077 - Reflecting on Season 7 & Planning Season 8 - Underplayed

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Thank you for pressing start on episode 77 of Underplayed, KZUMS
indie video game podcast. Today, we recap and reflect on
the games of Season 7, and we take a look ahead by planning
our featured game roster for Season 8.

(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, Kraken, Mr. Disco Cola, What is going

(00:52):
on? Nothing much, my friend.
I'm just happy to be here with you today to conclude what was a
pretty good season, I think. It was an amazing season.
I'm doing really well. That's the last time I'll say
that rhyme. I get a little emotional every
time, so now I have to write a new one.
I mean, you could always there. The only rule that says you have
to write a new one is 1 set by you.

(01:12):
I know I set all these arbitraryrules for myself.
That's how I live my life. It just, you know what?
It adds spice to my life. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm, I'm a
completionist. That is an arbitrary rule.
I guess that's one way we're really compatible, yeah.
So yeah, it is our Season 7 finale episode.
Everybody, welcome to the end ofSeason 7 of Underplayed.
This is the 11th episode of the season.

(01:35):
This is where we're reflecting on the 30 games we played and
reviewed over the past six months.
Can we say that again? 30 games. 30 Dang games.
That's a lot of games. I don't I don't know that
everybody always is like, oh, you know, underplayed, but they
30 games. It is a lot.

(01:55):
We play a lot of games every year and we're going to play 30
more games in Season 8, so a lotof them will be mysteries to
each other. But in this episode, we will
also pick our line up of 10 featured games for Season 8.
This is where we're looking at what games are going to be the
main featured reviews for each of the 10 main episodes of the

(02:16):
next season. And we already have some in mind
because we have guests who have picked some.
So we'll get to that later in the episode.
That's Part 2 of the episode. But first, but we are going to
look back at Season 7 so that wefeel good about moving on to
Season 8. We also want to say here up at
the top that as we talk about season 7 games, we're going to

(02:40):
rank things. We're going to talk about our
scores that we gave to the games.
We're going to, you know, compare and contrast games here
and there. And ultimately, the idea of
comparing games in a season is arbitrary because every game's
different. You know, we could throw all 30
games into the bin and pick 30 other games that we could have
reviewed. For the season, I mean like

(03:01):
papers please is nothing like Cogen sort of rewind, but here
we are in the same they're in the same soup right now.
Exactly. So really what this is about is
giving us a good excuse to look back before looking ahead.
And we want to thank many peoplefrom publishers and game
developers to personal friends of ours and other folks.

(03:24):
So let's just go back and forth in our list of of thank you's.
Do you want to take the first? Thank you.
Yeah, sure. Up first, thank you to future
Friends Games for the Gifted Keys to Grun and What the Car,
both of which appeared as secretgames in the season.
Yes, and thank you also to Neon Hive for the gifted key for

(03:44):
miniatures, another secrets gameof mine.
And then we want to throw it to our first guest of the season,
Noah Lone, AKA some humble onion.
He was a guest on our Cortana Zero episode and that was a
great episode. And it was quite a bit of work
to get that recording scheduled because we had back and forth
conflicts. There was there were trips,

(04:04):
there were family events, there were sicknesses and we finally
made it work. And I just want to again, thank
Noah for being so patient in this particular case where there
were just a lot of coincidences happening.
So we're really appreciative of that.
We also want to thank Oscar Lazada Suarez from Tri Band for
being our guest on the Untitled Goose Game episode.

(04:25):
Very exciting to have a game devfrom the team that made the What
the Games and is about to release another What the Game,
yeah. What the clash?
Yeah, very exciting. We had that was not on our
bingo. Cards not what we expected.
Yes. And our first guest that was a
significantly long ways away from us and in a very different
time zone and was also very understanding of the the

(04:48):
challenge of that in finding a recording time and he made it
work so well. Yeah, so much gratitude.
Also to our 3rd guest, Jeremy Rhinek of Moon Soul Games, as
well As for the Key to Grand Soul Story and for being a guest
on the Animal Well episode. So thank you to Jeremy for
appearing. That was a pretty incredible

(05:08):
gift to give you. Grand soul story so early.
Like he had faith in US and justsent us the key, I think in
early 2024, maybe mid 2024. And so we've been holding on to
that for a while and we finally made it work.
And yeah, he was. He was a great guest for quite a
number of reasons. But we also want to thank Lucy
Blundell and Hilltop Games, somedevelopers, for listening to our

(05:31):
episodes and interacting with uson social media.
That really means a lot. And then next to Andrew
Valentine, who goes by AV on Blue Sky, he got us added to the
Six One Indies indie game coverage directory and also to
six One Indie for adding us to that great big list of of indie
game media people. Yes, that was such an honor to

(05:54):
be on that list of greats. We want to thank our dear
friends A Specific Egg and CaterBlossom from No Small Games.
They did a bonus episode a Swapsie Butler Projects for
April Fools with us where we dida show for their feed.
They did a show for our feed andit seemed almost impossible to
pull off just with how busy everybody was with how

(06:17):
aspirational the idea was, and it ended up working super well.
It was so fun. Yeah, very date specific too, so
it's not like you can really delay it either.
Exactly. You have, you have the deadline.
It all worked and we sort of stepped into each other's
editing shoes. We really understood the brand
of each other's shows for a couple weeks as we were
preparing for that. That was super cool.

(06:37):
On that note, I want to send a specific thank you to Claire,
after all, for all the kind messages about that April Fool's
episode that really kind of madeit all worth it in the end, too.
Not that it wasn't great fun, but it it was work.
So that that really was like, yeah, paid off.
Yeah, I and so many people gave us great feedback about that.
I saw lots of chats in streams after that happened and I

(07:02):
honestly can't, I couldn't keep track of them all, but you know
who you are if you told us how great of a job that we did and
as well as the No Small Games girls, thank you so much.
We want to continue to thank Kater Blossom for buying Hip and
OB twice and for playing the game with Disco Cola because
Disco Cola reviewed that game. It's a secret game.

(07:23):
That was so cool. That one, that one promised to
be cross-platform and I think for a time that was true, but
the Switch port came out so muchlater than every other version
that it just wasn't compatible. So she bit the bullet and she
bought it twice and then we played it on Switch.
So thank you, Kate. I really appreciate it.
We want to thank a specific egg for gifting Bopo fruit bus and

(07:43):
mainframes. 2 more secret games that appeared this season.
Two games that I knew I would really like and she knew I would
really like, so that that was a very meaningful gift twice over.
Thank you so much friends. We want to thank Matt
Stormageddon for having us on individual episodes of fun and
games side quest series. I did an episode on animal well
Disco cola did an episode on hyper light drifter and it was a

(08:07):
ton of fun to be able to be a part of that series that is
hundreds of episodes long and just add our voices to a well of
passion. I'm.
I'm taking some notes on anotherone at some point.
So let's go I. Already know which one.
I have ideas in my mind. I haven't quite started to take
notes yet, but that's so cool. I I look forward to that.

(08:28):
Up next, we want to thank Jacob from the pre-order Bonus podcast
for having Bopo on an episode ofIndie Impressions where they
talked about grun and that was areally great episode.
I learned a lot about grun and Ilearned a lot about Jacob too.
Yeah, on that episode. I love when you listen to an
episode and you learn not only about a game but also a person,
and Jacob just made the whole process easy.

(08:50):
It's. So fascinating to like, you can
extrapolate people's personalities based on how they
talk about certain aspects of certain games and I love that.
Yeah, I know it and like it. We got a little academic.
We got really in depth with a game that I didn't think we
could talk about for two hours, but we'd somehow managed to do
that and it was a blast all the way through.

(09:10):
We also got a lot of great feedback on that episode.
We want to thank all of our friends who watched are
individual streams of underplayed games at
twitch.tv/disco colaandtwitch.tv/BO under score
under score PO. Sometimes we stream games that
we're preparing to review on this show, and so it's great

(09:31):
having you all along cheering uson and sharing your thoughts
about the games with us. In addition to that, we want to
thank all our friends who followed and listened to the
underplayed Twitch broadcasts ofour new episodes.
We premiere those new episodes on the Monday night before, and
thank you to everyone that caught our Co-op stream of
Octodad Dadliest Catch. We also want to thank everyone

(09:53):
who listened to Under Played episodes on podcast services,
people who commented on the episodes and thank you to
everybody who shared the podcastwith others, whether it's word
of mouth, sending a link, etcetera.
We really appreciate that all the way through.
And we want to thank KS UM for allowing us to be part of the
Podcast Partners program and giving us the space and

(10:14):
equipment to produce our podcast.
If you're listening to this on the day that it comes out in May
of 2025, there's still a little bit of time to show your support
to KS UM for, for having us before the, the big deadline of
matching funds where we don't doany sponsored episodes.
We won't do any sponsored episodes.

(10:35):
We won't open up a Patreon. Any like fiscal support you can
show underplayed would be in theform of donating to KZM.
So if you have the means, we'd really appreciate any donation
you can give to KZM, especially if it's before May 29th of 2025,
that'd be great. And finally, we have a very
special thank you to give to a long time friend.

(10:56):
I'm going to struggle through this, I'm sorry.
Yeah, you might have to take thebaton on this one for most of
it, but do you? Do you want to save it for the
end of the episode and. Just like cut it in later.
No, we'll, we'll, we'll share itnow.
OK, we'll share it now. Long time friend of ours named
Alex Schumacher, who is one of the big reasons why we're

(11:20):
sitting down talking into microphones right now.
Do you want to share more about Alex?
Because we've never mentioned Alex on this show.
Right. Yeah, it's, it's a hard thing
when you don't really think about the kind of impact people
have on you until it's too late.And so you never really got to
share it with them. We did lose Alex Schumacher in

(11:41):
March of this year. He's someone we knew in high
school and was a long time friend.
And back shortly after we had graduated high school, Bo came
up with the idea. He was like, hey, what if we got
a radio show at Kzum and Alex had already had a show at KSUM

(12:02):
and he invited us in to sort of like test pilot as essentially.
Yeah. And that was before some of the
programs that exist now where new programmers can dip their
toes in the water in sort of an official capacity.
He was just sort of lending his time and lending his time slot
to us. Yeah.

(12:23):
And so after, after that happened, you know, eventually
that became something that we decided we really wanted to
pursue and it, it really changedthe both of us.
You know, because of that, I ended up going back to college
and pursuing broadcasting as a degree.
I I don't know how much of effect that had on your
broadcast journey in college. It all was happening at the same

(12:46):
time. You know, I, I was studying
broadcast journalism and wanted to go into radio at first,
eventually did more video things.
But because of Alex, I, I reallyhad momentum, you know, going
into KSUM and wanting to explorethis kind of thing that we're
doing. Right.
And so because of that, Oppo andI had a radio show for 10 years,

(13:07):
and from there we went on to host other podcasts.
And eventually we find ourselveshere at Underplayed.
And I can't say that all of those things wouldn't have
happened anyway. I probably wouldn't have gone
back to college, you know? It might not have appeared the
same way. It might not have happened in
the exact same fashion. And I think, I really do think

(13:29):
that it's one of those like if you step on the butterfly at the
right time in the past, everything's different because I
do think maybe some of these things would have happened.
Some of these things would have happened just based on timing.
So I, I feel confident in sayingthat we are here because of
Alex. Like that's, that's the first
domino that let us here. And you know, I've, I've

(13:51):
essentially told a version of this story like 3 times at this
point. And every time I think of
something new, it's like, oh, Alex was like this.
I wish I could have said that. And one of the things I thought
of last week was that Alex is one of those guys that that he
would say, I love you to the homies.
You know, you don't have a lot of men that are always

(14:14):
comfortable saying that there's a couple of people around here.
But for a while there, press start to listen was on after
Alex's show. And so every week when I would
come in and he was getting readyto leave, he would say, I love
you. He was someone that said, I love
you to the homies. So that's just another thing
that I remembered about him thisweek, and I really wanted to

(14:35):
share that Alex was a really, really special person.
One thing I remember about Alex in high school was he was
someone who defied groups and cliques and he was a sharer.
He shared joy with everybody, nomatter what setting you found
yourself in with Alex, whether it was a choir room or a

(14:58):
classroom or backstage or just in the hallway at school, if
there was something funny, he made sure that you were in on
the joke. He just wanted to spread joy,
share joy with everybody. And ever since knowing him, I've
I've looked up to that example. So we send our love to everybody

(15:20):
who knew Alex. I know a lot of people are still
grieving about it, and we just wanted to honor his memory here.
This is a very hard thing to move on from, but we're going to
do our best and we appreciate everybody's understanding.
So before we move on, we just wanted to say that there are a
couple of ways you can support Underplayed.

(15:41):
You can give us a rating and a follow on podcast services like
Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It would only take a few
seconds, and we'd really appreciate that.
Following our show is a way to keep our show present in your
feed if you want to make sure you don't miss new episodes, and
also if you have friends who like indie games and indie game

(16:01):
reviews and discussions. We would appreciate spreading
the news about our podcast too. If you're able, it's time for
our Season 7 recap and reflection.

