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Predicting the Next Big Trends in Gaming | Windbreaker Podcast
6.9k Plays7 months ago
On this week’s episode of Windbreaker, Frost and Marty pull out their crystal balls and try to predict the future of gaming.
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Transcript
Gaming Releases and Trends
00:00:00
Speaker
This video is sponsored by the Lullaby of Life, the upcoming mesmerizing, musically motivated puzzle adventure. The game hits PC on April 30th via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG, with console releases to follow.
00:00:16
Speaker
Well, hello, everyone, and welcome back to Windbreaker Podcast, episode number 15 for Monday, March 18th, 2024. My name is Marty Sleva. I'm joined by Ross, and Eric is always behind the scenes producing, and we just have a two-man crew today, because you know what? A lot of folks are gone right now. A lot of folks gallivanting around GDC, taking care of some personal issues.
00:00:40
Speaker
We have Yahtzee and Nick and Jamaite and Omar and Matt out in San Francisco, checking out games, showing off games, which I feel. Do you think Yahtzee's a little nervous? He's showing off his games tonight.
00:00:53
Speaker
He's is probably, I was about to say he's taken weird poos today. Yeah, he's absolutely upset. Tummy butterflies are just firing out his ass. Absolutely. So what better way to celebrate Yahtzee and crew being in San Francisco, then Frost and I, we wanted to reach into our crystal balls. You don't reach into a crystal ball. I guess you look into a crystal ball. What do you put in your, that's a cookie jar upside down on the table. Delicious. So would you like to see macadamia in your future?
Live Service Games Debate
00:01:23
Speaker
We play a lot of demos, we scrounge the depths of stuff like Nexfest and cool trailers, and so we wanted to see what we think are going to be some of the big gaming trends going forward into the rest of 2024 and beyond. I would say
00:01:39
Speaker
I guess recent years we've seen the rise of stuff like the Cozy Game, we've seen the rise of the Souls-like, the rise of the Rogue-like, the rise and seeming fall of games as a service. So we wanted to see what's the next big thing on the horizon, whether it's genre or mechanic.
00:02:01
Speaker
you know, delivery method or ideology or anything. So yeah, what do you, for us, we can just kind of go back and forth with a bunch of our stuff. What's something you predict we're going to be seeing a lot of in the coming years?
00:02:12
Speaker
I was like, do you want to start or end with the wild ones? Cause I think, I think we should have the reasonable like logic based ones, but then also like, this is right in my gut. I like it. I feel it. I feel like pachinkos are really going to come back. I like this. I like it. Let's start normal. Let's start with things that we like, let's put our actual like professional hats on and be like, listen, we are seeing, we're reading the tea leaves and we see this coming, coming forward. Outwards.
00:02:36
Speaker
So what's a regular one that the most sensible is that live service I think it's gonna keep on coming through and now these games are gonna set themselves apart not just by what they offer but like the the service the quality of service they're gonna lean further into that as we saw with who was it Warner Brothers even with their with the way their games went though I know we're committing to live service and
00:02:58
Speaker
So if they're that doggone, like doggone doggit about it, it's just coming. Which is wild that Warner Brothers said that. Coming off a year where far and away their biggest game was Hogwarts Legacy, which is just a single player game without really any microtransactions. And by far their biggest flop of the past year and a half, seemingly has been Suicide Squad, which was a game built on the foundation of live services that seemingly has crumbled within the first month of release.
00:03:25
Speaker
So like if that's not enough to convince them off of it, where the only takeaway was we didn't live service enough.
00:03:34
Speaker
Is it just that like, is it like they're in Vegas and they're seeing one person in the entire city is winning big and they're like, well, that could be us. There's no reason that can't be us. And so they're seeing, you know, the occasional live screen stream or live service game coming through and being a huge success. And everyone, like, it almost feels like every time we get one of those successes, it, everyone learns the wrong lessons from it. Like, I feel like hell divers two is going to be a game.
00:04:01
Speaker
and people do not take the right lesson from. And it feels like the right lesson should be, this game is sort of, you know, your cult take just went up about it, but it seems like the thing the game does well is it's fun forward, and it's doing an interesting thing as it moves along with its storytelling, like using sort of the ongoing live service changes as a way of telling a story in an exciting way that I'm not even playing the game and I'm still like, what are these blue lights coming across the sky? Like that's really neat, I don't know what that means,
00:04:31
Speaker
but I think it's really neat. I don't think they're looking at the big ones, per se, where it's like Genshin's doing this so we can do it. I don't think that's what makes them brazen. That's like, there's just no way we're going to be the next Genshin. I think it's smaller ones that have lasted so much longer, say like you're dead by daylight. Like, oh, we got some dead by daylight players in here, surely. And you probably hate the game at this point, but you've been around for so long. And they're fine with that because live service games at that scale, we're talking like, it's a little lower than Taco Bell, right?
00:05:01
Speaker
They still exist. They still have their crowds. They break the norm of vote with your wallet. We just need enough votes. We don't need all the votes. We just need around 10,000 minimum players who are like, it's fine. My father ate here. My granddad ate here. And I will eat until I die. In the way that sports fans hate their football teams. But don't you say anything about my football team. We are getting into that stage of almost tribalism, in a sense. So I expect life service is going to be more popular because you don't have to make a hit.
00:05:30
Speaker
You don't need to be God of War Ragnarok taking it. You don't need to be Elden Ring. You can be garbage so long as 10,000 people or wherever that number comes from, maybe. I get that number from Path of Exile because Chris Wilson said years ago, we just needed 10,000 people checking in every month, every day.
00:05:48
Speaker
whatever that minimum is nowadays, right? Get a little coupon, get some money off of the servers. That's all you need to go for.
Challenges in Game Development
00:05:55
Speaker
It feels like if that's the minimum though, you almost have to scale correctly. Like I think one of the things we're seeing is maybe...
00:06:03
Speaker
like a game like Suicide Squad was just in development too long and had too big of a budget and everything had too many folks on it, too many resources devoted to it to where it did need to come out and it did need to set the world on fire in a way that it was just clearly not going to do. I mean, that's the same thing when you see the reports coming out that like Spider-Man 2 didn't recoup its budget, whereas it was like one of the biggest games of last year. Like if that can't recoup its crazy AAA budget, then something is just
00:06:32
Speaker
rotten from the inside with how these things are made.
00:06:52
Speaker
very game that was in development at some point at Insomniac and got cancelled and it was sort of like a multiversal you and a couple pals swinging around New York City as different Spider-Men and women.
00:07:07
Speaker
seem like you know that seems like that was probably pushed through when Sony had their big a few years ago where they're like we have 18 live service games in development and everything since then apart from Helldivers has been oh these games have been canceled like the Last of Us thing is on ice or the studio is shutting down or who knows what's happening with this project.
00:07:26
Speaker
I don't know. It seems like with these live server center, at least these multiplayer games like that, it feels like we're seeing more and more games with smaller teams and smaller budgets, smaller ranging from your power worlds, which that's not a massive team. It's not a tiny team. It's like 55 people.
00:07:44
Speaker
55 people. Yeah. But then all the way down to like lethal company, which is a dude, a dude in a cave with some robots with his box of scraps. Um, and so it does seem like those are the things that can rise to the top.
00:08:01
Speaker
up and keep riding that wave because like among us, it's one of those things we didn't, it didn't take us 10 years and, and you know, $300 million to make this. So success is like a very relative. They're not falling, but some more, it's like the risk or the gamble is just, Hey, let's go evergreen, right? Let's just try to make a nice solid court. I mean, Amazon was doing that with its three failed games and one properly published one lost arc. Yeah.
00:08:27
Speaker
And they're still going for, what is it, a new Lord of the Rings MMO? That's it? That just seems like what you're doing. You just need enough people. Yeah, I guess. Or you just need that one hit can offset a bunch of misses, I guess. But riding on the live service thing, I think as they lean into the service part, there are
00:09:06
Speaker
But if it does feel sincere, it feels like they listen to the community, then they're like, here, I'll buy your Battle Pass because it feels like I'm supporting the devs. It feels like you're giving them a tip for like, oh, I really appreciate this service. So here's a tip on top of the gratuity or whatever. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's no different than what already exists. More so it's just an attitude adjustment. So I feel like we're going to start.
00:09:15
Speaker
What happened there? That was scary.
00:09:29
Speaker
Really seeing these games that are either very sincere with you, very much about having a nice environment, or corporate is no good at sincerity. All they know how to do is kiss ass. So it's gonna be like, it's all you. This is for you and my love, quadruple A. For you, always for you. For A's and X's and O's.
00:09:48
Speaker
God, four A's. What are we doing? What are we doing here with this game? There was a comment somewhere. I wish I'd been good enough to write it where it said, it should have been quadruple Z, and me, and me, and me.
00:10:02
Speaker
I like it. I like it. That's good. Um, I'll go to, uh, I'll go to one of mine. Um, and it's, uh, something we've, we've seen over the last few years and I think is only going to get bigger and bigger is the pendulum is swinging and we are coming back to a world that is embracing the handheld game.
Handheld Gaming Resurgence
00:10:21
Speaker
Oh, you know, it feels like we had a big, you know, there was that run where like, you know, game boys and DS's and even PSPs, like those were, those were the big new thing. And then everyone was like, no, we want to play at home and we need eight K's and we need to be in front of our televisions. And then it seemed like, you know,
00:10:40
Speaker
The switch came out and was kind of like, well, what if you could take it out of your house? And then I don't know if it's a combination of the pandemic or sort of people's attention spans waning and doing things that I do where you second screen a lot, where I'll watch sports or I'll just binge watch a show while playing a game. But it feels like that that second screen is something people are really digging, whether it's, you know,
00:11:00
Speaker
the Switch, and what will be assumed to be the Super Switch, whatever the next console is, the rise of the handheld PCs with your Steam decks, and your ASUS Rouge allies, or your Lenovo Legions, whatever the hell those are.
