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Haste - Ep 101
16 Plays6 days ago
Couldn't fit ": Broken Worlds" in the title, I guess. In a *shocking* turn of events, James talks about Sonic the Hedgehog for a while.
Music is "Fork and Spoon" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Transcript
Introduction with Humor
00:00:04
Speaker
What did you have for me today, James? Here's what I got for you today, Allison. My name is James, and I guess we're starting the episode. Oh my god! Whoa, we said both of our names the beginning! No, we gotta start over. I gotta get out of it. I'm cooked. I'm chopped. Bye! Wait. Okay, wait. are we actually keeping this? Huh?
00:00:25
Speaker
wait okay wait no are are we actually do are we are we keeping this ah Sorry, I took my headphones I'm fully in another state right now. I'm on a plane
James' Roguelike Journey
00:00:36
Speaker
out here. Just staring at the waveform. i am I'm going so fast, which is something you know I love to do. I'm here. I'm the sonic representation of this gang. I just rubbed my hands really loud into the microphone. I hope that didn't come through.
00:00:50
Speaker
It did. I fully heard that. Are you doing an episode on Faster Than Light? my favorite. No. roguelite of like what like two decades ago and not really but like that thinking came out forever a ago dude i um would be happy to talk about that but that is not what we're talking about today however i have good news um james haters ah of the show will be happy to know that i finally ah slowly very i'm i'm I'm changing this oh time, right? It's a it's a trade about myself that I've never loved and I'm i'm trying to be better is okay as a as a as a moral quality of myself that I'm working to correct.
00:01:33
Speaker
I am finally starting to wrap my head around liking roguelikes. Oh, I love those kinds of games.
00:01:44
Speaker
It's very entertaining. Yes, it's a difficult process for me. i don't i'll have any idea on Earth why it seems like they'd be right up my alley. But now I'm making that actually happen. And it's because ah wait second.
00:01:58
Speaker
Hold on just a moment. Uh huh. Not to steal all of the wind from your sails. But is Haste a roguelike? Haste is a roguelike.
Introducing 'Haste Broken Worlds'
00:02:09
Speaker
In some senses. It sits in an interesting, actually, place here. So, yes, we're talking about Haste Broken Worlds is the full name of this game. Is it really?
00:02:21
Speaker
i thought it was just Haste. Interesting. think it was just Haste, and they added it on to kind of help. ah I mean, I'm sure it helped the SEO and the room for... yeah for To happen later. So, yeah, the the full title is Haste Broken Worlds. Most people are just referring to it as haste, which makes sense because there's kind of the one thing you do in this game and it's go fast.
00:02:44
Speaker
but ru boy Absolutely. So let me let me cover the basics of like the way the game plays first and then get into the weird part roguelike, part not quite roguelike kind of structure of it.
00:02:59
Speaker
and and dig into that. um the The basic way that this game works is so you're going fast. There's kind of no way that to not do that. You are just going go fast. and Exactly. We'll get to listen. We'll get to that.
00:03:15
Speaker
you Trust me, I've got you. I agree with you. You said you you're going fast. and I was like, well, you got to like, no, you're you're absolutely right, because you've you've hit on something here that i'm I'm going to elaborate on further in a little bit. But first, just laying the groundwork for it. So, yeah, you're it's fully it It plays a little bit at first glance like a 3D Sonic game because you're you're going forward. Your goal is to get to the end of whatever level or segment or whatever it is that you're on. And you're you've the whole world out in front of you is procedurally generated, which is one of my favorite phrases to throw around because it makes my family members think that I am smarter than I am because I used a word that they don't immediately know.
00:04:03
Speaker
but Yeah, I've been there. yeah Yeah, it is what it is. um I'm not, but it makes me feel like that sometimes. but Yeah, Sam. Right. um But no, it's so this whole world is laid out and it's new every time of these just rolling hills and obstacles among them. You've got your like bits of scenery, trees and rocks and things like that. But that is the ah game goes on. There's more like there's ruins that pop that start popping up. And then there are machines that are being built.
00:04:33
Speaker
um that have these different like crazy lasers coming out of them and then in these specialized like extra hard modules you're starting to get into these bits of void and black holes and and mines that are laid out for you and and train track all all kinds of crazy stuff pops up in this but at its core it is a landscape that you are running across at a speed so fast that you're going to You're going to hit something. You're going to run for a little bit and then it's going to launch you up into the air.