(16:32):
So the first part of our Season 7 recap and reflection is
reviewing all of our games that we talked about, from our secret
games to our featured games. We're going to talk about our
scores very briefly. The scores ultimately are just a
quick representation of our thoughts on the game.
They are far from everything, but this is our chance to state

(16:53):
any regrets we might have about our scores and we will talk
about our secret games here. Do you want to just in order
list all of the secret games youhad for Season 7 and the ratings
for each one? Absolutely.
In the first episode of this season, I reviewed Astronaut.
I gave that an 8. After that I reviewed Lunarch.

(17:13):
I gave that a 5.5. In episode 69 I reviewed how old
boy and I gave that an 8.5. Episode 70 was Chris Tails with
8.5. After that was everything was
6.5. Episode 72 was little Guardsman
with a nine point O 73 was hashtag blood with an 8.5.

(17:35):
Grand Soul Story was next with A7 point O, episode 75 was Cogen
sort of rewind I gave that A7 and episode 76 was IB and AB
with an 8 point O. Hell yeah, my secret games were
in this order. Grun.
I rated that a 10 Valley Peaks, I rated that a 9.5 mini shoot
adventures, which I gave an 8 Fruit bus, which I gave an 8.5

(17:58):
What the car, which I gave a nine while waiting I gave that
an 8 mainframes. I also gave that an 8 video
verse. I gave that a 9.5, the room
three I rated that an 8.5, and miniatures, which I also rated
an 8.5. This was one of my highest
average ratings for any season. My average rating was 8.75.

(18:23):
Your average rating was 7.65. If you had to go back, or if you
were allowed to go back, would you adjust any scores?
Yeah, I think so. I might, I might bring Lil
Guardsman down by maybe .5. When I think about going back
for trophy cleanup, it's like, Ireally wish this game was like a

(18:44):
one and done for me. I don't really want to go
through it again. And then I'd probably bring
Grand Soul Story down by a full point.
Wow yeah, it's just not my kind of game.
And then also I went back to thegame to try and work on it a
little bit and my save data is just gone.
Oh, it is. Yeah, it's just gone.
And you tried to like do some tech support with me for like

(19:07):
almost 45 minutes. On that, that's too bad.
So everything, everything was just kind of gone.
I was like, well, that's not a great sign.
Oh. No, I'm sorry.
When I look at my list I don't know that I would move too much.
I would maybe bump up mainframesto an 8.5.
I might bring the room 3 down toan 8.

(19:28):
You know, like little .5 adjustments, but I I almost
never have big adjustments here.So I feel good about all this.
Yeah, really high scoring seasonfor me.
Nothing below an 8 in my secret games, which is incredible.
Now we're going to talk about our featured games really
quickly. I'll just do all these.

(19:50):
We had inscription. Disco Cola rated it a 9.5.
I rated oh, we both rated it a 9.5.
There you go alignment there at the start of the season.
Then there was Cortana 0. You rated it an 8.5.
I rated it an 8. Then there was Fez.
You rated it an 8. I rated it an 8.5.
There's going to be a lot of like eights and eight point

(20:11):
fives. Then there was One Shot World
Machine Edition. You gave that a nine.
I gave that A5. Then there was Untitled Goose
Game. You rated that A10.
I gave it an 8.5. Papers Please was next.
You gave that a 9.5. I gave it a nine.
Then we had another Crab's Treasure.
You rated that A10I rated that a9.5.

(20:34):
Her story was next. You gave that a 7.5.
I gave it an 8. Then we had animal.
Well, you gave that an 8. I gave that a 10.
Then we had Octodad Dadliest Catch, our Co-op game for the
season. You rated it a 7.5, I rated it
an 8. We were closer on our average
scores for the featured games. I had an average of 8.4.

(20:57):
You had an average of 8.75, which was my average for my
secret games. Yeah.
I gave out a lot of gave out a lot of 10s.
Which is good. We love that, we love to see it.
We love A10. We love A10.
If I look at my scores, I've already mentioned it, this
season I would boost inscriptionby .5.
You'd go up to A10. I'd go up to A10 Wow it's a

(21:18):
great game and Casey's mod really like just made that
difference for. Me, I'm in love with Casey's
mod. I might boost animal well by .5
after having done the egg hunt. Yeah, you liked that.
You liked the bonus stuff. You liked layer 2, as it were.
I like items and stuff, just I like collecting stuff.
That's my that's my jam. Hell yes.

(21:41):
But otherwise I don't think I would change anything.
I've, I feel like I have to explain myself with the Untitled
Goose Game 10, like because normally when I replay games
that don't have good replay value that I take that into
consideration. But when we were doing the
episode, I was just like, I can't, I don't have any like

(22:06):
fault in the game. You know, I couldn't, other than
the replay value itself, like I had no faults for it.
So that's I was just like, you know, it's for me, it's a 10.
If I had to nitpick on some of these scores, I can maybe bump
up one shot a little bit. I was.
I was pretty harsh on that game.I still overall maybe disliked

(22:26):
it a little bit more than I liked it, which is why I'm at a
5 for it. But I did go back and do the
Solstice playthrough, which totally went over my head when I
first played the game. I should have been a little bit
more curious, but I was ready tojust put the game down and I got
credits, so I thought that was it.
If I look at others, I might go down to a 7.5 with you on her

(22:47):
story. You know, that's a game where I
don't know that I could ever replay it.
I know what happens. The magic of that game has
happened and now I know the trick, right?
I know the the acts. I've seen it so I don't need to
see it again. Yeah, I think that one in
particular, even though it wasn't a wide discrepancy, it
made a little bit more sense to me.

(23:07):
And just because you are, you'rea bit more of a cinephile than I
am. And so I I think that's going to
go a little bit further for people who love film and acting
and that kind of stuff. And I do think there's going to
be something extra for you on a replay, you'll notice how they
leave bread crumbs. And I think there are bread
crumbs for different styles of learning and perception.

(23:28):
Like every person's brain is going to perceive different
things. And so retroactively knowing
certain events that happened later, it's going to make some
of those early pieces of information stand out in a new
way. So I think that is special.
I just don't. Now that I know the story, I
just don't know that I need to do that.
You'd have to watch someone elseplay it, I think, yeah.

(23:49):
It would be super, it would be super fun to sit on a couch and
just watch someone play her story and just see how they
react or just watch a stream. You know, a lot of people were
coming into my chat while I was streaming it and they had played
the game and they were just watching me.
You know, they they they knew what happened in the story.
So really interesting experience.
Other than that, I think I wouldjust stay at all the other

(24:11):
scores. Yeah.
Anything else you would? No comment on I feel.
I feel pretty good about where all our stuff is.
OK, so up next it's the big one,Our top five games that we
played this season, our rankingsof our individual top five list
of games we played for the season.
They could be any combination ofsecret or featured games.
All 5 can be secret, featured ora mixture.

(24:33):
The ranking is really emotional,especially for me.
It's an emotional decision on how we feel this week when we're
recording. Importantly, we are mostly
disregarding our scores. If one of us feels a certain
game is their number one, but they originally scored it lower
than their number two pick, we will not worry about that.
So it's it's that's why we address all of those score

(24:54):
regrets up top. We will share one game at a time
going back and forth, starting at #5 and ending with number
one. For each top five game.
We'll share a bit about it and what it accomplishes and why it
beats out other games and whether we've revisited or not
or how it is occupied. Our thoughts since playing.
Do you want to start? I would love to start my #5 game

(25:17):
of Season 7 is a game that didn't even get a nine or higher
from me so I might be defying expectations here.
My #5 is fruit Bus. Fruit bus is a total joy.
It is a game where your grandma tasks you with driving her fruit

(25:39):
bus that she gives to you aroundan archipelago and you find
ingredients and you make food for people and it is a vast open
world. The driving feels really good.
You do drive in the first person, which is a little
disorienting sometimes, but I loved the process of discovery

(26:01):
in this game. I loved the process of meeting
people and helping people. You help all kinds of people
with all kinds of problems. And along the way you are buying
cosmetics, you're buying new gear to cook things with.
It is a game that I can just sitdown and play and play and play.
And this is a game where I just played for hours at a time.

(26:23):
I did go back to this game and Iplayed it during the Valentine's
Day events and that was so wholesome.
And this is just a a cozy, wholesome, warm hug of a game.
At the end, I was overcome with such intense emotions because of
what you see and what you do. And it's a game where I really
encourage everybody to do as much as you can before reaching

(26:44):
the end. It's it's just a game I can
recommend almost anybody. Cool.
OK, that means it's my turn. My #5 is Chris Tails.
Wow, OK, my prediction list is already wrong.
Well. I wasn't going to say anything,
but so is mine, sorry. So yeah, I didn't really expect

(27:08):
to love this game, especially since the reviews are kind of
mixed just overall. And it's it's a bit of a longer
one, but I never really grew tired of the art style and the
voice acting was all done prettywell for the most part.
And all the characters were mostly delightful.

(27:29):
And it just was not something I expected to to love.
And I just love looking at it. So it's it's really that simple
for me. I would say that's a surprise
for me. Like, you know, I, I always
looked at this game and I thought it just looked like a
big a jawbreaker that you would have to suck on if you wanted to
play it. And I don't know how you would
react to that over time. Yeah, and, and it is a little

(27:49):
bit like that. You're, you're not totally
wrong. It is kind of a bit of a
jawbreaker, but I just, I, I enjoyed it.
So what's your #4? Amazing.
My number 4 is another secret game that I had and it is called
Video verse. This is a more recent one.
This is a story based game that takes place on digital devices

(28:11):
and screens. So you're seeing this social
media video game landscape. It's the early days of the
Internet and you are following this character named Emmett, a
15 year old boy who is forming these online relationships.
You explore so many friendships,so many themes of what it is to
be online and to share empathy with people or to criticize

(28:36):
people. You can kind of choose how you
respond to people in this game. But this is a game that made me
feel so good again, like Fruit Bust, because I was allowed to
react to people's hardships in away that showed empathy.
It is a story that I couldn't really predict as far as where
it would go. It has many characters that
disappear and show back up and who might defy your

(28:58):
expectations. I think it's full of surprises
in all of the story arcs and in all of the character
developments. I really recommend it to anybody
who likes visual novels or just stories in games in general.
It's an excellent coming of age tale and that's why it's my #4.
Perfect, my number 4 is #blood. Let's go.

(29:22):
For a lot of the same reasons asChris Tails.
I love the audio design on the voices.
I think that the animation is just top tier.
I just think it's enjoyable for the most part.
Yeah, I just, I loved looking atHashtag Blood and playing it
and, you know, looking at all ofthe great little monster

(29:44):
animations. It was just cool.
One of those games that's super fun to watch.
I just had a blast watching you and other people stream this.
So glad it made your list. My #3 of Season 7 is another
crab's treasure, another one that I could just play for hours
on end anytime I sat down to play it.
It's got everything. It's got amazing art.

(30:05):
It's got a really timely story, I think, for our world, and even
for our world for the past 10 or20 years.
It's got a beautifully simple idea at its core for its story,
but it's also goofy. It's got tons of puns that make
me laugh. It's got a great soundtrack.
It's got an open world that is full of secrets that I love
finding. It's got upgrades upon upgrades

(30:28):
upon upgrades. It has some of the coolest boss
fights we've fought for any gamein this show.
I could just keep gushing about it.
I I think it is just an example of a game that has quantity and
quality all the way through thatquantity.
That's why it's in my list. That's a great way to put it.
My number 3 is papers. Please.

(30:52):
This was a game that I might have been the one that picked it
in the last season finale. I don't remember for sure, but
it's something that felt more like an obligation than
anything. And I wasn't totally sure how I
was going to feel about it, especially because I don't
totally love playing games on mycomputer and that there was like

(31:13):
non optional there. So I just, I didn't really know
how it was going to go, but I found myself getting in the flow
and I loved having, you know, I,I had the option to defy the
rules or I could follow the rules.
I got to reveal who I was with the way I played papers, please.

(31:34):
And I sort of, I think I talked about that in that episode.
And I also talked, no, I'm thinking of grand soul story
where it's like there's choices that maybe don't make a
difference and you reveal to yourself who you are when you're
making those choices. Kind of the same thing in Papers
Please. At a certain point you have to
like also still beat the game for the podcast.