00:11:16
Speaker
PlayStation has their portal streaming device, which I've really become smitten with over the past few months. Xbox is leaning hard into that cloud gaming and there's like rumors that both PlayStation and Xbox might be working on separate handheld things. So I feel like the the the future that Xbox said of our future is play anywhere. I feel like it's becoming more and more true as we move on. I like this, especially if you commit as they are to sort of bring India into the fold. Right. Like it was almost amazing that Bellato wasn't
00:11:44
Speaker
on more handhelds. Yeah, yeah. Do you count mobile as handheld? I do. Yeah, I do. And we're seeing that a lot. We're seeing kind of, I mean, obviously the mobile games that have existed have always been popular, but then like you said, you're seeing these games that crossover, especially a lot of Asian, you have your Genshins, you know, a lot of games where
00:12:04
Speaker
just playing on your phone is a much more popular thing in those countries. But then you're seeing what Netflix is doing with the games they're scooping up, Apple Arcade. The Netflix game library, it is cumbersome and weird to navigate and a pain in the ass. But when you get into the nitty gritty, it's like some of the best games.
00:12:25
Speaker
You need to open up the Netflix app on your phone and you need to find the game category, which is not easy to find and then scroll through there and then it downloads separate apps on your phone. And once the thing is downloaded, you could just open the app like you do any normal game. Um, but you know, what do you use? Uh, I use iPhone. Okay. So I think it's the same on Android. Yeah. On Android, it's in the play store.
00:12:54
Speaker
like like oh interesting yeah like name I don't know let's just say that the Halo 2 is on Netflix for some reason I could just go to Play Store search Halo 2 and then it'll show it but it'll have the little Netflix N
00:13:07
Speaker
Signifying that you you need oh interesting. Okay, you just need the account. Yeah. Yeah, it's a little cleaner in that way But I'm with you especially I see as our as our tech just gets better and cheaper that that's what's helping us out there especially with like there's been a huge rise over the past few years in Latin American countries because as as the tech gets better like a phone that's half the price of this is still pretty freakin strong because it wasn't even a new generation phone and
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah. Like just the cheaper tech is capable of running so much more. And you see these games, I agree with you, expanding into instead of like, let's get more of or let's let's cater to more of our own audience. Let's go to mobile. That will expand us there. Yeah. And if you could crack through like that is such a if you could crack through the 100 million plus Netflix subscribers, like that is an untapped audience for, you know, your your spirit fairs, your before your eyes, your immortalities, those kind of things.
00:14:03
Speaker
Absolutely. Especially with people feeling like, oh, these games are too small for the big, for the big screen. So why not handheld? They're perfect for handheld. Oh, I completely agree. And like, yeah, announcing, uh, you mentioned Bellacho earlier announcing that Bellacho will be coming to, uh, uh, phones to mobile. Yeah. Everyone was like, Oh, this is going to ruin our lives. Like having this in your pocket to pull out at the grocery store, you know, on a commute, like this thing is going to make so many people late for their job. And then once they got you huffing like the steam deck fumes,
00:14:31
Speaker
Oh my god, I'm excited, I'm just excited for more devices to huff the fumes though. I can't wait to see what the Switch 2 smells like.
00:14:38
Speaker
We should take you know, I got I got my cranker out this weekend, you know, I decided to get my crank on because The new Lucas Pope game right is out on the cranker and I was like I have a couple cranker games to catch up on Cranker great little device. It's one drawback. No fumes. No, no, it's a no-smell. No towel handheld. I don't want that It's eco-friendly and I want the exhaust it's not destroying the ozone layer. Yeah it is funny that
00:15:05
Speaker
At the same time we're saying this, rumors are coming out of a mid-gen hardware refresh or a mid-gen hardware update where like a PlayStation 5 Pro might be coming out this fall and that kind of thing, which is confusing to me because I...
00:15:24
Speaker
Have we reached the peak of this generation in terms of tech? Because there's been a lot of games I've loved, but not a lot of games where I've been like, oh my god, I can't believe this hardware is running it. It's very strange. I think we're getting there in a lot of ways. I feel like the amount of effort to get to the next level, you'd have to be some kind of aristocrat. You'd have to have these super crazy PCs. And even then, maybe it's not even
00:15:54
Speaker
worth it for them. I think as we go for a wider audience, they're finally going to see that like, okay, we can't just push them to get the next graphics anymore. They just won't, they won't play them, especially with live service games. And it's like, Hey, you can run me on anything, baby. Your TI-83 from 2013. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You just lose out on that audience now. So I think we're going to see if anything, they'll, they'll try and like use what they have to the fullest. But I think we're done for a while with just like, all right, this,
00:16:24
Speaker
You need this because then you can see more pixels.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah. I need more
Emerging Gaming Trends
00:16:28
Speaker
pixels. I need all of these pixels now. Yeah. So, live service, handheld gaming, you got going on here. Yeah. What else do you need? I was feeling, and this is probably more for indie. This is a strange thing, and it's more confirmation bias because of the Steam Next Fest. The exploration genre is I'm going to dump you in a small space. I'm going to maybe give you one thing to do, and then I'm going to let
00:16:54
Speaker
whatever ensue. It's very much like in the Bryan Cranston video where he's got...
00:17:00
Speaker
I was describing a Malcolm in the middle scene as having ADHD, where he's like, he's trying to change a light bulb, but then he goes to get a new light bulb. He doesn't have one, so then he's got to go to his car, but it's like, oh, he needs to change his oil or something. So he ends up doing all these other things. And all I was trying to do was change the light bulb. And that's what these exploration games feel like, where it's just like, hey, there's this weird cult. Go talk to this guy. And suddenly, adventure ensues. I think we're scaling. I guess that would be the
00:17:29
Speaker
the whiplash to the open world of like, oh, you can do anything and everything, but there's not really much to do here. So now I'm going to make it smaller. So I guess the micro world is, yeah, I think we're closing open worlds now.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And it seems like it's taking the excitement and the feeling people get from those open worlds, but being like, well, how do we do this on a much smaller scale? How do we do this with a much smaller budget? How do we do this with a smaller team? And that's how you end up getting your games that are like your strays. Or coming up soon, you have Europa, which is a game that's, again, tossing you into these little worlds and just letting you
00:18:07
Speaker
have at it. I really like that because I feel like we've had a few years ago, we had a short hike. Two years ago, we had a little Gator game, or a little Gator story. A little Gator something, whatever it was we played for Hidden Gems last week that-
00:18:24
Speaker
It's just a small gator. That, again, it takes those feelings of, like, what your Breath of the Wilds do or your Elden rings and it distills it. It, like, crams it down to its molecular level and gives you some of those same sensations but in a much, you know, smaller package. Whereas I guess on the opposite side you have, like, I don't think open-world games are going anywhere, but I do think
00:18:49
Speaker
you're going to have the few rise to the top. Like next year, we're obviously going to have your Grand Theft Auto 6, which I think that might even tie in with when we ask why is there those hardware refreshes. It might be because they're like, we want to have the best hardware possible because Grand Theft Auto 6 is probably going to be the biggest pop culture thing of the decade. Like literally, it's probably going to be the biggest
00:19:09
Speaker
piece of media of the decade and so putting your best foot forward for that makes sense but then we also had the the the no man sky team announced we just made it up which is a whole planet yeah go around the whole planet and i'm like yeah instead of the entire galaxy i mean i see i kind of like that i'm like you know what i will take one planet full of all this instead of
00:19:30
Speaker
everything else you've given me because I just don't like, like eventually I will give up. It's like, hey, go in this direction and maybe you'll come across something. Maybe you'll find something crazy on this one planet, but it's likely you won't. So keep going and keep going. I was like, I don't want to, I like borders where it's just like, if you go past this mark, nothing will happen. Yeah, but you can't do it. Very much like in Minecraft, if anyone's ever tried to bend to the no lands where you can keep going and generating the world to eventually it starts bugging.
00:19:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's like there's nothing good back here, but you can you can go. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I'm not gonna say no, but I just want you to know, like, we didn't really make anything pass here. So just like, like, what was it starfield? It had its loading screens where you could only go so far and then it had to like load another chunk. Yeah, you couldn't like genuinely fly across the galaxy, right?
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah, something like that. It's like you almost would have been served better with a fence. I think developers are hesitant to give players fences because that's a no, right? Like, no, you can't go that way. But I feel like people like boundaries. I'm like, okay, where can I explore? What's it looking like? And if you were to apply boundaries to some of these open world games where like at this point, if you keep going, there's nothing, I think you'll see that they're a lot smaller than they really are.
00:20:48
Speaker
So I feel like open world games, but with very like, this is the boundaries that I'm setting. This is all you've got. I think there'll be more brazen about that. Hopefully. I like that. I can get behind that. Getting into a couple more specific things. Speaking of open world games, when I look back, 2017 Breath of the Wild came out and that was a pretty influential game, I would say, for open worlds, for exploration games.
00:21:11
Speaker
And I'm trying to look back at Tears of the Kingdom last year and being like, so is this going to be as influential? Is this going to, you know, sort of set the mold in the same way that its predecessor did? And I'm looking at its construction.
00:21:25
Speaker
mechanics which I feel like by and large players kind of glossed over whereas the devs I follow were like Jesus Christ this is like such next level shit in terms of its physics in terms of like how it actually works like you guys have no idea how complex and impressive this is and so I'm curious if it feels like the last 10 plus years were what was the age of crafting
00:21:52
Speaker
You just got to have crafting, and you can just be a regular third-person cinematic game, but we got to throw some crafting in there like The Last of Us. I'm wondering if construction is going to overtake crafting, if the mindless monotony of crafting is going to be put at the wayside, and if games are going to trust players more with a creativity when it comes to their construction. I don't know if people can handle it, and I don't know if it's going to be worth the effort, but I'm curious to see if we see this rise in construction in other games.
