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Ep.148: The Big Next Fest Episode [Part 1]
151 Plays2 years ago
The Indie Informer Jill Grodt joins us for the first of two Next Fest: Summer 2023 impressions episodes. There are a lot of indies, y'all.
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 & Episode Theme
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 148 of the Six One Indicast. My name is Mike Townrow. Tonight I'm joined by Kyle Stevenson.
00:00:27
Speaker
OK, no audio. That's right. That's clear. Bye. No, this is a silent episode. It's special guest, the one and only Indian former Jill Groat. Yeah, everyone. Hi, Jill. Hi, I was really tempted to just mime. Hello, everyone. But yeah, completely silent episode. We don't we don't need this silence. It's like the poody tang of podcasts. Oh, my God. Come on out. Oh, my.
00:00:55
Speaker
I haven't thought about that. And since it came out, probably highly recommend a rewatch. It probably doesn't hold up. Never mind.
Special Guest Introduction: Jill Groat
00:01:02
Speaker
Jill, I usually like to start these episodes with like a hypothetical question about like, you know, can we outwit a coyote or something like that? But I want to take this time to see. Well, do you have any? A roadrunner can do it. Roadrunner. Very small brain animal. Fair.
00:01:20
Speaker
I don't have a response to that. OK, just just pretend I didn't say anything. Go just go to your hypothetical. Jill, if somehow folks don't know who you are and who the Indian former is, can you please give me the elevator pitch on on Jill? Oh, gosh, that is quite the hypothetical. The Indian former is a place where you can.
00:01:45
Speaker
If you're enthusiastic and comfy, just enjoy the indie space in a curated area where you don't have to swim through a million things that you may or may not like. And hopefully find your favorite game ever.
The Unique Connection of Indie Games
00:02:01
Speaker
The indies are a special thing. They connect to people in a very special way. And a lot of times, big AAA games just can't because of the way that they're built, the way that they're structured.
00:02:12
Speaker
The Indie Informer itself was a result of me leaving Game Informer. The name itself is a nickname I was given while I was at that outlet. Still love them very much. And I hope everybody is supporting them.
00:02:28
Speaker
But it started, when did I start? I start last year, September of last year, and it hasn't even been a year yet. And we're growing. Yeah, I know. It feels like it's been going forever. I feel like I've been in charge of this for five years.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, and it's been an amazing ride. I've done things I couldn't even imagine doing. I'm so grateful to so many people who are supporting me.
Founding The Indie Informer
00:02:58
Speaker
Speaking of which, we did just start a Patreon and I was able to... I should say what the Patreon is. It's patreon.com slash The New Informer. And that is allowing me to work with other people, namely John Carson, who is also a former informer.
00:03:14
Speaker
uh, who's starting in July. And that's very exciting to be able to. Grow this thing that I didn't even know was going to get off the ground. I thought it was just going to be a way for me to express my own sort of love of Indies and hopefully share with some people, but that it's, it is exploded since last year. So I'm very excited about that.
00:03:39
Speaker
I, you deserve all the success in the world. I am. I mean, we all are a huge fans of yours, huge Myers. Um, you inspire us every single day. I love you to death. I love your work. So I'm happy that we're finally, uh, doing content together.
Memorable In-Person Meeting
00:03:53
Speaker
It seems like it's about damn time. Right. Yeah. We actually met recently physically in person, uh, and, and it felt like, you know, I was meeting an old friend and. Yeah.
00:04:05
Speaker
And that was fine until you showed me a picture of like a naked Pikmin creature that. Uh-huh. I can't get out of my head now. So for just for clarity. No, I don't want to leave it. I meant clean, shaven face because it was it was just the head. Yeah, it's it's the head of a Pikmin creature. It's. Boy, it was a smooth lad is what it was. It's very smooth vibe.
00:04:34
Speaker
I do want to say Jill's special. Thanks for the shouting out our mini indie showcase. We did around GDC time because that was that was really awesome getting you know more eyes on it. It was really really cool to see somebody right up about the things we showed off. It was awesome. And now I was really in contact with you guys. I was sort of watching of course anybody who's in the indie space.
00:05:01
Speaker
Keep your enemies close, you know. I hate you. That's the honest truth. Yeah. That's why I sent you the naked Pikmin. But yeah, it is such a wild thing when you see someone in this space do something and it is the best thing that you've seen.
00:05:26
Speaker
even beyond all of the, like, GDC is obviously an established thing and people do things for it. And then you see this one showcase that you're like, I'm going to check this out. And it turns out to be amazing. And that was your guys' showcase. It was fantastic. Things like inside that I'm so glad I get to know about now. The production value of the show was amazing. Wait for August.
00:05:53
Speaker
You're talking about the second one. You're just these words do not apply to the first. I still think you're lying to us, but it's fine. Yeah, I loved it. Also, I want to ask, what is your favorite indie game ever?
Favorite Indie Games Discussion
00:06:06
Speaker
Do you have one? That's favorite question. Suck, man. Yeah, I know. But I like asking them like it's the same question for like, what's your favorite?
00:06:18
Speaker
video game ever. Like that's an invisible question, you know? It depends on what you're feeling that day and what connects to me in particular. A love in my heart for tunic is obviously something that I'm always praising. Stardew Valley is something that
00:06:40
Speaker
kind of important time in my life, so I hold that very dear. But there are, yeah, there's just so many different indies that I could love on any specific day. Great. I love it. Yeah. Tunic's a good answer and Stardew's a good answer. I have to go back and finish Tunic. I never finished Tunic. Oh my gosh. You're missing some of the best content if you haven't finished Tunic. There's so many games. You have to follow the
00:07:07
Speaker
too. And if you haven't, you've missed out because I turned into a mad human being. I was just like scrolling. I have probably my notebook around here somewhere, just scrolling like notes. What about this? What's this? Could this be a thing? So I scratch in the sand. Maybe that's, that's a clue. You became an amateur cartographer. You have just maps everywhere of that. Oh, a hundred percent.
00:07:33
Speaker
I was definitely doing the red string thing on the board. The always sunny Charlie Kelly strength. Well, Jill,
Next Fest Games & Support
00:07:42
Speaker
hell yeah. Great to have you here. Super stoked to have you for a very special episode, a special two episodes because we got you on the hook for you for two weeks.
00:07:51
Speaker
We are going to talk about Next Fest and everything we played at Next Fest, because hey, guess what? A lot of video games. A lot of video games coming. A lot of demos available. A lot of indie PR people, like a certain bald man, fighting for attention. But hey, it's good. It's all good. But first, let me tell you that you are listening to the 6.1 Indiecast, a weekly video game podcast amplifying the indie scene. As smaller games outside of the AAA space, new episodes drop every Monday morning on all major podcast feeds and YouTube.com slash 6.1 Indie.
00:08:17
Speaker
supporters on patreon.com slash six one indie can tune in live as we record it just like Cole aka the good sir and gain access to clocked out the into cast post show maybe we'll talk more about coyotes but if money is tight no worries you can still show your support with a simple click wherever you're listening go ahead and leave this podcast a review follow six one indie on twitter tick tock and now blue sky new update today subscribe and hit the bell on youtube.com slash six one indie and tell your friends all about us what's that face Kyle Stevenson
00:08:45
Speaker
My face is reacting to Matt's face who just looks like he's learning how to I don't know what apps are anymore. Is it blue sky? Are they responsible for like the Rio animated movies? Right? That's exactly where it's safe. People sort of terrified. You're going to be like the atrocities in the Amazon or something. The atrocities in Rio de Janeiro.
00:09:12
Speaker
the too long. Don't read version. It's like some of the folks from Twitter after that whole show went down, they made it happen. And it's been in beta forever. Shouts to the PD fans over on Patreon. Kobe Cordis, Jacob McCourt, Nicole Comfrey, Comfrey, Jesus Humphrey, Jason Cole, aka the good sir, Jessica Sanchez, the compound and Jill Groot, the Indian former.
