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Ep.184: The Indie Spring Avalanche Begins
143 Plays8 months ago
Buckshot Roulette, Pepper Grinder, and Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom kick off what may be the busiest two months of the year for the indie scene.
The Six One Indiecast publishes every Monday at 8AM EST on all major podcast feeds and YouTube.com/SixOneIndie. Be a part of the discussion live and catch Clocked Out: The Indiecast Post-Show exclusively on Patreon.com/SixOneIndie.
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Transcript
Introduction and Opening Remarks
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 184 of the six one indie cast. My name is Mike Towner tonight. I am joined by Becca Smith. Hello, Matthew, right? Kyle Stevenson. Hi, Kyle. What's the flavor? Arctic blast Arctic five. Is that that's your go to write the blue? That's my favorite one. Yeah. Blueberries.
00:00:41
Speaker
What do they call it? Sparkling frozen berry. Oh, whatever that is. Just any berry. Y'all into freezing grapes.
TikTok Trends and Social Media Promotion
00:00:50
Speaker
I used to eat, but then like I read this thing that it's like really bad for you and I got freaked out. Interesting. Why?
00:00:58
Speaker
I don't remember. I just remember I froze a bunch of them and I was eating a ton of them and my mom was like, those are really bad for you. That's all that's saying on Facebook. I don't remember. Have you ever seen the peeling grape videos? Or did they just peel the skin off like surgery? I peel grape skin off of my teeth. I chew the skin a little bit and then I eat the grape.
00:01:24
Speaker
There's like full on like YouTube TikTok videos where they actually take like little tiny scalpels and just remove the first little layer of the grape. It's really weird, but fascinating. There's the egg videos too on TikTok. You ever see those lives where they're, yeah, I don't know. It's weird. It makes a ton of money.
00:01:45
Speaker
where we all suffer from the brain rot match. It's like three seconds while scrolling for five hours. I mean fair. Yeah. Just one. I am struggling to fall asleep. Yeah. I want to see some, some egg peeling. You know what I'm saying? All right.
00:02:04
Speaker
God, it's been a long time since it did a podcast. You are listening to the six one indie cast, a weekly video game podcast, amplifying the indie scene as smaller games outside of the triple a space new episodes drop each and every Monday morning on all major podcast feeds and youtube.com slash six one indie supporters on patreon.com slash six one indie could tune in live as we record and gain access to clocked out the indie cast post show. But if money is tight, no worries. You still can show your support with a simple click wherever you're listening. Go ahead and leave this podcast a review. Follow
PAX East Highlights and Reflections
00:02:30
Speaker
six one indie on socials,
00:02:31
Speaker
subscribe and hit the bell on YouTube, follow on Twitch and tell your friends all about us. Shout out to people. Yeah, almost got through that. Damn. Shout out to the PD fans supporting on Patreon, Brett Griffin, Kobe, Cordis, Ellie, JC, Jill, grow Marcus, Marcus O'Neill, Nicholas Johnson, play it. Jason still can it the compound and Cole, AKA the good sir, quick housekeeping. The six one indie showcase. It happened on March 20th, right ahead of Pax East.
00:02:59
Speaker
I think we did a pretty good job team. And if you haven't seen it, go on over to six one, indy.com slash showcase and give that beautiful little boy a click. Give it a little share, give a little kiss. If you thought spring was it, guess what? Joke's on you. The next one, the next six ways to showcase it's happening on August 29th. Spoilers ahead of Pax West. Who would have thought August 29th
00:03:24
Speaker
It's gonna be a good time. Kyle and I behind the scenes already confirmed a couple of games while we were at PAX East. Just mimes. Okay. That's, that's all Kyle got. That's all Kyle's. Don't be pissy. I thought you were not being pissy. I have a very pissy attitude right now. I don't like it. I'm very tired. Spicy, not pissy. Guess what? You thought August 29th was it? Think again, buck the indie game awards presented by six. Well, indie it's happening.
00:03:53
Speaker
20, 24 later in the year, we have locked down a date, but it's happening. So kind of brings up a good point in chat. What do I do if I saw the showcase three times? Watch it a fourth. There you go. That's what you got to do. What happens when you watch it fourth, watch it a fifth. Game stop, throw it on a phone or tablet. Oh my God. We should do that for August.
00:04:16
Speaker
It's like, Hey, everyone go to a Best Buy and just like open up a laptop and put it on. Everyone go to your local Apple store and throw it on every iPhone that you see. Speaking of packs East.
00:04:32
Speaker
Oh, I guess that's another piece of housekeeping. If you missed it, the last two episodes were PAX East episodes, the usual chaotic kind of just BSing around the hotel room we had. Who would we have, Kyle? We had Asa Green River. We had chicken McCourt. Joseph Cooper. C.G. Danny B. Oh my goodness gracious. Harry. Harry, of course. Me and you.
00:04:56
Speaker
I want, we had more guests plan, but we'll get into it. We didn't record day three because we were tired and we just wanted to hang out. Like this was, I mean, we can just start here. I love this. Final thoughts. Pax East. I love this. Pax East for the simple thought of just like actually having time to hang out with people and meeting new people and chatting with them. Whereas like in years past running to appointments in here and there and just figuring out what to do. And, uh,
00:05:26
Speaker
I kind of liked it a whole lot this year. I mean, I'm bummed. I didn't play more than three games, but played more than me. Hey. Um, but yeah, just seeing everybody, uh, helped me a great deal. So it was, it was a good time. Yeah. It's what it's all about nowadays. Just go to see people hang out. I think we all purposely went in not making appointments. The only appointments we made were for the benefit of the showcase or, or planning the indie game awards. Um,
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah, it was nice just to do it more casually. Granted on my end, I was a little crazy managing the booth for table to media, but that was a whole other side of things. Even that was super fun. Love doing that kind of stuff. But yeah, just great seeing people. Cause I think we, we talk about it a lot. We, we only really get to see our friends and each other cause we're all spread out all over the place. Like if we're lucky twice a year, but usually once a year,
00:06:21
Speaker
So yeah. Getting to actually meet another council person in real life. Yeah. Jenny. I got to meet Jenny. Didn't get to chat a whole lot, but it was awesome to meet her. Finally. I'm glad, um, I listened to my instincts to make sure we attended that panel. Cause I was right. That was the only time I saw Jenny that weekend. Those brief six minutes before the panel. Jeez.
00:06:44
Speaker
Great panel, by the way. Great panel. I hope they post it one of these days because like Ben Starr was on point. I think the audio was, but I think the audio is out there because I know it is. I believe Jacob mentioned he listened to it and he was like, yeah, no, you were right. Ben Starr was on one. Yeah. Matt and Beck, if you're not familiar, it was a video game Tinder panel where we, we, the crowd and the panelists get to swipe on characters and had fake Tinder profiles for everybody. And it was, it was a good time.
00:07:14
Speaker
Eric Van Allen, very funny. And it was also John Carson. And I forgot who else did some of the writing for that. I think cam Hawkins did some of the writing, maybe renting room, all the homies, possibly. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I don't know where that audio lives, but if you go to Eric Van
Deep Dive into Buckshot Roulette
00:07:30
Speaker
Allen's Twitter, I'm sure you could find it. Cause I think still kind of is, uh, asking in the chat.
00:07:36
Speaker
But yeah, Paxis, good time. A weirder Paxis, but not a bad Paxis. That's what we said multiple times on those nightly episodes, just because it was weird not having a Devolver there. It was weird not having a Yacht Club, a East Bird, even things like Discord. Like granted, we don't actually care about Discord. Like, well, we care about the platform Discord. Discord, do you want to pop in our DMs? We'll have to chat.
00:08:01
Speaker
We usually don't visit the discord booth, but it's just, it's weird not seeing or feeling their presence on the show floor. Yeah. And I fully believe after the news, once the show's over of it next year, being in may, it should be better. I feel like it's going to be a bigger turnout from triple a triple I smaller indies. It's going to be pretty massive. I feel like unless people save their money for SGF.
