May 16, 2022 • 47 mins
On this week's episode Fred and Mike are joined by Xalavier Nelson Jr. (@writnelson) of Strange Scaffolding. Listen as he bares his truth and answers some audience questions. Fred and Mike also talk a little about The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:11):
Welcome to Level Select, a showabout games and game development. I'm your
host Mike Devir, and I'm yourhost Fred Wood. How are you doing
today, Fred? I'm good.It's been a fun week. We got
this podcast started finally, and I'vestarted learning Katakana. Oh nos, how's
that going? I went from knowingabsolutely nothing to being able to read a
(00:32):
bunch of ridiculous words like I wasabout to start swearing now that I think
about it, and that's something thatwe try not to do too much on
the show. I learned a wholebunch of swears and how to how to
write those hats. Okay, it'sbeen good, useful in contexts. So
I have learned I think like thirtycharacters so far, in all of them
(00:55):
vulgar, almost all of them vulgar. Yes. But Katakana is the part
of the japp the language that isused primarily like the alphabet of letters that
are primarily used for foreign words,not just English, but like words that
have been brought into Japanese. Andso I was told that it would be
the more useful one as a foreignerto use, because by doing that I'd
(01:15):
be able to understand a bunch ofwords, whereas here Ghana, if you
can read it, then you canread a bunch of Japanese words that you
also still have to know. Soit isn't exactly the most useful thing for
a beginner like me, right right, No, that's awesome though, But
that's been fun. What about you? What you've been up to. I've
been We're working on a book overthe course of the pandemic, and I,
(01:38):
you know, I write it inchunks, and I take a little
break to sort of chart things outand then focus on some other stuff to
avoid burnout. And I've been gettingback to the swing of that. It's
been a very fun thing. Thisis the longest thing I've ever written.
In the past, I have publisheda comic, written a novella, and
then have done some freelance work inthe tabletop gaming space, primarily just doing
(02:00):
sort of write ups for like questlead ins and that sort of thing.
So this is the first time Iam tackling a project of this magnitude,
and it's been very what's the wordI'm looking for, Very educational. I've
learned a lot nice, which isa nice way of saying it's hard.
If you were to throw a likepercentage counter on there. What do you
(02:21):
think. I think it's hard becauseI don't like when books are very long.
And I know that's like a verynebulous thing to say, but I
really all my favorite books tend tobe books that get in, say what
they need to say, and getout, you know, very economic writing,
very quick. This book is notgoing to be one of those.
I can just say that right now. It is already longer than some of
(02:44):
the books I was kind of usingas like a benchmark. I'm like,
Okay, this book is this manywords. You know, if I'm around
there, I'm good. I amat that past that point. So I'd
say probably about fifty five sixty percentof the way through. My hope is
that by the end of this yearbeginning of X, the MANI script is
finished and then I start the laboriousprocess of editing it, and then I
(03:05):
want to try to get this traditionallypublished. So yeah, that sounds good.
Sounds like a productive week for bothof us. It has been actually,
you know, on top of ourday jobs, and yeah, all
of the other stuff that we're doinghas the day job going. It's going
well good, and it's been verynice. You know. Yeah, still
transitioning into certain things, getting usedto certain parts of the job. But
you know, it's fun and I'mworking with developers on stuff, and I'm
(03:30):
reaching out to new ones and I'mplaying tons of great indie games. And
that's not a bad gig. Yeah, No, it seems like a pretty
good gig. Yeah, speaking ofpretty good gigs, this is a bad
transition, but I'm gonna go withit. This week, we've got a
very special guest, good friend ofmine and just wonderful person around, Zoalivir
Nelson Junior of Strange Scaffolding. Heis accomplished a lot in a very small
(03:50):
amount of time in the industry,and we are lucky to have him.
We're gonna have that. Just afterthis quick break, we are joined by
Zalivir Nelson Junior, a dear friendof mine and a game developer who has
done just all sorts of different things, someone who is capable of making me
very angry and laugh harder than Iever have usually at the same time.
(04:13):
Zolivia, how you doing. I'mdoing quite well today. Okay, No,
we're not doing that. No,why not? This is how some
man talks. This is not howhe talks absolutely how I talk. It's
nice to have a podcast. Ican reveal my full self. And I
believe that Fred is so good atcreating welcoming spaces for the developers to show
(04:39):
themselves and the creative intentions, inspirationsand really hopes of dreams. I'm so
angry. I think it's it's reallygood that you're trusting us enough to be
this vulnerable and and I really appreciateyou you doing that, especially concerning that,
you know, we just met alittle bit ago, and even then
you were, you know, veryopen, very generous with yourself. And
(05:01):
I just want to say, onbehalf of Fred, who now is weeping.
