069 - Owlboy, Minishoot' Adventures, & FEZ - Underplayed

Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Thank you for pressing starts onepisode 69 of Underplayed, KZUMS
indie video game podcast. Today we have two secret games,
followed by a review of our featured game Fez.

(00:28):
Here on Underplayed, we review indie games of all kinds, the
games with small budgets but bighearts, the lesser known
experiences with imaginative ideas.
I'm Bo Po, but it's not only me.There's a guy with a flow who's
on a journey. So won't you put your hands
together please? For the Zeo Drifter, the indie
game Sifter, the Curse Crack andMr. Disco Cola.

(00:50):
What is going on? You know, I've been seeing the
world through a different perspective lately, so I'm
having a pretty good day. How are you I'm.
Glad you could take that reference for a spin because I'm
doing just fine. My golden hexahedron.
Those are references to our featured game.
Fez. I just thought of the spin

(01:10):
comment like right on the spot. I'm.
So proud of you, I never would have done that.
It doesn't happen often for me, so thank you.
Yes, Fez is our featured game. That will be the game you hear
us review a closer to the ends, but we've got all kinds of fun
things to talk about at the top and in the middle.
And you know what usually the second episode of every season

(01:31):
we talk about games we're looking forward to upcoming
games. We pick a handful apiece and
it's just a great seasonal checkin on upcoming games.
I have a ton of fun talking about those with you.
We didn't do that for the secondepisode of this season because
that was our guests episode withno alone, AKA some humble onion,

(01:52):
and we really needed to keep thetop of show short, so we moved
that segment to this episode. Yeah, I don't even know why we
scheduled that for the second. It doesn't matter.
No, it's kind of arbitrary, but it's closer to the start of the
season, so it feels kind of fitting.
But yeah, this is our opportunity to pick some indie
games that are coming out maybe in 20-25.

(02:16):
Maybe it's undecided, maybe there's a date, maybe there
isn't. And talk about them a little
bit. And all of my games are
announced for 2025 according to Steam.
I didn't look that closely on mine, to be honest.
I know that two of them are they, they give me the sense

(02:37):
that they're coming very soon, so.
And sometimes we hear about upcoming games, maybe with a
release window, and Steam doesn't update the store page or
the developer publisher doesn't update the store page promptly.
So this information is, you know, really only being taken
from Steam at this moment. So if mine have a release date,

(02:58):
I'll call that out. But why don't you start?
What is your first game you're looking forward to?
Sure now this is one that I was aware of last season sometime
and I swear I mentioned it, but it wasn't on our list, but it's
called fall up. You play as this little like
Roomba shaped robot with Bunny ears named Labby and the whole

(03:22):
like deal is that you are bouncing off of enemies to reach
new heights and solve different platforming obstacles.
So I think there's a lot of really fun momentum, a little
bit of Celeste, a little bit of puzzling, a little bit of Donkey
Kong sort of pogoing mechanics going on here.
So this is one that I'm looking forward to and I'm I apparently

(03:44):
haven't mentioned it yet, but itlooks pretty good.
This was not on my radar. This looks so cool.
Like I can't even look at you because I'm looking at the
trailer for this. This looks so fun.
Yeah, I don't even remember how I found out about it, but it's
been on my wish list for quite awhile and this is one that does
not have a a clear release date.OK, it's a beautiful puzzle

(04:07):
platformer. It looks like it's already like
far along and it just looks verypolished.
So I'm excited for that one too.I have to add that one
immediately to my wish list. The first one that I will
mention is called mainframes. This is a game that I was lucky
enough to try in a Nextfest actually this past October and I

(04:27):
haven't really talked about Nextfest October 2024 edition.
So I guess this will be my chance to just quickly touch on
some of the games that I played.I was actually sick during the
October Nextfest and I did not have the energy to play as many
demos, but Mainframes was one ofthem.
And this is coming out March 6th, 2025 S very soon.

(04:49):
Actually, when this episode comes out, it'll just be around
a month away. I think so, but the Steam page
says Mainframes invites you to meet Floppy and to browse a
clever and charming platformer that plays out entirely within
the windows and desktop of APC Monitor.
You won't want to press the escape key on this cozy outing.

(05:10):
So kind of like Hypnospace Outlaw meets a 2D platformer.
You know, it's you are looking at a screen and you're guiding
this charming little character as you jump between all these
windows. And I liked how this game played
with the idea of having different windows on your
desktop, even in just the short demo that I played.

(05:32):
It's really cool, and a lot of it is communicated wordlessly.
I love games that just kind of show you things, and no matter
what language you speak, you instantly understand what's
going on. And I think the trailer shows
you that really well. It's kind of reminding me of the
pedestrian too. Yes, the pedestrian hypnospace.
Yes, I totally see that comparison.
And you're jumping into windows and then dragging those windows

(05:54):
around the screen. And sometimes you can't like the
pedestrian. Sometimes you can't drag things
in certain ways because something on the screen is
blocking you. So yeah, it's really cool.
I'm I'm looking forward to this one a lot.
Cool. My next one I another one I
swear I've mentioned on the showbefore, this is called Altered

(06:15):
Alma. This is one that I backed in the
Kickstarter phase. It's a pixel art, mostly pixel
art 2D platformer and it looks really dope.
I think all the character designs look really cool.
The action looks really great, and it has like this cool
cyberpunk sort of setting. So it's an easy pick for me.

(06:37):
I've I've been looking forward to this since the Kickstarter
was announced and I think I'm going to have a great time.
Yeah, fans of like cyberpunk ishanime are going to love this
one. I love how we're on a 2D
platformer role here. I mean, I mean, it's kind of our
thing. It is, yeah.
It's kind of what we're known for.
But there's. Definitely going to be a few

(06:58):
more on this list today. So amazing.
Let's not let's not call it quits yet.
Well, let's. Let's see if my next one breaks
that trend. I think mine will break that
trend. My next one.
My next one is called Morsels. Oh, this one OK.
This one I think was in a showcase or two this past year
and that's what put it on my radar.
This is published by Annapurna Interactive.

(07:20):
I don't know how that looks in the wake of what's happened with
them. Yeah, I don't think we've talked
about that here on Underplay. Same with Humble Games.
There's something. Going on there too, it's a long
story, but basically Annapurna Interactive as a publisher sort
of isn't a thing anymore becauseof a lot of internal power
conflicts and a lot of billionaire BS.

(07:45):
I'll just leave it at that. But I think some of their
portfolio that they were workingon still has them listed as the
publisher. And I know a lot of those former
team members have now started tofind work elsewhere in the game
industry still mostly, as you know, the team that they had
taking over portfolios from other teams that couldn't quite

(08:06):
carry things to the finish line.So I hope that they're able to
really find that footing and continue to do what they do
best, which is publishing awesome games.
But anyway, morsels. This is an action roguelike game
with pixel graphics, very stylized pixel graphics and
characters. The Steam storefront says

(08:27):
Morsels is a fast-paced creaturecollecting rogue lights with a
rotating roster of characters toswitch between.
It will overcome a click of killer cats as you fight your
way out of the sewers in this unique action-packed journey.
What I like about this is it kind of seems like Colt of the
Lamb, but grodier somehow. It looks like you're in a place

(08:51):
that's just full of sewage. Yeah, it's it's less on the
bloody side of things and more on the like a binding of an
Isaac. Side yes, yes, exactly like
you're you're, you know, it's the eating poop side of cult of
the lamb. It's all of the the poop stuff
of Binding of Isaac. But man, this looks so cool.
I want to collect all these creatures.

(09:12):
There's a GIF on the store page where it's just flipping through
this creature journal and it looks so imaginative.
Well, I hope that it does well because I would love to play
this and I don't want to, you know, have conflict with you
over who gets to play it. So hopefully it'll be a featured
game someday. I could see this blowing up and
being one of those big Indies of2025.

(09:34):
You know, we're we're at such a fun point in the year.
You could argue it's not fun because we don't know about a
lot of games coming out, but it's also kind of fun because
it's this big mystery, like what's really going to hit this
year? What are people going to talk
about this year more? Souls is one of those games
where there could be a smaller sort of more devout crowd of

(09:54):
fans, or it could really be a game that blows up like a cult
of the Lamb. I'm not sure yet.
And that's kind of exciting. It's like what's going to
happen. So we'll see what happens.
I I bet we'll both enjoy it. Cool.
My next one is Starlight Revolver.
I'm pretty sure you know about this one, and I think this one's
a little bit closer to release. It might even be an early

(10:15):
access, but I'm not sure. It does say coming soon to early
access and you know, I'm lookingat it and it doesn't look
familiar to me. OK, it's a one to four Co-op
action rogue light set in an anime inspired dreamscape
according to steam. But just looking at the trailer
you can tell that it's kind of like if Hades and a magical girl

(10:39):
anime had a kid basically. So I'm really looking forward to
it because I like all of those things and the bright colors and
character designs in this look really good.
And if it can incorporate some online Co-op play, then that'll
be even better, because then I'll get to play with all of my
indie game friends, which doesn't get to happen very

(10:59):
often. Yes, I would totally play this
with the friend groups. And when you said one to four
player Co-op game, I was just like totally, and I'm wish
listing this too. Cool.
Usually during this segment, it's really just whatever you
talk about, I'm wish listing those five games.
It's like pretty much guaranteed.
Yeah, that's a good point. I should be doing that even

(11:21):
though I already knew about morsels.
It does need to be on my. Wish list, yeah, I could see
that one being on there. My next one is another what I
think will be higher profile indie title for 2025, and I
think a lot of people already know about this one because it's
been talked about for years. This one is called Skate Story
and this is being published by Devolver, so they've got some

(11:44):
good resources behind getting the word out about this one.
And the description on Steam says Ollie.
Kickflip and grind your way through the ash and smoke of the
underworld as you take on a seemingly impossible quest.
Skate fast to destroy demons andsave other tortured souls on
your journey from a fragile beginner to a hardened skater.

(12:05):
When you look at Skate story, itis a skateboarding game but it
looks so ethereal. The sky is dark, there are all
these like otherworldly colors going on.
Your skate guy you look. Like you're made of like
cellophane or something. Yeah.
So I just am immediately drawn to this look.
It is not like another sort of semi realistic Tony Hawk game,

(12:28):
for instance. And there have been other skate
games that come and go. I thought hell skate was really
going to hit and hell skate really didn't hit.
It's still an early access, but when this game came out, it just
seems like a lot less people knew about it than I expected.
But yeah, I'm, I'm just excited to play another skating game.

(12:48):
I, I used to play Tony Hawk games when I was young and those
are really all I've played. I guess I've played the Skate
series too, which are more realistic.
But it's been so many years since those were coming out.
So it's time, it's time for a Skate story.
I think like this is going to hit at this moment when many,
many people, maybe hundreds of thousands of people want to play

(13:10):
a Skate game. Cool, well I've heard of it, but
I'm realizing now looking at thetrailer that I've never actually
seen it. So happy to have that on the
list. My next one is called.
Let me pull this up so I can read the full title mirror and
the Legend of the Gins. I believe this was in a showcase
and that's when I added it to mywish list.

(13:32):
But it's another 2D pixel art side scroller metroidvania, I
believe. So shocker, it's Imagine that
that's on my list. But as the name kind of suggests
with Gins, it looks like there'sgoing to be a lot of like desert

(13:53):
sort of theming going on. But there's also in the trailer
like forests and Arctic zones. So who knows where this place is
going to take us, But the gameplay looks like the controls
are really tight. So honestly, if you can have
some great pixel art and tight controls, like it's going to be
hard for you to not be somethingI'm interested in, yeah.

