0143 cozyfog5

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Channel 3 is the future. Welcome crew to One Year 3A
Channel 3 Podcast where we take a member of the Channel 3

(00:31):
community. We discuss three games of their
choosing, go through some honorable mentions and some
other odds and ends for a nice little video game discussion.
I'm Dan with me as always, Ray. What's going on, people?
Tonight's guest, Let me tell you, we're looking, doing the
research, looking at the name. This guess I definitely have
messed up his username before. And now that I'm not messing,

(00:53):
gonna mess it up, let me tell you, makes way more sense.
It is, in fact, not cozy frog. I'm sure I've said cozy frog at
some point. It is cozy fog, which, you know,
makes a way. Cozy.
Hey, I'm doing great. How are you 2?
I'm, I've had a long day actually.

(01:14):
I've actually, I've got a house full of sick people, but I'm I'm
still alive. That I just have to remember to
add the five always whenever I have to put something in there
for him, 'cause otherwise I, I don't find him.
That's the other piece. Cozy, cozy.
Fog 50 Let's let's ask that why the five why them 5.

(01:36):
So when I was doing sort of likea personal rebranding, I wanted
to choose a username that, you know, represented me uniquely in
in some way. So cozy fog, like I like the
vibe of fog and I've lived in a lot of foggy places before.
But then I wanted the five to give myself something that was
truly like truly unique online so that if you Googled it, it

(01:58):
would kind of come up with with my username.
So that's really what the five is there for it.
They're not the 5th cozy fog. It's just, it's just the, you
know, a unique number that I felt fit in.
I was just picturing him like bundled in a nice quilt in in
Silent Hill watching the activities occur.
So this this makes more sense. But it's still impressive.

(02:21):
It's still impressive when you can get like a single digit at
the end of your username is saying like like no one else.
No one else this ever ever thought of putting A5 at the
end? I don't know if anyone thought
of cozy fog, Certainly one I've not heard before.
So nice job all around. Yes, thank you.
Well, we're we're not here to talk Silent Hills though.
We're here. We're here to talk Roller

(02:42):
Coaster Tycoon, the game you putfirst.
The Four Point 4.1 rated on Channel 3 the the psychopath
test, if you will. But are we are we talking the
the the OG 1999 or the the 2003 Xbox sport?
Where, where? Where are we in time space?
Sure, sure. So when I, when I picked it up,
I was kind of thinking of the really the original two games.

(03:05):
I know that's cheating a little bit, but you know, Roller
Coaster Tycoon one and two are played very similarly and have,
you know, sort of the same impact in my childhood.
OK, So what was the impact then?So let's let's talk about where.
Where, where was Where was youngnot cozy fog then.
Yeah, so the the impact, I mean,this was going back to what,

(03:28):
like 1999 and I was, you know, so excited about this, this
game. I was going to be able to build,
you know, roller coasters and I was going to get to design abuse
of parks and I it just sounded like a whole lot of fun.
And this was even before I had really ever ridden roller
coasters. But.

(03:48):
Were you just like in a simulation games?
Was that this or was just the the idea of like all going to
make an amusement park? I think it was just the idea of
making an amusement park and notjust, you know, setting down the
rights, but actually, you know, designing them, you know, piece
by piece and having, you know, little guests running around the
park. It felt very like interactive
and dynamic and creative. I'm, I'm probably projecting out

(04:11):
myself as a, as a nine year old there, but I, I think that's
what drew me to it. And roller coasters.
Roller coasters are fun. So you see, how are fun?
Yeah, roller coasters. They are fun.
My my family would agree as theydragged into.
Them. I just want to make that part
clear. Roller coasters are fun.

(04:33):
At some point I start feeling like I'm in in, in the right
stuff and I'm ready to just passout.
I'm just, I'm just done. The G forces have gotten me so.
I told me it blacked out. But so, OK, so how did you find
out about this game? Was this just one like the the
game? You know, there were, I feel
like there were a lot more just like mall PC gaming options back

(04:57):
in the day or like a, you know, the gaming stores had a lot more
PC games than you saw, like a display or was this a, a
magazine catching your attention?
Yeah, that's a good question. I I'm not even sure that I had
PC games before this. This was, you know, one of the
very first ones that I played. 99 year old cozy.
Foggs. So there wasn't much yet.
Not a lot of history there. Exactly.
Yeah, My guess is that my mom found like an advertisement for

(05:21):
it or, you know, it's something like that, like in the the
newspaper or a catalog or something like that.
And then we made sure to get it on the very first day that it
came out. And that's how I got to play it
on the on the launch date beforeyou kind of exploded in
popularity and became, you know,what it turned into eventually.
Well, especially at that point, like you're getting into

(05:43):
Resident Evil Metal Gear. So not you, but I mean, like the
gaming world is going into the darkness of like PlayStation
gearing up for PS2, the weirdness of some of the
Dreamcast. And it's short lived like
gearing up for that. Like, and then you have this
colorful roller coaster tycoon cover here with just like all

(06:03):
the amusement park accoutrement.I, I, I certainly could see that
catching anybody, either your eye or your family's eye across
the board. I mean, like, yeah, OK, this is
this is a game we can get behindhere.
This isn't, you know, any of thethe doom, Duke Nukem
Wolfenstein, like murder, murderhell games, right?

(06:24):
Like so we can we can safely getthis one out here.
Let's go. Yeah, it was just like a natural
extension of playing with like, you know, Kinects and, you know,
like toy train tracks and those kinds of things.
As a kid, I think I had a Kinects roller coaster set back
in the day also. So yeah, this is a yeah, perfect
continuation of. That all right, so so you booted

(06:45):
up what's So tell me, tell what what happens the first time it
catches you? What happens the first time that
that catches me? Yeah, like you.
You boot the game up. What happens?
You're hooked. You're hooked.
Take it some. Time just not boot up because
the PC couldn't handle it. You you boot it up, you know,
choose a scenario, you've got usually a nice, you know clean

(07:07):
canvas to work with. Sometimes you work on, you know
pre-existing parks. You look at your ride selection,
you might. I always go for the wooden
roller coaster first. Those are almost always
available. There are a lot of track pieces
available. Financially viable also where
you don't have a lot of money towork.
With yeah, yeah, they're not themost expensive ride.
So usually just you put down a, you know, a kind of a mid length

(07:30):
wooden roller coaster and maybe a, a merry go round 'cause you
need that music without the merry ground music, it's like
you're not even playing Roller Coaster Tycoon.
So, and it's also very, very nostalgic.
You like the Clivey music. So and yeah, open the park, you
know, charge $20.00 for your umbrellas and yeah, start making
some money. Was that, was that your goal to

(07:52):
start, start, start charging wherever you could to try to try
to be some capital there? Well, yeah, we got to, we got to
expand the park and we got to meet our scenario objective, so.
Where where was young cozy Fogg in in your micro or
macroeconomics classes at 9 trying to understand.
How well this game taught me so much about that.

(08:13):
It was it was a micro economics class on its own.
Like there's, there's just so many decisions.
You can, you know, advertise your park.
You can you charge for rides or you can charge at the the
faregate to like to get into thepark.
You know, all the food items have different values.
You can, you know, hire staff and the staff costs money.
And so you're making a lot of economic decisions along the

(08:36):
way. Like you can make a huge roller
coaster, but then you're going to run out of money.
So, you know, instead they thinksmaller.
I had a lot of, you know, interesting trade-offs like that
for for sure. So did you start running through
different scenarios? Did you have one park you really
dedicated to or was a little bitof both of like, OK, let me,
because I mean this thing like I, I don't remember how many

(08:57):
original scenarios there were, but I know like with the the
add-ons, it was like up to 81 orsomething like that.
Plus there was the download theyhad from the website.
You could get a couple that way.Like the, it, the like, that was
the whole idea is, you know, youhad, like you said, like obscure
European theme parks to to modelafter that we probably had no
idea what exactly they were. But like, you know, all these

(09:18):
options that are available. So did you just start playing
different ones or? Yeah, it was hard to, it was
easy to feel connected to just about every park I made.
And one of the reasons for that is that time passes so slowly in
the game. Like if you've got a, a scenario
that takes you know, 4IN game years to complete, like you're
going to be working on that for hours and hours and hours.
And you have plenty of time to plop down, you know, scenery or

(09:41):
make fancy rides or kind of makethe the park your own.
So, so yeah, I, I don't know if I like remember when in
particular, I, I guess I have like a nostalgic feeling for the
scenario called Diamond Heights.And I'm not sure exactly what it
was about that, but it was the first one that the park had

