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The State of Trend-Chasing Indies | Firelink Podcast
1.7k Plays1 month ago
This week on Firelink, Marty, Nick, and KC chat about how indie games also fall into the trap of trend chasing as certain genres like deckbuilders, survivor-likes, and a whole lot more are flooding the market.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by us. Since Second Wind operates 100% independently, we rely on your support to help us continue delivering the great content you love. Consider checking out our Patreon if you want to access ad-free versions of every podcast, plus your name featured in our video credits, as well as other exclusive perks. So if you like what you see, hear, or smell, maybe, visit our Patreon page and become part of the community today. Now back to the show.
00:00:33
Speaker
Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to Firelink Podcast, episode number 41 for Wednesday, October 16th, 2024. I'm Marty Saliva, joined by Casey Woessu, Nick Kalandra, and of course, producer Eric. We are thrilled to have you here on what I just told the guys before we started as a race against the clock, because I took a bunch of cold medicine and I thought I took the AM1, but I took the PM1. So we're going to see if I manage to survive to the end before falling asleep.
Pokemon Hack Discussion
00:01:00
Speaker
Uh, but we have a wonderful show for you today. Uh, a couple of interesting news bits to touch on, including, uh, the big hack slash data leak from the Pokemon company and gate freak, a bunch of shit leaked. We're not going to go into the exact specifics, but more of just like this is, uh, one of the biggest.
00:01:18
Speaker
and most egregious ah hacks and leaks like this and in gaming history. So talking a little bit about that. A bunch of ah random random news from different publishers, including ah Bandai Namco, canceling some projects, ah the Hitman developer IO Interactive publishing a big game, and a new story we missed out on last week, which was Alien Isolation 2 being confirmed, which I think at least two of us are
Indie Game Trends and Challenges
00:01:41
Speaker
excited for. I don't know if cases are excited for it, but I think two of us are excited for it. was upsetting to watch him hate it it's just it because long he understands it's too long
00:01:51
Speaker
but game i like it And then we'll talk about stuff we've been playing. And of course, our main topic this week, ah in light of of massive news, we've all been digging into Steam Next Fest demos. ah We're going to have a video on that sometime next week, probably. um But we also just wanted to chat about how, while going through these games, it is becoming ah more and more apparent that so many of them are falling into a handful of of ah specific genre types that are generally modeled after a game that was big. this year, a few years ago. and And having to wade through a lot of those types and a lot of those clones can sometimes be a bit tiring. So just chatting about that current state of, ah you know, we we talk a lot about the ah trend chasing and in AAA games, but ah the indie space is definitely not immune to that as well. So im talking about that, including maybe some trends we'd like to see chased.
00:02:45
Speaker
We need more, you know what? Until about an hour ago, I would have said, I want more pinball games that are like pinball, but something else, because that game, Yoku's Island Express was sick as hell, and Odama was sick as hell, which was the GameCube pinball game where you screamed into the microphone to control your general and your large ball. But then we played a pinballvania on Achi Chai's, and I was like, this isn't very good. I don't want to buy it. Another game you're excited for. I was really i bought it. I need to stop doing this. I need to do a modicum of research before I bought it.
00:03:15
Speaker
I need a me before me. I need a me who buys games and plays games to tell me if I should buy them. That sort of me is the problem. You guys are reading user reviews, man. there's so yeah you don't You don't read reviews. That's what you're saying. The substance. I need to take the substance so I can get another version of me who can who can spend the money and play those games after the substance. I'm not here to talk about the substance, guys. I know everyone wants to talk about the substance, but Darren and I already talked about the substance for a long time.
Twitter's Privacy Concerns
00:03:45
Speaker
Uh, go check it out over on, uh, the rewind but you is that the movie with Demi Moore in it. It is. Hmm. And the substance. and Let me tell you, she takes the substance stuff. Doesn't go well. I don't have to spoil it. Stuff doesn't go well. You know, uh, wait, I was gonna go to the Pokemon thing. You know what I want to know? How are you guys doing?
00:04:03
Speaker
I don't know. You, you said that you took a bunch of cold medicine and you might knock out like, yeah I'm not, I'm not feeling the green either. You said you so you just sounded like you had a cold right there. Did I think you well you have to rally? You're going to rally for a snitch. Yeah. I'm going to push through for the fans. Cause I know you guys need a, not a full on chaotic fire link, but you know, a regular chaotic fire link.
00:04:26
Speaker
I've been listening to um this anime podcast called GetAnimate, which is by the hosts of a a video game podcast called Get Played. I don't care about their video game podcast. I don't listen to game podcasts. I'm an odd game podcast. I don't need to hear what people say. Sure, sure, sure. Maybe if I did listen to video game podcasts, I wouldn't have that problem.
00:04:48
Speaker
hard to see yeah um um But I like their anime podcasts because they do like watch alongs where it'll be like, all right, we're watching Blue Lock and every we're going to do like an hour long discussion on every two episodes. And so that's what I'd watch two episodes and then I'd listen. I'd watch two episodes and listen. I got to an episode where one of the hosts had a cold and it was so startling to me to be like, that's not what you sound like. You have a cold. And now I'm worried. Everyone feels like that hearing me and you.
00:05:14
Speaker
They're going to be like, the boys don't have the energy. I mean, you sound the same to me. I don't know what I sound like right now. It's my secret cap. That's what I heard this morning. Like, came in on the the weekly Wednesday meeting that we have. And I kept hearing sniffling. I'm like, who's who's sniffling? Who's me? I'm not going to sniffle during podcasts, but you know what? In a meeting where we don't have cams on, I can blame it on anyone. You weren't sniffling. I heard Jesse. That was definitely a Jesse Sneel. I don't know which one.
00:05:44
Speaker
i was gonna say it he's in a i don't know what i was gonna say fucking oh my god i was that think already hitting me that's same it's cold but it's a city we're we're going down death on this podcast martinty's brain is gone void
00:06:00
Speaker
Uh, before we, uh, before we chat about, uh, the, the Pokemon hack leak, um, uh, fat cock. The $2 don't know. Thank you so much. fa i can Remember, we appreciate all of your, your don't knows your super chats, your memberships over on YouTube, your patronage. Uh, it helps, uh, fund am and PM medicine for us, which is nice. And remember, take the am medicine and not the PM medicine. Uh, thank you so much. So Nick is leaving to a Twitter again. um I think everybody's asleep because they changed the block function today. So now if you block somebody that doesn't block them anymore, so they could just read your account and do exactly what they're already doing on alts.
00:06:36
Speaker
So what does that mean? We block them, but it doesn't block them. Yeah, they can still read your tweets. I just can't interact with you. So I'm like, this is just everybody needs to leave Twitter at this point. Like if you put a barricade in front of ah an angry mob, but it's made of glass. and It's more like it's more like putting up a shower curtain and then just making a see through.
00:07:00
Speaker
Okay. but like I can get behind this. but No, I can't get behind this. Democracy is dying in daylight. And also like just all the stuff he supports. I'm like, I don't, I don't really you feel comfortable being on that platform these days knowing where the money is. The star of Iron Man 2.
00:07:18
Speaker
the hero of the MCU. It's really weird to go back and watch Iron Man 2 and they see his hop up. It's like a fucking cryptid- Is he in that movie? Yeah. They go to a party at the race and Tony Stark meets- I don't remember that. Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember that either. They should digitally remove him. Yeah. They should put like Wado or Jabba in there. Get George Lucas on the case. They should type in Elon Musk AI and see what it comes up with. Oh no. I don't know about that at all. It's just a blob.
00:07:47
Speaker
There you go. um So it's been your pop culture update for movies that came out in 2010. You're welcome. ah Yeah, john majorger yeah ah jumping into our ah first topic over the weekend, the Pokemon developer Game Freak ah we're were victims of a massive data leak slash possible hack.
00:08:10
Speaker
ah Details are still kind of um ah coming out about it, but Game Freak said in a statement that the leak was a result of, quote, unauthorized access to our servers by a third party. And the leak included, ah which really fucking sucked, just personal info on employees, past and present. As I say, past, present, future. It'd be crazy if it was info on future employees. No, it's not the hackers of these. They time they plan out their hireings in advance. Time leak. But it ah also included stuff like,
00:08:38
Speaker
old prototypes of of early earlier Pokemon games, news about upcoming projects, source code of all Pokemon games, insane lore bits about the creation of the universe, and seemingly one dude at the company who kept being like, yeah, but can we talk about how in the past Pokemon and humans used to mate? The leak is bad. That part is very funny. That dude has got to be trolling, right? like That dude is just, he's like the office crack up, and he's just,
00:09:08
Speaker
Cause that's like, that's his thing. Everyone knows like, all right, you have to take a note in every meeting. and No idea. It's a bad idea, including who wants to talk about stuff. Um, so yeah, pretty, uh, pretty nuts. We're not going to go into it. A, uh, that's, I don't know. I'm covering leaks is weird like that. Like there's been the GTA leaks in the past. There's been the last of us leaks, the big Spiderman thing last year. Um, and I just think it kind of fucking, uh, sucks. And also I'm afraid of
Impact of Leaks on the Gaming Industry
00:09:34
Speaker
Nintendo. Yeah.
00:09:35
Speaker
You know, yeah yeah natendo and the conspiracy brain in me says between the PlayStation outage, the Xbox outage and that somebody's been attacking all the major companies. um What do you mean outage?
00:09:50
Speaker
No, PlayStation had a big... I didn't hear about Xbox One. Yeah, PlayStation had its big biggest outage since 2011, the 2011 outage. Oh, like, literally, like PSN was that hard. I thought think it was only...
00:10:06
Speaker
It was like only eight hours, but I don't remember I was listening to last day on this podcast about it and you're kind of complaining like this is such a big deal. Like PlayStation was down for eight hours guys. It's okay. I think you'll be okay. It sucks when it's like I own a game, but it won't let me play it because it needs like verified on the internet. Yeah, Eric, you brought the fact that the Internet Archive got fucking attacked, which is, yeah that should be, whoever attacks the Internet Archive, that's like attacking like fucking Mother Teresa. like you yeah They should be they' get the fucking guillotines out for that person, because the Internet Archive is wonderful. um That's where all my work is. Thanks, corporate media.
00:10:40
Speaker
Thanks. thanks the internetive ah But yeah, just ah one of those kind of crazy things. It's not, I don't know. There's not that much to say about it. Like I just think this is sort of that that this exists in that Pantheon of of massive leaks. I mean, Casey, you remember like Smash rosters used to leak ah all of Smash Wii U and 3DS.
00:11:00
Speaker
I remember that shit leaking early and people being like, that's not true. Like this has to be fake. And it'd be like character select screens with like a ton of unannounced characters. yeah I actively stayed away from that because like this, this was the reason why Sakurai moved away from like a big single player thing for so long is because he didn't like that the cutscenes, which he thought was like the reward for like getting through like those different sections, he didn't like that those could just go out to anyone without having to earn them. But the fact that like yeah i remember that that yeah they move that into marketing for new characters. And it it's been super successful. So like to spoil that even, it's like, what are you guys doing? it like He's just going to stop making smash games.
