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Kingsway - Ep 79
38 Plays8 months ago
Allison dials up the past as she talks about this retro-style roguelike RPG.
Follow us on twitter! @ysptg_pod
Music is "Fork and Spoon" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Transcript
Sci-Fi Concept with Windows 95
00:00:05
Speaker
OK, so James, you know how last week you talked about like sci fi and fantasy? Yes. What if you did that? Uh huh. But it was a Windows 95 computer and that was the sci fi. And then you had the fantasy on the Windows 95 computer. It feels to me like you're talking about the first Elder Scrolls game. No. Oh, it's time for me to take my medication down. Medicate. I need to meditatigate myself give me a second. I've been I've been munching on tic tacs. Now I actually have to take a real pill. oh You munch the tic tacs to just build your body's readiness of pills. Yeah. Objects. Yeah. I'm practicing my pill taking.
Introducing Kingsway: A Fantasy Game
00:01:00
Speaker
Today, I'm talking about Kingsway. Hey, this looks fascinating. I just I only looked at it ah for a second, but wow, it is a wild experience and it's really cool. And I really love the idea behind why this game looks the way it does. um I apologize. I know that this is an auditory medium. This will require a minimal amount of research from the viewer or the listener at home. Please view some images of this game for me to describe to you. Stop listening. I mean, you can keep listening. I will I will try and give my best description of what the hell this game is because it's weird. But genuinely, it's a Windows 95 computer operating system style game.
00:01:51
Speaker
and then you are playing a roguelite fantasy game inside of that. um It is all very heavily themed ah around the internet and operating system experience of Windows 95. and to an extent Windows XP, but mostly Windows 95. This game came out a while ago. It came out in 2017. It's made by Andrew Morrish, who is one guy who made this game. um It was published by Adult Swim Games, which honestly, really cool publishing group. I'm sad that they've been closing some studios, but genuinely, they've made some really cool games. They've made some gyms that I really like. I've got a couple of them on this list to talk about.
00:02:37
Speaker
at some point here in the future. um Other games that he's made are also really interesting. um I went through a little list of the games that Andrew Morrish has made. um There are two. There's a UFO, Unidentified Following Objects and Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe. um UFO looks to be like a weird Tetris roguelite which is interesting. UFO looks like a game jam concept that got polished and released later. Both of them do. Both of them do. I get very specific vibes of that from this. That's not necessarily fair to say because that happens all the time. Yeah and it's like honestly like some of my favorite games are that.
00:03:26
Speaker
exactly But that is that is very much the vibes that I get from these games, but I do like there It's the the take a thing and smoosh it with another thing and Allison just enjoys it But I do like they're like trying some weird And then this one really just struck my whole brain.
Mastering Window Management in Kingsway
00:03:44
Speaker
So I was like, oh it looks weird and cool. Um, I The idea is it's got like this really old operating system feeling aesthetic, it's got a really low barrier to entry. And the the whole idea of it is organization is key. Like that is the biggest window management is your biggest
00:04:05
Speaker
like skill that you're going to build playing this game. um And I think that that's a really cool concept. I like games that like force you to develop your own organizational system to play the game more efficiently. um You really, a lot of it is taking place in this operating system like area. um the The way that it stylizes really fun. You get a lot of cool upgrades to where you can kind of custom make your own little operating system like theming, which was always a really fun part of old operating systems. yeah um it It looks really fun. It's got like the very Windows XP, Windows 95.
00:04:47
Speaker
feel. um the The reason behind that, it Andrew Moorish, the smart little man that he is, I don't know if he's little, I apologize, Andrew, you might be six foot three. I have no idea. Andrew, you are small. You have been assigned small. and Well, I said little. James has assigned you small. So yell at James, not me. One small, live in large, you know how it is. If you're on a computer and downloading a computer game, chances are you probably know how to operate a computer operating system.
00:05:22
Speaker
So that dramatically lowers the barrier to entry for playing this game. That was his whole thought is like, if you know how to op do a computer operating system, you know how to play this game. Which I got to be honest, working in customer support for a like monitor and ostensibly computer company, you would be ah astounded how often that's not true. It's not a lot, but it's way more than you think. I ran technical support for ah an insurance company selling Medicare. um I was in techport ah wo technical support, support for the company, but I did do technical like technical support for my entire team. You're struggling with that term. um I hate to hear it. I wish you luck. I did tech support for my entire team and a lot of them were retirees and also
00:06:17
Speaker
yeah it Yeah, it's a lot. It is a higher number of people who do not know how to. But if you are downloading a computer game and purchasing a video game off of Steam, chances are you're probably surpassing that barrier to injury. chances are probably, but it does lower the barrier to entry for playing because a lot of people kind of know how to move around a window and hit the X button to close out a pop out and i like deal with some of the things that are going on within this game.