00:05:00
Speaker
And then your goal is to kind of time your landing. It's a little bit tiny wings. Honestly, if you i think recall. Yeah, that that game, it was like 2D and you would like do the hills and you wanted to like Get the like just the right trajectory where you land just right on the hill and like launch back up.
00:05:21
Speaker
Exactly. I think it was Tiny Wings. I think that is what you were talking about. I remember that game on my phone and it's like that, but 3D instead of 2D. Exactly. So, yeah, Tiny Wings. And I know, but I don't even remember if that was the first one. but I know that that was the big one, but that and a bunch of other like Flash and mobile games and things like that that came after it kind of aped its style. There there was a yeah big wave of those back in the...
00:05:43
Speaker
the the middle school computer lab community. um But yeah, so it's it's a little bit like that in its basic, basic conceit, because when you land, if you land at the like right angle where you're kind of going with the movement instead of just full splatting perpendicular into the wrong side of the hill, You you reward it for that. You get to keep your speed and actually a perfect landing will boost your speed a little bit and it helps fill up your ah boost a meter or your energy meter that you can use to to kind of
00:06:15
Speaker
there's There's different unlockable gadgets, but you start with a hoverboard that just makes you go faster if you do that. But you can also get things like a grappling hook and ah a poncho that help you flow. There's way more to it than just that. But at its core, yes, it's about going fast, collecting items ah while you're doing so, but really just following a path that gets you from the beginning to the end as smoothly as possible.
Game Mechanics and Comparisons
00:06:40
Speaker
um I probably should have mentioned this up top before I got into it. This game was made ah so developed and published by Landfall Games, who I know here because we've talked about peakek before ah Peak and agrocraft yes absolutely just monumental storied uh developer publisher uh things like that a lot of kind of rounds stick fight the game yes exact stick fight the game held such a special place in my heart incredible But rounds is so much better. I can't wait to do an episode on that. I need to play rounds with you. That will be a video episode because I want to play rounds against you. I think it would be a blast. Excellent. Excellent. Very, very excited for it. But yes, yeah that's exactly that's the kind of game that Landfall makes going back to what it tabs totally accurate battle simulator. Yeah, that's it's not quite as much movement and and based and things like that, but it is still very. Yeah.
00:07:45
Speaker
Landfall games games tend to be mechanics forward, right? You don't get a lot. You don't get story out of cluster truck. You don't get ah a lot of like narrative engagement, things like that. What you do get is a really.
00:08:03
Speaker
Uh, What's the word I'm looking for? ah A really well refined set of mechanics that live within this game that are iterated on as you make a little bit more progress. That's just it feels fun more than it like reads fun, if that makes any sense.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, no, I totally get what you're talking about. it is far more... Their games are far more evocative. Yes. They're hard to describe because if I told someone, like, yeah, the game is about jumping between trucks to get to the end, that doesn't really sound all that entertaining. But when you play it and you see it and you feel it and you get to, like, that... The...
00:08:42
Speaker
Evocation of that like motion just feels so good. It's so powerful. Yes, and this this is absolutely an evolution of
Story-Driven Elements
00:08:51
Speaker
that. But it is they're very they tend to be very arcade-y, I think is maybe the word that that best describes it. It's it's very... um mechanical not in a way of being like rigid but in a way of being like you are here for the gameplay more than you are for anything else everything else around it is is also fantastic but that's that's really the core of it the the way it plays moment to moment um
00:09:16
Speaker
Haste Broken Worlds is a little bit less like that. Not not so much that it doesn't have that, but that it is for the first time kind of their attempt to add a little bit more story into it. So there are actually proper characters and story beats and things that you're following along as you continue.
00:09:35
Speaker
um The way they implement that is quite interesting. So i know i I talked about how the actual like gameplay works, but the structure of it is you are. So I guess also to to bring the story into it, too because the story and structure go a little bit hand in hand.
00:09:55
Speaker
um You are an kind interdimensional or inter ah world cross world traveling. ah Basically a postal worker, you are delivering messages and notes from from world to world um because you are just so fast that you can do that so well, but that is your bit.
00:10:18
Speaker
um Kind of like Hermes from Greek legend. Yeah, exactly. you got a little bit of that going on recently. The way these different worlds have been acting and having these rifts and and issues and kind of folding in on each other and falling apart, fracturing has been a little bit of an issue. And so the the main conceit of the game is there is this. enemy group of of folks called the agency, I believe is what they're called. They have all these machines that, and ah agents out that are, they're doing their, their evil nefarious work that you're trying to stop. And you meet a, an interesting colorful cast of characters along the way that you have established history with. And, It it kind of unfolds that way.