00:08:31
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah. I'm excited for May. I will. We'll have to talk about internally what that means for a showcase stuff, but, but everyone comes to packs East cause that Sunday is my birthday. Yeah. So we can celebrate in person. I haven't been able to do that in a literal decade plus. So we're going to give Kyle swirly's for his birthday in the hotel room. Please don't.
00:08:55
Speaker
Which is a good old Razzan, a good old Hazen for his sweet 16. See what I mean everybody? He'll first spend 15 minutes disinfecting and cleaning that toilet. Filling it with Avial. Listen, I just had the stomach bug for the third time in a year this past weekend. Never again. What do you see what it means to be in Pissy? Are you getting the stomach bug from Spicys? Is it that like, I don't want to get gross on the podcast. It's fine.
00:09:23
Speaker
Let's talk about some video games. We actually have all been playing some video games, which is delightful. It's been a long time since I've touched a controller and I've touched my steam deck. I would like to start out with something that dropped today, something that's been in the itch IO ether when quite viral towards the end of last year, and that is buckshot roulette.
00:09:47
Speaker
I've been playing the steam version for the past couple of weeks. Has anybody played buckshot roulette? The itch IO version, like watch the YouTuber play it. Cool. Yeah. I feel like that's most people's experience. Uh, so buckshot roulette from Mike Klubnicka. I believe that that's how you pronounce his name and published by critical reflex. It's straight up Russian roulette. Um, big inscription vibes in terms of the tone and the setting and just the overall vibe, but nowhere as like,
00:10:16
Speaker
wild in terms of like narrative and whatnot. It is a very like bite size experience. You go in, you play Russian roulette. It's three rounds. You're out. It's fantastic. Like it's a fantastic bite size experience. It's a $3 game. Totally worth it.
00:10:31
Speaker
The Steam version brings some new elements. So there's new items, I'm just taking this from the Steam blog, new items for Double or Nothing mode, more useful items for you, but also useful items for the dealer. There's leaderboards, language support, controller support. There's Steam Deck support, which is so sick. A new original soundtrack, which the vinyl just went up for sale for pre-order a couple of weeks back. And then there's an improved dealer AI in the Double or Nothing mode. So gameplay loop.
00:11:01
Speaker
You walk into the dealer's room, this dealer again, big inscription vibes. It's this man with this menacing mask. And you're just going, you're taking turns going one for one, grabbing a shotgun and either shooting yourself or shooting at the dealer. Each round has live ammunition and blanks. You start out, I think it's you. I think the first round is like one live round, two blanks. So, and it's just straight up the rounds.
00:11:28
Speaker
you have to kind of just take a chance. You have to determine, okay, like am I gonna shoot myself or am I gonna shoot the dealer? If you shoot yourself, you lose the life. It does a thing where like it charges you back to life, but you lose like
Bits & Bops and Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom Exploration
00:11:40
Speaker
a charge or obviously shoot the dealer. He loses the charge. The goal is to make the dealer lose all charges.
00:11:49
Speaker
You beat round one, you get into round two. Round two starts introducing items. Now I'm pulling this from PC invasion, just cause I forgot all the items off the top of my head. Um, in this regular mode, there is a magnifying glass, which lets you see the next shell. So you're able to tell if it is a blank or a live shot. There's handcuffs, which makes your opponent skip their next turn.
00:12:12
Speaker
beer ejects the next shell, cigarettes heals you, and then a saw lets you saw off the tip of the shotgun and you deal two damage. The skipping thing is interesting, and all these items are really interesting, but the skipping thing is interesting, where if you shoot yourself and it's a blank, you could go again, but if you shoot your opponent,
00:12:35
Speaker
it's your opponent's turn. So like you could use the magnifying glass to see like, Oh, it's a live round next. Cool. I know it's a live round. I'm going to handcuff my opponent or the dealer. I'm going to shoot him. He's not going to be able to go shoot me next. So I could go again. And then maybe I have another magnifying glass and get another shot. Maybe I could use the saw to
00:12:56
Speaker
get double damage on them. So it's a lot of strategy. It's a lot of manipulating your items. It's a lot of just really taking risks and taking chances. It's a brutal goddamn concept, but in a weird way it is cathartic to
00:13:14
Speaker
feel free to take chances and like roll with the punches. Like it's a really, it's, it's weird to say like this, but it's a real serene experience despite how grimy and disgusting and brutal it is. Um, I've played so many rounds of this game already, uh, from itch IO and the steam version. Um, my second game of the steam version, I ended up winning. I thought this could be a, a battle show situation where I would never win and it would just be,
00:13:41
Speaker
endlessly losing to this menacing dealer, but was able to go through. And then when you, when you, you unlock this double double or nothing round, which double or nothing has new items.
00:13:52
Speaker
a burner phone, get a confirmation on a random shell, expired medicine, 40% chance to regain two charges, but if you don't, you lose a charge, adrenaline, steal one of your opponent's items and use it immediately, and an inverter, switch the current shot to whatever it's not. For example, if it's a live shot, it becomes a blank, and vice versa. Double or nothing is essentially just endless mode, where you just rack up points. But yeah, bookshot roulette, gnarly, cool, time. Highly recommend it to all.
00:14:22
Speaker
I'm glad you had a good time with it. Thanks. That is a one concept that I'm completely uncomfortable with. It's just in general. So I can't, I don't think I'll ever touch it, but it's a cool idea. Yeah. And I, and I understand why influencer streamers, whoever may be picked it up because it seems like a really
00:14:47
Speaker
quote unquote fun game to play with a chat of like, Hey chat, should I take the chance? Should I aim myself aim at the dealer? How should I manipulate these items? Um, cause there is a meta game also cause like, as you are proceeding, like I think the total number or if the maximum number of ammo you could have in per round is eight shots. So it's like throughout runs, I'm like,
00:15:12
Speaker
Okay, I just had two blanks, so that means, so let's say it's like four and four, four live, four blank. It's like, okay, I just shot four live or I just shot two lives. That means I have two live left and four blank. What's the chance? What's the percentage? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just like mentally trying to keep track of that while also manipulating the items and seeing what the dealer is doing and all that stuff. It gets into this really nitty gritty kind of metagame of just trying to outwit the dealer.
00:15:40
Speaker
Um, and I also really appreciate it. And I, I only played very briefly around the holidays. Um, so I don't remember, or I can't accurately compare the AI compared with the HIO version, but the AI here is super fair. It's not this thing where like, let's say it's one live and
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah. One live or two live, two blank. Like let's say, uh, there's only one live left and one blank left. Like the dealer won't automatically shoot the blank out himself. Like he does make mistakes. So it's like, it's fair. It's authentic. Well, I hate using the term authentic, but it's fair. It doesn't, it's not trying to cheat you. There's no cheap shots. Um, yeah, it's a good time. Like other inscription, like things going on there, you know, you know, kind of thing.
00:16:29
Speaker
kind of there's a, there is a good ending and quote unquote secret ending, I guess kind of like when you spoil anything for anybody that's interested. So when you, when you beat the dealer, like you got a briefcase full of money and like, that's what your score is. And your score, it fluctuates with how many like shots you take, how many items you use. If you use less items, you get a bigger score. Okay. If you die,
00:16:59
Speaker
before the final round, um, you just wake up. So it all takes place in like a CD, like nightclub. You wake up in a dirty ass bathroom. You walk out to like this, um,
00:17:10
Speaker
runway that's like overlooking a nightclub and then you walk into this back room where the dealer is where you play the game. Uh, so if you lose before the final round, you just, you get woken back up by this like shadow figure and you just play again. Um, if you lose in the final round, there's like a secret ending that's like kind of inscription-y I guess, but nothing as bonkers as what inscription does. Yeah. Yes.