00:09:34
Speaker
Housekeeping for you.
Mini Indie Showcase & Game Previews
00:09:35
Speaker
Many of the showcase, as we already talked about, returns on August 31st. By the time you're listening to this, submissions are closed and we got a lot of fucking work to do. There's some great stuff. We already secured a lot of exciting things. Yeah, should be a good time. Should be a good time. Kyle?
00:09:51
Speaker
Flight to New York is booked. By the time you're listening to this on Monday, there are a series of Let's Try videos featuring a bunch of the next fest things we're gonna be talking about tonight and next week. So go check that out. And then yes, speaking of YouTube, go subscribe. They lower their requirements for partner. And yeah, we're trying to grow the YouTube, especially for the mini indie showcase and other secret things that we're working on behind the scenes. But enough about my...
00:10:19
Speaker
battering around. That doesn't make sense. Uh, Jill, I want to kick things off with you. Tell me something you played during next best so far. Oh, jumping straight into it. Straight into it. There's a lot of games. There's a lot of games. Uh, so I have been trying to do things that
00:10:40
Speaker
are not being shouted out in other places or things that I haven't played already in other spaces. So one of the things that I want to shout out is...
00:10:53
Speaker
Let's say little little guardsman. Oh, okay. I'll shout that one out. I was very excited for this. Yeah. Has anyone else played is everybody still waiting? Okay. It runs me a lot of papers, please. Right. Where you have to, it's you're like a, yeah, in charge of letting people in or not.
00:11:12
Speaker
It's a lot. It's a lot like endearing and like, yeah, way less serious. Absolutely. Yeah. Uh, it reminds me art style wise of lost in play if you've ever seen that. Uh, so imagine that art style melded with papers, please. And you've got the idea. Uh, you are a 12 year old girl whose father wants to go off and like bet in the pub.
00:11:42
Speaker
letting you go off and play with ogres or whatever. He has brought you into his workplace. He is a guardsman letting people into the city and trained you as quickly as humanly possible so he could get off to the bedding on how to let people in or question them. So you have a never ending pool of
00:12:09
Speaker
fantastical things, people, creatures that come up to you at your little guard booth, and it's your job to figure out if they're lying, if they have some sort of special conditions that you need to take care of, if they are a threat, if you should allow them in or not, and you get
00:12:32
Speaker
rated at the end of your interactions. And I mean, I don't want to spoil anything, but if we do really good this week, we get a pizza party. So. So you say you get rated at the end of like each interview. Yeah.
00:12:47
Speaker
Aside from a pizza party. Are there any like mechanical benefits to like are like are you trying to get a good rating for like a some sort of benefit that will affect the gameplay or is it more just like a cute little nod like a pizza party? As far as I have played in. I haven't seen anything. I don't know if beyond the demo there's going to be something. Or or what that does, but at this point it's really just a matter of
00:13:17
Speaker
like the pressure really is there and i don't know why because it looks lovely and like you're a 12 year old girl and obviously the humor is a little silly uh but every time someone pops up i'm like i can't push the wrong thing um most of the gameplays is you deciding how you're going to are you going to interrogate these people because you only get three
00:13:45
Speaker
action points. You only get to do three things. So you can interrogate someone and that takes a point. You can use a tool, which is something like a metal detector or an X-ray machine or a truth serum. Or you can use some kind of item from your bag. Right now I have a cinnamon roll. I don't know how that's going to come in handy. So you can only do three things and then you have to decide whether or not
00:14:14
Speaker
can go in and out. And since I obviously have done everything perfectly, I have no idea what happens. I have no idea what happens. Yeah. When, when you fail, but I'm, I'm afraid I am. I fear that I'm going to let someone in and then the next second, the whole town will just be
00:14:33
Speaker
Christ and shambles. Yeah. How tricky are those interactions with the people you're deciding to let it or not? Are they like it's hard to interpret? It doesn't seem like it's going to be difficult when you get later into it. I'm worried that I've been too trusting. I have a tendency to be like, yeah, of course, like I had a yeah, I had a really like snooty nobleman type.
00:15:01
Speaker
They're just like, Ooh, I'm here to speak at the thing or whatever. And I'm the son of the, these famous people. I'm like, uh, I guess I'll just let you in. I'll call for like a detachment of guards to escort you have a good time. And then as soon as he went in, I'm like, I should have done something to like check to see if that was correct. I could have asked him like, can I see your, your signet ring or something? But.
00:15:29
Speaker
Yeah, I'm hoping that this early on there's nothing too horrible that could happen, but I suspect that as time goes on, I'm going to catch somebody doing something they shouldn't be. We're troll mother.
00:15:50
Speaker
who was going into the city to pick up her kids from her diverse divorce partner, who's got a new girlfriend she's worried about. And the message her kids sent, I had to actually decode. I had to go get my decoder and like run through it. And I'm like, you've got a secret message in here. Your kids need help. The, the, uh, the girlfriend is, is horrible and treating them badly. And she's like, let me in. And I got all five stars because I,
00:16:20
Speaker
let her in immediately after that because I didn't want to keep her from her kids. And they're like, good, you've you've understood empathy and helping a mother get to her children. I think it's great. I like that. It rewards you for that. Like, really, like, yeah, actually getting into the role and caring and not just like pressing a button just to get. So it's it's going to be a fun one, I think. Is that slated for this year?
00:16:50
Speaker
kind of assume so so like while you're looking at that up a little bit of context with next fest. Usually games get will not usually games get one next fest per per season. So typically like they pick and choose game pick and choose when to go based on their release date. So a lot of these at least in my experience I played so far a lot of them are coming like in the back half of 2023. Yeah, so it says on steam that it is 2023. We don't have a more narrow window than that but should be this year.
00:17:19
Speaker
Awesome. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to play the demo this weekend. Have fun. And I'm going to probably burn the house down.
Featured Game: Robo Beat
00:17:30
Speaker
Matt, give me something. Sugar. I'm out of sugar, but it's a shame. One of the games I played was Robo beat, which. OK.
00:17:42
Speaker
Oh, Robobee, it's I never played them, but kind of like was it BPM and is it Al Singer was the other one. So it's a rhythm based FPS game. But the aesthetic here is like crunchy like cyberpunk. Yeah, I guess cyberpunk, but like you're a robot and it's a roguelite. So you pick up weapons, but you have to shoot to the beat.
00:18:09
Speaker
But like the the stages that you're going through, they have like launch pads. They also have danger pads. Like don't don't step on the spikes and stuff like that. But the music is good. Like this game got its hooks in me. Can you repeat the name, please? It is called Robo beat. Robo beats scene screenshots for this. Matt, it gives me a little bit of a ghost runner.
00:18:35
Speaker
Is it as fast as ghost runner when it comes to like wall running and so like yeah you you actually you can do all running and stuff like that but when you get onto a wall it's kind of putting you in place.
00:18:50
Speaker
which oh gotcha. I try to move around as fast as yeah got it like I'm just like running around shooting things to the beat which is a lot of fun like I was literally like bopping my head and like moving my feet back and forth because I was laying down while playing this like I got into it I can't just imagine your toes doing they were yeah yeah
00:19:15
Speaker
It's a lot of fun. Um, it says 2023. Um, this is a quality. One of those, uh, publishers that we pop up. Yeah. Uh, and it's being developed by Simon Fred Holm.
00:19:31
Speaker
Uh, what kind of music are we talking about? Uh, so I thought it was just going to be kind of like techno throughout, but it's, it's varied. Um, so I picked up two cassettes. So I had a total of three during my time with the demo. Um, but the last one was kind of like a, almost like a punk, but it's all instrumental. Okay. That's good. It's good. I like that. I like that a lot.
