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S3 Ep196: Less Than Two
74 Plays4 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk, explore, and reminisce about the games they never quite got to in this week's episode!
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Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
Morning Routines and Busy Weeks
00:00:56
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Serpstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going today, Dave? It's going good. How are you doing?
00:01:06
Speaker
I'm doing pretty well. I woke up early this morning, which is weird. Yeah. It's like we're recording this at one and I expect the JX Invest to be at one and be like, hey, I got to shower and eat. I'm going to hit you up at like 2.30. Right? The alarm goes off at 1 PM. I roll out of it.
00:01:30
Speaker
vaguely remember that I need to record a podcast. No, today's
Childhood Games and Jim Carrey References
00:01:33
Speaker
not that day. I was very busy this week and really tired, so I went to sleep like 10 to 30 or something like that. It was pretty early. I've gone to bed that early once, but
00:01:46
Speaker
There were multiple factors in my body that caused that to happen. You just got to build up of sleep. Yeah. Sleep out of your body. Pulls like sleep darts out of neck. What does it come from? Statistically, Jim Carrey. Oh, yeah. From all of the Ace Ventura. That's what I should remember. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:14
Speaker
That's a reference for people. I'm sure that kids these days really get that one outside of like that movie Jumanji and I'm gonna say Tim Allen's jungle to jungle. Where do you really see blow darts? All right
00:02:30
Speaker
That's a good question. Not that often. But it's a fun
Steam Games and Playtime Habits
00:02:34
Speaker
concept. Like I remember taking the inner tube of the paper towel, that little cardboard tube, and going...
00:02:45
Speaker
around the house. My parents are like, hey, he's entertained, leave him be. I guess like the childhood equivalent is something like spit balls with like some sort of paper. Right. And that cardboard tube that is, you know, like two inches in diameter.
00:03:03
Speaker
I took a separate roll of paper towels for me to make a spitball that big and then I just kind of like dribbled out and fell on the ground. So you used actual darts then you were just killing people and your parents and like boys will be boys? Mother, father, I brought home dinner. It is the neighbors. Localized hunting. Oh, man.
00:03:30
Speaker
I don't know why, but my brain went to like some, I don't know. I haven't seen ads in forever online, but there's got to be sketchy ads or it's like meet people in your area. And then it's like, you know, um, I'm imagining it's like, Oh, you know, couples, whatever. And then there's the blow dart experience. It's like now meet singles in your area. That's the joke is it goes from like multiple people down to meet singles for the purpose of hunting. But like.
00:03:59
Speaker
I can't really set it up. This is another joke where there's a punch line and so nothing between A and B when you started it, I was like, Oh, um,
00:04:09
Speaker
You said meet people in your area. I was like, no, no, no. People meet in your area. Right. People. It's there. Just walking around. You can take it. Yeah. But I have not personally had any experiences with blow ducts. Or cannibalism.
Gaming Standards and Backlogs
00:04:26
Speaker
Or murder or cannibalism on the record. So.
00:04:33
Speaker
This episode we're going to be talking about games that we've barely played, particularly games that have less than two hours of playtime on Steam, which you would think would narrow things down. But as somebody who's bought a humble bundle or just
00:04:51
Speaker
you know, purchase stuff like, Oh, I'll check that out later. That seems small and cute. Definitely gonna, definitely gonna check that out. And then you go back to playing Skyrim or like whatever your forever game is. It's the weekend. I want to play what I know. I don't want to try new shit. And it's years later and now we have a fucking list.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's very much like, I think we've touched on this topic a little bit in the past when we talk about like, not really playing, even our somewhat recent episode, like the year in preview, we were like, there's a couple games we're kind of interested in, still very excited for Elden Ring, you know, still some good stuff coming out, Forbidden West, all that, but it seems like the bar moves ever higher, higher?
00:05:39
Speaker
lower. It depends on whether you clear the bar, you're going above or under the bar. Anyways. Higher meaning, higher standards. Yes. Higher standards. The standards go higher and higher till like actually get play time on one of the games, one of these games. Um, but the simple, uh, steam wallet brain does not process that. And so I continue to purchase games that I will probably never play.
00:06:07
Speaker
And that's basically this episode where sometimes we're gifted games, which I will never play.
LAN Parties and Game Preferences
00:06:13
Speaker
Um, which I will never play. Right. Thank you for the games given by the way. I mean, I still, this is physical media, but like I have a game of Jake's and Jake probably has a game of mine that we have both not played guaranteed.
00:06:28
Speaker
You just look at it in the library and it's like, it's nice that somebody thought of me and they just scroll back up and watch Skyrim again or something else. But yeah, this is I would say definitely something that everybody can relate to if you play games and you have a Steam library. So let's let's get right into it.
00:06:48
Speaker
Yeah, let's get into it. Also, don't be too offended if some of these games you're very much a fan of. Maybe we could be too, but just not in this timeline. So hold your rage, bottle that up and then use it to accomplish non-murder things later. Unless it's a game that I mentioned and in which case let it fester and fight me. Yeah.
00:07:12
Speaker
That'll be the next episode. I would just bring on fans to just really chew on today about the games he hasn't played. So getting started off here, this is pretty pretty early in the alphabet, I think this is on both of our lists, and I think it's a reason it's worth mentioning, but you have deceit.
00:07:30
Speaker
Yeah. Do you remember anything about this heat? No, because I installed it on multiple occasions and never launched it because each time was promised of, Hey, we should play that game. And then nobody played that game. And I was like, okay, cool. But I think the premise is, is a hidden role game, first person, maybe some combat and objective type stuff.
00:07:53
Speaker
I don't really know too much about it because, again, never launched it. So this is one where I think it's free. Yes. But just scheduling with people never worked out. So. Yeah, I think it's a land party black sheep is basically what it is. It's one of those games that's like it's free. It meets all the criteria of a game you would play at land party. Yeah. But land party is also having this like bar of standards increase. It's not really standards in this case, but it's more like
00:08:20
Speaker
We just play fewer games at LAN party. We focus in on fewer games. We're playing fewer games every year, spending more time with old classics or things that we're comfortable with or just socializing, which is fine. Yeah, it's usually been more socialization, a couple smaller tournaments. I will mention for Deceit though,
00:08:41
Speaker
to describe it to the people, because I played it briefly. It's basically like Among Us Plus, sort of. It's first person, more like a shooter, more mechanics around trying to determine who's the murderer and who's not. And then more of a lights on, lights off.