00:17:40
Speaker
They're duds or empty shells. Cause blanks actually still have the fire, the gunpowder in there to make the noise. I think they call it blanks. I don't know. Which is weird. Cause yeah, blanks, like they still make the noise, but these are just like, just nipping. I don't know. I don't have that answer for you. I could be misinterpreting. The other cool thing with the final round,
00:18:07
Speaker
if you make it far enough. I think the final round, you have like five charges each, like five hit points each. Once either of you get to two left,
00:18:20
Speaker
It's funny. It like brings out like a little saw trap and it like cuts the wires that shows you the light, the hit points. And from that point on, like, even if like one of you heals or you're manipulating each other's hit points or whatever, um, you don't know how much life the other person has. So like, that's another thing, like why you're trying to keep track of the shells. You have to keep track of the dealer's life and your own life, just to kind of like make sure you could outwit him with enough time.
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's really cool. It's really intense. Um, please grade on steam deck. I've been, I've solely been playing, uh, docked on steam deck with a Xbox controller. And yeah, it works. It's not like, I think it's playable, not fully compatible, but it works. It's great. Um, real quick today, they announced multiplayer as well.
Game Previews: Balatro and Dungeon Clawler
00:19:10
Speaker
It's on the way. Don't know what that means, but it's on the way.
00:19:14
Speaker
Um, have you solved your latency, your issues with the docs box? Depends on the game sometimes, but for the most part, yeah. Okay. For something like this, latency is not really an issue. Like, like this voucher or like something like that. It's not really an issue. Uh, a game we'll talk about later. I've, there is a little bit of lag, but yeah. So yeah, bookshot roulette. If you want an early ride.
00:19:40
Speaker
How about it? It's currently like $2.50. So that sounds interesting. Go for it. Becca, I want to hear about a game you previewed for game spew because it's the game I backed on Kickstarter. It's in bops. Oh, it's so cute. I mean, at the end of the day, it's a rhythm heaven copy. Yeah.
00:20:04
Speaker
Um, you know, we're just being honest here. It's, it's rhythm heaven. Um, but the demo currently I played, I played it for like 15 minutes because the demo currently only has three games available. So it's only like, and then the full version is only going to have like 20, I think. So it's not going to be very long, but.
00:20:23
Speaker
It runs really, really well. It's really smooth and it's super important with these kinds of games. I guess I should probably say what Rhythm Heaven is in case people don't know what Rhythm Heaven is. It's a rhythm game where you have a variety of mini games and each mini game you're learning different rules for that game.
00:20:42
Speaker
But they all really just involve, like on the DS, when I played it on the DS, it involved like tapping the screen and swiping the screen. In this case, it involved just pressing spacebar. Like you literally need one button to play every single one of the games. So the first game, there's like a seal that's jumping out of the water and you're trying to time, like you're taking a picture of it and you're trying to time
00:21:08
Speaker
perfectly to get the perfect picture. There's another mini game where you're having to hammer in nails. And the music is really catchy. The animation is really, really cute. And what is unique, I think, about this is that the animation changes up as you play. And I don't remember that being a thing in Rhythm Heaven. You see the animation in the tutorial, and that's what you're seeing in the game. But in this version, in this game rather,
00:21:38
Speaker
the more you play the more things are happening so like for example you're like a cat taking a picture of the seal and at one point you like flip-flop and the seal is the one taking the picture and the cat is the one like jumping out of the water so like it's got really really cute animation and a cute sense of humor like a really good sense of humor and the music is good so like it probably I assume probably won't cost very much because it's only going to be a couple of mini games like 20 or so but
00:22:04
Speaker
If they keep going and they keep doing like bits and bops too, I would keep playing them because they're cute. I'm addicted to rhythm heaven. So if I can, it's basically like having rhythm heaven on my PC. It's great. Two questions. Hey, can you move the microphone a little bit closer to your face? And B, uh, is this a demo that's available on steam? What was the stipulations with your preview?
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's on steam. It's just three mini games right now. And they're available on steam. Yeah. I think this is something I backed during lockdown at some point. I think like right away, like you were saying the aesthetic, the animation, that's like the real selling point here. And yeah, I just, I miss rhythm heaven and I'm a soccer for like Wario where like games and
00:22:56
Speaker
The newer warrior games haven't really done it for me. So, um, yeah, this just seems really cute, unique. It's, it's a fun spin on it. So very excited. Is that only like DS rhythm heaven? No, they can't, they came out with one on the switch. Rhythm heaven in Japan. There's, uh, yeah. Oh, okay. Rhythm heaven. It's not different play them, but I love rhythm games. So I should probably look into it. The three DS one's really good.
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah. That was like the final game. The one on switch is called rhythm heaven mega mix. I think that's the 3DS one. I think so. The one on 3DS I played is just called.
00:23:47
Speaker
Who's on first? Oh Rhythm heaven Nintendo switch so I one of them is okay. It's rhythm heaven rhythm heaven mega mix on 3ds and then I think rhythm heaven fever
00:24:07
Speaker
Fever sounds like a subtitle to a game.
Game Reviews: Pepper Grinder and Frog Monster
00:24:10
Speaker
Rhythm Heaven Fever was on Wii. Yeah, I was going to say, I feel like we would have made more of a bigger deal if there was a Rhythm Heaven on Switch. So I think the one I'm thinking of, Megamix, I think they just ported it to Switch because I swear I've seen it on Switch. Unless you're thinking of WarioWare. Unless I'm completely... Oh, man. I'm questioning everything now.
00:24:34
Speaker
while you question yourself and contemplate what's going on. Matt, we both been playing something we really enjoy. Kick us off. Tell me about yellow taxi goes broom. Oh man. All right. What is it? It's a platformer slash crazy, depending on the stage, crazy taxi, like,
00:25:00
Speaker
collect-a-thon game, but in some of the levels, some of the stages, it feels almost like a Super Mario Galaxy, sorry, not Galaxy, Mario Odyssey clone, too, in some respects to that. So it's a crunchy, Kyle, if you're paying attention, crunchy. I'm always paying attention, Matt. Not really. 80% of the time.
00:25:25
Speaker
I meant just because of the crunchy visuals. You can also do CRT mode if you want. I felt it was a little bit too much for my eyes. Where you play this little wind-up taxi, and there's no jump button. There's just breaking gas and a, oh, what is it? Flip-O-Will? Yeah, a boost. It's a boost. There is...
00:25:51
Speaker
you find a little info bot that tells you there's a double boost that you can do that's... To this point, I think the only way to do it is by skill. I don't think there's an accessibility option for that. But you have to double, you have to hit accelerate right as the spin ends on your boost. And if you can do that, you can get even more boost.
00:26:13
Speaker
But what you're doing, you're going around different stages, collecting gears that were messing with the oil. The gears are essentially stars if you want to take Mario terms. Right. And it's also like Odyssey in that respect where if you get the star at the stages in, you can keep going, which is good because some of these have like 15 gears per level or more. But the thing that makes this stand out is the humor.
00:26:40
Speaker
Like it's sometimes quirky, sometimes punny, but most of the time it is just in your face. Mike, I don't know how far you got and I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but there's like, there's like the third or fourth level where like I question things in life, not in the game. Yellow taxi goes existential.
00:27:09
Speaker
At this point you've played more than me. Um, I am, I think I only put like an hour or so into it so far. Um, I definitely played, I've seen more courtesy of the demo that we played during next fest. Um, but the only reason I haven't seen more yet is cause like it, it gets that hook in you where you just want to complete a level.
00:27:28
Speaker
Like you want to get all those gears before moving on. And like last night I finally got to the point of like, damn, I have no idea how I got these last three in Morio's little house. I got to move on to the next one. And man, like, yes, the humor stands out. The visuals stand out. The love letter to the N64 era stands out, but
00:27:47
Speaker
This game feels great. The maneuverability feels fantastic. It feels so satisfying when you like nail a gnarly jump or like a string of jumps. Like there is one in Morio's house in the first stage. There's one area where you're kind of like at the end of that like stage within a stage where you were going from like long platform to long platform. And when you nail that and get that final gear, it's so, so damn satisfying.