(10:03):
already been kind of new createdand you were tasked with
expanding it. And so, you know, seeing the
possibilities there, like the riots, diving underground, like
interweaving, you know, all these like new synchronized
roller coasters, it, it really showed what was possible in the
game and it, you know, like by example.
So you would feel enabled and encouraged to do these kinds of

(10:27):
things yourself. Yeah, stuff that maybe you
didn't think like I never thought about having side by
side roller coaster cars runningtogether and.
Giving you. Yeah, exactly.
It was beautiful. Yeah, like especially at 9, it's
going to be like I, you know, you're, you're learning a world
of possibilities that they give you just a, a sampling of.
Yeah. Yeah, I liked the game so much

(10:50):
that it even got me into troublea little bit in in 3rd grade.
Yeah. I was supposed to do this this
science project at home. And so the idea was that we were
going to plant seeds in pots andthen put the pots in different
locations of the house. So like 1 was going to go like
a, you know, sunny window sill. One was going to have a little

(11:11):
bit more shade. And then there's one that was
supposed to go in like a closet in another that was supposed to
go to freezer. And I thought this was the
dumbest science project ever. Like, I know how plants grow.
I know that nothing's going to grow in my parents freezer, if
they even had room in the freezer to accommodate this pot.
And so I didn't do it. I didn't do the, the project.
And so a few weeks went past andthe, the teacher, you know,

(11:32):
asked me, you know, for like a report on how everything was
going. And I admitted that I, I didn't
do it. And he asked why.
And I told him what was kind of 1/2 truth is that I was playing
too much roller coaster tycoon. This was my, this is my excuse.
And he was struck by the amount of like self reflection I had

(11:53):
and kind of let me off the hook.And I don't think he ever
punished me. I don't think my parents ever
punished me. So like I say, roller coaster
taking got me into trouble, thenmaybe it actually like got me
out of trouble because I had that excuse out there ready so.
I'm learning physics. I'm learning economics.
I am an entrepreneur. I understand how these things.
I am learning budgeting and accounting.

(12:13):
I am learning more than your precious little seed project
could possibly teach me. Absolutely.
And yeah, that game did teach mea lot about a lot about physics
and G forces, you know, since wewere talking about those a
moment ago. There was so much, you know, so
much detail in that game. And yet at the same time, it
didn't overwhelm players with that detail.
I I felt so it's, it's a really magical game to me.

(12:36):
It was made by just like 4 people.
What was your your favorite element of the whole thing?
Like was it designing the rides?Was it managing the park?
Was it like, was it running through different scenarios?
Or is it just like, I mean, I we'll get to the unhinged part
of the game too, but what was your favorite element of of?
I, I really, really liked just making roller coasters.

(12:56):
You can choose pre made roller coasters and you can even save
your own designs. But pretty much every
opportunity I had, I was making my own roller coasters, going
through the park, like imagininghow fun they'd be to ride or or
not. And just the, there's just a
sense of like, you know, freedomabout the whole process of
designing rides. You kind of, you know, choose

(13:18):
how you want the rides to look and how to feel.
You can paint them different colors.
It was half creative and half, you know, technical, but it was
fully satisfying. Is there anything that like
sticks in your mind all these years later like that was I, I
wish I could see a red like thator this is this one like, oh,
this was the this is my proudestaccomplishment thinking back on

(13:39):
the game. Oh, that's a that's a good
question. I, I think I, I remembered
distinctly having like 10 synchronized roller coasters
that were all next to each otherand you're setting them all off
at the same time. And there was this, like it,
like it broke the sound system, like you've all the sound, the
sound. Part just sounded like a cat

(13:59):
being kicked. Yeah, yeah.
Not not for off of that, but just, you know, having all of
these you're going on at once and the layout was just a
complete like reduces hair of ofknots and ankles and somehow
everything ended up back at the station that way it was supposed
to. But just going going all out on
those you know completely like, you know, practically impossible

(14:20):
projects, but you know, everything is is possible in the
game world. All right, that that's pretty
good that that's impressive making all that come back
together simultaneously because you can't there's no way in this
game to try and design just 10 like going side by side.
Like you said, you're, you're doing a Medusa thing.
So they got to they got to go all over the place, but you're,
are you like measuring the tracktrying to figure out like, OK,

(14:41):
do I time this out? Just trial and error trying to
figure out like how do I get them all back at the same?
Time. It took a lot of a lot of
testing and a lot of waiting because you can't like Fast
forward time at all. So you have to wait for the same
trains to climb the lift hill and then go down.
But whenever something gets too far behind you, just close the
ride and add another like in a little loop or Helix or
something like that to slow it down and try to try to get

(15:02):
everything to to balance out. I'm not saying it was, it was
perfect in the end, but I tried my best.
How did lines work for that, forthat one?
Like, did you, did your line just get backed up and then
everybody gets on the ride in the park at one time basically?
Yeah, they definitely had prettyhigh, high capacity rides, but
yeah, you have to like stagger the stations and put the
entrances and exits in the back,which made everything slow.

(15:24):
So it wasn't, Yeah, again, it wasn't like the most most, you
know, practical streamlined thing ever.
But yeah, I mean, the rides are the rides were super popular, so
I must have done something right.
All right, now I'm going to ask about now, you know, you got
away with this science project not coming through, but this
game is a psychological test in and of itself.

(15:46):
Also probably I mean, universally the Penguin and
Mario 64 tells us we're all a little not OK, but undoubtedly
everybody, you know, this is this is early Internet days.
So I'm not sure how in communication everybody was
about they're unhinged activities and Roller Coaster

(16:06):
Tycoon. But did you, were you somebody
who's like, What happens if I dothis?
I I definitely tested the the limits.
I think though in the end I probably ended more guests lives
by making things too powerful byaccident rather than doing it
deliberately. And I know a lot of people are
just like, oh, how far could I launch this coaster like?
We technically don't know. Little Timmy is dead.

(16:29):
He he, he broke. He he broke the atmosphere.
He may be OK there. We don't.
We don't know. He's not.
Yeah. Exactly.
But yeah, you just like, oops, I, I set my launch speed to 67
mph and that was definitely way too fast.
So off you go, if you know. Yeah, just right, right off the
top of the hill. That thing's not supposed to

(16:49):
play a Dukes of Hazzard jump while they're.
The boys messed up now that's yeah, I tried to keep my guests
alive in in general, so I hope that's the good news.
So was this a solo experience for you or others partaking?
Was the the family getting in onthis at all?
It was. Myself and then my brother would

(17:13):
play it a little bit as well. So he'd he'd have his own parks
And this time, but sometimes we,you know, collaborated on on on
theme parks. We take turns because again, it
just took so long to get throughthese scenarios.
That was it was good to cooperate.
Fair enough. Do you still play this?
I mean, like they've they've kind of re really.
And obviously again, like you'vehad the the different iterations

(17:35):
over time, but they they've released the OG again a few
Times Now. Yeah, yeah, They keep coming out
with new like re releases and Steam editions and so forth.
The project that I'm a part of is called Open RCT 2, and it's
basically like this open source decompilation effort of the for
the second game. So you still need to have

(17:56):
purchased Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 to play it.
But this is basically just a huge mod in effect that just
makes the game, you know, compatible with modern computers
and, you know, expands the the Sprite limits and the object
limits and adds new rides and everything like that.
And I still do participate in that.

(18:17):
So I like making Yeah, I still play the game from time to time.
I, you know, open it up. I have my forced frontiers.
I popped on my rides the same, you know, the, the same
rigmarole as I mentioned earlier.
And it it still has, you know, alot of the same charm that the
game always had. Is that where the smuggle for
two comes in? Just that you're you're keeping
it alive to this day and I'm helping it to thrive.