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah, it always, uh, it alwayss me seems like a tin line yeah there we go we all ever he always me off on like the morning of a conference, someone leaks everything. And I'm like, well. to the conference, like there's an Xbox showcase thingy, like a third party Xbox showcase tomorrow at noon. We're going to be streaming Resident Evil during that time, so we will not be live streaming it. ah But it's one of those, like, I don't know, I just like watching those. Like, what's the point of like an hour earlier being like, oh, by the way, here's a trailer for the thing that they're going to show. Like, no way you can get around that. The thing I learned the past few months to get off social media, you know, the Internet. Yeah.
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yes, that's good. But I did. a I was actually just thinking about Pokemon the other day because i i we haven't heard really anything about those new games that are coming. not I don't know if there's anything in the leaks about it and I don't want to know, but yeah, definitely feel like the sea is on. let ah Legends ZA is exactly the name of the game that was announced. That's like the fall of Zarsius. Yeah, that was known ahead of time. Yeah. my Without even going into the League stuff, you know they said it was 2025 and it seemed like that was like a perfect ah
00:12:54
Speaker
switch to awesome end game. Yeah. I don't think they're going to just abandon, abandon, uh, switch one they so should because i already remember the last one. Yeah. But if they could still sell that version, that's right no poop easily sleep po um, my gut says that the next real Pokemon game gen 10, which I still think is coming in 2026, which will be the 30th anniversary Jesus of Pokemon.
00:13:20
Speaker
as a thing. I think that'll be like a switch to Robert things, so. um So says I. It's me, the eye of so says I. Did you but yeah did you ah did either of you watch the that new Pokemon show on Netflix? But what comes here? No, no, that that's like the puppet thing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it's like stop motion. Yeah, there's like a there's like a new animated one, right?
00:13:48
Speaker
Oh, no, I don't care about that. I just want more horizons or something. Oh, OK, that's not new. That came out a while ago. Yeah, that's just like post-ash stuff, right? Yes. Yeah. Ash died. And then Ash died. He died. He won the Pokemon Championship and he fucking died or something. ah I don't know. cause I don't know who most of those Pokemon are, so I don't like them. I don't I don't trust. I don't trust Pokemon. I don't know. ah Pokemon concierge is delightful, though. I highly recommend that to anyone.
00:14:17
Speaker
ah Yeah, before we move on to our
Dragon Age Backlash and Bioware's Reputation
00:14:22
Speaker
next topic, a couple of Superchamps, Sussy Guru. Thank you so much. I've been a member for six months. Appreciate you, Sussy Guru. What are you doing? Step Typhotion? I saw that trending. What is that? Is that just... Well, what are you doing? Step Brother is a porno. no I know that. I know that. What the fuck is Typhotion?
00:14:41
Speaker
Actually, it's a Pokemon. It's like that level three of one of those chicareas or something. like But why has it been turned into a porn meme? Because of the thing Marty said with the guy trying to revisit the Pokemon mating with humans is my guess. I also like that. Eric, it seems like he stretches ah the image and he just looks sinister in that image. Oh.
00:15:04
Speaker
oh Yeah. All right. Well, uh, and the jewel jewel. Wow. Thank you so much for a 10 Euro donation. Uh, really love the podcast guys. And Nick, do you think Dragon age can get good sales with even with the fan backlash? P S can you, uh, can you sugami is on sale. Please buy it. I want more games like these.
00:15:28
Speaker
o ah Wait, talk about Konichi Gami really quick before we talk about Great Dragon Age. That game fucking rules. I highly recommend it to people. And it it it's got that Okami DNA in it. And if you want that Okami DNA all all over you, Jesus.
00:15:42
Speaker
ah by this game. If you want that wolf DNA all over you by this game. Nick, please talk about Dragon Age. You need cold medicine today. I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening. We're not live, right? We could just. You can edit on the fly. We could take it from the top. Dragon Age. Yeah.
00:16:04
Speaker
I don't know. they andlash Please explain because I'm I'm going out of the loop on this. there There was backlash to the reveal trailer ah because it was like the very, I guess, for 90 that first reveal trailer. But as soon as they started releasing gameplay trailers, people were more. It was at the Xbox for 90. Yeah. If you remember at the Xbox showcase, it was like just those character vignettes. And it was really stylo so kind of very like magenta. e Yeah. And like, you know, like the the art, the art. I understood. have It looked like almost, I don't want to say bland, but it just looked like one of those like, oh, this looks like a lot of other like crazy things right now as opposed to Dragon Age. And that was just the first look at it. I think everything since then has been pretty positive. There's like a big old hands on preview recently that people seem to really enjoy. Yeah. Yeah. All the previews have been really positive on it. Um, I mean, I don't think they've released any sales numbers. I think it's going to do fine.
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah. But I mean, like, to be fair, though, like, I don't think that controversy really has much to do with that. I think Bioware just has to earn people's trust back. Sure. Yeah. Between Anthem and Mass Effect Andromeda and everything. So I think... Oh, and Jules, one of the other pieces of backlash was it seemed really more action oriented than like a hardcore RPG, like a Baldur's Gate-ish thing.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah. um and But but true like Dragon Age has always kind of been the only one that was ever really tactical was Dragon Age Origins on PC, even on console. It was simplified. And then to to basically went the action route, three was even more action route. And now they're finally just going all in on the action route. Yeah. So I don't know. i It's EA or mainstream publisher going from mainstream appeal.
00:17:41
Speaker
But I guess Baldur's Gate 3 could also be mainstream appeal. i don't I don't really know. I don't know. It's a weird one. It's it's like in that weird zone is like Dragon Age still relevant in 2024. Is it just another fantasy action RPG at this point with the Dragon Age name? I don't know. I think it just comes down to reviews and word of mouth for this one to really take off.
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, one thing that's going forward is there's not a lot in that lane this fall. um The last thing that was probably close to that lane was Metaphor Refantazio, which came out and feels very different than Dragon Age. Metaphor Refantazio we know sold well. um It was the the quickest game to hit a million in Atlas history, which is good.
00:18:23
Speaker
that doesn't those don't feel like they're in the same lane at all to me. Like this seems like to me at least from what I can remember, like Dragon's Dogmo might be the last big fantasy thing. I was just trying to name anything this fall that was like an RPG, a fantasy RPG.
00:18:39
Speaker
um Which is surprising because there's still like a billion of them out there. Yeah, I am so sick of these. This this fall, like, you know, the the big games we have left that haven't come out are stuff like Call of Duty, um this, ah and then Stalker 2, Indiana Jones, which I still think might get delayed, but we'll see. Slitterhead, obviously, all the Slitterheads out there rise up. The Brotherhood. Did you get hands on with that game at all yet? No.
00:19:06
Speaker
No, you guys could have we could have but i you could have been my proxies. I mean, if there wasn't any room. and wouldn't look It didn't look and i wouldn't ask him i but look good.
00:19:18
Speaker
ah but That's why I didn't want to waste the time because like it really didn't look good for us. I fucking Steve Jobs, I didn't realize your time's worth so much money. You can't bend down to pick up a slitterhead without losing the company money.
00:19:33
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm I'm I'm excited for Dragon Age. You know, like, who cares about the social media woke the stuff, blah, blah, blah about that. Oh, no, the games woke. Oh, no. no You mean Bioware has made woke games their entire time. Oh, my God. I wish shit I wish everyone would just ignore that.
00:19:52
Speaker
You just don't talk about it ever again. I assume that's the controversy they were talking about. That's why I've mentioned it because that's that's been social media. But who gives a shit? and Yeah, I get it. I don't think it's going to be a 10 million seller, but we'll see. I don't say two, two point five to three. What came as the court? I think that's a dog. dog no Shout out to Dragon's Dogma as well. Kevin Smith. Second time I'm bringing it up today. Yeah, it's coming back. You said that's the one game this year that when you started it, you're like, this is going to win a bunch of awards. And then you get to the second area of the game. You're like, this is boring. Not it. I was like, I started this was like, oh, no, this is not what I thought it was. It was like, no, it's not that bad. It's OK. But like, yeah, I would like I was so hyped for Dragon's Dogma and like it kind of disappointed me. It just was monsters.
00:20:46
Speaker
That's true. I know dragons playing funky. Yeah. Played funky. and I like that. Linnae is freaking out over dr Dragon Age Inquisition and Baller's Gate 3 being indie. We're not we're not saying they're indie. Somebody's on the Super Chat. No one said indie. Yeah. Yeah. We haven't got to know where that came from. I don't know where that came from. wait what it was No one said indie. I don't know.
00:21:11
Speaker
I didn't say any great, great derail. We did it. Oh, India has a no publisher. Well, dragons, dragons, dogmen, dragons age, both, both have their publishers. Yeah. ah Yeah. But there's guys technically, but he doesn't mean anything anymore anymore because words words are dumb. Ryan ryan Petron with a $5 don't know. Thank you so much. Ryan leaving this chat for when I watched the VOD at 2 a.m. Oh, nice. A little late night. Vodden Casey, have you gotten much time with sparking zero? What do you think of the gameplay ah at?
00:21:40
Speaker
Pax, I got ah like a little bit of time with Spark and Zero. I hated it. I'm sorry. But like, do not use that as a bar for your enjoyment. Like if you are a Dragon Ball Z fan, especially of the Budokai formula, it's probably doing everything you want it to do. I hate that formula now. So that is a me thing. It is not, you know, a characterization of the game being bad at what it wants to do. It does it great, I assume, because folks are eating it up.
00:22:07
Speaker
I just don't like it. You had the highest player count of any fighting game ever on Steam. Dragon Ball Z is super popular. None of those people play video games, though. This is a good this is a video game. What?
00:22:18
Speaker
Yeah, but they bought it because they like the anime, not because they like video games. I thought you were going to be like, this doesn't count, like FarmVille and Dragon Ball Fighting Games don't count as video games. World FarmVille. Dragon Ball FighterZ is a proper fighting game with the Dragon Ball Z IP. Sparking Zero is a glorified sort of cutscene machine in my mind. Oh no.
00:22:41
Speaker
But that's just me. says just That's just a theory. you and roast it later Did you watch the first episode of Dragon Ball Daima? Daima, no, I've not started that yet. These are the two that came out anyway, right? like yeah I think it just premiered like a few days ago. so it' yeah and I haven't even watched ah any of Super. like I've only seen bits and pieces.
00:23:02
Speaker
um teaching You shouldn't see any of GT really effing bad. No, I watched a super movie. I watched. I went to the theater and saw a movie. Oh, the one with go. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I watched the first super movie, the one with Frieza coming back and Brawley being reintroduced. That was pretty funny. Which Nick, which super movie did you watch? I don't think I've ever watched it.
00:23:29
Speaker
episode of my life. Oh, you don't even know Goku is. I mean, was it was it on Cartoon Network before? Yeah, it was. Yeah. Okay. so I probably like tuned into it at some point when I don't know what the fuck this is when I was like six years old um and then put on the boondock saying, so I was like, I don't know what's going on here, but as a six year old, you were going to say the boondocks. And then you said the boondocks. And so I was like, whoa, was expected what's up? I would turn it on like I would turn on youre probably both on adult swim eight at night and be like, I don't know what I'm watching here because Dragon Ball Z sparkling. good Does it got a story mode?