(31:57):
So you you ignore some of who you are at times but.
But you can easily go back and select new choices through the
timeline feature, which is such a good idea for this game.
It is a game that surprises you with choice after choice.
You don't know, you're not prepared for the choices you
will be asked to make, and some choices will make you reconsider

(32:21):
previous choices or future choices.
You know, I, I mean, you start using what you've done as a
rubric for future choices in some cases, but then other times
there's something so emotionallycompelling that you just throw
all rules out the window and youhave to go with your gut.
It is a powerful game. And that and that sound that I

(32:43):
love it. Love it.
We love the sound. Great sound effects in that
game. Holy crap, it's so good.
My number 2 of Season 7 is Grun.Grun is a game where anybody can
sit down and play it, and they will play it different than me,
and they will play it different than you.
Everybody has a different journey of discovery in Grun,

(33:07):
and I think that's what makes itso fascinating to talk about.
This is a game where you're walking around this mysterious,
otherworldly garden that expandsinto so many side areas and
you're finding things. You're finding what objects are
keys for other items that are locks.
Sometimes it's very straightforward.
Other times you have to stretch your mind a bit to imagine what

(33:30):
the logic is. But it's a really great balance
of that. And this is another game with
discovery upon discovery. And it's the the kind of game
that I loved just talking to people about to understand their
journeys. It is a horror game.
In some ways it does jump scare you, but it's one of those games
where I do recommend it to even some of the people who say

(33:53):
they're not horror fans because it's not outright horrific
constantly. I think it's strikes another
great balance there. I still think about the routes
that I took to get all the different items, all the notes I
took, how I obsessed over the demo last year when it had a
slightly different build and notas many areas.

(34:14):
And then the game came out in full at the end of October, I
believe, and things were different from the demo.
And that was exciting to me. It's like I'm stepping into a
brand new experience. Some things are familiar, but I
get to just play around in this world of locks and keys.
Yeah, I I think it's a magical game.
I wish there were more games like it.

(34:34):
It's this is like the game in mylist where I can easily say God
I wish there were 100 grun likesout there.
Maybe there are, but I I'd want to play them.
Yeah, well, no shocker there andI will admit that I was feeling
kind of left out when I would see you talk with other people
about grun. My number 2, shocking no one I'm

(34:56):
sure, is another crabs treasure.Nice.
I gave out a few 10s this seasonand shocking no one.
Another crabs treasure showed upon this list.
Like you said, there's upgrades upon upgrades that you can do.
All these different cool builds I love.
Just like the imagination that goes into how all of these human

(35:19):
world objects translate to armoror buildings or other types of
concepts for traversal. It's just such a creative game.
And the personality of Agro Crab, it's just, yeah, it's
perfect. And I just, I love pretty much

(35:40):
everything that they do. I've been playing Going under
this week, and so I'm experiencing a little bit of
that too. And then like references going
under in another Crab's treasureand references to other stuff.
It's just so great. I listened to our episode a
couple weeks ago and I was like,oh Oh yeah, the Subway Midnight

(36:01):
Girl is in in one of the costumes.
It's because Agrocrab was the publisher, so I'm.
Just amazing. Following up on that.
Yeah, OK, that was confusing to us, but that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah, I, I remember that we had mentioned that when we
reviewed Subway Midnight, but that was a long time ago now.
Anyways, yeah, another Krab's treasure was great.
It was great fun. The combat, the controls, just

(36:23):
all of it so enjoyable. And I've gone in and I've played
some of the DLC now too. Not too much, but I love what
they added. And what they added was stuff
that we kind of requested beforewe even knew that it was coming,
so. They listened, they did amazing.
I love that that's your number two.

(36:43):
It's time for our number ones ofthe season.
I think these will not be surprises.
I I think I know what yours is. I know what yours is.
Yeah. Mine is easily animal Well.
Animal well is my favorite is mytop game of season 7.
Animal well is the kind of game where I could play it 20 times
and each time I will probably find something new.

(37:06):
It is different than Grun in that it is so much larger and it
feels like every single moment hold something special, even if
you don't realize it at 1st. Every single screen in this
Metroidvania has something noteworthy.
It has a clue, it has something to be unlocked, something

(37:27):
mysterious that you want to figure out.
And it is a game of intrigue, ofmystery, of insidiousness.
Even it's got a very disciplinedsound design because it's not
constantly blasting you with music cues, but when music does
hit, it really sends shivers down my spine because of how

(37:50):
suprising it can be or how much it can just accentuate what's
going on. I cannot believe this game was
made by one person. It is awe inspiring to me on a
metal level. Beyond the game, when I look up
things about Animal, well, I always learn more about the
creative process of making gamesand I am inspired by the

(38:14):
imagination of Billy Basso. I want to replay it maybe next
year, maybe every year. I'm obsessed with it.
I'm a I'm a super fan of Animal.Well, I'm not going to be one of
those people who speedruns it and finds the fourth layer of
the game. I've looked that stuff up online
already. I'm not willing to sacrifice my
soul for that. But I'm nonetheless just so in

(38:38):
awe of its IT is my favorite game of the season, and it's
also my favorite game of 2024, and it's probably my favorite
Metroidvania of all time next toHollow Knights.
OK, you know, I watched a clip recently, I want to say it was
the BAFTA awards where Balatro won like their the top prize,

(39:05):
the game of the year or whatever.
And then in their acceptance speech, the the guy that was
dressed as the clown from the commercial, right?
He went up and he like made a very strong point to say, and
you should all keep supporting independent games like animal
Well, and I to me that translated to I recognize that I

(39:27):
Balatro have this wide appeal because we're a card game and
we're addictive and and we understand that more people love
us. But animal well probably really
deserved this. And to me, that's what he was
saying in that moment. So.
Yeah, I really respect it for the new things it does it and a
lot of Metroidvanias we're shooting and we're slashing, you

(39:47):
know, we're we're fighting things.
This is a game where you play asa little BLOB.
You're. A guy just you're a little.
Guy and you are encountering enemies, but you're outsmarting
them. You're not fighting them, you're
outsmarting them. You're given this toolbox of
toys, and the question is, how do you use this odd assortment
of toys to outsmart this place? Yeah, you only outright destroy,

(40:10):
just like a small handful of. Exactly.
Yeah. And even though you are
outsmarting things, it's, it's this constant feeling of
vulnerability. You know, you feel like you're
never quite safe because you cannever like truly kill anything
you want. You have to use your wits and
your intuition. It celebrates your creativity

(40:31):
with how you use the tools. And you can use the tools in so
many fun ways that leads you on a path to discovery as well.
So I've talked enough about Animal.
Well, what's your #1? My number one's inscription.
Yes, it is. Yeah, I just, I really loved
that game. I had been looking forward to it

(40:52):
for a long time and usually thatends up biting me in the ass,
but I just, I ended up loving it.
I just, as soon as you get your first bifurcated strike, you're
like, Oh yeah, that's the sweet sauce baby, we're eating now.
And I just, I loved the personality of it, the card
game, the escape room, all the different animals and bugs that

(41:17):
you wouldn't expect to be in thesame card game.
And then it evolves from there. And then you get Casey's mod.
And Casey's mod is just like a streamed down, disciplined
version of the card. Game.
It's its own game. Yeah.
And it's just, it's a delight. I spent so many hours on it,
more than double like what I hadwhen we did the recording.

(41:38):
Wow, I kept playing. Holy crap.
I loved Inscription. It's just so fun.
I think that card game at the heart of it is just so enjoyable
and I'm going to play through ita bunch of times and I'm going
to keep playing Casey's mod if Ihave like 45 minutes, you know,
which is not enough time to do basically anything else so.

(42:00):
It's part of your DNA now. It is.
Yeah. From now and forever onward.
So Inscription was my favorite game that I played this season.
I love that. I love that for you.
It almost made my list. I thought about I wrestled with
putting it in my list, but I really wanted to spotlight a few
of the smaller Indies. I knew it wouldn't be in your
list. You knew I did and I rated it a

(42:20):
9.5. I loved it.
I just maybe my number six, you know, I just wanted to highlight
Fruit bus and video verse and some other ones.
So let's recap those lists one more time, but give us your top
five again. OK from 5 going to 1 my #5 is
Chris Tails and then hashtag blood and then papers please and
then another crabs treasure and my number one was inscription.

(42:42):
And my top five were starting with five fruit bus number 4
video verse #3 another crabs treasure #2 grand number one
animal. Well, we also do this fun thing
where we we predict each other. There's top fives and we never
get it completely right. But what were your predictions
and how did you fare? My predictions were valley peaks

(43:03):
for #5. Very good guests.
That was a very good. I also wrestled with putting
that in my that was in my list for most of the season, right?
Yeah. I put 4 for another crab's
treasure, three at video verse 2.
Grun and one animal well. You did super well.
You had four of my picks. They just two of them were
swapped. And then your number 5 was

(43:25):
wrong. That was really good.
Yeah, very close. My.
I feel like this is my first season in a while where I didn't
do as well. I guessed for you #5 Papers,
please. It was actually your #3 I guess
#4 would be Little Guardsmen. It wasn't in your list #3 I had
for Untitled Goose Game. It wasn't in your list.

(43:48):
And I kind of, I think I know why.
I think it's because you've given that game a ton of praise.
You've given it the spotlight. And now you're kind of it's.
It's gotten the award already. Yeah, that.
And it's just like because of that replay value thing, it was
like I didn't feel the magic of it this season that I felt the
first two times. Sure, if you had played it the

(44:08):
first time this season it. Probably would have been on my
list. That's fair.
And then for your number two, I predicted inscription for your
number one, I predicted another crabs treasure.
I just flip-flopped those I I had a version of this where
inscription was the number one and I don't know why.
I I selected another crabs treasure I.
Mean another crabs treasure was the one that had a 10 on the
list so. Yeah, I guess a good guess.

(44:30):
So I did OK. Actually, I had three.
Yeah. Very good predictions, very good
lists. Always love that section.
Next we're going to do another fun section where we talk about
our jealous games. This is where we're focusing on
our secret games. I look at Disco's list of secret
games, he looks at mine and we pick a secret game that we

(44:50):
reviewed this past season. The other person played and
reviewed, that we wish we had picked and played, or that we
want to play very soon if possible.
So Disco Cola, what is your jealous game for Season 7?
Yeah, that's a hard one because I actually want to play most of
your secret games. All of them, pretty much.
There's like 3 or 4 that I'd be like.

(45:13):
Your jealous game is everything.Pretty much.
I mean that's that's happened like one other time.
There was a season where you hadlike I want to play earthing and
then we had one season where it's like I don't really want to
play any of those. So I'll just pick one I guess.
But for the for most of the season it was mini shoot
adventures. You called that?

(45:33):
Yeah, when we talked about it. But my my official pick, it's
got to be what the car? Because it's kind of weird that
I haven't played it yet. It's part of your personality
now. It's part of like what your kids
do for their birthday. Party.
Every single, yeah, every single, not every single day,
but like for a week or two at a time, intermittently, we will

(45:54):
watch what the car playthroughs every single day in our house.
I just haven't actually physically played it.
I know, I know every level. I just haven't played it.
That's why. Yeah, you'll have a ton of fun
with it. If you ever want to come over
and play it, you can't I it might come to consoles.
At some point, you know, I'm, I'm not necessarily holding out
for that, but if it did, I wouldbe delighted and I would buy it

(46:16):
right away. Run like a car, dad.
Sorry, that's two references mixed up.
OK, my jealous game. This was hard.
You had some games. Was that really a little bit?
I mean, you had let's see, let let me.
I'm scrolling back to your list.You had little Guardsman hashtag
blood. You had one other in there I

(46:36):
guess. I kind of figured it was just
going to be those two to be. Honest, I guess so those are
like seemingly the front runners, but I'm going to
surprise you here. I actually looking at your lists
and thinking about all the gamesthat you played and talked
about. My jealous game is everything
what it is. Are you joking my ass?

(46:57):
I started to type in the wrong field there, sorry.
Yeah, so, and really what this comes down to is the philosophy
of the game, the style of the game.
The presentation of the game is so bizarre, and I'm drawn to
that, OK? I just feel drawn to it.
I want to give it a shot. This is this is like my Dujana

(47:20):
pic. Right.
And you may have mentioned at some point that I might click
with it a tad bit more than you I.
Or maybe I'm conflating. That with another saying that.
Actually, OK, never mind, we'll see if that's true.
But I do want to. I want to give it a shot because
God it looks weird and I want toplay something weird.

(47:40):
I love a weird game. With your twitch audience it
might be a good one to stream. That's what I was planning to
do, but I was going to ask for your thoughts first.
So you think? I would I think you would enjoy
it more if you streamed it. OK personally.
There you go. There is a certain point you get
to where it's like less bizarre and more like heavy.

(48:01):
OK, as heavy as that game can get.
Yeah. But again that that would be my
recommendation to you. All that said, I do want to play
Hashtag Blood and Lil Guardsman.I also want to play those games,
but I'm swerving here. I'm swerving here and picking
everything. You've swerved like a car
swerved like a pony swerved. Like a pony dad.

(48:21):
Amazing. Oh my gosh.
OK, well those are jealous gamesand I will write those down in
another list that I've been keeping.
I've been tracking whether or not we play each other's jealous
games. Yes, I've played most of.
Mine, I've started doing that recently.
I'm behind and I almost picked up Carto recently.

(48:41):
Oh my gosh, Carto is amazing. So I might I might still do that
before I start working on season8 stuff.
Cool. Anyways, the next one,
underrated games, games they don't get is another way we can
say that having an entry here isoptional, and the way this topic
is interpreted can be subjective.
Each of us may mention one game,secret or featured, that is

(49:03):
something along the lines of being misunderstood by others
whose opinions we've heard or read about, having critic
reviews, scores that we feel aretoo harsh, or being quite
literally underplayed and not enjoyed by enough people.
What is your entry here? I do have an entry this season
for underrated game and my underrated game is mainframes.

