085 - Öoo, Lost Nova, & Human: Fall Flat - Underplayed

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Thank you for pressing start on episode 85 of Underplayed KZ UMS
Indie Video Game Podcast. Today we have two secret games,
followed by a review of our featured game Human Fall Flats.

(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, and I'm joined by another.
He got the platinum in going under.
It's one of his numerous claims to fame.
He's the OBTI or IB in a cooperative game.

(00:48):
He runs like a pony. He loves pepperoni.
It's the one and only Disco Cola.
What's going on? You know, I'm just, I'm hanging
on by a thick wiggly thread, butI'm here.
How are you? I'm doing just fine, my floppy
companion. Those are references to our
featured game Human Fall Flats. And hey, if you follow us at

(01:13):
twitch.tv/underplayed Podcast, you may have been lucky enough
recently to catch our Co-op streams of this game.
Follow it anyway, even if you did miss the streams, because we
do early premieres of all of ournew episodes there as well.
Yes, we do those on Monday nights before they premiere on
Tuesdays because we always have episodes come out on Tuesdays

(01:36):
and we want to have a little special early premiere for those
who want to hear it early. Yeah.
And for those of you that like catch those already someday
those will premiere a little bitearlier.
But this is just kind of like you're at the the mercy of my
life and my schedule in in thoseterms.
So. They do premiere a little late

(01:57):
on Monday nights, but you know, technically you can hear them a
little bit early and you can interact with us while we live
stream. Sometimes, sometimes I do go to
bed before the stream is done because it is that late.
But we got to do it at that time.
You know, that's just how life works.
And we wanted to let you all know that next episode we will
have a special guest to help us review Cross code and someone

(02:20):
who will tell us about their work online.
Do you want to talk about our next guest?
Yeah. So in our next episode, we will
have Protodude joining us. And Protodude is the person
behind Rock Man Corner, which islike one of the main Mega Man
news sites. He's been very active as like

(02:42):
the Mega Man guy with some insider knowledge in a lot of
cases in terms of like Mega Man games and stuff like that.
So it's it's, it's very like Mega Man focused.
It's a passion pick of mine to have proto dude on.
But I'm really looking forward to it because there's a lot of
great Mega Man likes out there. So I want to see like what he's

(03:04):
played and what he hasn't. And you know what?
It is about the genre that's influenced so many other great
indie games like Shovel Knight and and how Shovel Knight is now
its own sort of cornerstone of influence as well.
Yeah, it's very interesting how that ripple effect can happen
and you can trace it back so easily because the world of

(03:25):
indie games is still like, it's been around for a while, but
it's still relatively new. You can.
And video games in general are relatively young as an art form,
so you can trace these things back.
Yeah. Mega Man is proto dudes like
Beats. Yeah, and.
He's he's the guy. I'm looking at his blue sky
right now and I'm seeing that heis covering Tokyo Game Show and

(03:49):
is talking about the Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection,
and he's reporting on that. Sometimes we get like dry
spells. So I don't see a lot of posts
from him, but like right after we talked about manifesting Mega
Man X9, like a couple days laterit was like the Mega Man Star
Force Legacy collection is coming and I was, I was not sure

(04:09):
that was gonna happen. Yeah, cuz they're all DS games
and I don't know how well you can port those to consoles,
modern consoles without the like, touchscreen interaction.
So you never got your hopes up on that?
Yeah, and I, I, we talked about how there's Make a Man games I
haven't played, and Star Forces is among them.
I don't I don't know how they work.
Well we're gonna get proto dudesrankings I hope of like favorite

(04:34):
Mega Man game. I don't know if should we do
like a top five. Yeah, we can ask them to do.
A top or maybe a top ten or something.
Maybe that's overwhelming. It'll be overwhelming for those
that don't understand what why each Mega Man is different.
They're just going to hear the word Mega Man 10 times in a row.
I know, and I've honestly playedthe Mega Man Legacy series and

(04:55):
also the X series with you and friends and family and they all
kind of blur together in my mindat a certain point.
There are some that stand out because I played Mega Man X
growing up and I love Mega Man 2and Mega Man 9 in particular.
I remember like very particular moments from those.
But there are a lot of stages, alot of bosses that you could

(05:19):
show me and I would not have a clue as to like which game
they're from. Whereas like I was in middle
school and high school, just like writing the list in
numerical order of all the robotmasters, trying to memorize
them. So I I.
Concrete knowledge that's like. I have a coworker who loves the
show Seinfeld. Oh.

(05:40):
And you could, I don't know if he is as fresh on this, but at
least like I want to say 7 or 8 years ago, you could give him a
season number and an episode number.
No. And he could tell you what the
name of the episode was and he could tell you all the
storylines that went on in that episode.
Because an episode of Seinfeld isn't just one story like. 3 or

(06:02):
4. 3 or 4, like every character is going through something and
it's very disparate stuff. Sometimes things converge, but
he could describe what happens in an episode if you just give
him a season in episode number like that.
It's kind of reminds me of that.It's just sometimes you have a
very particular knowledge about something.
With Dexter, I could tell you like who the main bad guy was

(06:24):
for the season, but if you're going like episode by episode,
forget about it. Oh yeah, yeah, I can remember
the the main bad guys, but yeah,that's tough.
That's a, that's a show that we bonded over a long time ago, for
sure. And next, I want to do something
that we do every once in a whilewhere we look back at some games
that we've covered in the past. And we just want to report on

(06:46):
ports that have happened of these games to new systems and
platforms. This is not going to be an
exhaustive list. This is just a list that I keep
on my phone as I scroll social media.
Over the course of maybe like a year, year and a half, I will
notice that publishers and developers will announce new
platforms for games that we havehappened to cover.

(07:09):
And so this will just be in alphabetical order.
This is secret and featured games from our past that you can
play on new systems. And a lot of listeners might be
aware of these things and some of these ports happens quite a
while back, like maybe a year ago.
Yeah, I see. I see one of these, one of these
is a port that I already have the physical for and like right?

(07:31):
Those physicals take a while to ship sometimes.
Yes. So just going alphabetically,
and again, this is not necessarily every game that has
gotten a port that we've coveredin the past, but in the A's we
only have one game that starts with a American.
Arcadia quite recently came to abunch of consoles, so Switch,
PS4, PS 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X&S.

(07:54):
And I remember the developer andpublisher were really excited
about this and really pushing iton social media.
So this was really everywhere and I was really excited to see
that console players could get ahold of this.
Next, we're going to see a lot of games ported to these
systems, but Blasphemous is ported to Android and iOS.

(08:15):
Oh yeah, a lot of mobile ports here.
A lot. Of mobile ports.
Another featured game from our Way Way Past Carrion from Season
1. Also ported to Android and iOS.
That's a good port. Chance of Sonar also to Android
and iOS. That's another good port.
Good place to play that. Disco Elysium came to Android at
least. If you if you're someone that

(08:36):
takes a subway, that's like reading a book Is is.
What you need there you might beable to get that done in like 2
months. Yeah, Dredge has come to Mac,
Android and iOS. And then Duck Detective, The
Secret Salami came to Android, iOS and PS5PS5, and the sequel,

(08:57):
A Ghost of Glamping, I think is what it's called, also came to
PS-5 on the same day that this was ported.
So the day that that game came out, I think they also ported
Secret Salami. Yeah, I might.
I bet those those probably get physicals.
I might wait. They might I I do want to play
both of them. They might, yeah.
El Paso Elsewhere ported to iOS.And Fruit Bus, a secret game of

(09:19):
mine from not too long ago came to Switch, PS-5 and Xbox, so it
was just on PC before that I think.
And then this next one is the one I was talking about where I
already have the physical. I have the physical of Panzer
Paladin for PS4 and it has also been ported to Xbox One.
Yeah. And this one I was a little
unsure about because it seemed like it was already on PS4, but

(09:40):
it was that I was on the PlayStation app and I saw that
it was a new arrival to the store.
So it could have been. Is it possible that it could
have just been a physical version and then they released
the digital version or something?
They used to do that way back inthe day on like circa early PS3
days. They would have like a physical
version and a digital version sometimes.

(10:01):
And it's just. Weird.
I don't know, I remember when I played it as a secret game it
wasn't on PlayStation and I onlyhad the Switch physical.
OK, got it. OK.
Then it was probably just on Switch then.
I thought you had played it on PlayStation.
So OK, then we also have Pizza Tower which came to Switch,
which is great. I actually if you had told me

(10:22):
that it had been on Switch at launch, I would have believed
you. You know, I remember
specifically that it wasn't on anything because it was like,
God, I have to play this on the computer.
I really don't want to. Yeah.
And actually, that was back whenmy, like, controller kept
disconnecting, too. And I remember that that one was
much less frustrating to deal with than another game I'd also

(10:44):
played recently on PC. Cuz like that would pause right
away whenever you're controller became disconnected.
Not like dying all the. Time.
Yeah. So next, one of our favorite
Sayonara Wild Hearts is on PS5I remember when that happened?
You told me about that. Yeah, and I actually have played
the PS-5 version. I played that on a birthday
stream that I did not too long ago.