00:11:02
Speaker
i will be perfectly honest. I have not gotten to the end of this game because I am bad at it. All of these fun movement games that I love so much. I am terrible at them. I want that to be on the record just so no one has any no illusions about who or what I am. I'm I'm not very good at this game, but.
00:11:23
Speaker
it its just feels so fun to play that I can't really put it down, um even if I fail over and over and over. So the reason I mentioned the the story first is because in the the kind of hub world of this game, the way you start out is there are different shards of this this negative energy that you're trying to clear out, these shards that represent gates into these gates. different worlds they end up representing you know you you have your classic like zones or worlds that you go through in a mario game something like that they're represented by these shards of of multiverses that you're running through um those are
00:12:04
Speaker
a bit roguelike-ish in nature because what you're doing is you're trying to get to the end of that, going through what would feel very familiar. It has a lot of the same elements you would see in a lot of these where you're going through segment by segment. You've got this overarching map of different, uh,
00:12:22
Speaker
little bits of the world that you can run through. Each one is its own sort of stage or map that you collect the currency, you collect sparks
Roguelike Features
00:12:32
Speaker
as you're going through. And then every once in a while you'll happen upon an item shop.
00:12:37
Speaker
where you will purchase things with those items that give you a little bit more movement speed or they let you heal up. So when you when you run face first into a tree and you lose half your health, you can get it back a little bit easier. Things like that.
00:12:52
Speaker
um Ways to to use your gadgets a little bit better ah and you develop. You have this little bit of a build going and then each shard, each world is ended with a boss. And all of this, again, is ah procedural. It's all randomly generated in the same way. All the the levels are going to be different, even though they have the same themes. The bosses are going to be the same, but they're traveling over different landscapes every time. The items you get are going to be different, things like that.
00:13:20
Speaker
And then... assuming you die at some point during that run of that shard, which is not going to be uncommon, you lose all of your items, you get sent back to the hub world, but you have persistent currency as well. You have anti-sparks.
00:13:36
Speaker
If you've played any roguelike game recently, you know that there's currency you spend in the run, and then there's big boy currency that you spend outside the run so that next time all of your runs are better. You got that same kind of thing going on.
00:13:49
Speaker
um So it's it's very roguelike ish in that way. However, once you complete a shard, it's done. You've you've beaten it and then you can move on to the next one without having to replay through the entirety of the game at once. So it's got checkpoints. OK, so yeah, it kind of reminds me of a more like roguelite version of like a neon white.
00:14:12
Speaker
where you have like different stages, and each of them you're trying to beat within a certain time limit and meet and certain meeting certain qualifications. And once you beat it, that level's done.
00:14:23
Speaker
This one just adds the roguelite extra of you can use currency outside to purchase things to help you inside, which Neon White doesn't really have, if I remember correctly. But while one's more of ah an FPS, this one's far more of a...
00:14:41
Speaker
I guess 3D platformer. That's that doesn't feel necessarily correct, but also it doesn't feel horribly wrong. It's more platform than is anything else. I just at this point I just call them all movement games.
00:14:56
Speaker
Yeah. It's like a more apt description. It does feel like a more apt description. That one is ah neon white is also very, very movement focused. The movement of it is a very big focus. You just also had the added element of ah FPS, whereas this one doesn't have that. But I feel like it leans far more into the movement.
00:15:19
Speaker
In a way that the FPS doesn't at all. So I feel like they they take that trade off of like, yeah, we're not going to do any added thing on top of just movement, but the movement is going to be real big important. Whereas the Mian White's like takes a little bit away from the movement to to add more.
00:15:38
Speaker
like a ah whole new mechanic on top. But ah they both have like a similar kind of concept in that way where you you have like individual levels that progress the story. But once you beat that level, you're good.
00:15:51
Speaker
um And it's all just about being smooth and hitting that time. Yeah, it's it's a little odd, right? Because it's it's not about like once you beat a level, you're done. You move on to the next one. So you have whole worlds at once. Like when you when you die in a shard, you reset the whole. But you go back to the beginning of the all the way that fair for that shard. And it's a new one every time, too. So it's you're you're kind of going through. It's like. um it's It's like, ah again, I know I keep going back to Mario, but I'm who hasn't played it um like the painting.
00:16:24
Speaker
huh like i like I thought you were going to like Mario 64, the paintings. not not no Not quite. why' I'm more thinking of a like even older. You're talking about the different worlds. Oh, wow, that was loud. I'm so sorry. It's okay. Unreal. It will never happen again. the The creature I keep locked up in my basement that made that noise will be silenced immediately.