(49:26):
This this one just seems like one that's going way too under
the radar. Not enough people are playing
it, not enough people are talking about it.
I think it's going to be 1 of 2025's best 2D platformers.
It is so creative with how it uses a desktop and windows as
ideas for platforms. You play as a floppy disk on a

(49:48):
computer screen. Every single chapter plays with
new ideas, and even within a chapter an idea will be
introduced and then not overused.
Thankfully, you're always being pushed to learn something new.
Sometimes that leads to confusion because you're not
exactly sure what you're supposed to be doing.
But the quantity of ideas here is super impressive.
And I love the pixel art. I love the music.

(50:11):
God please make the music available online to stream.
It's it's just a great package. I I want more platformers like
it. If you're a fan of Celeste, I
think you'll really like mainframes.
Cool, my entry here and it it was, it was a little bit hard
for me to figure one out, but I picked Hashtag Blood.

(50:34):
I think this game's quality is more than worthy of eventually
being a featured game type of game.
I just think it literally hasn'tbeen played enough and this is
something I wanted to talk aboutall season.
I think part of it might be thatthe price is a little high.
So I kind of want to go on a tangent here about just like I

(50:57):
think we're in an era where the the standard prices have have
shifted by like a full, you know, margin now.
Like games that used to be 1499 are probably going to now be
like 17/19/99. I see a lot of 2499 and 2999
games, you know, and sometimes it is valid, but.
Yeah. And I think that, like I said,

(51:18):
this game is high quality, but Ithink if this game would have
come out maybe just three or four years ago, it would have
been a 1799 kind of game. And it's not that.
So I think that's just where we are now.
The price has jumped for everything and certain games are
becoming inaccessible for me. That's why it took me so long to
play Hashtag Blood. I wanted to play it for a while.

(51:40):
Another thing that people have said online about Hashtag Blood
is that the combat's kind of stiff.
And I don't totally disagree with that, but I also kind of
see it as like a game where you're allowed to be just a
little bit mindless and just tapsquare a bunch of times.
And I think that's a perfectly fine thing for a game to be

(52:01):
because really I'm there for thevisual identity of the game and
to just see some cool animationsand, and all that.
So I anyways, like I've said in that episode, if you get like
Markiplier to play this or if you get the Game Grumps to play
this, I think it'll take off quite a bit.
I I think Hashtag Blood is a really high quality game.

(52:21):
Yeah, it looks excellent. It looks like just every
artistic aspect of it is so carefully constructed and cared
for. Yeah, again, I just want to play
it someday. All right, It is time for our
overrated games. This is sort of the inverse of
the previous category. This is games we don't get, if
you will. This is also optional as far as

(52:44):
whether we have an entry here. I do have an entry here.
Do you? You know, I actually don't.
I think most of the games that we played this season are pretty
much rated just right, at least on on that end of the spectrum.
Then I will step on the. I think I know boxes.
I know what? I'm pretty sure I know what
yours. Is yeah.
Let me quickly explain though, so we can interpret this topic

(53:07):
however we want. It's incredibly subjective, but
we can mention a game secret or featured from the season that is
something along the lines of being over praised by others,
having critic review scores we feel are too generous, or maybe
we just feel that they're seemingly over enjoyed by a lot
of people. And I think my overrated game

(53:28):
matches all of those descriptions for me.
I for me it is One shot World Machine Edition.
I and I know I feel bad about it.
I'm not going to talk about thistoo long because I've already
talked about it enough, but it'strying to be very emotional with
its themes. And I think a lot of people come
away from this game feeling likeit's one of their favorite indie

(53:49):
games of all time and I just don't understand it.
I, I could not emotionally connect with this game.
For me it became about the puzzles and the adventure and
some of the characters really stood out to me for sure.
I loved reading the character BIOS, I liked some of the
conversations but when a lot of it boiled down to the
exploration and the the puzzle solving it became combining

(54:13):
items and then just looking for where to go next and the world.
Some of the dialogue just wasn'tthat great to me and didn't
speak to me. But I totally understand with
the themes of the story and how it takes time to get there.
I get how those could hit for people.

(54:33):
Maybe I just played this game atthe wrong time in my life so
that's why it's my overrated game.
I hope that's fair. I hope that.
Sounds. At least I knew it.
At the very least, I knew that that's what your pick was going
to be. I still recommend it to people,
it's just not a boopo game necessarily and I wish it was.
I want every game to be a disco cola game and a boopo game, so

(54:54):
that's just how it be sometimes.OK, Up next, the biggest
surprises. We can choose up to five.
The way this topic is interpreted can be incredibly
subjective, so picking from all the games we played, these are
qualities or moments from them that were unexpected, and they
can be positive, neutral or negative.

(55:18):
Do you want to? Start.
I can start and the way I like to do these list of fives is I
like to pick things chronologically in terms of when
we played the games. No pressure for you to do that,
but it just helps me stay organized.
So these are not ranks other than just being chronological
with playtime. My first surprise is the end

(55:39):
sequence of grun. This is something I actually
didn't talk a lot about when I reviewed it.
The end of Grun involves a series of steps that you take.
You need to figure out how to build the mousetrap so that you
can get into this place. I'll say, and encounter
something and then encounter another thing.

(56:02):
But before encountering that other thing, you're doing a lot
of other things and it's timed and it is this roller coaster
ride of surprise after surprise.Really what this is, is it's a
surprise because it's a bunch ofsurprises sequentially.
And that's really all I can say.I really want people who are

(56:25):
interested in Grand to just playit.
I don't want to say anymore. Yeah, I think I caught a lot of
what you're talking about when you did the pre-order bonus
episode. I think I have.
I have some idea of what you're.Referring to yes, we did have a
whole section on that. We had a spoiler section,
absolutely. We did go in depth on this.
My first pick here is Ibn AB being so difficult.

(56:48):
Yeah, I had no inclination that that was going to happen.
I'm sorry. I didn't tell you.
It just, it got so nuts I can there are like 4 sections just
seared into my brain and I'm never going to forget them
because they're like nightmares.But still a delightful game

(57:10):
overall. It's beautiful to look at at all
times, but good God. When the Switch trailer for your
game has a significant runtime where the players in the trailer
are confused and lost, that's how you know your game is
confusing. Yeah, and hard.
My second surprise of the seasoncomes from inscription an I want

(57:34):
to warn people that this is a spoiler about something
incredibly suprising that happens.
So if you haven't layed inscription and you'd want to go
in unsolied, skip ahead like 30 seconds and I'll give you time
to do this. OK, I'm going to say it now.
My second surprise is friends being turned into cards during

(57:56):
the golly fights in inscription.Holy crap.
I could pick so many moments from this game, but when my
friends list was evaluated and scanned and some of my friends
were then copied onto cards, it took me a second to realize it
because some of the people that I didn't know as well showed up
first. And then it's like some of my
besties from high school. I'm like what is happening?

(58:19):
Just chills, chills from that moment.
So I'll, I'll stop there becausethat's probably about 30
seconds. Yeah, I, I got a little nervous
at that point. I'm like, Oh no, my, my.
Name is going to show up. I'm going to be doxed.
And it didn't. It was fine.
My next surprise is the QuickTime event in Hashtag
Blood. There are a lot of cutscenes in

(58:39):
Hashtag blood. You know, it's a a cartoon game
essentially. So to have a QuickTime event in
in a cartoon essentially is likeodd and complicated to think
about. But they pulled it off and it
was a huge surprise when I was just like, ah, cool cutscene
time. I'll put down my controller and
it's like, Oh no, Nope, no, you won't.

(59:01):
You're. Playing a heck and video game
still my guy. That was pretty cool.
My third surprise of the season is something I did not even
mention in the review of Valley Peaks, but my third surprise is
the second-half of Valley Peaks.OK, the second-half of Valley

(59:22):
Peaks does something that you donot see coming.
You fundamentally go to a different place, but not really.
But it's just different. Things are different.
Go to hell. I can't say.
I cannot say it. Doesn't grind.
You no, you don't do chain together in this game.

(59:43):
You don't you're not trying to escape the devil.
But I'll, I will say that, but this game finds a way to
reinvent itself in the second-half, like the entire
second-half of this game, Disco Cola.
And I think it is phenomenal in a way that is just really
innovative and experimental and imaginative and fits along with

(01:00:07):
the story in a really neat way. It just changes what you do, but
you're still doing fundamentallythe thing of climbing.
And yeah, that I'll just stop there.
So what's your next one? My next one, I didn't talk about
this in the episode because it is kind of a spoiler, but also
not really. In Little Guardsmen, there's a

(01:00:29):
character that we meet and at some point they die in the game.
And in Little Guardsmen, I'm expecting some deaths like
that's that's not a surprise to me.
But this character just sort of like dies and they die off
screen and it's just like, I'm sorry, what that person died.

(01:00:50):
I really wanted to see more fromthem.
So that was kind of a surprise that it was just like such a
casual like. It sounds like an anticlimactic
reveal, just like, Oh yeah, thishappened.
Well, yeah, I guess anticlimactic, but also just
like kind of makes it heavier because this just thing can
happen to people that you expectto be safe.

(01:01:12):
No one is safe kind of story. No one is safe necessarily.
Interesting. Wow OK you're kind of making me
want to play that even more. My 4th surprise was how Wall
Waiting had so many poignant moments.
The poignant moments in while waiting will sometimes follow
very goofy or silly moments. This is a game where you're

(01:01:35):
playing the story of someone's life through the times that they
wait for things. And it's things like waiting for
the bus and you might get splashed by a puddle with
someone driving by and it's raining.
You might be waiting for class to end and the teacher's just,
you know, speaking nonsense. You don't even understand what
the teacher's saying. Or you're waiting for Santa to
arrive. You know, you're a kid, but this

(01:01:56):
game takes you from your birth to your death.
And in life, we have lots of bigmoments, lots of big moments
that can blind side us. This game understands that, and
it finds a way to balance the silly, goofy moments with the
serious moments too. And I never had a complaint

(01:02:17):
about that because of how thoughtfully it followed up with
something surprising happening, something sad, emotional,
devastating would happen, and then we would spend a moment
waiting in relation to that. And I thought that was really
powerful. So this is an example of a
surprise that that was emotionally impactful and also
just surprising several times throughout the game.

(01:02:40):
I do really want to play that game at some point.
It's so good. It's it's one of my favorite
games of 2025. That's another one that enough,
not enough people are talking about.
I feel right, yeah. My next one is a lot of the
revelations in her story. That feels like an easy pick.
I have at the bottom of my list,so I have a secret 6th one.
It's just an asterisk and it's just.

(01:03:02):
Her story. All of her story.
So that's why it's not going to be in my list.
No, I think that's totally valid.
But yeah, it's just like the whole game.
It's just like, I'm sorry what? I'm sorry what?
You did what? With what?
Exactly. So.
I'll never look at certain objects the same way I could,

(01:03:24):
yeah. So yeah, that's it's really that
simple ish. I mean it's a mystery story and
you get revelations and piece meal at different points in the
chronology. So it is no surprise that there
are surprises in that game. Absolutely.
It's the game of surprises from the season.
It feels like every season mightneed to have a game that's just
full of surprises. And I think like we had her

(01:03:46):
story and we had inscription, there might have been another
one that was just chock full of them.
My last surprise of the season was how approachable Co-op ended
up being an octodad. Dadliest catch.
I picked this game for a Co-op game.
I was enthusiastic about trying this awkward controls game, but
at the same time I was thinking crap I don't want to have to
struggle with this. Are we going to have to stream

(01:04:08):
this like two or three times? We beat it in one sitting.
And I think this is an example of a Co-op game where Co-op
makes it easier because you don't have to control as many
limbs. And once you play a few levels,
you get into the groove and you understand what your partner
does. I was understanding how you were

(01:04:28):
moving your leg and when I saw you moving your leg, I knew, oh,
it's time for us to walk now. And we weren't saying like, OK,
let's walk. We you were just walking and I'm
walking, let's go. And that's a really special
thing to achieve with a Co-op partner in a game is just your,
your minds become one. And I think that made the game
like really approachable, more approachable than other awkward

(01:04:51):
controls games like I Am Bread or Getting Over It with Benna
Fadi. Yeah, bonus one that's not on my
list for Octodad is I didn't expect it to be quite as short
as it was. I thought.
I thought we were gonna not onlystruggle, but I thought that the
game was gonna be like. The size of bug snacks.
Not quite that big, but like at least a third longer.

(01:05:11):
Yeah, but it was pretty short. Pretty manageable.
Yeah, we were done in like 2 1/2three hours.
Yeah, I wanna say. Yeah, I had time to play
something else. After I know I I went to bed
early. Very fun times.
I loved playing that with you. My last surprise is like
basically all of inscription. There's several moments.