00:22:21
Speaker
How much construction to game ratio are we talking here? There was a point where it's a sandbox, right? Like a sandbox game. And people like me need a bit of direction.
00:22:33
Speaker
Yeah. So with the construction, it's easy to go wrong. Yeah. But it's also, I kind of like it simply because it gives its own, it markets itself because there's a lot of things I've seen in videos where I'm like, I would never. I one, don't have the time or two, don't have the skill. Yeah. It's not locked out to me, you know? And so like it just becomes more thorough. I think people are still posting videos of like things they can do in Tears of the Kingdom.
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah, and it's one of those things, like as much as I played the game, I'm like, I didn't go that. I'm just not, my brain's not wired that way to be that creative with the stuff. And so I built things that were very functional and like very, helped me through specific scenarios. And then I was going to, you know, watching online of people being like, oh, I built a Gundam that shoots fire out of its penis. And I'm like, that is neat. I want more people to build penis fire Gundams in their various AAA video games. This happens. It's all the STEM.
00:23:26
Speaker
Students coming out to play back in my day was redstone
00:23:29
Speaker
Like the things that they could do with Redstone was insane. Then it was like a poly bridge. I know some people have seen those, because you can make a bridge, but these people know how to make some wacky structures. And now the same thing for Tears of the Kingdom. Do they hand it over to the players more often? I don't know, because I feel like players do make their own fun. What was that little tiny, it was an abstract, surreal deconstruction of the immersive sim. I want to say,
00:23:58
Speaker
Lona Mesa. Oh yeah, whatever, Mona Lisa with the names. Maya Sharona. Yeah, and that was like, it was 100% a construction tool. Just like, see what you can do. Here's the goal and then see what you can do with that.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I really liked that whole thing of like treating levels like a roguelike, but instead of being like, oh, everything's procedurally generated, it's like we have all these tools and each level you're gonna start off with a handful of those tools and you have to realize like, well, how do I use this bubble compared with this bird compared with this double jump, that kind of thing. There you go. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I'm curious if the... I'm curious if the Minecraft and the Roblox generation is going to be more creative
00:24:43
Speaker
less creative or as creative, you know, as our generations were, just because they were, I feel like they were coming up with games that sort of rewarded your creativity more. I guess Roblox is a little different scenario because some people are creating and some people are just playing.
00:24:59
Speaker
I'm not going to count out my generation. I might just be uncreative. But I feel like my generation gets a little too stuck in the like, oh, this is how Miyamoto did it. This is how Miyazaki did it. This is how it's supposed to be. But the generation younger than me, they don't have that in them. They have no fear. So they explore different things. Because right now, if you ask, how do I become a game developer, they tend to give you the same five things of like
00:25:24
Speaker
learn how to code, make yourself a game and then put it on Steam whereas the other ones are just cracking things out on Roblox and no one telling them that doesn't work that way. Even Power World, they never made a game before. We didn't know, we didn't know we couldn't. That's beautiful. I think the generation under me is very, we didn't know we couldn't and they're the ones that are going to make crazy things.
00:25:47
Speaker
There is an excitement I have to artists who haven't been instilled with those, this is the way things are and that's just the way things are and that's how you have to do it. I love that sort of, fuck it, let's just try something and let's see what works. Of course, there's going to be a million fucking duds that you don't even want to touch, but then you're going to have these games spring up that lead to something like Lethal Company, which is like
00:26:10
Speaker
This is amazing like this is something that if you would've followed the like like you said the traditional model of this is how you get in the games industry that never would've worked. It was just like so it was like fuck it i have an idea i'm gonna i'm gonna play certain roadblocks and then try to make it outside of that like i think that's really cool. It's very because of very learn like a learn like a master so you can break it like an artist yeah never learn to begin with and just throw it out there.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah and it was the same like when we saw like the rise of indie movies in the 90s it was sort of that same attitude of like we can play with form and function and we don't we don't need to adhere to the rules that came before us and you saw that in with folks like you know Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson and and directors who rose up in that decade in Soderbergh and so it's cool seeing that you know I feel like we saw that in the indie scene at the start
00:26:59
Speaker
with your cave stories and your spelunkies and your braids and your meat boys. And then it feels like the quote unquote indie almost became, the definition kind of became calcified and more rigid again. And so now it feels like it's loosening up. It's melted a little bit. It's getting a little limber again. And I think that's exciting. Oh yeah. But the breaking the norms, like some of these, some of the marketing for some of these indie games comes from their YouTube developers.
00:27:26
Speaker
where they're just diring away, making videos of their game, and then when it pops up, you're like, what's this? And their channel's the first one that pops up for it, and boom. They've now monetized their game and their YouTube channel in one go. Yeah, or games that are being primarily advertised via TikTok. That's the whole thing. I do not go there. I do not know what is going on there. But I know there are games that have blown the fuck up there with quick little videos and GIFs and stuff, and I think that's cool.
00:27:54
Speaker
Even if I don't dabble in those spaces, those genres, I still think it's cool, because I think we're just broadening the horizon for what games are. And I think that's great. Phenomenal. I think, even though that was like indie-oriented, though, for the next bit, I feel this is a sense, and I've seen a few. We just played Lightyear Frontier, Nick and I, the other day. I feel like we're, or maybe it's a phase, we're getting into these low consequence or almost consequence-free games.
00:28:22
Speaker
And I think it's an offshoot of the cozy genre. Because while cozy was booming, I would see some games I'm like, these are cozy, yes. There's just no motivation to keep me going. There's no conflict. There's no stressor. There's nothing to really get you moving, right? And I feel like...
00:28:42
Speaker
either that's going to be a phase and just like nobody wants these or someone's going to figure out how to do it properly. Like even like your frontier would have these little pink bubbles that would form and that's as aggressive as it would get. And you would just spray them down like a piss off you. Yeah. But I feel like.
00:29:00
Speaker
Maybe it's also a reaction to, I mean, just in general, how much in games the most essential, or the most base conflict is fight this guy, kill that thing. And you get these games where it's like no one's pressuring you. You can do whatever you want.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, I had that. That was one of the other ideas I pitched for this episode that I've been thinking about over the last few years is a rise of kindness as a mechanic and sort of as a theme in games. And you know, you're seeing it in, you saw the rise of the, you know, the quote unquote cozy, cozy genre, cozy aesthetic. You see it with the rise of a
00:29:39
Speaker
Twitter account like can you pet the dog which seems like it is now in every game you can pet the dog like these small things that don't mean anything but people are like oh look what you could do you could pet the chocobo the dog the dragon the whatever um stuff like in in the latest like a dragon you're running around uh hawaii and like one of your main interactions with people on the street is like you throw up the like the fucking horns
00:30:03
Speaker
And they throw back at you and you get little points for it. And it's just like very like becoming a part of your community. Um, the way in Tears of the Kingdom you would, uh, instead of finding Koroks and Korok seeds, so many of the Koroks were like a little chubby guy with a big backpack. And he's like a turtle on his back and he's like, I need to get across the river to my buddy who's over there. And so the mission was help this little dude get across a river. And it's like very altruistic. Again, even like Death Stranding was all about that. I feel like, and that's, that's where the art came from for this episode. I feel like maybe it is
00:30:33
Speaker
You know maybe this it's in coming from this post pandemic world where relationships were shattered and everyone wants to sort of. Maybe be a little bit nicer but I feel like that's becoming more and more a thing in games and maybe that's like a part of those little micro open worlds you were talking about earlier straight felt like it was very playful the rise of these games we're playing as a little critter.
00:30:54
Speaker
whether it's like Little Kitty, Big City, Stray, you know, those sort of things. Caterpillar Story, Gekko Gods, which is coming out soon, where he plays a Gekko. There'll be more games where I play as a Gekko. Gekko Gods? Yeah, he plays like a little Gekko going around. Gex is a very different... Less Gekko. Less Gekko. Yeah, you know, he's too horned up to be a Gekko. Cozy free. It couldn't be because we're in an election year, could it?
00:31:19
Speaker
where everyone's just stressed. Can I just be nice? I wonder if there are trends, I know there's trends in like movies and TV and shit, but I wonder if games see the same thing like election years if certain things bubble up, if games become nicer or meaner or whatever.
00:31:35
Speaker
I'd like to think so. I'd like to think like the whole point of escapism is to get to a place where you're not and years that feel a bit more like there's more friction. You kind of want less in your games, in your escapism. Yeah, you want your games to be different than the reality outside. Especially as they keep on trying to like pedal extraction shooters.
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah. Like, oh god, would you like more stress? When more stress? Yeah, exactly. Everything is ranked and everything, you know, can I just... Be as altruistic as that could possibly be. We got Gecko Gods on the B-roll. Eric had it up there for a little bit. Let me tell you, I'm excited about these Gecko Gods. I don't know anything about the game other than you're a Gecko and I think you're running around like Egypt or some shit, but it seems cool.
00:32:15
Speaker
I don't even know if there's geckos in Egypt. I'm going to be honest, not a hundred percent sure what a gecko is. Like I think it's just a lizard. Is it not just like a lizard? I don't know. Geckos are boys and lizards are girls. There's really no way to know. Geckos sell insurance. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
00:32:33
Speaker
What else did you have any other ones before we mosey over to my like kind of weirdo offshoot? This is gonna like if it doesn't come to fruition No one's gonna care and if it does people are gonna think I'm just I've got the fourth fifth and sixth eye These sort of like
00:32:52
Speaker
casino type games because that's I think three years in a row now where we had vampire survivors no it was it was a gap vampire survivors and he was saying I was just trying to make a casino game yeah now Bellotto very feels very much like a casino game and
00:33:07
Speaker
I feel that's what people are going to take from it. It's like, oh, consequence-free gambling. That's the thing is it seems like gambling without the predatory bad things surrounding it. Yeah, imagine. It's like those organic cigarettes or something.