00:19:54
Speaker
I like was side eyeing the steam description. The last like sentence it says crazed robot showman. I initially read that as crazed robot snowman. I'd be interested. I would love to play that game. Me too. I would very much like that video game. Simon work on it next. You thought that I instantly just had Henry Jackman just singing in my ear. This is the greatest show.
00:20:23
Speaker
Is that in this game? Can you shoot enemies to that song? I don't know. I should. Wait, Henry Jackman's. I know. I wasn't going to say anything. I was like, I was like, why does that sound wrong? Cousin. It sounded right to me. I'll tell you that much is failed in showbiz cousin Henry. Yeah, that's him. Oh, yeah.
El Paso Elsewhere & Music Design
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:50
Speaker
Can we talk about El Paso elsewhere? Because I can't stop thinking about this game. Yeah. And I am pretty confident that this is going to be my game of the year. And I know that's like I know we're only in June, but like Jesus fucking Christ, this game rules so hard. Yeah. If you're unfamiliar, this is Strange Scaffold's new game. They're the folks behind Space Organ, Warlord, Traitor, Airport for Aliens. No, wait. An airport currently run by dogs for aliens. I always forget the name. Sunshine Shuffle.
00:21:19
Speaker
Yeah, which is awesome. Have you played Sunshine Shuffle yet? Yeah, that's so good. But this definitely seems to be their. Biggie like that they that they're definitely building up towards. If you haven't seen it is a third person shooter that is essentially Max Payne is it is remedy the video game. And I am so glad they are so unabashedly remedy. I mean, the bullet time is fantastic. It feels right. The
00:21:47
Speaker
low poly like grunge horror aesthetic while it is like that haunted PS one by the way it's rendered. It's rendered in like crisp HD. So it's like this weird juxtaposition of low poly textures and models and whatnot. But like in crisp HD that makes a weird just like contrast that works so fucking well for the game. Just overall like presentation tone.
00:22:15
Speaker
color palette is just stunning.
00:22:19
Speaker
What I want to highlight is just like the direction of the game and like how it's acted, how it's edited. Like it straight up lifts the control like big splash text, which I love so much. It has really hard cuts that work fantastic when it comes to the cut scenes and transitioning you in between scenes. And something I love about the video, the main character, James Savage Savage, James Savage, very cool fucking name.
00:22:49
Speaker
Something I really love about the direction the actor was given was that he talks in a very subtle nature, like very calm, cool, collected. And they made sure to keep him like really close to the microphone and it just feels really intimate. And it feels like he is either talking to himself or talking to the audience. And I think that just works so well. And the way they pair
00:23:14
Speaker
the voiceover with silence, I think creates such a unique atmosphere that is really hard to nail, but strange scaffold fucking nails it. And yeah, I
00:23:28
Speaker
I could not get enough of this demo. It feels great. It is frenetic. It is scary at times. Like when you're when you're trying to fend off all these vampires and ghouls and werewolves and then all of a sudden a witch pops up in front of you throwing dragon balls at you, whatever your full bone panics, try to pop pills at to gain your health back. And it's just it's such a great time. Yeah, 100 percent. This is not typically my my normal kind of game.
00:23:54
Speaker
But I was having a great time playing it. But I think like you, the cut scenes might be something that stick in my brain for a very long time because it is it is meta in a lot of ways. It is talking to you. And what is happening is like affected by it. It is sort of like you are affecting it. Like there's one part where it's like I need you to believe in me because that's the only way that this is going to happen. And then boom, you're into the game and it's like,
00:24:24
Speaker
That is so cool. Even like in that moment where it's like, OK, I need you to believe me in three. Two. One and just go and like at the one it cuts and it's like, oh, I'm such a sucker for a transition like that. So good. It's phenomenal. Matt, you are a remedy boy. What do you think about this? Oh, yeah. I mean, you both have said everything that's in my brain about this, like immediately from the cut scenes from the beginning of the game and then into the gameplay. I'm like, OK, this is this is control Max Payne like
00:24:55
Speaker
And if you haven't seen it on my site, I do have an interview with the head of the studio. Um, that went really deep, really fast. It was one of those things where I'm like, okay, we're at summer game fast. Let's talk about things. And it'll be, and then he just went boom. I'm like, okay, we're going, we're going, we're going where you are taking us. And he was very candid and very honest and I super appreciated it. It turned into a great piece. So please check that out. It will make you love this game even more.
00:25:15
Speaker
I'm here. I'm ready.
00:25:25
Speaker
Yeah. The last thing I want to highlight, well, first off, like the narrative stuff, I love that. It's just like a vampire X trying to destroy the world. And you're just trying to stop your ex from destroying the world. So there's a little more to it. And that's the right of the trailers. But yeah, but the set up for it. And I'm sure it's going to fucking go places knowing the minds behind this game. I really want to highlight
00:25:51
Speaker
The moment you enter the graveyard in like one of the second like the second main area of the demo and how hard the music goes when the beat drops like that vocal hip hop track. It is so good. It is so crispy. And I love that as you are going through that stage, it slowly transitions into like. Somehow you don't you don't really notice it, it just goes into this like killer hip hop track into this like
00:26:19
Speaker
rocking Steve Vai guitar riff thing going on like you don't notice that like there's no like track ending and then it goes to the next track it just like smoothly transitions into that and like I can't wait to see how they play with music throughout the game just with that brief taste phenomenal I have like zero notes about this fucking game yeah speaking of the music and you saying brief taste
00:26:43
Speaker
There's a track on here. I'm not sure if I was paying attention or not, but about like human Sundays. Like if you listen to the lyrics, it's all about serving human beings.
00:26:55
Speaker
Man, I wanted to sit here and listen to this. Kyle's going to roll his eyes at me and whatever. But in the most positive way possible, I mean this as a compliment. And if for those who know me, they know this is like the highest compliment I could give this this track. It's the same vibe as Pumpkin Hill from Sonic Adventure 2. Great. The exact same vibe. It's a better song, but it's the exact same vibe. OK.
00:27:26
Speaker
But yeah, there's like reference for the episode for most of these demos. As soon as I knew like I was enjoying it, I stopped playing it because I want to go in as fresh as possible. Yeah. So I actually didn't go to that stage, but that's interesting because it was floors three, eight and like 13 or something that were represented in the demo. Yeah, that's cool. Good time. This year thing this year, this year 2023. Yeah, sweet. Yeah.
00:27:58
Speaker
Jill, what you got?
Strategic Games & Card Mechanics
00:28:00
Speaker
I want to shout out something that I've shouted out before, but I haven't seen a lot of, and I originally saw it at the mix back at GDC. It's called Shogun Showdown. Yeah. It is such an amazing, you can play with just the mouse and it makes you feel really, yeah, it's got just a few buttons to it, but it's really strategic. And the thing is you are,
00:28:29
Speaker
You start out as the wanderer, so you're just some sort of wandering warrior type creature, and you're trying to get through a bunch of levels in which people are trying to kill you, of course, because it's a video game. And you have some cards down at the bottom that you can put above your head and use, and you can move, and you can turn around, and that's about it. I think you have health potions later on.
00:28:55
Speaker
But every time you do anything, everybody moves. So it's very strategic in that I've screwed myself over a couple of times because I've accidentally turned around and not thought about it. And then people come up and hit me.
00:29:12
Speaker
So you have to think very carefully no one will move so you have time to sort of stop and think about exactly what you want to do. But as soon as you do move everyone else gets to do their attacks. So if you've got somebody who's on the far end of the board and can't get to you you probably don't want to.