(01:05:32):
There's even moments in Casey's mod like like a secret boss or
like things that happen in the card game rules.
So yeah, basically just like a majority of inscriptions moments
being very surprising because weboth managed to avoid like
pretty much anything about the game except for like what it

(01:05:53):
looks like. Right.
Yeah, And I only knew what some of the game looks like.
Yeah. You know, like, every act kind
of does different things. And yeah, I I'm so proud of us
for avoiding spoilers for years.Years.
Yeah. Incredible.
How did we do that? Well, I think we talked about
this in the episode. I think the fan base for the
game, which is massive, tons of people love inscription.

(01:06:16):
I think everybody has this shared understanding that the
game is special and so everybodyalways talks about how much they
love it without talking about why they love it, and I love
that that is just an agreed uponthing.
Yeah, between everybody late, thank you to Drake for really
pushing for it and and also not revealing anything about the.
Game. Thank you Drake.

(01:06:37):
Amazing. It's time for our favorite
moments from the season. This is where we choose up to
five. We select from all the games we
played and we list some gaming moments that were our favorites.
Disco Cola. Do you have five favorite
moments? I have 5.
You know, I actually struggled. I had to cut some out.
So yes, to answer your questions, you struggled.

(01:06:58):
With picking 5I. Gotcha.
I thought you meant struggling to pick up to five.
OK, so you have 5, I have 5. What's your first favorite
moment from the season? So you list these in chronology.
These ones for me are kind of for the most part in like
ranked. Not exactly, but my first one is
the conversation between Azio and Otis at the end of Owl Boy.

(01:07:22):
Owl Boy was like overall a game that was like all right, that
was pretty fine, that was prettyOK.
But this moment at the end of the game was just really
emotionally affecting for me in a game that I, I didn't
necessarily know would go that far in the emotional aspect.
So I really loved that conversation.

(01:07:44):
Amazing. My first favorite moment was
when I finally beat act 1 of Inscription.
I think this is one of the big hurdles in the game.
If you can beat act one, I thinkyou have a pretty smooth sail to
the end. Act 2 was really fast for me and
act 3 is a lot more forgiving than act one.

(01:08:04):
Yeah, and the thing that held meup in Act 1 is that you're
fighting this character named Leshi, who takes on all of these
personas, which makes for reallyinteresting, dynamic fights.
You don't really know what the mechanics of each persona is
going to be until you face them.And then you do this learning
moment and you really have to grind at it to build the run, if

(01:08:28):
you will. You are selecting a run on a
map. You're, you know, it's very much
like Slay the Spire, if you, if you will.
You're picking your path, you'restrategizing.
And I got to the end a few timesI was streaming this and I just
could not get it. And then I I just decided before
I stream this again, I'm going to have to beat act one just

(01:08:51):
sweatily on my own in my living room, just like with my
PlayStation portal, grinding it out.
And I played it for like 4 hoursuntil I finally beat Leshi with
a really cool build that I stillthink about.
So that's why it's my first favorite moment.
You know, apart from Casey Smott, I went back to play
through the game again recently and I was just like, I'm

(01:09:14):
hardened, baby. I'm just going to go through act
one on the first try. Yeah, Leshy basically doesn't
let you. Like if you do too well, he's
like too far too fast and he fills his side of the board with
flying Grizzlies. Oh my gosh.
So then how soon were you able to do it?
I don't remember. I don't remember if I've done it

(01:09:35):
yet because I I think I've played through it like two more
times after that and then I had to move on to something else for
underplayed. But I was like, oh dope, you
can't beat it too fast. Makes it hard to speed run, I
guess, because there are steps to unlocking things in the room.
They want you. They want to encourage that so
that I think that's less of a protection against someone who's
good at the game like you, and more of a protection against

(01:09:56):
someone who has really good luck.
Yeah, on their first playthrough.
Like, you're not going to be able to beat Act One because we
want you to walk around this place.
We want you to do the escape room, and you don't have access
to all of the escape room elements on your first.
Run through. Yeah, it takes several steps to
get. There.
So anyways, I just I'm glad you put that in your list because I
wanted to share about that. Sweet, I love that you did.

(01:10:19):
OK, my next one is delivering a picture to a serial killer in
papers please. Oh my.
God there are like multiple different moments you can have
with that serial killer and I save scums to experience all of
them. And my favorite one was easily

(01:10:39):
handing this picture to that serial killer and what follows.
Yeah, it's it's a highly emotional moment.
It's surprising for them. That's a surprise of theirs.
That was very, I think I did thesame thing that you did.
And yeah, it's something unimaginable, isn't it?
Yeah, there's there's several moments that I saved scums and

(01:11:00):
that were pretty cool, but that one is easily my favorite.
My second favorite moment is playing as 15 AKA the Dragon in
Cortana 0. Do you remember this part?
Yes. It's like you get to be zero in
a Mega Man game for a minute. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you get to basically step into the shoes of a super

(01:11:22):
overpowered character. This is a different character
than 0, who you've been playing this whole time and 0's been
having this chaotic trip of a time.
You don't know what's real and what's not at a certain point in
Cortana 0. But when we take about I, I feel
like it is like 15 minutes to play as 15.
Funnily enough, it is such kinetic, overpowered time of

(01:11:48):
just destroying dudes and you just feel so good doing that.
And we talked about this with Noah alone when we reviewed it.
That moment is super memorable, but it doesn't go on so long
that it loses its luster. I think because it's only like
10 or 15 minutes, it becomes more special in my mind.
Like I got to do that for just abrief moment and I'm going to

(01:12:10):
hold on to that because I didn'tget tired of it.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.One of my follow up favorite
moments was that boss that I mentioned in that recording that
also has the reverse time thing.And just like defeating that
boss finally, that was that was a pretty cool moment.
I didn't ultimately have to cut it because my next one is is

(01:12:34):
just like kind of like with the inscription in the last section,
just like several interactions in Another Crab's Treasure.
I like talking sense into Topodaafter defeating him.
I like defeating the final boss and then what happens to the
final boss right before the end of the game.
And I like the fight and victoryover IKEA.

(01:12:56):
There's just so many moments in Another Crab's Treasure that are
just like, awesome, that are hilarious, that are cool.
Yeah, just another crab's treasure, essentially.
Yeah, too many to pick just one.My third favorite moments from
the season is the ending of Fruit Bus.

(01:13:16):
The ending of Fruit Bus is so emotional.
I wept at the end of this game. Our friend Cecily, who also has
played Fruit Bus, said this and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
I she said something along the lines of it is unfair how much
you know will happen at the end of Fruit Bus, how much you can
anticipate will happen, and yet how much you also how much it

(01:13:39):
gets you. And the more you do in this
game, the more the end of the game is filled with a certain
layer of remembrance for your grandma.
You know that this game is leading to this memorial service
and you get there and it's like,oh, it's not going to get me.
And then it gets you. It just the way they do it is so

(01:14:00):
good. It makes all of the journey
worth it. Even if you get a little tired
of doing all the side quests, there's so many optional things
you can do in this game and you can maybe get a little worn out
from doing them all. But I urge you to do all the
optional things, listener, if you play.
Pays off. Fruit Bus it does cool.
My next one is it's more becauseit stands out visually.

(01:14:22):
In my mind it's the ostrich chase in animal.
Well nice. I don't really have too much
more to add to it because that part of the map I actually kind
of hate most of it. Yeah, this is the southeast
part. Yeah, there's a lot of like one
way directional kind of stuff. Yeah, you have to do a lot of
switches and you kind of forget where the switches are

(01:14:42):
sometimes. But the ostrich chase is super
cool. It's as far as quote UN quote
boss fights go. It's my favorite one.
Wow, Yeah, it's it's really memorable.
I love the head going into the hole and chasing you.
And then also just the whole ostrich chasing you.
And then what you do. That's another instance of the
sound design really kicking in and just making you giving.

(01:15:04):
It's giving me goosebumps right now.
Look at that. How does that happen to you all
the time? It's wow.
It's just, it's something I have.
It's a quality I have. I don't know what the scientific
name for it is, but just thinking back, it gives me
goosebumps. My 4th favorite moments is
another end of a game. This is the end sequence and

(01:15:24):
final moment of Untitled Goose Game.
Oh yeah. I remember vividly when I first
played this game, not not just for the season, but a couple
years ago when I played this, I think it was during lockdown for
the pandemic. I played Untitled Goose Game and
I think I was messaging you about it because I know I knew
you had played it. And you carry a certain objects

(01:15:48):
through the town. You revisit the whole town.
It's a different now and you bring this object to a place.
And I love what our guests Oscarsaid about this moment.
It wordlessly projects in your mind forward and back what this
goose has done. You understand what you've just
done now and you understand whatthe goose will probably do
dozens of more times. And the way that that moment is

(01:16:11):
communicated so efficiently is another awe inspiring moment to
me. I just, my jaw drops.
I go, Oh my gosh, I whoa, like Ithought I understood everything
about this goose and then I understood more.
And retroactively it makes all of the no goose signs make
sense. God, it's so good.
And then the way the credits scroll, it's just so confident

(01:16:33):
and so simple. What's your next favorite
moment? My last one is our final moment
with PO3IN inscription. You just see, we'll say a pair
of an object coming from the background and it's just, it's

(01:16:54):
so cool and just such a great way to end the game.
I'm going to talk about PO3 again later in this episode so
I'll get more into it, but it feels like a great final moment
to have with this character. It does agree wholeheartedly
there. My last favorite moment is when

(01:17:14):
I beat Patroc the False Moon on the first try in another crab's
treasure. That was impressive.
I mean, you were just like, yeah, beat the first try.
And I'm like, that's actually one of the only bosses in the
last half of the game that I kind of like, struggled with.
And I think why I was able to beat it is because I was

(01:17:34):
streaming at this time and I wastrying to get to a good stopping
point and I was at the like 5 and a half, six hours streaming
mark. I'm getting tired.
Yeah, I was. That was a long stream.
I was there for most of that. Yeah, and I'm in the Unfathom,
which is a a mysterious, dark, scary place.
You don't really know when you're going to get a checkpoint
again. You could save and just quit the

(01:17:54):
game whenever, but I want to really just plant a flag in the
ground after defeating a boss orsomething.
Plus I don't really like traveling the unfathom so to
like go to the previous checkpoint would be really.
We're not going to do that. So ultimately in the long run,
this is going to help us, right?So I get toward the moon snail
shell that it is hiding in. The moon snail shell is the

(01:18:17):
thing that you can kind of say that it's where you can teleport
from. It's a save point, right?
But I had this feeling and I it had been a while since I had
fought a boss and I was like, this is a trick.
Isn't it? You said that to something.
How do you? Know there's something about
this I don't like and then it was something I don't like.

(01:18:38):
It was a guy who wanted to kill me.
And I think by that point I had levelled up a ton, right?
I had levelled up my resistance,I had levelled up my my health,
mostly defense. Oh, I guess I also had a lot of
offense at that point. So I was just I was primed and
ready and I took my time. I really like woke up at that
moment. I had the adrenaline pumping.

(01:19:00):
So it was just really satisfyingto beat a late game boss on the
first try. Yeah, I've noticed when you were
doing that fight specifically that you're just much more
patient in the fight itself. Whereas I'm just like, I want to
win, I want to be done. That's something I've picked up
from playing Bloodborne I feel, and also Demon Souls.

(01:19:21):
If I had not played those games,I might be a little bit more
impatient in that moment. But that's that's another way
the game is paying homage to Souls like games.
It's kind of designing its bosses in that way where it
rewards you if you're patient. All right, well, those are our
favorite moments from Season 7. We're going to move on now to

(01:19:41):
another pick five. Its favorite characters.
So we'll just pick some characters from the games that
we played. We can pick up to five.
So why don't you start on this? One I would love to, and this is
one that I know is not going to be in your list.
It's not in a lot of people's list, but he's in mine.
It's Luke Carter. From inscription, Luke Carter is

(01:20:07):
the the human in this game that you see live action footage from
and that's such a surprise in itself.
But I think he adds that smarminess that that goofiness
of a YouTube just kind of tryingto do his thing.
And then he stumbles across thishuge secrets that changes his

(01:20:28):
life, right. And I thought this guy, just
whoever the actor is, just played the part perfectly.
I know that he is a little bit insufferable, but I leaned into
it. I'm like, let's go, Luke Carter
is Luke Carter. This is I've, I've seen so many
Youtubers do it like this. And I can tell that the actor
probably looked at Youtubers forinspiration and put that into

(01:20:51):
the performance. And that's just such a joy to
recognize past Youtubers that I've seen.
For the record, I don't find himinsufferable.
I think he's fine. It just wasn't my favorite part
of the game in general. Sure, yeah.
But also when you're offered thevideo clips, a lot of them are
kind of boring. A lot of them are
straightforward things you've seen before, but then they take

(01:21:14):
a a turn into WTF Town. And Luke Carter's performance is
part of that, too. Yeah, again, I'm kind of going
in order ranked order a little bit.
So I'm starting with like my my least favorite of these, Calamus
and a Lula from one shot. These are the siblings.
And it's not just because, you know, I have my own children

(01:21:38):
that, you know, could potentially remind me of of
them. I really found their story
affecting and especially in the second playthrough, once I got
to the third part of the game, third, I think the the city
basically. Oh sure.
All I could think about was like, I hope they're OK.
I just want them to be OK. And I just, I wasn't thinking

(01:22:00):
about anything else. I just wanted to get back to
them and I wanted them to be OK.Wow, that's powerful.
So Calamus and Illula, the siblings from one shot.
My second favorite character from season 7 is the little girl
in Cortana Zero. I don't, I don't think she has a
name, but this is someone who grounds our character in a way.