00:33:26
Speaker
Same thing. I mean, even with me, I get, I get these organic, um, they're like Takis from, uh, from Trader Joe's. Yeah. Yeah. Delicious. But it's like, no, there's no 50 itemized list of ingredients. It is just corn, flour, oil, and a bunch of seasonings. Yeah. It's like, I still want to be naughty, but I'm getting up there in age and I got to watch out with the red dye 40. Yeah. So it's like, I still want to gamble, but I don't want to lose the house. Yeah.
00:33:55
Speaker
Yeah, it is funny because it's coming as gambling as becoming more and more normalized in just regular society. Gambling in the sports world is just ingrained with ESPN and DraftKing. It's like you see gambling ads during sports. At the end of it, they have to be like, oh, by the way, gambling can lead to a real bad addiction and ruin your life. So if that happens, call this number, that kind of thing.
00:34:19
Speaker
And so it feels like these games, like you said, your Bellattros, your slot machine, your games that are firing off the same endorphins that a slot machine do, like Vampire Survivors, are ways to be like, we will give you the good eyes that come from this without any of the lung cancer that comes afterwards. As far as we know now, I'm sure there's a problem later. Yeah. It's just like without the actual catharsis of the risk, it shrinks your amygdala. I don't know. Yeah. No, my amygdala.
00:34:48
Speaker
I'll be the guinea pig for these consequence-free gambling games. Oh, there you go. What was that one? Does it... Dog? Dog? Sunshine? Dog cards? Something. Yeah. It's poker with dogs. Poker, come with dogs. I love it. I forgot what it was. Sunshine Shuffle, says Eric. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Yeah, I could see that becoming one of those sort of indie genres that
00:35:13
Speaker
You start seeing more and more in games popping up on Steam. Until it goes AAA and then suddenly a big court case comes through. Hillary Clinton's coming back. Is that when a thing becomes, you know, like an idea is no longer cool? Is it when AAA adopts it? Is it that thing where it's like, oh, once official brands start posting a meme, the meme is dead? The meme's dead if AAA adopts it, but meme's here to stay forever when there's a court case over it.
00:35:41
Speaker
Just get it in the legal system and then you know it's set for life. Yeah. Once somebody's filed something, it's here forever. That's how I do it though. What was it? The addicting game lawsuit that came out? Yeah, the one that you did a video on that. Did a cold take on that one then. I was just like, yeah, no, these games are going to stay addicting.
00:36:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I guess, yeah, I don't know if people are just going to be more like, well, you have to just be more cognizant of what you and your loved ones are playing, you know, like this stuff's going to be there, but you kind of have to take your own health into your own hands. Yeah, I don't know how that's going to turn out.
00:36:19
Speaker
I had a few more, but I see a couple of the Super Chats have already covered those. Do you want to transition over to Super Chats? Let's hop on it. Let's see what they got, eh? Heck yeah. As always, so great to see so many of the familiar folks donating in the chat. We appreciate that. As you know, we are primarily funded by your incredible patronage and your viewership and your donor ownership.
00:36:44
Speaker
It means the world to us. So yeah, we'll go to Super Chat starting at the top. Alex Armstrong. The $5 don't know. Thank you so much, Alex. Here's something I hope never becomes a big trend. Permadeath micropayments. You pay to not have your save file deleted after dying a lot. Is that real?
00:37:03
Speaker
I don't know if this is like, if this is a real thing. Did that happen or is that from the dark recesses of your mind? Yeah, this is like the nightmares you have. Because the thing is, I could, it doesn't sound unreasonable in terms of like, I could imagine a game that markets itself on like, oh, if you need to
00:37:22
Speaker
live again, you need to pay another dollar, you know? Because ostensibly, that's what arcade games were, right? Yeah, going back to the quarter. Yeah, you can come back and drop in a quarter. But yeah, I feel like it would need a very specific circumstance for it to not immediately get a crazy amount of backlash.
00:37:43
Speaker
I mean, see, we say these are nightmares, but I'm sure there's mobile games that already do that. I don't know what it is, but they don't attract that much backlash, and they definitely do some really weird, scummy things. Yeah, yeah. Asian Badger reminded me there was a steel battalion.
00:38:01
Speaker
I think it was just steal battalion which was a it was a mech game For Xbox and its whole thing was I had this like $200 controller That was like a mech cockpit pretty much like a million different levers and shit but its whole thing was Your character kind of had permadeath to where if you didn't eject from your mech before the mech blew up That was it for your save file like it was ostensibly like your pilot is dead and so you would need to
00:38:28
Speaker
you would need to manually eject from your mech every time you were about to lose a life, which was sort of a terrifying way to play games, I would say. But that's one of those games that was just... I don't think it was good. I don't think anyone would ever say Steel Battalion was good, but it was novel at the very least.
00:38:53
Speaker
Yeah. Novel, all right. Yeah, which I don't know. I remember it more than I remember better games from that generation, so we'll give it that. That's all you can hope for. Exactly, exactly. Dr. Theo, thank you so much for the $5 Dono. With Poppy Playtime Chapter 3 surprisingly good and Shipwreck 64, do you think there's going to be a third wave of mascot horror? There's an upcoming parkour one coming soon. I saw the trailer for the parkour one. It's almost like you're in a
00:39:21
Speaker
like one of those indoor kind of like discovery zones or indoor like trampoline parks, but there's fucking spookies. So it's like a spooky parkour, like a child spooky parkour. Right. And then that like, is that a Mickey Mouse one, Steamboat Willie one coming out soon? Yeah. Yeah. Cause the, um, the, the, whatever it's not statute of limitations. So what do they call copyright or something went up? It's in the public domain, the statute of limitations. Finally, Mickey's crimes. Finally got him.
00:39:48
Speaker
Um, I mean, horror is a thing that, uh, I just, I didn't even say anything with horror because I think horror always appeals to a coming of age, um,
Nostalgia and Cultural Influences in Gaming
00:40:00
Speaker
audience. And there's always a new coming of age audience. So horror is the one thing where like horror changes and evolves over time, but like horror as a genre for the, since
00:40:09
Speaker
You know, it's had some slumps, but it just seems like it is constantly evolving and constantly a new generation as, you know, kids are turning 10, 11, 12. They're like, we want to do something adults. Oh, look at this scary game. And you're going to have your Five Nights at Freddy's, your Roblox games, your games that are catered towards that genre. Yeah, it's just the weird Slenderman. Is that a mascot? Yeah.
00:40:31
Speaker
Yeah. He's got long arms. A name to the horror is spooky, just as much as anything else. But I feel like horror can just exist and be whatever it wants to be, whenever it wants to be. That is an untapped oil and minefield.
00:40:47
Speaker
Yeah. Could be anything in there. Yeah, an oil and a minefield. It's interesting too, one of the other things which we've talked about on streams before is it feels like we're at that point where we had the era where a bunch of developers, indie developers coming up grew up on the NES and so you had the NES inspired games with your Shovel Knights and your
00:41:12
Speaker
Axiom Verge and Cave Story and stuff. And then you had the era where they grew up on their 16-bit games, so your Sea of Stars and Dead Cells and Stardew Valley and stuff. And now it feels like it's the folks who grew up on, you know, the M64, the PS1, the Dreamcast, and that's where we're getting stuff like Fro-Gun and Pseudo-Rigalia and Corn Kid 64 and Holstein and Signalis. And so it's like there's a game, did you see me drop Corn Kid 64 in there?
00:41:43
Speaker
Yeah, but even like lunacyd, which is like, you know, that's your King's field like and croak. How you say that? Okay. I don't know. No, cuz I don't think the thing is said lunacyd luni acid. Yeah. But that that's exciting to me because like, that's
00:42:03
Speaker
The generation that I like those were the games I played when I was like fucking 9 to 13 years old You know the stuff you play when you're the your your most formative years so it's exciting to me to see people pulling from you know your your 3d platforms of the N64 or your early survival horror of the the ps1 era or your your kind of arcade aesthetic of the Dreamcast I mean if nothing else I see this one trend in demos where it's kind of like game. I guess the docapon thing not docapon I
00:42:33
Speaker
Doki Doki. The looks like normal game, but something's not here. They go more for sinister than in your face. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Where you start watching trailer, you're like, this seems fine. And then you're like, Oh no, something's not fine here. That's not good at all.
00:42:48
Speaker
And Dr. Theo again with another $5. Appreciate it, Dr. Theo. First wave is the... Oh, this was in addition to the following one. First wave is in addition is the Five Nights at Freddy's craze of the time. Second wave is the current cash grab phase. And I'm hoping the third wave is a bounce back. This is of the mascot horror. Yeah, with the graph and all that. Do you think the part of a bounce back is like you kind of have to have competition?
00:43:14
Speaker
So either the competition is the one that takes over or the competition shakes up the original to like, all right, back to roots. I don't know if anyone's out here to take FNAF's cake. I don't think so either. I think kind of going based off what I just said is I think what you're going to see is you're going to have a generation that grew up on FNAF. And that's what really introduced them to horror or Slender Man or anything like that. And then they're going to come of age and they're going to become some of them are going to become interested in
00:43:44
Speaker
game development and of course their their taste in horror will evolve over time and they'll they'll you know find a bunch of new types of horror but then when they make a horror game it'll sort of be rooted in they'll be like what was the first thing that really spoke to me in horror and it'll be FNAF and so you'll get this generation using FNAF
00:44:01
Speaker
and then filtering it through their life experience to give you this new horror in the same way that you had like, you know, you had a whole generation of directors who grew up on slasher movies like Halloween and Freddie and Nightmare on Elm Street, who then made their own that felt like it was those movies, but then filtered through everything that had come since then.