00:16:48
Speaker
Stabbing. However... It's more along the lines of if you were playing through a traditional Mario world, but if you die enough times in one of the levels, you don't get sent back to the beginning of that level. You get sent back to the beginning of the world, which is, you know, how it works.
Endless Mode and Boss Battles
00:17:04
Speaker
Super Mario Bros. 3 and things like that. But yeah then you restart the world and everything is laid out differently. You got the same vibe, but you're you're looking at everything new. Again, the world map of the different things that are generated. places Yeah, exactly. They're all in different places. So it is still it's like you get little chunks of roguelike in succession.
00:17:30
Speaker
That's really interesting. That's such an interesting concept to like an interesting way to merge a roguelite with something a little bit more structured like that. That's really cool. Yeah. Do they have like an endless like mode?
00:17:42
Speaker
I was about to say, actually, yeah, they do have an endless. But once you get past, I think one or two shards, there's another shard that's just shaped like a big infinity symbol that you can go to. And that's where you get your endless. You can select what difficulty and input is like that. Yes, I every once in a while, if I need to decompress, I will just hop in there and do a little bit of endless like easy or normal difficulty just go because they're it's so low stakes there you're not trying to get to the end you're not going to fight a boss you just keep going and going and going um and it's so cool yes great what does a boss look like for run fast game Yeah, the the bosses are wild, too. It's it. Let me see if I can recall them in order. I know I won't be able to. One of them is this big. ah the The first one I can think of. I can't remember the name of it, but it it just kind of hops around. It's this huge machine that will like.
00:18:38
Speaker
jump around to different points on the map and your goal is basically to run through this whole wide world it's not straightforward like a ah traditional level is it's more wide around kind of open world and you have to find it it's shooting lasers at you and doing like wide sweeps of energy beams and things like that you have to jump around it and get to it hit it three times and then it's it's dead um The other one that immediately comes to mind convoy is ah my my boy convoy is full, full steam.
00:19:13
Speaker
Maybe one of my favorite like convoy. I'm thinking a cluster truck now. Well, it's not quite like it, but you get that, you know, you get the same vibe from it. Exactly. It's fun name for the exactly. Yeah.
00:19:26
Speaker
yeah Right, right, right. But no, it's, I mean, it's a train. Basically you're looking at a train and going across this whole wide map that's, kind of snakes around and you have to you start at the front of it you run around to the back of it and at the back of it again dodging lasers there's turrets mounted on it and there's other towers and things shooting crazy crisscrossing grids that you feel like you're in a spy movie ducking and weaving around them and you get to the back of the train and the back of the train is open and there are more obstacles and spinning grinding teeth and boost rings on the inside of it so you have to run back up the whole way through to the inner engine core at the front of the train you just run into it you don't have any attacks or anything you're just throwing your body forward full speed until you hit the big glowing weak spot you do that three times you win um so it's it's all just different ways to attract you to something that you need to go to but put obstacles in your way doing so
00:20:25
Speaker
That sounds really cool. Yes, it's it's very, very cool. Every part of it is is very fluid and fast. And that is something I want to talk about. We're going to circle back now to what we're talking about. Got to go fast. We're talking about Sonic.
00:20:42
Speaker
i I have built up a community of people around myself ah in such a way that anytime there's a game where people move fast, they look at it and then they look at me and they point at it and they say, look, you like this is exactly like Sonic, ah mostly tongue in cheek, because of course, not every game where you go fast is like that. But there's there's a lot of truth to that and expectation. You know, that it's the classic game about going or the classic series about going fast.
00:21:10
Speaker
um However, my thesis statement that I want to put forward for haste broken worlds is that it is more of a Sonic game than Sonic could ever possibly be.
Sonic Game Comparison
00:21:27
Speaker
That's honestly, i had that same exact thought when I saw it for the first time. I'm like, wow, this is everything Sonic wishes it was. So that that's exactly what it is. And I mean that on a very fundamental level. So if you If you'll recall, those of you who I guess haven't ever played a Sonic game, which what's wrong with you first off, I know I'm about to take a massive dump all over it, but come on. Anyway, those games, it's you know it's a character who's got this marketing and this personality about him that is about i your ah you gotta go fast. I am required to move quickly. And then game exactly is required of me.