00:08:59
Speaker
survivor favored phase and then killer favored phase, where during the killer phase, if you transform when no one's looking at you, potentially no one will know who the monster is. Right. So it kind of has this back and forth. It has some unique takes on it. And it's it's still the kind of game I think I was one of the ones to recommend it to land party. It's still one of the kind of games I would love to play. But inertia is a difficult foe to best.
Nostalgia and Old Games
00:09:30
Speaker
I'm just gonna blanket agree with that cuz uh, I played the game What else you got I picked one
00:09:37
Speaker
Uh, I'm going to say sacrifice. Okay. Sacrifice is like a very old RTS and it was very cheap and it looked cool. And I saw that Tim Curry was involved as a voice actor and I'm like, hell yeah, launched the game. It's old as fuck. Like, you know, when you launch something, you're like, this is more dated than I had expected. And it opens up like DOS briefly or what's up. So for me, it's just, it's too old for me to go back. Yeah.
00:10:07
Speaker
I have some stuff on my list that's like this too. Mandalore's actually, you probably saw the video, but he has a video on sacrifice and it falls under one of those games that is actually, I feel it's better appreciated from someone else's review or nostalgic experience of it.
00:10:24
Speaker
I enjoyed watching the video, and I feel like I never have to play the game again. He highlighted the parts that he thought were important, and like, OK, that's what Mainlord thinks. I'm down. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think I have some games on this, too. I don't feel like I need them to cover a lot. I have old XCOM games, or games that were Fallout 1 and 2. They came from these bundles. And it's just really hard to go back to those old games and play them if, like,
00:10:53
Speaker
Yes, new games are casual. Yes, they have things like checkpoints and regenerating health and all of these other autosaves. Very freaking nice. Ian could tell you that. He lost like an hour of progress in Bioshock 2 recently. But without it, it does wear on you a little bit, particularly if you're not spending a ton of time playing the game.
00:11:21
Speaker
These all kind of fall under that. Old games are hit or miss. You give them more lenience, I think, if you played them back in the day. And if you've never played a game like Sacrifice, like, yeah, kind of good luck going back to it. It's got to be a very specific mood, I think. Yeah, it's.
00:11:40
Speaker
Jake summarized it well, not going to rehash it. All right, I'm going to pick from Dust on your list because this one was funny. It's one that I played, I think, and beat a long time ago. Really? Yeah. I, again, thought it looked interesting enough, played it for like five minutes, didn't hit me in the moment and then just kind of left it.
00:12:04
Speaker
Just like the shortest overview, it's a God game. You pick up different elements, you drop them, you try to indirectly influence your tribe. God games are kind of rare nowadays. Have you ever played a God genre game before?
00:12:22
Speaker
does a big smile like he hasn't done a black and white edit. Yeah. Did we cover black and white? We talked about it, not as a specific episode, but we did enough to justify me putting in the ship song. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's one of the more standout ones. This is also early PC game days where CD-ROM was the big thing. Yeah.
00:12:47
Speaker
They don't really come up as much because like you said, it's more indirect influencing versus more direct gameplay, which I think is more so the focus of games. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like if it turns into full direct game, then it's actually an RTS, which is also dying. So I think just games in this, this sphere of game development are kind of less popular now, but.
00:13:11
Speaker
I also like I enjoyed it. So good. I like this back and forth of like you pick a game from my list like hey, why didn't you play this? Aha.
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah. I'm sure there's going to be a little bit of that. There's some stuff on my list. I know you're going to be like raise eyebrows, but yeah, um, from dust was good. If I recall correctly, one of the main selling points at the time though, was that the graphics were like absolutely amazing. Um, and they're not really absolutely amazing anymore. So it doesn't have the staying power of some of those classics like black and white, I think.
00:13:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's just some nostalgia around that for sure that helps carry it. Well, from, from my list, maybe. All right. One that makes me curious dead cells.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't get into dead cells. So like, I only played it really early, very briefly. Cause I mean, it had to be under two hours, right? To make it to this list as a painful reminder to the listeners. Uh, if you really like dead cells, um, I just, I dunno, didn't take off for me. Yeah. I know you've said that like historically Hollow Knight's really the only platformer you've gotten into, which is fair. It's the best one. Um,
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, like I enjoy it really is dead cells. I know that added more stuff since I think I went back recently, but no judgment if it's not your thing. It's not usually mine either. Yeah, I think it's the combination of the platforming and the the rogue like like those are both two genres I will play, but they have to they have to contrast contrast with something that I really want.
00:14:50
Speaker
OK, let's see here. I actually see rage on your list, which is when I hadn't highlighted from our notes. But why did you pick up rage? It was free or insanely cheap. And I was like, I don't know anything about it, but I think it's first person shooter, right? Yes. Let's go. Maybe one day I will. And then I just never did. Yeah, absolutely never did.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely think that's going to be a criteria for some of these games. I think I recall very little about Rage other than I think it was made by id. And they had a super sampling technology that allowed the game to look pretty good or load really fast or something like that. But it was middling across the board, I think. There are so many generic kind of shooters out there that never really reached greatness that it would
00:15:47
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah. It would fill a library of steam games and something like that. That is presumably single player. Um, like on a Saturday morning or like Sunday morning, like nobody else is awake yet. I want to kind of unwind play a game, getting like a
Steam Lists and Game Purchases
00:16:04
Speaker
single player experience. It's something that's going to be more story driven and it's not just like generic Rudy Tutti McShooty. Yes. So kind of got overlooked. Yeah.