(14:15):
Definitely. So there's a demo for this game
out and this demo was promoted during Nextfest and I actually
did play this demo. Oh, OK.
So you can, you can try this outif you want.
The part of the demo I played was very much in that desert
setting. And I think it was a little too
early for me to form an opinion on it.

(14:36):
But I want to see more. I I definitely want to see more
and like a metroidvania is so hard to demo sometimes.
So like I, I didn't get a sense yet of like, what are all the
different powers? How does progression look?
You can't really communicate that yet.
And that's usually what I look for in Metroidvanias.
That's why I think about Metroidvanias is like, what is

(14:57):
the whole journey look like? So the little bit I played was
good and I'm curious to see more.
Cool. All right, you got another one.
I got another one, it's called Ultimate Sheep Raccoon.
This is a follow up to ultimate chicken horse from Clever
Endeavour Games and the steam page says ultimate sheep Raccoon
is a bike racing party game where you and your friends build

(15:20):
the course together, add obstacles and dangerous, take
the lead with ower us and race to the finish.
O what I like about this is it very clearly is, you know,
continuing the style of ultimatechicken horse, where ultimate
chicken horse is this cute cartoonish 2D game where you're
building A level and then you and your friends challenge each

(15:41):
other to play through that levelan you set tras for each other.
There are tons of game modes, tons of characters you can play
as and unlock. What I like about Ultimate Sheep
Raccoon is it's not just more ofthe same.
This is a racing game, so the the fundamental gameplay idea is
different. There is an element of momentum.

(16:01):
There's an element of being on atrack using a mode of
transportation that maybe doesn't stop always when you
want to. You have to react maybe a little
bit faster. And there will surely be
different mechanics, different traps and types of platforms
that you can lay down. Ultimate Chicken Horse is some
of the hardest I've ever laughedwhile playing with other human

(16:22):
beings. I have cried like with tears
streaming down my face with laughter while playing Ultimate
Chicken Horse. It's it's fun.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.My last one for this section is
Abyss. I'm going to say it's Abyss 0
but it's typed out Abyss X0. I never know what to do with

(16:44):
that situation. Like the anime apparently Hunter
X hunter is hunter hunter. I've never seen that.
I don't, I don't know, doesn't matter.
What does matter is that this isthe follow up to Unsighted from
Studio Pixel Punk, but this timeinstead of featuring a great top

(17:04):
down ish 2D pixel art metroidvania, this is a 3D low
Poly game and really really faithfully in my opinion
captures sort of that maybe later PS1 era low Poly.
I think it looks super good. Studio Pixel Punk picked up a
brand new art style and just nailed it.

(17:26):
So looking forward to it. Yeah, it just looks good.
And based on some of the items and enemies you see in the
trailer, it looks like it takes place in the same planet.
But I I don't have any confirmation on that and that I
don't think that we're necessarily androids in this

(17:48):
one. But either way, looking forward
to it. And the characters look great.
After this game comes out, I'll just be convinced they can do
anything at Studio Pixel Punk. Yeah, You know, like, given
enough time and development, they can just pull off any
style, any perspective. And we love following the
updates behind the creation of games.

(18:09):
Studio Pixel Punk gives some really cool insights into game
creation. Yeah, yeah, they're awesome.
And they even, like, answered some questions of mine privately
one time. And that was awesome because I
was already like fanboying before that anyway.
And and Tiana was just like, yeah, you know, this is how I do
this. And it's like, oh, thanks for
talking to me. That's great.

(18:30):
Well, we'll, we'll learn what it's called, like how to
pronounce the name as well. I'm sure they'll talk about it a
lot. But it's, it's Abyss X0.
I'm calling it Abyss X0. Abyss crosses you.
I thought about that as well. Maybe it's that the last
official one in my 5 is called Wander Stop.
This is another one that was showcased this past year.

(18:51):
This is from Davey Reeden, the creator of The Stanley Parable
and the Beginner's Guide, which are games I love.
And so I'm always interested in what he's doing because he
always does some wild, wacky things TM with with his games.
And on the surface, when you look at this trailer, it looks
like a farming SIM. It looks like sort of a

(19:13):
fantastical adventure life SIM sort of game.
But I think there's going to be something else at play.
And I, I remember the first trailer for this having
something that made me do a double take at the end.
And I kind of want to just not look at anything about this game
until it comes out because I suspect there will be something

(19:35):
along the lines of breaking the 4th wall or exploring a wildly
different genre and unexpected twists.
Those kinds of things are probably at play, but they
really want to keep it under wraps for now.
That's why Wonder Stop is on. We'll respect that.
And this could be another big indie game.
I picked a lot of like what I suspect might be big Indies this

(19:56):
year for my list. OK, the last game I want to
quickly mention is. The next game from Hazelite
studios just back in December wehad the game awards 2024 and the
Hazelite studio director Joseph Faris got up on stage he's a
very charismatic larger than life guy and he revealed split

(20:18):
fiction which is their next Co-op game and this looks so
fun. Now, the reason why this isn't
officially in my list is becauseHazelite Studios is kind of
under EA or their their games are published by Electronic
Arts, which is a a big company. And we're not sure where this

(20:39):
falls in the indie space. It might be double I, it might
be AA, you know, I don't know, you know, we, we start to split
these hairs, right? But you and I have played two of
Hazelite Studios previous games and split fiction says on the
store page embrace mind blowing moments as you're pulled deep
into the many worlds of split fiction.

(20:59):
A boundary pushing Co-op adventure.
It looks like some of this game takes place in sort of like a
prehistoric or more like dinosaur themes, maybe like
fantasy theme setting. And then the other half takes
place in a science fiction, sortof like more cyberpunkish
setting, and you're jumping between the two.

(21:20):
This is coming out March 6th. Oh wow, that's very soon.
And I forgot to mention Wander Stop is coming out March 11th
and looking forward to this. I would play it with you.
You know, I think we would have fun just saying.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to that too.
I kind of want to mention one that is an indie like kind of

(21:41):
looking game, but is definitely not indie.
It's a band dynamico title, sure, but it's called Shadow
Labyrinth. It's another 2.5 D sort of
Metroidvania style game Shocker.I'm, you know, excited for a
Metroidvania. But it looks kind of like dark
and gritty, but it also incorporates Pac-Man into it
somehow and makes this like darkand shadowy looking Pac-Man

(22:04):
thing. And that's kind of been a trend
recently where Pac-Man is just like this scary kind of freaky
character 'cause there's that Amazon show called Level Up, I
think. And there's a Pac-Man episode an
it's kind of like a, a dark sortof a world and terminal montage

(22:27):
who does a lot of great video game animations.
When he did his Pac-Man episode,it was a Halloween episode and
it was super cool. Bro, I'm terrified of Pac-Man.
Like just imagine a Pac-Man eating you, you know?
Yeah, I'd be so scared, Yeah. Awful and.
There's just something about it not really having emotion as
it's eating you too. You know it needs to eat you for

(22:48):
sustenance or a high score. It's just all it does, yeah.
It's just. A feeding machine.
I know, so consider me scared already.
And they're already making it darker.
Now, Disco, there are a couple other things we need to talk
about. We need to talk about a little
game that some people might haveheard of called Inscription.
Hey, I've heard of that game. I wanted to talk about this

(23:11):
because in between this episode and when we recorded inscription
episode, I finished Casey's mod and got the platinum in in
inscription. I'm running to find the trophy
sound. Please take your time talking
about this. So yeah, I platinumed it.
It took a long time. I my PS five hours say I'm at

(23:34):
like 72 hours or. Something holy moly.
And a lot of that was not oppressive.
I just had a lot of fun. Yeah.
And Casey's mod is just great. And honestly, early spoilers for
episode 11 of the season. But it boosts my score and if

(23:55):
you recall my score was 9.9. 9.5So there's only one score it
could go to. There's only.
One way. To go.
So you would like if we were scoring it fresh today, you'd
give it a 10. That's amazing.
Give it a ten. Yeah, I guess this is our
opportunity now to finally make the KC's Mod has got it going.
Has got it going on. There's a reason, let me tell

(24:18):
you. There's a reason, that one of
the stats it tracks in Casey's mod is how many Mantis gods you
pull. Because that card is awesome.
That's how you get through that's like that's.
One of the like 2 cards that arelike really important for for
high level Casey's mod stuff. Got it.
OK, at least in my experience. You're like a master.
You can give me all these tips now.

(24:39):
I can give you tips but I still fail most of the time.
And I think it's easier to give tips for Casey's mod in a way,
because you can't rely on the photograph cards.
Yeah, the death cards, the. Death cards.
Yeah, those are hard. It's it's hard to not have
those. Yeah.
But that also means that, like, it kind of narrows the game so

(25:01):
that it's easier to know how to strategize, I guess.
Yeah. Yeah, you know what you're
looking for on a run. Yeah, so that's cool.
All right, cool. Well, since you platinumed
inscription, which I probably won't do anytime soon, give.
It to me, baby. We need to celebrate with a
little trophy sound. How about this give?
Me another one. You want another one?

(25:23):
Oh, you, you want it better? I want it better.
There it goes. I'm back in that, I'm back in
the Death Card cabin and I'm winning again, baby.
I love that. I love that Casey's mod lets us
enjoy that game more and more and more.
That's super cool. One thing I wanted to mention

(25:44):
very briefly, I played this gamebefore our season 7 started
premiering, so I didn't play this recently, but I finally
played my other jealous game that I wanted to mention in the
first episode of this new season.
I played Curse Crackers for Whomthe Bell toils.
Yeah, you did I. Played this a couple months ago

(26:05):
and I'm glad I played it. I I really AM.
And you thought I would love this game.
I liked this game quite a bit. This is a 2D platformer that
Discocola reviewed a little while ago on our show.
And what really struck me with this game is how much there is
to do, how much there is to possibly miss and then like,

(26:26):
revisit the colors, the music and just like how chunky it is.
Does that make sense? Like how like how big the
sprites are? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You don't see that a whole lot. Yeah, it's that people are
moving more and more toward really, really tiny sprites, and
I'm not a fan. I kind of like the big sprites
every now and then. It makes aiming for things

(26:48):
really clear. Like it makes knowing what you
have to do very obvious. And your character's big, So are
the enemies. And it almost feels like things
are a little bit squeezed sometimes.
Yeah, but I kind of like that because you don't always know
what's coming up and so you're just always being surprised.
And I think a lot of that has todo with just like respecting the

(27:08):
Game Boy Color aspect ratio, andI think that has a lot to do
with it. And that's another huge part
about it, is it feels like a throwback game.
It feels like a game you would play on a, on a Game Boy Advance
or a Game Boy Color. And so, yeah, I liked it quite a
lot. I finished it.
I did not have the energy to go back and like 100% it.
But there were things along the way where I'd be like, oh,

(27:32):
there's this whole quest line. I wonder like how I finished
that. And then I I just ran into a ton
of those things where a character would ask for
something or give a vague hints about this whole other thread
that's being explored in the game.
So I thought that was really ambitious.
Yeah, absolutely. And I, I explored a couple of
those because I just couldn't help it.