00:29:31
Speaker
try to hit them before you hit the guy next to you. Or if there's someone who's got like a special dash move who can get to you immediately, you probably want to take care of them. But if you're using your moves, they all have a cool down. So if you've used your arrows already to get someone next to you, you're pretty much screwed with the guy across from you and you just kind of have to take it and it's a rogue like. So every time you get hit, you move on to the next level if you're still alive, but you never re health.
00:30:01
Speaker
So you're trying to get as far as possible. And every time you get past a major like accomplishment, like fighting a boss, you upgrade your cards in some way. So you get more and more powerful. And then when you die, you do get to keep your cards. That's good. OK. So I was going to ask if there was anything that like kind of carries over from. Yeah.
00:30:22
Speaker
So it is really easy to pick up, really easy to understand and understanding guilt and feel good about it from the get go. And you could probably pay play for five minutes and be happy with it. But if you sit down and play, you're probably going to play it for more than five minutes because you're just like, okay, I got it. I'm going to get through this.
00:30:43
Speaker
watching the stream on the store page. A lot of this could be a weird poll, but a lot of like the sprite work and a lot of the animations remind me of Towerfall. Interestingly enough, like I like with the hours and I just like the speed is a interesting little note. It looks fantastic. Like typically not my kind of jam, but it's a fun really into this. So you played it also. Mm hmm.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting, too, because under the enemies, you can actually see how much health they have. So in your cards, it has an attack, and that's something, too, you can upgrade, and you can also upgrade, or...
00:31:17
Speaker
the cool down time so you can use it again faster. It took me longer than I care to admit that the dual blade card attacked both front and back. So that was a fun tactic. Once I found that out, like, all right, I see they're going to be attacking. They still have some time. I'm going to try and move in the middle so they meet me. And I just use that card and just both of them at the same time. And you feel really cool when you land it.
00:31:42
Speaker
You feel really dumb when you like totally miss. Yeah. That's awesome. And it's out next week.
00:31:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It is June 27th. Yeah. I think it's out in early access, though. Just got a little one. One other cool mechanic, too, is if you push towards an enemy, you can actually go like be on the other side of them. So like if they're about the attack, you can move forward and then they'll still attack where they were going to attack. Miss you and you'll be on the other side of them. So and you can just kind of laugh at them. Yeah.
00:32:21
Speaker
Yeah. Mac, give me another. Let's see. One I didn't know about, but I guess I already had a PlayStation trailer for it.
Mystery & Puzzle Game Highlights
00:32:31
Speaker
It was this bed we made. I knew nothing about this going into the demo and holy cow, I can't wait for more. So the elevator is a it's you're playing a maid in a I believe it's a French hotel.
00:32:50
Speaker
But they speak English. But it's in the late 50s, early 60s. And it's a mystery game. So it's third person puzzles. You're looking through your guests rooms because one of them is a creeper. And you're trying to figure stuff out. And I love this type of game. Not enough people do these type of games. I remember I think it was Square Enix.
00:33:19
Speaker
put out a murdered soul suspect that bombed. Oh yeah. I love that. The combat is not great in that game, but I love the gumshoe aspect of it. When I was a GameStop employee, that was the first game I borrowed from the store. It's a good game. Yeah, it's fine. I love everything in this game. I can't wait to just dive into the mystery figure more out.
00:33:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah, it looks sick. I didn't realize this was coming to console and had like PlayStation support. Mm hmm. Or support, quote unquote. Right. Well, yeah, there's a there's a nice little quote from Reb on here from IGN. Yeah.
00:33:59
Speaker
Are you like interviewing people at this hotel or is it just like picking up clues and smiling at the demo? You're entering in this guest room because you found a roll of film that you believe is theirs and the door was cracked open. So you were just going to use your key to get in there, but it's left open. There's a room safe in there and there's like six rolls of film just hanging out. And the bathroom has been turned into a dark room.
00:34:28
Speaker
And in there, hanging up are pictures of you, the character. He caught you in the act rummaging through one of the drawers, maybe not his, but somebody's one guest's drawers perfume, just to smell the perfume. So like, you're able to throw away anything you find in the rooms, but all your choices have consequences. So like, you weren't able to feel what the branching paths are gonna be in this game, but,
00:34:57
Speaker
Sounds like it's going to be deep until dawn and stuff like that. You aren't interviewing anyone, but you can call the front desk and speak to one of two characters about what you're finding in this room and stuff and get their advice. Not too many interactions in the demo, but it's cool. Yeah. Great. Nice. It's cool. I would like to talk about Spirit Swap because I finally
00:35:25
Speaker
bit the bullet and I was not going to play it because I just, I know I want to just experience it fresh, but I was like, God damn, I don't want to wait anymore. Spirit swap is going to take over my life. It's so good. That's good to hear. If you've been listening for a bit, you know that I'm a sucker for the Pokemon puzzle league, like mechanics of a puzzle game, the superior Pokemon spinoff game, a top 10, some would say. No one.
00:35:52
Speaker
A paxi's panel said it. Some are one. I remember being at that paxi's when you partook him. Yeah. Uh-huh. Oh, anyways.
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah, just touching on the gameplay first. I mean, think of Tetris, but you are swapping two blocks positions to kind of do match three. They nail that mechanic. It feels so smooth. They innovate on it a little bit by adding a special. So you play as this character named Samar with a magical frog.
00:36:27
Speaker
The narrative setup is that you're a witch and you are pretty much casting spirits out in the world, but in a very cozy, friendly manner.
00:36:36
Speaker
And yeah, Samar, I don't know if it's specific to her character, but you get a special. And the special that I got to experience was if four of the same color are essentially creating a square, you get hit, I think, on an Xbox controller. It was Y. And you just wipe the top half of the puzzle grid. So if you're in danger, it could really save your ass.
00:37:04
Speaker
And that's kind of like the great thing about this game is that it it's not trying to really challenge you. It just it knows what it is. It knows that is this cozy, lo fi vibe that you just want to relax and knock out some puzzles to. On the flip side of that, the narrative is it's a such an endearing set up. I love all the characters so far. I got to meet Samar Momo and Leon. All are remarkably hot human beings. Holy fucking hell.
00:37:32
Speaker
That always helps. Especially on the tattoo artists. Oh boy. Yeah. All the dialogue. We just need like a pause in the podcast to have you go. Do do do do do. Just a little dream. Have him appear in like a little bubble.
00:37:49
Speaker
Yeah, all the dialogue is really cute and really just authentic feeling. There was a moment between Samara Momo where it seems like Momo was just going through a breakup and she's been off lately and you just go in and check on her. It's a very authentic conversation of like, hey, I know you're not okay, but are you okay? You could talk to me. It's a very warm feeling.
00:38:13
Speaker
I'm excited to just experience those relationships across the board as I continue to just knock out these puzzles. It's, it's so fucking good. And like, I just, I hope I, I think there, I, well, I don't remember seeing it in the demo, but like, I hope there's just like a, once I get through the narrative, like an arcade or endless mode or something like that, where I could just like listen to the incredibly good music and just knock out puzzles and just get lost for hours and hours and hours. Cause I could see myself getting lost in this game quite a bit.
00:38:42
Speaker
I imagine this is on like your most wanted vinyl. Oh, God. Yeah. Oh, my God. This would become even when like like I know it's most likely going to drop on like Bandcamp and stuff like that. This is taking over as my my work soundtrack, like when I'm writing press releases and pitching people like 100 percent is going to be in the background. It's going to be like this and coffee talk on rotation.
00:39:05
Speaker
Oh, coffee talk. That's good call out. I should use that more often. Yeah, especially volume two now. Oh, so good. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, spear swap from softnet week. It's coming soon. Uh, 2023. It is part of the, um, the idea at Xbox developer acceleration program. So it's coming to Xbox as well, which was a nice little surprise. I wasn't expecting that. Um, yeah, can't wait. Can't recommend it enough. Hot Leon is good.