(18:38):
Even you mentioned, you mentioned you wanted to bring 2
into this conversation, was that?
That I mean it's just two plays.The two games played really
similarly. I think oven or I think roller
Coaster Tycoon 2 did somethings better and somethings worse than
the than the original. It definitely felt bigger.
There were more rides. There were like all the Six
Flags pre made parts that were that were really yeah but yeah

(19:06):
yeah, what what what I say aboutthat I mean that it's open RCT 2
that this game kind of you know lives on with with new new
content so to. Speak.
Where do people focus? What?
What's your involvement? Are you like helping just behind
the scenes? I have, I have worked to fix
some of the bugs from the original game, which is a really
cool feeling by the way. Like, you know, this bug has

(19:27):
annoyed me since I was, you know, 9 or since I was 11 or
whatever. And I can finally fix it because
I'm a software engineer and I know what I need to do to, to do
this. And it's a it's no disrespect to
Chris Sawyer, who is like a legendary.
Again, this is not a larger. Programmer, but it's, it's not

(19:47):
like a large team per SE, but I guess it's like very, very
distributed, like a lot of a lotof people have contributed to
this project in one way or another, even if it's just
changing a few lines of code here.
Yeah. I mean, I mean, originally,
yeah. There's no disrespect to the
original team because it was nota it was not a big team, Yeah.
Right. Yeah, No, it was Chris Sawyer
who wrote all of the code. Simon Foster did all of the

(20:07):
graphics. Alistair Brimble did all of the
music, and then apparently some sound effects were contributed
by David Ellis. That was the dev team.
This game sold 10s. I don't know how many units.
I would guess like 10 million units or so.
Don't look up, David. Don't, don't Google that right
now. Yeah, don't.
Don't Google that one right now.OK, sounds good.

(20:29):
Where? Where do they?
Where? Where can?
Where can that be found? The the the credits or.
The the open sourcing of the OH.Oh, the open source, Yeah, yeah.
Do they have open? I don't want to like lead people
at websites that don't. It's called, it's called open
RCT 2. So apparently open RCT 2 dot IO

(20:50):
is the kind of the landing page for this.
And again, you need to own the like the official Roller Coaster
Tycoon 2 to play this. You can find a copy on eBay for
a buck and down. At least somebody's got it on
there. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's available
for sure. Well, you're pretty close with
your numbers. Roller Coaster Tycoon 4 million

(21:13):
since that was, you know, since 2001, I'm sure more sold like
over time. And then Tycoon 2 was at 7
million in 2004. So yeah.
People were like that 10%. Yeah, people were rolling roller
coasters. Oh, David Ellis, not Ellison.

(21:34):
OK, we're good. Never mind.
Carry on. Different people.
And they're, they're trying to put blame on people's names,
not. The nuking of not the nuking of
WB and Paramount, Netflix and the the the current.
Hollywood. Oh, that's what you're thinking
about every. Yeah, Ellis, not Ellis.
OK, got it. Carry on all.
Right there there's somehow that's our transition point game

(21:58):
#2 we got Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. But oh, I always, we always got
to start back with the like, what, what's, what's your Mario
Kart history? How do, how do we get to Mario
Kart 8? Or do we just start in Mario
Kart 8? Mario Kart history.
Wow. Earliest Mario Kart experiences
I can think of are playing battle mode with Mario Kart 64

(22:22):
with a bunch of friends for likemy annual birthday party
sleepover and just having so much fun.
Mario Kart 64 not the most like you have refined or beautiful
Mario Kart game out there, but just just so much fun.
So many good times, good memories.
And I, I think I had Double dashas well, but then took a few
generations off. I did have a Wii UI was one of

(22:45):
the, the three people who had a Wii U and I got Mario Kart 8 and
played that a lot. I, I was kind of like a nightly
ritual. And I remember in particular,
there was a summer where my college roommates had moved out,
but I was still, you know, therefor, for college.

(23:05):
So I had the house to myself andit was a lot of Mario Kart 8
like all day all the time. And that game left a great
impression on me. I love the 200CC mode.
And then if the switch came out 2017, I thought that yeah, I'll
get I'll get 8 deluxe, see what they've changed.
And you know, the 22 items, I thought that was an improvement.
And there are aspects of that I I liked.

(23:27):
But I don't know, I kind of bought the game and played it
for like a month or two. I think I got to 10,000 VR
online and then just kind of setthe game down and buy set the
game down not just for like weeks or months, but like for
years. And I didn't really start
playing it again until like 2020, like during, during COVID
time. So I, I don't know what it was,

(23:50):
but I just got into it, but again, started making it like,
you know, a new daily ritual, you know, kind of learned a
little bit more about the, the rules of the item system.
And I just kind of kept kept playing it.
And yeah, I'm, I'm resisting theurge to call it like an
addiction, but yeah, it definitely, definitely got me
pretty good. And before I knew it, I was

(24:13):
like, I was, you know, like, youknow, seeing familiar names
online and you connecting with them on Discord.
And then that, you know, connected me to a whole bunch of
different communities on Discordand and Twitch and started
doing, you know, boogies. And yeah, it just, but the
community aspect of this game has been like one of the the

(24:36):
best parts of it is just how many people have met through it.
And I don't, I don't even know that it would be on like Channel
3 necessarily without Mario Kart8 Deluxe.
When you get to the point of, I have to ask real quick, when you
got to the point of seeing the matrix in here and understanding
like the items and how they workand like positioning and kind of

(24:57):
like did I guess the, you might have already answered this by
saying the community part being the more important part.
Like was the game still fun for you at that point?
When you're like, I see, I see what's happening and like, was
it fun trying to like position yourself properly?
Like is that that's the point where I'm like, I, I, I started
to go down that path and I was like, I don't enjoy this to the
same degree. Like I I just want to race and

(25:18):
have fun hanging out with people.
Yeah, I think it was. It was Basic who said in one of
his videos. I have a lot of fun with this
game, but I have more fun when Iwin.
And so they did that to that effect.
And I reflected that where like knowing like being inside the
matrix and knowing the inner workings and like, if you have a
coin in your first slot, you're never going to get another coin
in your second slot outside of like connection issues.

(25:40):
That was a huge discovery for me.
Like I didn't read that online. I I can't kind of just figured
it out by playing it and it's like, wait a SEC, I can
guarantee myself defence there like this.
This changes everything and it just made me appreciate the
double item system a lot more. And just a lot of the ways the
game tests your ability to like choose between Bruce with

(26:02):
different trade-offs, like you stay tight and get fewer coins
around a curve. Or do you go, you know, wider
and get more coins? Or do you go by to get double
items? Or, you know, do you, do you
risk potential defence by takingtight line?
And yeah, there's just so much like dynamic strategy and just
twitchy reflexes about the game.You're, you're not just driving

(26:23):
well and taking good lines, but you're always adapting to your
circumstances like like every every fraction of a second.
And I think it's just that that harmony of the, you know, the,
the strategy and the scale at different scales.
And also, you know, some aspect of luck that makes Mario Kurt
what it is and especially Mario Credit Deluxe what it is.

(26:45):
It, it, it, it's funny because we've always talk about like
games like Mario Kart and anytime there's items and like,
well, you know, there's luck involved.
It's like, yeah, there's luck, but it's only luck like in
between each skill level. Like I like, I'm never going to
luck my way into beating people that are playing and racing all
the time. Like it, it's luck with skill.

(27:08):
So it's like, you still have to be really good.
Like your your luck is not goingto win some big thing.
Like there's people there racingall the time.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
The skill ceiling in this game and in Mario Kart World, it's
just so unbelievably high that, you know, folks think that, oh,
if I just get a few Bullet Billsin a row, if I'm lucky enough,
you know, then I'm definitely going to beat, you know, the the

(27:29):
top players in the game. And it's it's not that.
Never works the the top players in the game are already a lap
ahead of you, no matter how many.
How many? Exactly.
All right, so like 2020 you comeback and you're like, oh, the
like something, something clicksand you're all in and you're
playing and you're racing and you're meeting people.
And then we get to 2022-2023. We got mark credit luxe

(27:53):
championships PAC W. How do you how do you get the
PACs W? Is there other, is there a build
up? Are you doing other competitive
things? And they were like, oh, I can
like, yeah, I I can race here like I should do.
I should go for this. It's just a wild sequence of
events that I I think back on it, it's still just like
incredible to me. So I toward the end of, you

(28:15):
know, 2021, like when I was justabout maxed out on my first
accounts VR. So I almost hit like, you know,
99999. That's about the time that I
started playing in a like a regular Monday night event
called Monday night mayhem, you know, hosted by LA cruiser.
And, you know, I was so used to winning routinely online, just

(28:38):
playing regional lobbies, that playing Midnight Mayhem was
really refreshing because I was not at the best player there.
I was learning a lot from from cruiser and from everybody else
who who joined those streams andjust by, you know, playing in
those tournaments and, you know,losing in those tournaments.
You know, I learned a lot about like, OK, I got to manage my
items better. Like I got to be smart about

(29:00):
shortcuts. Like, oh, that's a really good
disk that I should learn. And I just incorporated those
into my game. And, you know, over the course
of like 2022, Nintendo was holding these occasional, I
don't know what they what they call them, but there are these
like occasional tournaments, like maybe once a month or so
where, you know, they have the tournament lobbies and you, you