00:16:16
Speaker
Do you have one you'd like to talk about my list or list? I am kind of curious that Stanley parable is on there because yeah, I've definitely played it for more than two hours as far as content that it has this surprise me because I'm pretty sure I got an ending for the game and I This is one of those fake memory more moments where I thought I played the game more But I wonder going back if I had a pretty direct route
00:16:44
Speaker
I mean, I would say it's possible to get a lot of the stuff in two hours. Yeah. Cause like the first run of the game is maybe five minutes. I guess that's true. Yeah. So that must've been what it was. I really thought that I had more time into it, but I guess not.
00:17:02
Speaker
Cause I enjoyed it. So mine said like 29.2. Now granted 29.2 hours. I definitely left this game running at points, which I'm known to do. I won't just turn stuff off and walk away after the game. It'll be fine.
00:17:19
Speaker
So I'm guessing that's how it might have skewed so far. I hope so. Or else I just like lied about playing the game when we did an episode on it. But I don't recall that. That actually wasn't you for that episode. That was our your surrogate. I have my body double I put in here. I want this body double to have a language module and has played Stanley Parable. That's fair.
00:17:47
Speaker
There's a couple on your list still pretty interesting to me. So FTL is kind of, I don't know if you've ever described the situation around FTL. I think we have. I'm fine rehashing it.
Multiplayer Games and Social Dynamics
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah. I've never had an interest in FTL in my life. I've been known to like a lot of roguelikes. So a friend suggested FTL because they like space stuff. They're like, oh, you like roguelikes. You'll love this.
00:18:15
Speaker
I think I played it for like two minutes tops. It wasn't for me because the level of management or things you got to do, it just wasn't it for me. Music was good. Shout out to Ben Prunty, I think. But I just have had no interest and now I refuse to play it out of spite and it's been an ongoing thing.
00:18:39
Speaker
Yeah, this is one of the biggest differences, I think. So it's basically a meme at this point. AJ really wants you to play FTL. I think we used it as an April Fool's joke. We did. And I, again, don't really like roguelikes that much, but I put some time into FTL. There's only a few things about the game that really bother me.
00:18:57
Speaker
And it's really freaking good. And I still kind of can't understand. I feel like maybe you would actually enjoy it, but I also enjoy it being the meme of the game you won't play more than I would enjoy if you actually played it. It's like, you know how you'll have things come up on your Spotify recommended of like, hey, based on other things, you'd like this.
00:19:21
Speaker
And you're like, I don't like this. I don't know what it is, but I don't like it. That's how it is for me. It might have some of the other elements that I would like or can appreciate, but it just it doesn't do it for me. Right. It's like the games that Steam recommends to you after you've played games that Ian has bought you. Yeah, exactly. It's like I like one of these, not all of these. All of these being tentacles, not games. Right.
00:19:48
Speaker
So it says here Crusaders Kings three. You've played under two hours. Yeah, I played a ton of two, but not okay. That might be why. So why did you not play as much of three if assuming that like it built on the existing game structure? I think like it's literally just I don't know. It's the kind of game that like
00:20:15
Speaker
you can kind of lose yourself in for like a period of time and then just drop it entirely if that makes any sense. It's not like Dota or Starcraft or some other game like we go back to a lot. It's a game you put a ton of time in and then just like quit cold turkey one day. And then, you know, maybe eventually you do that again.
00:20:36
Speaker
Um, but it, I haven't had one of those subsumed in it type experiences with it, but I enjoyed the second game so much. I was like, absolutely got to play three. Um, and then I really have it. It happens. Like for me, that is Skyrim. Like I can easily get into like a binge of like, I'm doing RPG shit. And then you don't play for day. And it's like, Hey, we're gonna play today. Not that. Uh-huh.
00:21:04
Speaker
Like once you come
Narrative Games and Playtime Decisions
00:21:05
Speaker
out of the haze, you're like, I'm good.
00:21:07
Speaker
There's, Steam has this little feature, like you right click the, it down in the tray and it'll show you like the last five games you played. And sometimes if a game falls off that list, it ceases to exist. Basically like I will forget about it. Object permanence type situation, where even if it's the type of game I would play, it's out. So that's why Crusader Kings, I think fell off, um, more anticipated value than realized value as far as playtime was concerned.
00:21:39
Speaker
On your list, this is another game that I actually played and beat. So I'm curious why you haven't put a lot of time into sleeping dogs.
00:21:50
Speaker
game shit. Um, this is another one of those either. I remember how I got it, but it was probably inexpensive to purchase. Um, but it felt very old and janky to the point where like, I didn't want to push through it for whatever possible story. Gotcha. I'm like, you, these Shenmue days are behind me, sir. Good day. Good day.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's I personally think it's more approachable than Shenmue, but if people are familiar with like the Yakuza series, this is kind of just a more serious Grand Theft Auto we take on Yakuza. And it's not just because they're two games. They're like, oh, yeah, in Japan, that's not the equivalent I'm trying to make. It is just more serious in tone and close you to like Grand Theft Auto when it tries to take it all seriously.
00:22:45
Speaker
But I didn't really play Grand Theft Auto and I really enjoyed Sleeping Dogs. When did you play it? Out of curiosity.
00:22:52
Speaker
I would have to look up, but probably like six years ago. It's been a while. I was gonna say more. It might seem more acceptable in my head if it's like, hey, I played it when it came out type thing. I enjoyed it. Cool. Nine years. All right. We'll say that's enough of a gap. Almost a decade. Maybe my opinions would have changed if I played it more recently.
00:23:20
Speaker
Anything else on my list that stands out to you? I'm looking for something that's not like, oh, it's just less than two hours to play. Oh. How about Marlow Briggs? Marlow Briggs, also on your list. Yeah, I mean, so this is a game I bought Dave as a punishment for being my friend. And I think we literally played it for exactly one session. I don't even remember much about it.
00:23:49
Speaker
I think this was when I was streaming games. Like I'd play through like, uh, the soccer stuff also less than two hours. Um, and I just played this for like 10, 15 minutes and I was like, yeah, I'm, I'm not drunk enough for this. It was basically like a not good entirely marketing FPS.