00:24:09
Speaker
Like fun, fun story mode. Probably. It's probably the same effing story that it always has, which is just the beginning of Goku showing up with Gohan. And then and I guess now to have more stuff with super where like they enter the tournament of power or whatever and fights a fucking bald alien. And he, he doesn't fucking surf. I don't know what that was going on. Dragon Ball Z anymore.
00:24:32
Speaker
uh people are saying i missed it on my childhood i was watching good shows like courage i can't really dog that is a great show sir it is not a good show it's an amazing show a bunch of babies uh fact i'm gonna verify i don't know things in which casey is it ever than pinion then me sorry i'll try harder guys uh but So Dragon Ball Sparking has sold very well. It's already sold 3 million copies, which is good for ah publisher Bandai Namco because between Elden Ring and and this, it seems like they got a couple of hits on their hands. However, it turns out they also have a lot of non-hits on their hands, which resulted in reports that they have been
00:25:14
Speaker
quietly cutting workforce in a Japanese way, which is that they shift people around to them working in a room alone on non-projects until they quit out of shame, which puts me in a blank room and tell me to not do anything and keep paying me, and I will be a lifer.
00:25:31
Speaker
and that's cultural differences I will never leave that company. It will be the greatest job I ever have. um But also it resulted in them canceling some some projects, some some unannounced projects, some projects related to stuff like One Piece and Naruto, even a project that they was supposedly um working alongside Nintendo with. ah And this was an interesting publisher that we still talk about that much. Killed the ah Blue Protocol MMO not too long ago.
Bandai Namco's Project Cancellations
00:26:01
Speaker
Right, right, right. Well, that was highly anticipated. That that yes and by rpg was big budget behind that.
00:26:07
Speaker
Yeah, and it was an interesting company because for every... We don't talk about them the same way we talk about Capcom or Square, even Konami. It doesn't feel like they have like and an identity other than they make a lot of anime games, and they really lucked out by publishing Dark Souls. They actually remind me a lot of Square Enix. I'm sorry, go ahead. Just just because like the the breadth of stuff they release that doesn't sell well, and then they have a few major hits every now and again.
00:26:37
Speaker
And that feels exactly like Square Enix to me. Like both of those publishers just kind of like lost. I guess not. maybe Well, Square Enix didn't lose what made it special, I guess. They just released too much.
00:26:48
Speaker
And Emco Bandai, like if you actually look through their publishing lineup, you'd be surprised at like the amount of games they've actually released over the last five years. That's what I'm curious about, right? Because the only stuff that I have in memory are the kind of successes like Elden Ring, like what like all this anime stuff that does sell because the of anime fans basically move those products. What are their flops that kind of prompted this mass layoff thing?
00:27:12
Speaker
I think it's just a ton of like random ass anime games. They did the Scarlet Nexus Code Vein, like stuff that are they people like Code Vein? I thought that sold well. Well, they just released a Sword Art Online game. That's actually I think it's like a multiplayer RPG. $60 got less than 1,500 reviews on Steam. This is one piece of Downy Rush, free to play, Gundam Break, Gundam Breaker 4.
00:27:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah, guess it doesn't have a crazy amount of reviews either. I don't think I think it's just sand a lot of these things are kind of, yeah, Sandland felt like no one talked about Sandland. That's true. I definitely didn't. Yeah, I don't. I was like taken aback when you just compared them to Square, but I guess modern Square makes sense because yeah you know, Square has modern Square has their their massive final fantasies and then a lot of smaller games that tend to be a more niche. ah the The thing about Bandai Namco is they just don't Like their glory day felt like it was Pac-Man. Like that was when they were at the height of, that was when Namco was at the height of things. They co-developed Smash with Hal Laboratory. That's true. They do co-develop Smash. That better not be the game that was canceled. Sakurai's like, I'm no longer making YouTube videos. I feel like you have Bandai, Bandai Namco, which we keep saying Namco, Bando with Bandai Namco. If we have to remember, they flipped their name around.
00:28:36
Speaker
ah They're they're publishing lineup. When you look at it, it's just kind of weird. Like they were publishing the super massive horror games, the anthology series. Yeah, I don't think that's sold well. I almost tried to do the Square Enix thing of like, oh, let's get some projects with Western developers and see if any of them stick. And yeah, I think they didn' really published Little Nightmares, right? Little Nightmares 2. Yeah, they published Little Nightmares. Yeah, I'm just looking through their lineup here. Like this the One Piece Odyssey game, which reviewed pretty well, doesn't look like it sold great.
00:29:09
Speaker
That's surprising to me, honestly. So like their biggest seller is hard, you know, armored core. I think the My Hero games have sold pretty well. But yeah, like not like all the anime based games have like been relatively hit or miss between Naruto, Sand Land, Sword Art. I don't know. It just feels like they never really break into like the conversation, aside from the Dragon Ball games and the FromSoft games, like their games don't really ever break into the conversation. Like I don't I don't see a bunch of folks
00:29:40
Speaker
you know, ever chatting about it. So it'll be curious to see what, obviously they're a big company that has fingers in a lot of different pies, you know, in animation and in a lot of different things in Japan proper. So yeah, I guess I did Tekken earlier this year, which also doesn't seem like people are talking about Tekken. People are talking about Tekken. Well, at least the, yeah, on my timeline is people talking about Tekken, so I don't know about everybody else.
00:30:06
Speaker
My time with people are just ah talking about Aaron Rodgers and whether or not he believes in vaccines still got a weird timeline. Not really on the level. Like people still talk about Street Fighter though. I guess Tekken was kind of always behind Street Fighter. Yeah. I mean where it belongs. Yes. But yeah I feel like that.
00:30:24
Speaker
I feel like that talk has been pretty even from my perspective, but who knows? What do I know? I'm sleepy. Rude. um The second of three stories in this sort of little grab bag I wanted to just touch on is that ah the Hitman developer, IO Interactive, who is now working on James Bond Game, ah they launched their own publishing side ah from ah that that they said they want to take some of the money that they've made from Hitman and invested in publishing other games.
00:30:54
Speaker
And the first game is going to be the inaugural game from ah Build a Rocket Boy, Mind's Eye, which is the ah game that is being helmed by former GTA producer Leslie Benzies. And this is a big kind of AAA, this game's got like a big story driven action thriller kind of thing.
00:31:14
Speaker
And they're gonna be publishing a game that has the pedigree of from one of the minds of GTA behind it, which is interesting. um There's a couple of these games from former former GTA folks that have ah sort of sprouted up and i'm I'm very curious to see if any of them will.
00:31:37
Speaker
Click as hard as GTA does. I mean, nothing will click as hard as GTA does when it comes out in a few years, but... um I feel like we've talked about this before. like No spin-off sect ever matches the first thing that gave them all the acclaim yeah when it's that big. Yeah. um But interesting that, yeah again, I think it's cool that um a company like IO, who made so much money with Hitman and enough to buy their freedom,
00:32:04
Speaker
from from from being under Square Enix, which I think is so cool, where they are able to do this and then able to, like while developing their own game, the Bond game, kind of pay it forward and help out other games. so Granted, it's not like they're they're helping out some struggling and like this. is Yeah. like everywhere else like yeah well I didn't everywhere get like a hundred million dollar investment.
00:32:24
Speaker
Yeah. So it's not, uh, yeah, by no means is it like how we're really huggling little guy but we want some money out of that. game Yeah. Also, it almost seems like, uh, they might share a similar, uh,
00:32:37
Speaker
spite for former corporate leadership. Like that might be the shared, uh, the shared DNA between them is like, let's throw this up as a big fuck you to our old bosses. Um, where did that funding come from then? Like, was it IO that is putting the money into, uh, no, no, but I think build funding game a while ago, build a rocket boy, got massive funding.
00:33:04
Speaker
like three or four years ago. Yeah. Maybe be even longer. ah So if they're bringing a publisher on board from where is my question? Like it was during covid during all the investor craze. And yeah you you say that I was one of the head producers at Rockstar. You're getting money.
00:33:20
Speaker
Sure. OK. All right. And they're they're working on that game, but also their other game is there. It's a game creation platform called Everywhere. Yeah, that number. Yeah. And I think that one. I think I think I just saw it. I think it's in early access over on Epic Games Store. And it's been there for a while. I just like I just looked into the Epic Games Store the other day for something. And I i saw it in there.
00:33:45
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, it's ah yeah, it'll be interesting to see if I don't know if if this is able to scratch. I don't know. It seems like any time anyone tries to come for GTA's crown, which this isn't necessarily what this game is trying to do, but it kind of feels like it's what it's trying to do. Anytime that happens, I think it's very funny. When they described it, it was a they were going for a cinematic action game, not a not a GTA clone. Yeah, so we'll see.
00:34:11
Speaker
ah The last story, Nick, you want to bring up ah the 10th anniversary of Alien Isolation came last week and the they announced a sequel.
Alien Isolation Sequel Announcement
00:34:20
Speaker
Yeah, I'm that was a shock. Like I thought it was I thought it was just a troll account when I saw Eric tricking you during a stream. because I mean, it's just I literally just logged on the Twitter and I just saw like, oh, hey, we're doing an installation sequel. I was like, what? Who? Who? Where? Why? How?
00:34:40
Speaker
i I guess Creative Assembly decided they wanted some money instead of no money when they canceled hyenas. so Because there's a hundred million dollar loss on that. Yeah, that's service game. Yeah, that is. That was a blunder. Yeah. And I also the Total War series is still big.
00:35:06
Speaker
But it's not doing well when they're not releasing like the mainstream games. So either the Total War Warhammer games or whatever else, they've been doing like a bunch of these little spin off anthology games that that they sell. OK, but they're not. Eric, I can hear you typing.
00:35:21
Speaker
ah I can't hear anything. I heard him typing. I still hear him typing. Look, I hear that now. He said it's not me. I don't know who that is. I don't know where I came from. I don't know. That's weird. Somebody on the chat is typing and we can hear from here. I don't even know. I lost my train of thought because of the typing.
00:35:42
Speaker
What was I saying? You was talking about how Alien Isolation is your best friend. and That's true. I mean, it is my best friend. and everybody at has and i like this is you I think this game would be great if it was one quarter the length of Alien Isolation.
00:35:56
Speaker
in isolation is, uh, it's funny playing through Silent Hill 2 right now because it is suffering very much from alien isolation disease, which is every beat feels like it's lasting too long. And like everything, like the game is good and I enjoy it. And every area I'm in, I'm like, why are you too, you're too.