(29:22):
compete and then like the top X number of players got like, you
know, 2500 my Nintendo points orsomething like that, right.
And so I was, you know, trying to compete in those.
And, you know, I never could seem to quite, you know, crack
the, the top echelon there untilthe July 2022 event, which was

(29:43):
unusual because it was mysteriously 6 days long instead
of three days long. And it took me until the 6th
day. But on that 6th day, I saw my
name on the leaderboard. I was #8 there and that, that
was like incredible to me. Like I'm going to get 2500 My
Nintendo points. That's a $25.00 value like this.
This made my day. And obviously it wasn't about
the monetary value so much as just the, the prestige, you

(30:06):
know, for my skill. And that that would have been
great. But after that day, that's when
there was a, a tweet from, you know, Nintendo competitive play
that said, like players who did well in the, in the qualifiers,
like check your emails, we've got an exciting event or, you
know, it's something to that. And suddenly it's like, wait a

(30:28):
SEC, they're going to do a, a championship like in person for
a lot of these players. But the problem is that the
championship was going to be capped at 12 players and there
were 48 players who earned the My Nintendo points.
So it was unclear, like, you know, exactly how they're going
to sort that out. And so, you know, all around me,
I heard about players, you know,getting the, the e-mail, like I

(30:48):
heard that, you know, Bangalore qualified.
I heard that LA Cruiser, you know, who was hosting these
Monday night tournaments qualified.
And I was just like, Oh, I don't, I don't know if I'm going
to get there because I was, you know, I was just like too low.
So I, I emailed, I was told thatall the spots were filled up.
That's a bummer. And I, you know, said, like, if
there's any room for me to be like an alternate or something

(31:10):
like that, like that'd be great.And said, no, no, sorry.
All the all the spots have been filled up and then the week
after was when I got like this magical e-mail.
I learned that I was being invited as an alternate to play.
So I wasn't in the tournament asof that e-mail.
I was just going to be on standby in case anybody needed
to drop out or something like that.
And that was like such a cool thing.

(31:31):
Like I'm I'm going to be there. You know, I'm going to be at pex
W even if I'm not going to play.This is going to be amazing.
And so as the, I'm rambling a bit, but like, as the, as the
day it came and I was there, I was looking around and there
were only 11 other players there.
And I was like, this is, this isodd.
Like what happened to the peopleI'm going to sub for?

(31:53):
And so I just kind of went through the, the motions and,
you know, did all the orientations and the practice
and everything else that that they had us do.
And then it got to be the day before the event and I finally
texted the event coordinator like, Hey, am I, am I playing
tomorrow? And the response was like, Oh
yes, did did we not tell you like you're in And like, this
is, this is great. So of course I'd like you to

(32:14):
furiously text by my parents andmy friends like I'm going to be
playing tomorrow. And I just couldn't, couldn't
believe it. Like there were like 6 different
unlikely things that had to happen for this to, for this to
occur. And I still reflect on that, but
I, I did the event, I, I knew going into it that it was going
to be stiff competition. I was already mentally prepared

(32:36):
for, you know, what would happenif I didn't do, you know,
particularly well. But it was just, it was all
about just the privilege of being up there and meeting some
of my Mario Kart, you know, idols and these names that I'd
only seen online. And it was, I was really just a
magical experience And one of the the coolest things I've done
in my life that I'm, I'm sittingon the the gaming chair that I
got is a reward for it too, which is pretty sweet.

(32:59):
Is there, it's amazing, by the way, that that series of events
is, is so cool and, and, and doing that, you know, you're
getting acknowledgement for, forlike, you know, for all the hard
work and they come in together and you get this thing is, is
there a difference? I don't, I don't know if I've
ever have I ever asked anyone this.
I guess you you'd be a good person to ask.

(33:19):
Is there a difference playing offline than online?
Oh. I asked this because because I
play Smash Brothers and Smash Brothers online offline are
basically two different games that you have.
You almost have to plan for differently.
Yeah, so it with Smash Brothers,like if you're playing it

(33:41):
locally, like you get rid of thethat like 3 frame input latency
or whatever it is so that that makes a big difference when
things come down to the frame. Yeah, for these these kinds of
events, like you're still hookedup like, you know, in in a
network, I guess. So you still see some of the
same like network artifacts likeyeah, there are still
unfortunately lag trails even though you're sitting right next

(34:03):
to, you know, the the player andthere's some other, you know,
non ideal aspects of that. I mean it, it played better
than, you know, typical all night play, but it actually
wasn't as drastically different as one might one might think.
Is so essentially you did 2022 and 2023 was 23 less dramatic?
Did you have like a more shore? You're you're in the tournament

(34:27):
this time. 2023 felt like a bit of a victory lap in a way
because I, I got into the Nintendo live event and I, I had
to play my way into the, the tournament this time because I
didn't qualify for the online qualifiers.
Now that the secret was out and,you know, people were told that
the stakes were for entering these things, the competition
got a lot fiercer. But no, I, I, as soon as I got

(34:50):
into the event, I went straight to the, the, the waiting line to
get into this. This like a qualifier event that
was on on site. And I, I, I almost, I almost
missed qualifying. There was one really dicey race
on donut planes, three I remember, but I I made it and I
was like you kind of like you shaking just because I was like

(35:13):
adrenaline was was going off thecharts.
But yeah, just taking the stage again.
I was the only player to be there for both W 2022 and W
2023. So I was so much more relaxed on
stage. Like I was just there living in
the moment. And I remember to would be
played, I think it was 3DS Rainbow Road.
And I just, I was just had this moment of reflection, like

(35:37):
almost an out of body experience, like cosy, you are
on stage, like working in the Nintendo uniform, playing
Rainbow Rd. in like in front of a crowd.
And it's just like that, that, that for some reason, just the
symbolism that just hit really hard.
And so I, I'm not going to say Ialmost teared up during a race,
but I was definitely, you know, feeling a little bit emotional
in that, in that special moment.Man that's awesome.

(36:00):
Alright let me let me ask you the boring questions now before
we when we move on what tell me what?
What's the character and and cart before pre update and and
and post update? Sure.
So pre pre update what is was it2-3?
O that was a big one. I was all about Donkey Kong

(36:21):
bitty buggy and roller wheels and definitely the the roller
wheels were were the right choice, you know, pre and post
update. But after the update, the bill I
settled with was Yoshi, like yellow Yoshi on varmint and and
the roller wheels and the paper clutter.
Yeah. So no Waluigi before.

(36:42):
Before it was no Waluigi, no Roy.
You, you went, you went with theheavy kind of the Donkey Kong
Wario, you said. Somehow, somehow Donkey Kong and
Waluigi are the same weight in that game.
It doesn't doesn't make any sense to me, do they?
Look the same weight it's. On a watch list though, so I
didn't. I didn't really.
Donkey Kong was on the same weight as Waluigi.
Yeah, it doesn't doesn't make sense.

(37:04):
I I think Waluigi is just made out of lead or something like
that. That's OK.
Yeah, I I still laughed at this day that Sephiroth and Kirby
weigh the same in Smash Brothers.
So. Is that right?
Yeah, It's, it's that's absurd. Absolutely incredible.
Yeah, I've, I've always got thisthing where I'd like try to
resist the meta at least a little bit.
Like I won't fully batch it. I gotta just have like some

(37:25):
unique elements. So that was Donkey Kong in the
pre pre pre patch build. And then that was the varmint in
the post patch build. And that, that worked really
well for me. I took, you know each of those
builds to the the Paxwest events.
And give us give us one favoritecourse that I and I and A not so
favorite course. Favorite course and also

(37:49):
favorite course I I really likedwhat they did with Bowser Castle
3. So that was I think it was
released to maybe the last update for the game, but that
course, it's just like this concentrated like jewel.
Of course, it's got all the the right turns and the 90° angles
and it's got the split paths andit's got the cool section with

(38:09):
the kind of the elevated like walls, you know, that you can
write on to get extra boxes. And just the the rhythm of that
course just felt really good. So I know it's not the most
like, you know, crazy like inventive or involved track
there, but it just played reallywell.
So that's probably my pick for favorite course.

(38:30):
I mean, I have a few. There were 96 of them, but there
are some. Longer courses.
Least favorite it's either Toad Circuit or Rock Rock Mountain.
I just Toad Circuit. It's just very bland and I don't
know, it's just there's just nota whole lot to do, Like not a
whole lot of strategy. Just Toad deserves better.