(11:06):
I had played the PS4 version. I just decided to play it on
PS-5. Didn't pop any trophies, but I
played through the whole game. Maybe I popped a trophy for
finishing. But yeah, that game is kind of
hard to get trophies in. And then also Soma came to
Switch which is great. Space for the unbound came to

(11:26):
iOS. That's a good port for that.
Yeah, another one that came to iOS is The Stanley Parable Ultra
Deluxe. Makes a lot of sense it does.
Stray came to Switch now. That's one I would have assumed
was already on Switch. Right, yeah, that was a big
announcement. And I, I think I was watching a
showcase when that happened and I was like, what?
It wasn't on Switch. So I remember that sometimes

(11:47):
these announcements like surprise you then To the Moon,
which is a game that is quite old, well over a decade old, got
PS-5 and Xbox series versions. And I think they modernized a
lot of things about the game. Nothing like I don't know about
drastically, but maybe control wise and maybe like resolution

(12:07):
wise, I want to say. But I know that they they didn't
just port it and call it a day. I think they actually made it
kind of a definitive version, ifyou will.
So that was within the past year.
I want to say O. Here's something.
Interesting, I have it pulled U now on backlogged and it lists
like what systems it's on. I feel like it's pretty

(12:27):
comprehensive. I haven't noticed anything weird
but PS4 isn't listed here so they it's been around forever
and got ported to PS-5 but not to PS4 which is super
interesting. It might have.
Been the kind of thing where they decided to port it so late
that they just wanted to do the modern systems right.
That's why it's also not on XboxOne.
Yeah, I just. Would have assumed that it had

(12:48):
been ported to PS4 a long time ago, yeah.
Maybe not And then. The last one we want to talk
about is Viewfinder, which was ported to Switch and the Xbox
Series X&S. More systems that I would have
thought would be there at launch, but I also remember
PlayStation had like a timed exclusive console deal with this

(13:08):
game and I remember this being in a PlayStation showcase of
some kind. Yeah.
So those are just some of the games we've covered in the past
that have been ported to new systems, a lot of mobile
versions. Very impressive that you can
play things like Disco Elysium and El Paso elsewhere, which is

(13:29):
like a fast-paced shooter. Yeah.
How do you how? Do you play Blasphemous on
Android? Oh my gosh, I don't even know.
You'd probably have to use like some sort.
Of controller controller. Yes, I used to use this thing
called a backbone that you can plug your phone into and it's
basically like, you know, havinga PlayStation Portal or like a
Steam Deck and you can play mobile games very easily there.

(13:51):
But I would prefer playing that on PC or a console.
Yeah, no. Kidding.
We're going to move on to our secret games, but before we do,
there are a few very easy ways to support our show.
They cost nothing and they take almost no time at all, and we
would really appreciate you doing these things for us.
If you haven't yet. 1 you can give us a follow and a five star

(14:12):
rating on podcasts platforms such as Spotify or Apple
Podcasts. You might be listening to us in
one of those apps and you can just really quickly hit those
buttons and it would make us appear more consistent instantly
for you and for others. Another thing you can do is
follow us across social media. We have links in our show notes
for that. And another thing you can do is

(14:32):
sharing our podcast. You can repost our stuff on
social media. You can tell your indie game
loving friends about us and thatwould mean a whole lot.
And as always, we love you. Thank you for listening.
It's time for our secret games. Secret Games.
Secret Games. I know you're playing without
me. Secret games.
Well, I'm here to tell you baby,I've been playing 2 secret

(14:56):
games. In Secret Games, we're each
going to reveal a game we've been playing recently.
I don't know what Disco Cola is going to talk about.
He doesn't know what I'm going to talk about.
And we can choose to pick a gamethat has something to do with
our feature game. We could pick a secret game that
has nothing to do with our featured game.
We just need to pick a an indie game that we have not covered on

(15:18):
the show before. So without further ado, we will
start with you, Disco Cola. Let the mystery be no more.
Reveal your secret game for Episode 85 of Underplayed, all
right. My Secret Game is a brand
stinking new follow up from a developer we first encountered
back in Season 5, is a puzzle platformer of sorts with

(15:38):
Metroidvania elements. Today's game comes from Nama
Takahashi and it's called I'm going to Do My Best.

(16:03):
Oh amazing dude I have played the demo for this.
You played the demo during during next fest?
I saw that it. Was on your wish list, but it
only said that wants this. So I'm like, oh, he hasn't
played it. Yeah, he's played the demo.
I played the demo. And that's what made me put it
on my wish list. Nice.
And in the months since, right after this released, I saw a lot

(16:26):
of people on social media saying, like, don't let this fly
under your radar. Check out or however you
pronounce it. And it.
It kind of came out amongst a ton of other indie games at the
same time. It might have been around, like,
one of those really big dates where tons of games come out on
the same day. And I really liked the demo.

(16:47):
I didn't play it like for a super long time, but I got what
it was doing, Yeah. So I didn't take German.
I don't know how to do the umlaut correctly.
I took French and then failed mylast semester of it so I'm just
going to say oh. Sure, I I think that's fine.
I'm OK with that. I'm trying to.

(17:07):
I have a. Google page open on how to do it
but I have to like stop and think every time I say the word
I was going to. Advise you on it, but I think
I'm confusing the umlaut for thehorizontal line.
Oh yes. Maybe because is that the umlaut
that's the one that goes over anoi think, yeah.
What? Do you remember?
That band tooth. Yes, they had that.

(17:31):
Horizontal line over the O and we had to look it up because we
used to do that radio show that we did.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we found out that that is
like an O sound. So we thought it was like Toth,
but then it was tooth. Actually, I could be totally
wrong right now and that's just going to have to be OK.
See, I thought. It was like I always suspected
it was supposed to be tooth. Oh really?

(17:52):
I remember looking it up. We did look it up.
But. Yeah, I'm not sure about the the
two dots, Yeah. So the two dots is the umlaut
and I just, yeah, it's I think it's oh, but I'm just going to
say, oh, 'cause I it's say that.Just sorry, just one more time.
Can you say that one more time? Is this like a dance monkey

(18:13):
dance situation? Yes.
OK, let me open the Google page again.
Oh. OK, I feel like that was two
different pronunciations, but please continue thus.
Thus this disclaimer. I'm going to say I like.
Oh, I like. Oh yeah.

(18:34):
So oh follows a bomb Caterpillarand let's let's just call her
Bridget as this is your. Name for her this is my.
Name for her? I'm calling her Bridget and
she's out and about. She's looking for some food when
she stumbles upon, if I recall right, a Peach, and as she's
about to dig in, some big Condorlike birds swoops in quick as

(18:56):
lightning and swallows Bridget whole.
So it's up to Bridget to do anything you can possibly do
when you get swallowed by a bird.
It's so it's. Smooshian and it's Yeah.
Yeah, a little bit. Except you're actually like
eating. You actually get.
Yeah, you have been. Devoured.
So she is inside this bird and she's exploring the inside of

(19:19):
the creature in this puzzle platformer and hopefully she'll
find a way out. Also, for the record, I don't
actually know Bridget's gender. OK, we can.
Use they them pronouns so. While inside this bird, Bridget
has a few things they can do, but more notably has one thing
that they can't do at all, and that's jump.

(19:41):
Bridget can't jump, but they canfind bombs to add to their
segmented Caterpillar body, eventually earning up to two
bombs. Thus the name.
Oh, it's the umlaut is Bridget'shead.
And then the two bombs I love. That you know that's.
So clever, It's so good. And like I actually.

(20:01):
Did not notice that until you just described it.
You know I. Didn't either, but in the IT, it
doesn't take up the full screen of your monitor and in the
background it's just like when you start the game it's just the
O with the umlaut, but as you gain your first bomb it adds the
second O and then the third it's.
That's when I noticed it. I.

(20:22):
Love a creative like visual title.
We had that last year with so many titles.
One that always comes to mind isclickholding, which if you
squint your eyes and look at thelogo, it looks like another
word. And it's just so good when you
when you know what's going on with that game.
Yeah. I didn't.
I didn't pick up on that actually, but anyways, you'll

(20:44):
pick up up to two bombs, and when you use these bombs, you
can drop these bombs from Bridget's body and remotely
detonate them. And the bombs cause an
explosion. So these, when they explode,
serve 2 main purposes. 1 is to blow up destructible walls, as
you might imagine, but the otheris to exert an explosive force

(21:08):
in the four primary directions. So if Bridget or maybe the
second bomb are sitting right next to the first bomb, when
that first bomb explodes, anything standing to the right
will be shot toward the right with a lot of force, right?
I. Remember that or if Bridget.
Is standing on top of the bomb. Bridget will be shot upward and
this effectively acts as your jump.

(21:31):
You have to use the bomb to gainheight.
There will also be frogs that block your path, and to get by
you must locate a nearby fly andcarry it to the frog for it to
eat, and once it does, it will move out of your way.
There are also checkpoints that will do what checkpoints do.
It's a safe place for you to respond, but they also reset all

(21:52):
of your puzzle elements except for bomb placements.
So any wall that you've blown upor any frogs or flies that
you've moved, once you hit a checkpoint, those get reset.
So there's also puzzling to be done around these checkpoints.
Electhead did a little bit of that and that's.
The game that I always think of with this game, well, very
electhead in nature and it's from Nama Takahashi.