You can't see, but see Ido have tears in my eyes.
It's mostly angered, but yeah,you know, anger at himself that it
took so long, yeah, totruly know his friends. Olivia, you've
just been living such a lie outloud. And I believe that vulnerability can
(05:21):
be more than debuff. What isthis accent supposed to be? Tell me
where this accent is from, justso that way when we get in trouble
later, we know who to be. Fred. You can't just ask questions
like that. It's insensitive do youplay insensitive? Yeah, Zlivia, why
didn't you tell us a little bitabout what you've been working on most recently
and then we'll get into just shootingthe chit. It has been a John
(05:45):
packed past few weeks from me.You are jumping in and out of this
accent. Please continue. I liketo think that I'm roaming the continent of
my homeland as I speak and press. That's through my words. So a
few weeks ago we were launched SpaceWarlord organ training simulator, the sci Fi
(06:09):
body wall markup Tycoon that you didn'tknow that you needed on Nintendo Switch,
as well as announced the physical versionand the vinyl Those are both available for
pre order. Very exciting. Weannounced a few days ago that we are
also publishing our first game. It'scalled Purgatory Dungineer. The full title is
My Grandpa died and all he leftme was this one dungeon in Purgatory filled
(06:30):
nhilistic, adventurous, incredible. It'sa brilliant new town building robelike RPG by
Damien Crawford and I'm so stanndingly excitedfor that. And then finally yesterday,
Slash Today we announced which strandings playershave to solve an arg to find the
title of the game. It's aimminently releasing new take on open world games
(06:57):
inspired by the strand type of genrenewly invented by Heyday Kajima. And yeah,
it's a two D experimental open worldstrand like that will be saying some
very interesting things about in the verynear future, and then I'm excited to
delve into both the philosophy and themechanics of it, because I don't think
we've quite seen anything like it ingames before. It has been such a
(07:19):
busy past few weeks that I hadto make cereal in my mouth last night,
which involved point dry cereal into mymouth, pouring in milk directly from
the cotton, and just chewing becauseI was so tired and I was so
hungry and I hadn't eaten old day. And honestly, that that type of
(07:40):
the relief I felt when chewing intothat dry, newly moistened cereal inside of
my mouth, it's much like thesame relief that I feel appearing on this
podcast. Yeah, I really appreciatethat, especially with being so hungry for
progress in these projects and so hungryfor pushing to make the second Strand type
(08:01):
game. Yeah, only the secondone. Only the second Well, no,
I mean there's anime stranding, right, No, I mean I'd paid
two dollars on Steam for a copyof anime Stranding. I don't know if
it's a Strand like or if it'sjust stranded name. I feel like I'm
looking at anime standing first of all, anime standing. You're right, sorry,
put respect on that name, asas the kids would say. But
(08:24):
yeah, I believe that's that's moreof a clone and less of a Strand
type game. It's not really extendingthe genre. And see it's a stand
like. Yeah, although it doesextend it into the cursed abodes of anime,
so maybe there is innovation happening there. There's a lot to dredge up
from anime, most of it verybad. But I would never call Norman
(08:46):
Readas anime, either to his faceor behind his back. I think I
would. I think I would calla normal READI I loved Death Stranding.
That is a game that boy,there's a lot of ideas there, and
not all of the excution is wonderful. But I had a really good time
with it. Speaking quite seriously,and honestly, I'm yeah, oh you
(09:07):
were saying, I've got tears inmy eyes. I'm just having you on
is just such an honor for me, Sali her so, but it's sorry
you wanted to say something else thatI'm gonna have to hear with the voice
that you're doing my voice. Yes. So the thing that I find exceptional
about Death Stranding is that, atfirst, like many people and I heard
(09:30):
strands type game as a genre,I dismissed it much like Kajima's earlier terms
that or earlier statement that we wouldregret our words and deeds and metal gear
sold five and no one did.She breathed through her skin. That's why
she had to be naked. Imean, plants do the exact same thing,
and plants are naked. Anyway,I am fascinated by this idea that
(09:50):
the strand type game. As soonas I played it, it clicked.
I got it. I believe thething that it presents is a genuinely new
game genre based upon new principles thatfall within intersections of things we've seen before,
but with a different thrust in totalexperience built as a result, which
(10:11):
shand things wasn't originally supposed to bea Shrand type game. It was accidentally
became such. Yeah, it alsowasn't originally called that though it like the
name was born out of the genre, right. We were building a type
of game, and we stepped backfor a second that we are we making
a Shrand type game, and wewere, and we were stunned, and
then we leaned into it, andthat did inspire the name, although we
(10:35):
had something kind of similar in thepast. I believe I do have to
stop you, though, because Ineed you to explain what you think the
core tenants of a Strand like ora Strand type game are. I would
be delighted. I previously did soon Katuku. Actually the headline of that
article is lookout, Hideo Kajima,someone else is making a Shrand game.