(27:53):
I just wanted to, but I didn't yeah.
I'm nowhere near completing it. And as soon as I get my physical
copy for Switch, that's when I'll start exploring completion
on that because I got, I played it on Steam and I'd, I'd rather
just finish it on a, on a physical copy if I'm going to
get one, you know, there. You go, there's tons to do in
the game for a completionist. There's a lot there.
If I would score it for me, it'slike a probably A7 or a 7.5.

(28:18):
And I'm glad that you helped me learn about it because I I guess
it was on my wish list, but I probably wouldn't have visited
it as soon had you not reviewed.It yeah, your wish list is
probably like 2000 games or something.
I mean, it's over 1000. I think it's pretty sad, so
we're going to move on. But before we do, if you're

(28:40):
listening to Underplayed right now, we really appreciate it and
we love you. If you haven't already, we would
really love a follow and a five star rating on podcast
platforms. You can do this on Spotify, you
can do it on Apple Podcast, for instance.
It might only take you a few seconds and we'd really
appreciate that. It would help get the podcast

(29:00):
potentially exposed to more people.
And also if you have friends wholike indie games, it's always
helpful to share our podcast with those people too.
Maybe they only have passing interest in some indie games and
this could help them learn aboutmore and we would love that.
Maybe they don't play any video games because everything's
homogenized in the mainstream world, so maybe they just don't

(29:22):
know that they're waiting for indie games.
Maybe they're disillusioned withthe current state of like, AAA
games. They're just kind of bored.
Maybe they they need to try something a little bit more
interesting and weird, then theycould try out an indie game that
we recommend here on the show. So we would love if you shared
our podcast with friends as well.
And I want to take a moment right now to talk a little bit

(29:45):
about KZUM. The week this episode comes out,
we will be just starting the KZUM Birthday Fund drive.
KSUM is a nonprofit radio station that was established in
1978 on Valentine's Day. So KSUMS birthday is on
Valentine's Day. And three times a year we ask

(30:07):
for support of listeners here atthe station.
And while we're not on the air proper, we're not on the
broadcast dial most of the time,KSUM still gave us the
opportunity to be here and we wouldn't be here without them.
So if you are able and you appreciate that KZM gave voice

(30:29):
to indie video games, not only here but with press start to
listen as well, we would, we would really appreciate if you
just had a couple bucks to spare, if you could head over to
kzm.org and just drop a quick donation.
And if you do that, it would be super extra rad if you also
mentioned underplayed because whenever you mention a show, we

(30:53):
we get notified and it's like, hey, that donation came in
because of, of something we saidor we touched a heart somewhere.
Gives us a boost and boosts are very useful and it it allows us
to just keep going. Yeah.
So we'd love it. We won't be going anywhere if we
don't get any donations for KSUM, but it would really it
wouldn't. It would mean a lot.
It would be super cool to see our name on one of those

(31:14):
donation emails. And what I liked about what you
said is you mentioned if even ifyou have just a couple bucks it
would be useful. A lot of KZUMS, programs and
ambitions and the ways it helps the community are possible not
because of like one millionaire giving us $50,000 just on a

(31:35):
whim. That person's not out there.
That person doesn't exist. Rather it is dozens, hundreds of
people giving 5-10 dollars. Yeah.
So you get a lot of like 15 is is a very common one these.
Days, that stuff, when hundreds of people do that, it adds up
and it's incredible. Yeah, so we appreciate it.
kzm.org, you can check out the donation page.

(31:57):
You can check out other podcasts.
You can check out two weeks worth of archived radio shows.
Yeah, a lot of stuff there on the website.
Thank you for the reminder on That's Disco Cola.
It is time for our secret Games.Secret Games.
I know you're playing without me.

(32:19):
Well, I'm here to tell you baby,I've been playing 2 in Secret
Games. We each review an indie game
we've been playing in secret since our last episode.
We don't discuss our picks before we talk about them here
during the recording, so I don'tknow what Disco Cole is about to
reveal and review, but let the mystery be no more.

(32:43):
Reveal your secret game for Episode 69 of of Underplayed
Disco Call. My secret Game this episode
comes from D Pad Studios and it is called Owl Boy.

(33:25):
Oh. You know, Owl Boy.
I do know Owl Boy, I've played this.
Oh, have you? I didn't know that you had like,
played it Played. It I played it years ago.
So like when I I was like a a PlayStation player during the
PS3 and then I sort of dropped off a PlayStation and became a
Steam player. That's sort of the area when I
played Owl Boy and then I got back into console gaming slash

(33:47):
PC gaming years after that. So is during that like
exclusively I'm APC gamer things, yeah.
Cool. So you know all this, but Owl
Boy follows a young mute humanoid owl in training named
Otis. In the floating village of
Velli. Otis is under the tutelage of

(34:07):
the stern and hard Azio, so I'm going to pronounce that in the
beginning of the game, we get a bit of a montage of Otis failing
to meet the expectations of Azio.
And this effectively sets the tone for our empathy engine for
Otis, who is generally just kindof seen as a failure without the
voice to really defend himself. While also facing the great

(34:31):
expectation of becoming an owl, which in this world is kind of a
role that has a bit of like a Mystic and mythic history to it.
And there also aren't very many owls left.
Most of the other characters youmeet in this game are humans or
pirates. Yeah, I definitely remember
being like the only of my kind or one of the few.

(34:53):
Of the I think all things told, there are maybe 7 owls in the
whole game that you actually see.
But yeah, early in the game there is sort of this ever
present looming threat of pirateinvasion, and this sort of
amplifies the pressure for Otis to become a Great Owl, as well
as the pressure on your closest friend in Valley, who's named

(35:15):
Getty. There is pressure on him to sort
of excel in his engineering skills to ensure that the
defense systems of Valley are inworking order because currently
they are not. The ever present threat of the
pirate invasion also amplifies the fear present when a series
of possible pranks find Valley. And then when Otis and Getty

(35:37):
investigate, they eventually find themselves traversing some
dangerous and OFT unexplored locations, which ultimately
unfolds in a world changing adventure with loads of new
friends and perilous discoveriesalong the way.
But yeah, it's a it's an adventure game.
You go far and wide across this world.

(36:01):
Important note of this world is that all the continents are
floating in the air, but basically the planet is an
endless ocean and all of the land is up in the sky.
Yeah, it basically feels like the sky islands from Tears of
the Kingdom for people who are familiar.
It feels like that other game you played with sky islands for
our show. Oh, Vernal Edge.

(36:22):
Vernal edge. Oh yeah, Vernal edge is pretty
much all in the sky, too. Yeah, you're right.
It's kind of got that and it feels a lot like a Studio Ghibli
film. The sprites look like, if Studio
Ghibli made like a pixel adventure game, it would kind of
look like this. And just the idea of like
pirates, you know, there are lots of pirates and things like
that and weapons like the ones you'd see in this game and in

(36:44):
one of those movies. Yeah, that's that's a great way
to describe it. As far as gameplay goes.
You are a humanoid owl and so you do have access to sustained
flight. You can also spin while in the
air or on the ground. This is sort of a deflection
move. You can roll while on the

(37:05):
ground. You can lift items and throw
them. You can lift companions and they
gain access to projectiles. So essentially you are holding a
weapon of some sort. What else can you do?
You can sort of like air dash sort of just to move a little
bit faster instead of just flapping your wings.

(37:28):
And you can you can walk and jump if you're on the ground.
And that that about covers it. So As for things that I like
about Owl boy here, I do kind ofhave to start with an early
dislike. I don't like the default button
layout on controller. I did play this on Switch and I

(37:49):
just I don't like the default button layout.
So more on that later, but on the positive side of that, the
engine and just being Otis feelsgreat.
Rolling, spinning, jumping and the subsequent flying all feel
great. And then when we do gain the
ability to use projectiles of different kinds, this feels
pretty good. For the most part, you always

(38:12):
can aim pretty easily at what you're aiming at.
There's not too much struggle there.
So it you always feel good when you are Otis.
It's just the button layout thatI'll talk about a little bit
later that didn't quite do it for me.
Next thing I really want to praise is the pixel art in this
game. I think it's incredible.
Given that we live on a floatingworld, you might imagine that

(38:33):
the scope and like the landscapeis pretty vast.
And I think the backgrounds all nail it.
I pretty much never forget how high in the sky we actually are,
and I think it always looks amazing.
And even when we're enclosed in ruins and we're not looking at
the sky backgrounds, looking at these graystone ruins is still

(38:54):
interesting because there's lifeto it.
There's history to it. Some of it's crumbled.
It's not just repeated Gray textures all over the place.
So I really think that the pixelart in this game is really
amazing. Characters and backgrounds, but
definitely, definitely the backgrounds.
Yeah. And I'll share a couple.
Of my thoughts throughout here, if that's OK I remember one of

(39:16):
my favorite parts of this game was how it looks.
Yeah. And that that's what drew me to
it, right. I think a lot of people are
drawn to this game by how it looks yeah.
And there are even some. Cinematic moments too that move
away from the sprites and just sort of have a pre rendered
still pixel art cutscene and allof those look amazing as well.

(39:36):
This game explores expectation, failure, fear and forgiveness as
topics and I think it did a really great job exploring these
topics that pretty much most times and ultimately did have me
falling in love with most of thecharacters that we made along
the way. So I really praise it for that
as well, just because I I don't always get invested in the story

(40:01):
so often with. Action platformers, which I
would say this is mostly an action platformer.
So I've also played this game before, but I didn't finish it.
I played it for like 2 hours maybe back in 2018 or something.
And then something new came out and I stopped playing it and I
never came back to it. And I like I mentioned this is

(40:23):
namely just because I never had a chance to get invested in the
story. And part of that is because I
don't really care about pirates.Also as a story element in most
media. But now that I have finished the
game, I have to say that I did give up way too quickly on this
game before this story. But mostly the characters take

(40:43):
me on a really heartfelt journeyand at the end of the game I was
met with a moment that did fill me with tears.
I can cry pretty easily at times, but there's only so many
games that have done that for me.
It's usually like movies and music, but this is one of those
games that that did bring me to tears, and I ended up falling in
love with a lot of characters and their journeys, including

(41:07):
characters that I didn't necessarily like at the
beginning. Wow.
Yeah, I see. There was.
There they had arcs, and this game did sneak up on me, too, I
think. I think the first couple hours I
didn't really feel a whole lot for the world and the
characters, and then by the end,I was actually really surprised
at how much it was tugging at the heartstrings.
Yeah, yeah, there's one moment. Like, I think just exactly

(41:28):
halfway through the game that sort of changes the tone of the
game, and then there's some justbeautiful moments at the end
that just really got to me. Nice, so cool.
That's where I want to move intomy dislikes though.
Like I mentioned at the start, the default control scheme is
something I don't like. Whenever I start a game, I

(41:51):
always try to play it as intended.
There have been exceptions in the past like Cuphead.
I always change the control scheme in Smash Brothers and
then after Mega Man 0 games cameout and improved the button
layout for dashing, I changed the button layout in Mega Man X
Games. Now in our old boy I ultimately
didn't change the button layout,but I was very close about a

(42:14):
dozen times. I like wasted a lot of throwable
objects and a lot of time based rechargeable projectiles just
because I was not. I was pressing the opposite of
the button that it was supposed to be.
It was like, I think it should be this button but it's actually
this. I think I remembered struggling.
With some of those things as well, so I I didn't feel.
Like they were all mapped in a really intuitive way and I I