(22:14):
That's the that's. The guy and I actually.
Didn't clock that at first, so Iwas playing the demo independent
of that knowledge and I was justthinking like, oh this is very
Electhead even though I've only played Electhead for like 20
seconds. And then the last thing that
there are some teleporters to bring you to multiple spots all
over the map and will also play a surprising role in the puzzle

(22:37):
element of the game as well. So yeah, moving on.
You know, stuff I enjoyed about.Oh, I want to start by saying
I'll inevitably do a lot of comparing and contrasting with a
like head. So you're going to hear a like
head quite a few more times herein this section, but I try to
keep it as independent as possible.

(22:58):
So yeah, things I love the visual identity is really
strong. I don't think the art is quite
as striking as a Leghead. Elkhead is kind of like
disciplined and had fewer colorsoverall.
Ooh is much more colorful. But I think the part that I
prefer here over a Leghead is that it's kind of much more
cartoony and therefore more light hearted and whimsical.

(23:20):
Yeah, you see. Like a big frog with its tongue
sticking out with a really cute idle animation.
Yeah. And like, eyes are off center,
you know? From the frog.
And the flies, yeah, it's kind of.
Derpy looking. Yeah, everything.
Looks a little silly, yeah. And then when you pair that
light hearted and whimsical nature with the music, which is
also pretty good, everything feels like a cozy jaunt.

(23:44):
I think the pace at which the game teaches you new puzzle
ideas is kind and respectful. It introduces an element or a
concept and adds variations on the idea.
And then maybe it will ask you to combine with a previous idea
and then force you to think about a new way to combine those
two elements. And it's just, it's really
interesting how the game teachesyou how to play.

(24:05):
You'll get through a few rooms and it's obvious you're being
taught, but then you'll see a room with a totally different
layout from the 2 tutorial like rooms you just did.
And you'll stare at it for a second and you'll be like oh I
see what you did there. And it's like Nama Nama
Takahashi's he's like giving me a wink from across the room.
And just, it happens throughout the game and I feel like I get

(24:26):
smarter as I progress and I'm I'm proud when I combine 2 ideas
in a unique way. So next, this is only available
on PC at this time and obviouslythat's where I played it.
You know me, you know I'm the console pleb and a good amount
of reason for that is because I like to use the controller.
But when I play this, I just like, I don't want to go through

(24:48):
the effort of adjusting my settings on the controller
because I use my third party switch controller on my PC.
Oh, OK. So I was just like, I'll I'll
try it with the mouse and the keyboard and it actually feels
really good. Like the scale of the design of
the game lends itself to easy and uncomplicated keyboard
experience. So it's just it's Wazda to move

(25:11):
and of course up and down don't actually do that much because
you can't jump and then right Click to drop a bomb, left Click
to detonate. And you get used to that really
quickly and can even kind of getinto a flow state just because
those controls are really easy to nail down.
Yeah, and they're. Just so few inputs that it
doesn't take long to cement in your minds and that's a relief
to know because I believe I did play the demo with my game pads,

(25:34):
so that's great. I don't know if.
I recommend it. Like if you already have a
controller, maybe it's, you know, also great.
But playing with a mouse and keyboard felt really good and I
was surprised by that. Nice.
I. Like the difficulty and length
of this game, I found it to be shorter than A Leg Head, even
though I think the map in OH is bigger, but it just felt quicker

(25:54):
to get through. I don't know if that means it's
easier or not. I think the puzzle mechanics are
more straightforward in OH, but there were also puzzle solutions
in OH that I had to look up, whereas in A Leg Head I was kind
of like figuring it out before Icould even load the YouTube
page. So it was, yeah, just a a great
difficulty and length of the game.
I think I clocked in at 3 hours.OK.

(26:16):
Yeah, I like. Just solving puzzles in general.
My toolkit only consists of two bombs and the order I blow them
up. Everything else is how those
bombs interact with the environment and I think that
makes the puzzle solving experience really interesting.
I don't gain any new concrete skills.

(26:37):
I just use them in different ways depending on the room I'm
in. So it's like I'm not jumping in
a new way. I'm not, you know, my bombs
don't change, I just get 2 of them.
All that changes is the environment, and I think that's
really fun, yeah. Something that I'm immediately
reminded of is kind of like Babais You, where your inputs don't

(26:58):
really change, you don't get a new ability in Baba's You, You
interact with new words and objects and that's how you're
changing what you're doing and there's.
Actually, you reminded me of something else that I really
like, and it's in the credits ofthis game.
There's a section that Nama Takahashi set aside for like

(27:18):
this game is inspired by. And it's just like a list of
like 6 or seven games. I can't remember all of them.
I remember Yoshi Cookie is in there but.
I can see that. So I want more games to do that,
honestly. That's great.
I think that's really. Clever.
That reminds me of. What film directors do, they'll
have their cast and crew watch aplaylist of movies as like, hey,

(27:39):
I'm inspired by these for this production.
I want you all to absorb this. Yeah.
That would be endlessly fascinating.
Yeah. And then the last thing in the
like section, eventually I do get to find an elect head
reference at the end of the gameand I feel like I'm one of the
early members of the Namatakahashi club.
I get there and I'm like, hey, Iknow what that is and I'm so

(28:01):
glad it's here. There's a.
Cinematic Universe with the gameOgraphy.
Cool. As for the things I don't dig
quite as much, I find some breakable walls or floors to be
a little unfairly hidden. The game does teach you pretty
early on Where breakable floors might be by trapping you in a
loop where you can't really progress until you just sort of

(28:22):
like happen upon that floor. But if you don't have that hunch
in the 1st place that there might be a breakable floor, I
could see you getting frustratedpretty early in the game or
later on, even when those breakable moments return in a
strong way. Next, I referred to this
earlier, but there were some rooms I had to look up online.

(28:43):
Now part of this maybe was because I was in a bit of a
hurry. I was originally playing
something else for this episode,but it was something a little
bit longer so I shifted to this.But anyways, I was a hurry and
if I hadn't been maybe I would have figured it out on my own.
But they were like two or three puzzle solving techniques I'm
not sure I would have consideredon my own.

(29:04):
OK. I will say that's a a relief to
hear that it was so few. Yeah.
Times, yeah, I mean, it was morethan two or three rooms, but it
was like, oh, I use that technique again in this room,
the one that I couldn't figure out before.
Yeah. I did remember in the demo
getting like a little bit stuck relatively early because I

(29:24):
didn't understand a, a fundamental, A foundational rule
or something, and I had to play around quite a bit, yeah.
Yeah, there's a. Especially once we get to like
having two bombs, sometimes the way you combine the two bombs is
not what I would have thought of.
And there's something with the teleporters and that's all I'll
say on that. But like they play a role in

(29:46):
solving some puzzles and I've I never would have considered how
to use that. And lastly, just a really small
nitpick. I wish the game had a second
ending like a like head does. And if it does, I actually
didn't find it, but the ending Ifound sort of like involved some
violence and I was kind of I washoping there was a secret like

(30:09):
non violence exit. It's not really a big deal
though, like the game still quite a delight.
So in the end, OH is a nice breezy puzzle adventure with the
right amount of game length and difficulty.
Puzzle mains will most definitely find it too easy, but
for me, I found it just right. It's cute, it's light hearted

(30:29):
and straightforward and can create a flow state with how
easy it is to control. In short, Nama Takahashi.
Just don't miss man. I'm excited to see what he does
next. So from me OH gets a nine point
O out of 10 OH. Lovely, I'm so glad you picked
this. I'm so glad you got to play like
a new puzzle game and a follow up as well.

(30:49):
I don't know if I have any clarifying questions but and I'm
sorry for it feels like a lot ofwhat I'm bringing up is just
like sidetracking us. But the violent ending is
reminding me of another game that's short from this year that
I got to play called Spilled, which is a wholesome, really

(31:10):
beautiful pixel art game about being a boat and cleaning up oil
spills. And the end of that game has a
surprisingly violent conclusion.Interesting.
And. I have I have kind of mixed
feelings on it. So it it's just interesting to
hear that again happening in like a kind of a cute, quirky
puzzle game. Yeah, with this kind of

(31:31):
aesthetic, like it's. It it's still not like breaking
the character of the game. It's it's not graphic or
anything, but it's like, oh, I didn't, I didn't expect it to
quite go this direction. OK, well, it might.
Make your list of surprises for the season.
We'll see. Very cool.
Well, I don't have anything elseto comment on or ask about I
think. You'd like it, I hope.

(31:53):
Nama Takahashi, I think I said this in the elected episode.
I hope he gets like a physical collection 2 pack or whatever.
Oh that'd be cool. I would I would buy the heck out
of that. Cool.
Well, it is time for My Secret Game.
My Secret Game is another wholesome, very gentle game that
didn't come out this year, but it's only a few years old and it

(32:16):
is called Lost Nova. You know what?