(38:52):
That's that's what I feel. And then rock rock mountain was
just like, it was cool that there was a lot of glider
sections, but it ended up playing really like in like a
very gimmicky manner just because of all of the the off
road. And so it was all about bagging
and it was kind of hard to appreciate the intended, you
know, design and the the play ofthat course.

(39:15):
Where are you like now I have toask this only because you said
it. I have to ask where where are
you on on on the banking? Are you are are you going to bag
when it when it when it makes sense?
Are you a like I just like don'tdo it at where?
Where are you on? Where are you on on bagging?
I, I tried to bag in Mario Kart 8, but I, I don't think I did

(39:36):
like, you know, 8 deluxe, but I don't think I ever really got
the, the formula or the rhythm down.
I will say that Mario Kart worldhas taught me a lot more about
like anticipating the, you know,the, the shock happening and
preparing yourself for that. And, you know, I feel like my,
you know, decision tree is a lotmore fleshed out in Mario Kart
world. So I still have a lot to learn,

(39:59):
but I am attempting to to learn the art of bagging the
forbidden. Part of bagging.
All right, well, the the obvioustransition point here is going
to the the no other third game than Frog Fractions 2012,
obviously browser spoof of the edutainment genre.

(40:23):
And you know, I like I, I literally three times went back
to your list that you provided us to make sure I did not mix up
an honorable mention with your third game.
We went roller Coaster Tycoon, atotemic milestone of the genre

(40:44):
to to obviously Mario Kart 8 hadto come up for you and then Frog
Fractions. Allow me to allow me to just
point out here if I if I may, read it from a summary for the
because I I doubt more than 1% of the listenership will know
what Frog Fractions is off the top of their head.
I've never heard this game. Frog Fractions begins with a

(41:05):
frog named Hop sitting on a Lilypad.
The player controls Hop and mustuse his tongue to attack insects
while collecting and protecting fruit.
The game later introduces upgrades that the player may
purchase, including lock on targeting, A cybernetic brain,
and a flying dragon named Draggy.
When the player collects enough fruit, they can buy a Warp Dr.

(41:26):
which lets Hop ride Draggy through an asteroid field to Bug
Mars, where he battles an alien robot squid.
Hop is then sent to Bug Court, where he signs for a work visa.
Hop then travels under the waterbelow Bug Mars while listening
to a narrated fictional history of the creation of boxing.
And I'm I'm going to stop there,but I just want people to

(41:48):
understand just like this thing goes off the rails and is about
an hour long. So I covered the game already by
just describing that. But it's got the, it's got the
look of like all of those, like your, your, your various fox and
what, what's the putt putt and putt putt?

(42:08):
Yeah, it's, it's got all, it's got that same feel of all of
those games. Look of all of those games.
The fish. Yeah, the putt putt.
The Freddy Freddy fish. Spicy.
Fish. There we go.
Yeah. What?
How did we get here? In the words of the great David
Byrne, how did how did we get here?
Yeah, so this, this game is, is great.
And yeah, I'm glad it it's elicited the the reaction it has

(42:29):
so far. What?
I had to Google to make sure youweren't Jim Stormbeard.
Not to, not, not to, Yeah, not to, not to dox or not dox you or
anything like that. But I had to do some research to
make sure. I'm like, he didn't make this
game, did he? OK.
OK. No, this is this is not my game,
but I was introduced to this game, you know, probably like in

(42:51):
2014 or so, like people were saying, Oh, because you have to
try frog fractions, just like you just give it a try.
Just play for 15 minutes. If you don't get it, you don't
get it. And it's like, OK, fine, I'll,
I'll give it a shot. And it's, it's just this funny
game because you you're like slipping up these bugs and
they're all worth like a fractional number of points.

(43:12):
And then your total scores also represented as a fraction, which
is always, of course, like perfectly, you know, reduced,
you know, it's most efficient form and just you're playing it
and it just feels like somethingis is off.
You know, it's like what what's going on here?
And you can, you know, get theseupgrades, but you kind of you go
through the loop and it's like what?
What are they? What are they?
Trying to do like, what do they want me to see?

(43:34):
And then there's you. You discover, you have to play
it to understand that. You discover that there's more
that you can do that you realized.
And that's when the real game, the real magic of Frog Fractions
begins. So the reason I picked this game
is, is less about the raw gameplay itself.

(43:56):
Like, yeah, it's, it's very, youknow, it's a very like, you
know, funny game. Like the the sense of humor is,
is there. You get in some absurd
situations, it surprises you around every corner.
But but really it is the the philosophy, philosophy of the
game's creator, whose name is Jim Crawford, I believe, that

(44:18):
that really struck me. And so he gave a a talk at GDC
2014 that was called Preserving a Sense of Discovery in the Age
of Spoilers. And so he covers a lot in that
talk. But the gist of it is the
importance of game developers making design decisions that
preserve a sense of, like, a mystery and wonder for the

(44:40):
player because, you know, if youexecute those themes with
enough, like, finesse, that's like a really naturally engaging
way to make a game. And he talked about, like in, in
the 1980s, like before, you know, Internet and so forth,
that this is a quote. He said playing a video game,

(45:01):
then entering an unknowable world operating on confusing
rules for anything could happen.And, you know, that's that's the
quote. I think that makes a a lot of
sense because, you know, withoutthe Internet to look things up
and without strategy guides, except for maybe, you know,
Nintendo Power, you know, it wasn't really clear what the
bounds of games were and what could be done and what couldn't

(45:24):
be done. Like, could you shoot the dog in
Duck Hunt? Like, was there actually a, you
know, secret Samus outfit at theend of Metroid?
Like, I, I remember playing Pokémon Blue, you know, when
that was around. And like, yeah, there was this
rumor that was running around the playgrounds.
Like, oh, if you like, walk up and down this cave 10 times,
like, you have an egg in your pocket, it'll turn into Toka

(45:46):
Peak, which is completely false.But, you know, we were all, you
know, open to considering these as possibilities.
But that kids uncle worked at Nintendo Cozy.
They knew. They knew the truth.
You're right, maybe I didn't execute it properly or
something, but man, this, those rumors are just everywhere.
And so, so I, I associate a lot of the joy of playing games as a

(46:12):
kid to the sense of wonder and not knowing what the limits of
games were or even just like some of the common, you know,
tropes of games or how games were created.
Like I, I distinctly remember playing San Francisco Rush.
That's like an arcade racing game at an arcade.
And it was like, what, what happens if I just don't follow
the road? Like what happens if I go

(46:33):
through the forest? And so I'd like, you know, I put
my money and I played the game if you're off the road and
turned and drive directly into awall because it's not actually a
forest, but it was just a, a wall painted with a forest
texture. And I remember just feeling like
really bumped, like, Oh, I can'tgo through the, the forest.
That's, but, you know, I was, I was naive enough to believe that
like anything was was possible. And then there were games like

(46:54):
Super Mario World where, you know, I, I wasn't technically
savvy enough to beat the the games.
And so it felt limitless in the sense that I knew that there
were aspects of the game I wouldnever discover.
And now of course, we know thereare 96 exits and the game's been
documented to death. But I just, I think that's so

(47:14):
important. And so I, I just, the reason
this ties back to Frog Fractionsand I just that, that, that
philosophy that Jim Crawford hasabout making games just really
resonates with me. And it's one of the reasons that
I'm so sensitive to, to spoilersin games.
Like I don't even watch gameplaytrailers of games if I can avoid
it. Like I just I want to be able to
experience a game with that naive perspective, not knowing

(47:38):
what to expect. Like I don't want to know how
many exits there are or how manylevels or dungeons or P switches
there are. Just just let me add it and let
me experience the game, you know, the way it was meant to be
experienced. So that's my very roundabout way
of connecting this to of Frog Fractions.
And yes, it is Frog Fractions inthis case and not fog fractions
but. That that was kind of beautiful.

(48:02):
What what? What's the last game that gave
you that like? Oh, oh, that's a great question.
I've got mine. I know I yeah, Ray, go ahead,
share yours SO code as you can think.
Oh, mine, mine is, Oh, it's got tears of the Kingdom.
They, they told you an entire sky world and oh, by the way,
oh, what's this giant hole in the floor?