(42:37):
stumbled at quite a few high action moments because it was
just like, Oh no wait, that's not the right button.
And I keep doing it wrong over and over again.
Another thing I really didn't like so much in this game is the
collectible system. Essentially, collectibles are
coins that are collected by finding and flying through a

(42:57):
series of rings or finding different kinds of treasure
chests. They result in the same kind of
currency and then by collecting more and more of these you can
redeem these like for tiered upgrades at a shop in what I
would call like the 3rd chapter of the game.
My complaint isn't necessarily about the collectibles
themselves. This game is largely pretty

(43:20):
linear, right? So there are multiple points in
this game where you're unable toaccess previous zones.
So at the same time, many zones have some collectibles locked
behind obstacles that you can't overcome until you unlock a
different skill. So as a result, there's a lot of
currency that you can't actuallyacquire the first time you visit

(43:42):
a zone. Now, this is fine when you A.
Can revisit the zone at any timeor B.
There are only a small proportion of items that can't
be collected on your first visit.
So this kind of reminds me of myleast favorite thing about Spyro
2, Ripto's Rage. Most of the levels can be

(44:02):
completed on your first visit. You can find all the gems and
everything on your first visit. However, there are some levels
that are locked behind upgrades that you get way later in the
game. But Spyro 2 only did this to
like maybe 5 levels in the game,but here it's happening more
it's. Pretty much every.
Zone that you visit in in Owl Boy that you can't necessarily

(44:23):
get everything on your first tryand there are a few too many
points where you can't travel back to previous zones.
Are you ever questioning about? Whether you're meant to get
something on the first try or the second, yeah, there are a
couple of zones. Something you're like, oh, like.
Should I keep trying to get thisthing?
Yeah, there's some that you can.Like see in the distance and

(44:44):
there are some like hidden wallsin this game and you learn that
pretty early. So it's like I, I just need to
hug the walls in the right spot and I can get it.
And then I, you know, run into too many spikes and I give up,
you know, or something. So yeah.
And they're like 2 zones that have so many coins in them.
And I'm like this zone. Doesn't even look big enough to.

(45:05):
Have this many coins like where is everything?
So it's just a little bit too too much and a little bit too
linear for this kind of a collectible system, in my
opinion. However, I have seen the final
upgrade that you get in the gameand it seems like it's worth it.
So I I wish I could have gotten it.
I don't think I got it. I think I'm in the same boat as
you. Yeah, but I didn't, I didn't
acquire it. Another thing, this game like

(45:29):
many side scrollers has a dark level and I always, always
dislike dark levels, but this one in particular is pretty
unfun because you're you take damage when you're not lit well
enough. Like if you're in too much
darkness you're just taking passive damage and it kind of
sucks. Like Amnesia the Dark Descent.

(45:49):
And then my final real. Complaint is that there aren't a
wide variety of enemy types in the game.
I think all said, there are fewer than a dozen types of
enemies, not including the boss fights.
It's nice to know what I'm up against at almost all times, but
it it made this pretty expansivefloating world feel a little bit
too homogenized. Like if I'm going to a continent

(46:11):
that's several hundreds of milesaway, you would imagine that the
life forms that live there are pretty different.
But they're not. Not necessarily, anyways.
In the end, Owl Boy is a game that at one point failed to grip
me, and that's not really like agood sign for a game that has a
lot going for it as a disco colagame, like the beautiful pixel

(46:34):
art. That said, I am glad I gave it
another chance. In spite of a game heavily
featuring pirates and a control scheme I didn't love, I
eventually found myself absolutely in love with so many
of our main characters, and I ultimately experienced what will
surely be one of my favorite moments from this season of
Underplayed. I do still have pain points with

(46:56):
the collectibles and the controlscheme that are hard to
overlook, but overall, if a gameearns tears from me, and this
game earned its tears, that game's going to be remembered.
So I do, in the end, give Owl Boy an 8.5 out of 10.
Well, Owl be. You've been waiting.
Any game that can make you cry complimentary tears is going to

(47:20):
get a positive score, of course.So I don't know that I have any
questions because I remember this pretty vividly and what I
have to say, actually, I don't want to yuck your Yum because I
think it's really awesome that you had a Yum.
But let's pretend that this gamewas a featured game and that we
both played it fresh and reviewed it knowing what I

(47:43):
played back in. Like I think it was around when
it came out, like 2016, 2017, 2018 around then.
The experience of playing it wasso different than what I
expected in terms of how linear it is and sort of how shallow it
is with this game play that I really didn't feel it as much as
I wanted to, unfortunately. It's a beautiful game.

(48:06):
I loved the the soundtrack. I loved, you know, falling in
love with characters eventually once we got there.
But I thought this game was going to feel much more like a
Metroidvania where you're you have more freedom and you play
as an owl. You're like flying around.
You have you can go anywhere seemingly, but you really can't.

(48:26):
But you really? Can't.
So if this was a featured game at the end of the season, this
might be a front runner for game.
I don't get because I think a lot of people love this game.
This game seems to have lots of very, very positive critical
reception For me. It just didn't quite hit.
And I I've spent a couple years trying to like understand why.

(48:48):
I think those are a couple of the reasons.
Well, you're you're definitely. Not alone.
When I Google Owl Boy, many of the top results are like, you
know, this beautiful mess or I didn't love Owl Boy like I
wanted to. So yeah, I totally.
Formed a perception of this gamea a conception of this game
based on screenshots and trailers and just the the DNA of

(49:11):
what this game is was not what Iexpected.
And so when I chose to play thisgame, I went in wanting to play
it because that's the kind of game I wanted.
And then it wasn't that game. And so just from the start I I
wasn't like, you know, doomed tohate it or anything, but I would
probably just to give you a snapshot of my overall thoughts,
I'd probably give it like a six or a 6.5 out of time.

(49:33):
OK, no, I get that. And.
Like, you know, I, I played it and hopped off it and this was
like one of my first Switch games.
Like, I was super excited to play it and I was, you know,
pretty disappointed when I started back in 2018 or
whatever. And to be honest, I wasn't super
looking forward to playing this as a secret game, if I'm totally
honest. It was just kind of like, it's

(49:54):
been in my backlog and I just need to check it off the list.
I'm so glad you played. This, yeah.
And also I while you were talking, I was looking up some
some facts about the game. I forgot about this, but, you
know, this game first came out in 2016, you know, when it began
development, 2007. Oh, my gosh.
So this game was in development for around a decade, and I think

(50:17):
it was in development for so long that, you know, fans were
really hungry about updates on the game.
They were really curious, and I think the team started
development over a couple times.Oh, geez.
OK. And I think this.
Protracted development time kindof has an unintentional synergy

(50:39):
with Fez. That's sort of happening with
Fez too. Not it wasn't in development as
long, but people were hungry fordetails about Fez when it was
being developed. Where can you play owl boy?
You can play owl boy. On Mac OS, Xbox One, Linux,
Windows, PlayStation 4 and I played a physical copy on the

(51:02):
Nintendo Switch. Wonderful.
It is time for my secret game. My secret game is called Mini
Shoot Adventures. Jealous game.

(51:40):
So this is a schmub. You played a schmub.
Yes, I did. I've been.
I've been looking for an excuse to get a schmub ready to go.
I wanted to be the first one that did a schmub.
Have we not had one? We, I don't think.
We've had. We've had.
Schmub Sections. Schmub Sections.
I'm looking at you, Balthazar's dream, for like the entire last
third of it. That's a throwback anyway.

(52:02):
Mini Shoot Adventures is a 2024 bullet hell slash twin stick
shooter slash RPG exploration game.
It was developed by Soul Game Studio and published by Soul
Game Studio and Indie ARK. The game synopsis from the Steam
storefront reads quote. Fly into a charming handcrafted
world and go on an adventure that mixes up open exploration

(52:25):
with crispy twin stick shooter action.
Fight your way from the shiny overworld to the deepest caves.
Improve your ship and overcome the dungeons bosses to rescue
your friends. End quotes.
That's one of the best descriptions I think we'll read
this season. I think that says everything
right there. This is a top down perspective
game with a very colorful illustrated look.

(52:49):
You play as a ship called a minishoot.
Also, I want to just make the note that the name of this game
has like a little apostrophe. Has an apostrophe after mini
shoots. I don't understand it.
I've talked to friends about this and my theory is that it's
a bullet. Oh.
Interesting. OK, that's all I can come up
with, but. That is intentional.

(53:09):
That's the name of the game. It's the word mini shoot.
All one word and then an apostrophe and then adventures.
Yep. So we play as a mini shoot and
you have a bunch of friends in the form of other ships.
And when you start a new game, you get trapped in this dark
crystal when a corrupted presence emerges.
And this voice that sort of seems heavenly calls to you

(53:32):
saying search for your shipling friends, retrieve my primordial
powers and restore balance to the great crystal.
And so you free yourself from the trap, and you're in a cavern
that has projectiles shooting atyou.
Some enemy ships are shooting atyou, and there are some
obstacles that you can't clear quite yet.
But you come across a gun, and you pick that up.

(53:53):
And now you can use your right stick to shoot your gun and you
can attack those enemy ships that are trying to attack you.
And you press some switches to unlock some doors, and you leave
this cave. And as soon as you leave, you
rescue your first trapped friendwho offers you gun upgrades.

(54:13):
And then you find yourself in the center of a giant map and
you must explore all manner of ruins and outdoor areas to find
more of your friends. Along the way, you are shooting
a lot of enemies. This is a bullet hell.
This is not a bullet hack. This is in fact this is.
This in fact does turn into a bullet hell, especially during
boss fights. And you pick up experience when

(54:35):
you shoot other ships in the form of crystal shards.
And these crystal shards will collect in this little like
canister up in the the corner. They do like a little tink,
tink, tink thing. And once, once a full crystal is
filled, that's a skill point that you can use to upgrade
things like your fire rates and your critical hit chance, your

(54:56):
movement speed. There are tons of these and you
get powers like boosting, dashing, super shot and little
assistance that help you fights that you can summon.
Love assistance? Yes.
And you have. Health in the form of hearts.
You can get more permanent hearts by finding these hidden
heart pieces. It's a lot like a Zelda game

(55:18):
where you're finding like sometimes a full heart
container, sometimes just like 1/4 of a heart, and you need to
find four of those. You can find map pieces that
show you more of the world on your map screen, and there are
collectibles like golden scarabsand spirits that you race in
these little race tracks. And the world contains tons of

(55:39):
blocked paths, lots of locked doors.
It feels Metroidvanian in that way.
This game has also been comparedto top down classic Zelda games
and I agree with that comparisona lot.
There are 4 main areas and bosses to fight and the goal is
to explore, upgrade your ship and save all your friends.
So this is what I liked about mini shoot adventures.

(56:01):
This is a gameplay first game and it feels wonderful to
control. This is a twin stick game
through and through and you eventually get just super
powerful in this game. Love it.
This game throws hundreds, thousands of ships at you
throughout the course of the journey, and no play session

(56:22):
will have you feeling like you're not making progress
because you're shooting all these enemies, getting
experience, getting those skill points.
You're always investing into your ship, so you might be
looking for the next place to go.
But even if you don't really find the next path you're
supposed to explore, you're always getting that experience,
and it just feels so good to upgrade that ship.