(01:22:22):
We have this setting we always return to between chapters in
the apartment complex, and it's not a very kind place.
Nowhere in Cortana, the entire game is pretty.
The entire game is sad, is sad and dirty and messy and unkind,
and but this little girl in Cortana Zero, I think is setting
up some things in the DLC that'scoming up that we just got the

(01:22:43):
reconfirmation of, and she just adds humanity into this game.
I think this is a great foil to a lot of the other characters in
the game. What a contrast between this
girl and basically everybody else.
Including ourselves. Including ourselves and.
She like makes fun of our bathrobe and we're like this

(01:23:05):
that ass multi million. Murderer or whatever.
Yeah. And a certain point we wonder if
we're going to assume this adoptive father role.
I was thinking about that constantly, and it made me
reconsider how I spoke to other characters, especially in the
apartment building, because I had her in mind.
What if what I say effects her? And so I think she's really

(01:23:25):
important in guiding my decisions in the game.
I think at one point I did thinkabout putting her on my list as
well. So spoiler, she's not on my
list. My next one.
Totally different direction. Georgie from Papers, please.
What? What a guy.
What a card. In the episode, I called him our

(01:23:47):
daily public radio caller. It's so accurate.
He's he's just a riot and he's just, he's never, never down.
He's always just ready to take whatever life gives him, and
it's usually his own fault. He has all these counterfeit
crayon ass passports and stuff, and you're just like, Georgie,
this is fake where I'm kicking you out.

(01:24:10):
He's like, all right, well, I love the job you're doing.
You're doing a great job. See you next time.
Yeah, I'll go talk to the policeagain.
I'm sure they'll love to talk tome.
I will skip ahead and just say that Georgie was going to be my
fifth one that I mentioned, so that's already in my list.
I only need to share two more from here.
Yeah, what you said there was perfect.
My next favorite character is Grandma from Fruit Bus.

(01:24:33):
Grandma in Fruit Bus is one of the only characters, might be
the only character that has voice over and she's just so, so
wholesome. Again, she is giving you this
guidance in your life from a young age, and then when she
passes away, you feel this intense responsibility to carry
on her legacy with this fruit bus.

(01:24:54):
And I know it sounds goofy that there's this legacy with a bus
that sells smoothies. Like how how big of a deal could
that be? But food and that service of
going around everybody in this archipelago, that is some of the
lifeblood of this place. It's, it's a great connector
between people in this place. And you feel like you're

(01:25:14):
honoring grandma's memory and that.
And she's also giving you these voice over lines, these memories
where you get to hear from her. You're remembering from when you
were hanging out with her when you were young.
And she's telling you stories, She's telling you about how she
hid things places, and you're going to those places and
digging them up. And so you're digging up these
mementos from Grandma too. So it's just really sweet.

(01:25:36):
What a sweet character and dynamic.
This is This is Fruit Bus sweeping this season like Ghost
Song did. Last season, it's the fruit bus
sweep. My next one is Becky from
Hashtag Blood. But really her whole like core
group of friends are pretty delightful, like Corey and her
kind of goth friend and her friend from the hockey team.

(01:25:59):
They're all pretty great. But I I do really like Becky.
She's snarky and fun and cute and is just that kind of person
that if she can't get along witheveryone, she can at least talk
on their level, you know, So she's always approachable to
everyone. You know, whether or not that
person that she's talking to is a total ass hat, and there are a

(01:26:22):
couple of total ass hats in thisgame.
She's just, she's just someone that defies clicks, you know,
like we. Mentioned earlier, so I love
that. So Becky from Hashtag Blood, but
also all her friends. Cool.
Do you want to mention another one?
Since I only have one more. OK.
My next one, I mean you could really take your pick, but I

(01:26:43):
love a lot of the characters in crap game.
I like Krill for the most part. I like, I love Nema, I like
Kitan, I love Conch to Poda, youknow.
Oh yeah, even Firth. Like as a villain essentially as
someone to hate. I love him as someone to hate.
That's how well he's performed and written.
You just immediately hate him. Yeah.
So, I mean, so yeah, you could really just take your pick.

(01:27:07):
Just people from another Krab's treasure.
It's the whole cast, it's an ensemble, and they're really
good. My last pick for favorite
characters, you know, other thanGeorgie's, since you mentioned
that one already. I'm picking the bears in what
the Car and this is a group of characters.
They basically are set dressing and goofiness injected into the

(01:27:29):
game. The game is already goofy, but
these bears are introducing you to the next chapters.
They dress in funny costumes, you'll find them lined up at the
finish line and you'll run into them at full speed and they'll
just go bouncing places. You'll run up to one on a
springy playground toy and it'llstart like moving really fast

(01:27:50):
and then it will just fling off the screen.
These bears just do whatever they want.
I could have also mentioned the giraffes and other things from
the game, but I think the bears just add so much personality to
what the car. In our in our most recent stint
of watching what the car every single day, my youngest, who we
happen to refer to as Bear online, totally separate from

(01:28:11):
them. Yeah, they'll just go.
They'll they'll try to do the bear sound.
I love that. So it's you picked right for the
name. My last one is PO3IN
inscription. We start the game with him and
he's kind of like our first touch point of like sympathy.

(01:28:35):
We're working to to help and youknow, when we have to sacrifice
his card, it's like, I hate to do it, man.
I'm sorry about this. And then something changes and
it's just like PO3 you, you son of a bot, you little stoat,
little mother brainer. Like I didn't see it coming.

(01:28:56):
Yeah, but it was just like it went.
It made the the story of inscription a little bit more
effective, I think because we westart from one place and we end
in another. And then when we get that ending
that I was referring to, it's just like, that's the resolution
I wanted. That's that feels like it was
worth it. Definitely, yeah.
Great pick with PO3. Next we will talk about our

(01:29:19):
favorite storytelling. This is where we will select
from all the games we played. We each pick a game with the
writing or narrative style that sticks with us the most.
Disco Cola. What's your favorite
storytelling from Season 7? Well, I feel like I know yours
already, but I have a bit of an odd pick.
I'm actually going to go with papers, please.
Oh, yeah. Because I think the story is

(01:29:40):
like, it's not necessarily told directly, like we're not the
one, our character is not delivering the exposition.
The story isn't necessarily a full result of our actions if
the story is happening to us andour actions change based on what
the story is. And so it's, I think it's just a
cool way to get the story from like the newspaper everyday and

(01:30:04):
then like certain people that wesee in our checkpoint and how
that changes what the newspaper is going to say the next day.
Yeah, there's so many layers. There's the layers of what
you're doing. There's the layers of what
you're reading about and hearingabout about your country.
There's what the people in line do.
There's what your superiors do. Everybody has motivations and
they clash all the time. There are sects and groups in

(01:30:27):
the line that want you to do certain things.
And then there are the things like the serial killer.
How do you handle that? And sometimes all of it is
swirling in your mind at once and it really gives you just the
bigger picture of a brutal place.
Yeah, and it, it's, I think thathelps it to feel more immersive,
which I've mentioned a few timesthis season.

(01:30:47):
I don't often get immersed in games, but it's like I, I feel
like I'm living in this regime and I need to decide what's more
important right now. The rules, my family, myself, my
job, you know, I have to measurewhat's what I need to prioritize
at this specific day. Yeah, and you start doing that

(01:31:08):
game of playing four moves ahead, it's like, well, I could
do this thing for this person, but if I instead do something
that benefits me and helps me tosurvive, then I could help
potentially more people. Is that worth it?
Do I know that that's going to happen that way?
Yeah, it's deep. Immersion is the theme here
because I'm going with video verse, which I was super

(01:31:31):
immersed in for storytelling. This game has so many layers of
storytelling. One of them is just Emmett and
their relationships with people.There's this person that you're
forming a relationship with and learning more about.
They're very mysterious and you unpack all these layers about
them. But then there are all the side

(01:31:52):
friends. There are the tertiary
characters that you interact with in the forums and I
described in my review with these people as everyone having
a brand in how they speak. And I think this is something
you see in social media. Everybody has a short form way
that they speak online and if you read enough posts by Disco

(01:32:13):
Cola or you read enough posts byBopo, you will notice patterns
in our posts and that will clue you into who is speaking.
And I think this game is very mindful of that and it manages
to craft a cast of characters that is wildly diverse in, you
know, 140 characters or less at a time.

(01:32:33):
Sometimes a little bit more, butit's usually just a sentence or
two that you're getting from people.
And that tells you a lot. It tells you a lot more than you
might expect. It's also a coming of age story
like I've mentioned and I related to some of the
experiences of the people in this place.
And we're also talking about, you know, here in the real
world. We're talking about new game

(01:32:55):
consoles every few years. We're talking about the switch
to coming out soon. A big sort of hinge in this
story is the sun setting of thisprevious platform to make way
for the new platform and who's going to stay on board?
Who's going to jump ship to the next thing.
And that actually affects the future of relationships in some

(01:33:20):
cases, because some people mightnot be able to afford to jump
ship, some people might not wantto move on, but some people will
move on and they'll leave peoplebehind.
And what happens to those relationships?
There's a lot of unknown that's there.
So it seems like it's just a game about video games and a
game about social media, but it's also about our online

(01:33:40):
relationships. And I think that's really
powerful. Cool.
I love it. Next, we're going to move to
favorite Visuals, selecting fromall the games we played.
We each pick a game with the graphics and visual style we
love the most. And this one is hard for me and
most of the time. So it's so hard.
You go ahead and go first. That might actually change what

(01:34:01):
I came prepared with. Well, I'm going with a game that
I think works because of its visual style.
Like, I think without the visuals here, I don't think this
game succeeds as much. I'm going with Miniatures.
Miniatures is a game I haven't really talked about as much
today, but this is a collection of four short stories that are

(01:34:22):
very handcrafted. There they have this really
beautiful illustrated look. Every single one looks like you
were pulling a children's storybook off the shelf and
cracking it open, in some cases tearing out the pages and like,
spreading them across the floor and scrolling along them.
But these are mature stories. They're not necessarily violence

(01:34:42):
or scary, but I think they touchon themes that are a little bit
darker than you might expect from the premise.
And I think the visuals tie intothat where there's a lot of
shadows, there's a lot of dark colors, there's a lot of
contrast in the colors. And each story also visually
stands out from the other 3. So you can look at one of the

(01:35:05):
stories and know, oh, that's Palladium or that's the
Sandcastle. You'll, you know which one
you're looking at because they are just so distinct and and so
varied in what they're doing. I just think it's beautiful.
There are images and miniatures that are seared into my mind,
like the child holding up the snail or the child looking into
their reflection in in the water, or a sequence of four

(01:35:29):
pairs of feet of a family that tell you a lot about who they
are based on what they're wearing or how they carry
themselves. And so there's a storytelling
aspect that's happening with thevisuals too.
And we're barely talked to in the game.
We read text, there's a little bit of video, but the game
really leans on visuals, and it does so very successfully in all

(01:35:50):
four stories. It's hard to pick a favorite.
Cool. What's your favorite visuals?
Did I give you enough time to figure it out?
No, I really, I really expected a certain pick and it didn't
happen so. I was like, shoot, oh, what were
you expecting? I'm curious.
I was expecting animal well. I thought about it, dude.
I totally thought about it, Yeah.
I have so many options because we've got like I played like 3

(01:36:13):
games with really attractive hand drawn art in Hashtag Blood,
Little Guardsman and Chris Tails.
We've got games with amazing pixel art and animal well and
Cortana 0 and even Fez actually has some really great pixel art.
So, you know, I came with one thing and that's like the games

(01:36:35):
brand. I'm going to swerve here and I'm
going to go with the pixel art game.
I'm going to pick animal Well. Nice.
Because I did really want to play animal well for a super
long time. And a lot of that is the visual
identity of the game. And I think the pixel art is
like cool and creepy and wet andelectric and it just it, it

(01:36:55):
always looked really cool. And so many of the creatures are
like just regular ass creatures,but some of them are totally
not. And that's kind of what makes it
cool, and that's it's really effective when it's done in
Pixel. Art There's an off kilter nature
to some of the characters and animals.
I think there's a procedural waythat some of them were animated

(01:37:16):
so that you might start with a dog, for instance.
But the way that dog moves mightbe a little uncanny.
And so you look at it, you know you're looking at a dog, you
know you're looking at a dog that wants to chew you up or
chase a Frisbee, but I've never looked at a dog that looks quite
like that. It's weird.
There's something off and that happens all over the game and

(01:37:37):
that's due to the arts in in a large part.
Yeah, and just having the chunkypixels just makes it kind of
like, you know, I do wish a gamecould have looked like this, you
know, back in the day, because like, if it was maybe a 3D
model, it wouldn't look as scary.
If it was a claymation kind of model, maybe that would be
pretty creepy. But I just I love the the pixel

(01:37:58):
art in this game. Sweet, thank you for picking
that. That's amazing.
We're going to go on to our favorite soundscape.
This is our last category of this section of the episode.
We're selecting from all the games we played, and we're each
picking a game with our favoritesound.
This can lean on music, it can lean on sound design, voice over
performance, or maybe a mixture of all those things.