(48:25):
Oh, it's an entire oh, it's an entire world under it is it's
like an inverted version of of the mainland.
Enjoy. We no one knew about it.
And it's so good that we, you know, we were all we we got
nominated game of the year in 2023 and two years later,
Metacritic decided that remastering it is the best game
of the year. Like that's that's top, top

(48:50):
line. I think that's a that's a great
choice. And you know, it's even, it even
goes further beyond just the, you know, the sky and the
underworld in the sense that you're all throughout the game
always kind of experimenting with different zone and I builds
and like putting pieces togetherand like, oh, what happens if I
put a, a rocket on my shield andyou try that out and you, you

(49:12):
get something. Or you know, what happens if I
put a spring in this spot? And like, that game did such a
great job at feeling boundless because they're really were kind
of like an infinite number of things you could do, you know,
with the, the pieces and, you know, so many different ways of
solving puzzles. And in a lot of games, you know,

(49:33):
there's like a, like an intendedway to, to do something.
And the games, you know, kind oflike you hinting at, you know,
the, the right solution in different ways.
But I think in in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom,
like if you find your own creative solution, the game just
congratulates you on that. Like, yes, you were creative and
yeah, you completely skipped this part, but it doesn't matter
'cause you did the thing and that's, that's awesome.

(49:53):
So no, that's a, that's a great pick and I have to be boring,
but I don't know if I could think of another, you know,
another recent example that would surpass that here.
It just, it's just, it's like, it's kind of like you said with
your whole thing. It just doesn't happen that
often anymore. It's or it's like very difficult
to happen because everyone's searching and spoiling and

(50:16):
showing, you know, trying to game play stuff ahead of time to
get you excited to play the game.
So it just doesn't happen that often anymore.
Dan, you got another one. You.
Know what I'm going to shout outBecause I was trying to think of
when I was kind of panicking andI know that the the shell is
being cracked on Donkey Kong Bonanza spoilers.
Have you? Have you played that cozy fog?

(50:37):
I have yes I I finished the the main story.
Oh, yeah, they're going to. They're going to start.
Yeah, they got to. Yeah.
Like if you didn't play it earlyenough, they're basically
telling you too bad. Like we have stuff to do now.
Yeah, you've, you've had five months and and like, reality's
coming. So like, you could skip ahead a
minute here because I I have to get this out beyond just like I
was waiting for my son to get toit in playing Bonanza.

(51:00):
Blew my mind. I was like, Oh my.
And and I was so angry at myselfafterwards because like, you see
it and then you're like, Oh my God, I didn't realize that was K
Roll's belly. And just that, like it.
It felt so rewarding after I waskind of slogging through the
last couple of worlds to then get like, oh, here's the

(51:22):
character. Like all the bad guys who were
fighting all along were all of the the K rule bad guys from
like the original Donkey Kong Country games, but in like
different forms or trapped or whatever.
I'm like, this is like, Oh my God, the bees are like
everything. I was like, this is fantastic.
And I know I, it also helped me understand like why did they not

(51:43):
release the full Donkey Kong Country soundtrack or Donkey
Kong Bonanza soundtrack on Nintendo music?
And, and then like I get to that, I'm like, Oh my God, now I
know why, because the, like the,the remixes they did of that
Donkey Kong country music and the K rule music.
I'm like, this needs to be in the world.
But like that was that came out of nowhere for me because I'm

(52:05):
like, he just created a different bad guy.
That's that's fine. And then that happens.
I'm like, Oh my God, this is it.It like it rewarded everything
at like, I was kind of dragging my way through.
I loved it so much. I think that game is great.
And yeah, like when I, when I got to that point, I had the
inkling like, wait a second, like, are they doing what I
think they're doing? It's like, oh, they totally are

(52:25):
like that. I can't believe it.
And yeah, I had so much love for, you know, the Donkey Kong
Country series that having thosereferences in Bonanza was.
Yeah, it was was really beautiful.
Yeah, Price just seen like the whole thing was a love letter to
Donkey Kong's entire history, except for that one glaring
point that just got like, ignored until that last run of

(52:50):
the game. But anyway, yeah.
So, Ray, it took me a minute to think of that, but like, no,
that that's the one. That's the excitement I've
noticed about it. Sorry.
Sorry for anybody. Who's getting to play it yet?
But it's kind of a rewrite too, right?
Because they've they Paul, you have a new version of of Pauline
and you're not. And listen son, Dog is not is
not Frankie song. Stop trying to analyze Nintendo

(53:13):
cannon Nintendo. Nintendo analyze cannon like
this. No, but it, but it's a decision,
you know, they, they end up backat there and there's new dog,
there's new Dog City, or at least it'll become new dog City,
which when she becomes a mayor, you know.
Give me some sodium pentasol anda lie detector machine and I
will tell you. Me and Moto had no plan for the

(53:33):
Legend of Zelda lore. Some nerds on the Internet put
it together and like slap it in a book.
We got this like I, I, no, that's and then they, and then
they started making after the theories came out of like,
here's where the timeline splitsall that.
Like they do not think of this, that there is not an ongoing
Mario lore. There's not an ongoing no, no,

(53:56):
that's too much thought. The fans are wonderful.
I mean, it's the same, you know,it's like the Pixar universe.
I'm sure they didn't at first intended to be connected, but at
some point, at some point they decided, oh, the fans kind of
put this together. We we might as well kind of
throw this together in a way. Nintendo's like, OK, like those
happy you're having fun, but they're just like, OK, nerds
when you're trying to give you give you the thumbs up when they

(54:17):
when you're trying to put the rest of this together.
Yeah, they said, oh, they're alldifferent links.
It's it's all good. They're all different.
Let's move on to the honorable mentions now #1 F0 GX.
If, if, if there were thirteen of us playing Kirby Air Ride,
there were 15 other people play F0 GX.

(54:40):
That that's, that's that's what the sales numbers tell us.
But the 15 people apparently gotall kinds of rewards.
This is considered, you know, consider it might be the best
racing game on the game. Q runs on the same engine as
Super Monkey Ball. That's something I heard.
So it's an enhanced version, butit's Super Monkey Ball with F0

(55:02):
carts. I'm just picturing like, you
know, I I running like extraordinarily fast in the
monkey ball, just like whipping around the the track or
something. Yeah, Blue Dan's mind with that
one right there. Now you're not.
Gonna go. I love that fact.
So you just tell us about. Oh my God no, like it's a
division of Sega that developed F0G like the.
Whole thing, it's all, it's coming together actually.
The console wars really ended ina pathetic way in that year of

(55:27):
the console wars, possibly knowing that now maybe more
pathetic than the current end ofthe console wars we're
witnessing now, but. Sega, Sega, you know, they, they
tried to Dreamcast, it didn't work and GameCube said, you know
what, if we just, we'll play your games for you, like just
we'll, we'll do it. I I like again.
They're hiding. Sure, no problem.
Yeah, we're gonna have amusementvision develop F0 GX.

(55:50):
Not that it's a division. Or Sega.
That's right. My God.
So tell us about F0. Just you love racing games and
this is a great one. I mean, that's the short of it,
but yeah, no, I loved F0 GX as ateenager.
It was just just everything was just moving like so you quickly.
It was so intense and so challenging.
And I, I stuck with the game. It's it's notoriously difficult,

(56:14):
but I, I did everything I I triumphed over, you know, all of
the, the cups on the master difficulty.
I beat all of the staff ghosts without drifting or it's without
staking rather. Yeah, no.
And then yeah, every story mode mission on very hard was
painful. But I I got through that as
well, like I think that the gameeach well for a a long time,

(56:40):
like it was one of the best looking games on the GameCube
and honestly probably one of thebetter looking games even on the
on the Wii. Finally, maybe it started
looking a little bit dated untilthe, you know, when the, when
the Wii U came out, but it really just harnessed that sense
of speed. It was chaotic, it was crazy.
It was out of control and had really a lot of content new to

(57:02):
it as well, a lot of tracks. There's the whole dimension of
like, oh, you've got the logo, you know, editor, the, or the
emblem editor. So you can stick stickers on
your custom crafts, which was this whole other part where
they're like parts everywhere. Every single character got their
own like video, like independently made video and
theme song, you know, to kind ofcelebrate, you know, when you

(57:25):
won a like a high level cup withthem.
So just just, it's just an an excellent game.
And I'm, I'm really hoping that circumstances allow, you know,
Nintendo to make another like true F0 game, but I'm not
holding my breath. 99 is pretty good, don't get me wrong.
But it's true Nintendo, the the the table gave niche Kirby game

(57:48):
a remake and Mario Kart gets there and it's it's not like has
there and there there's Captain Falcon, just just just waiting.
It might, you know, might be thebest one.
There's no there's no Sakurai pushing for Star Fox and F0.
That's the problem. Like we.
Me. We need or and me and Moto, just
like we're going to keep making Pikmin games whether you like it
or not. Like we will give you Pikmin

(58:09):
when you, even if you don't wantit, we will keep giving it to
you and I am happy for that. Thank you very much, Sir.
Did you play? Did you ever find this game of
the arcade? I have never seen this game of
the arcade, but it's supposedly F0 AX existed in arcades.
So this is going to tie back to,to Mario Kart a little bit, but

(58:31):
one of the events that I did in Mario Kart was Saturday Night
Speedway. And that's in Las Vegas, man.
So there was one time where I actually travelled to Las Vegas
to compete at that event. But I also knew that Las Vegas
had, I think 3 of the only like a dozen or so remaining F0 AX

(58:52):
cabinets in, in the US, Like they're, they're extremely rare.
And so I, I took the opportunityand I walked all the way up the,
the, the strip to, to Circus Circus, which is the place that
happens to have those, those machines.
And I played it for the first time.
This was, you know, just a few years ago.
And that was, that was kind of asurreal experience.