(10:58):
There you go. So I believethat the three tenants are nurturing. I
believe the entire goal of the genre, in a very interesting way, is
that you're supposed to everything that you'redoing is directed towards supporting a community or
an individual. The way you dothat nurturing is through transportation. The second
tenant. You bring things from oneplace to another. And the nurturing is
(11:20):
what elevates it from being a simpleseries of fetch quests. And finally,
the glue tying all of this togetheris a physicality, a physical embodiment,
and interaction and logistical consideration of yourenvironment. With these three tenants, you
end up with a game that canbe in many different things, much like
an APS can mean many different things, an immersive sim platformer, but something
(11:43):
that if it fits those three things, what you end up with are the
ingredients for a strand game. Okay, and yeah, I was I believe
Kajima is absolutely right. This islike the second or third time he has
created a genre in his career,which is a pretty stunning thing to do.
As a game does that to keepmaking. You can't really credit many
people for single handedly creating several genres. But even in pitching the game and
(12:07):
creating it, I heard the whispers, the rumors, the little bit of
pattern of Strand type feat other gamesare coming. We just happened to be
here first, and I'm really excitedto especially be the first to explore in
a two D format, attempting tobring those principles to a unique framework with
(12:28):
such a talented team. The spaceWold organ Training similar team with some new
friends, including Manuela Zebania. Justa stunning No, it's Manuela Malastania goes
by manuel as Zebania on Twitter.Just a stunning crew of people. Cool.
It's interesting because I would have thoughtthat a Strand game had to have
the asynchrod as a multiplayer component toit, But no, I guess you're
right, Like, there is noreason why those tenants have to be connected
(12:52):
to other people. So that's cool. I'm really excited to see what other
people do with Astronto. Yeah,I don't know what to do with these
alf here. What are you talkingabout? Fred? Like, there's there's
a lot of things we could talkabout, and I just feel like if
I nudge you in any direction,You're just gonna go yes, because I'm
(13:16):
so open willing to collaborate. Yes, right, And just the multifaceted nature
of all the things that you're workingon. I mean, you know,
releasing a game then immediately rolling intomultiple other projects. That is, releasing
a game that takes advantage of theMicrosoft connect in exciting new ways in the
Year of Our Lord twenty twenty one, Yeah, which is itself a monumental
(13:39):
feat because I mean sometimes even findinga connect can be like unearthing and ancient
relic, but then rolling on intomultiple other projects. I mean, how
do you how do you find allthe time to do that and then make
cereal in your mouth? The cerealin the mouth is the direct thing that
much like transportation to the nurturing tenetof trend likes cereal in the mouth supports
(14:00):
the goal of work on several thingsat the time at the same time.
Of course, if you put milkbefore cereal inside of your mouth, you
are a barbarian, a heretic,and you should be bird at the stake.
That's also logistically challenging, right,because you'd have to like baby bird
it you next straight up and thenlike plopping the cereal in there. Otherwise
when you open your mouth, milk'sgoing to come out. Choking, I
(14:26):
imagine would be a problem. There'sso much effort expended here, much like
the years I've spent adopting the accentthat most people know me for, but
for so little effect, right,because you're living a lie in that aspect,
and that is not nurturing, Thatis not being your true self and
growing, nor is it taking considerationsof your environment and how that can help
(14:46):
people grow. So really, youare a Strand type person. This is
what I endeavored to be at oldtimes. Of course, Norman Reid is
I never try to do anything.I think there's very standards and morality you
can adopt. But even if youare not associated with an organized religion or
faith of some kind, I thinkeveryone can agree that a standard of morality
(15:07):
that we can rally around is thatyou would never want to do anything that
would make Norman Reidas silently shake hishead in disappointing of course, with a
derisive ashing of his cigarette. Theashing of the cigarette, that's the equivalent
of eternal damnation right there. That'san unforgivable sense. Of course, the
shaking of the head is is punishmentenough. Yeah, yeah, have you
(15:30):
played any games that you're excited aboutlately? I don't know. I like,
listen, I had ideas for howthis is going to go, and
I'm just not, like, Ican't do it at this point, and
you're you're in awe. I knowthat you're you're stunned somehow. This is
what I should have known was goingto happen. But much like the latest
episode of Halo, I couldn't havepredicted it, and I don't want to
(15:54):
get into spoilers for the people whoare very passionately enjoying that week to week.