00:36:15
Speaker
You're too long. Why is it everything trimmed a bit? Like this isn't horror is not meant to be stretched over the course of this this length. So what a triple A budget video game is. ah I think I think, though, I mean, that was the biggest complaint about Alien Isolation is is actually that it was too v long. And I bet they would agree with that. And also ah because they didn't greenlight a sequel right away, even though it sold like 2.5 million copies, I'm guessing it's not going to get as big a budget so that they can keep it the scope porn check, especially considering they lost $100 million dollars on hyenas. That would be my guess. I i would wager that Sega's not giving this game a ah blank check. Yeah, i'm just has there any is there any example of a s sequel that comes out but this graciously, this will come out 13 years after the original?
00:37:04
Speaker
You know, this game probably won't come out until 27, 28. Is there any example of a sequel that took that long? No, it's not like it's been development that long, but something that that long but to get back to it. yeah How well did Borderlands 3 sell?
00:37:19
Speaker
I think very well well, but like that series never really took time off. It was still like here, we're going to do the pre-sequel. We're going to do like folks in the chat like mentioned Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts kept making games. Like it wasn't like that's a franchise went dormant. Alien Isolation has not had, I guess they had a VR mode, right?
00:37:37
Speaker
Mm. was modded in. I don't remember. I don't remember if they made it official or not. Yeah. I don't. Three is a good example. And that's not even that long. So yeah. Psychonauts two is a good example. And that came on. That was really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, that's the that's the main thing to remember is like most of that core team that made alien isolation left after the after the game didn't get a sequel greenlit. Yeah. Allster Hope was the creative director.
00:38:06
Speaker
of the original game so I'm glad that he's back that gives me more confidence in it but yeah I mean like the people that wrote the story you know or that a lot of that the lead designers on it have all moved on and a lot of them are working at that no-code studio, working on that new Silent Hill game. Hell yeah. That's probably never going to come out. I really wanted to, but that's probably never going to come out. I also heard that the xenomorph died since then, died of old age. It's been so long. Yeah, passed away. It is sleep surrounded by family. So my not the perfect organism.
00:38:38
Speaker
so it's perfect But its family would be more xenomorphs, I assume. Its family was more xenomorphs, correct. However, it was able to it was able to cast a mail-in ballot for the election. And so there's a lot of crossover, should they still count the vote? Because they were alive when they voted, but passed away before the election. So that's how we're going to be following me. That's how we're going to be following the story from now on. I feel like I've gone insane.
00:39:05
Speaker
like i't I feel like I forgot they were out of. unless I even lost your train of thought. This year, I was trying to turn this unor into more of a Jimmy Carter.
00:39:14
Speaker
those time Yeah. Yeah. shelly and i card The alien IP is getting attention right now, though, between FX, the no Holly show and then the movie Romulus. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably what I told the trigger for Sega.
00:39:29
Speaker
The aliens fire. Well, yeah Disney is the license. Probably open back up. Disney wants more games, ah but alien dis alien. Yeah, it's Fox. Oh, you're right. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. ah But aliens, Fireteam Elite is getting a sequel. And then that aliens ah VR game is coming out soon, too.
00:39:54
Speaker
There's an aliens VR game. Do you get to be the alien? Do you see how big your tongue is? No, it's basically, it's basically, you know, alien isolation in VR. It looks like, but it's a new game. Oh, well, they just put but you were confusing with alien isolation, having a VR. That was probably exactly. Yeah. And people modding it. And it just making sense as a VR thing. As people liked fire team lead. Yeah. That game sold really well. it That's a surprise. I did not yeah realize that. It was big on game pass too. That makes sense.
00:40:23
Speaker
I judge solely based on what are people in my timeline talking about? And, uh, they're just talking about the substance and Aaron Rogers. So the two things, my time we, I just purely, if I don't know, games popular. It's purely my game, my timeline. Yes. Eric showing the VR game alien rogue incursion. And I will be playing that game. So, uh, if you want to hear about VR games, so but I plan on playing that. I plan on playing behemoth this year, uh, and Metro awakening.
00:40:48
Speaker
And there's one other, oh, the Batman Arkham game. I plan on playing all four of those VR games. It's like the one year. I think I've actually been excited about VR because there's some damn cool looking games coming. It's about time. Yeah, I've only waited. I've only used my index like, I don't know, 12 times and I'm not going to use all this on my Quest 3. I would I would love for for VR fans to to get a bunch of good games played. I think that'd be great. Yeah, I think I'm sort of I'm sort of ah off the VR train, but I want everyone who is still on the VR train to enjoy their ride on the VR train.
00:41:20
Speaker
It's a massive failed investment for for most people. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of super chats before we get to our new main topic. Jewel Rao with a two-year-old don't know. Thank you so much. Oh, I forgot to ask Casey, who what are your favorite characters in ZZZ?
00:41:37
Speaker
Uh, okay. This is, this question has probably two answers. Cause like by character, like who do I like is like a character, like their personality and stuff. And then favorite character as in like, who do I use? Like my main composition? Like right now Jane Doe is my lead. Uh, and I, I pair her with, uh, Corin and, uh, what's the other one? They're all, they're all like assault characters. I forget their names, which means but first doesn' matter i'm really Jane Doe.
00:42:06
Speaker
Yes. She's, she's undercover. She's undercover cop. Ah, that makes me know her name. If we know her name, we get her family because she also have a tail. Is that what her show? Yeah. She's a, she's a mouse lady. Of course. so you know Or rat. I'm just a rat. Let me not get her whatever. She's a rat. All right. The better.
00:42:24
Speaker
but that makes sense right like because she she's Undercover and the criminal organization and she's a cop. She's literally a rat. Yeah. ah But so like Jane Doe's like my main and my console whatever but my favorite character is probably Andy Who's like this really quiet? a Shy type who's like kind of a ninja on the side, but also she had like a weird Fixation on like old movies and so like I just I just find her characterization like very adorable.
00:42:54
Speaker
There you go. That, that, that answer's the question but was your weekly ZZZ your ZZZ manner. We hiring presented by K CCC. Uh, and then, uh, Nick grumbles with a $2 don't know. Thank you so much. Nick grumbles, Marty, you are my Marty safe from the bad games. I need my own Marty. That's the problem. Uh, but Nick, that's a great, uh, that is a great segue. Nick rumbles into our, uh, our main topic today, which is, uh, talking about the, the rising tide of very specific trends in indie games that, um,
00:43:31
Speaker
you know It's very noticeable in the current landscape, especially as we're combing through new releases, top sellers, the Steam Next Fest demos, and just sort of what genres we see kind of being cribbed ad nauseam, some some being cribbed in really effective ways, some that make us roll our eyes and some that we need to wade through all the
Indie Game Market Analysis
00:43:53
Speaker
garbage from. So, uh, like Nick, what have you been, as you've been checking out these demos and just steam in general lately, like what are, so what are the, what are the trends that you feel like I've been, been really popping up everywhere, man, the survivors like, and because people got confused and I made this, I made this thread. Uh, when I talk survivors, like I'm not talking about, uh, survival games, like the forest or anything like that. I'm talking about vampire survivors like games. This genre needs a different name. Survivors like genre is so confused. that you need to explain it. People will people people call them bullet hells, but there's also no bullet heaven or well, they also call them bullet hells. They call them bullets. That's wrong. but bo hell that funnel girls like ykari is a bullet hell Yeah. Like stuff comes at you and bullet hell your stuff comes out of you and bullet is the right term. That's the term why I call it survivor genre because every game that is doing it is called survivors. It's self survivors. Yeah. Yeah. You can call it vampy scampies if you want. he' Yeah. It's anything that's like a vampire survivor. So anyways, like, yeah, I'm going through this team next week's demos and like every other game I feel like is survivors like or scampi, whatever we're going to call it. yeah and games And like, and there are games that there are.
00:45:04
Speaker
franchises, I guess that I wouldn't even expect to see this in like temtem as a survivors like game. Is that what I saw? Temtem game swarm. Yeah. OK, so I saw the temtem game on the list of like most downloaded Steam X-Fest demos, and I was like, interesting. I just I didn't download or anything, but it's a survivors like. Yeah, it's a game. It's a lamp escape. No, it's a it's that I just saw another one in my life. The last.
00:45:33
Speaker
Zen let's own zero update added a survivors like in its arcade like there's tons of mini games in there They added one of those in ZZZ. Yeah, so it is everywhere. I'm waiting for a Triple-a game is gonna try to do their take on it, right? Yeah, it's probably been in the work for like the last two years what's there survivors' like there There is a deep rock survivors, yeah i't like that i've said survivors like what am I doing?
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah, this this indie developer that released this indie Metroidvania, which maybe... Casey, did I have you do it for Hidden Gems once? so It's called Dark Light. No, that does not sound familiar to me. Okay. Well, it's a side scrolling and kind of indie souls like in these holes. Like, yeah, he's making now he's making a 3D survivors like using that same world and stuff. So like these games that maybe and it's an interesting trend because like there are like a lot of low effort ones ah for sure. Yeah. And when I brought that up, like I didn't want to say they're
00:46:33
Speaker
I didn't want to say they're lazy because like making any game any making any game is hard. So I'm not I don't want to use that word, but I guess uninspired or just even even cash grab sounds mean, but also like, but it does feel like that. Yeah, but if I also. it's like oh This game is big, so let's just do that. Yeah, but also if I'm in if I'm an indie and I'm like, this is a cool genre that people really like and I can take my Game like maybe that didn't sell super well and turn into something like that that sells like crazy because that's what happened yeah To be fair deep rock electric assault gangbusters, but deep rock survivors also has sold gangbusters And if I were like hey I made temtem and temtem didn't sell very well but if I can make this survivors game in a few like a year and sell it and then it funds my next big project and
00:47:24
Speaker
who Who am I to judge on that? Yeah. But they are flooding the market. They are absolutely flooding the market as are. that one There was like an early access one we played. We streamed. I think it was like an early thing we streamed at Second Wind. like Yeah. It was a death must die. Death must die. That was very much like Hades meets us. Yeah. Yeah. Diablo. Which a lot of times these trend things are just like the elevator pitches to popular things where it's like, oh, it's Bellatro meets Hades. youre What are we doing?
00:47:54
Speaker
Yeah. um But you know, it's I'm in like a weird spot because like the the business head of me of mine, like is like yeah this. This is smart. Like these things are probably not very hard to make. People love them right now, especially on handhelds. Like these things are just fun time wasting games. Why not make one if you and throw it out there? Why not? And then the other side of me is like, oh, my God, there's you're all making these like.
00:48:23
Speaker
remarket decides what what they want, I guess, but also like, is I think that is, that is the main thing, right? Like one of these things breaks out and becomes this massive hit. And so of course you're going to get copycats, like whether, whether they have a good idea as a spin on it, or they just want to chase, you know, the money, either way, those copycats are you like oftentimes make money. So like it it reinforces it. So like,
00:48:53
Speaker
Eventually, this will burn out, like as all things do. right it's just It feels so pervasive in the indie space because a lot of these have a much faster turnaround, especially when it's something like Vampire Survivors that, like you said, was probably a very quick turnaround. You're going to just see inundation with this sort of stuff very quickly, whereas AAA, they do the exact same thing, but they all come out like in a batch every couple of years or so until we realize that they've missed the boat.