(59:12):
Like, you know, it was, it was so familiar, but also like so
different at at the same time. But yeah, I finally checked that
off my my bucket list before allthose games go away.
That's what. What?
Oh, you got something? Man, No, no, no.
Go ahead, Go ahead. I was just asked what what what
character did you run with? Did it or the character matter

(59:35):
as much? Did the cart matter as much in
this one or the vehicles and thecarts?
Oh, I, I think with GXI always went with Fat Shark.
Yeah. And what was, what's the guy's
name, like Don Giovanni or something like that?
It it was, it was something, it was something of that nature.
And but yeah, this cart had likeno natural steering ability, but

(59:56):
it was super fast. So if you knew how to do like
the the drift turns and the little technique around the
corners, you could keep most of your speed, which was really
high. And then you just kind of bully
every other craft out of the way.
So that was my go to. But I think as far as like
favorite character, he was probably the I think this is

(01:00:16):
going back of ways of my head, but I think the name was PJ.
Who drove a like a taxi hovercraft, which I thought was
kind of a fun idea. Like, you know, interstellar
taxis, man. You're you, you were killing it
on this name. PJ The taxi.
There's a taxi right there. I don't know.
Why don't you have a crazy taxi?I guess this call taxis kind of

(01:00:38):
look the same. That's what I thought about
right there. Who made Crazy Taxi?
Ray? Who made Crazy Taxi?
Oh, that's for a second. Do that one too.
I'm not. OK I'm not OK.
I have been just like in a wickyhole for the last 5 minutes.
I'll tell you. Processing.

(01:00:58):
The the answer is that Sega is everywhere that that's actually
like you thought it. You know what it is Sega is
like, it is like, oh gosh, it's like Obi Wan Kenobi.
Whereas like, you know, you strike them down just.
A force gun? Yeah, you get more powerful.
Kind of just floating around everywhere.
Fat Shark is an S tier vehicle according to this one tier list

(01:01:23):
that I found from two years ago from some person so.
That person is correct. There you go.
I'm going to and I'm going to leave it right there.
Dan wait, there's there's letting your series go by the
wayside, then there's giving it to your sworn enemy to develop
for you. Like, I don't know what's the
bigger, what's the bigger own of?

(01:01:44):
This Dan let. Me can I introduce it was a.
Collaboration though, it was, itwas, yeah, it was for companies.
It was Nintendo and Sega and. Amusement.
I don't care. I don't care.
Dave, can I introduce you to a Sonic Adventure Battle 2 I
Adventure 2 Battle. Excuse me?
It's the principle of this thingthat's just like, like it, but
but like, you're giving one of your key franchises, one of

(01:02:06):
your, your Smash Brothers franchise over.
To I introduced you to Sonic andMario and.
Sonic at the Olympic. Games.
That's different. That's not the same thing.
Happened a few times. How many times?
According to trivia Today, how many 6?
How many 6 Olympic Games? I didn't realize it's been
around that long. It has between.
Between summer and winter, there's been 6 Mario and Sonic

(01:02:28):
at the Olympic Games. Oh.
My God, let's go back to a time when Rare was still with
Nintendo. Back before good times.
Nice. Speaking of developers, they're
just going elsewhere, but your, your second honourable mentioned
Donkey Kong Country 2, Diddy's Kong Quest.
So yeah, just hop, hop, hop in there.

(01:02:48):
Yeah, absolutely. I just see that as like a peak
platformer. I think that having a sense of
flow in video games is, is really important.
And I think that game you can just go through the the levels
really quickly, the motions really smooth.
The the setting was, was fun. You know, it's all like pirate
themed, but you had all these kind of absurd settings that

(01:03:11):
also included like being inside of a volcano or being at like a,
you're writing an amusement likea writing a roller coaster at
this, like the amusement park orlike going to the brambles.
And of course, all of this was accompanied by David Wise's like
Legendary soundtrack for that game, which is one of the finest
video game soundtracks I can think of.

(01:03:33):
Indeed, so I universally agree this is just an upgrade over as
much you didn't have Donkey Kong.
This was a play wise. It was like they just made
everything better with it. Like now we're just going to
we're going to perfect it. Did you play the rest of the
trilogy on the. I did, yeah.
I, I had, I had the whole trilogy.

(01:03:54):
So yeah, I played through, you know, Donkey Kong countries one
and, and three as well. And I think, you know, one, one
was great. I think it had a few like
slightly rough spots and the difficulty definitely lurched up
as soon as you got to the the snowy levels.
And, you know, it was, it was good and you know, it deserves
all the praise it got. But I, yeah, I think U2 is
better and just kind of having like a more cohesive, you know,

(01:04:17):
smoother experience throughout. And then three, the graphics and
three were, were really great. I like the natural settings and
the all the the mountains and, you know, it looked, it looked
great. I think it was maybe like a
little bit on the gimmicky side for the levels that I I didn't
feel like it had quite the same,you know, sense of flow.
But I also feel like people who hate on the game are maybe

(01:04:40):
exaggerating the negatives a little bit.
I think you talking Kong Country3 is is also a quite a good
game. Oh yeah, no, it's not.
It's not bad by any stretch. It's just 2 was like their peak
probably. So that's that's all it suffers
from Where? Which variant of King K rule is
the best over the course of the series?

(01:05:00):
I'd have to think about like howthe how the the boss battles
worked. Yeah.
Because like in Duncan Country 1, you were just like, you had
to dodge the crown or the cannonballs And and two was
about the, I guess it was another, you know, Canon.
But he was holding it like kind of yeah.
One, you just had to live long enough to to like, figure out

(01:05:20):
the patterns, that's all. Yeah.
And then about 3, I remember they were like electric fields
that you had to like stay above or something like that. 3 was
way more annoying to finish. Yeah, I'll I'll go with I'll go
with two, not just because it's it's my one of my favorite
games, but. Yeah, and last time we'll

(01:05:40):
mention we have Super Mario Galaxy.
Super Mario Galaxy, Yeah. Like you talk about, you know,
having a game with a sense of flow, it was just so much fun to
just, you know, do long jumps and not just, you know, travel
forward, but travel around. And it was clear that the devs
had so much fun just playing with gravity and subverting
expectations. And it's like, oh, I guess we're

(01:06:02):
going to be upside down here or,you know, right side up over
here. And there's just so much joy in
the game. And, you know, another game to
that, you know, to get everything, including all the
the green stars, you know, is a serious effort.
But yeah, it was a it was a goodchallenge there.
And another thing I really appreciate about Super Mario

(01:06:23):
Galaxy is the amount of attention to sound in the game.
So it has a beautiful soundtrack.
I know Nintendo was initially a little bit hesitant to
orchestrate a lot of the the songs with like a full
orchestra, but they decided to to go that route.
And it kind of adds to this feeling of like an epic
adventure, which I appreciate. But I also read about how I just

(01:06:50):
like the amount of detail in thesound effects where every sound
effect is effectively tuned to the key that the background
music is playing in at that moment.
And so, but you hear this, you can't unhear this.
But if you go through any of like the little warp stars that
shoot you to other planets, the little like harp arpeggio it
plays is always in the same key as the background music.

(01:07:13):
And so if the background music key changes, that arpeggio also
like, you know, modulates a bit to fit.
And so if you go through one of those that like a, you know,
scary place like the Bowser's, you know, castle or something
like that, it'll be like all this, you know, kind of
dissonant diminished, you know, chord that plays when you do
that or, you know, elsewhere, it's a little bit happier.

(01:07:33):
But not only that they have you,they, they, they spit you out of
these stars on the downbeat of the song.
So they actually changed the, the timing of your escape
through these so that there's the, you know, that's very
satisfying that that matches themusic.
And it's just, it's everywhere in that game.
Like everything that has like a tone to it.
They tuned to the background music.