00:39:32
Speaker
It's all you need to remember. Yeah. Put it on the Steam page soft not weak. Jill, give me another.
Pixel Art RPG & Nostalgic Themes
00:39:41
Speaker
Um, I want to call out back to dawn. Okay. Getting far away from like a soft and happy as possible. Yeah, it is beautiful pixel. Uh, it uses light in a way that I really love when pixel games do it is.
00:39:59
Speaker
naturalistic light, which gives it an interesting glowing effect when everything else in the room is just sort of obviously not naturalistic. But the basic idea here is you start the game off as a fox and you are some sort of reporter. You get to decide what kind of reporter you are. Are you going to be like an undercover? Are you going to be like on camera? Are you going to be a war correspondent?
00:40:24
Speaker
all of those different choices decide what your stats are gonna be. So like, are you gonna be really strong? Are you gonna be charismatic? Are you gonna be crafty? I went crafty and you start the game out and you have sort of uncovered this conspiracy and you're starting to dig into it when someone approaches you saying like, hey, maybe you don't look into that and you take this big pile of money.
00:40:52
Speaker
uh, which I refuse to do, which the character refuses to do. Uh, and then you are thrown in jail. You immediately get out of that meeting and a bunch of cops happen to find some drugs in your car and you get put away, uh, for years. And that's where the game sort of
00:41:14
Speaker
action really starts. And as you sort of play, you realize it is a very strange mix of like the Sims.
00:41:23
Speaker
and start your valley you can make friends with everybody in jail as much as possible you can make friends with different like gang members so you can be friends with different factions uh you have to eat your your hunger starts to lower your stats uh you have to go to the bathroom like this very very like weirdly simmy uh and everything
00:41:49
Speaker
Yeah, in the demo, you are pushed forward. You obviously want to prove that you're innocent. And everything just sort of beats you down as to like what this life is. So you start off by you want to call your lawyer to see what's going on. But to use the phone, you have to have like 100 bucks. Like, for some reason, it's not very
00:42:17
Speaker
Uh, so in order to make money, you have to go work, uh, in the laundry room, which the guards have just told you about. So you go in there and you play a fun mini game where you have to like count exactly to a number of seconds. Like say you're, you're ironing a sock. You see a timer for like three seconds and then you have to, it disappears and you have to stop it at seven.
00:42:45
Speaker
by just, you know, hopefully doing for me. Yeah. It's prison, Kyle. It's supposed to be fair. And how close you get gives you money. But, and then I finally got up enough, but then it was time for all of us to go out into the yard and like do recreational things. And someone came up and decided to mess with me. And I, instead of just giving them half my money, like they were asking, I'm like, I'm going to try to fight you. And it became a sort of like Pokemon esque.
00:43:10
Speaker
battle where I was deciding when to use things and my my energy points were going down and I didn't win so I woke up with one dollar left and all of my hard-earned money was gone so now I had to find a new way to get money and I guess I
00:43:28
Speaker
I found some sort of secret backhanded like quest giver that just needed a couple of flowers. So I picked flowers and I passed that off and I got enough money to finally call my lawyer, which I did. And he was like, sorry, your appeal was stomped by someone. But at the same time, you're like walking up to like the anteater and be like, Hey, do you want to be friends? You can have some of my bread. So like everyone has like a relationship status with you that you can increase.
00:43:57
Speaker
and I was giving out little origami things to the people I liked and they were...
00:44:04
Speaker
Yeah, so like there's just a lot here and it is a very Intriguing mix of a lot of weird things and the tone is very dark, but there's a lot of they're all animals and it's it's A pixelated like the the tone doesn't seem to yes It's it is a really interesting game I hope a lot of people check it out because I was enjoying so much and
00:44:30
Speaker
It's like the ultimate prison RPG. Essentially, yeah. Yeah. Just like, I mean, listening to you and watching the gameplay, it's like, yeah, like there's Sim elements, there's survival elements. There's obviously a lot RPG stuff. There's this detective noir narrative going on.
00:44:47
Speaker
Yeah, the GTA San Andreas like strengthen yourself like the workout mechanic. But you can't do that until you get in good with one of the gangs because they own in the workout stuff and that's sometimes when you're trying to do certain certain things you have to roll dice to see if you succeed or not. There's just a lot of different and it's not overwhelming. They do a very good job of that. That's good.
00:45:15
Speaker
This is wild. This is on my radar. Holy. Please put it on. There's multiple characters, too. Yes, you do. I tried to pick the other character, which is a Black Panther, and they don't let you play from the get go with that character. But the demo lets you play as the fox and you can meet the other character in the game. Oh, cool. So I was giving him my origami. It's like here we want to be friends.
00:45:41
Speaker
Sounds freaking great. Did you? It looks like it's the debut title from the step also. That's awesome. Yeah, I think so. Did you while you're playing the demo where you're already like scouting out how you're escaping from prison?
00:45:53
Speaker
Yeah, I already found like some sort of like my toilet was kind of loose. So I was like looking underneath and was like, if you can unscrew all of this, there's a little passageway behind here. So now I have to collect a way to unscrew it, maybe get a coin and I have to like collect. I can't remember. I think I have to get like a bunch of scraps in order to
00:46:18
Speaker
like hide things and I have to be sure of like the guards schedule so that I am not accidentally opening it when they come through. It's going to be a lot of fun. Oh yeah. Sounds like you need another notebook like you had for tuning. Yeah. Sounds great. Very excited for that. Thank you for putting out my radar. I'm excited for people to check it out. Matt.
00:46:41
Speaker
got another one for me. Yeah. Do you play like 30 games? I know. Next one I want to show is a video verse. Oh, yeah. Didn't know about this game until all the showcases that just happened, but it's a.
00:47:00
Speaker
kind of like a live sim, where on this looks like a PS one slim with the monitor attachment. But there's a internet space that you're able to go to chat rooms, message your friends, do video chat with them. And it's about like, just living in playing video games and drawing and being someone on the internet back in like,
00:47:24
Speaker
90s, late 90s kind of stuff. And it's all the stuff on the game system itself. It's all pixel art, but on the cut scenes and stuff, it's a beautiful hand drawn color, full color. And I just I love it immediately. Like the trailer just kind of showed off like the the system is called like the shark. And it just showed off like the message boards and stuff like that. Oh,
00:47:51
Speaker
Oh, I want to get in there. But yeah, just the conversations that you're having with your friends and doing like the webcam live chat kind of thing like I love it. It's so nostalgic for me. Mm hmm.
00:48:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's very much like an Emily away. Emily is away sort of situation. Ask that. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. All in. And you're you're I think you're a kid of some sort. You're you're maybe 13 or so and you could have some sort of an age where you're not. Yeah. Well, you know, whatever age you are when you're a kid.
00:48:31
Speaker
And yeah, it's just like a lot of how our lives I imagine went when we were that age and we were getting into gaming and like you have a friend who knows stuff that you didn't know about games and like you're playing on the shark, but the dolphins coming up and you got to figure out how to pay for the dolphin because that's the new thing. And your favorite game. Oh my God. I love this so much. His favorite game is feudal fantasy. Yeah. I'm looking at that screenshot right now. Yeah. That's awesome.
00:49:00
Speaker
And he's he tries to do like fan art of this and up one of the tension points right now in the early demo is like his fan art isn't as good as someone else's and like people haven't been nice to him about it. And yeah, everything about this is just a lot of fun. I will say Mike, do you have it pulled up on on steam right now? I do go to the feudal fantasy screenshot and look at the bottom right.
00:49:30
Speaker
And you tell me what that is. 10 out of 10. Perfect. Yeah. It's a Star Fox. This other screenshot. I really, really love to it. It's not at the uncle from Nintendo. It's just uncle from Kinmoku, which is like the game studio. It's like, Hey, it's your uncle who works at Kamoka. That's great. I love that. I love that. It's software kind of like that.