00:49:15
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah well we talk about it in AAA all the time with yeah the rise of open world games and the rise of the live service and hero shooters and extraction shooters or whatever. And so it's it's just interesting to look at like what sort of different genres are doing the exact same thing on the indie space. what i What I do like about the indie space when they do chase trends because of they don't take a decade to make the games is like you kind of get to see the innovation happen in real time, which is it's just fun because like every yeah there's survivors likes that just do the base survivors like gameplay of surviving and getting your upgrades and and doing that loop and some of them do it way better than others and and you get stuff like death must die that as in story mechanics a little bit and and more interesting characters and blue and then you get stuff like deep rock survivors that adds in ah environment deformation and all that so that you're not just running
00:50:08
Speaker
in a loop or avoiding objects, you're actually like deforming the map to create your own paths and and stop things. And then I was playing that hive jump survivors thing. And it's like, oh, you can you can lessen the amount of things on screen if you go after the hives. So they all add like these little these little incremental things, which makes me want to play a whole lot of them. I'm like, what is your part of the problem? I am part of the problem. Absolutely. But or is it even or is it even a problem? Like that's the question. I would say this topic isn't breaking down a problem. I think it's just interesting to explore like the differences in trend chasing in India, because like. Right now, one one of the one of the trends in the AAA space, double AAA space, especially in like the ah FPS genre is people are chasing after that valor and audience now. And so we have val now. Yeah. Yeah, because like that.
00:51:03
Speaker
I guess Valorant has to have to have counter-strike audience. So let's say counter-strike. A lot of developers are going after that counter-strike audience in less of the Call of Duty audience. It is very late. Yeah. I see why that came like way after. It's very doesn't feel right late. but on trend But if you look at the... Well, before you really only had counter-strike that played that counter-strike. Now you have Valorant. That Spectre Divide game dropped. I've been playing the closed alpha of a another FPS called Fragpunk.
00:51:32
Speaker
ah And like all of these have their own little innovations that come along with it too, even as an indie studio. So Spectre Divide has the ah you can place your ah fake character somewhere and then swap to it so that you can control both sides of the map.
00:51:47
Speaker
And then frag punk is actually using the rope or the deck building mechanic where every map has like a different set of cards to create all these different variations of of the gameplay. ah And so it's just like it's it's fun to see like, all right, how can we how can we take this concept, whether it's the survivors like it's a bilateral like or whatever and just add that little twist that makes it fresh and new again? I mean, there's also um if you knew if you call them sub-genres, like roguelike and ah deck builder. but i At this point, I almost don't consider them genres because it doesn't tell me what the game is, but um I think there are elements that make sense. There's a reason we see them all across the indie space is because ah you're able to reuse the things. you They're very economical, right? You're able to reuse the things you make in different
00:52:41
Speaker
forms that extend the playtime of a game and and increase user retention. So it like totally makes sense why you would be like, and instead of just crafting 15 bespoke levels that people can complete and then maybe refund the game or whatever, I can create this thing that kind of gets them in a web and is constantly delivering new experiences because you don't know what's going to happen every time you start a new round.
00:53:04
Speaker
Um, which you've seen in the biggest games in your from Bellatro to slay the spire to monster train. I'm just talking about games. I don't know. And I don't like, which is wild. I think I'm right when I talk about them though. Right? they're like Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, yeah, I mean, that's like the whole.
00:53:19
Speaker
alert, I think of like the roguelike deck building John right now is like, your build is almost different every run you have. And so you're constantly chasing that high of like, how can I get the most powerful build as I go? Yeah, same thing in Bellagio. That's like why Bellagio to me is so addicting is like, you know, even after you beat the run, then it gives you the option to do the endless mode is like, how far can I go?
00:53:42
Speaker
oh Yeah, it's it's it's an interesting interesting place where like those genres are right now because three, four years ago, if I saw cards in a video game, I'd be like, fuck that. I don't want it to do with that.
00:53:56
Speaker
Like if I want to play a card game, over would go you know, go get a deck of cards. And now it's like such a it's a mechanic that like is so weirdly enjoyable probably because of the randomness and stuff. And in that stupid thing in her brain, that's like I got to collect all those cards. And um man there's there's one game that I saw from a YouTube the other day that I'm very worried about getting addicted to if I actually sit down and start it. ah It's basically a roguelike deck builder.
00:54:25
Speaker
hard collecting game that is called Isle of Swaps. And it but basically looks like Pokemon if it was like a roguelite.
00:54:34
Speaker
It's just like scratch out. People are addicted to buying scratch off lotto tickets. I mean, they are like, I just don't like. I don't know. I just think it's just one of those things. It's just like, it just doesn't click with me. You don't seem to fall for any of the indie. I haven't found one that got me yet either. You specifically, Marty, don't really seem to fall for any of the indie trends that end up hidden. Yeah. I like when it's like, ooh, this is something new. That's when I like go Gaga for something. I really loved Inscription a few years ago. And then- Jossie Gilkins, apparently.
00:55:09
Speaker
Oh, just how nice. ah There's a demo I tried out, then I don't remember his name, which makes this story very bad, at the Steam Next Fest, which is so much like inscription in that you are in a 3D space, you're trapped in this room by a spooky man, but then you can like, and there's puzzles in the room, but then there's also a video game in the room and you play the like top down 2D video game, which can do things to impact the room you're in and doing things in the room you're in can impact the 2D video game.
00:55:35
Speaker
you need to use the two of them harmoniously in order to solve the situation. And so, I mean, yeah, I'm even seeing like, we saw the rise of sort of those cozy-ish, kind of like, short hike, almost like, oh, let's distill Breath of the Wild down to its simple open world, whatever, I think you called it.
00:55:54
Speaker
little gator game felt very much just like a short hike. um I think a couple of the games that popped up did felt like kind of that speed running, ah the bite-sized speed running of Neon White we've seen in a couple of games. you know We've seen the the one-hit-kill action of Hotline Miami get cribbed. This isn't a new thing in in indies. like When an indie pops, a lot of people tend to try to Yeah, the the post-Hollow Knight Renaissance, right? Yeah, yeah. It's still going on. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which is funny, because when hol like in the gap between Hollow Knight and Silksong, so many other games are able to sneak in there and become kind of, again, not be as big of a hit as Hollow Knight, but like take a little piece of the pie.
00:56:40
Speaker
while the getting's good. Yeah, speaking of sequels, do you wait a long time for if they live up to the hype? Yeah, I mean, and that's... Man, it's gonna be the biggest indie sequel. I mean, we don't have a lot of big indie sequels, but that'll be the biggest one ever, right? I guess we have... Hades 2, my... Yeah, which just got a big update today.
00:57:00
Speaker
I think Ben Starr is playing Prometheus or someone. Yeah. Shout out to Prometheus. Shout out to Ben Starr. Shout out to him too. The two genres just absolutely like flooding the market though right now will have to be their survivor, you know, vampire survivor-like games. And then the roguelike deck builders. You wouldn't say Survival Craft isn't in that pantheon of crowding the market.
00:57:26
Speaker
It was. It was. I've been doing it for a while. I think it's maybe referred to like newer trends. Yeah. Well, I think I think it's slowed down because like some of the ah that we're not getting like the deluge of indie ones that we were getting that double a market has kind of started to take over that, I think, because I went like power world to me is double a. Sure. What's my call it? The ah ah once human.
00:57:52
Speaker
We once even had a big budget behind it, but like the Mary Poppins ones I'm thinking of. It's a Mary Poppins one? It's a Mary Poppins survival craft team. I feel like you're using the wrong name. She flies in an umbrella, right? Yeah.
00:58:08
Speaker
yeah okay never right you like about bonds I'm trying to remember the name of it, but yeah just big it's just got a big update. I'm looking through our message. It's not actually based on Mary Poppins, like Liza P's based on Pinocchio. It's just a character on an umbrella that you think resembles Mary Poppins. It's got like fantasy elements inspired by it. ah I definitely feel like the cold medicines hit hard when you're like, oh no, the Mary Poppins revival crafter. Am I asleep? Somebody tagged me. Is Freddy Krueger going to get me? I was bummed ah because a Suica-like
00:58:42
Speaker
hit Steam Next Fest and a couple of people added me about it and they said it's a Suica-like that is a roguelite and it's called Steve's Warehouse and I downloaded it and it doesn't work on Steam Deck and my thing for this Steam Next Fest has been I refuse to play any game on my PC if it doesn't work on Steam Next Fest it's not worth my time or if it doesn't work on my Steam Deck it's not worth my time. I remember the name of that night that game Nightingale. This is Nightingale.
00:59:04
Speaker
Yeah. Well, now I remember now. Yeah, that was the one by the former Bioware folks, right? Yeah, it's kind of. And I think I think they said it was partially inspired by someone. Mary Poppins. So it's a Poppins like we we talk about Poppins like remember we talk about so many games. there any yeah Oh, sorry, God. No, that's OK. I was just going to name off more survival games. No, are there any um are there any games or genres or mechanics that you look at and you're like, I wish more people were trying to do that.
00:59:35
Speaker
Um, like, is is there like a market you think is underserviced? Perry. I know Casey's going to say the Perry based games. No, there's plenty of stuff that is making good use of the Perry mechanic. And that's just like a single mechanic as opposed to like a whole gameplay yeah style.
00:59:53
Speaker
But um I would say an undisputed literally just released and is using it. yeah I would say analog stick, one to one control of like combat, like because it was just fight night for a long time and then it moved to UFC, which was the same people. And then 10, 12 years of no one making any sort of new innovations with that and then undisputed NHL had the right stick control stuff.
01:00:20
Speaker
Yeah, but it's so fucking shitty that every time I get in a fight, I always lose. Just that's really funny. I yeah like just new innovations in that sort of control, I think would be cool for me.
01:00:33
Speaker
Two of the genres that I've been seeing a lot more people start jumping into on Twitter for the games that I follow. um One is vehicle combat games. yeah There's one of quite a few of those that I'm keeping an eye on in development. One of one of them specifically is ah called Fium, F-U-M-E. I remember that. I think someone i think someone played it first team next to us a little while ago. and Yeah, I showed it to you was like the car was like fighting like these massive, you know, massive bosses. I think I think one was just a glitch, but then people like this so much. He's like, Oh, maybe I'll put massive bosses in the game to get a large boss. Yeah. Yeah. There's another one that's like a vehicle combat game that I've been watching that looks a lot like the Mad Max game, um but just combat. And then we're Chris. I forget the guy that ran ah
01:01:17
Speaker
Avalanche Software Studios, Avalanche Studios, not not software. Just cause developer. Yeah, the just cause developer. He's working on a action car combat game like Mad Maxi almost. ah Yeah, something. He's showing off some footage. Not not anything official, but like some of the concept of the show looks really cool. Yeah, that genre, that genre, I think, is coming back and then.
01:01:41
Speaker
the genre that I want to see come back or it's like the action sports genre, uh, like NFL blitz or NHL heads. Yeah. Those genres that just, uh, the problem is it's hard to do that without a license, like without the license of the league, uh, like there's an indie game coming out that is ah just NBA street.