00:24:15
Speaker
Think like 50 cent blood on the sand, but worse. I'll be honest, I could be confused all the time. Cause in my eyes, exactly the same. Yeah. No, this is, this is also just a historical historical placement here. I actually have a very equivalent for this. That's not on your list, but I know it could be. Um, and shadow warrior two.
00:24:40
Speaker
which was another like, I'm going to buy this for a group of friends and force them to play it for exactly one session. Yeah, we we didn't get to. I could not tell you anything about the game. Yeah, there's a sword. I think I think I had a double jump and I remember nothing else. Mm hmm. It had like an irreverent sense of humor. I vaguely remember. Yeah, exactly. We played it like once and then it just fell off the face of the earth.
00:25:10
Speaker
Certain things like that I feel like very much have to be like at the right time. If it's multiplayer, like with the right group of people, cool. It can take off and be a time. Otherwise you're just like, the fuck is this? I think we had three people. I think it's a three player co-op game. I can't recall who the third person was. I think Dan. Probably Dan, yeah.
00:25:30
Speaker
It's really funny because that's the type of like the way we're describing these games is it's like The salesperson like approach you really got to sell yourself It's like the three episode rule for an anime or something like that, right? Like watch a couple anime episodes It either catches your attention or it doesn't and then you move on to something else but we're literally taking that approach to games that we have already purchased with legal currency and
00:25:54
Speaker
So it's like, it's really funny. Okay, now that I've bought this thing, it's just going to sit around forever because I didn't like it after. And to the person saying, it was under two hours, why didn't you refund it on Steam? Shut up. You know, that's not how that works. Yeah, it's not how it used to work. Probably most of these titles.
00:26:13
Speaker
It's maybe not all it's a case-by-case basis, but the criteria are it has to be under two hours of play time But a lot of times it doesn't also speak like within two weeks Yes. Yeah, cuz sometimes like I've I think I bought Mighty number nine played it for like 10 minutes cried like a an anime phantom prom night and then tried to refund it and they're like that was like two weeks ago and I'm like I
00:26:39
Speaker
I forgot. We don't care. I blocked it out.
Nostalgia and Unplayed Classics
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, for some of these games, they're literally, they're literally so old that they were prior to Steam's refund policy also. So like, I think I started up, I want to say four years ago, maybe five years. There's some old stuff on this list. I don't even remember anymore. But that was my combo. What's your next item?
00:27:07
Speaker
I saw it and then I lost it. That's two seconds here. Thomas was alone. That's fair. I don't know anything about that. Oh, so basically it's like you are a Tetris piece and you move around and do essentially simple puzzles while there's like narration going on. But the story is actually good and engaging from my point of view in the same way I enjoyed
00:27:38
Speaker
I always forget the name of this, but it's like you're playing. I never forget the name of that. Um, basically like it's another like first person puzzle game and you're trying to solve it, but you're also, there's this inner dialogue of like you talking about a friend who made these games. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Like there's a meta it's commentary going on.
00:28:06
Speaker
I can tell I'm going to buy it. I'm not going to find it easily. So I'll leave it. But yeah, it's definitely more story based. But if you enjoy puzzle stuff, it was engaging for me. But like, I don't think anybody needs to check it out type thing. Yeah, I'm pretty sure this was fully unplayed on my list. That's fair. Another one up here, Farming Simulator 19. I definitely passed two hours of gameplay on this one making it ineligible.
00:28:36
Speaker
I think I was on Discord while you passed two hours of gameplay. So to throw people under the tractor again, this was a game that we're like, oh, I think Gennaro bought all three copies. It's like, oh, we'll play together. And then I think I had plans on a Saturday. I was going to go hang out with a friend or something. And I come back and they've been playing it for four hours.
00:29:00
Speaker
And I was like, uh, okay, cool. Glad that you did that without me. And just without saying, should I start playing now to catch up? And they're like, no, not really played for like another two days. And they're like, Hey, let's have an episode on this game. You've not played or know anything about like, all right, I'll be that third person.
00:29:19
Speaker
The way you describe it makes it sound really bad. I think we were still kind of doing you a mercy, right? It's like if you have two people who are in detention and they could rat out the third person who would then also be in detention, technically, yes, they are excluding that person if they don't rat them out and bring them into detention.
00:29:41
Speaker
That's kind of what we were doing. Like we were looking for some redeeming aspects to the gameplay and trying out different facets of it. And it was like, nope, nope, nope. That's kind of OK. Dave would enjoy none of this. So when you're like, don't play the game, it's like, have a weekend, Dave. Go be free. We'll look at you outside the window. As we usually do. Jake, you don't you don't live near me.
00:30:12
Speaker
Thanks to modern advancements in surveillance technology. It's always been on.
Game Appeal and Interest Levels
00:30:21
Speaker
But yeah, um, farming simulator in 18 place in farm. That's my recommendation. If you're thinking about farming simulator in 18, unless you're really, really into farming simulator, in which case I respect your opinion and please don't murder me.
00:30:37
Speaker
I don't have an interest in farming games. Also no bad blood for the thing. It's more just the fake outrage. That's fair. Speaking of fake blood. Okay. Oh, I was going to throw killing floor up there. Oh, gosh, your killing floor is fair. Yeah, you have less than two hours on killing floor. How? Never played it.
00:31:00
Speaker
Oh, okay. That makes sense. This one's not free though. So someone must have gifted it to you or you purchased it at some point. I'm going to credit Stevie for probably purchasing it to me. I don't think it was terribly expensive. So hopefully you didn't dig out the wallet for that. They had like a six pack deal on killing floor. I feel like it was probably like 10 bucks or something. Per copy. It was very expensive for all of it.
00:31:27
Speaker
But yeah, it's just it's one of those. Hey, maybe we'll do this as a group with people sometime. Just never happened. That's fair. Yeah. I played Kelly and Floyd like a lot for a brief period of time. It's got some nice like.
