. How can we obfuscate that and kind of build it out? Yeah. It's kind of, um.
00:31:13
Speaker
It requires QA. I don't necessarily think QA would be too hard because people are either like, it's possible or it's not possible, you know? And I feel like the developer could necessarily do that, but it does require tuning in that regard if you want to keep it engaging.
00:31:33
Speaker
Like, they could have put everything much closer and you would always, if you did things as quick as possible, you would always have 30 seconds left. Um, but the game is not like that. Not at all. They want you to feel like you're just coming at the finish line. Like he just made it. Yes. Because like you use your, your mental prowess and your dexterous hands to navigate there so quickly, knowing what to do, having the tools to get there. Yeah.
00:32:03
Speaker
Speaking of dexterous hands...
00:32:08
Speaker
How much time did you spend just running around the desert because I know I did a fair amount Just hoping I would find something not as much as you Doesn't even matter how much I think I explore the desert like two or three times. Mm-hmm But when they said infinite desert or endless desert like yeah, I played Kings quest growing up. I know what that shit's like So did you find the oasis?
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's only like a couple over, like you just go in a straight line because you follow the signs to get there. Oh, there's signs. Yep. By the famous sign maker. Yeah.
00:32:48
Speaker
So I was included in that regard. There were definitely parts around that where I felt stuck or unsure of exactly where to go Yeah, what about the car and they like the oil spill? like liquid or whatever it was because I spent a stupid amount of time trying to think of like How I was supposed to solve that puzzle. There's like some tires. This is to the the west of the factory There's a little hidden path Did you see did you see that one?
00:33:18
Speaker
Because it's not yeah, yeah, because you can't actually get through that like this chest I figures for a coin or something Yeah, I'm not sure how you move the chests in a way like or I'm not sure if I accidentally somehow previously locked myself from ever Solving that like it resets every time. I just don't think it's solvable from that way Like you can you towards the end of the game you can go around and you end up in the factory on the other side Yeah, and you can go over the puddle
00:33:45
Speaker
Yeah. Like at that point, it doesn't matter because you can just go over the puddle, right? So they put all of those boxes there and you can push one into the water to make it seem like maybe if you're a logic master, you could create a bridge. Yeah. And you really can't. It's entirely red herring. I'm convinced. Like I looked at it and I was like, logically, this actually makes no sense. You can't push two boxes if they're side by side. Standard box rules. And, um, you can't like push boxes from the side if it's blocked between things. So.
00:34:28
Speaker
One main building where you can kind of go down in the water. It's toxic waters. You get damage over time Yeah, there's like barrels of pollution, but if you go down like two screens, there's like this guy in the corner I'm like, oh my god, I can probably get to that guy. Mm-hmm Oh, I don't have enough health to get over there I can't do it fast enough and then I found the other way around like I can finally do this thing Yeah, so after I probably spent let's say in total 10 minutes thinking about it making attempts actually going over there Yeah, he's like
00:34:37
Speaker
I spent a stupid amount
00:34:56
Speaker
Hey, I like to explore too And then I died motherfuckers. Yeah, cuz I just I did nothing Yeah, I had enough health that I could reach it from the north which I assume is like where you started Yes, when you tried the first time I never went around the other way But yeah, I I made it to him I was like this game's done Like I get there and there's there's basically nothing there
00:35:23
Speaker
I don't know. I feel like that's maybe like a slight rare, rare miss. Because it's easy in that situation. If you didn't kill it, there's like a bowl that charges at you. Yes. And part of it. If you kill it, you get a heart. There's a couple other ways you can get hearts. They're like hidden. We talked about watering the plant.
00:35:45
Speaker
And if you didn't have enough hearts, which is entirely plausible, by the time you made it to that guy, like you were, you could spend a significant amount of time thinking that's the way forward. And then you get down there and it's like, you suck. Or, you know, whatever. This ain't it, chief.
00:36:03
Speaker
yeah i i'm fine with the occasional red herring though yeah it's not like i spend an inordinate amount of time on that but you do that's the thing by comparison you spent 10 lifetimes 10 generations dave trying to figure out how to make it down that river
00:36:20
Speaker
Yeah but that's part of the thing is for me I like the puzzle solving of it because like each time I get a new tool I'm like all right this is a part of my game lexicon and then like what what over here like the known challenges right and I'm trying to like match up my head like would this work here yeah maybe I could do this in this much time
00:36:40
Speaker
It's not a full thing like a point-click adventure where you're like, well, I have this piece of ham over everything. Like, does this work? Or I guess a text adventure is similar, smear ham on everything.