(01:38:20):
Disco Cola. What's your favorite soundscape
of Season 7? Can I pick haven?
If not, I just wanna shout it out here.
I know that I. Can't shout it out, but I'm not
gonna let you pick Haven I. Can't pick Haven I know, but
that music is so good. I have been listening to the
music from Haven for weeks. And just for clarification, we

(01:38:43):
did mention the April Fools episode.
This is the game that we played for the No Small Games feed a
little bit. Earlier, so we did play Haven
this season, but it was not for underplayed and I I think it
kind of like disqualifies for underplayed now.
It does. We both played it.
I think we agreed to that. Yeah, which is, you know, sorry
Haven, but we we did give you a very lengthy and lovely review.

(01:39:05):
We did like, more so than many other games, yeah.
So I guess I'm going to pick IB and OB.
Another crabs treasure probably has my favorite music from the
season by like quite a lot. But as far as like a full
package sound effects and and all of that, it's probably IB
and OB. I do also want to shout out that

(01:39:27):
inscription has some of the bestsound effects and I've had in a
game. So big shout out there.
But as far as a full package, sound effects and music Given up
is my pick. Very Good choice, very good
choice. I kind of a surprising choice,
but love that pick. So I had lots of soundscapes I
loved from the season. You know, we've got Fez

(01:39:49):
incredible soundtrack. Disaster piece.
Disaster piece is so good. Cortana's zero right?
Inscription papers, please Untitled goose game the the way
the piano interacts with what you're doing.
That's incredible sound design and something you'd never see
another Krab's treasure animal. Well, with its restraints, a lot
of my secret games, but this category is all of those games

(01:40:11):
to lose because I played Valley Peaks this season.
I just happened to play Valley Peaks and it it's basically my
favorite indie game soundtrack now.
It's very good. You've listened to it.
Yeah, I've listened to some of it.
It is exuberant music. It's music that is just
constantly giving me life. It's giving me a spirit.

(01:40:33):
It's propelling me to want to keep climbing.
It's a scary thing to be so highon a mountain and to think I
could fall and lose all my progress in a matter of seconds.
But then I listen to the music that's going on and it's
encouraging, it's delightful, it's bright, it's a nice listen.

(01:40:54):
I, I just always listen to this music.
I listen to it when I'm streaming, I listen to it when
I'm driving. And the music alone, I think
makes me want to replay Valley Peaks a little bit.
Maybe not the whole game, but just to climb a few mountains,
just to remember that pairing ofgameplay and soundscape I've.
Got games like that? Baby, yeah, You just want to
jump in for a few minutes and dothat.

(01:41:14):
Cool. Well those were our favorite
soundscapes. That's Part 1.
All done, baby. Part 1 All done.
Thank you very much Disco Cola for doing this with me.
Thank you, Bobo. I forget what we usually do to
transition, but. I literally listened to episode
66 last night and I just like gone.
Gone. So we're going to move on to

(01:41:36):
Part 2 of this episode, which iswhere we plan our featured games
of Season 8. What's going to happen?

(01:42:13):
Is there anything about like introducing this that you want
to do? No, just that if you're if
you're feeling a little fatiguedin this episode, just know that
at least last season, this section went pretty quick.
So if you're just like all rightguys, wrap it up, you might, you
probably don't have that much longer to go.
And I try to edit out some of the just pausing that we do to
think and to look things. Up that reminds me I need to

(01:42:35):
open how long to beat we're. Going to need that for this,
we're going to need that and I actually didn't come prepared
with as much as I usually come prepared, no. 33 tier picks
here. No, not.
This time, not as much, so it might take me a little bit
longer, but we'll talk about howthis will go very briefly so we
have a list of vetted indie games to feature in the future.

(01:42:56):
We don't have an exact science for picking a featured game, but
it should be special and well known, I think are the two
things that make a featured gamea featured game.
Maybe sometimes a game is just more well known than it is
special, but those are the ingredients that we feel like we
run into. And so that's how we come up
with ideas for the list that each of us needs to pick some of

(01:43:19):
these games to review next season.
We do have guests and they picked games from the list
already, but we have come prepared with picks that we
want. But we don't know each other's
lists. So I don't really have a list.
So there's no way you can know mine.
But if Disco has some in mind, Idon't know what he's going to
pick. Here I mean, I know you well and
I can make predictions of course.
Yeah, I have ideas, but nothing is for sure.

(01:43:42):
And we want to aim for diversitywhen it comes to the game
lengths, the genres, the personalities of the games to
the best of our abilities. So we'll create an order for
Season 8 that favors variety from 1 episode to the next.
And at least one of the featuredgames must be Co-op, which we
will stream together on our Twitch channel at
twitch.tv/underplayed podcast. Give that a follow.

(01:44:04):
And since it is an even numberedseason we're prepping for, it is
Disco Cola's turn to pick a Co-op game.
And as we go, we might share a little bit about what we already
know about each game. We might share the brief
synopsis from Steam, for instance, and then any and all
decisions made here are subject to change between seasons
depending on unforeseen circumstances.

(01:44:26):
So this is like 99% locked into place.
We want to reserve that right tochange things if something comes
up. If you would like to come along
with us in our journey of featured games for next season,
be sure to follow us on podcast platforms.
We have links to our social media below in the show notes.

(01:44:46):
You can also follow our Twitch channels and you can feel
welcome to play any of these games you have access to and
share your thoughts with us as we go.
And we don't mind how you do that.
You could send us a private message, you could chat with us
in a stream, anything. We would love the outreach from
the people out there. So let's talk about our guest
picks. Yes, start there.
Let's yeah. Do you want to share about the

(01:45:07):
first? Sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we invited Matt Storm AKA
Stormageddon, the Co host of Funand Games podcast.
We invited them to the podcast and they were the ones that
invited us onto the side quest series.
And they have decided that they want to play slay the Princess,
the pristine cuts, which I am sostoked for.

(01:45:29):
And I kind of remember them talking about this in one of the
episodes of fun and games just as like a passing comment.
And I've kind of played this a little bit already.
So I what they said in that passing comment just has me
really fascinated with their thoughts on Slay the Princess.
So they're familiar with Slay the Princess.
I actually saw them at at PAX East and got their brief

(01:45:52):
thoughts on this and they seemedsuper excited.
So I can't wait to play this game.
I know you've played Slay the Princess, the pristine cut a
little bit and I've it just sounds really good.
So our next guest pick is going to be 1000 times resist and the
person who picked that is Lucy Blundell AKA Kinmoku, the
developer of one night stand andvideo verse.

(01:46:14):
We asked which we've. Talked about in this episode.
We've talked about in this very episode, y'all, so this is going
to be another game developer Lucy is based in Germany, I want
to say. So it'll be another big
difference in time zones that we're recording in.
But 1000 Times resists really spoke to us for her pick because

(01:46:34):
she is a narrative first game designer.
Narrative is very important to her, and narrative is hugely
important in 1000. Times Resist.
Cool. Up next, one of our games will
be Cross Code and we will be reviewing that with Protodude,
otherwise known as Brian and Protodude is like a Mega Man
super fan. He's like the guy for like, Mega

(01:46:58):
Man. News that doesn't come directly
from Capcom. Incredible.
So I was super stoked that he agreed to come on the show.
He's also the creator of RockmanCorner.
That's his website where you canget all the Mega Man news.
So we're going to be playing Cross code with him and I'm
super stoked. Obviously being a Mega Man fan,

(01:47:18):
we've talked a couple of times here and there, not only about
Mega Man, but like Transformers and stuff too.
So fun. It's it's going to be a fun
time. That sounds awesome.
And then our next guest's pick is going to be Dorf Romantic and
it was picked by Hey, it's Haley, a friend of ours first
and foremost. But Haley is also a variety
Twitch streamer. Haley does it all.

(01:47:39):
Y'all, Y'all should follow. Hey under score, it's Haley on
Twitch. She streams cozy games, she
makes videos about cozy and wholesome games, she streams
community games, all kinds of like party games.
From time to time she does Co. Working.
She has been in a number of those.
Yeah, Co working so she helps you be productive.

(01:48:00):
She does arts and crafts and another thing she loves is board
games. And Dorf Romantic is a board
game first, video game second. I want to say it is technically
an indie game and it is a significant one.
Lots of people have played Dorf Romantic, I think just by the
fact that it is a well known board game turned into a video
game that's an indie game. I think that is just a very

(01:48:21):
unique featured game premise here.
And so hey, it's Haley is going to help us review this game that
we already know she loves. And she might be able to compare
and contrast the physical board game to the digital board game,
which is fun. Now if hey, it's Haley does it
all, y'all is not in your littlerhyme for her, I'm going.

(01:48:41):
To be so tased does it all. Y'all love that?
Then we have a little placeholder here.
We have another guest who is still picking their game.
I'm not going to say who they are yet.
I figured we could record a follow up if they get back to
us. But I did hear from them today
or I heard from the person from the place that this person was

(01:49:05):
looking into it. So this is just going to be a
placeholder, hey? Hi.
What's going on? It's been a couple weeks, and so
we learned some new information that we didn't have when we
first recorded this episode. So up first, we got our final

(01:49:29):
for sure Z's confirmation of our5th guest for the season, which
will actually be the 3rd guest in our line up.
And do you want to talk about who that is and where they're
from? Absolutely.
So our fifth guests will be Kara, a writer from Patch
magazine. And Kara chose blueprints from

(01:49:50):
our list, which is very convenient because you'll hear
us in this episode talk about picking blueprints as one of our
picks anyway, so it just works out that way.
So it we we still pick it and wetalk about it as if it's one of
our picks, but also it just endsup being one of the guest games
anyways in the end. We have another edit we need to
talk about, but we'll do anothercutaway I think.

(01:50:11):
Yeah, later. So we'll send you back now.
So those are our guests for Season 8, so we're very excited
to have them. And now we need to go back and
forth picking other featured games to fill in the slots.
We need to fill some slots here.What?
Should we start? Let's start with the Co-op game,
because that one's like a mandatory.

(01:50:32):
Let's do it. OK, the Co-op game that I
decided we should pick since it's my turn is Human Fall Flat
and then. Why?
Why did you pick this one? The literal only reason for that
is that there was a copy of it at Walmart and I grabbed it.
Amazing. So may I read the Human Fall
Flat's premise from Steam? By all means.
Human Fall Flat is a hilarious, light hearted platformer set in

(01:50:54):
floating dreamscapes that can beplayed solo or with up to 8
players online. Good Lord.
Free new levels keep its vibrantcommunity rewarded.
So I got the Switch physical version.
So that is all. That is all set and that is what
we will play on twitch.tv/underplayed Podcast at
some point. Now, is that cross-platform if

(01:51:15):
you play online? I didn't look into.
That if it's not, we could play locally.
Yeah, at the very least. Yeah.
You got it for Switch. OK, cool.
I will pick. I will pick for my first slot.
I'm going to pick a roguelike. I'm going to pick Rogue Legacy.
Oh, OK. This is a more classic game.

(01:51:38):
This is 1 I played years ago. This is a side scrolling
roguelike where you inherit the traits of your previous
ancestors that die. So you play a lineage if you
will. So it's called Rogue Legacy and
there's a sequel, Rogue Legacy 2that I never played, but we'll
play the first one first. And you inherit traits like

(01:52:00):
color blindness, ADHD, irritablebowel syndrome, like all kinds
of stuff like that. So here's the pitch from Steam.
Rogue Legacy is a genealogical rogue light where anyone can be
a hero. Each time you die, your child
will succeed you. Every child is unique.
One child might be color blind, another might be a dwarf with
Vertigo. But that's OK because no one is

(01:52:20):
perfect and you don't have to beto succeed.
So there you go. All right.
I believe there is a physical version of that, so I will look
for that. Yeah, do it.
My next pick, I've really wantedto play this for a while.
It's a little bit of a sports game, it's a little bit of an

(01:52:41):
action game, and I don't really know a ton more about it other
than that, except that it reminds me a lot of really cool,
like Streamcast era games. OK, I wanna pick Bom Rush, Cyber
funk Nice. Which is now on several
platforms. I love it.
Cool, I'll read the description for that real quick.