00:44:20
Speaker
Which is that that's I don't know. That's why I think I think these the way these genres evolve is always super fascinating Yeah, are you guys not in the how you guys you horror people are you not in the liminal spaces phase right now? That's a big one now. That is a huge one now, which I like which now go something liminal spaces. I
00:44:41
Speaker
Yeah, those are the big three now, I would say, yeah. I think so. Yeah, your mascot horror, your ghost hunting sort of cooperative, spookmups, and then, yeah, liminal spaces, which, yeah, the vaporwave, liminal space movement, back rooms, all that. I'm a fan of that. I liked being in a spooky place and not knowing how I got there. Same, yeah, weird warehouse, yeah.
00:45:01
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Alex Armstrong with a five dollar don't know. Thank you so much, Alex. Speaking of Helldivers 2, is it just me or did that game come out while we were all still busy with Lethal Company? The game was popular and now meh. Wait, which game? Helldivers or Lethal Company? Helldivers is still very popular. I think Lethal Company.
00:45:21
Speaker
And this is not to tear into it. Lethal Company was good fun when we played it. I had no desire to go back to it because it's kind of like a, it's a comedy movie where it's the funniest is the first time, you know, and it kind of runs through the same gags over and over. And that's when you start getting into less of the slapstick and more of the game that is still there. So if anything, spoken from a lot of people I've seen that just kind of fell off after like a week or two,
00:45:49
Speaker
Be glad that you got so much enjoyment out of it for so long, you know? That's the thing. That's quite nice. Yeah. When I see that, like, I feel like those games that last months and months and years should be the exception to the rule, right? Like, we shouldn't expect that from everybody, especially a lethal company where it's like, yeah, the dude made a shit ton of money, but it's not like he had a giant support team set up. He didn't know the game was going to be huge. He wasn't like, all right, here's our roadmap for a year. He made a shit ton of money and if I were him, I'd be like, well, I'm just going to retire.
00:46:18
Speaker
Or I'm just going to take it easy for a while and maybe work on the next idea in a few years. But yeah, that's something... I don't know. It will be interesting though in the same way that when something comes out of left field and blows up and granted, Helldivers had the Stoney backing behind it.
00:46:37
Speaker
But even something like Palworld, it'll be interesting to see what Palworld looks like six months or a year from now. Like if it'll still be able to maintain that momentum because it's like lost a lot of the conversation, but it's still like, I think one of the top 15 played games on Steam at the moment. So, um, anyone who's like Palworld dead, I'm like, well, there's a hundred thousand people playing it right now. So Palworld not dead. I put in like a hundred hours in about two weeks. And I think
00:47:02
Speaker
I felt like I've seen everything and I don't really care to go back until 1.0. The fact that that many people are still playing is insane. Yeah, I don't know if people are just still getting to it or if that's becoming like a hangout game, like kids are like, fuck it, we're jumping in, we're paddling around. Yeah, paddling around with your pals after the fact. No, this sense of like it has to be this many hours and that's always been sort of a
00:47:27
Speaker
aside qualification for a game, I suppose. But to me, Lethal Company, I don't remember how much we paid for it. We only played it for the two hours. That was more than, that was a great value. I had a great time. Oh, yeah, it was super well reputed. Those games help bring up a bunch and be like, man, when I think of games with mechanical comedy to them, that's one that's going to come up for me. But I don't know. There's some movies I watch once. I'm like, that was cool. I don't need to watch it again.
00:47:51
Speaker
Yeah, same thing with Helldivers 2. 40 bucks. I'm glad to have it. I'm glad to have it there. It's nice. It's fun. But you don't like it enough. I don't love it enough. I'm sorry. Marry it. Thank you so much, Alex Armstrong. Robonob, the snob with a $5.99 don't know. Thank you so much. Fully expect more badly written, quote, Marvel humor as companies try to replicate the meme value of Helldivers.
00:48:17
Speaker
Does, I haven't played Eldavirus, does it have sort of quippy writing? Like, does it? No, no, not really. It's very Stargatey. Okay. As far as the, like, it's all the ironic authoritarianism of an all. Oh, Starship Troopers. Yeah, yeah, Starship Troopers. That's the one. That's one of those. But also, a lot of the meme value comes in. It's, what was that one? Age of XO Primal?
00:48:40
Speaker
The one that dumped a bunch of diamonds. That's closer to Helldivers than anything Marvel's put out so far. And it is in the sense of this grandiose theater production. And we are having an improv night. I don't think they'll do that. It's very hard to pull off. It's more of a technical wonder than anything else. I also think if a game does too well and has no peers, people are more afraid to try and do that.
00:49:09
Speaker
Like if an indie game does it, not to be more insulting, but I think bigger studios will go, ah, if an indie you can do it, I can do it. We can do that. But if it's just like, oh, it's Sony and they popped off, I can't do that. It's just easier to justify not doing it. Yeah.
00:49:26
Speaker
though. That also reminded me, as Eric was showing Exo Primal trailer, they announced a bunch of Mega Man shit is coming to Exo Primal. It feels like more and more we're going to have companies trying to be like, can we inject life into our live service games by adding these little doses of nostalgia to be like, oh, maybe we can get all the olds who like Mega Man to play Exo Primal? Because I saw that trailer and I was like, ooh. Oh, man. Casey and I should play Exo Primal to get that Mega Man stuff. But I'm like, why don't we do it? Just make a Mega Man game.
00:49:56
Speaker
That is your Mega Man game. I don't want that as my Mega Man game. I want a Mega Man Blast of Dinos. I'll go. I'll go too. Fox D with a $10 Dono. Thank you so much Fox D. One thing we'll see more of in indie slash cozy games is scope creep. David Iver kicked that trend off with tons of mechanics and my time at Sandrock is getting a pal world inspired pet DLC.
00:50:18
Speaker
It does seem like we're seeing a lot of these indie games where it felt like indie before was very focused. It was very, we're going to do this one thing and we're going to do it well. And we're going to, we're going to give it to this audience. Whereas Dave the Diver is a great example of a game where I'm like, Oh, it just keeps introducing new shit. Like I would have totally been fine with the simple loop of do some dives, make some sushis and just, you know, repeat, but like they just keep introducing new wrinkles and new mechanics. And yeah.
00:50:48
Speaker
I think part of that has to do with how tapped into the audience a dev can be nowadays with the rise of social media and YouTube and streams even just feedback almost instantly because Lord knows nobody's actually giving it in the game through the games post feedback function and so it's
00:51:05
Speaker
And not to say, oh, these indie developers are cowards, but it can be when you have something that does kind of well, you're just thinking, what more can I do to it instead of just it's time to move on, you know? So I'd agree. I don't know if David Diver kicked it off, but I've just seen in general, indie devs are more willing to stick around and add more instead of moving on to the next project.
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. It's like, well, we spent so much time on this base. Let's see if we can sort of make this our fire that we sit around for a long time and keep people coming back here. And David Diver also was not, that was not innocent of having its big IP attached to it, like the upcoming Godzilla DLC.
00:51:46
Speaker
Which is very much sugar right now. Yeah. Godzilla's going to deal with the diver. Like actual Godzilla, not just like big kaiju. It is literally Godzilla with Godzilla license. Yeah. It's fucking up, Dave. Poor Dave. Poor Dave. I just want sushi, man. Did you ever play the Dredge? Dredge came to Dave the Diver? Or Dave the Diver came to Dredge? I don't know. They came on each other? No, that can't be. Yeah.
00:52:10
Speaker
That can't be how you say it. There was like, tragic Dave the Diver collusion. Collusion, even.
00:52:18
Speaker
I didn't say that. I've not gone back to Dredgen. The DLC is out and begging for me, but there's a lot. And I didn't play that either. I feel like maybe I just need to wait a little bit and I'll forget everything about Dredgen and I'll just go back and replay. Yeah, do a full one because it's not that long. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. It's a nice shorty. Robonob, again, thank you so much. 599 euro, don't know. And if Animal Well sells well, I expect Logan Paul and company to underpay some devs to create some rushed buggy game.
00:52:42
Speaker
Oh, Animal Well just got a release date, by the way. That is coming out May 9th. Animal Well is the first game published by Dunkey's Big Mode label, I believe. Animal Well is a very cool looking game that looks part rain world, part Metroidvania, kind of spooky. Looks very cool.
00:53:06
Speaker
But yeah, that is like, if this game sells like hotcakes, it will be interesting that this is a, you know, a very big YouTuber who's put his money where his mouth is and helped publish and get this game across the finish line. You know, Dunkey didn't develop this game, found this game, this game had already been out there before Big Mode got behind it. But it will be interesting to see if this blows up and is very good and, you know, if we see more and more
00:53:30
Speaker
Stuff like this, I mean, full disclosure, obviously Yahtzee is making a game and showing it off tonight at the mix. That's why he's doing his weird poops today. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see more and more if more, you know, content creators and YouTubers kind of get into that. Markiplier's doing stuff with the Iron Lung movie, right?
00:53:51
Speaker
I think so. I almost anticipate it won't be long before there is a big YouTuber scandal. They got a bunch of people to develop a game for them, but they didn't really know what it entailed to be a publisher, and so it's like they just became the corporate that they were trying to get rid of. Yeah, yeah.
00:54:11
Speaker
I don't know. I hope it does so well, though, that again, it makes people hesitate to follow because helping someone fulfill their vision for their video game is not something to take lightly. So I hope they blow it out of the water so much that it does make your whoever really, really consider like, oh, man, I got to do so much to get into this.