(32:49):
I I don't get into a lot of cozygames, but this might be one
that I it looks like my jam, kind of.
Yeah, So Lost Nova is a 2022 exploration crafting game
developed by John Nielsen and published by Hopfrog.
The game synopsis from Steam says quote your spaceship

(33:12):
crashed on an alien planet. Explore, salvage, craft, trade,
manage and upgrade your way backhome.
End Quote. Very straightforward.
We love that and I wanted to pick this game at some point
because it was gifted to me by our friend Grant.
What actually? Yes, that is not the name I

(33:34):
expected to come out of your mouth.
Now, I don't think it's because Grant has played it.
I think this was just on my verylong Steam wish list and there
there might have been like a summer sale and it was around my
birthday or something like last year and he gifted me this game
just seeing that it was on my wish list.
So I it was totally out of the blue.
And I just want to thank Grant of Coffee fame, Grant, our

(33:59):
friend for gifting me this game.Thank you.
So in Las Nova is a top down 2D experience.
You play as a girl named Mia whois on a vacation but her
spaceship crashes on a strange planet and there are several
areas you can explore. You have this laser blaster that
you can shoot at things in the environment to salvage

(34:20):
materials. These materials are called
glems, and you get different glems depending on which
environment you're in. So like some examples of them
are flora rock glems, coral glems, etcetera.
And you use combinations of glems to buy upgrades for Mia,
perhaps faster boots or a more powerful blaster so you can

(34:41):
salvage things even quicker. And you can also find a currency
called cores that you use to buythings.
And the planet is filled with diverse inhabitants that give
you tasks that typically involvecollecting and delivering things
ometimes looking for hidden things.
And your ultimate goal is to make your way to all the areas

(35:02):
by salvaging and crafting in order to find several parts to
repair your spaceship. So very straightforward.
You've just crashed on this planet.
You need to fix your ship and and go home.
And there are lots of quirky characters you meet along the
way. And all of the interaction that
you're doing is texts on screen.And what I liked about Las Nova

(35:22):
is that it's very colorful. It's light hearted.
You can tell if you look at the trailer right away.
It's just super vibrant. Each area feels like you're in a
Saturday morning cartoon, like maybe a different episode of a
of the same series of a Saturdaymorning cartoon.
And you run into all manner of fun side characters.
There's a group of small dudes called the Bridge Buddies.

(35:45):
They help you build bridges. There are cute robots, little
spacemen. There's an area with bears
wearing T-shirts, there's a crowthat wears a gold set of Knights
armor. It's just so diverse and
imaginative, and the soundtrack of this game by Topher Anselmo
is one of my favorites recently.Each area has its own theme, and

(36:10):
the whole thing kind of sounds like it's catered to the space
aesthetic, but it's very light and it's very upbeat.
It enhances the feeling of the world really well.
And then I also love buying upgrades, which feels
substantial. When you buy better boots, you
move noticeably faster. When you buy those upgrades for

(36:32):
your blaster, you can salvage noticeably quicker.
And also I would say that this is a really perfect length.
You can do most of everything injust a few hours.
I'd say I spent about as much time playing this as you
probably spent playing OH. That's what I like to hear,

(36:53):
yeah. So I finished this all in one
sitting, just one night. I would say that for things I
didn't like as much is I would point out the animation.
I think the animation feels kindof nostalgic, but in a way that
feels like early Flash cartoons.Yeah, maybe is how I would
describe it it. Just looking at the trailer, it

(37:15):
seems a little stiff, like limbsdon't seem to be doing a lot of
work. Yeah, like.
You'll move your stick to point your laser blaster, and the arm
just sort of rotates, right. It's a lot of that kind of
animation, and then characters will bounce up and down as idle
animations. There's just not a lot going on
to make the world feel so alive as it could through that

(37:36):
animation. There's also not a ton of depth
to what you're doing. It really is that same formula
of just salvaging materials, buying upgrades, looking for
those lost ship parts. All the environments do look
really diverse and different from each other, but the DNA of
what you're doing doesn't reallychange a whole lot.
And then also you have an inventory in this game.

(37:58):
And when you look at all your items you've collected, they all
assemble in this really long rowthat you have to scroll through.
And there also isn't a quest logof any kind.
So if you pick up an item that you need to deliver to another
character and you don't quite remember where you're supposed
to go, you have to find that item in your list.
And I found that eventually I had so many items that I didn't

(38:19):
really want to scroll through. I didn't see the point of doing
that. And you also kind of have to
just remember where to go. This is similar to other games
I've played, like like Teacup was an adventure game I played
where you get all these tasks and if you put the game down and
come back to it, there's no way to review all that.
You would just have to remember where to go.

(38:41):
And a little bit of that is going on here.
But overall, this is a lovely little sit of a game where you
get a laser gun, but there's no combat insight.
And I think that's great. I love that.
This isn't like, oh, you need towould destroy these aliens to
get these materials. Yeah, you're not.
Murdering the inhabitants of thePikmin planet, right?
Yeah. So there isn't that mismatch of

(39:02):
this cute aesthetic in this combat, it's just very gentle
and and very nice. You salvage an upgrade and move
on from one area to the next a few times.
There's nothing terribly wrong with that, it just doesn't leave
a huge impression on me. I do recommend this for a casual
play session if you don't want to think too hard about what
you're playing, and younger players would definitely enjoy

(39:24):
this too. It's got great music as well.
I'm going to give this a 6.5 outof time.
OK and it's playable on PCI. Think it's only on PC so that's
where I played it well. I'm sad to see a square quite as
low as that, but I think I don'tknow.
This looks pretty enjoyable to me.
Sometimes I really like getting into that repetitive grind,

(39:45):
especially of if it's like collecting stuff and then you
use that collected stuff to makeyour move set better.
Yeah, like that can be addictingfor me.
And when you? Collect a whole backpack of
stuff there. I don't think there's a limit to
how much you can carry too, which is awesome.
But when you go back to your ship, there's a little console

(40:05):
that sucks up all of the stuff that you've collected and you
see it all leave Mia's body and just go into this machine.
And so then you get a sense of like, wow, I just collected so
much and now I can use that to upgrade stuff.
And there are shops too. You can buy upgrades and shops
using the cores that you find. So there's a lot to save up for.

(40:25):
And I'll also say at the end of the game I ran around after the
credits, you can still explore the map, which is cool.
And you can buy more things, including like you have a cat
and you can buy like a cat tree and other things for your cat.
And also tons of hats. And the hats that I'm seeing
spread across the map are reallyexpensive, yes.

(40:48):
And so you could potentially spend a lot of time just
exploring, farming for things, buying more stuff.
I haven't done all that, but I did get credits and it was a It
was a nice time. I.
Do have a question about the map.
I'm seeing that there's like kind of pseudo platforming here.
Like how how big is this map? Like it?

(41:10):
How wide does it get? It's a few.
Areas and you'll have a central area that you first land in and
it's pretty big and I first wentN to a forest area and then I
went N again to a desert area. But then eventually from that
central area, you head South to a water area.
And then you also can go east and West.

(41:31):
So you don't ever go too far in One Direction and get terribly
lost. And I think you can also unlock
some fast travel points. You have to spend money, but
every area has a point that you can go to to like quickly
teleport. So there's that.
Sounds like Hyper Light Drifter when you it is.
It is kind of. I actually did think of that
while I was playing. And you also have a map that you

(41:55):
can look at to really quickly see which kinds of glums are in
each area, so you can know if you have to save up a certain
amount. You know that when you're in the
forest, you get these two kinds of glums.
It's. So that's very considerate, too.
Yeah. And so I wouldn't say it's like
overwhelming, but yeah, you can jump.
You can. There are places where they're
like these platforms just hanging in the air.

(42:16):
And you do need to use this jump.
It's a little strange. You have to use your triggers to
aim the jump and then to executethe jump.
It takes a little getting used to, but you use that to get up
onto higher platforms too. OK.
Well, I, I don't know if this quite gets too jealous game
level. We still have a couple more to
review, but I'm I'm interested in this man I'm glad.

(42:40):
I actually am very glad and I think you would love playing
this with your kids potentially,and if you interact with all of
the little characters you run into, you can do fun voices if
you wanted to. I don't know if I'm that fun of
a dad. I have a lot of cool stuff, but
I'm not like really that fun, OK?
Well, maybe when they're like, old enough to read, they could,

(43:03):
you know, read the characters and have fun with it or
something. But yeah, so those are our
secret games and Las Nova. Let's move on to our review of
Human Fall Flat. It is our featured game.

(43:29):
Human Fall Flat is a Co-op puzzle platformer first released
in 2016. It was developed by No Breaks
games and I think they are Lithuanian and this game was
also published by Curve games. The game synopsis from Steam
says quotes. Human Fall Flat is a hilarious,
light hearted platformer set in floating dreamscapes that can be

(43:50):
played solo or with up to 8 players online.
Free new levels keep its vibrantcommunity rewarded.
Escape the dreams of falling by solving puzzles using only your

(44:11):
wits and physics. Human with 0 superpowers, even
the right tools can do a lot. Misusing the tools he can do
even more explore surreal dreamscapes riddled with puzzles

(44:33):
and distractions. So this game, as we go into the
story slash setting, it just sort of starts right.
I mean it is a game you choose to play or.
Choice and. You just drop into these levels

(44:54):
that are pretty basic at first, and there is a narrator
commenting on the first few levels about the nature of
humans. And I think he's saying
something about how humans can'tfly and that's going to play a
role in falling, which you eventually need to do at the end
of stages to progress. You're always looking for a an

(45:15):
exit in which you fall just intothe endless sky, and that gets
you to the next spot in the game.
And you can play this game either solo or with up to seven
other people. Disco Cola and I only played
with the two of us, so we don't know what playing with eight
players is like. But you play as these floppy,
nondescript guys. I mean, I think they have hats.