00:22:15
Speaker
um But when you actually get into it, you start playing any Sonic game out there. the Old ones, new ones, the the whole that was baked into the DNA of it. And this is maybe just because this is how video games had to be back in the day because of slower processing speeds, memory, things like that. Maybe it's just because this is how it was conceived and to do anything else would kind of wildly interrupt the the formula and the expectation for what for what makes a game like that.
00:22:47
Speaker
But the Sonic games are not about going fast. It's about what obstacles stop you from doing that and how you get around them and how you can eventually, after you have mastery of the controls and what everything is and how it works, how you can avoid being slowed down.
00:23:05
Speaker
You don't get that chance in haste. there There is no slowing down. There is no, oh, I've hit an obstacle. I have to regain my momentum. Oh, man, i'm I'm going less fast now, so I'm missing this or that shortcut or feature or whatever.
00:23:20
Speaker
If you hit an obstacle in this game, you don't you don't stop. You maybe take a little bit of a speed ah ah penalty. And if you go too slow, there's a kind of a creeping void behind you, like the Fortnite storm that if you if you're doing too poorly, you'll just get eaten up by it and die. But you you don't have a complete loss of momentum. You don't hit a wall.
00:23:43
Speaker
You take damage and then you keep moving. The every moment of I just hit my microphone again. Sorry, that was very loud. I'm so excited. I'm so passionate about this series that i love and hate in this game that does it better.
00:23:57
Speaker
um you You can't – you don't stop. You don't lose momentum. Everything you do is not about, oh, I have to stop and figure my way around this and then get better at it. It is I have to remember how to handle that next time so I don't lose my footing as bad. I need to keep the speed boost going because if I don't I don't get to i'm I'm not stopping and having to find out a new way to jump over this chasm I die if if I go too slow it's like speed the movie and speed to electric boogaloo whatever reeves I like that guy exactly
00:24:31
Speaker
you it's not that we love him so much we do exactly but it's it's not enough for Jackie we love Jackie too sorry okay no and you're right you're right Jackie Willis deserves it of course I'm sorry. me. No, you're good. I'm getting so worked up about something that means so little to so many people. God, so i I love hearing it, though.
00:24:58
Speaker
I love being here, but I don't think i don't know how much longer I can sustain it. But as yeah ultimately, what I'm getting at here is you you have this character who wants to go fast and the the DNA of the gameplay of those games is that you don't unless you're doing really well. What Haste does so excellently is even if you're doing poorly, you're going fast. It's just a matter of can i do that and still manage my health and still survive to the end of it?
00:25:30
Speaker
Which I think if... I won't... I said this earlier privately to to someone else. I don't know that I stand by this 100%, but it's worth considering that there there is a world where that is what the Sonic the Hedgehog formula would look like now if it was reimagined from the ground up. Because now there is nothing stopping game design and technology and the the way things can work. Clearly, there's nothing stopping...
00:25:59
Speaker
this idea of you can just keep going fast and instead of having to stop it, you can have to manage it. Right. Yeah, it's much more in fitting with what that vibe was ever supposed to be.
00:26:14
Speaker
But I just I don't know that it's ever going to get there because at this point the the the Sonic games are full stop platformers the the moment we had a little bit ago where we're talking oh is it a platformer is it more of just a movement game or whatever it is you don't get that question with sonic forces sonic frontiers things like that is it is fully a platformer and that's yeah how it's always going to have to be for it to be that type of game And that's one of the things that I've always kind of thought is one of the downfalls of Sonic. If I'm going to be a hundred percent and not necessarily that it is like a downfall, because I don't think Sonic's going anywhere. He's he's doing just he's fine. He's going everywhere.
00:26:54
Speaker
but He's going. He ah just rolling around to be the sound. um um He does have places to go. Gotta follow his rainbow, but that's neither here nor there. We can't stick around on that topic. We got to keep moving on. Sonic.
00:27:08
Speaker
Guess what lies ahead? Only one way to find out. It's for me to can finish this thought. um So ah i you kind of to said that Sonic can't go fast mostly because it might have been like a hardware thing or a different thing. ah My theory, my running theory for a really long time is that it isn't any of those things. It is literally just he was designed to be a competitor to Mario and Mario's a platformer. So he also should be a platformer. And ever since then, since the 2D one was a platformer,
00:27:43
Speaker
it hampered everything after that because they got stuck on this. Well, Sonic is a platforming game. Um, right. And I don't think it ever got itself out of that rut. And that's the thing that gets in the way of Sonic going fast is that he also needs to actively like do hard platforming, whether it be 3d or 2d. And I think that that really gets in the way of Sonic doing the gotta go fast thing.