00:49:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's great. There's yeah, there's there's some jerks on those message boards just like real life, but like just click that report button. Report him. Report him so fast. I didn't even have to tell him. I was like, get in there. Oh, I love that. And there was a there's like an ad banner like remember flash ad banners. I'm trying to find the picture I took of it, but it was like, don't be a weenie. I can't find it.
00:50:21
Speaker
Play the demo, find out for yourself. Yeah. Well, we'll do one more round because I know we're already like fucking approaching an hour. Quick, two quick shout outs for me. Ollie Frog Toad Skater is in Nell Tony Hawk. Yeah, I played it. I love the noise when you biff like the.
00:50:45
Speaker
Perfect. I'm if you watch the let's try that's on YouTube right now, YouTube dot com slash six. Well, Andy, I couldn't get the fucking donuts for the life of me in the first. There's one donor. I'm not a pro frog. I'm a frog in stance, but I'm not a professional frog. Yeah, in Nail Tony Hawk, it's I met Phil at the completionist office when the whole mixed thing went down. Phil's fucking great.
00:51:12
Speaker
go support them. Ollie frog to its skater. And Matt specifically for me and you smells like burnt rubber is slot car Mario Kart with a little bit of twisted metal flare to it like isometric racer. You literally you hold right trigger to go.
00:51:29
Speaker
left and right to like just go left and right on the isometric map. Fucking great time feels great. Yeah, this is a mean you join. We're going to be racing to the till the sun rises. Mike, you're going to lose because I've done a lot of slot car races and you know, a lot of soccer races in real life. Well.
00:51:48
Speaker
Okay. Correct. We just unveil more Mike backstory. Yeah. Mike Lork slot car Mike mini golf marine biologist slot car racer all at the same time. Yeah. George. I mean, yeah.
00:52:03
Speaker
Listen, in Elmsford, New York, there was sport time USA. There's a mini golf place across the street and then right next to the sport time USA slot car racing. But the one I want to actually touch on is like age through blood.
Unique Aesthetic Game Reviews
00:52:16
Speaker
I'm very excited to hear you all talk about it. Holy shit. Yeah. This game is metal is all. It developed by Brainwash Gang. It's being published by Thunderfall. Thunderfall has been putting out bangers lately.
00:52:32
Speaker
It is what they call a motorvania. You play as a I think it's a fox. They keep using the term pop. I think it might be a coyote. Maybe we're back to the full circle. Look at that. Yeah, podcasting. So you play as a coyote in like a Mad Max kind of like a stunning hand drawn world. As soon as you start the game, it just fucking punches you right in the goddamn throat where it's like
00:53:02
Speaker
First off, it does the really thing. The thing I love a lot in presentation and just editing and stuff where you hit start on the menu and then it like fades down and you're automatically in the cutscene. Love that. You get on the phone with your, I think, daughter, maybe son. You're a mother coyote and the child says to you like, hey, Jacob,
00:53:26
Speaker
They fuck Jacob up, not in those terms. It is like Jacob is dead. Like the birds, the birds did this, the birds that and you quickly like the little pup who must be like a couple years old. It must be a child of some sorts as we are. We established in video verse. Literally says they crucified Jacob with his own guts. And that's like the first.
00:53:52
Speaker
30 seconds of this game they're hanging there right off the bat establishes the tone and like you are all of a sudden on this revenge quest to like seek out the birds and trying to find his body and like do all this stuff you find his body eventually it's it's strung up by guts and they also at some point they discuss like
00:54:12
Speaker
putting fingernails in his eyeballs and stuff. The game is metal as fuck. Anyways, that's kind of the setup. It's like this revenge tale about like from the like between the coyotes and these clan of birds and they're literally birds. It's kind of fucking hilarious. The gameplay is so good. It's.
00:54:32
Speaker
as they say a motorvania where you are primarily in your motorcycle traversing the environment and you're going off ramps you're going off loops you you are drifting to turn around you're going up multiple paths but what's more fascinating is the combat eventually you get a gun you can shoot the birds you can kind of do sort of twins not
00:54:53
Speaker
You aim with the right stick and you fire and you have two bolts to your chamber. To reload, you have to do, I believe, a back flip with your bike. And you can also parry weapons or parry bullets. And to reload the parry, you have to do a front flip with your bike. And you can also like when you're going off jumps, a lot of the birds will fire at you while you're trying to like go off in traverse. You could block bullets with your with your bike, depending on how you angle it. It is so
00:55:20
Speaker
fluid, it is gnarly. I'm surprised it works as well as it does. It's essentially trials, but with combat. Right. Kyle Stevenson, six, Wendy. Does it ever get too confusing with the front flip and back flip doing different things? You get used to it really quickly. You do. OK. Yeah. The only thing I struggled with a little bit, it's really like I mean, it's just like any game that has like driving in it. Like once you get a feel for it, it'll click.
00:55:50
Speaker
The only thing that kept screwing me up is that like I kept forgetting I had a break. Like you have. Oh yeah, I didn't use that at all. I just. And there are times where like I would. Try to parry and like I would just like fuck up the timing or I would forget you have to like kind of reload the parry. That would be like the only thing but you got used to it really quickly.
00:56:13
Speaker
Are you like upgrading guns or getting skills and stuff? I think you so it seems Matt you play this.
00:56:20
Speaker
Yeah, you can. I saw the trailer. You can. Yeah, you can in the trailer. You can say it seems like it has a soul's light element to it. Like you are seems like you're collecting guts as you are murdering birds and you get crafty materials. You could like mine for materials and whatnot. So it seems like there are there are crafting mechanics. Like Matt said, there are there is some sort of upgrade mechanic.
00:56:44
Speaker
I say souls light because when you die, you drop a percentage of your we'll call it materials where you could go back and pick things back up. Yeah, that's great. And can we just talk about absolutely gorgeous visuals as well? It's stunning. So I can't believe the game I can't like similar to what we were saying about their own like I can't believe this is a video game that runs.
00:57:09
Speaker
So this game is 2D, but this game is probably the most that push the steam deck out of all the demos I play. It's like you could just hear. Yeah, even so I recorded a let's try of it, even like doing like running OBS while also playing it was stunted a little bit. Nothing like that hindered performance or anything really or hindered gameplay, I should say. But yeah, it is a looker. Something I love is that
00:57:40
Speaker
the, at least your protagonist, like the protagonist, the main character you play as very bold outlines, which is a really interesting choice. Like it helps like stand out from the pack, but also just like gives it such a unique aesthetic to, um, compared to everything else, like the entire environments and all the other characters and enemies and stuff, which is very thin lines, very, very
00:58:01
Speaker
cater to that hand-drawn aesthetic. Yeah, it works really well. And yeah, there were multiple times where I died just because I was staring off into the distance. I like to think that the birds from this game, from your description, are a bird gang in the game Jill just brought up back to the dawn.
00:58:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, maybe it sounds like they're just bad people birds. Exactly. It seems like the birds are like government people because they're wearing like suits like like hazmat suits. Yeah. Oh, okay. Or like some sort of military like like your other friend that you're trying to like find in the beginning. Maybe that was Jacob. It's Jacob and somebody else. I forgot.
00:58:45
Speaker
But you eventually the person you get the gun from is in a fox. I don't believe. Yeah, but he's like he's a friend. He's like your uncle or like the kid, maybe brother, stepbrother or something like that. But like you go through trying to find him and it's just like the rampage that he left behind trying to seek out blood for Jacob, blood and guts. And like it's just is disgusting, but in the most beautiful way possible. This is not rock and doodle do. This is not. No, it is not.