00:06:49
Speaker
um A lot of the fun things are like when you get into a battle you get a little pop-up ad of the enemy that you're fighting and then you have to click things within that and sometimes they move around like the bats are really annoying because you have to click a specific button and it's moving across the screen just like pop-ups used to do. I was like, dude, I'm just trying to click that stupid thing to get it to go away, kill the bat. And and it's it's fun. um You have like all of the GUI is just like little windows that you're moving around and stretching and like trying to layer just right and stacking in a way to where you can still see it. So you can click it to bring it to the front so that you can access that window later. But also, it's out of the way so that I can still
00:07:38
Speaker
like play the game. um it's It's very, very well themed to get this rogue light into this play style of ah it almost feels like a text based adventure, but it's not. It's so hard to describe if you look at ah like literally the two minute video that is the trailer for it. I think it's actually 45 seconds. But like, It is it is so interestingly laid out and I cannot recommend checking out how weird it looks. Yeah, I feel like this game more than a lot of others who talked about it's really important that you do actually go and look at this because the description of like, oh, yeah, you're playing a game, but it's all navigating an operating system.
00:08:26
Speaker
Doesn't sound like the most interesting concept when you kind of boil it down to that. But looking at the it's very fascinating to see like all of these like this is a design language that a lot of folks at this point have lived around their entire lives and taking that and co-opting it into something that is like entertainment instead of just like the way you have to like navigate your day to day life is really interesting. It got some really high. Oh, sorry. It got some really high accolades as well. It won a best indie game of E3 2017 when it came out. wow Like it won a bunch of awards at PAX. It won like when gaming conventions were really a thing still.
00:09:09
Speaker
They are still around, but they're not. E3 is dead. Pax is starting to like fall off. like It's sad. I'm really sad about that. I'm devastated that E3 is officially dead. They they drove the final nail in that coffin. I'm so sad about that. That was last year. but like Yeah, I know. i i still Sometimes it still feels like a bad he's in the room with me. I know. um That's one of those things as in like an old man, like decades from now, I'm going to be like, I remember when we had the three E's and everyone went to it and it was exciting. Electronics, entertainment. Education, I don't remember what connected for free is and education, entertainment expo. Yeah. um But expo, that was
Customizing GUI in Kingsway
00:10:01
Speaker
the word I was looking for.
00:10:02
Speaker
but I thought that was a bit. No, I fully forgot. because google But the thing that i I also like about it is that with an operating system, the way that you use it is so personal to you. And that follows through and the same as this is that follows through to this game is that you customize the interface and your layout and the way that you arrange the battlefield essentially to whatever suits your play style, whatever menus you need to access, whatever windows you need quick to have up or to have minimized or to get out of the way. You get to decide that it's the
00:10:44
Speaker
The game gives you the windows to play it. You get to decide how to interact with them. And I really like that you get to decide how your GUI is laid out because no game does that. It's your ammo counter is in the bottom left corner. Your health is in the top left. Or in the bottom right. And that's just how it is. You can't move it in Halo. Your ammo counter is in the bottom left. And that's just where it is. And it's never changing. It doesn't matter how big your monitor is. It's always in the bottom left. So sometimes you have an ultra wide and you have to actually turn your head and see how much ammo you have. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of games. They're the the the modern. Oh, look how ah how much you can control your gaming experience is like how many of those aspects of the UI you can just turn on or off like relocating something like that and personalizing it to yourself is ah kind of unheard of.
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah. And that's all this game is, is re replacing and moving around windows to optimize your play style. It's really fun. I love games that get you to kind of break the fourth wall and create your own play style within them by they're like, I'm going to give you all the pieces. You figure out how to play with them. Yeah. um it's It's really cool. ah And then like. The the the click and drag drag and drop elements of like, okay, cool I have I looted an enemy it popped up a window that shows me all the stuff that's there then I have a different window That's my backpack and I can click and drag that item from The enemy's loot window to my backpack and then I can minimize my backpack into its own little window it I don't know it just sparks a ah ah little
00:12:33
Speaker
tiny bit of dopamine in my brain that I love. um And it's just so cool. And it is so quick to just short circuit your brain and make you panic. Also, the second you're like, Oh, God, ah this enemy popped up and I need that window. Where did I put that window? Where did I put that window? Where do I have that smell? where How do I access that? ah and then you're just trying to figure out how to navigate the system that you set up to actually make this happen and then you die and then you get a billion pop-ups that covered the whole screen that is like the
00:13:16
Speaker
triggers my 90s lizard brain of, Oh, I put a virus on the family computer. i just saw like i thaty dady saturday I'm like, Oh yeah. It's like a diagonal line of popups down the screen. It's like, Oh no. Oh no. I have messed up. and Um, but, and then like, when that happens, you're like Okay, cool. I'm going to do another run. I need to make sure I keep my windows where I can see them. And then you try that and then you're like, everything's still too cluttered. I need to get rid of some of these windows. And like, it's this push and pull of trying to figure out like what the right balance of like.