00:54:34
Speaker
I mean, my worry is they're not gonna, if this does really well, the lesson, we talk about this a lot, the lesson isn't going to be, oh wow, this takes a lot of work, finding the right game and a little bit of luck. It's gonna be, oh, if we just find something cool and put our money behind it, everything will be fine, right? Like, I feel like the wrong, like everything will be fine. Welcome to the age of YouTuber publishers.
00:55:02
Speaker
I agree that cozy games are the way we are headed, but I fear some AAA cozy live service hybrid being forced out near the end of that trend's lifespan. It is funny, it doesn't feel like AAA is done cozy yet, right?
00:55:22
Speaker
Dreamlight, yeah, Dreamlight's a good example, yeah. And I guess Animal Crossing is already, like that's been sort of- Added gardening to Jedi. Yeah, little cozy aspects. Yeah, Dreamlight is, that's an interesting one. You wonder if like, especially with Disney and Epic having this big partnership going forward, like something, I'm sure they're looking at something else, like what is a cozy Marvel game? What is a cozy Star Wars game?
00:55:48
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know. I don't know if we're going to see a Ubisoft or an Activision, an EA, like a first party Microsoft game. I guess they had Viva Pinata back in the day. Is Sea of Thieves cozy? Kind of, honestly. With the amount of just sailing, yeah, those very...
00:56:06
Speaker
Podcasting, I'm just chilling here. Do I even have to shoot? Not really. Yeah. Is Palworld cozy? I know you're primarily killing, but yeah. I guess cozy at this point, it also doesn't have a definition. I mean, as far as like...
00:56:19
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. It's more of an atmosphere. Power can have like less consequences than you would like. I mean, my girlfriend feels it's cozy, but some people think souls like are cozy too. Yeah, some real sicko, sicko energy. So in that sense of like, we are meant to give not much consequence and the consequences that are here aren't necessarily fighting, you know? Yeah. I don't know if Triple A would go for that. Do they understand? Can they? Can a corporation understand cozy?
00:56:47
Speaker
Imagine what does corporate cozy look like? Oh my god, corporate cozy. We'll see. I'm still waiting on them to pick up Vampire Survivors. The biggest studio I've seen so far that takes up that genre so far has been Deep Rock. They just did Deep Rock Survivors. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's a smart way to take your huge indie sensation and then be like, oh, we'll pivot and sort of pull inspiration from this other huge indie sensation.
00:57:17
Speaker
have a two-prong approach. I think Temtem's doing that. They are also going vampire survivors upset their fanbase a little, so just tread carefully. There you go. FoxD with a $5 don't know. Thank you so much, FoxD. The Minecraft slash Roblox generation will have some good ideas at first, but corporations will sand the edges off and stick to what sells. But that's the thing is, will that generation
00:57:42
Speaker
need corporations? If you have already learned how to make all these games and you have a bunch of games behind you, do you
00:57:53
Speaker
that maybe you could just cut out the corporation. We're seeing more and more corporations get cut out of these kind of things. You don't need money coming from somewhere. But that might not be the same corporations. We might be seeing a bigger and bigger rise of indie publishers to sit alongside your Annapurnas and your Devolvers and your Kowloon Knights and whatever the hell that triple I thing was that we were talking about last week on the podcast.
00:58:19
Speaker
And now I feel that that will be a generation that won't. They're not going to deal with corporate. They just made a million bucks without them. What do they need corporate for? Exactly. Exactly. If anything, Valve will just open up a better program, I suppose. That just expedites it even more.
00:58:38
Speaker
Not Half-Life 3. Not Half-Life 3, that's for sure. Josh Noel's been around for two months in the Green Gang, thank you so much. Josh, Stalker Games on console now, have you guys tried them? We've not, no. Someone asked us about that last week as well. No, I haven't downloaded it on my Xbox, I've been curious about them, but I never got into the Metro games and Stalker, I like Stalker the movie, but I've never fucked with the games at all. I'm interested in the new Stalker game coming out though.
00:59:07
Speaker
Cause I like big, big, pretty shooters, I guess. Have you ever, have you ever messed with any of these? No, I keep on either I confuse it for a different game or I keep not really understanding what it's about. I've not tried it.
00:59:21
Speaker
It's a little spooky and it's kind of like a little crusty shooter. It's like a shooter with some crust on it. Okay. I think you got to be more mindful. Mindful shooting. Oh gosh. As opposed to I will run in this room and I will just shoot things. Fair enough. Aren't there critters that jump out at you or something? Maybe that's what it was. Someone said there's jump scares.
00:59:41
Speaker
Well, I think Stalker is sort of like you're in Chernobyl, and so there's mutants and shit, as well as dudes to shoot. And I like, because this is going to be a new show, we have two dudes talking about a series we just don't know anything about. There it is. Yeah, journalism. An hour of like, I think this is what it is. Yeah, that's fine. Looks beige. Very beige. It is very beige. Yeah, it came from a beige era. They did not unbeige it. Alex Armstrong with the $2 demo. Thank you so much. Could timed games trend stuff like Dead Rising and Persona 5?
01:00:12
Speaker
I feel like those are two separate kinds of time because Dead Rising is like the clock is always ticking. It is like very like there's a lot of pressure behind it. It's like kind of gives you anxiety because you're like, oh my god, the clock is ticking and I need to choose who to save and I don't have enough time. And it sounds like Dragon's Dogma is going to have side quests like that, which I think the first game had, but like
01:00:34
Speaker
Remember that one side quest in Dredge we always talked about where we found the dude and we're like, we'll come back to this dude and then you come back and the dude's dead and you're like, I don't know what this was. It sounds like there's a lot of that where like, if you're off gallivanting, this character might die because you did not help them out in time. That feels different to me than like the persona time management, which is like, it's evening. What are you going to choose to do this evening? Are you going to go to the dungeon? Are you going to work out? Are you going to hang up friends?
01:00:58
Speaker
I don't know, because you have Diablo 4 and Skull and Bones both did, what was it called?
01:01:06
Speaker
I don't know what they call them. They're live bosses, essentially, that they pop up for a few minutes. And then they go away. If anything, as a way to justify always being online. Interesting. Almost like appointments. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's what they are. They're appointments. If it's like, it's going to be up for 18 minutes and then it's going to have a 30 minute cool down. And that just does seem to be the biggest, like, oh, this is why we're all here right now. I could see in your internets.
01:01:33
Speaker
It's I don't know why why is this hillbilly playing this game? I don't know. It's what Bobby sounds like in my head. Excited to jump into Diablo 4. Yeah, that seems like that is just like like FOMO incarnate. Although if you have your phone, I guess it's much easier to like
01:01:51
Speaker
You know, I know from like, uh, when I was deep into Pokemon go, they'd have their like big raid days or Pokemon go day. And that's when you'd go out and it'd be like, Hey, for this six hours, shit is popping off in your town. And you'd go and it'd be like, Oh my God, there's so many people walking around the Capitol or not. That's like January six talk. I mean, literally like in Madison, the big Pokemon go things around the Capitol.
01:02:11
Speaker
We're storming the capital and catching Gyarados. Where were you January 6th? Pokemon, go. Shiny Charizard. Yeah, that's the only sort of appointment playing that I have experience in. FoxD, back with a $5 donut. Thank you so much, Fox. Consequence free gambling peaked in 2010 with the Luck 10 Fallout New Vegas build.
01:02:37
Speaker
I mean, maybe that's, is D&D? Also, D&D is like a little bit of gambling. You rolling dice? Like there's a gamble behind that. Yeah, like according to South Korea, that's enough. Yeah. It's a band. Exactly.
01:02:51
Speaker
If there's a lot of story behind it, it's not gambling. I'm not sure what constitutes a gambling game. Is it the theme? Is it, you know, is it the actual having of cards? To me, it's if you're not losing any real money, it's not gambling. Well, no, it still feels the same. Well, what is it? Yeah, it's hard. We don't know yet. I think it's just, it's growing now and we all have to figure out what this is as Bellatro continues to control our life. You're gambling with someone else's money, you know?
01:03:20
Speaker
They should, you know what they should do? Vegas should open up Bellatro tables. God. I still haven't played Bellatro. Is it possible to play it using physical cards? No. No one could do the math, though. Someone could do the math. Get ready, man. These numbers get so big it does scientific notation, which people are calling Bellatro numbers now, which I kind of like.
01:03:43
Speaker
What, just like exponents and shit? Yeah, it did. It just starts showing you exponents because that's not even like- Bellatro numbers. Yeah, these are Bellatro numbers now. Do you think Bellatro, did Bellatro create the biggest number ever? Sure. Oh my God. The last number in eternity is just Bellatro. Alex Armstrong with a $2 demo. Thank you so much. Casino games as addictive as Luigi's picture poker. There you go.
01:04:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Look at Louise. Man, I miss the DS. The DS was dumb as shit. Why do we have two screens? This is stupid, but it's so good. Look at it. Look at Luigi. That little gambling fiend. Did you hear Bruno Mars? You hear this Bruno Mars story? You know who Bruno Mars is? Yeah, the figure.
01:04:30
Speaker
This doesn't have anything to do with games. Apparently he's racked up a $50 million debt at a casino in Vegas. 50, which I'm like, why is the casino still lending him money? And everyone's like, he's probably going to do a residency there. And I'm like, at that point, that feels like indentured servitude of being like, you owe us $50 million and instead of paying it off, we will make you do a residency for 10 years. Yeah, perform here for the next,
01:04:56
Speaker
You know, your next album, you have to perform it here first kind of thing. Yeah, but it's also dangerous because it's going to be like, but then also you can live at the casino. And hey, if you're bored on off nights, why don't you go downstairs and try your luck? That doesn't seem good. I blame Luigi. That's what Luigi reminded me of. I feel like Luigi was the person who was encouraging Bruno Mars to get that debt.