00:36:52
Speaker
I would actually love to see a game where, um, the incorrect combinations in a point and click adventure still modified things in some way. So it's just like, say you had ham and then a flashlight and a bucket and a fishing rod and you're like, all right, ham fishing rod. And it's just like a hamming rod or something like that, but it's still just the fishing rod and they're like smear on the bucket and it's just like a ham scented bucket.
00:37:17
Speaker
And it was just like, that would be great. I do think a lot of point and click adventure games will have
00:37:24
Speaker
Interesting dialogue for those choices. Yeah, I don't know if they do as much in the way of item modification Yeah, so you go to Monkey Island. Yeah Shout out to our boy Tim Schafer. Yeah, friend of the friend of the show Friend of the show Tim Schafer I don't know. I think um He's uh, basically lost his mind at this point some sort of psycho
00:37:47
Speaker
Or not, you know, I don't know. Um, but God, ladies and gentlemen, let's pause for a moment. And, uh, that was fucking fucking choice. I don't, I don't write these. I actually don't write a lot of this. I can't write. I got bruised.
00:38:09
Speaker
I feel like Minit had few missteps for clearly like the small team. Solid music and retrospect when I went back and listened to it. I didn't really have a great grasp of what was going on for most of it. And part of that is because this is the opposite of an RPG where you sit down and you have
00:38:30
Speaker
This is an opposite of the BioWare RPG, where you sit down and you're like, all right, bust out my soda, sit back, and go through 10 minutes of dialogue choices with this person. It's like, you have 60 seconds between every respawn. They can't have massive dialogue dumps, except for the one for the joke. And you feel pretty rushed. So there was actually times dialogue was occurring. And I missed it, because, you know,
00:38:59
Speaker
I died, NBC moves. I left the screen, NBC moves. There's a kid who's like trying to get you to go to the, um, or a guy, I don't know, trying to get you to go to a factory. Um, and I got like half of his lines because he says it once. And then he leaves, uh, except the first spot where he's like always there. I think.
00:39:24
Speaker
I think he appears in multiple spots. He does, yeah. And if you go over there, he'll still be there. So if you go back to like where they originally spawned, he's like, Hey, we got to take that sword over here. And then when you get to over here, he's like, thank God you're here.
00:39:39
Speaker
Yeah, quantum boy. But yeah, I didn't have a huge grasp on what was going on, even though the main objective was pretty basic. Like, go to the factory actually is, is your mission to the factory. Yeah, exactly. It's canon.
00:39:57
Speaker
There was another mechanic they threw in that I didn't really get much use out of. It's like 70% of the way into the game, maybe even later, you can go in like a haunted house and there's like a TV and it says messages and stuff. And you can just run upstairs, eternally, like further and further into the attic. And there's always a TV and there's always a man. There's always a lighthouse. Mostly the TV.
00:40:25
Speaker
Uh, and then you, you die, you respond, whatever you go back and there's a ghost. It's like ghost of Mary Sue or something like that. And it's like, Hey, me and my ghost buddies are going to give you hints. And then wherever there was like a skeleton pile before in the game, there's now a ghost and they give you a hint about, um, something that's hidden or like an objective.
00:40:50
Speaker
And they never helped me. Most of them didn't apply by the time I got them because I was already so far through the game. And I don't know. I felt like if they would have introduced that earlier, people could use it as an optional, I'm stuck in this spot tool.
00:41:11
Speaker
I would argue that you don't really need the help until you're in the game. You've kind of explored most of it, but the keys are still wedged in the couch cushion type thing. You're like, okay, I've cleared most things, but I'm blanking on something. What can I do? And then you have the tips there as needed.
00:41:33
Speaker
But like the As far as like the final factory, that's that's your endgame. That's the end of it The if I remember correctly the house where you unlock the ghosts is like two or three screens north of your last house To access the factory the one closest to the factory the hotel You go from there into the mines and then you're technically on the path to beat the game like right then you don't actually
00:42:04
Speaker
I don't think you need anything else beyond that point. I know you can speedrun the game in probably about 10 minutes. I respect fasting. I feel like you could. Maybe. Because people are just going to cheat. Speedrunners always cheat. Glitchless maybe 10 minutes ago.
00:42:27
Speaker
around two hours, a little less, maybe closer than an hour and a half. It was an hour and a half and nine minutes for me. Or an hour thirty-nine, is this it?