(45:37):
They have hats, but they're justkind of like a white blobbish
form and they move clumsily. I would say we were calling.
Them the Pillsbury Doughboy a couple times, yes.
Very reminiscent of that, and there is a main game that
includes around a dozen levels. Another dozen or so bonus levels
are there called Extra Dreams, and they were released over

(46:00):
time. And just for people's awareness,
we only finished around 80% of the base game required to get
credits. So we still have not gotten
credits in this game. But we only had so much time.
We thought it would only take a certain amount of time and then
it took more and then it took more.
So if you are familiar with Human Fall Flat, these are the

(46:23):
levels we've finished. Mansion, train, carry, mountain,
demolition, castle, water, powerplant, Aztec and dark.
It's reminding me of what the car with.

(46:43):
There's a whole chapter just called longer.
Yeah, it's kind of like that. But those are the levels that we
finished, which is quite a lot. Scheduling time as adult friends
is hard, and then when one of those adults has children it's
even harder. Yes.
And so we still have to do a fewlevels, there's Steam ice and
then the final level and the ending.

(47:03):
And that's not even counting theextra bonus streams.
But we are planning to finish the game on stream at
twitch.tv/underplayed podcast even after this recording and
this episode comes out. So we will hopefully have a
third stream coming soon, and the goal of this game is to
simply get to the end of all thelevels.
Yeah, I think so. I think the.

(47:25):
Goal of the game is to have fun and then maybe reaching the end
is secondary. I think that's.
Actually, very true, yeah, because this game is humorous.
This game is goofy. It's intentionally kind of
awkward with how you control it,but what is it like to control
it? And what do we do in this game?
So. For gameplay, you can walk
around in a third person 3D plane.

(47:47):
You have access to a really doughy jump.
Doughy. Is such a good one.
Yeah, I. Like it, you can grab onto
surfaces on switch which is where we played this.
This is done doing using your trigger buttons for each of your
respective arms. So left trigger for left arm and

(48:07):
and whatnot. If you do this without grabbing
onto a surface, this will like raise or lower your arms, and
that's sort of also how you grabonto objects.
So maybe that will be pulling a cable or grabbing a box or
pressing a button. And then if you grab onto the

(48:28):
top of a ledge with both of yourarms, you'll be able to pull
yourself up onto the ledge. I think that's probably our most
sophisticated control mechanism.Yeah, I'd say.
That becomes. It's definitely.
Necessary. It's a necessary.
Mechanic and you do have to practice it in those early
levels to get it down, yeah. Momentum plays a role, whether

(48:49):
it's building up a sad amount ofspeed before a jump or swinging
your body while grabbing onto a surface.
And you use all of that to jump across pits, climb to new
heights, move objects to unlock doors, or otherwise just adjust
your ability to move further. This could be placing a box on a

(49:10):
weight sensitive button, connecting electrical cables to
a power source, building a bridge out of wooden scraps, or
just stacking some crap and hoping for the best.
And I would say that's what we've got for gameplay, and I
would. Say you start stacking crap and
hope for the best more the longer you go into the game,

(49:32):
especially in certain stages. But yeah, this game first came
to desktop systems. It's been ported to many other
platforms over the years. A sequel called Human Fall Flat
2 is announced, and Human Fall Flat has sold over.
This is going to blow your mind potentially.
OK, do you want to do you want to guess how many copies this

(49:53):
game is sold as of like late 2023?
I'm going to guess 300,000. This game has sold over 50
million copies. What many of those I think are
due to the fact that it was released in China during the
COVID-19 pandemic. And I think it was it really
blew up over there. Weird.

(50:14):
But that's far from like all thecopies.
But this has been around since 2016.
And it's one of those multiplayer games that I think
is just really interesting because it's so it's supposed to
be so humorous and you know, it's just kind of a goofy time,
right? And we love goofy times.
And so that kind of surprised me.

(50:34):
I mean it's got around like 30,000 reviews on Steam, which
was quite a lot. That's an indicator that it's
sold a ton on Steam alone. Yeah.
And this is our Co-op game for season 8.
We always have one Co-op game every season and disco you
picked the Co-op game for the season.
So we played this together. We commented on the game as we

(50:57):
were going. You know, we're expressing our
feelings as we go. So I have suspicions about what
you think about it, but I'm nonetheless super excited to
hear you talk about human fall flat.
What'd you think? OK.
So yeah, last season I'd mentioned that I only picked
Human Fall Flat because I had seen the Switch physical at a
Walmart. So I bought it.

(51:18):
And yeah, the reason I picked this to play was that I had it.
And it it that for me kind of remains the best reason to play
it is that I'd had it. But I did like stuff about it.
I like that the game literally drops you in like from a
comedically high height and doesthat at the beginning of every

(51:41):
level and to a lesser degree after every death.
That can be really fun too, if you like.
I remember, especially in water,dying and then like using that
to get on top of buildings that I wasn't supposed to be on
because you're falling from sucha high height.
That immediately is setting us up for comedy, and I appreciate

(52:02):
that. I like the shape of our silly
little bodies. The physics of our derriere is
especially comical. We were dancing a lot, yes.
Dancing is a good word. For it you can you can stand
idle. And use your arms to grab the
floor in front of you to plant yourself.
And then you just, then you can wobble a little bit.

(52:24):
It's so funny. It's hilarious.
And you play with camera angles,it's you get a lot out of it.
I had a friend of ours message me after they were watching the
first spot and they were just like, they told me that they
were cackling. And I'm like, I was cackling.
But yeah, it and I'm, I'm sure that the reason they were just
like living it up was because ofhow much time we spent jiggling

(52:48):
our big ol cakes. And in those moments I was
having quite a lot of fun. Some of the puzzly things we
have to do were fun and clever. I liked the electrical cables
bits. I liked forging the key in the
dark level. I liked charging the fuses in
that same level. And the way all of that work

(53:09):
goes into unlocking the really silly exit of the dark level was
also quite a delight. It was like I liked everything I
did to get here, and then this is also silly.
Yeah, It's like those favorite moments are.
Usually a little story within the level, like a progression of
steps that add up to like a minisegments.

(53:29):
So it feels like we're not just doing these arbitrary things.
Like we understand we have to make a key for this gate.
We see the gate has a big lock on it.
It's gold. And we know, OK, there's this
key forge here. The key is probably going to be
made from a material that looks gold, and then you're looking
out for that color. So that adds variety.
Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, that was really

(53:51):
fun. And I like that sometimes we
kind of maybe see the intended pathway, but because there's two
of us, we can kind of like cheese it in an easier
direction. I remember this in, I think
steam and water and maybe even demolition.

(54:14):
Is that one of them? That is one of them, Yeah.
I kind of remember we were kind.Of like.
Going around the back way and skipping certain yes, demolition
was weird because we. Split up.
We were on like completely divergent paths.
I was using the Wrecking Ball and I had no idea where you
were. You went in the window.
I was climbing some and then some stairs on the roof.

(54:36):
At some point we converged. Again, so that was cool.
And that was pretty early in thegame, too, yeah.
It didn't feel like we were brute forcing it all.
The time sometimes we were bruteforcing our way around the back
end, but like, sometimes it was just like a happy little
accident. And that that was fun to to
progress through the game in an unintended way that was still
like valid, you know. But you know, that's about where

(55:02):
it ends. There's a lot of puzzly elements
that I actually really loathed. I should note here, as we
mentioned earlier, that the gamehas sort of intentionally
awkward controls. Like that's the point that can
be fun and chaotic, but nevertheless I found myself like
instantly annoyed anytime we hadto hook or push something with a

(55:24):
long pole. I hated building bridges that
don't actually bridge the full gap.
You just kind of have to like, get on there and jump before
your stuff falls into the void. I don't like that.
That isn't fun for me because it's really easy to miss.
And then you have to build the bridge again.

(55:46):
And like the most awkward part of the controls is like carrying
crap. And then if it's heavy crap,
it's even worse. And I will say like one thing I
would compliment. About this game is that physics
seem to behave somewhat with a logic, but there are times where
weighing down platforms does notfeel substantial.

(56:08):
And so you're trying to have your partner stand on something
you're trying to weigh down a bridge with another big bridge
piece or maybe a crates and it'sstill going to going to topple.
Sometimes you're just maybe giving yourself a few extra feet
of movement before it starts to fall down the pit.
And so yeah, it and it's hard toto judge distance sometimes.