My dad was really into the HaloShow and he hasn't seen the latest
episode yet, and I'm so excitedexcited to share with him his feelings upon
witnessing the latest episode. Gosh,I'm gonna so we got We got a
(16:14):
couple of questions from the audience.Normally we do this on our own.
Zalivier hasn't mentioned any games that he'sbeen playing. Sorry, you're right,
you just set right? Yeah,No, you're right. What are you
doing? I'm not going to editany of this. I think that this
is perfect the way that it is. Yeah, what you've been playing?
Man? So I quite enjoyed GhostWire Tokyo. It's the next game from
the team behind the Evil Within two. I thought Evil Within two presented genuinely
(16:37):
new ideas and one of the mostexciting structures for an open world game that
I've ever seen. So yeah,learning that Ghost Wire Tokyo directly emerged from
what would have been the Evil Withinthree, I bought it as soon as
I got back from GDC. Iplayed it I found it immensely conceptually exciting
and smartly designed. I just occasionallygo back in and chip away at it.
(17:02):
It's very uniquely low pressure in thatregard, and I have adored the
experience of sort of going through thatbinary domain. Is the Bob Bomb Dignity,
one of the best games ever made. The Yucuza team makes a third
person shooter that is near automed forthe Gears of War gam Narration, and
(17:22):
I am astounded. I just metKane. Kane is a French robot.
Yep. He's a French robot witha motor pistol, a machine pistol,
and he says things like wait wait. But he's also a robot, and
I don't know why those two thingsmake him so compelling. Is a French
robot, but he's one of myfavorite characters games now, Blair Domain has
(17:45):
been really good. I've been oneof the things I'm working on right now.
We have eight projects going inside ofstream Scaffold simultaneously right now, and
one of the ones that we haveannounced and I can talk about is El
Paso Elsewhere, which is is asupernatural throwback the person shooter spirtual successor to
games like the original Max Pain Titolsand Dead to Rights. If folks remember
(18:08):
that, incredible And I've been playingthrough the original Max Pain games as well
and finding that very educational. Ina variety of gods, chief among them,
people do not remember how rough thosegames are. No, absolutely not.
But but no one remembers how rougha game is when they use it
as a tempole, right well,especially in eras of games before you know,
(18:32):
the control schemes were let's you know, put big heavy quotations around this
figured out, so to speak.There's a lot of experimentation even just on
how these games handle, barring anythingelse, and whether or not the mechanics
hold up. You know, playinggames that are like pre Halo that our
first person, it's a crapshoot onwhether or not they are even playable by
today's standards. So I can onlyimagine for something like Max Pain another interesting
(18:55):
thing. Having made a Max payinggame, you realize how complex building something
that genre actually is when you startmaking things like that. But one thing
that saves us on El Paso elsewhereis we are still aiming for this intentionally
low fidelity neon noir high fibes watermark. When you take the necessary steps to
(19:18):
build something in the say slow mothat person shooter genre. Just to throw
up a random, potential catch allgenre term, it's that as soon as
you increase the fidelity of that charactermodel, so many things start to break
down, so many problems become apparent. Those deeply wide hallways which had to
(19:40):
exist because max pain can at amoment cover so much ground. As soon
as you put that in a unrealengine five nicely rendered environment, there's a
lot of stuff that breaks down thatthey're going to have to maneuver around.
So I trust the Bremedy team todo it, maybe more so than anyone
else. But I also am deeplysympathetic that challenges, having already encountered the
(20:02):
difficulty of building something like stuff thatthey used to build with modern day technology
and all of the benefits that reliance. No, of course I actually had
considered that and how frustrating that couldprobably get just for general logistics of gameplay.
Also, I've been playing elden Ringwith my dad. Cool. Yeah,
like everyone else in the world,everybody is playing elden Ring with your
(20:22):
dads. Yeah, he's a wonderfulco op partner. Explains why sometimes he
won't answer my calls. Yeah,I'm gonna payot over two questions. Yeah,
how are you doing, Fred,I'm having a great time. We
have a question from Spencer, whichis specifically for you, says, do
you have any interest in developing tabletopgames outside of the role playing space?
(20:47):
Also, are there any resources you'drecommend about role playing design and or tabletop
design in general, board tabletop.I am deeply interested in things that on
role playing games, varying takes oncaught games, games, party games.