00:28:15
Speaker
But yeah, there's also the crazy taxi element, Matt, if you want to talk about that, depending on what stage you're in. Yeah, I won't be stage specific, just not to give anything away, but there are stages where you will be going and it is still like normal, you need to find the gears and everything, but you have a time limit. And the only way to do that is to pick up people and get them to where they need to go. There's also little clocks that you can find just run around like with the coins that you can also pick up per level, which coins, they're just currency to buy more hats.
00:28:46
Speaker
are great. It's fantastic. Yeah. So you're just driving around, you're picking up people, but the cool thing about picking up the people that need to go where they go, there's a story. There's a meta story within each level of those people that need to get places. So the stage that I'm being cagey about and not talking about, there's a dark fucking story going
00:29:11
Speaker
just from picking up people. So make sure you're spending as much time in those levels as much as you can doing everything, picking those people up and listening to what they're saying, because there's a twisted underbelly to this room. Yeah, like Panic Arcade, the developers are, they definitely had a lot of fun with it. And it's like very apparent that like, they're like,
00:29:34
Speaker
what the indie spirit is. Like they are punk as fuck. And I really appreciate that with the writing. And like, I, you wouldn't think you would get an existential story that is poking fun at some of our reality. Um, and a game about a little taxi collecting coins and collecting gears. It's, it's quite astonishing. I have a feeling this is going to be a high up on the list. When we start talking about like favorites of the year, when we get to that point, but
00:30:00
Speaker
man, it's a great time so far. Like it is like something I'm the only reason I haven't put in more time yet today because I want to put some time into another thing. We're going to talk about later, but it's all I can really think about at the moment. That's all I really want to do. Cal Stevenson. Hi. Yes. I would really love to play this game. I'm terrible at mouse keyboard games. Can I still play this game? Do you think I have the skill controller? Be confident. Oh, because it's going computer. Yeah.
00:30:25
Speaker
And for context, yes, we know we could hook a controller to a PC. Kyle's PC is running away. I can't physically actually do that. That's why I ask. I'm not that dumb. Is it like, cause I really do. I want to play this so bad. I mean, it's just, just taking. Is there, is there a console port announced or anything? Or is it just steaming right now? I don't think so.
00:30:53
Speaker
holding the controller there is A to accelerate. Or let's say you could do right trigger also, right trigger to accelerate, left trigger to back up and break. X is your boost.
00:31:07
Speaker
I think that's it. Obviously aside from steering, I think that's it. Right. Yeah. So I would say on keyboard, you'd just be using a WSD and then three other keys, like space for boost or whatever it is. Maybe whatever you feel comfortable with. You can rebind steam deck. All right. Maybe I'll give it a shot. Game is not verified for steam deck, but it feels, it plays and feels great on deck. Like there is some, like while I was in Morio's house, I know I keep saying Morio's house. The first level is like this.
00:31:37
Speaker
beautiful islands, kind of beachy vibe
Indie Game Announcements and Releases
00:31:40
Speaker
towards the end of the level. Uh, you get to a house and there is a character who his name is Morio, clearly a Mario kind of homage. If you want to call it that you find his house and you go into his house and it's another like mini worlds within the house. Um, one of the, when I got in that house, I noticed some slowdown on the deck, but like nothing that was
00:32:04
Speaker
Nothing that hurt, I would say. What did you select for compatibility? Uh, I knocked it down to, was it eight? I think proton eight. Okay. Um, I'm using because it wouldn't launch cause it wouldn't launch on the default. Right. Um, I think I'm using GE seven four eight and smooth as bother butter. I'll double check that. I'll change it and update, but
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah, I usually just knock it down to like eight or seven, like whatever the next one is, if I ever come across that issue. If you're not familiar with what we're talking about, there are games on the Steam Deck, even if they're verified, sometimes it's just a weird thing that happens, where you'll try to boot the game up and it just like kicks you out right back to like the Steam OS. It just seems like it just struggles to boot up, boot up, but up. So you go into the properties, you could kind of force it to
00:32:56
Speaker
boot in a certain, what is it? Engine, not engine compatibility mode. It's because a proton is emulating windows for these games. So depending on which proton version you're using, there's different lines of code, different tips and tricks that the developers are trying to use to make all these games compatible. So yeah, work better with other versions. Some work better with many versions for some reason. So you could go into the properties per game and
00:33:23
Speaker
select which one you want to use. So usually like Kyle, this is what happened with elder ring on the steam deck when Joe was trying to do it. Um, you just force it to do another one. Usually when you switch it off, like the default, it's totally fine. It was a long lesson. I had to learn when, uh, first messing around with the steam deck, the amount of times I've like uninstalled and reinstalled the games freaking out.
00:33:48
Speaker
Luckily, though, since Steam Deck added notes, Steam added notes, fantastic. Anytime you have to do that with a game, just throw that in the notes. If you have to uninstall, you know for future years. Yeah. Yeah, Gale of Texaco's Vroom, Panic Arcade, those awesome guys. That's the publisher, those awesome guys. Fantastic. Can't wait to play more. I want to give them a shout out for their social media campaign and how they're handling trying to get more wish lists ahead of launch.
00:34:17
Speaker
They've regularly been doing, they've been tweeting out like, Hey, our next wishlist goal is let's just say 10 K for example. When you, when they hit 10 K wishlist, they unlock a new hat to put in the game. And like, there's a, like a tower of hats that they're trying to like get added to the game. I think they added like five or six so far. And it's just, yeah, it's just like a, I think it's a really intelligent social media campaign and a really intelligent way to garner wishlist.
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think that I would love for the ability. Why are we all such suckers? Whoa, everybody talk at the same time. I'm so sorry. Jesus Christ. Kyle. Real quick, I would love the ability to just stack them on top of the car. Yeah. And just have a full tower as you go. Okay. Becca. All I said was we are all such suckers for hats. Matt.
00:35:09
Speaker
I'm currently using a bloody Mary as my cup as my head. Yes. Nice. Good video game. Yeah, it's really is. Uh, there is a demo on steam. I, I, I may go so far to say, and granted it's early, we haven't played too, too much of it yet, but like, man, for, for games that are harkening back to the end 64 days, this might be one of the best ones so far. There's a good amount coming out. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's,
00:35:40
Speaker
This one's a contenders to be a kind of the blueprint for that. What else do we got? I want to save you for last. Why? Cause I don't know. Give me about, give me a balance or update. It'll be quick. Yeah. Give me a book. Yeah. I, you know, I got the itch again coming back from packs just cause I was
00:36:02
Speaker
Real tired. Didn't want to dive into the bigger AAA things. So, um, I am now, I think two decks away from winning a run on with every single deck back or colored back. Um, the one I'm using right now, I want to say it's the spectral back, I think, um, whatever the ability is where it gives a plus one to Joker size, but every round you lose a hand.
00:36:31
Speaker
Um, yes, Matt, is there a Nickelback? Oh, there should be. There's totally should be with the joker. Just that just says, this is how you remind me. That would be amazing. Um, I hate that. That played.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think, uh, I think, uh, balatro balatro, however you want to say it, um, is I think my favorite indie of the year so far. Uh, I've shocked what I booted it up when I came back that I'm already at like 50 hours because those hours rack up co-wick. Yeah. Um,
00:37:13
Speaker
And I'm getting the hang of it. I still have no idea how I'm ever going to get like the million hand score or, or complete everything or get every single joker. Cause you need to do that kind of high level things to unlock them all. And I've only got like nine jokers left. So it's, it's hard enough where I'm like, this is very daunting. I don't think I'm ever going to do it. So I might stop, but also it's just so damn fun to hop in for like two or three runs. And then.
00:37:43
Speaker
there goes your night and you're having a good time the whole time. It's like such a well-made game. And Mike, I will formally apologize now for not listening to you when you brought it up last year. I do want to set the record straight because I do have proof now. If you go to a, I'm so sorry. I think it's Woot. I never said his name out loud from the PR representative of Balocho.