(56:44):
You likely can't upgrade everything as well, so you have
to make choices with your skill points.
I think you can eventually collect enough skill points to
upgrade everything. But I 100% of the map basically
like I got check marks on every location.
I found everything and I still had spots where I could invest

(57:06):
skill points by the end. So it is kind of a bummer, but
it means also that, you know, there's a little bit of
strategy, there's a little bit of decision to be made.
And you can freely reassign skill points if you want.
So if you dump a bunch of skill points into fire rates, but then
you want, I don't know, movementspeeds, you can divest.

(57:27):
Is that the word? You can take those points away
and put them into this other thing.
And you can just freely do that as much as you want.
And I was doing that throughout the game.
And the game is constantly evolving through different
enemies. It's throwing at you.
Sometimes you'll have a wave of dozens of really small guys that
just take a a couple of hits. Sometimes you'll be fighting one

(57:49):
or two huge enemies. There are enemies that leap and
try to like jump on top of you. Oh scary.
So you're. You're always.
Hit with like different enemies despite them sort of having a
similar approach to how they look, and the puzzles require
you to explore a lot. This game at first sight might

(58:10):
seem simplistic. It might seem very
straightforward or quote UN quote casual.
But this has lots of nooks and crannies.
There are hidden switches everywhere, there are hidden
paths everywhere. You'll want to hug tons of walls
trying to find things. It feels like You're also
encouraged to revisit areas to find hidden goodies after you

(58:32):
get some upgrades that happened later in the game.
So that's where the Metroidvaniapart comes in is you'll
encounter, for instance, like these big boulders and you can't
break them, but behind the boulders you can tell there's a
door. So it's like, I know I'm going
to break that. And then maybe 4 hours later you
find the upgrade that breaks boulders and you go, OK, now
it's time to re explore. So that's what's going on in

(58:55):
Mini Shoot Adventures. The game visually communicates a
lot and it barely uses words to color is used very effectively
in this game to really quickly explain how tough an enemy is.
If you see like a tan or an off white enemy, that's like a more
basic version of that enemy. But if you see a dark purple
version, that's going to be harder to kill.

(59:17):
And you see more of those purpleenemies the further you get in
this game too. I did have some dislikes with
mini shoot adventures. Sometimes dying can feel quite
punishing. You get sent back to the Town
Center when you die and re navigating back to where you
died can sort of be a hassle. I remember getting just kind of

(59:38):
frustrated with having to do a difficult fight, dying and then
maybe going all the way back to the center and then just having
to make that trek back is not always the most fun.
There is a fast travel, but it'sreally limited and it's locked
behind considerable progress. And it's only one way.
You can only do it when you're outdoors and then you can only
go back to town. You can't go from town to

(01:00:01):
another place. So it only does so much for you.
But all told, you can get from one corner of the entire map to
the far opposite corner and not too much time.
But it's not a straight path. There are tons of of doors and.
Zigzags you'll have to make, so sometimes I'd kind of get lost

(01:00:21):
making my way back too. There are a few times where I
also wasn't exactly sure where Iwas supposed to go to make
progress. The map does get marked with
these signals from your friends saying like there's a friend you
need to free in this general area, go to that area, but
getting to that area is not always clear, especially if you
haven't found the map fragment for that area.

(01:00:43):
So there were just times like ina metroidvania where I got stuck
in this game. Kind of reminds me of.
How I felt in Ghost Song at times where I was just like, I
can see where I need to go, but the map to get there is
nebulous. It is nebulous.
That's a good word for it and that's going to be an appeal to
somebody, though some people aregoing to like that mystery and

(01:01:07):
that Metroidvania Ness of of it all.
Then also the world and the story is very thin and just
doesn't grab me. There are these brief mentions
of these like awesome powers that you're finding and these
beasts and these chosen and unchosen beings, and it doesn't
really feel necessary to absorb any of that to enjoy the game.

(01:01:30):
But there are just moments wherethere's this text on screen
telling you this story. I don't really follow it.
So overall, there's little aboutthe personality of mini shoot
adventures that I take away. Rather, this is a very fun video
game ass video game and it took me about 8 hours to finish it
and I always played for hours ata time because progress is so

(01:01:52):
constant and satisfying. I'm going to give mini shoot
adventures an 8 out of 10 hackers and it's playable on PC,
which is the version I played and Mac.
All right, Well, I only really. Have one, one question that's
nagging at me this whole time, and it's do enemies respawn?
Yeah. Enemies will respawn, I I

(01:02:16):
believe, but not always immediately.
So you can sort of like get experience again as you're
making your way back to a place you've been before, which is
nice. So I don't know if you saw it as
a a good thing that the map is sort of like cleared as you go
or if it's nice to have the ability to farm experience, but

(01:02:38):
you can definitely farm if you need to.
But I wasn't finding that that was necessary at all.
Honestly I never hit a challengewhere I thought I need to go
back and just like grind for an hour so that I can upgrade my
gun. Rather, I would just make my way
back to whatever boss killed me and along the way I might re
fight enemies, get a skill pointmaybe.

(01:03:00):
And I'm just slowly investing more and more in my ship the
more I'm attempting things over and over.
So you, you never have to like go out of your way to, to go
fight enemies that you've been. I I like to have the option.
If I want to just like overpowermyself, which I usually do end
up wanting to do, and I would say like this game.
Is really well designed in that that actually isn't the wisest

(01:03:21):
use of your time because most ofthe highest experience earning
activities will be fighting likebosses.
Diminishing returns, diminishingreturns and stuff.
So I went in kind of expecting to farm a little bit, and I
didn't really because I didn't see that being a good use of my
time. Well, it'll be.

(01:03:42):
A tough, tough fight with Grun, but this very strong chance.
This is my jealous game. I highly recommend this to you
and also some people might hear the term bullet hell game and
they might be scared off. Despite this being labeled as a
bullet hell game. This is so much more
approachable than other bullet Hells and there are three

(01:04:04):
difficulty options to choose from.
I played on the middle one. All right, there are a lot of.
Schmucks that I'm like, oh, thatlooks super cool, but it's a
bullet hell. So I'm like I, I learn more in
the like R type Darius kind of schmuck.
There's there's leeway. With fights where you have the
hearts that go away as you get hit, you don't just get hit once

(01:04:24):
and you're dead and then also. You get.
Powers like the boosts that let you sort of dash through big
bullets. You know, there are boss fights
where you're supposed to dash through their bullets to
survive. I can see that in the trailer.
Yeah, so there are ways to. Outmaneuver enemies too.
And also this game feels great on the Steam Deck.

(01:04:45):
That's where I played 90% of this game.
This game feels amazing on the Steam Deck.
And then there's more to do after the main game in the form
of like really intense combat gauntlets I think.
And I only played like one of them.
But there's a lot of content here.
I mean, it's like an 8 hour game.
If anything, I'd say it's maybe a little too long for my taste.

(01:05:06):
That might be what's bringing down my score just a tad as
well. But it's very fun.
I highly recommend it to you. And those are our secret games,
Owl Boy and Mini Shoot Adventures.
Let's move on to our review of Fez.
It is our featured game. Mez is a puzzle platformer first

(01:05:36):
released in 2012. It was developed by Polytron
Corporation, a startup opened byPhil Fish, the primary designer
behind the game. It was published by Trapdoor.
The game synopsis from the Steamstorefront reads quote Gomez is
a 2D creature living in a 2D world.
Or is he? When the existence of a

(01:05:57):
mysterious third dimension is revealed to him, Gomez is sent
out on a journey that will take him to the very end of time and
space. Use your ability to navigate 3D
structures from 4 distinct classic 2D perspectives.

(01:06:42):
This game initially takes place in a 2D world.
It starts in this place called Villageville.
Villageville. I love that and if you.
Google Villageville. This piece of media is not the
only piece of media to imagine the name Villageville.
I remember seeing that pop up a couple times.

(01:07:04):
But Villageville is a vertical village floating in the sky, and
you play as Gomez, a little guy.I don't know what Gomez and its
species is. Do you know what, Like, would
you just describe Gomez as like,dude, it's just a dude.
It like, they're just little guys, you know, they're just
little guys. They're just little guys.
I. Don't know what they are, but

(01:07:24):
they're. They're kind of humanoid ish,
but they're stark white. Yeah, they seem kind of.
Squishy at times they do Marshmallow Y maybe, and
there's. This There's this old man named
Geezer who tells Gomez to meet him at the top of the village
and that today is a special day.And so as Gomez you climb up,
you meet Geezer, and this giant cube forms in the sky above

(01:07:48):
Villageville and above Gomez. And the cube transports Gomez to
a different place and talks to him in this alien language
before the cube grants the powerof using another dimension.
And this Fez, as in one of thosehats, descends from above and
rests on Gomez's head. And you can now rotate and

(01:08:09):
change your perspective. And once you do that a few
times, the cube splits into manypieces that are like smaller
cubes. And the game gets all glitchy.
And it restarts, actually. And it's giving inscription at
this part. It's, I don't know that it's
like breaking the 4th wall, but it's definitely going to a very
weird experimental place already.

(01:08:31):
And this small cube like companion named dot arrives and
tells Gomez that he has receiveda gift and that the cubes must
be restored otherwise the universe will collapse.
And dot points out this door at the bottom of Villageville and
says that that door will lead toa world outside the village.

(01:08:51):
But you need to find one of the cubes that this giant cube was
split into. And your goal is to explore this
whole world, find all the scattered cubes and you need 32
cubes to finish the game. That's the game.
As far as like controls, I thinkpart of the beauty of Fez, the
controls are pretty straightforward.
You can walk, jump, you can ledge grab, which is not in a

(01:09:15):
lot of games, but in this one, and then you can climb on
ladders and vines. Apart from that, the only one
other thing that Fez really has,and this is its standout
mechanic, is that you can press on PlayStation, it's L1 and R1
to rotate the X axis of the world.
And this will place Gomez in either the front or the back

(01:09:38):
layer, depending on kind of where he's positioned when you
rotate. So as alluded to, this world is
being treated as a 3D and A2D world simultaneously.
And yeah, you use this rotating mechanic to find and locate and
platform to all of the differentcubes, as well as just kind of

(01:10:02):
solve some really nebulous puzzles that are based around
rotating in the correct way. And you can find a lot of clues
like that by rotating the world.And they are often notes on
walls or markers on statues or other landmarks.

(01:10:23):
Eventually you do gain access toanother new mechanic, but I feel
like mentioning that's a bit of a spoiler, so I don't, I don't
know if we want to mention that here.
If you want to mention it later,maybe.
You can OK, it's. Not it's something I didn't
really explore a lot of. I'll say very.
I think I know what it is. Yeah, I think I know what it is.
I didn't actually do any of it, but I'm aware of it.

(01:10:46):
OK, Yeah, I did very like. I used it and that's about it.
You tried it out. Cool.
So you've done a little. Bit more than I am, yeah.
You get to the point where you're jumping and you're like
rotating the world in mid air sometimes, which is kind of
interesting. So it makes me look at
platforming in a new way. And here is where we would talk

(01:11:07):
about the history and significance of the game, maybe
by giving a few quick facts, butthis game has quite a history,
both with what came before and after development.
So Fez's development was highly anticipated and the game's
creator, Phil Fish, became a public figure for a number of
reasons. One of the reasons is that he
was one of the main subjects in the documentary Indie Game The

(01:11:29):
Movie, which chronicled the creation of three like very
noteworthy classic indie games which were Braid, Super Meat
Boy, and Fez. I saw Indie Game the Movie back
around when it came out. I still vividly remember a
handful of moments from it. Like 5 or 6 moments from that

(01:11:49):
documentary still are just like seared into my brain.
Did you see this movie? No, I ran out of time.
Yeah, I ran out of time to watchthis.
OK, I am actually. Kind of glad that we didn't
watch it ahead of this recording.
I had proposed watching it either together or maybe
separately sometime before I'm heading into this review.