I might have more to share aboutthat in the future, but yeah,
for now, I'll just say Ireally do adore any opportunity to design that
space, and I find that incrediblycompelling and fun, as well as a
(21:11):
unique way of engaging with players thatyou don't receive outside of any of the
context. I recently play tested acard game that I had designed for a
digital game we were building inside astrange scaffold. We replaced it entirely with
something else, but I play testedit physically recently, just showed it to
some people, and it worked somuch better in person. And that's the
(21:33):
kind of alchemy of board and cardgames. Things that would work on the
table might not work in a digitalrealm of vice versa. The second thing
I would say is as far aships for design, I would say one
of the honest paths to take andthe one that has been the primary motivated
for me, especially when it comesto my tabletop operug work, is what
frustrates you about the way that tabletopgames currently operate when you look at a
(21:56):
game and think, God, Iwish you would just do this. I
wish it was different in this way. I wish it appealed to different people
than it the genre typically does.Starting from a point of passion and then
improvement is such a major and intriguingplace to start in for a design in
(22:17):
that space, and you'll learn alot of reasons why I was designed the
way it was, and you'll endup because you want having to code these
things. You might to reach asimilar appeal, but change one small element
to end up creating it an entirelydifferent type of game. And that's good.
That's the magic of that genre.So yeah, I'd recommend being very
(22:41):
introspective and intentional about things you enjoy, things you don't, and things you
would like to see a given gamea game type achieve, and then reverse
engineer a way to bring that tobeing. I know that, like I
had play tested some games that you'veworked on, the things that you're doing
in that space are awesome, andI think you're you have a knack at
(23:03):
making things accessible and playable to peoplein interesting ways that few other people seem
to have. This next question comesin from Mark Lentz of Cheo High Labs.
Since the world knows that you areboth from and passionate about the great
state of Texas and thankfully slivier,you are also a Texan, at least
by some state you're currently in Texas. I'm an adopted Texan, Yes,
(23:26):
yeah, yeah, adopted Texan,but clearly I am from other shores shores
yeah yeah, yes, yes.And if you were to make a Duke
NUKEMB three D mod about Texas,what are the pillars it would have to
include? What about Duke DUKEM threeD isn't already Texas? I know,
right, that is a v Yeah. I feel like Duke Nukem is a
(23:48):
little more LA. I mean itspecifically takes place in La, but Duke
does in its soul gearbox also Texasgearbox three D realms, I mean three
d Realms. Yeah, is isTexan is Heck? Yeah, I mean
on certain drives, I can seethe building. I don't know, like,
I don't know what you need toreally change. The first thing you
need to do is either name thefirst episode or the actual title of the
(24:11):
game. Texts harm Canna, Yes, absolutely get it like Texacana. But
it's like ham in the middle.Do you get it from? Yeah?
I got it right. And thegame the game has to open in the
state fair so that way you cansee a mecca, Big tex A Mecca,
Big tex Yeah, right, rightright, because he's been taken over
by you know, alien forces andyou have to go liberate this, this
(24:33):
icon of Texas history of representation,really of the soul of every Texan.
The giant boot that is at NorthStarml and San Antonio, the iconic giant
Boot. He would make some sortof quip about it going up somebody's ass.
Don't be a boot kisser, Yeah, yes, yeah, something about
(24:56):
cattle, Yeah, rattle wrangling,tipping, barbecue sauce, barbecue sauce two,
stepping out a bar. Yeah,there's there's a lot of Texas for
Duke to explore. I would wantit to be just one giant build engine
map of the entire grade state ofTexas that you have to walk across in
real time. Yeah. Yeah,you have to say one one scale,
you have to walk across it.Yeah yeah, yeah, So you'd want
(25:18):
to mix Duke Nicom three D withDaga foll Yeah, yeah, that's exactly
what I want basically, Okay,less talking to NPCs, more shooting alien
bastards for banging up his ride,what about screaming skeletons though I feel like
that's not entirely Duke, but itis entirely Texas. So okay, yeah,
(25:40):
see then now it's Duke. Yeah, now there you go. As
soon as you say in the voice, it becomes Duke n it is,
Yeah, incontrovertibly due, It's true. I mean, and you gotta you
gotta get John zaon John of course? Yeah, well me, or are
you? I mean? Yea masterof voices? H The accent that you've
affected for so long has been andso obviously not fake. The one that
(26:03):
you use in your day to dayhas been so convincing. I'm like,
I am exhausted by this interview ina way that I didn't expect to.
You are also somebody that this isjust a question from me. You are
somebody who is really great at comingup with ideas that are difficult to execute.