(56:29):
Yeah, and and sometimes you can grab the ledge and pull yourself
up, but sometimes you're just a few inches on there, barely miss
it or just miss it with like oneof your arms.
And you get it with the other one.
It's so frustrating. Anything that used flowing
water, a lot of that felt like luck, you know, and, and you
know, a lot of those elements inespecially in the flowing water

(56:51):
like will reset, but some don't.So if you like miss your chance
to jump onto a boat that's flowing to the next dam and you
miss, it's just like too bad, start all the way back at the
checkpoint. It's just like really
frustrating. Additionally, I don't feel a
sense of accomplishment from solving most puzzles or

(57:12):
traversing puzzle heavy platforming, save for like the
ones I mentioned in the positivesection like dark area and all
that. I don't find many of the
solutions especially clever, so I don't feel rewarded when I get
through them. Most of what I feel is just
annoyance. Maybe the single player
experience is more like mind bendy 'cause you can't brute

(57:33):
force your way around the back and some of them.
So maybe there is that sense of accomplishment.
But I found most of those same sections to be like frustrating
to play at a foundational level.Yeah, agreed.
Music. Like what the hell is going?
On. With the music like the music on
its own is perfectly fine but it's it's loud and it comes in

(57:56):
at strange times without warning.
It doesn't match the vibe of thegame in my opinion and probably
the worst part about it is that it's mostly non existent
throughout the majority of the game.
So when it does come in, it's like sticking out like a sore
thumb. It's like a jump scare almost.
And I don't get the sense that that's an intense see, yeah, at

(58:17):
first I thought, oh, that's kindof.
Funny, but as we're getting to like Level 3, you know, it's
hearing the same joke over and over again and it kind of lost
its charm and I after a while I was like, I'm not sure it's
meant to be a joke. And so I just I don't get the
choices they made with music here.
This has got to be and I understand a.
Mismatched audio cue or music cue as a comedic choice, but it

(58:40):
really doesn't feel comedic everit.
This is one of the strangest soundscapes of any game we've
played for the show. I cannot think of something else
that had a soundtrack that just felt so random and not in a
charming or funny or creative way.
It's just weird. Like it could have been any

(59:02):
music at a certain point, right?Exactly.
Just feels like you. You gave this.
Game to. Someone who had no intuition for
what music to pick and they justpicked the first thing they
found and they placed it randomly.
It's just, it was just like royalty free crap that they have
lying around. Too, It's like, well, I don't
have a jazz song, so here's somebig horns have at it.

(59:24):
So yeah, it was sending me but. You know, not complimentary.
Yeah, I. I laughed at it a couple of
times, but I was just like, OK, I I get it guys.
I'd rather just have like low music throughout, you know, even
though it's like less of a risk.It just, I think would have been

(59:46):
a better choice and would have maybe like made the game overall
just a little bit more enjoyablebecause there's for most of the
game, it's just sound effects, just nothing but sound effects.
Yeah, it feels like. The soundscape.
Is so empty and then it just it roars to life, but not in a way

(01:00:06):
that is welcome. It's so it's so weird.
It's the Frankenstein monster that just like, needed.
In like half a second. That's what the songs are, yeah.
That's like a perfect visual representation.
But yeah. There's there's a lot more, but
as far as notable things to specifically point out, the last

(01:00:27):
thing I'll mention is that the Aztec level can just hecky all
the way off. I hate that level a lot.
I did not enjoy it. Oh, we'll talk more about that
'cause we. We like sequence broke that
level, but we didn't know that. We did, but ultimately it didn't
help us. It didn't help.
Us. Yeah, it was a.

(01:00:47):
Lot so. In Human Fall flat, when I'm
having fun I'm having fun and when I'm not I'm definitely not.
Most of the times I am having fun it's less about the controls
or the world objects being chaotic and more about but
humor. Basically the highlight of the
game was the butt of the joke AOgot him.

(01:01:10):
I'm curious if the single playerexperience is drastically
different. But also I'm really like not
actually all that curious, I just kind of wonder and I don't
care. It's possible that this is
totally mood based too. Like the first stream I was
having a lot of fun, but the second stream I felt a lot of
frustration. Maybe it was my mood, Like was I

(01:01:33):
taking it too seriously? Was I too sober?
Or it is Aztec just like a superunfun level that brought me down
for the rest of the night? I don't know.
There were definitely a lot of positive moments, but only a few
had to do with actually progressing through the game.
I give this A5 point O out of 10.
OK. That's around what I would guess
I. Would say for my likes I would

(01:01:54):
point out the physics in some cases they again follow the
logic of our world. I like the idea of creating
fulcrums, like we can pick up poles and put them on an object
that's on the ground and maybe like lift things.
There was a lot of forgiveness in like those.
Moments where you are hooking onto something that's sticking

(01:02:17):
out in order to swing across. I will give it that.
There's a lot of forgiveness when you're like plugging things
in or putting things on a it's like a key and latch.
But when it's like building those bridges, there is like no
forgiveness at all. It's like times where you need
to be more. Creative are times where things
can really fall apart quickly. But a lot of times putting

(01:02:40):
cables into sockets, things willsnap keys, just grabbing onto
things, pressing buttons will kind of just feel a little bit
more forgiving. And I also like, you know, how
the gravity feels in a lot of cases.
I like the idea of pushing objects, handing things off to
each other, throwing crates is very satisfying.

(01:03:01):
So like there are times where just the physics feel right.
Also like the lighting is surprisingly dynamic when you go
into dark rooms. I'm thinking of places in the
castle level where we go into a room and things get dark.
There's just some nice shadows for what this game is.
There are many moments that mademe laugh out loud.
Just like you said, like the wobbly dancing.

(01:03:23):
There's a God. There's a moment near the end
of, I want to say it's the carrylevel, like pretty early on
where you pull a lever, but the lever just comes out of the
socket. And I had to do this.
You had to drop a, you had to drop something onto a glass
floor so that I could get to a lever.
And then you're up there waitingfor me to pull this lever to

(01:03:43):
open a door. And I'm down there, I'm like,
OK, I'm pulling it and I pull itand it does open the door, but
the lever just comes out of the socket.
I just, that's the comedy of this game that I love.
I think this game tries to do like 3 or 4 different kinds of
comedy and I think that's the one that lands for me.
Another example of that is 1. You've mentioned the
Frankenstein coming to life. You think this Frankenstein in

(01:04:07):
the level dark is just going to raise up.
Once we electrocute him and he'szapped with the energy, he's
just going to like raise up and like walk away, right?
He rockets up into the sky. It's amazing.
And like, it's a surprising moment.
It's so funny to me. That stuff is great.
Another kind of comedy that I think will work is accidental

(01:04:27):
stuff. Like in the Aztec level, I
remember you were trying to pulla platform along a ledge, like a
platform was falling. You caught it and I was watching
you. I was just standing there as a
bystander and it, I thought you had it, you know, and you're
just like, I'm going to grab this thing.
And then it just pulls you down into the pit.
And I, it was so funny. So like there are moments where

(01:04:47):
I really have a lot of fun and I'm laughing.
There are multiple strategies that are valid and rewarding.
In some cases you can see the intended way, but the game is
totally cool with you kind of, you know, janking your way
across certain gaps and platforms.
So there were times where we didthat and you know, if anything

(01:05:08):
it saved US time and that's thatfeels good, right?
There are things I don't like too.
There are levels that go on way too long.
And I think the levels get longer as time goes on for the
most part. Like we get Castle, that's the
first really long level and you start to wonder how long is this
going to be? Did I miss the end?
Am I going the wrong? Way exactly.

(01:05:30):
There's power plant and. Aztec those start to get like
into the half hour, 45 minute range.
Moving your human or interactingwith objects can feel tedious a
lot of the time. I'm thinking of times in water
and again, Aztec we're just things can take a long time.
You know what you need to do, but actually doing the thing

(01:05:52):
requires so much finesse or so much time or just so much
precision with moving objects that I don't feel energized by
that prospect. I just feel the frustration of
trying to finagle with stuff andwe both have to do that
sometimes and if you miss you got to wait for it to.
Reset and it can take a while for things to reset too.

(01:06:15):
Yeah. So then there's.
Also a bit of an identity crisisgoing on with this game,
especially with its humor. I think it's slapsticky, but
it's bland at the same time. And there are just so many
opportunities. It's not always that the game is
making a wrong choice. It's just that it doesn't make
enough choices. Maybe one example of this is

(01:06:38):
we've played humorous games witha narrator, and this game
introduces a narrator at the start, and he says some pretty
funny things. And then where does the narrator
go? They could have used the
narrator. Like, that's such an
opportunity. Where's the narrator in this
game? Where'd he go?
Yeah, we could get even if we just had.
Like lectures from that guy, that's in everything, the game,

(01:07:03):
everything. Oh, in the game everything.
Yes, if even if it was just something.
Like that? Like that?
Would have if it was a completely like serious voice,
but he's. Saying absurd things.
I would have loved that. There are absurd moments, but
they're so infrequent that they seem accidental.
There's the music thing. It seems like a strange mismatch
with the game. It just feels like random

(01:07:25):
choices are made. Absurdity can feel random, but I
think there needs to be a degreeof consciousness with making
decisions that involve absurditytoo.
I think there needs to be some kind of a balance, and it just
feels like the game doesn't quite achieve that balance.
So overall, Human Fall Flat is, I would say, more tedious than

(01:07:50):
fun for me. The puzzles are satisfying to
figure out. We do make constant progress,
but we're also stopped frequently because of tedious
tasks involving moving objects. I don't think I could play this
game alone, and I was very glad that I was with you for sure.
I'm going to give this a 5.50. Wow, that's more than I did.

(01:08:12):
OK. That's just the score I came up
with. Earlier I thought about going
down to A5 with you. I'm just going to stick with the
score that I almost went with a six and then I thought about it
more and I was like, eh, maybe we need to go on 6 is like the
lower end of good. I'm going to go with a 5.5
again, just because this game did make me laugh.
There are moments that you know,made me laugh out loud.