(01:12:12):
But the more I've thought about it, the more I think I want to
just address that some of this stuff happens.
And then just remember that thisis a game at the end of the day
and we will not be talking aboutthe creator really that much.
But I do want to to just note that Phil Fish became a public
figure as a result of being in this movie, and then also as a

(01:12:32):
result of being at the center ofseveral online quarrels because
of making inflammatory comments both online and at in person
events and being a target of theGamergate controversy.
To name some of the things and publicity about Fez involved.
All these things sort of reaching a boiling point, and it

(01:12:52):
LED Fish to cancel plans for a sequel and to largely leave game
development behind. And all these historical points
by now are like really far in the rearview mirror and you can
read about what happens. But know that if you do research
behind the story of Phil Fish, be mindful that it contains

(01:13:12):
discussion of self harm and bullying, online harassment and
misogyny. But past this point, this review
shall neither be an indictment nor a vindication of the actions
of Fish or the people involved. At the end of the day, we have
an indie game called Fez that millions of people have played,
and so we're playing and reviewing it for what it is.

(01:13:33):
All right. Anything to add to that?
I don't know. I I started reading some of some
of all of this, but I ran out oftime to finish reading that.
Very bad at reading. That's fair.
So there's a, there's a. Long detailed account you can
read about, but Fez sold over 1,000,000 copies by the end of
2013. It was met with universal
acclaim. It became the inspiration for

(01:13:55):
many games that followed, including indie games like
Monument Valley, Tunic and Animal Well, which is an
upcoming feature game this very season.
I'm excited to talk about that. Yeah.
So disco cola. With all that said, what are
your thoughts on Fez? Yeah.
This is a game that for a long time after starting under played

(01:14:16):
I was like let's get to Fez. And then about halfway through
our time in underplayed so far Iwas like, I kind of am not
looking forward to Fez anymore. Why?
Why I? Can't really.
Say for sure, I don't know, I just became less interesting it
kind of as we've played more andmore of these games that came
out in like the PS3 era. They don't always like hold up

(01:14:40):
the best or I'm not loving them as much as I used to or my
expectations for them if I haven't played them were were
unmet. So I, I kind of started putting
Fez in that box at some point. Yeah, and the the.
Further we get from when it cameout, the less it's talked about,
so the less you might be reminded of it too.
That's that was the case for me years ago.

(01:15:01):
I actually did start this game and I only got like an hour in
and I stopped. Yeah, and I part of it.
With Alboy's situation. Like something else grabbed my
attention and and part of it toomaybe.
Was because like you were like, I got to tell you, man, I I
hopped off it like I was not loving it the first time I
played it. Sure, yeah, at least.

(01:15:21):
I didn't love it enough to just keep going.
And not that I hated it, right? It's just something else grabbed
my attention, OK? Now that we have played it, I
know what I like and dislike about the game and so I will
start with what I like. As I alluded to before, there's
a simplicity in this game and its ideas.
It tries something unique in theworld to help it stand out in

(01:15:45):
the form of rotating the world on its axis, treating the game
AS2D and 3D at both the same time.
But it has all of the familiarity of the traditional,
like side scrolling platformer. So it has a really low barrier
of access to the game, but you still get to try something new

(01:16:06):
that hasn't really been exploredin other platformers to that
point. Yeah, that's a good point.
A lot of people have played. A game that feels like this,
like a Super Mario Brothers, right?
It feels like a throwback sort of classic platforming game.
And I would say like, even though this game is quite old by
now, this idea of rotating the world was not a new thing.

(01:16:29):
Like there was Super Paper Mariothat I played on the Wii and
things like that. So I was actually also curious
to know if this was the first game that you had played that
sort of did this to my. Recollection.
But you know, you've also got 2Dand top D that plays with like a
similar concept. So it's not the same thing, but
it is similar. I like that progress in this

(01:16:52):
game is dictated by item collection.
I love item collection and I want more games to dictate how
far you are based on what you'vecollected.
I think more games could do that.
As I mentioned back in our Hyperlight Drifter episode in
Season 1, I love like hard edgesand straight lines that are

(01:17:12):
baked into the world. It's kind of like I'm observing
a planet that's in our universe,but the laws of nature just like
totally different. So I really love the visual
identity of this game and being able to like get a sneak peek of
where a door might take us. That's, you know, in the
background. I think that's a nice touch.
I just, I really love the visuals of this game.

(01:17:34):
Obviously that's what, you know,had me interested in Fez in the
1st place was just like this really cool hard edged pixel
art. Also, as mentioned in the Hyper
Light Drifter episode, the musicin Fez is done by disasterpiece
and I love love, love this music.
Yeah. And were you familiar with it?

(01:17:55):
Before you played, No. OK, so it wasn't a soundtrack
that you heard first, right? So here's the thing.
I knew that he did the music, but I always, I always forgot
that that was the case up until like a week before I needed to
start actually playing the game.I was like, Oh yeah, I was
almost in. Disaster.
I was almost in disbelief because it came so much.
I guess it wasn't that many years before Hyper Light Drifter

(01:18:18):
that I think about, but it does feel like it is.
Because it's just like it's totally different.
It feels like it feels like the.End of the previous era and then
Hyper Light Drifter feels like closer to the beginning of the
next era. So that just doesn't feel
possible to me. Yeah, but.
Man. And it's not just because this
is, you know, disasterpiece and I loved him and I like I would

(01:18:38):
play the game and I'm like, oh, dude, this song is awesome.
I'd be like, Oh yeah, it's disasterpiece.
That makes sense. So I really love the music.
Like, oh man, there was like this one song that played during
this rhythm based room that I found.
Like that one was especially stand out for me.
It was so cool. I want to.
I want to listen to the. Soundtrack now.
Oh yeah, me too, dude. Speaking of the rhythm based

(01:19:01):
room, some of the rooms hidden in Fez have some really like fun
and incredible platforming challenges and these are
actually some of my favorite moments in the game is just like
these unique platforming challenges that use the
mechanics of Fez to to an optimum degree.
Another thing I really loved is when I figured out like one

(01:19:23):
particular treasure map puzzle. I felt really smart when I
figured that out. Admittedly, I was probably only
smart enough to figure it out because there was a similar
puzzle in a Mega Man game previously, but when I tested
out this like puzzle concept with the treasure maps and it
worked, I was like, that feels so good.

(01:19:45):
Nailed it. That probably means you were
more intuitive in this game withits puzzles than I was, because
I didn't figure out let's, not let's.
Not go that far. I figured out one treasure map
puzzle Bobo. Yeah, and I figured out none.
There's a lot of other. Things to figure out that don't
have treasure map. That's so true.
We'll talk. About some of those special
rooms and solutions and puzzles a little bit later and then.

(01:20:08):
I love that this game just gets super weird in both the
beginning and the ending. It subverts in a way that at the
time would have felt super interesting and authentic.
You know, at this point, I've seen the whole like glitchy
thing a few Times Now, so it doesn't surprise.
Like it might have back in like 2012 or whatever, but at the

(01:20:28):
time, that would have been one of the first times I'd seen
something like that and I would have been really impressed and
probably would have gone a long way.
And really hyping me up early onin the game totally.
And I think. A lot of that stuff was kept
hidden pretty well. I'm not sure a lot of that was
known to people. Even though people were really
hungry for details about the game.

(01:20:48):
I think they did keep the glitchy, psychedelic stuff under
wraps. Yeah, I'm going.
To move on into dislikes here, first up, you've mentioned story
wise that the universe will end,but for me, like the game
doesn't really consistently present its stakes.

(01:21:09):
So I'm not really invested in Gomez really in any way.
Like what happens if I don't collect the cues?
I don't really care. I'd like how much time do I have
if if I were. Gomez, I think I.
Would just be, you know, forgetting that the universe is
ending. Like I would be happy just
living out my days rotating on the X axis, just like having
this little extra awareness of the world but still living among

(01:21:31):
the people. He can do something that none
of. His right civilization even
knows about. Yeah, they're not even like,
aware. It's like I have a fun little
secret. But I'm not that much more
special than anyone else, so I Iwould be totally happy to just
live out my days like that. There are times where.
Corruption shows up on some map screens and that's true.
Get hurt if you touch it, but then you can just leave that

(01:21:53):
room and come back and it'll be gone.
It's it's sort of like reshuffles it in a way so.
Yeah, the stakes don't really. They're not very present in the
game, and I forgot that the universe was even ending for
most of my playthrough. Yeah, a lot of that exposition.
Stuff is really front heavy. It's just some really basic sort
of dialogue with Dots and Geezerand Gomez and that's it.

(01:22:16):
Yeah, pretty much. And I do, you do.
Forget about it, especially if you take a lot of breaks playing
Casey's mod instead of Walking Fence.
Something else I don't like and we'll talk more about later as I
can hit a lot of Roblox really quickly.
But yeah, I got stuck a couple of times and it would it would
sometimes be just like one smallthing that ends up opening a lot

(01:22:37):
of doors, but it was just finding that one small thing.
You get bottlenecks in this game.
And it happened to me. That's that was a big.
Bummer. And had me trapped for more than
an hour at one point another. Thing is.
I am often not really having just like this really incredible
time in this game. Like I'm not having a bad time,

(01:22:58):
but it's just I'm not having like a lot of fun, not just
because I get stuck, but they'rejust like a few too many areas
that have they just don't have enough of those like smaller
cubes to collect. So I think if there were more
rooms that had more of these smaller cubes in more of the
rooms, that would give me like something to focus on when I'm

(01:23:20):
observing some of these other puzzles that I can't figure out
I was watching. The completionists video about
Fez not to bring his thoughts ofthis game into this too much,
but he was calling the small cube pieces cubelets yeah, which
I really like yeah I need a little more I need a.
Cubelet snack, a cubelet snack, and yeah.
When you find them, it feels so good.

(01:23:41):
It does reach a point where after finding a couple cubelets,
you get a drought of cubelets and then it's just like you got
to find the full cubes which require so much more work.
And so in a play session, unlikesomething like mini shoot
adventures, for example, you might not make as much progress
as other sessions if you're especially if you're kind of
closer to the 32 cube mark. And that's kind of where like.

(01:24:04):
Older platformers that, you know, have coins, like Mario,
where they're not, like, worth alot, but it still gives you
something to do instead of just having this stretch of
emptiness. That's true.
So I could use more Cubelets, snacks.
Yeah. And a lot of these games.
The coins or the cubelets, whatever they are, the floating

(01:24:25):
shiny things, they are a sense of momentum there, a sense of
direction. And I so I loved when I saw the
little ones showing up, but not it doesn't happen all the IT can
lead my eye to somewhere that. Maybe I wasn't observing too.
It's just like we've talked about this with Ukulele.
Before too, with like the feathers not always being
intuitively placed and it's an art form how these things are

(01:24:46):
placed in a game. It takes a lot of photos.
Really good. That's something that that
excels at. But anyways, then my last but
probably biggest thing is that I'm just, I'm not smart enough
to figure out some of these puzzles.
I had to look up a few things and that was just to get like
the minimum number of cubes to beat the game.