00:13:52
Speaker
I need these things up and in this spot. I need this thing over here. This thing I'm going to keep up in the left corner because that's what how I'll know it's there. I need to make sure that I can keep track of my health bar. I need to still be able to see the icons on my home screen. It's it's so many things to manage and you're trying to juggle it all and it makes you organize the game yourself. And i I just think that's cool. I've come up with a couple of game ideas myself that are forcing the player to come up with their own organizational development within the game. And that is the game. And this scratches a little bit of that itch of like, yeah, this is the kind of close to the thing that I was aspiring to the the panic and the like
00:14:40
Speaker
Brain overload. I was aspiring to create in my players, um which I think is so fun. ah Like it when I get that like, oh, I messed up and I realized that I messed up and I need to find this thing like now. Yeah, it's it's such a like a visceral moment that it like it grabs you and it's really cool. Mm hmm. I wonder if playing this game will make me better at my day job. Maybe. It's also a relatively cheap game. It's only ten dollars full price and it does go on sale from time to time. If you don't catch it on sale, like genuinely ten bucks is like. It's a roguelite. You can play it a bajillion times over, um but it's it's so fun and I highly recommend it. um you'll You'll get your ten dollars worth for sure.
00:15:36
Speaker
um But ah maybe you could you could talk to your work and be like, hey, can I expense this? Yeah, this is actually training for the the number of windows I have to keep open to be able to um complete the various tasks and interface with the various clients. And um trust me, this is all ah very much above board. It's all about, you know, systems and time management. I need this. Listen to me. Listen to me, Mr. Manager.
00:16:08
Speaker
I need this. Listen, boss, I don't think you get it. I don't think you understand how important this is. This is the only thing holding me to this job. This should have been mandatory training.
00:16:26
Speaker
But yeah, I don't really have too terribly much more to say about it, other than this game stresses me out and I like it. Hey, that's always good to hear. It's really fun. It's got a really cool aesthetic. I love that the reasoning for the aesthetic is that like, I just thought it would be accessible and understandable for people who are not really necessarily heavy gamers, but they want to play a game and they can just like see this, pick it up, play it and just understand it almost intuitively from the jump.
00:16:58
Speaker
Because we live our lives through computers a lot of the time. They're so like integral to society that Genuinely, I think that this game is like so easy to pick up and play for nearly anyone. I love Accessibility in games. I just think it's cool. And I think that this is like fairly highly accessible. All you need is a mouse You might need a keyboard to like type your name or some something like that. But really it's like Very, very low effort. And I yeah think that you could definitely, definitely play this game.
Easy Accessibility of Kingsway
00:17:33
Speaker
It's entertaining to me, but also makes 100 percent perfect sense that controllers are not supported for this game. It was not designed for them. And I don't think you can even use them for it. No, all you need is a mouse. And if if you're like low moment mobility, that honestly is not that that hard of it an entry. Mice are pretty, pretty accessible. And there's a lot of accessibility mice out there. Just ask any cat.
00:17:56
Speaker
Yeah, they'll probably find you one. I'll get you one right away. I heard recently that that is a myth. i I believe it. There's there's a lot of weird stuff surrounding mice that seems to be just like completely not true, like elephants being scared of mice and things like that. they They like elephants will go out of their way to go around mice, but they're not like going to freak out and like panic. and so Mice have the wildest PR team that maybe ever existed. Dude, they did. They do. And I still want a pet rat because they're cute. But that's a topic for another day.
Social Media and Future Plans
00:18:32
Speaker
um But yeah, I think that's why you should play this game.
00:18:35
Speaker
Um, yeah, because rats are cool and because it's really accessible, it's fairly cheap. And I think it's a really wild take on a rogue light that I think is a great time. Genuinely, it just creates this, this chaos of a play state that I think, uh, I haven't really had another game capture. It inspired me in a way that I can't explain. And I really think that people should check it out. Yeah, I mean, I think you ah youve you've got me at this point. I'm definitely going to check it out. um In fact, it's now currently in my steam library. So for. Oh, did you? already buy Did you buy it? It was not my library at the beginning of this episode.