00:28:10
Speaker
Exactly. And I think you're absolutely right there. I know I mentioned hardware limitations being one thing, but I also agree with that. Right. But at at the end of the day, yeah, he absolutely was designed to be because no...
00:28:23
Speaker
there There was nothing like Mario before Mario. And then that happens. And then everyone gets this tunnel vision. They say, I need to be able to do that. That's where the magic is. that's That's kind of what Sonic the Hedgehog, the game, the first one was born out of, of course, was to to be a competitor to that. And so for for a variety of reasons, i again, i think i I just said this last episode because I am a broken record. But nothing exists in a vacuum. All of these factors come together to make that game what it was. There's there's all kinds of reasons why it has. Yeah, exactly. From that very first game, the DNA of what it is. And then you make sequels, you make new entries in the series. You got to
00:29:05
Speaker
It has to still be recognizable. And so you can't really ever not be that to some extent unless you're doing some kind of absolutely buck wild spinoff that probably no one is going to give a chance to.
00:29:21
Speaker
so I feel like there's there is some room for growth, but you're going to get a lot of complaints from your fan base, and that's just kind of the thing. I think that that's a hole that Pokemon's stuck in right now, of like, we want to try something different. We made the Legends game, we have this whole new battle system, and everyone's like, I hate this, make it better, and they're like we're trying different things guys come on exactly and like the graphics are bad and it's like i gotta figure out what game y'all actually like and then i'll make the graphics better right it's like i can't do that until i figure out what kind of game you like but you want the same game but you also want a different that's kind of the curse yeah exactly once you have a series a franchise whatever it is that gets that Exactly. once Once it gets big enough, then you have a really difficult balance where everybody is going to want different things from it. And so it needs to be the same, but different, but better, but more creative, but more nostalgic. It's it's it's impossible to really strike that balance. So there's less and less room the more you grow like that to really experiment.
00:30:31
Speaker
um One thing I want to touch on actually is the one of the first things. So ah sorry, I'm jumping around a little bit. i remember seeing haste in very, very early scuffed prototype form because the the story behind it, you can even see this on their own website.
00:30:50
Speaker
After tabs came out, totally accurate battle simulator.com. Right. Yes. ah Twenty twenty one. It moved from early access to full release, which seems crazy to me because it if that's really true, it feels like it was an early access for a long time.
00:31:08
Speaker
um But it finally moved to full release. They said, all right, we're moving on to the next thing. what is that thing going to be and so there were they were doing a bunch of prototypes it was the to to hear it said on their own website it was the main game designer wilhelm nylan um had this prototype of but basically taking this little scuffed little red tabs guy putting him into a world that's generated like this that looks a lot like what you see in the final game of haste um
00:31:39
Speaker
And he's just running. He's just gunning it. It doesn't have any of the animation fluidity that you get in the final game. It's just this blocky little guy who's pumping his poor little arms and legs so fast. And the the movement is there. This prototype, even is as basic, basic as it is, it has this just this feeling to it, this flow to it of my cat meowing so loudly in the background that I'm sure you can hear it loud and clear. I heard you a little bit. Just a tiny bit. He's guest starring, but it has. Sorry.
Development Insights
00:32:14
Speaker
And any of that silence for me, you hear me kissing on my dog. You're absolutely fine. They, they are mainstays at this point. The cat and the have to be part of it.
00:32:24
Speaker
Um, Sorry, i completely lost track. That's that's what this this game was, even in the prototype phase. I remember seeing that online, you know, back when I was on Twitter, 2021, seeing the the prototype of of this game just go absolutely viral. And from that, they build onto it more and more and more.
00:32:46
Speaker
And it it's become what it is now where you have all these other systems around it. But at its core, it is it is just... it's It's so – you just you keep going. And what those initial – that initial tweet with that video of the scuffed little guy running around, what I remember reminded me of at the time and still does to this day is all of these – all these Sonic fan games that you would see doing the rounds where it would be these really incredible technical implementations of, oh, what if, what if you took this little bull blue hedgehog that's fast and all of his little friends and you put it on a PC and you gave it the, the, the technology behind it to where you could have more of an open world and you could run fast and handle slopes like that and have more fluid motion
00:33:40
Speaker
and and have these longer levels and things like that. i wrote Countless hours I remember spending in different little debug test worlds for all these different sonic engines ah where you could run around and and and hit all these different obstacles. And the the highest high you would get, the the the craziest you would feel in those little tech demos was You hit an open stretch of ah a half pipe or a series of hills and things like that.