01:05:16
Speaker
I was like, well, Bruno Mars is a big fan of Luigi's Mansion. He might. I could see that. I could see a Bruno Mars song that samples Mario in the background as Luigi's trying to spook up some ghosts. Hroth87, thank you so much for the donation. Probably Wishful Thinking, but maybe CRPGs after Baldur's Gate 3. Otherwise, some interesting stuff is going on with real-time strategy games. Some OG Warcraft peeps have an upcoming game. Yeah, that was the one we did. Stormgate, I believe.
01:05:46
Speaker
That was the sort of the Starcraft spiritual successor that is coming out. I definitely think Baller's Gate 3, due to its critical and commercial success, is going to be influential. Again, I don't know if the right lessons are going to be taken from it because, you know, it feels like that's just one of those, like, hey, it was the perfect mix of people working on the perfect property at the perfect time under the perfect conditions, and I don't know if that could be replicated.
01:06:16
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure some lessons are going to be taken from Poly's Gate 3. I just don't know what yet. I think Dungeons and Dragons IP probably. Yeah. It works for them. It works for Stranger Things. It's just made Wizards of the Coast IP more hotter. Yeah. There you go. There you go.
01:06:34
Speaker
Uh, we just, Adventure is Nigh. Just make Baldur's Gate 3. Larry and she just do an Adventure is Nigh game. Yeah, that was borrow the Behold dollars. Easy peasy. Uh, Early Berm with a $10 don't know. Thank you so much. Uh, did you see the trailer for Boy Kills World? That looks dumb and fun. It's live action, but Bob Belcher slash Sterling Archer voices the silent main character. I have, it's a movie. It is, I believe starring, it's starring the, uh, the SARS guard, Bill SARS guard, I want to say.
01:07:01
Speaker
the stars guard who plays, uh, uh, it Pennywise, uh, this is a movie where he, uh, cannot speak. And he goes on this like rampage of revenge a la John wick, but he has an internal monologue and his internal monologue is in the, the Bob's burgers voice. No, that guy's voice. And so he's like beating the shit out of dudes and you hear the whole time, just Bob's burgers.
01:07:24
Speaker
It's very good. Why though? That is not a voice I take seriously. Is it a comedy? It's not a voice I take seriously. Yeah, I think it's supposed to be like a goose. It's supposed to be like here's this like gnarly action combined with like silly, silly people. Sure. I love his voice so much, but like as far as sincerity goes, I cannot. I just see Bob.
01:07:45
Speaker
It looks like it looks like good shit. Yes. He was in barbarian to jacob kitty very good movie Alex Armstrong another $5 don't know. Thank you Alex a trend that should come back is cheat codes via button inputs from hidden modes and funny costumes the level skips and even making your own head gigantic I agree listen if you give me if you give me the game let me punch in a bunch of a bunch of Button inputs to get some cool shit going on
01:08:08
Speaker
There you go. That's the, uh, well, now you just redeem codes, which isn't as fun.
Cheat Codes and Humor in Games
01:08:13
Speaker
Ubisoft had those. Dead by Daylight has those. Make me a game that I can only beat through cheat codes just to bring that back. That's the one time thing. I like it. I like it. I liked, uh,
01:08:24
Speaker
When cheat codes, we played Goldeneye last week, cheat codes in Goldeneye were unlocked. I believe every level could unlock a different cheat, but you would need to beat the level under a certain amount of time, and that would unlock the different cheat. And some of them were pretty easy, some of them were a lot harder, so that's how you would unlock your big head modes, your paintball modes, your golden gun, like all sorts of different modifiers that you could use in the main game. I always thought that was really neat.
01:08:46
Speaker
I like those, that like, let me, let me have to earn it kind of thing? Yeah. So just do a Bellato, and if you don't want to earn it, there's a button that says unlock everything. That way everyone's happy. I like that. Don't get me started on that. Give me, give me the button. Uh, earlier we're back again with a $5, oh no, thank you so much. It's also mascot horror, really more like mascot killing action comedy. Boy Meets World. Boy Meets World, that's what I was saying. You say Boy Meets World. Boy Meets World, he's going on a rampage waist. Mr. Feeny just goes fucking nuts.
01:09:18
Speaker
It looks really good. I'm excited for that. I'm also excited for Monkey Man. Have you seen the trailer for Monkey Man? I have. Oh, I saw that in theaters. Yeah. Looks like he's gonna fuck some dudes up. I saw the end of Evangelion in theaters yesterday. Let me tell you, that movie opens with the main character cranking out to his friend who's in a coma. No, all these years.
01:09:38
Speaker
It's still, yeah, it hasn't stopped breaking out. It's still the opening, all right. It hasn't stopped gooning in the first scene of the movie. And let me tell you, there was like a mild applause when that happened. I was like, you fucking sick. It's a great audience other than the mild applause when it happened, but a great movie, 10 out of 10, would masturbate again. Paul with a $2 don't know, thank you so much. You know what's scary as hell? Tax season. Has there ever been like a tax, I feel like a tax game.
01:10:04
Speaker
would make sense. I know that sounds very dumb, but doing your taxes is such a known quantity to people, and gamifying that could be interesting. They did. Like a papier's police or a bollacho with fucking up your taxes. Nah, the waifu one, remember?
01:10:19
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And it was supposedly this game can help you do your taxes, but everyone's like, oh, they're just stealing your information. Pretty much. I was thinking more just like the tax season horror game was like, yeah, when are they going to do a horror game for people who are getting up there in age? Because yeah, sure. There was a time where the scariest thing was what's in the dark. Now it's more like paying the light bill is a lot scarier than whatever could be in the dark. Yeah.
01:10:47
Speaker
Or a game where you play as a hitman, or like a contract killer, and you have to do your taxes at the end of the year, and you have to be like, how creative can I get with my write-offs to not have people the government suspect that the reason I'm buying all this barbed wire and fucking acid is to kill people and melt their bodies in my home? You can't do that in Hitman.
01:11:13
Speaker
Well, they melt bodies with acid in Breaking Bad. Yes, they do, yeah. That's not a video game. Yeah, hit man and not be found by you as well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there was... Yahtzee reviewed a game, beg the escapist. That was something... It was like a top-down... You were like the cleanup crew. You had to clean up a crime scene before the cops got... Like, the crime had been committed and then you needed to clean up all the evidence and sneak out before the cops get there. It was like a top-down game. I don't think he reviewed it. I think he made it.
01:11:43
Speaker
Oh my god, that can't be true. I feel like I streamed it with him. I think that's one of the games he made, wasn't it? I don't know. I feel like I remember just serial cleaners, right? Serial cleaners. I don't think he made that game, did he? I feel like he played that game. He made a game that was very similar to that. Oh, okay. No, serial cleaners was not his game. Oh, okay. Yeah. Steam, why do you not know how old I am? Yeah, 2022.
01:12:05
Speaker
Tell us that game. You made that game. I can see that. I don't know. Sometimes I forget about that. Thank you so much. Hroff back with the don't know. Thank you so much. When is steampunk or diesel punk coming back? Did steampunk ever leave? I feel like that's always sprinkled and we get a lot of steampunk. Nature punk seems like it's becoming a solar punk.
01:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, punk really comes down to who's the hot girl that's dressed up that way right now. We just cycle through dudes too. Dudes can be hot in the steampunk, solar punk, but we're just going to keep on moving, I think.
01:12:40
Speaker
What's going to be the next, what's going to be the next, uh, the next punk? Garden punk. Garden punk. I'm trying to think like what's hot now that people are going to, hot topic punk. Hot topic punk, no. Spencer's gift punk. Oh, um, Oh God. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what the next punk would be. Are we in space punk right now? Space punk? I could see space punk a little. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little, little, uh,
01:13:07
Speaker
I feel like Space Punk is kind of that like what we thought the future was going to be, like retrofuturism is kind of
Future of Gaming Technologies
01:13:13
Speaker
like spin around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not signalist, the Anacrusis that came out. Anacrusis. Yeah, that was like the four-player cooperative. Oh, God, all the fucking aliens. Oh, it was Dead by Daylight on a spaceship with four people. But it had that look of like, this is what the future is going to look like in 1960. And it's kind of that look.
01:13:31
Speaker
I don't know. It's hard to predict trends nowadays in a time where you can just have anything whenever, right? Like, I don't have to wait for the next noir trend. I can just go have it now. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Frostpunk 2. That's a big one that has your name in it. Spunk 2? What? Frostpunk. Frostspunk 2. Spunk 2, the sequel to Spunk 2. Yeah. I heard Frostcam was Spunk 2. Yeah. Spunk 2 is the sequel to the opening scene of Evangelion.
01:13:56
Speaker
Uh, the piss banded back again with a $5 Dono stealing our piss. Uh, it's funny how the auto chess slash battler genre rose and died in like two years and it's now just TFT standing alone. Team fortress tactics? No. Team fighter tactics. Team fighter. Oops. Um, super pets is still out, isn't it? I think that's one of the ones that made it out of there. And, uh, didn't Dota make one?
01:14:20
Speaker
Oh, the arcade? Do people still play that? And I feel like Hearthstone made a spin-off for it. But yeah, regardless, that is gone. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, I guess sometimes, like...
01:14:37
Speaker
new genre can pop up and sort of in the same way that there's like an athlete who it's like, oh, this person's coming out of high school and is going to be the biggest NBA star on the planet. And sometimes it just doesn't work out. Sometimes the person's like a huge bust and they just, you know, Tim Tebow. Yeah, exactly. And they just, they just want to pray to Jesus every time they touch down. But you got no grace. Yeah, exactly. So I feel like sometimes we're like, oh, this is definitely going to be the next big thing. And then it kind of fizzles out, which is fine.