00:42:36
Speaker
some people do you say it that way I prefer to split it out I was gonna say I prefer to use the term a fortnight and then I was like I can't mention that word not a friend of the show yeah not a friend of the show enemy of the show for tonight now don't don't kill us
00:43:00
Speaker
It was good, though. I don't have too much to talk about it outside of the mechanics and feel. How'd you like the final encounter? Because that was like an actual boss fight. I was impressed. That's the thing. It's a very small, tight game. And they know what the objective of the game is. And then they play with that mechanic and stuff.
00:43:24
Speaker
So it was nice that they did a little Something else for like the final boss. Yeah, where there's actually like mechanics, but they're not It wasn't hard to pick up. I'm like, oh that thing. Gotcha It's also very forgiving if you die like at any point in the final boss it's it saves between every single phase of the boss fight and these aren't like
Final Boss Fight
00:43:47
Speaker
The phases can't be that long. You're always on a 60-minute timer. So you can brute force your way through it pretty quickly. You're just like, oh, I died. Now I have full health. And I'm at the phase, the latest phase.
00:44:04
Speaker
But it was actually really nice and I feel like they nailed the I appreciated Not taking back my progress for the final boss fight. Yes It takes you a while to get to the boss fight. Yeah, let's say I'm gonna throw a random number 30 40 seconds Yeah, so to then meet a boss within 20 seconds would kind of be like yeah, or even where it's like a really simple boss where you just slap them once and
00:44:32
Speaker
Yeah, like a middle ground would have been you respawn at the start of the boss fight and then you need to clear the fight in 60 seconds, but they don't do that either. They have like two or three phases for the boss fight and between each phase is a checkpoint where you'll respawn. And as a filthy casual, as I established earlier, I actually like that more because I'm just like,
00:44:53
Speaker
Don't block me here. I've gotten like so close to the end of the game This isn't even a game that required boss fighting skills until this point Don't demand this of me now. Oh, please God because I'm having the time one minute at a time
00:45:17
Speaker
But yeah, I agree. I think the game is actually quite solid. Ten bucks.
00:45:24
Speaker
It's not that much. Yeah, it's not that much.
Conclusion: Is 'Minute' Worth Playing?
00:45:28
Speaker
Um, so you can, you can literally watch the trailer for it and you'll, you'll see like 33% of the game. So there you go. Perfect. Just dying in different situations. If you're looking for like a fun little indie pickup to be like, Hey, I'm going to sip some coffee in my underwear. If I want a game to play Saturday morning, do that. Seriously. Play minute. It's a good game. Yeah.
00:45:51
Speaker
Tune in next time when we actually have an intermission, maybe. I don't know. We were going to have an intermission. Didn't happen. Well, I mean, they know that now because they've listened to here. Right. Oh, we're not going for time. I was trying to make that a lead into the intermission and we'll just have a 90 minute episode talking about a minute. That would be insanity. Let's not do that, though. Next time, Death Stranding.
00:46:22
Speaker
We're not going to cover that game. As an intermission topic. Yes. I don't want to do a full episode on a trailer. It'll be a brief episode. But I am hyped. Yeah. But next time. Right. That's the hype teaser for our impressions of a trailer that you've likely all seen at this point.
00:46:44
Speaker
Have you heard of Reddit? Have you clicked the blue-linked purple? Well, I think that it's as good a place as any to call it because we are many minutes in. So as always, if you want to give us your feedback, you can send it in at gmail.com or reach out to us. Just gmail.com.
00:47:10
Speaker
Hey, you should know our fucking email address by now. It's a description to Gmail. They know us Soaps on podcast at gmail.com. Yes, or Just Google soaps done. We have a Facebook as well. That's where I usually I'll be posting stuff for the audio boom links
00:47:33
Speaker
You can Google it. We're not going to show up. Yeah. If you search us on Spotify, though, we are like the second result. We are the we are a soapstone podcast. I think the other one is probably a religious thing. Yeah, I don't think it's actually I think it I think it is. It's not a podcast. So we checked. We checked. We dedupped on podcasts. None of you guys are going to hear this because I would have already used the outro.
00:48:01
Speaker
I feel like we're now doing like the ol' son's fan in slacks like nobody listens to this at the end of the episode. Meanwhile, I, who listen to Fails of the Week, always listen to the end of the episode. Right. I think everyone does in that case. It's good. Who gets to the end of the podcast and people like flub the exit in here. It's like, all right, well, they wanted to end it, so I'll stop listening, you know? Maybe people do that. I don't know. Send in.
00:48:24
Speaker
I don't think you do, I think Marvel set a precedent of like, hey, you might be some stuff after, yeah. There's nothing after.