00:31:43
Speaker
per class meta progression as well as like progression within a match and they do the whole like counter strike, buy better guns between rounds, horde defense. It's basically that all the way. Like role-based, horde defense, zombies. It ticks a lot of boxes and I think that's what made it really enjoyable for the time.
00:32:05
Speaker
I actually I don't know if I own it or not, but I was very close to buying Killing Floor 2 or I own it. I'm going to check. No, never bought it. And it was very inexpensive at a time because I was like, it needs a group going back to what you said. If you don't have the people for it, even like the newer version that looks really pretty and it's got improved graphics and all that, like. You have to have a group of friends.
00:32:35
Speaker
If you don't, you can't play games. Not this one. It's like playing with randoms. It's a six-person co-op game, which is also really weird. It's hard to get that many people in for something. Yeah, Overwatch is weird like that. But no, it's definitely the people you play with overall. That's 1v11.
00:32:55
Speaker
It's definitely more fun if you have people making it fun. Like I played lots of shit games that just because I had people I liked there making entertaining, it was entertaining. Whereas I played games I've enjoyed with people who've made it less fun. So I can go both ways. But it's all around the people you surround yourself with. That's just good life advice. I have on my list Rogue Legacy.
00:33:25
Speaker
Get the fuck out. Seriously? Yeah.
00:33:29
Speaker
So, all right, brief history lesson. We all played Rogue Legacy to some degree more than others. Clearly. But Jake, back when we used to work together, would consistently on I think it was either Monday or Tuesday mornings at like 10 a.m. link a song from the game. So maybe I'm just projecting that memory of like, oh, he definitely played the game a lot and beat it because he's like, this song is such a banging track.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think the song plays at the conclusion of the game, which I never reached. So why'd you... Was it the fish and the whale or something? I think that's the name of the song, yeah. Anytime somebody says, is it something and then like whales in that sentence? I'm like, that sounds correct. Yes, that one has the whale. So what made you stop short on Rogue Legacy? I think it's just, it's the exact same combination. Like take the exact rationale for Dead Cells, apply it to Rogue Legacy.
00:34:26
Speaker
I know they did some cool things like the Descendants play idea thing. It's like, oh, this person has some downsides. This person has some upsides. There's different classes and options and meta progression. All of that's cool, but it was still a platformer roguelike. And the most traditional platformer roguelike you can get, I think. Oh, yeah. It's pretty bare bones, but it was like cute and fun. But again, if it's not for you, I'm not passing judgment.
00:34:55
Speaker
Yeah. This one's very close to like rogue, like rogue, like, but like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, or like, like, yeah. Like love. Very close. All right. Hit me. All right. Um, I forgot that I actually wasn't the one to pick. Wait, didn't I pick?
00:35:19
Speaker
Rogue Legacy? I did. I absolutely picked it. I'll pick the next one though. The ship single player is on my list. Is it on your list? I didn't even consider the ship a game. It's probably hidden from my library because every time somebody suggests it, I'm like, Jesus fuck, why?
00:35:34
Speaker
It is for anybody who doesn't know the most jank quote unquote hidden role game and people seem to love it for land party because of how jank it is. I find the entire thing utterly frustrating and there's no enjoyment from it. Everything feels chaotic and randomized. Yeah.
00:35:59
Speaker
So I didn't, then I explicitly put the single player one on here. Right. I assume it's the same thing. Yeah, I think that's probably the case, but they're probably way better than players because we only played at land party like twice. Yeah. What's one for you? Scrolling back down through the list.
00:36:27
Speaker
Disco Elysium for audience awareness. I have a ton on my list. Disco Elysium is probably going to hurt people. I will say I don't care because I haven't played it. But people who have played it, they've really enjoyed it. Yeah.
00:36:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think Disco Elysium is type of game that if I like if I was on vacation or something, I'd probably get immersed in it. Amazingly, French Justin and Ian have a lot of really good things to say about it. They've played it a ton. It's like super intellectual, super traditional role playing. Super immersive type game, but it's just so dense, I want to say.
00:37:11
Speaker
It's hard to play it casually. It's hard to just pick up the game at the end of the workday and be like, yep, this is what I'm going to do. So that's the main reason I haven't really put time into it. That's fair.
00:37:29
Speaker
Usually with stuff like that, for me personally, I will avoid buying something like that unless I'm like, oh, we're doing it today. If I get in that mood of we're going to do it, I'll just do it. Otherwise, I'd be like, eh, I can wait. Because I'm very afraid of bigger games like that. I purchase, and then if it just sits, I'm like, fuck.
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's I don't know. It's kind of a tragedy because it's like I know I could potentially enjoy it. It's just the effort to commit to it. It's like picking up a Final Fantasy game or a JRPG or something like that. You know, it's a lot.
00:38:06
Speaker
What you gotta do is bribe me into trick jig into making an episode and then I'll have to play it. Right. I've done this in reverse and that's how we got Cyberpunk on the dock at the one time. Yeah. The Long Dark is on your list.
00:38:23
Speaker
This is something that we definitely played with people. I don't think we played it too, too much because it got kind of repetitive quick, but it is a first person winter survival. There's occasionally some single player. Nope. I'm pretty sure the long dark is single player. Are we thinking of different games? I think you're thinking of a different game. Is long dark different from the long dark? No.
00:38:53
Speaker
I think it belonged to a single player.
00:38:59
Speaker
We definitely played at the same time with people. We did. Yes, you are correct. We picked this up at the same time and played single player individually. That seems wrong and bad. Right. Well, to like loosen the rope around Dave's neck on this one, these are all games we played less than two hours or barely played. So also probably been a while.
00:39:27
Speaker
All right. So I remember us playing it at the same time, single player, like trying to like look for each other. Maybe it was more of a, um,
00:39:37
Speaker
Sean Murray situation than we realized. But the game was just very unforgiving. It wasn't very interesting. Like you're just constantly burning calories. You had to like find food or kill stuff and you just never really had the right stuff for it. And then one time we made it really far and then died after anyways. And it's just like, what was the end game? What was the enjoyment? And it just wasn't there for us. Yeah.