01:02:01
Speaker
And i I saw it. It's it's in the it's in development now. and NBA Street was amazing. It's not going to have any NBA teams. It's not going to have any players. And it's like, that seems kind of like a death knell for sports games in my mind. What if? What sports game has ever succeeded without the rights of their major league?
01:02:18
Speaker
ah Literally, I don't think any, I mean Mario, but that's got Mario. Like, yeah. Did those succeed? They didn't keep making those. Mario Sports? What are you doing? There was golf, there was tennis, but like the gap between them was so long and like, do they only do, like, do they do the thing where you do one persistent? They take 20, they're so meticulous that they take 20 years to make. right i feel like Mario Strikers did not do well.
01:02:47
Speaker
What's that? What's that roguelite deck building hockey game that I was playing? Tape to tape. Tape to tape. That game's fun. Why do I know the name of that game? I don't like hockey. I don't like roguelite. I don't like that building. That game's good. I don't want anything against roguelite. Everything against roguelite.
01:03:04
Speaker
Don't tell anyone I have anything against real good. I go back to thanking Dark Souls for getting me into that because I got okay with repeating the same stuff over and over again. As long as it like adds in some variation and in differences because I still don't like grinding in destiny.
01:03:22
Speaker
It's funny when I look at ah Some of my favorite genres ever are all back in vogue in the indie space ah the sort of ps1 ps2 error horror game Yeah, it's all with signal us a few years ago crow country came out earlier this year We got a hollow body a bunch of games on next next fest are sort of that That real crunchy ps1 vibe of horror that ah be crowned one yet No, I've been crowned in Holston on my steam deck and ready to play. We'll see if they work. If they don't work, fucking into the bin, into the bin. Colorful 3D character platformers, you know, sort of harkening back to the N64 era where we get a lot of, get a lot of those. And then 16 RPGs that failed modeled after the 16-bit era. Obviously, Chained Echo, CF Stars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that really sick ass looking one with the... Brides of time.
01:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that kind of has the 2D look to it. Oh, God, that game looks awesome. Yeah, that was revealed during an Xbox showcase a little while ago. So those are three of my favorite genres ever. And the fact that they're all being serviced, I think, is really neat. So Eric said Crow Country came out today on Switch, and it was a $1 in your country. Wow, that's a steal. Look at that Threads of Time game. That game looks... Yeah, looks dope. Fucking gorgeous. I cannot wait to see that.
01:04:42
Speaker
Also, there's like a T-Rex fighting a T-Rex, like that immediate cell right there. You put a T-Rex. What if you play Chrono Trigger, which has an entire age? Yes, because this game is just Chrono Trigger where you go to every time period and one of the time periods is 65 million B.C. Nick, stop playing these games and play Chrono Trigger. But you're off the podcast until you bring Chrono Trigger. That's what you said about Portal 2 and I've been here the whole time. You're off the podcast until you bring Portal 2 thoughts. I'm going to go back and yell at people on Twitter.
01:05:08
Speaker
Oh, no. What have we done? um ah The other looking game. I'm sorry. I've not been paying attention to you guys. Yeah, the art looks incredible. It looks like like I love that. So I see of stars. Yeah. ah The one other genre that I know, ah Jesse Glenn will be here to be happy about is the survival horror genre of dinosaurs. There are a ton of games coming out in that genre. Dinosaurs has become a big trend in the 80s. They're taking a long time to develop.
01:05:38
Speaker
Uh, but nothing's really come out in Big Ben huge yet with dinos, right? It's always the promise of dinos. Yeah. but Here's the, here's a funny one. Uh, remember that, that aisle game I played, I think Casey, you were on a stream with me for that. It was that dinosaur MMO.
01:05:57
Speaker
Maybe I think you're on stream with me for that. That game has sold so many copies. It has over 77,000 reviews on Steam. yeah People really like dinosaurs. And there's also another one called a Path of Titans. That's another dinosaur memo. I don't know what the fuck you do in these games, because when I played the aisle, I just kept getting eaten. And the path of Titans is also like that. You just live your life as a dinosaur moving around and eating shit in trees like.
01:06:23
Speaker
like what was the fun in this but people love it. ah But yeah, in the in the survival space like you got death bound on the way you got that um ah lost So not a lot. Well, the one that Anna Perna is published it about the fall asleep and I got excited because we were lost I forget what they gave it the title of now. ah And yet death ground that one ah project survival, some project survivor. What kinds of games are these? ah Project ferocious. These are all like FPS like either FPS or survival horror games that are focused on dinosaurs.
01:06:59
Speaker
No, we're going to second extinction. Like that was like a game. Yeah. the Game preview thing for a while. And it didn't hold enough players. So they listed it. And that was a good game. I wouldn't know. Well, I
Werewolf Representation in Media
01:07:16
Speaker
did not. You missed that. You missed that opportunity. Eric, i completely agree give you it give me a Tokyo jungle game. I don't want just dinosaurs.
01:07:23
Speaker
Like, I'm going to be honest, if it's just dinosaurs, kind of boring. You think dinosaurs are alien? Pick your poison. No, no, no. I want Tokyo jungle, which is all animals. Tokyo jungle. Humans are gone. And you start off as a little Pomeranian, but then you could be all sorts of animals. You could be a tiger. You could be a cat. You can be a... That tiger is a cat. You can be a deer. You can unlock a salary, man.
01:07:47
Speaker
we I thought you said all humans, are you lied to me. No, it was one character you can unlock because the salary man, he's very hard to unlock. Salary man? Yeah, just like a Japanese businessman. Yeah, the business guy. ah yeah Tokyo jungle's so fucking good. That was back when when when Sony had the juice. Sony's been juiceless since that game came out.
01:08:07
Speaker
the Since it's October, we're on a tangent anyways. One one ah monster that I feel like has never gotten its real due in a video game? Werewolf.
01:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, there was that bad world of darkness. Oh, my God. That game was awful. Yeah. That game was a great. Jesus. I remember I remember getting to check that out at E3 would have been E3 2019 and.
01:08:36
Speaker
and I feel bad, but the developers like show me this game and they were hyped about it like this. This game is going to be great. And I'm sitting there like, guys, oh, no. Oh, no. Oh.
01:08:47
Speaker
And all I want from a werewolf game is for you to transform. And then when you transform back into a human, you just butt naked. And we're all your clothes. How how have we not gotten like a really good, scary werewolf game? How does this not happen? It was a kind of whack, I think.
01:09:04
Speaker
when you watch na Dog soldiers. Yes. I do not expect anyone to name drop dog soldiers on this podcast. I do. I do. What is that? Sometimes ah these these soldiers basically get stuck in a house and werewolves come and try to kill them. And they they were really well designed for the time.
01:09:22
Speaker
yeah But I, but that, that sounds like a kind of a niche indie movie thing. Like I'm talking about like in popular culture, like werewolves are a popular, like like universal monster, but like they don't seem to have the same. It's legit. The new movies coming out next, next year. That's supposed to be pretty good. So I think that's going to bring the juice back. I think next year, 2025 years of werewolf juice. Isn't there another remake of the wolf man coming again? Yeah. wolf That last one universal with se del toro was one again garbage.
01:09:51
Speaker
No, no, no. It's just a Wolfman movie. It's a universal Wolfman movie. So how does that mean but he said that's our one, but that movie was garbage. That movie was so bad. It was garbage. And it was supposed to be like, Hey, I remember they were supposed to make the dark cinematic universe. That was part of that. The Tom Cruise mummy movie. Yeah. Talk about whack. That was real whack. The best, the best werewolf in any movie ever is Van Helsing.
01:10:19
Speaker
All right. You're welcome. Like Hugh, Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing. Yeah. Did you ever watch werewolf by night? Did you watch them see you think? Oh, I didn't know that. That wasn't scary. It's only an hour long. That's spooky. It's also got a cool man thing in it about the man thing. Friend of the show thing. Man thing. Yeah. That's a regular thing. He's man. Not too bad about their means, but all right. Tifring and Chad just brought up. Tifring and Chad just brought up a Dracula and told. I was trying to watch that.
01:10:48
Speaker
That's terrible movie. all bad yeah Orlando Bloom, right? No, that was, uh, I don't think it was Orlando Bloom. It was the guy who, yeah, I think he played like either the human or one of the dwarves in the Hobbit movie. Oh no. Yeah. That's 15 characters. That was it. I believe he played the human. Yeah. Um, I was gonna say shout out to the Hobbit, but no, those movies are bad. but but At least Charles dances in it.
01:11:14
Speaker
love Charles Dance. He's good in any role they put him in. He's great. He's great. He immediately elevates a movie. ah Charles Dance died on a toilet. ah Not in real life. Tyrion Lannister shot him with a bow, crossbow, when he was on his shitter. He deserved it. He did deserve it, but and he was cool.
01:11:34
Speaker
you think you Do you think he shit himself when he got shot? he a while You can't shit yourself when you're on the toilet. It depends on how far along he was. How far was he? Was he mid-shit? Was he pre-shit? He wouldn't have shit himself. He would just shit. Oh, okay. No, you're right. He would not have shit himself. You're right. Yeah. If you're on the toilet, you don't shit yourself. You just shit. Shitting yourself means you've like, shat into some article of clothing of yours, whether it's pants, shorts,
01:12:03
Speaker
Maybe you need a bed. Maybe it's down. No, you shut your bed. If you do that, that's true. Been there. Big, big old bedshitters. Fungus Finder with a $2 Dono. Thank you so much, Fungus Finder. How are you feeling it now, Marty? are i am good I am absolutely feeling it. I was kind of goofy before. I'm absolutely feeling good now. Inverse Skies with a $8 Dono.
Gaming Trends and Unique Content Challenges
01:12:26
Speaker
Thank you so much, Inverse Skies. In the early 90s, pretty much every fighting game was Street Fighter II inspired. Doom Clones was a term for a reason. There will always be Trend Chase. And yeah, completely agree to actually bring it up and put a bow on the topic. ah
01:12:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's nothing new in the AAA space and nothing new in the indie space, but it is just, um, I don't even know if it's necessarily like, it's kind of a bummer because it makes sorting through things tough. However, there is no shortage of cool original shit. It's just sometimes hard to find it at events like Steam Next Fest or just on a digital storefront because so many of the things that are just, oh, it's the popular thing, but different are the ones that bubble up to the top. So.
01:13:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. ah The interesting one for me has been that Delta Force game because weirdly enough, there has been like nobody that has really gone for the battlefield crown. And this game is such a battlefield copy. It blows my mind.
01:13:22
Speaker
ah doesn't have like the destructibility or anything like that. It's more of like Call of Duty meets Battlefield a little bit, but like the like game layout, I guess there is destructibility. I just haven't seen it. Yeah, that clip just made you have to be a liar. Yeah, Eric had to get queued up like a motherfucker.
01:13:38
Speaker
Uh, but the game, like the, the layout of the game with the way you take over points and everything is just battlefield. So I guess if you're waiting for the next battlefield and you want a new battlefield, I guess this hits that fetish, but it's like a genre that I think the indie space it hasn't weirdly hasn't hit. I mean, I think it's one of the, yeah, it's my thing because that genre feels like it needs a lot of money.