01:15:06
Speaker
Shout out to Tim Tebow. Humane Shield with a 4.99 don't know. Thank you so much Humane Shield. With all the failed live service games, I feel like the term roadmap has become a negative. Replaying Arkham City on my 360 gameplay still holds up. I feel like those are separate things. It does feel like roadmap is like a
01:15:27
Speaker
feels like more bad can come from it. Like people still expect to see a roadmap, but I feel like a roadmap is also just there because the second you deviate from it, people are going to yell at you. Oh, I think it's just the new dangling carrot. Like, look, I'm not done with it. Look at all my plans. And if I don't get to it, then oh well. To me, it feels like the virtual games of like back in my day, we'd get manuals. Now you guys get roadmaps. It's a different piece of paper and I don't like this one.
01:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny because it's like the manual was a piece of paper being like, here's everything that you need to know before starting. And then the roadmap is like, please don't leave. We will still add these things into the game. We promise. Yeah, it's like when I ordered from Chinese takeout and they put the menu in, I was like, I'm already buying from here, bro. I'm not going nowhere. You're advertising to me. This is nuts. That is true, Eric. That's the only roadmap I care about. Were those little rugs? Were those rugs? I love those. Yeah, I love those rugs.
01:16:25
Speaker
What is it? Road drugs. I want a game with that aesthetic right there. Look at Micro World. Grand Theft Auto. I think that was that LEGO Grand Theft Auto game, which was actually really good. LEGO City Undercover. Also, yeah, Arkham City is a very good game. Human Shield. Agreed. Well done. Dr. Theo with a $5 Dono. Thank you so much, Dr. Theo. Marty, you might like the VR Chat World Organism. It's my favorite example of a liminal space, and you can explore Hangout Consequence Free.
01:16:55
Speaker
There's a lot of VR stuff like that I'm interested in. I'm interested in liminal space, kinda like this is making me uncomfortable VR stuff. There's a VR game called Sushi Ben that's like you're living in an anime that looks fucking cozy and great. My thing is...
01:17:11
Speaker
Is VR here to stay? Dr. Theo, I know you probably don't want to hear this. If you're a VR fan, you don't want to hear this from me. I'm a little worried about VR. We got reports this morning that Sony's like, we're not making any more PS VR 2s until we sell the ones we have, which might literally never happen. And I'm just worried that it feels like VR, and maybe this is my ignorance because I'm on the outside looking in, it feels like VR has kind of become stagnant.
01:17:34
Speaker
VR hasn't had that push into mainstream, hasn't had that technological or device-centric advancement, or even wealth of games that really... It feels like it's hit a ceiling, and I don't know how it's gonna crack through it. Like, you don't play VR, right? No. Yeah, Yasi doesn't play VR, and that's... Nick has a VR set, Jack has a VR set, but...
01:18:00
Speaker
I don't know, I'm curious what needs to happen for folks like you and I, let alone the average Joe, are like, fuck it, we need to, this is it, we need to get VR in the same way that we need to get a smartphone. Yeah, it's just hard to justify the whole affair. Are we? Sure. I can get motion controls, but like, why do I have to be in it? Yeah. It's hard to get through. Yeah. That being said, I do want to live in Sushi Ben. I want to live in that city. Let me live in my anime worlds.
01:18:28
Speaker
FoxD, back with a $5 don't know, thank you so much FoxD. I love the long-tail games, the long-tail that games have with adding DLC. Terraria, Euro Truck Simulator, Europa Universe Solace 4, they last longer than live service games themselves. That seems like if you've built the foundation of something people love,
01:18:48
Speaker
Like you said earlier of like folks, more and more folks sort of building something and not going away from it, like building something and staying there and adding on to it and hoping folks come. And that's how you see, that's why we don't have a Stardew Valley 2 or a Terraria 2. You know, these are games that- Oh, he's making a new one, isn't he? Chocolatier? Chocolatier. Yeah, but that's not Stardew. That's about haunted chocolate. He's moving on. He's moving on. Yeah.
01:19:14
Speaker
Eventually though, but that's it hasn't been like 10 years like it's been a bit, you know dead cells moving on Let me tell you I don't care about minecraft I'll be excited when they put a 2 on that logo. Oh, but they will
01:19:28
Speaker
You don't think so? You don't think we're ever going to get my crafty? Maybe. Because right now, the big thing, the big reason that a lot would swap would just be to, for the tech, have a better engine than what they started with. Because a lot of games, they're just like, we don't know if it's going to be big. Let's just make it. And that's how it used to be to make the old games. Now you kind of have to think about that stuff. Like, what if we do make it big? Will this code make it so we can't continue to upgrade it?
01:19:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I'd say like a thousand years from now if they can't port Minecraft over or whatever, just copy paste. We'll get a Minecraft too. Yeah. All right, I'm gonna set a reminder on my phone for 1,000 years from today, March 18th, 3024. Yeah, we'll leave a scheduled YouTube video for you kids.
01:20:11
Speaker
They're still alive. A few tubes still open. Incredible. Race Car Lock with the $5 Dono. Thank you so much, Race Car Lock. Given the ongoing indie renaissance, I'm hoping the next big trend is everything, every genre, every style. Take your pick because everything is here.
01:20:30
Speaker
I think that, I'm assuming race car lock, correct me if I'm wrong, you don't mean everything in a single game, you just mean that the buffet is broad enough to where no matter what you have a taste for, we got something for you here. It's just a cheesecake factory.
01:20:44
Speaker
It's just a cheesecake factory, which listen, steam feels like a cheesecake factory to me. You open up steam and you're like, oh, there's something for everyone here. Cheesecake factory is great if you have like only one or two dishes that you enjoy. So when you get to like the fifth or sixth one that you go, wait a minute, these are all kind of tasting the same. They all start from the same primordial goo. Yeah. They're just one vat at cheesecake factory and they start it, they scoop something out of the vat and then they're like, what are we going to do? Just put some noodles in it. It's fine. It's pasta.
01:21:14
Speaker
Yeah. Sean Harriman, thank you so much. Been the Green Gang for two months. Did you see DF Kingsmaker's dev interview, Crowds Next Gen? I don't know what DF Kings, Digital Foundries, Kingsmaker dev interview, Crowds Next Gen. Oh, the Kingmaker. That's that funky little, is that a funny little game? Is this it?
01:21:40
Speaker
I believe it's the one where you, Eric's showing the trailer. It's anachronistic warfare, essentially, where you get to keep, you be a normal soldier in medieval times. Yeah, yeah, that game's gonna blow up, because I feel like that game is just gonna be shared to IL. Like that is that social media game. It's the male fantasy. How many times have you been working your job and you're just like, how many T-Rexes could I take with a tank? Yeah, yeah. Like with technology I have, where could I conquer?
01:22:08
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I think it's just a recipe for the success. Yeah, I think it's gonna be a goodie. And last don't know for the moment, John Connor with two Canadian dollars. Thank you so much, John Connor. Cozy game in the apocalypse bunker would be me in real life. I feel like Fallout Shelter was kind of a cozy game.
01:22:31
Speaker
a bunker game, right? Cozy Bunker Busters? It was my Cloverfield Paradox. Oh god. It plays the John Goodman being not a Goodman. Man, you know what more games need? Like a John Goodman character class. Or a game where you can choose your Goodman. Like, do you want your Roseanne Goodman? Do you want your Lebowski Goodman? Monsters, Inc., the game. Monsters, Inc., Goodman, could use that.
01:22:56
Speaker
Oh my god, you level up. You're John Greatman. He's great. Fred Flintstone? He played Fred Flintstone. What a great Fred Flintstone. That's it. We did it. I can't believe it. I can't believe we did it. I'm so extremely proud of us. Eric, you know what? I think you're the MVP of the episode because you put up a lot of goofs in the corner and I appreciated them. Before we take off for the day, Frost, what do you have going on? What should folks check out? Go watch the Helldivers 2 video that just come out. Have a look at a, I spent,
01:23:26
Speaker
Quite a bit of time into that game. It was, I said, I like it. People said I didn't like it enough. That's a hanging crime these days. So you're never going to see me again. Yeah, people get very upset at that. Outside of that, I believe we've got like, we've got some streams that we've got to throw out during the week. You'll see me. Yeah, yeah. We'll have plenty of streams throughout the week. We're still finalizing our streaming schedule. We know for sure tonight, 6 PM central.
01:23:55
Speaker
Casey is back Jesse might be back He was feeling a little under the weather over the weekend But Casey will be back with Jess possibly Jess or with Jess possibly Jesse playing Azure Gunvolt 2 I don't know if that's the right name of the game. It's kind of like a Mega Man game and Casey likes Mega Man. So there you go. Kind of like a Mega Man game
01:24:16
Speaker
So yeah, tune in for that tonight, and then we should have streams every day this week. So just assume that if a noon is rolling around, we're probably streaming, and then we'll have Firelink. We'll be back for... We'll be back for Devil May Cry, starting Devil May Cry 4 on Thursday. We'll get Jack on some streams. You guys can chat with Jack about all of his adventures in Washington, D.C.
01:24:39
Speaker
all that good stuff. So yeah, thank you all so much, everyone in chat. Thank you to everyone who donated. Thank you to everyone who's just a member and who's just wonderful and hangs out and provides the good vibes for us on this Monday morning. So for Frost and for Eric, this was Marty. This was Windbreaker episode number 15. Thank you all so much. And we will see you all later this evening for Azure Gunvolt. Maybe that's its name. Bye everyone. Hello.
01:25:20
Speaker
you