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah, this is this one's interesting to me because so I played it in 2015. So this is seven years ago that we played is probably the reason not really sure whether we played it together or not distant memories. But the game has been in development essentially since then I have have occasionally seen like patches and things added to it. And it looked kind of compelling.
00:40:31
Speaker
But you described it well. It's a game that's going to kill you over and over and over again until you literally get good enough at the game. And we hate games that do that. We hate games that kill you and make you get good. So this is enough for us. All right. We haven't even reviewed any of the games we talked about up to this point. And then it's like Long Dark is two out of five.
00:40:57
Speaker
But yeah, I still think that game has potential, but I don't know. If I want to be desperate and desolate and alone, I can just like sit in the corner. Yeah. Not now, wife, turn off the lights. Armello. This one I played with you and I think a group of people, probably Rachel, Justin, perhaps. That was a group.
00:41:26
Speaker
Yeah, I remember this is the furry board game. Yeah, it was. Mechanically, I don't remember a lot about it.
00:41:40
Speaker
I think there were victory points. I can fill in some blanks from my scattered memories. Yeah. Basically, you had different furry characters you could play as. They all had different bonuses or things that they were good at. But it was a big, hex tile map, kind of like a board game. And you could do different stuff with your action points, moving, doing a quest.
00:42:02
Speaker
But it seemed that the character that Justin picked, like we all kind of picked randomly, that was more combat focused was crushing all of the objectives, fucking with all of our stuff really heavily. And then our things like we do better against magical stuff. And that just like never came up. Like I'm diplomacy. Yeah, it seemed like the classes were not evenly weighted, at least for like the one one or two times we played.
00:42:32
Speaker
I think, I think potentially if everybody is equally experienced, then you can kind of win in that sort of circumstance. But going back to like a Starcraft analogy, it's like people who have never played the game, somebody gets Zerg and they make Zerglings and they won the game. You know, like, like sometimes it's just early offense and brute force is really good in a tactical game if people don't know how to counter it.
00:43:01
Speaker
This applies to board games, too, though. Like, this is just very much a board game that you're playing on the computer. And it's the same reason I actually don't like any game that has victory points. It's just like somebody's going to be good at it and raffle stomp everybody else. Do you know what my copy of Settlers are contained? No, I'm good on that one. The most popular board game, other than like Monopoly or something made by Parker Broth.
00:43:28
Speaker
I'd say Monopoly is probably more popular, but Settlers is very much like a... If you say it to the older generation, they're like, oh, you like board games. If you say it to the younger generation, it's like, do you even like board games? It's the gateway board game into the more hardcore space. On your list, I see Alchemist Awakening at the bottom. Do you know anything about that game? I...
00:43:51
Speaker
I immediately see the eyes go to the side. I'm going to pull it up to like screenshots. I know that it was a very inexpensive game that I picked up. I apparently played it for 44 minutes. It seemed like it might play around with like some magic and stuff, and it kind of does. But it's it's real shit. I thought like there's been a couple of games I've heard of that are related to alchemy.
00:44:21
Speaker
And I thought maybe I knew what this one was and then I just now search for it and I very much don't and it does look bad. Yeah. It was cheap enough that I overlooked the screenshots type thing. I just tried it out. But I think the idea is like you
00:44:37
Speaker
do stuff to collect elements or building blocks like rocks, wood, and then use alchemy to make other things. Imagine Minecraft but nowhere near where you would want it to be for enjoyment. Right, yeah. Minecraft if it went in the wrong direction and just never went in the right direction.
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, this is mostly positive on Steam and you're the only friend I have that owns it. It's one of those games. Yeah. Which is fair, which is fair, I think. Sometimes you just want to give something a chance in like five bucks and then you're like, never again. I will never love again. Is there anything on my list you want to force me to explain? The end is nigh.
00:45:26
Speaker
Great. That's one I'm going to have to freaking Google because I think it's unplayed. Um, I remember the splash art for this. Um, I must've gotten this in a humble bundle. I want to say yes, because it's kind of like a super meat boy type. Exactly. Yeah. And to be fair, I did enjoy super meat boy, but I was in a very particular mindset when I picked up super meat boy and it carried me through that. Um,
00:45:58
Speaker
But yeah, I have very little to say here. It's actually made by the same people who made Binding of Isaac. That makes a lot of sense. The graphics are the same. Otherwise I have less to say on that one. Yeah. I feel like every time I say a name, like, oh, this video game, a director, a composer, and then I'm like three degrees off.
00:46:24
Speaker
No, you got that one. I've gone through most of this stuff in your list. I think that like, I have any amount of understanding about it. They're going to say interesting. I was like, wow. Well, Grim Fandango is here. So why do you own, but have not really played Grim Fandango? So, uh, anybody who knows me or has listened to the podcast will know I have an affinity for the guy's name who I'm blanking on. Grim.
00:46:53
Speaker
Yes, Mr. Fandango himself. But like all of the brothers, like anything that Double Fine has done, I've always been like, that's good and entertaining stuff. Like it's written super well as far as characters and dialogue. And for the longest time, this was unavailable. It was a very old CD-ROM game, required a different platform, et cetera. And it was a Tim. I didn't want to fuck it up.
00:47:20
Speaker
But I never had access to it. And then I saw it was on Steam and I was like, oh, I can now play Grim Fandango. Let's buy and install that shit. And then I was in the mood for like a point and click adventure. Yeah. Yeah. My brain also went to like LucasArts. I was like, George Lucas, are you thinking of George Lucas? But that they literally produced this game, published it. A lot of the older point and click stuff that Tim Shave was part of was with LucasArts, like Monkey Island.
00:47:48
Speaker
Mm hmm. Another another one. It might just be one of the one of the game. The thing that has grooves, I don't think that was actually Lucas Arts, but. Yeah, same, to be honest, honestly, I have like nothing to contribute to to these. I missed the point and click adventure train and that's a train where like if it passed you by, you're never catching up to it. You're not going back to King's Quest. Yeah, I know I'm not.