01:14:01
Speaker
They're big productions, but like, look at like all the Milsim games that are coming out, like Ready or Not and Ground Branch and all that. Like those games have a lot more depth than most battlefield games would ever have. Yeah, but battlefield is to be big, big explosions. I want to see that money on the screen. Yeah, the depth is like it's that, but condensed, right? Like battlefield is such a big. Thing like. I think that's hard. I think it's. expensive did it And you and you see what it looked like.
01:14:30
Speaker
And then James Morgan with a $2 don't know things was James Among Us style werewolf game that actually exists in VR from Ubisoft werewolves within Oh, yeah which the to to me the game is whatever but ah the the biggest thing about it is it spawned a movie which I still think is the best video game movie ever and Um, it is my favorite movie movie ever is werewolves within it's a, it's a, like a black comedy, uh, but is like genuinely funny. And I highly recommend werewolves within to anyone. Uh, I don't know if it's streaming anywhere, but I just dropped the trailer for it. I love this movie. I've seen it like four times. Yeah. I just looked at steam and found project werewolf.
01:15:10
Speaker
I'm sure that's going to be a good one. Definitely not an asset flip where he's driving. What are the asset flipping? Who's got a werewolf asset? So why aren't they putting in games? I don't know. Who's hoarding werewolf assets?
01:15:22
Speaker
um
Recent Games and Media Experiences
01:15:24
Speaker
what a what what are we before we Before we break for the evening, what have you guys been playing or watching? i I put this in here even before I started robo tripping. I haven't played anything new.
01:15:38
Speaker
And everything I watched that was new. I talked about yesterday on the rewind, so I honestly don't have that much. I'm still finished. I'm still plugging away at Silent Hill 2, which I talked about a little bit earlier. I'm enjoying, but everything is too long, so please just cut everything in half. And I'm slowly making my way again through Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, which I think is delightful.
01:16:00
Speaker
Nice. so everything on my phone Oh, and I watched episode episode two of dented in, which I, hi oh my God. Epsilon two is even better than episode one. I fucking love dented in so much. I can't wait till more of it's out. the in Just watch the, uh, the opening like the the opening. Okay. yeah I'm seeing people keep posting it to Twitter and I keep skipping by it. I'm like, no, I want to experience it all on my own with headphones in full screen. The opening to dented in is so fucking good. It's like and one of the best, uh, anime openings.
01:16:29
Speaker
Ever? Can I say ever? Do you go to jail if you say ever? I mean, I don't know. I've not seen it, so I can't weigh in, but that's high praise. It's got almost 10 million views on YouTube. I'm putting it in here for chat. Chat. Watch this. Yeah, like I keep getting it recommended to me. I keep seeing it on Twitter. I'm like, no, I'm not ready to watch it yet. I don't want to... I don't want to have to wait if I get sucked in and start watching the show. It's tough. Yeah, it's tough. I'm not a big week-to-weeker on anime, but if it means I get to see this opening every week, hell yeah. Yeah, but what about you guys?
01:16:58
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I'm not been playing too much that I can talk about right now either, but I did get started on, uh, Niva, like the, I can't remember what the name of the devs are, but the, the team that didn't know Greece. Yeah. Nomada studio. Nomada studios. Yeah.
01:17:14
Speaker
Yeah, like I started that because honestly, like I really, really like the look like from that I've seen in trails. Like it's just super beautiful art and like you are bombarded with it as soon as the game starts. Like it it got like we got emotions out of me like very quickly because it it's a super high quality, really um stylistic artwork that they use. It's like.
01:17:36
Speaker
big cutscenes and then like the gameplay basically matches the style of those cutscenes exactly. um um So like I was pulled it immediately. But essentially it's like a, you know, ah ah kind of a cinematic-y action, like and action platformer.
01:17:53
Speaker
Um, very minimalist, like there's nothing on the hood. ah For example, uh, you have like a pet dog that's with you or dog like creature that's with you. And some of the platforming stuff involves the dog, not in like the dog helping you, at least not yet. Cause I'm still pretty early in the game, but like certain stuff like, Oh, he'll fail.
01:18:11
Speaker
like hit a jump so yeah you have to like go pet him like nurse him back to help and then like encourage him so that he can like get across a gap that he missed before like help him up if he like comes too short or he'll get trapped somewhere after like fight creatures off to like free him whatever so like they really at the very least in the beginning they really like start selling this bond between you and this, and this creature. Um, and like, I really like it. Like everything is just so well animated and like the music is phenomenal. Yeah. Like I'm all like I've only, I've only played, I want to say like maybe an hour and a half and I already want to search for the soundtrack to just have on the background. Cause like, God, it's good. Like really, really good. Yeah. So I'm really excited to get it. Okay. No, it's going to, it's going to win a war. For sure. For sure. Like,
01:18:58
Speaker
um So yeah, I'm really excited to keep going with it because like it's it's been like really really pleasant so far. I'm hoping um It's no longer than like like four to three or something doubt without giving away Jess whoops is doing our bite sized on it. I edited her script early today and I think I could say she's positive on it and she said it was about four hours and Okay, that's fine, that's perfectly fine. Cuz this sort of thing lives and dies by brevity. like it it's It's hitting you with like very strong impactful emotion. And like you just need to get out of that as soon as you you know hit the points you wanna hit. So yeah I'm really excited to keep playing.
01:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, that'll look so fucking good. I think is I don't I just want to I want to replay Greece before I play this because I haven't played Greece in a long time. Well, since Greece, should I play? it never I never played Greece because it looked too too simplistic gameplay for me. Yeah, that's what I heard about it. Yeah. totally simplistic Yeah. um yeah you probably This feels like more of a game in that from what I've heard us in the in the rude boy definition of game.
01:20:01
Speaker
Not like rude boy like Rihanna. Like Rihanna's rude boy. We need more rude boy likes. But that I think that's all for me. Yeah, I've i've not been watching anything new either. Still go and work my way through a ninja Kamui. Hell, yeah. you know And my and monk monk. Yeah. Yeah. The main thing I've been playing is a driving simulator. I've had to go back to Nebraska so many times, but I'm not simulating anything. You're actually driving. It feels like I'm simulating when you when you get on the highway and it says I have 156 miles in that direction.
01:20:38
Speaker
What do you listen to when you do this? I've been listening to Sacred Symbols quite a bit. they I really like they do something I brought up about possibly doing for our podcast is ah they do a lot of writings at the start. And so like they actually put out a thread before the podcast goes live and people write in. And so they spent like, obviously, we're not going to do a four hour podcast. Those guys are crazy. um But the writings end up leading into some very interesting discussions. ah One of them was like how they once
01:21:11
Speaker
but I heard this story about how ah somewhere there was like an elephant hung somewhere. It was weird. Hung like. Yeah. Hung to death or yeah hung to death. dick And it's like. o
01:21:27
Speaker
i gotta her Mary an Asian and elephant was hanged in Irwin, Tennessee in 1916 after killing her handler Walter Red Eldridge.
01:21:38
Speaker
This is a story I learned about by listening to sacred symbols and it was wild. doing Like squinties, what's going on? It's not a video game podcast. Yeah. Isn't this a video game podcast? They have some interesting writings that hurt my head a lot. But yeah, Tennessee apparently hung an elephant at one point and there's like a not surprised though. Apparently there's a statue in memorance of it out there.
01:22:07
Speaker
in members of the elephant who was wronged or in members of like justice for that elephant. Yeah. But, yeah, no, I've been mostly I've been mostly just because I've been traveling so much, I didn't really have time to get locked into another single player game. I started Silent Hill, too, but we talked about that last week. But I did go back. I have been going back to the finals that game from Embark Studios, which is the kind of game show extraction shooter.
01:22:35
Speaker
and the They just released the fourth season and like the game the game was kind of teetering for the first three seasons like people liked it but like it wasn't like wasn't there yet they hadn't really found their groove and then season four came out and people have been really hyped about it. um So I finally jumped back in and oh man it like I don't know I don't really know what they changed I think the time to kill is a little bit shorter.
01:22:57
Speaker
ah They balance a lot of the weapons and stuff, and it just feels really good to play now. And like I got hooked immediately as like a new competitive game for me to stick with for a while. The new map is a lot of fun. They've they've done some like pretty creative maps with like this Japan inspired one. But this one's going back to like that kind of original style that they had was like kind of mirrors, edgy looking as I was. Yeah.
01:23:22
Speaker
But yeah, I don't again, like I don't really know all what they fixed, but something about the game just feels better than it did when we probably last played it by a long shot. And
FPS Games and Sandbox Variety
01:23:33
Speaker
the player count on that's been pretty much exploding. So. Oh, nice. yeah Yeah. Glad to see that it's. ah You know, not fading away, I always like seeing a kind of a new a new player in the game, be able to stick around. That's like it's good forever. Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of FPS games that are like playing in the background that just don't get the attention on social media like Call of Duty and stuff like that. But the finals, one of them and the other one, I've been playing a lot of again as hell at Loose. I was going back to that game every once in a while. It's ah it's a big time commitment to play one of those matches because they can go on for like an hour. But I don't there is just no other game on the market right now that immerses me like that game does. And so I hadn't played it in a while. They released a Utah like a D Day map a long time ago.
01:24:17
Speaker
um but i haven't i hadn't played it i only played at one time and i was just getting murdered on the beach like you'd expect so ah i kind of dropped it but this time i i stuck with it and the The people that get into the roleplay of that game are fucking hilarious. This guy is running up the hill. He gets his leg blown off. He's just here in the back of my leg. It's so funny. I tried to record. It's a modern day Civil War reenactors instead of going out into a field wearing like wool uniforms. Are you doing this? That's basically what it is. It was like these 40 year old men just screaming at each other. I have to return to my wife.
01:24:56
Speaker
ah It's just such a unique ah unique gaming experience that I feel like you just don't get. I don't know what what filter Eric has on me. I'm looking out of a car. it But oh my seat's facing the wrong way. I'm probably not going to last very long in that car. it's Yeah, it's that game and the in ah the finals are just two of those FPS games like right now, like really delivering um unique gaming FPS experiences again. And it's just like fresh. And that's one of the topics around PACT I want to explore to some point is just like we need the return of like sandbox FPS games again. I feel like they've been so structured, so competitive and not just about fun. And I especially especially thought about that with the, you know, Halo being in the conversation again, like the best days of Halo 2 and 3 are just custom games and fucking around with your friends. Yeah. And there aren't really many games like that anymore that aren't just like, you know, grind to get the skin. I think Halo Infinite is going to going't be the one to do it. ah Yeah. You know, I'm writing that script right now and I totally forgot that they like openly committed to a 10 year plan for that game. That didn't happen. No, I think they hit about two years. I don't think they hit two years.