(01:25:08):
So eventually it became like super discouraging for me.
This game has like a whole alphabet and I simply just don't
have the time or interest, frankly, to solve it without an
Internet guide. So now that I am at the point
where I am all of the rest of myprogress, I'm probably just
going to be leaning on a guide. That's fair, especially.

(01:25:30):
If you want to get like all the achievements or trophies in it,
yeah, yeah, I think that's definitely necessary.
So yeah, in. The end Fez is a game that I was
looking forward to for a long time until I wasn't, and that
did eventually temper my expectations and I'm thankful
for that. For the most part, the game
holds up today, but I've played so many games that seem inspired

(01:25:54):
by Fez that some of the greater like Revelations that you find
don't have as much of an impact.But like I said it still, it
still holds up. So I don't think that should
really stop anyone from giving Fez a chance.
At its core, it is a game that is like classically designed in
the best way. And when I am collecting
different kinds of cubes, I am having fun.

(01:26:16):
And when I am able to make new discoveries, whether on purpose
or sometimes on accident, I feelpretty brilliant.
But unfortunately I don't have aton more to say beyond that.
Like I don't have any like higher overarching praises.
I don't think there's a lot to say about this.
Game at a certain point, yeah, yeah, it's one of the there's a
plateau. Yeah, it's just one of those.

(01:26:38):
More, even though there's kind of a lot going on under the
surface, there's a it's pretty straightforward all the same.
I I agree. So for me.
I give Fez an 8 point O out of 10.
Nice. Still overall quite positive,
but it's not something that I'm hungry to play a lot of.
Well, I'll be can. I say it again.
Yeah, you already did. OK, That's great.

(01:27:01):
Well, I'm glad that you had an overall positive time with it.
So on to my thoughts. I thought Fez was great.
I love this game. I think this is a great game.
There's not a lot to say about it.
You know I but I do have likes. I do have dislikes.
I'll get into those now. I think the jumping in this game
feels pretty powerful and at theat the core of the game, which

(01:27:24):
is platforming. I like how you never feel
punished for taking risks because when you fall a long
distance and you know, you mightfall into an endless pit, or you
might fall too far such that you, you don't really die in
this game. But if you take too much of a
fall, you have to reset back to where you started.

(01:27:44):
This game has fall damage. We haven't it.
Has fall damage. And you reset from where you
jumped. And that's awesome.
It it means that, you know, I don't have to be extra careful
around ledges and you have to jump to and from ledges all over
the place in this game. And you are often climbing up
and up and up. And where that would sometimes

(01:28:06):
feel daunting in other games, here it just feels really
welcoming to just try things like just see if you can jump
from this tall platform to this not as tall platform.
And will I make it? Oh, sometimes I do.
This game is much more approachable than I thought it
would be after all these years of waiting to play through it as
well. Gathering the 32 cubes for me

(01:28:29):
was mostly a perfect difficulty,despite like you, getting stuck
and requiring a lot of backtracking at a certain
points. But the overall average
difficulty of the game I thoughtwas great.
I thought it was perfect for me.I think this world is beautiful
for all the reasons you've said.It's packed with tons of detail

(01:28:49):
in the pixel graphics. I love details like birds and
owls and the rain and grass and all kinds of things little
objects on like. Shop shelves in the outdoor
market or something. Yeah, Yeah, there are like.
Little cities that you come across and there are tons of
little details that you can examine about people.

(01:29:10):
You can go indoors and see people's bedrooms and the
personal effects that they have in there tell you a lot about
who they are too. So everything just feels very
thought out in that way. I love seeing the time of day
change as well. I love seeing the sunsets.
It just feels like a step above what a lot of other games were
doing, especially at the time this game was released.

(01:29:31):
I also love the soundtrack by Disasterpiece.
I'm just say a lot of things yousaid.
I love the wild exploration of the glitchy stuff, the
psychedelic stuff. The end of this game I think
feels like 2001, a Space Odyssey, and I'll just leave it
at that. And I was just hypnotized by the

(01:29:52):
ends. And this is a game that makes
you wonder. This is a game that invites you
to wonder what a symbol might mean or how certain areas
connect or, you know, what kind of cryptography is going on that
I have to solve. You might not want to solve it,
but it kind of opened my mind towhat a game like this, that

(01:30:15):
looks like this can do. And it's doing that all these
years later since it came out, which is really impressive.
So I think this game holds up incredibly well after all this
time. When I get to dislikes, I would
just say that the 3D map is really cool as a concept, but I
found trying to look at all the different pieces of the map, the

(01:30:36):
map got it in the way of itself.There were so many times where I
was trying to like look at a certain area or room and there's
another map piece that's in the way and I'm selecting the wrong
thing and you can rotate it and rotate it and it gets so.
Confusing. I get so confused looking at.
The map specifically, I really don't get confused when I'm

(01:30:57):
playing as Gomez rotating the world, which is kind of
incredible to me because like I've said, I'm directionally
challenged in things, but I usually didn't get mixed up with
what direction I was supposed torotate.
It was just being in that map. Some of the game secrets are not
approachable for me too. Actually, I'll say many of the

(01:31:17):
game secrets are not approachable and sometimes it's
hard to know what locations to prioritize in the quest for 32
cubes. The map will tell you what rooms
are not complete yet. That's really nice, but I don't
always know like what sector of the general map should I go to
get the most bang for my buck when it comes to just investing

(01:31:40):
time into finding these 32 cubes?
I don't always know that the dialogue feels dated and
uninspired. This kind of goes along with the
not really feeling the impact ofwhat's at stake here, and it's
not a huge part of the game, butthere is dialogue that's
optional in this game, and characters just don't talk in a
very compelling way and the humor doesn't hit.

(01:32:02):
The humor in particular feels kind of dated and just kind of
thin. I think that's always going to
be the. Case with like humor in media as
time goes on forever but that's all my.
Dislikes. So overall I think Fez holds up.
It is a prime example of a game that celebrates secrets while
being great for what it is on the surface, in my opinion.

(01:32:23):
I'm going to give it an 8.5. All right, that's pretty close
to what I guessed. For you, yeah, I watched just
like a few minutes of one of your Fez streams and I saw your
pause menu. So I have a general idea of how
this went for you. But how how was your quest?
I don't know if that's complimentary.
Or not. It was super complimentary.

(01:32:44):
Because it was vastly deeper, way more complete than my POS
screen, let me tell you. But how was how was your quest
for 32 cubes? Was it like smooth?
What did you get stuck on? We've talked about this already
that. We both hit bottlenecks where it
just feels like you get so narrow in what you're supposed
to find sometimes maybe for justgetting to that 32 number to

(01:33:08):
unlock that final door that you don't always know where to go.
And I just remember 2 parts where I significantly got stuck.
One was at the end where I was trying to get to 32 cubes and
the the secrets. The thing that really unlocked
things for me there was going higher in the map, like there's
a cluster of levels way high up.That's what I was really

(01:33:30):
missing. I was I had not really gone up
there enough. So I spent all this time lower
in the lower areas looking around and I was I was getting
just like scraps here and there like it wasn't enough.
I I was getting in like the mid 20s and I was like, this isn't
really hitting it. I got a there's a whole area I'm
not hitting and it was way up there.
The other part that really tripped me up.

(01:33:52):
This is embarrassing and this happened publicly because I
streamed the game, but in the intro area where you have to
find the 1st 8 cubelets to make the first cube that unlocks the
first door. It took me like 40 minutes to
find those because I didn't yet understand that when you're in

(01:34:13):
Villageville, when you're opening all those rooms, did you
notice that when you open a door, it stays open after that
first time telling you that you've been in that room?
I don't know if I did. Notice that?
Well, it's a way that. I think the game is
communicating that although the world is rotating all the time
and it might be hard to keep track of where you've been, this

(01:34:34):
is how we'll tell you that you've been to a place already.
Interesting. I didn't.
I didn't pick up on. It and I went into the same damn
rooms over and over looking for I had seven out of eight
cubelets. It's basically a tutorial area
and I spent like 40 minutes in it and I I think it's designed
to be played in like 10 minutes.Yeah, super embarrassing.

(01:34:55):
That's those are the two places where I got significantly stuck
the very end and also the very beginning.
So how about you? Well, when I saw.
Your pause screen, you had like more than 20 of the yellow
cubes. I at that time I was pretty

(01:35:16):
close to the end of the game andI only had like 11.
So like you were like way ahead of me, even though, you know, I
had been playing for a lot longer than you had.
So I was a struggling and I don't, I guess I must have had
like a bunch of the anti cubes or something 'cause I, I still
don't have as many of the yellowcubes that as you have.

(01:35:37):
Really. Yeah, I've, I've only got like
half of them. So the anti cubes are.
Harder to find, so they're like purple and I definitely.
Used some guides when I got to rooms.
I'm like, I know there's something here, I just don't
understand it. Yeah.
So there's like four or five anti cubes that I probably
didn't really earn but got anyway.

(01:35:58):
I think I found like. Three anti cubes on my own and
that's it. And I would get to some of those
rooms that I didn't understand, and I'd just try it for 5 or 10
minutes and I'd go, you know what?
No, I bet there are enough cubesin this game that I can find my
own set of 32. And I eventually did.
And I think my overall number was just like a majority were

(01:36:20):
yellow cubes. For a long time I had that.
Mentality. But I was hitting that drought
of cubelets and other yellow cubes for a really long time and
I was just like, you know what? I don't have time for this.
I want to play other stuff, so Idid like some stuff up and my
big moment where I was stuck fora long time was there's this
part where you have to lower thewater level in the sewer.

(01:36:44):
Or the just like, yeah, it's like it.
Changes a lot of areas in the game, but like I couldn't find
the part to lower the water level and so there were just
like so many doors underneath the surface of the water that I
couldn't get to for a long, long, long time.
And so I KET backtracking and going back and forth and trying

(01:37:04):
to find new stuff and I just, I couldn't.
And I knew that there was stuff under the water.
I just didn't know how to get there.
I'm looking at this interactive.Map.
There's an like a map online where you can see all the nodes
and stuff in there. I can, I'll send it right now it
takes a while to load in, so it'll.
It'll be like my blasphemous experience where I have that map

(01:37:26):
open at all times. Yeah.
And then just. Speaking on those rooms, what
were some of those rooms that kind of stick in your mind?
Because I definitely have a few.I mentioned it.
Briefly, but the rhythm based room that I found was super
awesome. If I recall right it eventually
became like a 2 tone room essentially.

(01:37:48):
Like you are a shadow on a colorful background or something
and all of your platforms are just like dark black.
If I recall right, that's how that room ended up, and that was
super awesome. I really loved the rooms that
were just like a tall vertical tree.
Yeah, I found. A couple of those.
And I just, I really liked those.

(01:38:10):
It's like a forest. With light peeking through the
leaves, the canopy, and. It's just a room of cubelets,
but it's really pretty and you get to jump really high.
So yeah, those I think stood outthe most.
And then of course, like the lighthouse is a memorable set
piece just in the background of a lot of different screens that
you explore. I love how sometimes you see.