00:59:15
Speaker
Not much is one more. Uh, okay. So I just want to shout out that I think we're all sort of dancing around the bigger names because people already know them. People are already going to check them out, but I do want to shout them out very quickly. Obviously we've got lies of peace is, is up. Um,
00:59:38
Speaker
I have Botany Manor is in here, which I highly recommend. Viewfinder, of course, is fantastic. Sea of Stars. Yeah. For Viewfinder. Am I too dumb for Viewfinder? No. Okay. No, thank you. No. It's one of those games that makes you feel really smart at the same time. So you should definitely play it. That sounds as though you've not gone through it. So you need to.
01:00:05
Speaker
It's one of the games where I like I rather just go in fresh. Like I don't know if I want to play the demo. Yeah. I think that was in Stars of Time. Also very great. And I think those are the big ones. If anybody else has like a big one. Has anyone played sea of stars?
01:00:24
Speaker
Sea of stars. Yeah, that was another of the big one. Okay. Yeah, I'm waiting as well. I was just curious. Yeah. And then I want to shout out also a little kitty big city, which I have and I have a preview up for for past things, but like, Oh, what a great game. Yeah. But the thing I really want to shout out here because I've played it before, but it had a really huge update and the demo for the demo and the demo being on Steam is important.
Myth Force Demo & Retro Styles
01:00:52
Speaker
It is myth force.
01:00:54
Speaker
Yeah. I am so in love with this game. This is such a me game. It's got very excited when it was unveiled at the direct. Yes. Or shown off at the direct. Yeah. Not enough people had an exciting
01:01:08
Speaker
reaction to it in the way that they should have because I'm so excited for this game. If you haven't seen it, it does look like an eighties cartoon. It's got that sort of like campy, cheesy vibe to it, but it is just a really fun kind of dungeon crawler. They've taken all the like typical types. You've got your like paladin, you've got your like ranger, you've got your a swashbuckler and then a mage, but they're all sort of,
01:01:35
Speaker
tilted on their head a bit. So your paladin is a woman and you've got like your mage was just kind of like a hard rocker in person. And I just love what's going on here. And in the demo, they've changed it up. So if anybody's already played this, there is a really good reason to jump into this demo because they now have a starting screen where you see like a city, uh, that's being overtaken by tangled vines and things. And you can now,
01:02:05
Speaker
Collect gems and things inside of a run and come back and upgrade stats and upgrade Different I think you can get like different weapons from if you upgrade the swordsmith guy So you have a really good reason to go through and you're no longer picking up weapons as you go through each level because before that's a lot of fun and I always enjoy that and
01:02:29
Speaker
But what ended up happening a lot of times for me, I play as the Archer Hawkins. And you only picked up a new bow if you were against Archer enemies and Archer enemies tend to be higher level and they don't want to throw that at like kind of early game. So like you didn't get a new bow. You were playing with like what was essentially like a child's put together taped bow for
01:02:57
Speaker
Run after run after run. I'm like I would really like to have a bow, please you're like your paladin friends are getting Level three likes freeze rays and whatever you just oh my god. I'm just I've got this stick So they've they've changed that up they've changed the way that you no longer level up and get a perk perks in between most of the dungeons so that you were kind of constantly
01:03:25
Speaker
getting a perk for you and a perk for your weapon. And now there's a reason to kind of go through. They've changed the difficulty levels a little bit, so it's a little easier and you can actually get through the entire thing. So you can actually get the gems that you need.
01:03:41
Speaker
And it's just a really fun, like they know exactly what they're doing. They know exactly what they have. They are playing up the like myth for campiness. If you have not heard the theme song, if you've not played the theme song to this, you deserve to play it for yourself because it is so fantastic. It will be stuck in your head. It will give you energy. It will make you happy.
01:04:07
Speaker
um and you're just going around clearing room after room after room of a dungeon trying to get to uh the beast lord is the the big enemy for this one um and
01:04:20
Speaker
get through and collect gems and grow your power and do it all over again. And I absolutely love this game. It looks like a delight. I haven't jumped in yet, but it's been a minor for a bit. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say, it looks like a mad ass game just between the Thundercats aesthetic. Yes. I love this visual look, too. It's so good. Yeah, like a lot of games try to try a morning cartoon. Yeah. But like, I feel like not many hit the nail on the head like Myth Force is doing. Yeah.
01:04:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I'm excited to check it out. And it's cool that it's coming to switch. That was a nice little delightful surprise. Yeah, this beast looks straight out of Thundercats. It's fucking hilarious. It's really good. I think there's my favorite line, perhaps in any video game is something that Hawkins says when he gets lit on fire because there are fire traps that you have to. And he says, I feel like a sunbathing vampire and it's the best thing crossover with a pass of elsewhere.
01:05:21
Speaker
Make it happen. Matt, give me some shout outs if you like and then give me give me one more biggie. Yeah, quick shout outs cross splits. Basically like a cute pixel Yu-Gi-Oh almost. Oh, it's it's good. Play the demo. Cross splits. Yes.
01:05:44
Speaker
Did already mention in Stars and Time, I played the demo for that. Love the humor. I love that. It's a rock, paper, scissors mechanics. Yeah. Can't wait to play that full game. Shout out to the the armored games crew linked up with them as well at SDF. They are wonderful human beings. Right. Also, time loop mechanic. Love it. Always. Yeah. But. Yeah, I'll just shout out those two. But the last one I wanted to talk about was a throne fall.
01:06:13
Speaker
from the Grizzly games. It's a cell-shaded tower defense game with kind of like a city building mechanic too, but it's all stage-based. This isn't like SimCity with a tower defense. Each level is its own thing. So you're this king on a horse, and then you build a castle center and then houses around it because you're trying to gain money every round.
01:06:41
Speaker
Um, and it's beautiful because when you go to night, which is when the enemies come to you, you're like, there's just this campfire in the middle of town. And like, you see the glow of the fire on the surrounding area and like, it's beautiful. It's gorgeous. Yeah. Um, but it's really easy to get into. It's a lot of fun. It ramps up considerably quicker. It seems like it.
01:07:06
Speaker
You can upgrade all your buildings, so you can get more money from the houses. You can build archer towers, barracks for both swords, spears, and then also bows, crossbows. There's a lot to this game, and that's my jam. I love tower defense games. I can't wait to play more of this.
01:07:26
Speaker
I love how it plays with hot and cool tones. Like if you look at some of these, especially like when it goes into night where it's just like straight up blue environments, but like you get that glow with the fire and stuff. And a lot of the enemies are like a nice like warm orange really makes it pop. Right. Yeah. Like you're saying like the cell shadedness, it's, it's cell shaded, but it's like, it starts leaning into that, like not as drastic, but like how nuts was a couple of years back. Yeah. Where it's just like super tonal.
01:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's very bold colors, very minimalistic. It's making me think of like a sort of retro travel posters a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Very good aesthetic. I don't like you. I'm a sucker for a good tower defense. I'm I'm excited for this. This is great. This is my pixels run masters, too. Oh, yeah. Good call. Also, the the logo looks like the Corona logo. I'm just going to throw that out there. Yeah.
01:08:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's been next to us so far. We're going to talk about more next stuff next week. We're going to play more throughout the weekend. And yeah, that'll be in the cast again next week. We're not over yet because Kyle, I would like you to talk a little bit about some games that you played related. Yeah, I didn't get a chance to sit down on my computer and play next stuff. But one of my most anticipated games for my platform for choice, which is PlayStation finally came to it. Rogue Legacy 2.