00:34:07
Speaker
And you just you're you're sliding up and down. I'm to buttery smooth. and you're like, ah, this is this is what it should be. And it just never is.
00:34:19
Speaker
Because that formula just doesn't work that way. And so I have to give it to haste for really.
00:34:30
Speaker
I don't I don't imagine that it was completely purposeful when they made this prototype. I know by the time they released it that they very much are aware of how um how many comparisons are going to be drawn between that and Sonic the Hedgehog because they have alternate skins for the character that are called awesome. Sonic and like the the shadowy or something like that that you can unlock. It's very clear that they know that these comparisons are going to be made. these These lines are going to be connected.
00:34:59
Speaker
But they it's not as though they're making a spiritual successor or a fan game or a what if Sonic was good. They're making something wholly different. And by doing that and re kind of examining and approaching what a speed platforming game like that can be.
00:35:17
Speaker
They've landed on a really incredible system that's so much fun to play that it broke me of my hatred of Roguelikes. which is not an easy feat no dude i've tried trust me i have no everyone's tried everyone i know i still have not uh played more than 10 minutes of hades and to this day i stand by that i know trust me i understand a good game it's i don't blame you but also a critical flaw of mine
00:35:53
Speaker
I and ah it it takes something like this for me to start like chipping away at that slowly. like I know one day I'll go back to Hades. I know Hades 2 is out now. I think fully really beyond an early. ex I don't know. I haven't been getting I don't care who you are. Everyone in that game is in a hot.
00:36:13
Speaker
Right. And even that couldn't break me of it. So you understand the level I'm operating. i know, dude, I don't get it. ah Right, right. um But no, it's something like this is just i I know I'm I'm a predictable person. At the end of the day, you can tell what's going to grab me by how how much fun it feels to just move around in a game. I mean, I've used the word kinetic so many times on this show that I should yeah put in the ah asylum for it we should make uh ysbtg merge make the kinetic shirt absolutely that's if there's if there's one thing that's going to be known about me by the time i'm putting the ground it'll be that word kinetic gameplay exactly um but no this this really true like in a
00:37:04
Speaker
In an incredibly satisfying way that I've never seen fully realized, this game has finally cracked it. There have been so many attempts, fan game, official game, AAA, indie, things like that, ways that people are trying to capture that feeling of just eternal, infinite movement, but still make it compelling.
00:37:26
Speaker
This is the first time that I've experienced. I i won't, and I won't speak in generalizations. I'm not everybody on earth. I'm i'm not Mr. Video Game, but yeah it is. You are the video games.
00:37:39
Speaker
I am the video James. Um, But it's it's just it's the first time that it's fully landed from conception to mechanics, to the the structure, the feel. I know I didn't touch on the music very much. I wouldn't say it's one of the main draws for me for the game, but it does help you really get into that flow state. It's got that kind of rhythm to it, that drive to it.
00:38:03
Speaker
That feels very much like how the game itself is is trying to feel. um which again is a little bit unlike this the Sonic the Hedgehog games, which are incredible soundtracks, but not necessarily. They don't feel like they're always keeping you on the edge of your seat the whole time. They're just cool, which is good, but different.
00:38:22
Speaker
um This haste has... Music that is a little bit honestly forgettable, which I hate to say because it's very well put together, but it is it much more takes a backseat.
Music and Critiques
00:38:36
Speaker
And instead of trying to be the showstopper, the cool thing that's happening, it is another mechanism through which you are you're feeling the kind of forward push that this game is trying to push you through.
00:38:49
Speaker
Hell yeah. Yeah. um I don't want to check this game out. it's It's great. Hey, you should play this game. a novel concept. I know, dude.
00:39:02
Speaker
We should make a show about that. i do what are you up to in according the next 101 episodes or yeah yeah um next two last two hours right um i i will take the next uh roughly 30 seconds or so to sprinkle in a little bit of criticism criticism Here and there, there's just a little tiny bit of lack of polish. It's not that they necessarily ran out. You're not holding a can of polish. oh wow, it's empty. It's been bone dry. But it's like you're kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel a little bit. There's a couple of seams here and there. OK. Interesting. it's
00:39:40
Speaker
i I ran through this portal, but I kind of kept running through the other side of it. and The camera followed it it. Things like that. Little little bits and pieces here Wow. hair wow i'm I'm falling apart. There's seams in my body and brain just as it is almost 11 p.m.
00:39:58
Speaker
That can't be true. Time is non-existent. I exist only in a oh ah it's a quantum ah realm where the only thing that I can do is move forward because time and space are bending around me so violently.