(01:38:31):
The place you're going like way in the distance like that
lighthouse, and you're like, I want to go there.
And then you can. Yeah.
So cool. I love the graveyard and
mausoleum area. This is where it's raining.
You see lots of ghosts. There are these graves.
And when the lightning strikes, the ghost outline appears next
to the grave. I'm getting goosebumps.

(01:38:55):
And when I first noticed it, I felt so perceptive.
I was like, all that ghost, there's a ghost there.
That ghost means something. And if the ghost does mean
something, I don't know what it means, but it's a cool little
detail if you're paying attention.
And those areas also have the platforms that appear.
They're invisible platforms, butthe water is hitting them and
the the lightning reveals them. So it's this little moment where

(01:39:18):
you can notice, oh, that's whereI'm supposed to jump.
Otherwise it doesn't look like you can progress up anymore.
There's this civilization that we haven't talked about called
the the zoo, the zoo ish civilization.
And it's like the civilization that came before Gomez's people,
I guess. And there are these places
called the zoo ruins. This is where you can kind of

(01:39:41):
interpret more things about the story beyond the thin dialogue
that doesn't tell you a whole lot.
You can interpret a lot through markings etched on the wall.
You can tell that there was a previous people that interacted
with some higher beings or some aliens or something.
And you you come across their ruins.

(01:40:02):
And before I found this room I'mabout to mention, I saw lots of
symbols that looks like QR codes.
And there were two or three times where I tried to scan
things because I thought they were QR codes and they weren't
QR codes. I was like, oh, that's
interesting. Why would they make it look so
much like AQR code? And then I get into this room
called the Zoo Ruins QR Room. According to this interactive

(01:40:25):
map, that's what they call it. And this is unmistakably AQR
code. Like you look at this and you're
like, that's a frigging QR code.And you scan it, and it takes
you to a video that tells you a sequence of rotations.
And I'm like, wait, what? This is some Doki Doki

(01:40:46):
literature club ass stuff. And I'm like, I have all these
directions. What does that mean, exactly?
And I had recently encountered the big owl statue whose head
turns. I was like, do I have to rotate
the owl that way? Do I need to, like, go back to
the big owl? And I was like, wait, what if I
just try rotating in this room? Right.

(01:41:08):
That's what I would have done, yeah.
And I tried. The sequence, it was a sequence
of like 10 directions and then Igot a trophy and I got an anti
cube and it was my 32nd cube. Oh, that's so.
Awesome. And my mouth was a.
Gape. It was mind blowing.
It was the perfect cube to have as your 32nd cube because it was

(01:41:30):
so unlike everything else in thegame.
It was one of my very few anti cubes and I felt so smart.
That's awesome. So I loved.
That that reminds me of another one of those like rotation
sequence ones. I found a room where it was
music focused, and then if you were paying attention, the beat

(01:41:53):
would trigger vibrations in yourcontroller on either the left
side or the right side. Yeah, that's amazing.
I was in that. Room I think.
Like 3 or 4 times before that, didn't notice it at all, but I
knew that I was missing something because the map said I
was. And I was just sitting there and
I was like, wait, wait a minute,you know, And I noticed that my

(01:42:13):
hands were feeling different levels of vibration.
So that's the sequence you have to follow is just paying
attention to where the vibrationis on your controller and see
while that's super. Cool.
I have to wonder if there are lots of those innermost secrets
in this game that are just naturally going to be more
inaccessible because of the, youknow, not everybody's going to

(01:42:36):
be able to scan a QR code right away.
What happens? Raising my hand, you know.
What happens if they take that? Video down.
What if that video becomes unavailable?
Then I have to look up a guide online which I'm already
accessing the Internet. But the question is how am I
accessing the Internet and then like am I using a controller
that has rumble right? Like how would that?

(01:42:56):
Work if you weren't. And I'm like.
Rumble. Yeah, I'm playing the PS4
version on PS5. Who says that?
You know, that translates correctly to a dual sense when
you turn it on. Maybe it won't those things
sometimes. Get missed so I have those
questions about the longer this game exists, are these things
going to be preserved? I hope so.
I I in general. I don't like when stuff exists

(01:43:18):
outside of the game itself. Just period for all games.
Yeah, so I'm. Of two minds about it.
I think it's really experimental, really fun, really
interesting, very difference. It's just risky.
It is. It is.
When it comes to puzzles and mechanics, you know there are
more that I think of. I also think of being in the

(01:43:39):
mines where you have bombs and you use bombs on breakable
walls. First you kind of learn that
bombs are used to open doors or maybe like 1 little spot in the
wall that looks like it's brokenalready.
So you know, that's a language we've learned from so many games
over the years. But then where Fez becomes its

(01:44:00):
own thing is you have breakable walls that wrap around a
structure and you throw a bomb at the first section of this
wall and it breaks. And because you're only seeing
one of the four sides at any time, if you don't rotate at the
right moment, the explosion won't do its chain reaction, if

(01:44:23):
you will. And so I loved following that
explosion along the wall and like, sort of seeing it spiral
up sometimes. I felt like it was sort of a
reaction or rhythm game in a way.
I I loved that idea so much. Yeah.
That stands out as being pretty.Cool.
OK, so there are deeper layers to this game.

(01:44:44):
Like what are you curious about?What do you have questions about
here? I kind of alluded to it in my
review. You know, you have this whole
alphabet that you can decipher. I just, I'm glad it's there, but
I just don't care. Like I don't want to sit there
and write it all down and try and solve the alphabet.

(01:45:05):
I think my problem. With this is I think I'm one
step behind you where I'm not even aware there is an alphabet.
Like I'm missing the piece of knowledge that clues me into
there being an alphabet other than I found the writing cube.
So that might tell me that I canwrite things down and I can

(01:45:25):
recognize that there are symbolsand things.
So when you see these like different.
Squares. It's a lot like Bionicle has an
alphabet, sure, And a lot of these symbols kind of remind me
of the Bionicle alphabet a little bit.
You see them all over the place,like in the first room, there's
like symbols on the wall. Yeah, I guess I did notice that

(01:45:46):
it's. Just that.
Like, how am I supposed to know where to even begin?
How are you supposed to know where to be?
That's kind of my complaint, Like I just, I do not care to
sit there and take the time. There's also a numerical system.
Apparently. And all of this stems from the
the zoo folk. This is ZU.
This is how you spell it. OK.
And there are lots of unsolved puzzles I have in the zoo city.

(01:46:10):
Tons. Yeah.
So I. Just that's where.
I'm mostly like wondering about the secrets.
There were a couple rooms that Inoticed that we both had
questions about. There's this one called the
Crypt. Again, I'm pulling these names
from this interactive map. But the crypt, do you remember
this? This is where it had the grids
of what looked like doors and they resembled some of the map

(01:46:33):
pieces we were finding. And I think you were watching me
during this part and you were like, I tried this for 20
minutes and I couldn't figure itout, I think.
So it's like 16 doors on each side.
Yes, that's the. I did solve that eventually.
You did. That's the one I was talking
about with the treasure map. Oh, got it.
OK. So the treasure map was for
that? Yes.

(01:46:53):
OK, I tried to use the treasure map and I just didn't.
Maybe I didn't have enough info.Yeah, there are. 4 treasure
maps, that one for each side. Yeah, one for each side and.
That's enough. That's the Mega Man 03 puzzle
that maybe I came to that conclusion.
And then I just realized, you know what?
I only have two of the four maps, so I need to come back.
And then I never went back. Yeah, Dang, there's a door

(01:47:17):
behind a waterfall that I couldn't figure out.
I think that involves something more big brain than I know how
to do. I think I found that door.
I think I solved it. I don't remember if I used a
guide or not. OK but I I kind of remember that
being one of the ones is just like oh I I did it but I might
be wrong about that. Did you figure out anything?

(01:47:39):
With the Tetris shapes, no. OK, there's a.
Whole thing there. Yeah, and I see a lot of them
in. The background and I'm like I
see the Tetrinomos, but I don't I got is that what they're
called? Yeah, I think Tetrinomos
Tetrinum. Let me.
Make sure that's right, Trino. I've never heard that.
Tetram Tetraminos. Tetraminos.

(01:48:01):
Yeah. Tetraminos.
Yeah. Wow.
I learned something today. Yeah.
And that feels like a whole areaof the game that I am that is
just over my head. Like, I recognize that that's
happening. I have some of the bricks to a
building, but I don't know what the building looks like.
Yeah. Yeah.
I love when. You say that?
Yeah, that's that's was. This game's like Outer Wilds

(01:48:22):
moment for me. There might also be unsolved
parts of this game, yet to this day I'm not sure.
There might be like innermost secrets that still haven't been
uncovered. That wouldn't surprise me if.
Fez is the kind of game that would have something like that.
I think so and it. Inspired lots of games that do a
similar thing. We have not played Tunic yet for

(01:48:42):
the show. I'd love to in a season coming
to you soon, but I've played animal well.
I know Fez is an inspiration foranimal Well, partly.
And Animal? Well, yeah, a lot of weird
stuff. That you had kind of know what
it is, a puzzle. You just don't know what it's

(01:49:02):
telling you. Yeah, sometimes you have.
To take a leap of faith, on a hunch, on an inference.
And most of the time you might be wrong, but this is how the
community solves these puzzles. But I don't know, is there
anything else to say about Fez I?
No, I don't think so. I said what I needed to say,
which was unfortunately not as much as I had hoped to say.

(01:49:27):
And that's that. OK.
Yeah, I'll, I'll. Be I'm and there are Alice in
this game. Wow, it all comes full circle.
This was one of those classic indie games that I'm glad we
could catch up on. It is.
It is one of those. Quintessential ones, I think.
Yes, it feels good to have this feather.
In our cap, if you will, that's that's.
What I wanted out of it. And so we're we did the thing.

(01:49:49):
I can graduate from high school.I got my credits in.
Well, that's our review of Fez. You can play it on PC, Mac,
Linux, Switch, PS3, PS4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, and
iOS. Disco Cola rated it an 8.
I rated it an 8.5. That's the end of this episode
of Underplayed. You can find more of our

(01:50:09):
episodes at kzum.org/underplayedand on podcast platforms like
Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Our music was composed by Jack
Rodenberg. Our art comes from Oni Mochi.
Check out our show notes where you can find and follow us
across social media. Underplayed is on Blue Sky,
Instagram, and Threads. You can also find me in those

(01:50:31):
places and I stream a variety ofindie games on Twitch.
I am at Disco Cola. In several places as well,
including Backlogged where I have my top 100 indie games,
which now includes Owl Boy at 48and Fez at 76.
Oh my gosh, hold on, I need. To look at my lists of top 100

(01:50:54):
indie games OK because I think we have Fez super glossy pretty
much at the same spot Fez for. Me is.
At 73. OK, yeah, that is really close.
And Inscription has now moved upto #8 Wow top 10.

(01:51:14):
Top 10. Baby.
Well, since you brought it up, it's my. #15 OK, that's actually
higher than. I thought so.
I'm very happy about that. Yeah, we should do a a check.
In on our top one hundreds maybeat the end of the season or
something. Let's do it.
I'm I am so. Down for that.
OK, sounds good. Next time we'll have two more
secret games to review, and our featured game will be One Shot
World Machine Edition, a puzzle adventure game developed by

(01:51:37):
Future Cat LLC. Until then, everyone keep on
playing.

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069 - Owlboy, Minishoot' Adventures, & FEZ

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