01:26:13
Speaker
I think yeah I'm trying to find a way to I'm trying to find a way to write and please stop calling your any game infinite. Let's just say F now. What did it launch? Was it to 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20 go like
HBO's The Penguin and Batman Lore
01:26:40
Speaker
you had Thank you. Thank you. And then the final thing I started was ah the penguin on HBO Max last night. You just watched the first episode. so Just first episode, uh, immediately hooked though. Cause they put on that great Batman theme. And as soon as I hear that thing, I'm like, I'm in there. michael giacchino yep But that's a bad theme penguin doesn't get his own theme. He gets his own. time I will say
01:27:05
Speaker
The tone like I was expecting the tone of the show to be dark because it's it's the penguin and all that. It's a crime show. I mean, the pain was not like a serious. You haven't seen this. You haven't seen this version. I know they're going for like a much more gritty thing, but like it like this is like this is like HBO level grit, like dropping F bombs every five minutes and stuff. and ah It like almost feels weird. Swinging pain. Yeah, I'm like, what? is the you absolutely see swenpe Yeah, yeah.
01:27:32
Speaker
I was like, yeah, there's boobs and everything in the first episode. I was like, what is the next Batman going to look like? This is going to be killing some people. The most recent episodes, really good episode for. Yeah, I can't wait to get to it. But.
01:27:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think ah maybe maybe they're taking some inspiration from those College Humor Batman videos for this. No, I promise you they're not open. So you're the only person who's been significantly paying their rent. No, they're taking they're taking inspiration from the Sopranos and the Wire. That's what they speak easy says Logan did it too. But yeah, Logan wasn't like a I mean, it was a sequel, but it was his own thing. Like this is a direct continuation of the Batman movie.
01:28:13
Speaker
And so I'm like really wondering about what the tone of the next Batman is going to be like and how like, it's that it's still, it's not going to like the movie. I'll still be a PG 13. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. It is like would never have been a rated R Batman, right? No, I don't think so on YouTube. Maybe, maybe like some of the animated ones that have come out like a joke or something.
01:28:36
Speaker
I'm going to look that up because like even most of the animated ones I've seen, they're generally pretty tame. Yeah. But maybe it may be killing jokes because that one was a little different. Yeah. No, just like, I don't know. I don't know how this this series is going to end or anything. But if the penguins, you know, breaks up the zoo and he marries a penguin.
01:28:55
Speaker
ah
Reviving Older Console Games
01:28:56
Speaker
That's that was in the Pokemon leaks. Yeah, I was going to say he read the Pokemon lore. He's like, Ozz Cobb breaks into the zoo. I don't like the fact that they changed his last name from Cobblepot to Cobb because they said Cobblepot was unrealistic. Like, listen, listen, guys, you know, who's unrealistic back there. Like, do you still call him the penguin in it? No, like well, it's like a derogatory term because he's like, he's like got a limp and some scars. and Yeah, they show, they show off his foot in the first episode on that, but oh my God, it's gross. Some people got weird feet. i here Judges, a safe place for feet. That, that foot came right out of the Pokemon war.
01:29:35
Speaker
hit ho that over a warning way this is what So killing joke is rated R. yeah Why would you do this? There's no Grand Elf though, no one's a Grand Elf. Last couple of Super Champs before we wrap up. ah Thank you, those feet are much nicer. L-X-S-X-L-L, Jesus, L-X-S-X-L, which is a very hard name to say. With a final note, thank you so much, going back to what we were talking about.
01:30:02
Speaker
I mean, folklore, untold legends, El Shaddai, the PS3 era. I had a ton of unique gems that are underappreciated. I completely agree. I don't know. Fucking bring those. I think maybe when I got all the Tokyo jungle, but yeah, there was, there was just hella, hella great games from that generation that I would love to see make it, make it come back rain. Puppeteer. Yeah. Fucking infamous recently 3d dot heroes. I'd be interested in new prototype.
01:30:31
Speaker
and prototype. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Like tracking guard games that are kind of locked to that generation. So who was most band d studio not and picked up prototype and just made, or just any like that Hulk ultimate destruction. Like just, yeah, I owned this city and I can destroy it. Like
Historical Tangents and Humorous Anecdotes
01:30:46
Speaker
that sort of thing it money. I think like a lot of these genres kind of take a little bit of money. It's easy to make games. They don't cost much. I think it's difficult to make we be honest.
01:30:55
Speaker
Anixia, been in the Green Gang for six months. Thank you so much, Anixia. Happy 11 months, gang. Thanks for everything you do. I feel like you've not been in six months. I don't know why it says six months for me, but happy 11 months to you, Anixia, and for our one-year anniversary, which will be coming up next month. ah Stay tuned to possibly some very exciting events a month from today. We'll have lots of lots of news on that.
01:31:15
Speaker
Uh, fat cock with a $2. No, no. Thank you so much. With a great point. Order 1886 best werewolf game ever. You are not wrong. There were roles in that game. I just assume you didn't play it because yes. I'm still don't mind that game.
01:31:39
Speaker
But the werewolf fight, which is just you clicking the slash button, going around in the circle with the most disappointing thing I've ever faced in a video. You're like, this is the coolest fucking werewolf. And I don't really get to like play a horror game or fight it or anything. Well, and now we're at dawn is gone. They shut down a few months ago. I'll be ready. I don't think.
01:32:00
Speaker
Oh, so anixy the reason it said six months is because the way I handle super chats is I copy and then I paste them in a doc and I paste them by like right clicking and removing all like the the formatting and everything and for some reason It pasted the number of months in your symbol. It's very strange. Anyways, you're very, we're you're you're wonderful. ah James Morgan with the $2 don't know. Thank you so much. Look up top. See the elephant. Edison was a jerk. So I know about this elephant. This elephant was electrocuted at like a world's fair. I've heard hashtag Edison might not have been involved in it and it was a beast merchant campaign.
01:32:38
Speaker
I don't know. I'm not, maybe I'm in the pocket of big Nikola Tesla, but I'm not here to listen. yeah it was excellenton big tesla between yeah i mean because Tesla wanted like free electricity for everyone. And Edison was charging folks. Yeah. Yeah. yeah like Electrifying an elephant and hanging. one the boom but they're but They're both bad. The electric the elephant got like electrocuted in front of like a crowd. Like that was bad.
01:33:05
Speaker
I'm pretty sure they only got hung in front of the crowd. Yeah, probably. so they Back then in Game of Thrones times, I used to live right by. I'm sorry. Oh, no. Sorry. I was just yelling. He had Bill crawls his name. i was I would say I used to live right up the street from the Edison Museum, but never once went in. So I cannot verify if that's in there. Do you think people ever drive their Teslas into it? They should. Freedom him for Nikolai. Is he in jail?
01:33:34
Speaker
He played Tesla and he was super- He said freedom for dick like from the crypt. I'm not sure why he said that. I'm not sure why he said that. No, I don't think he was ever arrested. Ebel Corral has been a member for 11 months. The Bing gang, thank you so much. Congrats on the 11th anniversary, guys. Thank you so much, Ebel and Eric. Been a member for 11 months. Yeah, 11 months is if I did for being a member, but I really wanted the emotes.
01:33:54
Speaker
You know what? you like you knows where We forgive you there. And that does it for us ah for this episode of ah Firelink. Casey, what do you got going on? What should what should folks check out? You and I will be back tomorrow evening, 7 PM Central for more Metroid Prime. yeah Absolutely.
01:34:12
Speaker
I'm going to watch at the very end of the last stream because I wanted us to remember and I don't remember them, but I'll watch the end of that stream. So I will remember it. That's a good tactic though, to just say stuff at the end of streams and and watch the same with Jameet's residential seven stream tomorrow. I did the same thing at the end. I said, this is what we need to do next week. X, Y, and Z. Okay. And I'm just going to watch that. Oh my God. That's great. That's all smart. it's goods Good idea. Uh, yeah. Ask for me. You can find me all over the internet. at Sigma gears nine. Um,
01:34:39
Speaker
What is going on this week? ah You know, regular streams, I don't think I have any video content coming out soon, but next week you might get some bite sized reviews from me, as well as maybe our completed next fest video, which I think I'll be handling the edit on. ah So just keep an eye out for that. Of course, new adventure is not new, but remastered adventures now on the weekend.
01:35:03
Speaker
ah Me and my fiance playing Dredge on Friday nights, as well as Super Smash Sunday on Sundays. Last Sunday was a whole lot of fun. You guys missed that. We talked about Stella Snake having braids. It was a great time. ah So join us for that stuff. Cultural appropriate. like jamaan goods kind of pretty Pretty much.
01:35:23
Speaker
It was a fun time. um but But yeah, I think that's it for me. What do you guys got? I'm just thinking about Sal's thing with Prince. Next week, I'll have a new episode of Unpacked Up going over the Halo Studios news, which, by the way, their their new logo, real bad. But I haven't seen it. Oh, it's it's I don't really I really don't like it.
01:35:43
Speaker
But anyways, lots of interesting stuff there. If you like the Ubisoft video kind of going over how they got there and where they're going next and all that, I'll be covering that quite a bit. And then this Saturday, we are going to be doing either we'll be doing a game night stream. It may be during the day because Jamie and Jesse, Jess will be there. Just whoops. But we'll be playing. We'll be playing that game. This game has been kind of going viral lately called Liars Bar.
01:36:08
Speaker
Uh, so this should be a good time. I know Eric really enjoys it. So Eric might be there too. TV's Eric. Yeah. Oh, and then next week on Tuesday night, uh, I'll be doing my horror game play through starting up that new, uh, quiet plays game, which I'm very concerned about now because it comes out in two days and no reviews have come out. And yeah, it's probably gonna be a piece of shit. yeah If it's a piece of shit, we'll probably still play it and we'll see. That'd be fun.
01:36:35
Speaker
There you go. ah Yeah. Then just the streams I mentioned, we got a Resi 7 at noon tomorrow, a Metroid at 7 p.m. And then at noon on Friday, ah Tina, Jamaite, and Jess will be streaming a little bit of Night in the Woods, which is like Halloween at Jason. It's got cozy out October vibes. it Sounds Halloweeny.
01:36:53
Speaker
It is. that's Yeah, one of the scariest situations to find yourself in is being in a night in the woods. Yeah. ah And then before you wrap up, Darwin's dummy, you've been a member for 11 months as well. This must be just the 11 months, like the day, 11 months from the day that we turned the shit on. I guess. Marty discovered, quote, notes, give this man a note. The problem was I didn't take the notes. I just verbalized the notes. I'll have to remember to go back to the ends of the stream. Yeah, it is that as it is actually worse than just writing notes.
01:37:20
Speaker
I made a huge mistake. ah so Thank you all so much for for joining us today for this episode. If you are are watching live, if you will watch the VOD on YouTube, listening to any podcast service of choice, we we always appreciate you tuning in, especially when we're feeling a little under the weather and we just devolved into the death of several elephants. R.I.P. R.I.P. Topsy and whatever the name of Nick's dead elephant was. So for Nick, Casey, and Eric, this was Marty. This was Firelink episode number 41. Thank you all so much. Have a wonderful rest of your Wednesdays, and we'll see you all soon. Bye, y'all. elephant was known as Murderous Mary. Well, it sounds like she had it coming. It was just Mary. Don't besmirch the name of a dead elephant. Mughal and his murder.