00:40:13
Speaker
Yeah, i just keep running, babes. Absolutely. um there's there's There's a little bit of kind of just the the tiniest little edge of refinement that it could stand. Mostly with, I don't know, part of that was because they pretty recently ah rolled out a multiplayer mode, which is how i i very first experienced it with a couple buddies of mine. And it was, there's a little bit of jank, a little bit of cruft on it.
00:40:39
Speaker
um I gotta say, though, I want a Battle Royale haste, I think would be red. I want that to be a thing. that would be being awesome. who Who is the fastest? Who's the smoothiest? Run. absolutely massive world and you're just running past it the 100 people just can go in yeah if you can time it right and just collide in midair and have just a little skirmish every once in a while little melee like punch to left and right with like a click or something Absolutely. That'd be cool. That'd be rad. I want that landfall. Listen to this episode. Make that please. Or TM, TM, TM, TM. We're both perspective game designers.
00:41:25
Speaker
Yeah, we are actually. Hold on. Wait a second. exactly Hold on. Actually, scrub this for the record. <unk> there the value we only um But but yeah, no, I will say that that the the very tiny, tiny, tiny lack of polish that I found every once in a while.
00:41:42
Speaker
but Pretty much almost negligible. It did not impact how much I enjoy this game at all. It did not make me. It's not. Oh, well, they didn't put it together in time. It's just the kind of thing that happens. It's it is a finished game. It's just every once in a while. It's like, ah, this is a video game and not this crazy world that I've lost myself in. Which, yeah if that's a crime, every game on planet Earth should be convicted of it. So that's that's all I got, I think. Honestly, that's why I think you should play this game.
00:42:12
Speaker
And it's it's just so fun. And I might boot it up for another minute where as soon as we hit the stop button here. Because you really can just lose yourself in it. Yeah, I am really tempted to, even though it is 11 p.m., boot up Minecraft and play more, create aeronautics. It's so fucking incredible. yeah I'm at the very least going to show James my little airship. It'll be cool. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I really do got to check this one out. It looks really cool. I'm i'm looking forward to...
00:42:43
Speaker
Checking that game, getting back into recording. And yeah, I'm just happy to be here with everyone. Hell yeah, man. Yeah, absolutely. We were doing this in the earlier episode in a batch here and we're shaking the rust off. It's been a million years since we last set foot in this room.
00:43:06
Speaker
And by room, I do just mean ah a virtual recording space. where I will say this is the first time I've recorded from here. So, hey, if the last two episodes I've sound a little bit more echoey, don't tell me because I'll cry if I learn that anything is imperfect about my audio setup.
00:43:23
Speaker
um But I do apologize for it. Hey, third time's the charm. I just slammed my hand into this mic arm. I think it's time for to be done. It's okay, bumped my mic twice.
00:43:35
Speaker
Well, I guess at that point, I'm going to I'm going to do the like, thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure. I enjoy doing this. The the energy is is is visceral. It's electric. Yeah. Give us a five star on Yelp.
00:43:49
Speaker
um Find us on Yelp. Challenge number one. Challenge number two. Give us five stars. Yeah, if if you don't see us on Yelp, just make your own page for us on Yelp and then give us five stars on that and we'll just see how many pages we can get with five stars. That'd be pretty cool.
00:44:07
Speaker
um All requests of us to play other games and talk about them will
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
00:44:12
Speaker
be... fully completely promptly and with ah extreme prejudice ignored because that is the pattern we have set already. have many Q&A requests of people saying oh should do this. Not a ton but enough. would love to see you.
00:44:29
Speaker
I'd have to go back and look and see, but I know we we've done calls to action before and then we get responses and then we say, actually, these other things are interesting instead. And I feel like a real tool about it because I don't mean to do so. I just I follow wherever my attention goes. And today it went to haste. Broke of Worlds.
00:44:46
Speaker
Dude. Yeah. Me with like a thousand short games, but I would love to to take a look and see what what's in the request bin because I'm always looking for good, good recommendations from from you, the viewer.
00:44:58
Speaker
or listen listener soon to be viewer we don't know hold on to the wo we and can't commit to too much at once because the yeah overwhelming life habit all things that we should do instead is ah paralyzing at least on a personal level but hundred percent that's not important and more importantly that's not why people are listening to us talk right hi if they still are which if you still are hello thank you I love you so much but it's been a pleasure I've been James I've been Allison Goodbye. I'm going to bed.
00:45:31
Speaker
Me I'm playing Minecraft.