00:38:08
Speaker
Me and one other person were the only two people to reply to his tweet about Balletra when it was first announced. Trendsetter baby. I'm so sorry. I accept. Good video game. Did you see a Zalivir Nelson at GDC? He has one of the 10 physical Balletra decks.
00:38:30
Speaker
Oh yeah. Local thunk. I guess local thunk was at GDC. Um, they were given away physical decks and they only made 10 of them and Zalivir was gifted one. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, it's a normal playing card deck, but like, at least the jokers are, are the jokers, but the rest are just, it's normal cards, but it's in that art style.
00:38:50
Speaker
or any of like the normal cards, like the multiplier or wild card. Like not that, not that Xavier showed off. I just, he posted a tick tock earlier. That's cool. That's very, very cool. That's a great idea. Which reminds me, I don't know where my, uh, my inscription cards are. I gotta find them because I do want to, I want to get like a frame for them or, or whatever. The ones we got at packs last year. Yeah. I gotta find them.
00:39:19
Speaker
Becca, you have been playing or you previewed also dungeon clawer, which, uh, definitely caught my eye when it was announced last week. Tell me about dungeon clawer. Yeah. So another demo that I just kind of ran across on steam and I'm a bit of a sucker for a rogue like and a rogue like with an interesting concept. Like when Peglin came out, like,
00:39:45
Speaker
Well, what's not to like about that? Like I love like, you know, roguelikes that are randomized so that when I suck at it, I can blame the randomization of the game and not my skills. Exactly. Now Valadro has a lot to do with my skills. I had a cheat sheet for the longest time taped to the side of my computer to tell me which hands were worth more. But then I realized that that was pointless because you upgrade your hands so much that like a three of a kind might be worth more. Anyway, we're done talking about Valadro.
00:40:16
Speaker
It's my whole life right now. Yeah, dungeon clawler, it's basically like if you've played Slay the Spire, it's like that where really any roguelike where you're going into a dungeon and you're fighting enemies, but your main mechanic is a claw machine.
00:40:35
Speaker
so there's like this evil dungeon lord who and this is all from the steam page because uh you don't get to see any of that in the demo but there's this evil dungeon lord who like took this your rabbit's paw because he was trying to get like good luck
00:40:50
Speaker
So you have a big claw now, and you're trying to take revenge on the dungeon lord who took your claw. So basically, you're faced with enemies, and you have your big claw machine, and there's items on the bottom of your claw machine, and you move your claw, pick up your items. And so if you grab two shields and one sword, you're getting two shields, and you're getting one attack for that claw that you used.
00:41:19
Speaker
and then you use another claw and you might pick up like an item and one more sword and then you get to like use the item and you do one more attack on the enemy. So it's kind of randomized but at the same time you can kind of like pick what area of the claw machine you want to grab at. There's perks that change up the game. Like I had a perk that was instead of having two claws you only have one but the items that you pick up are used twice.
00:41:43
Speaker
So there was a lot of different kinds of things. I'm trying to talk loud. You're good. Too loud. Um, so yeah, no, it's, it's, it's really good. It's a really interesting concept. It's still rough around the edges. Um, because like, you know, it's early on, but I love seeing games with unique concepts like this that are, you know, willing to put out a demo because that can be really scary. Um, especially when something is early in development. So.
00:42:12
Speaker
But it says Q3, which is not too far away. But yeah, and also it's really cute. The characters are really cute. There's bosses at the end of each branch. The same as Slay the Spire, you finish your one branch of the dungeon, and then you have a boss. And the boss does unique things and stuff like that. So yeah, and you upgrade yourself. And it's just a cute little roguelike with a concept I've never seen before, which is always good in the roguelike genre.
00:42:39
Speaker
And as we learned from next test, I'm all about a claw machine game, which I didn't tell y'all. We got a key for claw machine Sim. So maybe Friday, maybe Friday before smack down though. All right. It's WrestleMania weekend. We got a early stream. All right. Oh, I thought we were going to play that content warning game. The thing you told us to download April. Oh, that was just like a, Hey, get this while it's free and we'll play it at some point. Either way.
00:43:08
Speaker
I'm trying to save you money. Yeah, I'm very excited for Dungeon Clarr. Worth noting, this is the Wandering Village dev, which is very different from what they did previously. Yeah. Yeah. Super cool. Becky, give me another one. I want to hear about Solitaire. This is a 6.1 indie showcase alum.
00:43:31
Speaker
something I haven't gotten hands on with, but like something obviously we are very interested in playing. Is that last August? Um, I believe so. Yeah, I believe so. Okay.
00:43:45
Speaker
I, this was one of the, um, that's really good capsule art. So I put it on my wish list before I got a chance to actually like see what it was. And then I saw they had a demo and I was wanting to do previews. So I did, I picked it up. Um, really, really cool. Uh, like hand-drawn art style. Um, basically solitaire is you, it's very much like, um, coffee talk vibes, neck or barista. If you've played that neck or barista vibes.
00:44:11
Speaker
where you have opened up a shop in a like fortune-telling cafe and you use your cards to tell fortunes for the people that come in. But the way that you do that is through this little kind of solitaire-like game. Basically, you have... Has anyone played Skipbo? The card game?
00:44:31
Speaker
It's like Skippo where you have a deck and the goal is to empty the playing field of cards before you empty your deck.
00:44:43
Speaker
So basically if you play a card from your deck and it's a one, then you're trying to either grab, you can only grab from the playing field a zero or a two. So one number above what's in your deck or one number below. So you have like a playing field of like, you know, 20 cards with only two flipped over at the beginning, kind of like mosh on tiles.
00:45:04
Speaker
And you have to grab either one below or one above what's in your deck. And then once you've grabbed all of the playing field cards, you're eventually going to find your three unique cards. And once you've grabbed that, it shows you an image. Then you go back to the person whose fortune you're telling and you say, like, this image looks like a lion standing on top of an owl. And you kind of interpret it in your own own way. The game lets you interpret it
00:45:30
Speaker
how you want to, and you can interpret it in a bad way that may later affect how the game plays out. I didn't get to see any of that happening in the demo. You only talk to two people in the demo, I think. You get to do three fortune tellings, but two of them are for the same person.
00:45:55
Speaker
But yeah, so you basically they come in, they ask you a question, you do your little mini game and then you get to interpret like what you found in within your cards. And then that is supposed to affect the story and how things kind of play out.
00:46:08
Speaker
Throughout the game, but I think it's a really lovely concept. The game is not hard in any way shape or form It's you know, super simple and so that's it's really it still fits into that kind of chill Atmospheric genre because it's it's not complicated at all. Once you've got it figured out You've got it figured out like knuckle burns once you figure it out knuckle bones, you know You got it
00:46:33
Speaker
It's a little salty. I never pulled the trigger on the physical knuckle bones, despite it being a lot of money, but still. It was just, it's like, it's a six sided dice. Like we can just create our own knuckle bones at that point. Yeah, but it's a cool like Jumanji like wooden box and stuff. It was cool, man. It was cool. Yeah. But no, it's, it's really, really, really good. Um, the demo is super short, but immediately made me want to keep going. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what you want. I have a demo for this kind of game. Like exactly. You can't show off too much. So.
00:47:02
Speaker
Hell yeah. Glad to hear a hit. I want to talk about pepper grinder. I have completed pepper grinder. Oh, all right. She said I rolled credits. I didn't a hundred percent it, but as soon as guides pop up for some of these coins, I'm wiping up these trophies, trophies or achievements. Can I start with a question? Guy pre roll your question with what pepper grinder is.
00:47:29
Speaker
Just in case. Sure. I was going to lead into it, but go for it. Pepper grinder is Devover. Digital's Mario. My question was, it looks like Celeste. How does it feel like Celeste? Uh, I wouldn't say platforming and dashing and whatnot. Uh, it's definitely more Celeste is an interesting comparison.