01:08:51
Speaker
The first game is one of my favorites of all time. I played a little bit of two back when it was in early access and decided to wait until it came to PlayStation to play. It's been a long time, but I'm happy to report that it is just absolutely amazing. The upgrades of visuals. It's gorgeous. The new classes are fun. Like I unlocked
01:09:17
Speaker
the chef class where you just hit things enemies with a giant frying pan but it's not just like regular damage you actually inflict burn on enemies which is great it still has that that amazing humor of like
01:09:35
Speaker
some of the traits are like you're a clown. And so you have clown makeup on. Also, I should explain what the game is if you're familiar. It's a rogue like but every run you are the heir to the person you just played. So you get to pick a son or daughter to go on in the next run. Yes, Mike.
01:09:57
Speaker
I like to just add it's like it's not a roguelike. It's like one of the like. It's like the one. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like this is what brought roguelikes back to modern gaming. Absolutely fair. Yeah. And every time every time you yeah every time you pick a new air different traits different weapons different magical abilities and and
01:10:20
Speaker
other type of defensive abilities. You come with them. And to upgrade them, you basically put in money to build your castle. And as you build the castle, it it builds up on screen and you can see the different wings pop up. And there's so many more upgrades to this one. And it's just incredible. But yeah, the clown makeup, right? You wear clowns, the makeup, but you can also
01:10:48
Speaker
do the jump kick on any surface, which is usually only allowed like on like lanterns. Right. And that's a major mechanic in this one for platforming. And it's very difficult to do. But once you get the hang of it, it's pretty good.
01:11:04
Speaker
Another really fun trade is just like you're you're very gassy. So you're just fart randomly while you're going through your run. Another one was yeah. Nostalgic was a new trait where I didn't know what it was. So I pick it and everything is sepia tone. Nice. But it's like an old film reel. So the edges are like burned out and it's got like that a flicker to it like how this is cool.
01:11:29
Speaker
So like they just kind of nailed that the humor and tone and they don't take themselves too seriously. But when it comes to like the gameplay and stuff it is you there's some skill involved. It's not like you know.
01:11:42
Speaker
you're going to breeze through everything like you have to take your time and learn what build is best for you. They do a really cool thing here as well where there's I don't know how many classes there are but each class you can unlock a mastery thing and as you play as a class you level it up and then you get different buffs.
01:12:04
Speaker
the more you spend with that class. So it's so deep. I'm so excited to keep playing it. It's a platinum. I'll never get because I never got the first one because it's way too hard. But I'm very happy to play. Yes, Mike. Full disclosure, former vicarious PR client. Sure. Sure.
01:12:22
Speaker
and does affect doesn't affect Kyle's thoughts. No, absolutely not. So yeah, that's sort of legacy too. But a few weeks ago, actually, I decided to play a game from my indie shame pile, a game that Matt talks a whole lot about. I play I started playing Hollow Knight for the first time. Oh, that's nice. I didn't know where you're going with that. I thought, hey, somebody's finally playing Magica, but all right. I'm sorry to burst your bubble. That'll never happen.
01:12:53
Speaker
Yeah. Hollow Knight still no surprises. It's great. It's another really great Metrovania. I will say though. I don't like getting lost. I get lost a lot in Hollow Knight. Maybe because I don't buy those markers that you can place to keep track of where you're on the map, but probably should. But yeah.
01:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, they are. I just would rather save my my currency for like the skills and unlocking more term slots and whatnot. But once you once you find a new area and you find like the next boss, there's such a sense of accomplishment that comes with it. And then like actually fighting the bosses are really, really cool. And I'm really, really excited to just keep unraveling.
01:13:40
Speaker
what's going on here in Hollow Knight. And shout out to that that insult insect like train that brings you back to the different hubs. Oh, yeah. I love I love when it comes out from the cave to you and you hop into it. I just I just love that whole animation is great. Oh, yeah. Real good game. Surprise.
01:14:04
Speaker
We're going a little long, so let's end real quick on this weekend, Indy. I'll quickly rattle these off since I'll just... Yeah. You went on a... I mean, I... Go for it. Yeah.
01:14:17
Speaker
I don't know why I don't know what I was trying to say. I meant to say I'm going to save you the talking. Anyways, Monday, May 26, Kingdom 80s Summer of Greed coming to PC, eventually coming to consoles. Kingdom 80s is a standalone expansion to the award winning Kingdom series. A single very epic adventure of micro strategy and base building defend your town against the mysterious greed and discover the secrets of your family lineage. This was the only India S.G.F., right?
01:14:46
Speaker
No knocking me out. What was it? What was the SGA? Yes, your grace. Yep. Yeah. There is a demo for this game. Yeah. On next.
01:14:57
Speaker
Tuesday the 27th, we got Sludge Life 2. Sludge Life 2 is the grimiest first-person vandalism sim since the first Sludge Life, but like twice as dense. Explore a huger, wider, gnarlier, open-world world loaded with secrets, weirdos, jokes, and of course plenty of spots to tag. Very excited for this. Shogun Showdown, we talked about, PC Early Access, turn-based combat game with roguelike and
01:15:23
Speaker
deck building elements, position yourself and attack at the right time, upgrade your title. Nope. Tiles, I can't talk, uh, and combine them to get ready to face the Shogun Wednesday, the 28th, David, the diver exits early access. It's eventually come to switch as well. They have the diver, a casual single player, a venture RPG featuring deep.
01:15:41
Speaker
see exploration timing and fishing during the day and sushi restaurant management at night. Join Dave and his quirky friends as they seek to uncover the secrets of the mysterious a blue hole that we also got these dark good fishing
Game Announcements & Previews
01:15:57
Speaker
games. It was good. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard very good things about Dave a journey to a sorry a long journey to an uncertain end coming to PC.
01:16:06
Speaker
eventually come to Switch. Explore the known and unknown galaxy with a ragtag crew of eccentric new friends in this narrative and management space opera. You are essentially in spaceship and outlawed commodity and there's an entire galaxy between you and freedom not to mention your abusive ex on your tail. We have a preview of this from back in lockdown if you go to the site and just search a long journey to an uncertain end. Our friend Sly from Point in Progress wrote a preview for us
01:16:35
Speaker
Uh, and then Friday, the 30th at crime o'clock coming to PC and switch crime o'clock is an investigation and time exploration game with a deep storyline, investigate cases through time and involving maps, uh, by unveiling a multi-era linked story. You will be observant enough to know, sorry, you will you be observant enough to solve the mysteries crime waits for no man. I know this was like a darling from the GDC mix. Um, a lot of people were talking about, so it's coming on Friday. Sweet.
Upcoming Podcast & Socials
01:17:03
Speaker
I want to shout out to that a little to the left covers and drawers. The deal. Oh, yeah. That's seven. These video games, they keep on coming and they just keep coming. They don't stop. And the time just doesn't get better. And then, yes, I. Hey, next week will be another Steve next episode. Jill is coming back. We're going to talk about more of the demos we play, more of our impressions. But yeah, until then, thank you so much for hanging out like the video.
01:17:32
Speaker
Subscribe on YouTube. Subscribe on podcast services. Tell your friends all that good stuff. Thanks. All the things. Do all the things. Go outside. Jill. Follow Jill at yes. India at Indian former at India underscore in former or if you want to just follow me personally, it's at Finru. Net by an R U I N and then patreon.com slash Indian former the Indian former for that. And you know, patreon.com. Twitter is former. Yeah. Twitter's.
01:17:58
Speaker
one character off from being able to put the Indian former. So I had to make decisions. Should have done in the. I thought about it. I put it up. There is a possibility and I looked at him like, no, no, no. It's a good choice. Yeah. Thanks so much for hanging out, Jill. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for letting me.
01:18:23
Speaker
Come on and and gush about Indies. I don't like people around my in my daily life. Don't want to hear about me doing all these things like you guys don't understand. He's a fox and he's in jail. And there's this coyote talking about guts and shit. It's great. It's amazing. Like, OK, Jill. Well, yeah, sure. Whatever. Freak.