(26:29):
I was curious if you had anythat you wanted to share publicly,
whether or not you can or canI do them. One of my current
projects, the principal mechanic is thatyou play shuffleboard on a Mira golf parameter,
using the oblivion persuading oh oh mygod, Okay, yep, it's
going really well. Yeah no,yeah, yeah yeah, and encouraging everybody
(26:52):
to use the Oblivion conversation wheel hasbeen very easy. I'm sure wouldn't you
say, hey, you remember theOblivion con versation wheel, and then they
say no, And then you've gota PowerPoint presentation explaining all of the various
positive qualities of it. I havea white board in my home and it
looks like a madman's scribblings because I'vegiven in real time the exposition scene in
(27:17):
like a sci fi movie, rightof a certain quality, over and over
and over against saying oh, butthis is how it works, and then
they're like, is this how itworks? It's like no, or maybe
I don't, is that how itworks? What I love about the Oblivion
conversation wheel is that every time youlook at it, you think that it
works differently, no matter how manytimes you've experienced it, or whether or
(27:40):
not you're working on the actual game. Right, So obviously that makes it
incredibly easy to design and consider forusability and accessibility. This is a game
built for human beings to play,yeah, right, and the noble game
of shovelboard. That obviously that thatkind of control is going to be accurately
represented. Gamers are getting older.We need something to help them through the
(28:03):
transitional phase of their life that they'reabout to enter. What better than taking
something that they know and feel familiarand capable of still doing, which is
Mario Golf hitting that button as muchas those thumb joints sure have begun to
atrophy and die. And why notcombine it with the noble sport of shuffleboard,
of course, all through the powerof the Oblivion combat dialogue. We
(28:27):
all sorry, yeah, yeah,yeah. And the great thing about this
kind of era of game is thatyou could say is either Oblivion was the
very first RPG you played as akid, or it was something experienced in
college, or you were an adultsperson and Oblivion isn't Skyrim, but it
was the thing that embedded itself inyour mind and it continues to haunt you
(28:49):
still. I want to make gamesthat haunt players and that haunts me while
I'm in the process of making itsounds beautiful. I cannot wait to have
my soul and my heart contained withinthis game. On the subject of ubiquity,
I know that you were interested inthe play Date. Is that something
that you're still noodling with or havenoodled with? Oh? Yeah. It
(29:11):
was announced last year that with SweetBaby, the incredible Narrative Creatives consultancy slash
production place of up in Canada,we made a game for the play Date.
It's called Recommendation Dog. We usethe crank to turn a rotary organizer
and find people to solve the problemsof people who come in through the door
(29:33):
of your consultancy agency. And you'rea cute little dog spinning this wheel as
fast as you can and attempting tohelp the people in your town. Awesome.
I'm excited for that. I havebeen playing the new games of the
Drop on the play Date each weekand it's such a cool little piece of
hardware. Casual birder is so charming. I can't remember to the game that
(29:53):
I'm playing right now. Let mejust I've got the play date right here.
And then there's like, there's aphenomenal on a Graham game that somebody
made called Sketch Share Solve. I'vebeen loving that too. Pickpack Putt is
the one that I'm playing right now, which is a match three game with
a bunch of interesting rule sets,and since the screen is entirely black and
(30:15):
white, it is all based onshapes instead of relying on colors. And
I'm a colorblind person, and soall of those match three games are always
like, oh yeah, it's justred, green and yellow or blue,
and it's like, well, Ican't see those all that well that fast.
This has been perfect for that though, And I'd love to shout out
specifically how it handles sideloading, yeah, because it's like nothing I've seen in
(30:37):
games so those aren't familiar with theply date. It has a website,
and when you register your device withthis website and everything that comes with that,
of course you've registered your device connectedto the internet. But most importantly
of all, they have a sectionon the website where you drop in the
zip file up the game that youhave downloaded from sayah dot io, and
(31:00):
you've paid the developer for that gamedirectly. Play Date has received nothing,
yeah, and you upload it andthe servers a panic basically act as intermediary
to allow you to download it asif it was any other game. I've
never experienced anything like it, andso Pickpack Puck was that a play Date
game? Or Pickpack Pup was oneof the weekly Season one games. I
(31:22):
do want to shout out one otherpiece of unique hardware that had the same
service where you would register your systemto their site and then you would be
able to upload games to that andthat would automatically download it to it.
Is it the Uya? Yes?I was like, it's going to be
one of two things for that one. I think yeah, it would.
(31:42):
It would upload to their servers andthen it would sync up on your area,
and then it would be a reallybad way to play a game you
made. Was it twenty twenty onewhere you shipped another Uya game? The
last time I shipped a game onthe Uya was twenty twenty. Yes,
I'm sure that I will do itagain because no one can stop me.
No, No, you do thison puppus. Oh yeah, Oh,
(32:05):
I should put words with freads onso we can finally have one of those
five letter word games available on Couldyou put it on play date first?