(01:53:02):
This was a recent addition to our list.
I think we kind of skipped over it when it first came out in
2023. We didn't really put it on the
list until recently. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk.
I'm going to struggle with that name forever.
Onward. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is one
second per second of advanced funk style.
I don't even know what that means.
Let me read this again. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is one

(01:53:26):
second per second of advanced funk style.
Battle rival crews and dispatch militarized police to conquer
the five boroughs of New Amsterdam.
Become all city. Love the pick.
Very excited to play this one. I've heard nothing but great
things. Now it's time for me to pick 1.
I feel drawn to the puzzle category.

(01:53:47):
OK. I really do.
You are good at a puzzle game. Would you be willing?
To there's there's one on here that's on my list too, so I'd
love if you picked that 10. Interesting.
So I started this recently, so selfishly I want to play it

(01:54:08):
because I started it recently and also because it's so new and
it's getting a lot of buzz. Blueprints.
Oh, really? Let's go.
Oh, you're. You're typing it.
Oh sorry, you you typed. Blueprints.
Blueprints. We're going to play Blueprints
twice. That sounds like it'll be kind
of interesting. Nice dude.
OK, sweet Blueprints. This is actually a game that I

(01:54:30):
played the demo of during a Nextfest and it did not hit.
I think it's because it was a demo and I didn't understand the
full scope, but I'm digging the three hours that I've played of
the full game so far. So Blueprints page says welcome
to Mount Holly, where every dawnunveils a new mystery.
Navigate through shifting corridors and ever changing

(01:54:50):
chambers in this genre defying strategy puzzle adventure.
But will your unpredictable pathlead you to the rumored Room 46?
So I actually know nothing aboutthis game.
Actually it's. Basically a rogue like game
where you're investigating this manner and building it room by
room, but you never know what rooms you're going to be offered
to build. OK.

(01:55:11):
And you are collecting clues andnoticing things, making tons of
notes, trying to figure out whatthe story is, what It's just a
big puzzle box with tons of layers.
The one person that said something about it that got me
interested in it was like, man, if you loved Oberdin, you should
play Blueprints. And I'm like, based on what
you've just told me, I'm like, Idon't.

(01:55:32):
I can see that. I can see that, yeah.
OK, so anyways, awesome. I'm glad you picked that.
Sweet also OK, so that gives you.
Freedom. That gives me freedom to pick
something else. OK, so I've got a couple of
things here. One I've wanted to play for
years and I've tried to pick it like 3 different times and it
hasn't been on a platform that Ihad any of those times.

(01:55:54):
But now it is all right. I just want to play this damn
game. I want to play Sable, please.
OK, let's play Sable's. Play Sable, Yeah.
Let's do it. Wanted to play this for love.
Love that pick. OK.
And then the last one that I'll pick, I'll go with a game that's
getting a sequel this year, Moonlighter.

(01:56:15):
That was one of my lists. Really.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
Oh, I need to go back and read the descriptions.
Yeah, the Sable one. OK, so the Sable description
reads. Embark on a unique and
unforgettable journey and guide Sable through her gliding, a
rite of passage that will take her across vast deserts and

(01:56:37):
mesmerizing landscapes, capped by the remains of spaceships and
ancient wonders. I've looked forward to this for
years. And that opening song Glider by
Japanese Breakfast? So good.
Then we have Moonlighter. Moonlighter's page says
Moonlighter is an action RPG with rogue light elements that
demonstrates two sides of the coin, revealing everyday

(01:57:01):
routines of Will, an adventurousshopkeeper that secretly dreams
of becoming a hero. This is a game with like 2
vastly different dynamics going on I think.
Where your dungeon crawling, getting gear and then you're
managing a shop with that gear. So those are our picks.
Now we need to create an order and my brain is leaking out of

(01:57:26):
my ears. So if you have any I.
Have some ideas? If you have ideas, I.
Do have ideas? So I want to start with
blueprints. OK, why?
That's interesting. Mostly because I just want to, I
want to get to it as soon as possible because there's only so
much more time before that like phase passes, you know?

(01:57:46):
Got it. Yeah.
You want to, you want to maximize, you want to capitalize
on this moment. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
So let's start there and then weshould probably have a guest
episode. Yep we do have to save.
We have to save cross code for like late season because that
game is long. Let's plan on that one being the
last guest episode. Yeah.

(01:58:07):
So that could be like 8 or 9. For instance, I'm good with Slay
the Princess being second. OK, the only thing was that I
liked the idea of trying to get it as close to Halloween as
possible, but that would make itlike episode 7, I think.
Let me look at the calendar realquick.
But also the release date that'sclosest to Halloween is like the

(01:58:31):
22nd of October, so it's really not that close.
Yeah, cuz Halloween falls right in the middle of two episodes.
Yeah, I see. So it would, yeah, it would be,
it would be episode 9 of the season and it wouldn't come out
until the 21st of October, so. We could do dorf romantic as our
second. We could do that.
I'm also like because of that big gap between the 21st and the

(01:58:53):
31st, I'm not super married to the Halloween idea, so that's up
to you. I know that it'll probably be
easier to alert Matt about this for relatively early in the
season because they have lots ofgames that they play.
They have a lot of time to play games, so I think it's fine to
pixelate the Princess for second.

(01:59:15):
I'm good with it. OK, that's fine with me.
Cool, and then we could do. We could really do anything, any
of those. How long is Rogue Legacy?
Rogue Legacy can be kind of long.
OK, maybe that one's like a mid season 1 then.
So don't be scared by the 100% completion because it's like 40

(01:59:37):
hours but the main story it says16 1/2.
Oh that's fine. I'd still I'd still maybe put
that mid season we could do Sable, Sable or bomb rush or
Moonlighter, any of those. Sable, OK, Sable's speaking to
me. I can't explain why.
Yeah, then let's do another guest episode.

(01:59:58):
I think maybe we want to do 1000times.
Resist is a bit longer. How long is Dorf romantic?
I think based on how short. 17 1/2 hours.
Really. Yeah.
Wow, OK, I think how short all of those first three games are
in comparison. Like if we wanted to do 1000

(02:00:21):
times resist next that would be fine with me.
We can do that. That's that.
That sounds like a good plan fornow.
And again, listeners, this mightchange in the next few weeks, so
we'll see. OK so 1000 times resistant 4
then we could do Rogue Legacy which you said would be good for
mid season. OK.

(02:00:42):
This is going very well. Then we could do dorf romantic.
We could, I think. Yep.
Do you want to do maybe human fall flat after dorf romantic?
Sure. OK cross code or bomb rush I
think could go in either order. Either spot and I think
Moonlighter for a season closer is fine.

(02:01:02):
OK, Moonlighter being a season closer, Yeah, that sounds good.
Wait, so is it good at how it is?
That's fine with me. Or you can swap 8:00 and 9:00.
I really don't care. Yeah.
OK. So for now, the order.
Do you want to say the order? Sure.
So the order for Season 8 of Underplayed as it stands right

(02:01:22):
now is. It's time just the end drops
out. Get that low note in there as
the base. Part So this is the next little
cutaway we have. What do we have to talk about
here? OK, so because of some
scheduling issues that may causeconflict, we have adjusted our

(02:01:47):
order yet again. So here is the final order for
season 8, and we're sticking with it 'cause we already have
the recording scheduled for the first one.
So it's locked in. It's happening.
Slay the Princess, The Pristine Cut is up first, then we have
Sable, then Dorf, Romantic, third, Rogue Legacy 4th, then

(02:02:09):
Blueprints, then Moonlighter, then 1000 Times Resist and then
Human to Fall Flat will be episode 8, episode 9 will be
Cross Code and episode 10 will be Bomb Rush Cyber Funk.
All right. Nothing else to say.
I think that is the order. If we have something else to
say, then we're going to have todrive back to the studio and do
this again. Do.
This again was. I'll see you for the next one.

(02:02:32):
But we don't, we don't have, we don't have time.
This episode's coming out prettysoon, yeah.
So this is it. All right, sending you back now.
Hip hop cool lot of variety here.
We have action, we've got Co-op platforming, we've got a
simulation game, we've got narrative based games, we've got
a roguelike, a puzzle game. Really great adventures in store

(02:02:55):
for us in season eights. Disco Cola.
I know that our breaks between seasons are shorter in these
days, but is there anything you're looking forward to doing
before season eights? You know, I've kind of already
been working on it. I'm basically already in my
break, but I've been playing going under.
I'm trying to, I turned on assist mode and I'm trying to
clean up trophies. I decided not to stream the

(02:03:18):
remainder of what I need to do, so I'm just trying to clean up
there. Trying to clean up some trophies
and Ghost song that I still needand I've done a lot of that.
I just need to do the speedrun playthrough and the no death
playthrough. I'm also farming currency in
that game my PS5IS on right now.That's why I've seen you playing

(02:03:41):
that game so much. I.
See, it's been on so much, so I'm just kind of like spamming
to get currency. That's hilarious.
It's one of, I mean, it's one ofmy favorite indie games at this
point. Like I've moved it way, way, way
up on my backlogged list recently.
I played through it. I got a second ending.
I don't know if I talked about that yet.
I don't think so. There's a second ending that you

(02:04:04):
can get and it's quote UN quote the good ending.
I don't know if I like it as much as the the not good ending,
if I'm honest, but it's yeah, it's just one of my favorite
games now, so I love that I don't feel ashamed or bad about
just laying on the horn and getting as much currency as I
can while I'm sleeping. I don't know.

(02:04:26):
I might try to get what the car I I might wait though.
I might wait though. I don't know.
The time will strike. Yeah, you'll feel it.
It'll it'll be fine. And I if I'm up for it, I might
play Wilmot works it out. Oh, cool.
But I'm also kind of hoping for a console port on that.

(02:04:47):
OK, Yeah, I could see that happening because Wilmot Square
House came to consoles, right? Yeah, but if I'm being
realistic, that's probably whereit ends.
Like, so I don't, I don't reallyhave too much more left in going
under. So as soon as I finish that,
I'll probably try to just hammerout Iris and the Giant, which
I've been screaming. But that's realistically, that's

(02:05:09):
all I'm going to have time for, I think.
Recently I've just been streaming lots of random games.
You've been all over the place. I've.
Been all over the place. I've done a Co-op game in Bokuda
planets the follow up to Bokuda.I did that with my friend Hype
Monk. We had people over to my house
to play Ratchet and Clank rippedapart.
You were there and actually playing through that game with

(02:05:31):
friends made me want to check out the PlayStation 4/5 port of
Size Matters, which was on the PSPI.
Believe so. That's one of the Ratchet and
Clank games I never played and it has trophies now because it's
on PlayStation 5. So I've been going through that.
I played Crypt Custodian recently and it's super good.

(02:05:55):
I really love it. I really wanted to pick it for
the season, but I couldn't guarantee that the physical
would be here in a timely way. I think what I'll do is I will
not pick that as a secret game. Slight spoiler for my future,
but I won't pick that as a secret game because I kind of
hope that you do. Okay, I thought it was on our
featured game list. It's not, it's not.
It's one of those games that I think kind of rides the line

(02:06:15):
where it's like, I'm not sure ifit should be featured game.
I thought it was already there and I would push for it to be
there if you feel comfortable. With that, we'll talk about it
after this. Yeah, I don't know, I played
through Pikmin 3. That's cool.
We might also talk about some ofthe stuff in the first episode
of the next season. We might talk about like what
non indie games we've played since season 7 or what indie

(02:06:37):
games we've played that weren't in season 7 in our intro
episode. Just to kind of catch up.
I might pick some highlights. Yeah, I know that I'm going to
play some Ninja Turtles on my birthday with the kids, so.
Cool, that'll be so fun. I love that.
Well, I'm ready to end, I think.Are you?
Ready. I'm ready to go to bed.
I need to get out of here. Yeah.

(02:06:58):
Yeah, that's that's all I've got.
Cool. So that is the end of this
episode and season of Underplayed.
Everybody, thank you so much forjoining us.
What the heck? Yeah, you won't be without us
for too long. Now that we are on our new
release schedule, it'll only be about a month.
This comes out like right at theend of May.
So you've got all of June and like 2 days in May without

(02:07:18):
underplayed and we'll be back onI think it's July 2nd is our.
It'll be here before you know it, so you can find more of our
episodes at kzum.org/underplayedand on common podcast platforms
like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Our music was composed by Jack
Rodenberg. Our art comes from Oni Mochi.

(02:07:39):
You can check out our show noteswhere you can find and follow us
across social media. Underplayed is on Blue Sky,
Instagram and Threads. You can also find my links down
below, and I stream a variety ofindie games on Twitch.
And I am at Disco Cola, occasionally streaming on
Twitch, but mostly just hanging out talking about indie games
and Transformers on Blue Sky. And you can follow the

(02:08:01):
Underplayed Podcast channel on Twitch, where we will be playing
Human Fall Flat probably sometime in August.
Or September or something like that.
It'll, it'll be here before you know it.
Next season we will have plenty more secret and feature games to
play in review. Until then, everybody keep on
playing.

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077 - Reflecting on Season 7 & Planning Season 8

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}077 - Reflecting on Season 7 & Planning Season 8