00:47:51
Speaker
you're not really dashing mid air or anything like that. Like not that kind of platforming. It's all momentum. Got it. Okay. Yeah. So, um, if you're unfamiliar with pepper grinder, it is a 2d action platformer, a 2d event, action adventure platformer, where your main mode of, uh, mobility is, you know, a giant grinder, a giant grill attack grill drill.
00:48:16
Speaker
attached to your hand and you could drill into the earth and like we were just saying, pick up momentum to kind of go up into the air and
00:48:25
Speaker
land on more platforms, finds different dirt piles, like suspended from the air, whatever it may be. Man, this game feels great. It feels so fun. It's so fluid. Once you really get into that flow state of like finding the rhythm and finding that momentum, nothing feels better than like landing and nailing a really hard jump. There are moments that there are like tricky jumps, especially if you're trying to get coins throughout
00:48:55
Speaker
the levels. Um, it does the Mario thing where like there are five hidden coins, like challenge coins or whatever you want to call it. Um, just to add a bit of extra like challenge, I guess, and collectability. And if you want a little bit of the extra rather than just going from point A to point B. Um, some of those are really well hidden. Some of them are really hard to reach. Um, but once you find it, once you reach it, it feels so good. Um,
00:49:20
Speaker
I will say the one downside and not really downside, but like each world ends in a boss battle. The bosses are fine. Um, I would say the final boss just visually, the boss is like really damn cool, but like gameplay wise, it's just kind of like, I just want more levels. Like I don't really need to do something like this. Um, but yeah, I really just want to go back and, um, clean up some of those coins. The, the, you use the coins to buy like different outfits for pepper or who's your, the character you're playing as. Um, there are,
00:49:50
Speaker
It's kind of like a gotcha mechanic, but like another collectible is like getting stickers of all the enemies. So like you could go through a gotcha machine and you just like roll out a sticker.
00:50:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's really good. I really dug it during the preview time, but like, I'm glad the gimmick didn't feel old. Like it kept introducing like nothing like groundbreaking. Like your core mechanic is grinding through dirt and whatnot, but it does add things like you get to control a giant mech at some point. You get like a machine gun at some point.
00:50:25
Speaker
different terrain where there's a goopy kind of thing where you can't totally grind out of the goop unless you grind into dirt directly. Hook shots, swings, stuff like that. So it feels refreshing the entire time and it doesn't overstay its welcome. I think it's
00:50:45
Speaker
four worlds total. I completed it in four and a half hours. I will say I added like a half hour to my playtime because one of the final levels, there is a subway section where you're riding a train and it's just like a dilution of enemies. Um, you're supposed to bring a machine gun to that area, but I never brought the machine gun with me. So I just kept dying for like a half hour straight and not knowing what the hell I was doing wrong. And it was driving me up the goddamn wall.
00:51:10
Speaker
then I resetted the level and I learned that I didn't have to drop the machine gun in order to reach a platform to get to the train. Then it was a lot easier. Kyle Stevenson. Are there upgrades to the grinder drill itself? So like you can go through different materials in a different order? No. Okay. No, you just get the grinder and what you start out with what you got. And yeah, each level has like a, for lack of a better term, a specialty gimmick, like the machine gun or the Mac or whatever it may be. Awesome. There's lava. You have to navigate. There's water you're swimming through.
00:51:40
Speaker
certain types of enemies, like you could grind through enemies and whatnot. But yeah, nothing yet. No RPG elements or anything like that. Matt. Does the drill power the mech? Yeah. So essentially like all like the machine gun and the mech, um, you walk up to it and you like grind into it. And like, that's, I guess, quote unquote, narratively. Yeah. That's what you're controlling the mech with. Oh, let's keep this show PG, Mike. Mine.
00:52:11
Speaker
But yeah, it's super great. I'm played on steam deck. It feels fantastic on steam deck, especially handheld. Oh my God. I think it's on switch as well. One of my favorite games of the year so far. I love this thing. I know like people were, I know the council was talking about last week a little bit or maybe off air. They were talking about dearly hit as much with them. I goddamn love this thing. I think it's great.
00:52:36
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited to go back and like I said, get these extra coins and maybe mess with some of the time trial stuff. See if I could make some, some dense there, but, um, yeah, really great. Highly recommend it. It's great to know that it is a shorter experience, especially with the next few weeks being overrun with tons of really
00:52:57
Speaker
good looking indie games that we're very excited for. So I'm happy it's on the shorter side, even though it is challenging, but it's, it seems like a good weekend game. Yeah. I will say challenging, but like not like hard, like it's, it's, it's fair. It's fair. You're not breezing through things. Like you're going to have to use the mechanics. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really great time. It's a great weekend, like two settings, knock it out, have a good time. Great music. Also really great music. Beautiful looking as well. It's super pretty in motion.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yes. So Canada in chats as I need pepper grinder OST. Yeah. I suspect least records is working on that. Cool. Uh, Becca, you previewed one more game, midnight crimes. Yes. Also I'd like to clarify.
00:53:46
Speaker
In my head, I had already previewed bits and bobs, but that's not out yet. So if you haven't seen, if you can't find it, you're looking for it over on games view. I haven't written it yet. Like I've written it, but I haven't typed it up. Gotcha. So just to clarify, I was like, wait,
00:54:02
Speaker
in one of the multiverses in one of my multiverses where I have more free time than I currently do. Um, but yeah, so many crimes I wanted to play because it looks like the classic old telltale games.
00:54:19
Speaker
Telltale Walking Dead, Telltale Wolf Among Us, it looks a lot like it. It looks like a clone of it, honestly. It's got that kind of dark, gritty art style with the third-person characters moving around and then the dramatic conversations where you have
00:54:38
Speaker
options of what you want to say and like there was even a moment where like it says like so and so will remember what you did or whatever so like it's it's taking a lot from the telltale games which honestly is fine with me because i've been craving those games and they're not coming out as much because of everything that happened with telltale and and all that kind of stuff so
00:54:57
Speaker
I think we had like a Borderlands one come out and Wolf Among Us 2 has been supposed to be coming out for the last like 8,000 years. So we haven't had anything like that. So a lot like Bits and Bops, you know, I'm like craving those types of games that I used to love. So I really wanted to play this one and give it a try. And I do like it, but it is very rough right now.
00:55:22
Speaker
I will say. I think I think they've got a good thing going. It's very eye catching. I really like the vibes. The story is really intriguing. But when it comes to actual gameplay, still very, very rough. There is kind of one firefight in the game where you are able to fight.
00:55:42
Speaker
Someone I won't spoil anything because it's kind of like what the heck just happened Um, but there's one little kind of firefight where you um, and this didn't happen in the tassel games until until much later on in the original telltale games It was really just like a movie simulator where you got to point dialogue options and occasionally pick up items. Yeah, very point and click um
00:56:03
Speaker
But so there was one fight scene that was really rough, like my characters, like, you know, like clipping in and out of my enemy, clipping in and out of the floor, clipping in and out of trees. So there's a lot of that. But I think I think it's a testament to like
00:56:20
Speaker
I mean, just in general, the development process is difficult, but the fact that they have it up and it looks great, it looks as good as it does, you know, despite having those like little bit of rough patches, I think that with a lot of work, it's going to be really, really cool to play and really, really just like a love story to those Telltale games. But yeah, it just in general,
00:56:47
Speaker
It looks really good. Play's not so good at the moment, but I think they're going to be working on it and they're going to be fixing it up and it's going to be great. It's very like, you know, gloomy British detective is angry about angry things and he's like trying to retire. He's like trying to retire. I'm not in the force anymore, but everybody's like, oh, my cousin.
00:57:10
Speaker
lost his watch can you help him find it kind of thing so there's um the story i think is basically that his family um were like ruthlessly murdered and so he retires and then um now there's a guy whose son has gone missing and is basically like
00:57:28
Speaker
Um, basically gives him, gives the detective one detail and the detective is like, that sounds like something that's related to what happened to my family. So now he's back in it, baby. And he's gonna, like, he's gonna go for it. So, um, yeah, like I wanted to keep playing it and I was really intrigued by it. I was not, the combat's bad right now, but in terms of story and everything else, I was, I was into it. So.