I can't because it's two color based, and I'm sure that somebody else is
already putting on on playd I don'tknow how to make played games. It's
all based in loew and C Cplus plus and like I'm not a real
(32:27):
programmer, they also do. Theymade their own tool set. It's called
Pulp. Pulp is very cool,but it's also very limited in terms of
what you can do without knowing theirscripting language as well, and as fun
as it would be to learn that, I have a day job, and
if I wanted to make a newsmall video game for a system that people
(32:49):
hold in their hands, I've beenknown to make an Intendis which game or
two in my spare time. Sooften I don't have any more questions for
you. I love you so muchand you make me so mad. Do
you think that for maybe the restof the podcast you could just affect to
(33:09):
your your fun fake accent that we'realso familiar with. No, all right,
yeah, thanks I'm sure that's greataudio for the listener as well.
It's fine. Why are you tryingto make him not be his true self?
I've grown so accustomed to your fakevoice that this, this real voice
(33:30):
is jarring. I'm going to gaslightmyself and so that it's actually my fault
that Freddy is so uncomfortable with thisnew voice, and I should never have
deceived him or the rest of theworld in the first place. No,
no, no, no, it'sit's fine. I'm glad that you can
live in your truth now I've gottennothing else. I would like to say
it has been a pleasure to meetyou, and to meet the true and
(33:51):
honest you without any let's call itsorceress intentions behind them, any any duplicity
or falseness presented. And I againreally want to just thank you for being
so honest, not just with myselfand Fred, but with our our listeners
and to truly understand what it meansto be duke. Do you remember Fred
(34:14):
when the original bit was whenever therewas a breaking conversation, I would listen
to alf Hey season one, episodeone, Yeah, I remember when you
beat out that, Yeah, becausebecause that would have been a bad idea,
right, Fred, Yeah, Iknow that that would have been bad,
been terrible lookingness. You're right,definitely would have been worse. Boy,
(34:36):
I am sure that this is notthe last time that we'll have you
on this show. Thank you forthis, and yeah, I got Novin.
I can't wait for my return.Thank you so much for having me.
You've both been delightful and so wonderfulto meet you for the first time.
Mike, Yes, it's been mypleasure. Thanks again. Z Olivier.
(34:57):
Hey, Mike, what game haveyou been playing this week? So?
I'm playing a couple of things,but I wanted to touch on something
that we were talking about last week, which was the release and you're playing
through of the Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe, which I wound up picking up and
then checking out because, like Imentioned, when the original Stanley Parable first
(35:19):
came out, I vehemently bounced offof it and I wanted to give it
another go about and this seems likethe perfect opportunity, in the perfect time
to have done that. So pickedit up, started playing it and while
there are still parts like the Ichaff against man, it's yeah, it's
a good game. Like I gottaI gotta recant my statements from like a
(35:43):
decade or twelve years ago, yeah, or however long I think. I
think it was thirteen years ago,but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I've got to recant all my statementsfrom then, because yeah, that's
a that's a swell, what aswell video game that is, and that
makes me really happy to hear I'msmart enough for it. Now, did
you Did you get to the newcontent yet? So I'm still playing through
(36:04):
it. I haven't gotten to thenew content yet. I've seen the door,
okay, yeah, all right,sure, I saw the door and
I was like, Okay, Ifeel like I've got more to explore,
so I'll come back for you later. For the folks that didn't catch the
first episode where we talked about whatStanley Parable is, it is a game
about player choice, and it isa narrative based, hilarious game where a
(36:27):
narrator is telling you what you're doingor supposed to do, and then you
get to choose whether or not you'refollowing alongside it or just really throwing all
that to the wind and just kindof going on your own little adventure of
discovery. And yeah, I mean, it's just a clever commentary on the
nature of video games and making themin what choice is? I mean,
we discussed all this stuff last week, so I'm not gonna labor that point
(36:47):
too much. But it really isan intelligent game, and especially for the
era in which the original came out. All my bulking aside at it originally,
like, yeah, there's a reasonwhy that game is so loved and
why it changed so much within theindustry, and you know why it continues
to be this this landmark title,not just in gaming but like an indie
(37:09):
gaming as as a whole. I'msurprised to see it like it crested the
best seller's list for the week onSteam. Oh wow, really, I
didn't checked that the good f Yeah, and that's that's revenue base too,
so it was like up against theSteam deck and the Valve index and stuff
right right, and then every othermajor game that yeah right now. So,
(37:30):
without getting into spoilers, have yougot into the other video games ending?