(01:08:35):
So I have, you know, there were there was some raucous.
Laughter and for certain points,for sure, this game made us do
things that we haven't done. With other games, like this game
made us sing a lot. I think we were blowing off
steam a lot, yeah, with all the singing and like voices we were
doing there, you know, there wasa lot of room for singing,
'cause. There was no he's like in the

(01:08:55):
game. Maybe that's why we were doing
that actually. That you have a point.
So I'm wondering, can we just golevel by level of what we played
and just reminisce on what we remember?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
So I would say the first 3 or 4 levels happened so quickly that
you can almost remember them as one.
So we've got mansion, which I think just takes like a couple

(01:09:17):
minutes to finish. I don't remember mansion.
It's it's that's where the. Narrator's talking to.
Us and we're just learning how to press buttons and open doors,
I think. And then there's a train where
we had to climb up that train that was on the building that
was that was the first moment where I thought Rut row, we're
not going to be able to get, arewe going to be able to get
through this game? Like is this?

(01:09:39):
And then we found out that we don't have to climb up that
train. We just go through the door.
We spent a long time trying to get.
We did, and that's before we realized that you can't.
Like, the game isn't designed around climbing up walls, which
is sort of what you try to do with that train.
At a certain point, you're just trying to jump up the train.
Yeah, that's not what's intendedat all.
And this is also before we learned that you can.

(01:10:01):
Pull yourself up on ledges too. So we don't even.
That's not even a yes. Yeah, the game does tell.
You that I think in the mountainlevel or maybe the carry level,
but after the train we have Carrie, which I think is more
about learning how to grab things, take crates, put them on
buttons to open doors. And then right after that we

(01:10:21):
have Mountain, which is where I think we had a tutorial to pull
ourselves up ledges. So to the game's credit, it is
teaching us these things in these like 4 really short
levels. I, I consider this like the
introduction set of levels. I feel like mountain.
I feel like mountain was. A level like it was longer than

(01:10:43):
the first three, I think, yeah. But that's that's where we
needed to pull ourselves up to get places.
Yeah. I don't remember a ton else
about these. I remember, I remember getting
on the tops. Of trains and I remember
learning about the boxes and carry and just like there were a

(01:11:03):
lot of doors and I was like, oh,I think I you know I think I got
to the back exit but actually itwas just like where exactly
where I was supposed to go so where we started to really
understand. The scope of some levels was
demolition. This is where you split off.
You went to the left into that window and I had the Wrecking
Ball and I knocked over that wall and that works.

(01:11:25):
That was an example of, oh, I wonder if this is how this works
and the wall just, you know, crumbled.
That was great. I don't know if you even got to
see that because you're off. I I saw the I I think I did see
it. Like I just happened to look
over at the right time. Yeah.
And then that that level felt like a.
Maze at a certain point, yeah, Ifelt like when we.

(01:11:47):
Were in that level, I was like, OK, good, this is the chaotic
sandboxy game I wanted it to be.Wasn't that.
But, you know, you were over there and I was up here and I
was just. It was like I get to explore and
there's chaotic physics and buttons and stuff to push and I
was just like, this is OK, maybethis is going to be OK yeah.

(01:12:10):
And I don't know if it. Was this level where we learned
that just one person needs to get the checkpoint?
Yeah. We didn't learn that yet.
We didn't learn that yet. OK, that.
Might have been castle or. Water.
You know what I think? Maybe.
We didn't learn it, but we had the suspicion because one of us
fell off and I fell off. I fell off.

(01:12:31):
I think and spawned. Next to you and.
This game does the thing you seein lots of slit screen
multiplayer games. Like, think of your slit
fictions and your It takes twos where, you know, just the screen
is slit down the middle. And I have one side, you have
the other. And I saw your perspective and I
just fell into your view and I'mright in front of you.

(01:12:53):
Yeah. And so that was a little bit of
a relief. But I also was wondering, was I
supposed to do something on my side before joining you?
And you were you were really close by.
So I was like, because we. So that that in my mind was
like, he was just close by and this is the closest spawn point.
Like I don't think I even understood the checkpoint thing
yet. Yeah, I think it was not until

(01:13:15):
perhaps. Castle or water, where we really
started to understand that you remarked right away in Castle
that, oh, this is not going to be my favorite thing because you
don't like fantasy like medievalstuff.
And it appeared that we now had a pretty big level in front of
us that involved that. It was huge.
It was very big. It did use a lot.

(01:13:37):
Of paraphernalia from medieval times.
But one part I really liked actually was when I saw you use
that hook to swing across a gap.You used a long hook.
There was a pole sticking out ofthe wall and you actually had to
swing on that and you got, you got the checkpoint.
I didn't have to worry about doing that.

(01:13:58):
And then also there was a momentwith the windmill at the end,
and we actually have this momentsaved.
So let's listen to that real quick.
This was the moment when we wereat the base of a giant windmill
that was spinning really fast, and we realized we had to grab
onto the the spinning pump. Yeah.
We were kind of like looking at it for a while.

(01:14:19):
And I was. Trying to like I had made like 3
revolutions and I got back down and we were just sitting there.
Oof owl. Hi.
Hi help me up. Carry me, carry the friends.
Oh, that was a nice moment. That was that was a nice moment.

(01:14:45):
Just the the simultaneous realization.
Oh, that's how we do it. Yeah.
So that's that's what I. Think we both realized at the
same time, it's like momentum plays a role in this game.
And so I was just like, oh, that's it.
I did like that idea for sure. Sometimes it didn't really work
the way you would expect. Sometimes it worked surprisingly

(01:15:06):
well. And I think that sound bite also
illustrates how quiet the game is.
Yes, too. As I, as we were listening to
that, I was like, yeah, this. Game is super.
Quiet. Sometimes that's not a recording
of the room without. You know, with our headphones
and that's, that's the game thathad the, that's the dream
volume. Fully integrated and you didn't

(01:15:26):
really hear a whole lot in thereso yeah, Castle trying to think
what else we did that we'd had to jump across water.
We had to swing a lot. I remember the catapult and
breaking down the. Door Oh, you did an awesome job.
Getting in the catapult, grabbing the wall and then just
sort of dropping down into that.Yeah, it just kind of like
spidered down. I don't.

(01:15:47):
Know how you did that? I don't think that's the
intended way. Just like, are you just supposed
to aim? I think you're supposed to aim,
but I don't. Know how that's?
Possible. Yeah, you just dropped in there.
That level, I think you were theMVP.
You kept getting a lot of the thank you checkpoints.
Yeah. Then we had water.
This level was long, too. Yep.

(01:16:07):
At first I liked the idea of getting a raft and the game kind
of suggesting that you need to take this raft to this beach
where you see this bigger boat. You actually didn't need to do
that. You could just swim kind of to
the beach where the boat is. You did need the big boat and we
had to push that boat into the water and that took us like 10

(01:16:28):
minutes or so. Yeah, it was bad.
We're both grabbing it and pulling it.
One of us is pulling it while the other is pushing it.
We're both pushing it. We're trying every combination.
I'm using a big pole to try to push it in while you're pulling
it and we didn't even those poles were like.
Sticking vertically in the ground at the start.
I didn't even recognize at firstthat they could be manipulated.

(01:16:49):
Yeah. And then I had just had the
suspicion like are. Those why are those there?
And then I just went over and they fell over immediately and I
go, oh, you can pick these up. And so you're supposed to do
something with those. I thought maybe like use them as
rollers underneath but by that point we were like inches from
the water anyway so there's no ground left to roll.

(01:17:10):
I had an idea similar to that. Instead of rollers underneath
the boat, I thought turn them like parallel with the boat and
have them side by side and create like a track on which to
slide the boat down. Like you see when people bring
their boats to the lake and theyhave like a little ramp that
brings the boat down actually into the water.
But we were so close to the water at that point because we'd

(01:17:32):
spent like 15 minutes doing that.
I did so in that level the. First half of the level you like
get the raft, you go to the speedboat, then you go to like a
shipping container boat or whatever.
You're like getting a bigger boat, bigger and bigger boat.
Yeah, that's so fun. And I thought that was going to
be. The whole level, that's not what
it ended. Up being like and imagine after

(01:17:53):
that big. Boat that we were in, imagine if
we were in an even like a biggerboat, aircraft carrier or
something and. Like a boat that's the size of a
planet. You know, like the game could
have done something that's that's funny, right?
That's funny. Do that comedy game exactly like
that's what I'm pointing out. When I say this game has an
opportunity to just do somethingfunnier, not that what it's

(01:18:17):
doing is like wrong, it's just making a choice that isn't as
strong, you know what I mean? And then we start getting on
platforms, going into the water,and we have to stay on the
platforms. And I found myself falling in
the water a time and we had to reset.
And water is the level where I got stuck.
I got stuck. Like literally stuck.
I. Actually had a moment very

(01:18:39):
similar. To what happened to us in
Octodad, the Co-op game we chosefor last season. 2 awkward
controls games in a row. I'll try not to pick up a third
awkward controls game in a row for next season, but I got stuck
in that game in a bridge and here I got stuck on a ramp.
My arm was just in the environment and we had to reset

(01:18:59):
that checkpoint and you were trying to drop down on me to try
to unstuck me. You tried to, like grab and hold
and just pull me down. It didn't work.
None of it worked. Yeah.
And that was just because I. Respond.
Fell down like you always do when you respond and my arm just
clipped into this. It just didn't and I just was
hanging there. And that was funny.