00:48:18
Speaker
Um, props to those that can. Anything else? Everything I keep getting drawn to is I realize a roguelike or a platformer. Like, I guess I have not, I have purchased and not played a lot of them. So if I say to you right now, into the breach.
00:48:36
Speaker
Yeah, that is a rogue like it is. Yeah, technically. Also, it's really well received by everybody who's not me. So, yeah, I don't. This one was interesting because I actually picked this up when a friend and occasional host was getting married. I played it at the at the motel, actually, when you're staying there into the breach on a laptop. Oh, by the way, again, I'm sorry about that.
00:49:04
Speaker
No, it was absolutely fine. They had a continental breakfast, I'm just saying. It's continental. Did you also, too, have a travel box of cereal?
00:49:16
Speaker
I go to the key and peel skin every time, but yeah, this is it's like very clean, really strong ideas and its implementation. It's like a Mecca into the world tactics game that where all of the enemies always telegraph their attacks, I guess. Slay the Spire also does that. Yeah, like you.
00:49:41
Speaker
It's, hey, when it's my turn, I'm doing this type stuff. Exactly. And they will do that even if it's disadvantageous based off what you've done. And on paper, I should have really enjoyed it and really loved it, but I think I played it once.
00:49:58
Speaker
I lost and I was like, I'll try the skin later. Years passed. Yeah. I was in a very similar boat with that. I don't think I picked it up. I think I played somebody else's copy briefly. I'm like, eh, it's not something that I derive enjoyment from.
00:50:16
Speaker
It's unfortunate. It's one of those games where it's got like it has the brains and it has the potential and it has the mechanics of something that should just click. And I'll just straight up enjoy it. But for some reason, I just don't have. I don't get that dopamine, that dopamine hit. So yeah, like how awesome of a person you are, Jake, I'm not physically attracted to you. Right. And like I should be like 100 percent. But that's just that's just where we are. The dopamine is not there.
00:50:45
Speaker
You're not dope.
00:50:49
Speaker
This one's fair because I want to talk about one that's on my list because it's The Witness, which is a Jonathan Blow game. And we've got probably give or take 10 minutes left of standard time to record in an episode. And I think we could just rant about Jonathan Blow for 10 minutes. So this one, I know you have put a lot more than two hours into. Yes.
00:51:19
Speaker
I definitely- You want to defend your time you spent with this game and then I will attack it. It's a puzzle game and I enjoy puzzle games. So I spent time trying to figure stuff out, play through it at a point I ran into, which you ran into much earlier. It's obtuse as fuck. And that's really where the pain point is.
00:51:43
Speaker
In the same way, I don't enjoy finding some of the makoko seeds in Lost Ark because it's like, why the fuck would I ever remotely possibly conceive that this is an option? Doesn't make me feel like, oh, I figured it out. It's like, fuck you. Like they're trying to specifically dick you over in a way like you're fighting the game more so than playing it. Yeah. That's my two cents on the witness.
00:52:10
Speaker
Some of the puzzles and the mechanics I did enjoy figuring out early on, but that very quickly went away.
00:52:17
Speaker
Yeah, I've got like a bucko five on the witness and it's all negative. I like the graphics. Graphics good, very clean, very simplistic, very minimalist. And that last one is where like all the negatives start. But like Jonathan Blow is, I'm sure, a really great guy and a good game developer and he gets stuff out the door. This is why I don't like when Jake compliments me early doors. Oh my gosh, where is it? Where is it coming?
00:52:43
Speaker
And it's just like, I just hate this game, like, and just the concept of it and everything about it and the implementation. It's super pretentious. It's just like the most pretentious thing. So, okay, concrete, actual criticism of the game.
00:53:02
Speaker
Okay, one more positive thing. You can beat the game before you do anything else in the game. I'm not going to explain how you do it because that would be a spoiler, but that's literally possible. All right, back to criticism.
00:53:17
Speaker
The game is trying to be intuitive and it's like to the point of fallacy, saying like, OK, here's how you like draw a line to start building your path to the exit. And then we will slowly, without putting any text on the screen ever, basically, continue to explain new mechanics. And you will pick these up intuitively as you are a smart individual and you will remember them as you have the capability to remember things.
00:53:45
Speaker
And like if you fail on point one or point two of that, you didn't pick it up. What was actually going on or you didn't remember you're screwed. You like soft lock yourself due to brain dumb and cannot proceed in the game. And that's basically what happened to me. I like barreled through a Kool-Aid manned my way through one of the puzzles. And I had no idea how to solve any other puzzle like that. And the game never tried to teach me again.
00:54:15
Speaker
It's like, you know, when somebody shows you hieroglyphics and you're like, these two are wrong, but this one's right. Why? And now from like a problem solving standpoint, you're supposed to pick out the commonalities and say, oh, I can factor this out. These both have this, but this one behaves differently. Why? And like you take apart those pieces to see what you can rebuild as far as information. That's done for a lot of puzzles, but, um,
00:54:42
Speaker
They don't give you that information or the high real fixers like go and you're like, and again, it can feel good to figure it out if you're not frustrated up the deck.
00:54:55
Speaker
Yeah. And there are some of those that you're talking about that I also just kind of stumbled into, where it's like, I think I figured out the pattern of what I need to do. And then I got it right twice. And then for the third one, I'm like, based on my previous assumptions, this should work, but it's entirely wrong. And then I Google, what is the answer to this one puzzle? They're like this. I'm like, how did they get that? Yeah.
00:55:19
Speaker
I've changed the formula, probably I do not change it further. It literally the game. That was really frustrating. There's actually like the contrast to this. So one of their design decisions was literally not to do what I'm going to describe. But when you're playing like a third person action game and they introduce a mechanic, it'll be like, hey, this is being added to the tutorial section.
00:55:45
Speaker
And if you ever want to like remember how to do this again, you can go back to the tutorial section and it'll tell you how to 360 no scope or whatever. And this game is that would be the death of the design principles of this game to have some sort of go back and explain. But because of this, you can't drop the game and then pick it up if you've forgotten about anything.