00:57:52
Speaker
It's good, and I miss all those telltale games, so it's something I really wanted to happen. Yeah, peeling back the curtain a little bit, if I may, they submitted for the showcase for March, and this was like, they were on our final list where we had to make some really goddamn tough decisions, so the world and the characters, even not playing it, I was totally invested in, so it's nice to hear that it is hitting for you.
00:58:21
Speaker
Yeah, I'm with you, Becca. I miss the old school telltale games so much. Yeah. And seeing this when they submit of like, Oh my God, we're so close. We're so close to getting another like barrage of these kinds of games. And then it looked incredible. So I'm happy to hear the story is good because that's what's most important. Yes. Yeah. Combat. I could get behind. It's fine. Yeah. Yep.
00:58:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's really good. But most games early in development, it's not good. And you go into a demo knowing that it's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be a polished product, especially something that is still coming soon in terms of release date. There's no upcoming release date or anything like that. So you don't really know until those dev blogs start coming out, what kinds of things they're working on and what kind of fixes they're going for and that kind of stuff. But as of right now, the vibes are really good.
00:59:14
Speaker
That's like the creepy dark vibes are great. Kinda in chats as a telltale Jurassic park, my beloved. Oh God. Jurassic park was rough. So the guardians one, I think I've been the only one that enjoyed the telltale guardians game. Okay. Okay. You're not alone. I think they did a one wrong person can always find a friend, right?
00:59:41
Speaker
That's why we're family. That's why we're soulmates. I want to end on a banger y'all before we get into like some other bits to close out the show. I've been playing frog monster, my friends. What the hell is frog? Frog monster is a Metroidvania first person shooter where you play as a frog with a gun. Excuse me. In a voxel world.
01:00:09
Speaker
kind of. Yeah. If you could argue, there's some solsy elements to it as well in terms of like gnarly bosses that are going to kick your ass over and over again.
01:00:21
Speaker
Yeah. So I guess the, the set up, uh, Oh, this game. I've seen this game. You've seen this. Okay. Uh, the setup is you're, you're a little monster who's a frog. Hence the name. Uh, and this, this little bird lad, uh, I guess essentially is your dr. Frankenstein who, who created you. Uh, the reason he created you is cause his brother created all these monsters in the land of Melora.
01:00:47
Speaker
And it's your job as a little frog with a gun to stop these monsters and stop the brother. So yeah, gorgeous voxel world. Like I said, Metrovania, so you're going around, you have complete freedom to go through branching paths and really dig into exploring. The shooting feels great. It's
01:01:10
Speaker
So far the characters I've met, the writing is really charming. It's just like, again, it's like that indie spirit, not where yellow taxi over room is like the punk rock side of things. This is just like wholesome and charming is all heck. And it's like trying to be like serious and dark, but like it just, it's, it's.
01:01:26
Speaker
You're a frog, you know, you're a frog. So, um, what I really love about this game is, um, I have only put like an hour into it so far. I've beat one boss, which is kind of like the tutorial boss. And I'm, I found a second boss who is kicking my ass and I'm going to, I'm going to drop an image in our discord. So you can see what this man looks like that I'm currently facing. Um,
01:01:53
Speaker
What I really love about this game is I forgot his name. I think his name is Melvin. He's just a big tree. Um, so this big tree keeps going into the ground and he puts spores out. And if the spores hit the ground, it'll spawn enemies. So like, I get to a point where like, I can't shoot all these goddamn spores. And, uh, there's 20 enemies on screen kicking my ass while I'm trying to shoot this tree, Matt.
01:02:18
Speaker
Mike, that's a mushroom, my guy. Oh, it's a mushroom. My apologies. It's a mushroom. You said spores. I'm like, wait a minute. It's the spores. Now it just makes sense. He's big. He looks like a tree, but what I really love about this game is the ability system and like the perk system. So being a frog, your left trigger is, uh, you could lick things. You could shoot your tongue out and there's little critters roaming around the world. So like there's little flies, butterflies, insects, frogs, whatever other frogs, whatever it may be.
01:02:47
Speaker
Once you lick one up, like you eat one with your, you catch it with your big tongue, Matt, you see the frogs, they do this. I don't know if you knew that. Hot tip. Once you do that, the insect is forever, I guess in your, I guess if you want to call it like ability slot in a way,
01:03:10
Speaker
each insect has a particular perk tied to it. So for example, one of the first things you could look up is another frog. If you look up the other frog, its ability is it makes your tongue longer in order to get other insects.
01:03:29
Speaker
I forgot exactly what it was, but another bug that it's perk is speeds up your reload time, which is fantastic. There's another bug that halves your mana usage and so on and so forth. So where the Dark Souls element comes in, aside from the gnarly bosses, you could go to essentially what are bonfires, but they're like trees that you like, the flowers blossom and that becomes your checkpoint. At those areas, you could change out your, essentially load out and you have
01:03:58
Speaker
At the moment, I have four kind of ability points and like each one of these critters, like it, like, let's say the, the reload one takes up two slots and like the long tongue one takes up three. And I have four open slots to deal with. So you could kind of like customize your loadout to your play style or cater your loadout to the boss that you're trying to fight. So I have one right now that it takes up three slots. I understand. I just put up four fingers, but I said three. Uh,
01:04:24
Speaker
It takes out three slots, but it, uh, it spawns a butterfly that will occasionally heal you as, as you're taking damage. So like super helpful with, I think his name is Melvin, the mushroom kicking my ass with all of his little friends. Um, but yeah, I only put like an hour into it so far, but like I really dig it. Um, I wish there was a couple of things I wish I wish there was, uh,
01:04:48
Speaker
It did the souls-like thing where I could see the health bar of the boss. You can see the boss's health once you die. So it does the cuphead thing kind of where you see how much progress you made. Don't love that. I kind of just wish there was the health bar on the bottom, but I get it.
01:05:08
Speaker
And granted, this could change, but I really wish I already had a map. Now that I'm in the first proper area, there's branching paths and whatnot. I know I'm going to get lost at some point. I've already sensed that I'm going to get frustrated with
01:05:25
Speaker
not knowing like, cause I, I'm probably going to skip this dude until later on when I get like new weapons or whatever. Um, but I have a feeling I'm not gonna know how the hell to get back to him once I have like a new gun or new spells or whatever it may be. But again, maybe there is a map and I just haven't found like the hub area or whatever it may be. Yeah. Frog monster should check it out.
01:05:48
Speaker
It sounds great. It sounds really good. Um, and yeah, I highly recommend going to the steam page, just like watching the trailer, like seeing this game in motion. Oh, there's the fucking tree, uh, mushroom. Sorry. Uh, seeing an emotion, it's, it's really, it's something like we've seen voxel games, like plenty of damn times, but like this, there's something this game is doing that feels unique. And I can't really put my finger on it.
01:06:17
Speaker
Yeah. Frog monster playing now. I think it's currently well, by the time you're listening to this, it might still be 10% off. So check it out. 17 bucks. It's a good old time. Oh, Kyle.
01:06:35
Speaker
Yeah. You have a quick fire segment. You want to get through just during the show. I remembered a lot of indie game kind of news related things happen this week. And since we're tired, we forgot to put in the doc. So I just randomly talk about it. We alluded to it earlier on April fools on Monday. What is the developer name of content warning? Oh, it's several people. I think the pet head, maybe
01:07:04
Speaker
The tab, the tab. Yeah. Landfalls. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's like a lethal warning. No lethal company.
01:07:14
Speaker
a type game where you grab a group of your friends and you go film scary things to become what they call spook to famous. Um, and it just seems like a good time and they released it. They announced it on April fool's day and it was free on April fool's day. And it was not, it was a real thing. Like I own the game now because Mike told us about it and it's free. Um, and it looks like a good time. I, I, I was into the idea of lethal company.