(01:19:20):
It was funny, but we had to, we had to reset that checkpoint and
then I found the last half of that level just.
Generally frustrating because you have to wait for the raft
reset in the like dam section and I thought it was clever.
That you had to attach the chainfrom the lifts to the dam to

(01:19:40):
like, remove it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was a cool idea. And that was that was an idea
where it's like, OK, how do we get this water to go down this
slope? We can't pull it with just our
bodies. And then it's just this tool,
this big tool right in front of us is the lifts.
Did we look that one up? Was that the first?
Thing we looked up or did you because I I I think I came up

(01:20:02):
with that because I was. Like not even on that I.
Noticed there was the chain on the pole in the ground.
And I noticed that the lifts hada pull on it.
And so I thought, oh, what if will that chain reach?
And it did. And that was satisfying.
But we did start looking stuff up.
I think in power plant or Aztec.Power plant was next.

(01:20:23):
This was, I think, one of our favorites because even though it
was longer, we had the cables that we had to put into the the
sockets to power things and that's always kind of fun.
And was that the one with the coal at the end?
The coal at the end. Like we had to bring coal.
From one side of a highway to another and drive that truck,

(01:20:44):
That was scary. Yeah, driving the truck was a
little. Much but it was.
Also like that sort of chaotic fun.
It was fun, yeah, to, to a pointit was.
And I I can't. Imagine doing that solo but.
One of us was steering, one of us was accelerating.
Yeah, because there are two levers on that thing.
So that was that was kind of fun.
I wish that. It was maybe just like a little

(01:21:05):
bit easier to pull off. I think the highways just a
little too it. It's comedically windy.
I get what they're doing. There and I liked I liked
lighting the coal on fire to. Solve the puzzle.
That was a fun thing to do. Yeah.
Lifting the doors of the. Burners like that, I needed your
help with that. I ultimately I don't think we
actually had to close them at the.
End. But I still wanted to.

(01:21:26):
Yeah. You feel remiss not doing that.
And then we get to Aztec. I hate that level, man.
Aztecs. I remember the long pole and the
crates. You know, we, we were messing
with that so much. I looked that up.
I wouldn't have figured that outon my own.
You have to use the weight of the crates to float yourself on

(01:21:47):
the pole. Never considered crazy.
And we ended. Up skipping an entire section.
But we didn't know that. And then we thought that the
area that was technically beforethe section that we got to was
the next section. And so we were then backtracking
without knowing. Yeah.
And we wasted so much time. It was.

(01:22:08):
It was rough. I didn't enjoy that level.
At all. That's the one with the big
rock. That falls down.
You have to ride the rock. Yeah, we looked that up too.
That's right. I think that was on and on.
That's the most. Standout piece in my mind from
that level, but I also still didnot enjoy that part very much.
And then just the beginning where you have to go around

(01:22:30):
that. Wall to we were trying to do
that for way too long and we were we were thinking like this
level still has a lot of level in it.
I don't even remember what the solution ended up being.
For that, didn't we just have you hold down the pole?
While I walked on it and jumped,we had to try it a few times.
That's what we ended up. Doing you're right and so

(01:22:50):
there's sometimes where. You're doing that.
You're holding something down for me and I'm thinking how do
you do this solo? So I don't know.
The video I was watching was some guy playing it solo.
So you said you were it can be done.
Mildly interested in knowing howthat.
Was done if you. Want to look up that video?
You could watch a few moments ifyou wanted to.

(01:23:10):
And then the last level that we got to, probably my favorite
level, which is a surprise because I had a string of
moments leading up to this in water and Aztec that were really
bringing me down. We got to dark and I ended up
liking this level a lot. Yeah, dark was really cool.
It had a lot of cool. Ideas it had like just logical

(01:23:31):
level design. Honestly, it was like, OK,
here's this locked door in the center.
There's pads off to the left andpads off to the right.
You have to do both to solve this puzzle down the middle.
And then you climb the tower. And charging those fuses was fun
finding them. It was just like good level
design. And I was, when you told me one

(01:23:53):
of the levels was dark, I was like, I hate dark levels.
I thought it was going to be like, literally hard to see.
Yeah. And that's what I was like, so.
Scared of but more? It was like, it was almost like
a Halloween it. Was yeah.
It was just like, it's night time, Yeah.
And there is a monster, Yeah, there's a there's like a
Frankenstein's monster that we're bringing.
To life. That's a fun little story thing,
you know, It doesn't have to do anything more than what it did.

(01:24:15):
But going up to that tower, you're climbing up that you then
collapse and you've got the material that we need, I think
to smelt into the key. And fitting that key in the door
was funny because that was an instance where you actually did
have to fit it perfectly in thisbig launch.
That was pretty silly. And we get to the Tesla coil

(01:24:37):
thing and it just tells you there are two fuses you have to
find, and we have to charge those batteries too.
And how do we do that? So there were these steps.
We had to take that elevator down.
I really liked all the little moments in that.
And we go really high. We go underground.
Just super interesting. Yeah.
There's a minecart in that one. Yeah.

(01:24:58):
That's right. It didn't, it didn't wow me, but
it's just like cool that it was there.
It's a nice set piece. Yeah, totally.
So that's what we got. Through and we have steam, ice
and whatever the final level is in the endings we played a
couple couple like checkpoints worth.
Of Steam, I think. I think we did, yeah.

(01:25:18):
So we'll get to those soon. I'd like to finish the game and
get credits, but yeah, I think we played.
We definitely played enough to be able to review it and just
talk about some fun moments, butlike, I just don't know that
there is a whole lot to comment on other than what we've said.
I'm not. I'm guessing that maybe.
Ice physics could potentially provide a lot of funny moments,

(01:25:41):
but it could also just like be another Aztec where it's just
like, can this be over, please? Yeah, we'll see in the full
playthrough I. Was using to look up solutions.
The last few levels don't take nearly as much time for this
player as like Aztec and water and things like that.
So hopefully it's we'll see we'll see.

(01:26:01):
I don't like not liking. Games, man, Yeah, so and I, I
just didn't love this one. And just revisiting what you
said a moment. Ago, you don't know what it was
about the second session. Yeah.
Where like you were just not having as much fun.
Maybe it was the levels themselves.
Maybe it was your attitude that day.
I was feeling the same way, yeah.
I was like the breeze was taken out of my sails a little bit.

(01:26:26):
Very happy to play with you, as always.
Very happy to play like a coop game with a friend.
But there's something about thatfirst stream where maybe it was
inebriation, maybe it was just that we hadn't.
Played a Co-op game in a. While and it was the first
stream of the game, I don't know, maybe yeah, I don't know,
maybe the best. Part of this game is just a big

(01:26:48):
old butt. And once you get that all the
all you can out of that joke, then it's just like, well, this
is the this is my life now. Yeah, we got the big butt out of
our system. Yeah.
Honeymoon. Phase was over.
Damn, I think there's. There's truth to that.
Anything to say about human fallflat other than that, I don't

(01:27:09):
think so, man. We'll see how the.
Other few levels treat us and I don't like ending on sour notes,
man, but yeah, it's yeah. This was a game that I thought
that I would get a lot of laughs.
I didn't get as much as I wanted.
I think we created our own fun in.
Some really entertaining ways, and I hope that when we reach

(01:27:33):
credits, that gives us a level of catharsis.
Yeah, that won't be so ugly of away to end our experience.
Yeah. It would be nice if in the last
episode. Of the season when we talk about
score regrets, I hope that this is one of them.
Yeah, I hope so too. That's why that's.
Kind of why I also kind of hedged my rating a little bit

(01:27:56):
with like the 5.5. I didn't go down to A5, I didn't
go up to a six. I was just kind of feeling like,
OK, let's go in the middle. But that is our review of Human
Fall Flat. You can play it on PC, Mac,
Linux, Switch, Switch 2. Actually, I think the Switch two
version is announced for next year, but it's announced PS4, PS

(01:28:18):
5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, iOS and Android.
Disco Cola rated it a 5I rated it a 5.5.
That's the end of this episode of Underplayed.
You can find more of our episodes at kzum.org/underplayed
and on common podcast platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Our music comes from Jack Rodenberg.
Our arts comes from Oni Mochi. Check out our show notes where

(01:28:41):
you can find and follow us across social media.
We're on Blue Sky Instagram and Threads.
You can find my links down belowtoo and I am at Disco Cola in a
lot of those. Places as well and hey KZUM has
a video game music radio show currently called press start to
listen but will soon be called demo mode so keep your eye out

(01:29:02):
for that name change where you can hear music like the music
from Las Nova which I will definitely be playing on that
show very soon there are severaltracks that will.
Go well with that show, I think.I think you'll have a good time.
Next time we will have two more secret games to review.
We will have a discussion with our guest Protodude, and

(01:29:23):
together with Protodude our featured game will be Cross Code
and Action RPG developed by Radical Fish Games.
Until then, everyone keep on playing.

All Episodes

085 - Öoo, Lost Nova, & Human: Fall Flat

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}085 - Öoo, Lost Nova, & Human: Fall Flat