00:19:17
Speaker
Dude, that's funny. I was literally at the end of this episode after we had stopped recording. I was like, Hey, James, do you want to like do the family sharing things so you can see my games and I can see your games and can play them sometimes, but you you beat me to the punch. I really hope you enjoy the game. I think it's a real good time. It's also runs are relatively short. It's not one of those rogue lights. It's going to take you three hours to complete a run like Returnal. Yeah, you'll probably be able to pick up and play a game within like 10, 15 minutes. um Gotcha. Sorry to anyone who heard that. My cat just took a bite out of my microphone. I was curious, but yeah, I definitely heard that. I was like, what's that sound? James is usually pretty good about like not bumping the mic too much. No, that was 100% the sound of cat teeth digging into the soft cover of the microphone.
00:20:07
Speaker
Baby, I think they actually like hit the the mesh film because like I heard a click. I think that is exactly what happened. I think I think he heard us talking about bias and got a little bit too interested. That's fair. That's fair. Yeah. um But yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna end us here. Thank you for joining us. You should check us out on and Twitter at YSPG underscore pod. um I also misspoke that, so I'm going to repeat myself at YSPG underscore pod. Sorry, what was that one more time? Can we get a good clean ah line read just for posterity? You can find us at YSPG. Damn it.
00:20:54
Speaker
I would pay money to add a feature to like a, uh, like the echo Alexa or like the Google assistant to just every once in like very, very low random chance of them just completely messing up and having to start over. Dude, I would be super down for that. If dude, if they just had a flub, everyone's like, sorry, I misspoke. And then just like kept going and be like, wait, what? Yeah, Siri just says like, hey, dare like google that's actually not true. Oh, are you okay? What happened? Did they give, did they unlock the sentence button? Like what happened just now? That's such a human thing is like getting it wrong every once in a while. Like fully recognizing it mid sentence and being like, I fully just, I messed that one up. I'm sorry guys. That's the secret to AI is we have to make them a little bit bad. Less perfect. Yeah.
00:21:49
Speaker
But yeah, ah check me out on Twitch at Peekapew. P-I-K-A-P-E-W-W. There's two W's. um I'm also on Instagram and Twitter and everything at the same handle. So like, just find me. um And you can't find me. I don't exist. Yeah, James is an enigma, but I am going to force him on my stream at some point. We will. We will make that happen. I promise. um Also, I'm going to put this out there, but i'm I'm putting James on the spot.
Live Podcast Slideshow Party
00:22:22
Speaker
He has not fully agreed to this, but it will happen.
00:22:25
Speaker
um I hope to do a live version of this show and make it into a slideshow party. I think that that would be very fun. So look forward to that in the future. It will happen. I am going to force it. Yes. No, for the record, I'm 100% into it and onboard. It's just a matter of like navigating my and incredibly poor time management skills. Schedules are terrible, especially when you're two full grown adults trying to figure out how to navigate the world. And then also two people who are both moving relatively soon. Yeah, not not too long. So, yeah, no promises on how soon that's going to happen, but that's definitely in the cards in in one way or another. Student TM. oh Yes, exactly. TBED.
00:23:08
Speaker
tbd it will happen but uh i i can't wait i already have like stream setups and templates and like an entire like collette stream collection on my obs ready to rock and roll as soon as soon as we're able to go um but yeah uh check us out give us give us ratings give us feedbacks uh james usually plugs something about uh Something on Spotify. I don't really remember because they don't pay attention to him when he speaks but hey, that's fair neither do I so that's two for two right there I don't pay attention to when I speak so like I but I don't see why I should give anyone else better treatment I don't know that I've ever actually spoken. I can't prove that this hasn't all been a Hallucination that's been taking place in my mind James. I have some startling news for you ah We literally have
00:23:56
Speaker
the hours and hours and hours of recorded experience. That's true, but that that lamp is looking a little bit flat. I don't know if that's sticking out to anyone else or or if that reference is just going to go completely above everybody's heads. And I've made a joke for one person. I didn't. it I didn't get it, but don't look at it. I'm sure it'll be fine. Um, yeah it was, it was a story on Reddit about how like this guy like was in a coma or like having a dream and hallucinated this like whole alternative life for himself. And the only like hint that, or it was going fuzzy. It wasn't flat. It was fuzzy. Um, it was,
00:24:37
Speaker
It was like this detail about one of the lamps. It was like this fully like realistically rendered like beautiful story of how like his life had continued. But then like a lamp started looking weird and it was like a hint to him that this was all like in a coma or like a dream. Then he wakes up and this like whole idyllic life for himself has just vanished and instant. It was one of the most heart wrenching things I've ever read. Um, but, um, I did also mess up the reference. Um, and everything is real. I promise. Even if it isn't, you still gotta to go to work tomorrow. So like, yeah, that doesn't make a difference whether it's real or not. This is where you are. So yeah, life continues on regardless. Exactly. And this is where we'll be next week. So catch us then. But in the meantime, y'all have a good one.
00:25:25
Speaker
Bye!