01:07:41
Speaker
Um, for some reason I'm digging this five a little bit more. Yeah. So this should be a fun time and talk about like a wild market. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Just like, like quiet launch your game and make it free. Like to clarify free for the first 24 hours. That's what I mean. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. And it's only eight bucks now. So it's not that bad. And like all it's all over the place already. Like I think it's already becoming like how
01:08:10
Speaker
quick lethal company spread. And I'm sure they're making a pretty penny. So like good for them. Good for them. So they deserve it. We will definitely be streaming this for one of our Friday night streams. Yeah, for sure. Hands down.
01:08:24
Speaker
Uh, the next one is, uh, today Devolver digital, uh, announced a first person shooter called the crush house. Um, this comes from, uh, the developer Nariel, which I think did rain. Yeah. And heart track and rains. Yeah.
01:08:41
Speaker
Yeah. Um, the crush house puts players in the role of a producer for a reality TV show set in 1999 players will need to direct and film the various characters who enter the crush house and hopefully make the audience happy. However, there seem to be some ulterior motives going on behind the scenes as each crush house graduate ascends at the end of the show. But where do they ascend or in this case, descend to
01:09:03
Speaker
I only say that because the characters slide down a giant slide attached to the house at the end of the show. By the way, I'm reading this from Azario Lopez over on noisy pixel. The crush house seems to lean heavily into the sexual side of indie fandom where the house guests can like or dislike each other and even enter romantic situations, which is further pushed onto the player by the audience who enjoys seeing things like, but fighting or even just flowers. It's the haphazard nature of the game that makes it so appealing.
01:09:32
Speaker
So yeah, another Devolver joint. I highly recommend, um, going over to the Indian former where Jill, Jill groat, the Indian former herself has a preview up. This is something we were talking about behind the scenes. And as soon as you told me about the concept, I could not wait to see it in action and it looks fantastic. That's really, really cool. Um, another real quick fire thing. Little gator game added to game pass today. Play little gator game. It's so good. Um,
01:10:01
Speaker
Also April fools, go watch the another crab treasure, April fools video. I think it's my favorite one of the year back. Have you seen it? It's, they basically make fun of people upset over this crab souls like game. Like, Oh, our we've heard your feedback. It's too colorful. Let's put a souls like mode into it and just makes everything dark and dingy. You can turn the depression slider on the crab frowns and look sad.
01:10:29
Speaker
And it's like, if you don't want him to look sad, but you want the color palette still dull, you could essentially get Solaire's helmet in there. Yeah. Like they just nailed it. The best moment in that thing is towards the end where they say like that. Is that not enough? Fuck it. And Orlando have the crab going through. And it's fantastic.
01:10:53
Speaker
They, I just love that team. They know what they're doing. I hope this game sells gangbusters physically. Yeah. Big same. Supposedly the plushie, there is a plushie that exists. There's at least one of them. So I'm hoping fan game has like a whole suite of things. If you're looking forward to that, I believe it's coming everywhere now, April 25th. So end of the month, so soon along with, you know,
01:11:19
Speaker
conversation, whatever side of the indie games, a PS plus day one games for this month. Dave, the diver is going to be available day one, April 16th on PlayStation, as well as tales of Kenzaro Zao, the EA original game on April 23rd, which is dope. It's a great just value for that PS plus service. Yeah.
01:11:43
Speaker
And that's extra, right? I believe it's extra. Yeah. Not the, not the premium. Nope. There's also one other thing we haven't talked about on a podcast. Uh, the triple eye initiative was announced, uh, showcase digital showcase for triple eye games. It's funny that like after so long of saying like, Oh yeah, triple eye, ha ha. They're making it a thing. Um, April 10th, uh, 1 p.m. Eastern 45 minutes of bangers, uh, world premieres exclusive gameplay, demo sale. Um,
01:12:13
Speaker
Yeah. Another cool show. Pretty much they're, they're doing well. Try to say this as nicely as possible. I don't mean to sound cynical at all. I promise. Uh, doing what we do. Like no ads, no bullshit. Like
01:12:25
Speaker
more showcases need to do this. So please, I'm very excited. The people involved are like fantastic. I'm really excited to see what they got. Like it's the slayer, the spire devs and like, they have prior survivors in it. Yeah. Like a whole bunch of like reputable triple I game set. Fingers crossed. They're pressed to buy this PlayStation. Let's go. It's the last one. There's so many things he needs to play the other week is April 10th.
01:12:55
Speaker
That is next Wednesday. By the time you're listening Thursday, this Wednesday, for whatever reason, I feel so far away. Like say April 10th, it's like, Oh yeah, it's like in a month. Like Jesus next week. Um, I don't think it's maybe, maybe when it's not live, we'll try to like stay off the grid. Maybe we'll try to do a lot of react to it. After that'd be cool. We'll try. Um, but yeah, we'll, we'll break that all down for indie cast next week.
01:13:23
Speaker
Yup. Mike's like, we'll see what Wednesday looks like. You know, well, Kyle, that was a lovely quick fire news segment. Um, a lot of that stuff happening in a few weeks. But what if I want to play an indie game this week? What's happening happening this week in indie? I butchered that it's, we'll get back to it. What's happening this weekend. Exactly. From April 8th to April 12th, this week at indie on Monday,
01:13:49
Speaker
April 8th spirit city lo fi sessions coming to PC spirit city lo fi sessions is a gamified focus tool set to a soothing lo fi soundtrack, discover and collect spirits, cook, customize your cozy virtual space and facilitate your real life tasks with a collection of handy features designed to improve concentration and ease stress. And I was very excited in chat. It's so cute. She says, nice.
01:14:15
Speaker
Tuesday, April 9th, botany manner comes to PC switch and Xbox consoles. Welcome to botany manner, a stately home in 19th century England. You play as inhabitant Arabella green and retired botanists explore your house and gardens filled with research to figure out the ideal habitat of forgotten Flora grow each plant to discover the mysterious qualities they hold. Matt, you, did you play a demo of this?
01:14:43
Speaker
Yeah, I played one of the next first demos. Yeah, I'm, I'm into it. Yeah, it looks cool and sounds good. Uh, also on that same day, another devolver joint, children of the sun comes to PC on a deadly road trip into darkness, control the path of a single bullet and unleash a fury of vengeance on the sinister cult that ruined your life in this tactical puzzle shooter. I'm going back.
01:15:11
Speaker
Also, we can open our fantasy Creek critic league. So, you know, yeah, Jesus, Kyle, I had a good pickup.
01:15:21
Speaker
I better get them now. That was a one bullet, three shots. You played children of the sun. Hey, that's how you did it. Wednesday, April 10th turbo kid PC and all consoles, a nostalgic Metro Vania venture with insane weapons, skills, and pixel gore ride your BMX and blast your enemies. As you discover the secrets of the wasteland. Curious how this feels compared to like, Oh yeah. Are you on the bike the whole time?
01:15:49
Speaker
I think you can get off. Okay. Cool. And on Thursday, April 11th, Sophia, the traveler on PC and switch join our lovely heroin as she roams Venice, Venice, the city of water, like a where's Wally visual novel search for objects and characters in stunning and vivid hand painted cityscapes. I'm excited to play this and just like zone out and just try to find Sophia Sophia on a Y said like that.
01:16:19
Speaker
It's like the other game we played. Um, the horror one. Oh, uh, let's find Mary. Good game. All right. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. This has been episode one 84 of the six one indie cast. If you'll like this, be sure you leave the podcast to review wherever you're listening, follow on YouTube, subscribe, hit the little like button, comment for the algorithm, all that good stuff.
01:16:46
Speaker
tell Kyle, tell Kyle, he looks handsome. Why do I say Kyle? Good thing we're closing out. Uh, we'll be back next week. Definitely going to talk about the triple eye initiative and all the stuff that gets revealed until then. Love you. Goodbye. Bye. Start of only one point. Second is good. I should've mentioned that to start a new Valley fans. Kudos. It's good.