(01:07:54):
And they actually did the same thing in Mario Odyssey as well.
And I'm sure they did it in Bonanza too.
I just, I, yeah, that, that I, Iwasn't listening as closely
then, but just I, I, I just, I really appreciate just the, the
art that is Super Mario Galaxy, you know, fun, creative, joyful,
and yeah, that it deserves an honorable mention.

(01:08:17):
Just give me give me notes I payattention to in the movie next
year. Yeah, I got to save these for
like all the the different weeksof trivia too.
I'm I'm wasting them all right now?
It's funny, 'cause you 'cause you, you said joy twice.
And that was the like the main note I wrote down.
And this is just, the game was just joy and, and happy.

(01:08:37):
And I, I, I think it, it might be at least, at least color
wise, my favorite, my favorite flight suit.
I, I liked black and red Mario just kind of like flying around
like the lobby. There's, there's something
really satisfying about that using the Wii mode pointing
itself. There's, it's just, it's just a

(01:08:58):
feel good game. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I haven't actually gotten the the re release for the the
Switch, but if there was anything holding the game back
on the Wii, it was the graphics and now that obstacle is is
gone. So it makes me happy that you
know this generation is able to san bargo to space also.
That's right. All right.

(01:09:19):
We hold to the future. And you had, you had some
trouble. You weren't sure what you were
looking forward to. It's the end, you know, and I
kind of feel the same way. It's the end of the year.
And I, I'm in this holding pattern waiting to see what, you
know, what's coming next year. When is it coming?
What am I supposed to look forward to 1st?
You settled on the blood of DawnWalker, which seems different

(01:09:42):
than most things we talked abouttoday.
It is. It is very different.
And yeah, it's not a Nintendo game, which is a, you know, a
big difference and it's not. It's actually the trilogy capper
for Frog Fractions. They did Frog Fractions 2 in
2016, but Frog Fractions 3 they're calling it.
The blood of the Dawn blood. Of the Dawn Walker, yeah.
Yeah, so I'll be honest, I I didhave, you know, trouble finding

(01:10:05):
or trouble thinking of an anticipated game just because
like, you know, I was looking forward to world and that world
is out. I was looking forward to Bonanza
and Bonanza is out. And, you know, a lot of the
games, metric Prime 4, you know,that I looked forward to for
years and metric prime 4 in particular, like that's that's
out now. So it kind of, you know, made me
reflect a little bit, a little bit harder.
But yeah, I learned about Blood of the Dawn Walker today, if I'm

(01:10:27):
honest with you, and I I enjoyedplaying the The Witcher 3 a lot.
And I understand that this upcoming game is being led by
one of the directors for The Witcher 3 and has a part of the
team that made that experience happen.
And yeah, Witcher 3 was a well executed game.
I saw, you know, the, the trailer for Blood of Don Marker

(01:10:48):
that looks, looks really promising.
I like the, you know, this kind of duality where there's the
daytime where you're, you know, kind of doing combat by sword
and then the night time where you're doing these new sneaky
vampire antics. And I, I, I just think, I think
it's intriguing. I, I want to, you know, follow
its development and, you know, hopefully, hopefully it'll look

(01:11:11):
up to the The Witcher 3 standard.
Let me tell you, it's it's a pretty looking game for a game
that doesn't have like even a release date or anything to have
these screenshots and I'm looking up there like this looks
it just looks really nice. And they really and, and band, I
don't know, Bandai Napco, just they, they just do good things.
Yeah, they make it happen. Yeah, absolutely.

(01:11:35):
All right. Now we come to a quest, a
question from the Channel 3 history books we pick for you to
discuss. Last week we celebrated the
anniversary of the Oregon Trail.Just simply, we were going to
ask you what's on your epitaph? What is your epitaph?
I suppose is the proper way to to phrase that I English.
Student what's on my my epitaph?Can Ioffer the same answer I did

(01:11:56):
for the for the quest? Listen by all means please do
nothing wrong with that. I had.
I had to do 1 yesterday playing the Oregon Trail card game as my
first turn in that game got me bit by a rattlesnake and I died
immediately. At which point my?
Epitaph was just when do we start?

(01:12:17):
That's the problem with that game.
I have. I have it too.
I have that game. It's like you draw it first,
like, Oh yeah, I guess I'll justwatch you guys.
We, we, we had, we still had funbecause like we, it's a group of
adults who like two of us play games and the others, you know,
they, they, they'll play some family games and things like
that, but we're especially for acooperative game, it felt
cleaner talking strategy. Normally I'm like trying to help

(01:12:40):
the three that don't normally game.
I'm like, wait, because the, theone guy there is usually like,
go ahead and make the dumb decision.
I'm like, wait, allow me to giveyou a couple of options here
and, and think about what the implications of these things are
before he goes over here and just says do it.
But we're we were cooperating. But it was, it was still, it was
still fun as a team. But yeah, I, I died on card one

(01:13:01):
and then 49 more cards had to get there as one person limped
across the the finish line to get to Oregon.
But we all won, even though fourof us were buried.
The highlight of which was the guy who said all I need to do is
not roll A1 and drown and then immediately rolling a one that
went on his. I didn't even give him a choice
of what his epitaph was. That was what I put on his ward.
All I need to do. Unlucky.

(01:13:23):
I know so many people have fond memories of playing the Oregon
Trail computer game, but I neverlike you've that many people who
actually like completed it like I I did.
It just ends you dysentery afterlike, you know, 5 to 10 minutes
and you start again so. Well, cozy if you if you go like
the Internet has has a good couple good versions.
You can play it on there and we have a tagline available for

(01:13:45):
doing. I have done I have done it
successfully. So have at it.
I have not that may. Have to be, you know, I we did
that as a high score quest one week.
That may have to happen again. I don't.
Know, OK, I I should give that ashot.
It's it's worth playing that again.
I was I actually was just playing the logical journey of
the Zombinis the other day, which is another like old
classic I remember from like, you know, like the computer labs

(01:14:08):
of of days gone by. So yeah, I should give Oregon
Trail a try to but I I found I found my epitaph.
It says here lies cozy fog 5. The blue shell finally caught up
to him. May he rest cozily in the bed of
the rainforest. But no, he's not a frog.
No frogs. All right, good.
Nailed it. Oh, last question, what's been

(01:14:31):
your favorite feature on Channel3?
Oh, favorite feature on Channel 3?
I mean, there's there's a lot toto love about it.
I like the, you know, the way that quests, you know, aren't
just about like just doing something arbitrary to get XP,
but it's about starting conversations and engaging.
And I think that I just I, I enjoy engaging with other people

(01:14:56):
because it's, you know, it's funand there are a bunch of good
people here. We have good conversations.
So just the whole quest, you know, structure I think goes,
goes a long way. And yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm so glad
I found my way to, you know, Channel 3 and I, I don't
actually know how long I've beenhere at at this point, but I've

(01:15:16):
met a lot of really cool people and I never thought I'd do a
podcast that at any point in my life.
So this has been a lot of fun also.
I know how long you've been here.
I, I, well, he confirms that I never thought I'd talk about the
game Frog for actions. So we all, we all reached new
new heights today. That was a new one.

(01:15:36):
That was a new one. You have been here 432.
Days, 432 days. Over a year.
I have a question here 'cause sometimes people will put random
referrals down and someone gets 1000.
It says here that you were referred by Frizz.
Is that is that real? That's real.
Yeah. When I was, yeah, talking about

(01:15:56):
like the community aspect of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, I didn't
even mention like the aspect of lounge and competing in, you
know, team events and 60 sixes. And on one of those 60 sixes,
you know, Frizz was on the team and I think Ariel was there.
And I'm trying to remember a fewothers.
We, we kind of swapped the teamsevery once in a while.
But yeah, learned about this, this great side and Frizz gave

(01:16:21):
me the, the referral and I sat on it for a while and eventually
like, OK, fine. I'll, I'll, I'll do it.
And I'm glad I I'm glad I joined.
And on that note, we've made it to the end of another one of
your three cozy fog #5 thanks for being with us.
You can find a podcast at C3 dotGG slash podcast dropping every
Wednesday morning at 3:33 AM Eastern on all the major

(01:16:42):
platforms including Spotify, YouTube Music or podcast.
I'm Ray. Dan puts this all together.
Our theme song is by Cast Your Garden and for our executive
producer, Joel Willis. Have a good day everybody.
Channel 3 is the future.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.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;}0143 cozyfog5

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

0143 cozyfog5

Stuff You Should Know