00:56:11
Speaker
I feel like I've been negative enough, so I'm just going to do one more negative thing and I'm freaking done. The game also has this super pretentious optional ending sequence where it literally has you watch, I think it's a half hour or maybe an hour long video clip from a projector, and then there's a puzzle.
00:56:30
Speaker
that you need to complete during the video. And if you miss it the first time because you're watching a video instead of playing a game, which, you know, most people want to do when they're playing a game, you got to rewatch the whole thing. Yeah, it's the game's not good. I'll say it.
00:56:52
Speaker
Mass, mass downvote this game on Metacritic. Let's, let's get this thing out of here. What is this? What's, what's it at? So it has an 87 per PC right now. I think if we all contribute, we can get that down to an 86.9. Mm-hmm.
00:57:20
Speaker
I'm not even talking about the user score. You guys actually have to go establish critical websites first and then actually add feedback. We can't hit the user score, but that's OK. I feel more strongly about this game than most games that I've played, I realize. Yeah, I wouldn't say that, because I've played it way more than you. I'm like, eh, not for me. All right, you can move on from it. You're like, their design philosophy is so fucked up from the beginning.
00:57:50
Speaker
It's burned my house down and kicked my dog. It did all this stuff. I like herbal space programs also on my list. That seems like another one of those you need to like be in the mindset for it. But yeah, from what I hear, it's supposed to be a fun making a rocket game. Yeah.
00:58:09
Speaker
That's basically it. Just wasn't for me. I can move on from it. It didn't kick my dog. It didn't burn my house down like the witness. This is another one of those games where like it's been recommended to me. Thankfully not purchased because it would just go unredeemed.
00:58:24
Speaker
But it's just, I don't give a fuck about certain types of things. And in general, if you're like, space, I'm like, you get to design a rock. That's not for me. That's not for me. That doesn't help your case at all. Right. But people who enjoy it enjoy it so much that they want to share it with other people. Natural response to a lot of things, which is why I try and share
00:58:48
Speaker
my cool food ideas from time to time. But yeah, I just I don't want to make a rocket. Yeah, it's just the wrong genre thing, right? Same for me, basically. There's not too much more to say on it. So I won't. Anything else on my list that is particularly offensive to you, the fact I haven't played it or maybe I'm really missing out?
00:59:16
Speaker
Or you just want an explanation. One of these you will play, so I won't touch that. I see what you're, I see what you're selecting. One thing I'm curious about is a Gris. Right. Cause I did play and beat it. It was fairly cheap. It's like a narrative driven platformer. Pretty simple. Yeah. What were your thoughts? Like how far did you get if you got far at all?
00:59:46
Speaker
I don't think I've launched it. So I know very little about Gris other than that cover art looks very pretty. I'm looking at the trailer now and the trailer looks pretty good. I think it has something to do with mental health. Yeah.
01:00:02
Speaker
It's a lot of that's about it. It's very pretty. It's very imagery based. Um, but again, I, I wouldn't recommend the game to anybody. That's really rough. Right. Like if you just want a pretty simple puzzle platforming experience while you're not sober, by all means, this will take about two hours to beat. Um, go through it. Go nuts. But it's not like an experience that people.
01:00:30
Speaker
need to have you're like oh you'd really enjoy playing this it's just if you enjoyed it and liked it cool kind of art project yeah sort of sort of thing yeah i'm sure i have games like that i'm like i enjoyed it but like i wouldn't say hey you gotta check it out
01:00:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think this game was actually one of our potential podcast covers for a little bit, but we were like, oh, it's too short. We might not have enough to say. And unfortunately, there's just a lot of games like that, like on our lists where it's like.
01:01:03
Speaker
It's a great art project or it's great for the short impact. I don't hate that I played it. It was worth it on sale, things like that. But those don't always make great games to talk about, unfortunately. Because I can't interpret art. I realize everyone's supposed to be capable of that, but I cannot. So. Yeah, sometimes the meat is not there. Them is the bricks.
01:01:31
Speaker
uh yeah and i mean there's a bunch of other stuff in my list but i don't think we have to go over everything that would be a two hour three hour long episode um so i will uh end on this one because it's from your list and you mentioned it and i have no idea what it is
01:01:51
Speaker
But Sakura series this is this actually or Sakura series is this actually about flowers? That's a one I made an earlier comment referencing this and we're talking about Marlow Briggs But this is one of those it's just a dialogue game where you have like girls in a scenario and they're just talking about stuff and
01:02:16
Speaker
Like, maybe like a boy, maybe it's something else. Maybe it's like slightly imperfect. I don't remember. But they have like 20 of these types of games, if not more. But they're like really inexpensive. I think Jake, you bought me one of these is like a, oh, well, you should play this on Discord. And I did. Did I?
01:02:36
Speaker
But it's really just dialogue. It's just like characters talking and you left click through. And once I figured this out, I went for the speed run strat and demolish that game's play time. You know, can I make I get to shut up on this list? I feel like now I have to disclaim that as I'm looking up these games on Steam, they all seem to be adult content related. So I didn't realize when I asked. I mean, some might be the one that I played on stream wasn't.
01:03:07
Speaker
They might have had like some allusion to stuff, but it was pretty tame. Yeah, I wonder if it's one of those ones where it's like patched or something like that, or whatever. I don't know. But that's funny, inadvertently ending on that one.
01:03:24
Speaker
It always goes back to honey pump. Oh my God. Yeah. I actually saw a notification on my phone. That's like, Hey, alert. There's going to be a lot of snow. And then I actually heard the wind audibly while I'm still wearing my headset. So we might die. This could be our last episode.
01:03:42
Speaker
But if it's not our last case. Exactly. In case it's not, you can send in ideas for future episodes if you'd like to hear more at soapstonepodcast.gmail.com. Or you could join the discussion on Facebook, seem to be Metaverse, at facebook.com slash soapstonepodcast. I hear that they'll cost them like $500 billion or whatever.
01:04:07
Speaker
Um, I don't know what we're gonna be talking about there though Whatever is meta, I guess And as always we'll see in the next one. Have a good one