Uh? Not to the ending?I mean like there was an ending
where the narrator shows you some othervideo games. Oh yes, yes,
yes, says yes, okay thatI have seen. Yeah, it was
different than the original version because whenthe first game came out was thirteen years
(37:54):
ago. Neither of the games inthat ending existed when that game came out,
right, it was originally Minecraft.It drops you into Minecraft. Oh
that's really good, and I guessfor reasons they decided not to do Minecraft
aget right, right, No,that's really good. I don't think I
(38:15):
knew that from the original. Sincethat's in the original and not an ultra
delect I feel like I can saythat, and I don't want to say
what the games are that they dipinto and ultra because it's real good,
and I feel like this is gonnabe one of those unfortunate things, especially
with a lot of the games thatI'm going to be playing, is there's
going to be a lot of likeme talking around certain details. Sure,
(38:35):
yeah, I mean the game thatI've got this week is entirely narrative based,
and so I can't talk a lotabout it unfortunately. But yeah,
yeah, because what have you beenplaying? So I have put, according
to my save file, nine hoursand thirty six minutes into thirteen Sentinels Ages
Rim, which was a game releasedin twenty nineteen for the PlayStation four,
was originally in development for the PlayStationVita as well. That version got canceled,
(39:00):
but in twenty twenty two the gamecame out on the truest Vita,
which is the O laed Nintendo Switch. Yes, the Vita two. As
everybody knows, it is a primarilynarrative based game. It's a game that
is split into two chunks, andthen like a third tiny chunk, you've
(39:22):
got the destroy section. That's notwhat it's called destruction section, the story
section, and what is basically aglossary that you're unlocking. Oh, but
it follows the story of thirteen charactersacross space and time. So this was
a game released by Sega and Atlas, developed by Vanilla Ware. And you
(39:43):
can tell if you've ever seen aVanilla Ware game and you start this game,
you're like, oh, yeah,it's one of those. It's thankfully
significantly less horny because it's high schoolers. But of course everybody that is piloting
the giant robots, which by theway, they are giant robots called sentinels.
When they're inside the robots, ofcourse they have to be naked,
okay, but like in a likeskin tight bodysuit naked or like no naked.
(40:07):
They're like, I don't know thatI like that. Yeah, no,
I don't either. It's it's veryit's off putting, it's upsetting,
and even the characters are like whyare we naked? And like the next
guy's like, anyways, let's goon. We're just not going to talk
about this one. It is agame that is hard to explain the narrative
(40:27):
of. I mean, so Iam nine and a half hours into it.
I am forty one percent through thestory section of the game. According
to the game, I'm twenty eightpercent through the destruction part of the game,
an eighteen percent of the way throughthe dictionary part of the game.
It's split up in this like reallyweird way that I keep thinking I'm gonna
get lost because they're thirteen primary characters, all with very Japanese names, and
(40:52):
some of them have multiple names becausethey're multiple people. And this game takes
place across time, of course itdoes. It takes place in nineteen eighty
five, it takes place in twentysixteen, it takes place in twenty one
eighty eight, it takes place intwenty sixty five, and like you'll you'll
be in one scene it's like,all right, the year is twenty one
(41:14):
eighty eight, cool, and here'swhat's going on. And it's like one
week earlier and it's nineteen eighty five. It's like, that's not here,
y'all. I mean, but you'veyou've got a hanker in for games that
mess with time, so totally,and like, I'm finally making good to
talk about this game in some sortof review capacity because Sega sent me a
copy of this back in twenty nineteento cover on PS four and I just
(41:37):
didn't have the time. So I'msorry. You can now find the game
for like between twenty five and thirtydollars on PS four. It is still
a sixty dollars purchase on Switch sinceit's a new release, and the new
stuff that they added to the Switchversion, which just kind of makes the
combat portion of the game better,has been backported to the PS four as
(41:58):
well. Okay, so yeah,I'm assuming the combat portion is the destroy
portion. Yeah? Yeah, whatdoes that look like? Oh it's weird.
It is. It is kind ofan isometric real time strategy game where
you are piloting Giant Mecca's against Kaiju, but everything is is very stylized visually
to be like you're looking at acommandhood or something like. It's not realistic
(42:22):
at all, and thank god becausethe switch would not be able to handle
this right. And there are alot of times that when bajillions of missiles
are flying out at bagillions of kaiju, the game does struggle, but it's
it's fantastic. I wish that Icould explain the story, because it's very
interesting, but at the same time, like and not that I don't want
(42:44):
to spoil it necessarily, but likeit hasn't clicked yet. I'm nine hours
in and like I am on theedge of my seat on figuring out exactly
what's going on, and the intriguehas been engaging enough for me to want
to keep going with it. Okay, And I like all these characters.
I like the relationships between them.I like that because they seem to be
(43:06):
losing their memory between time jumps,they have new relationships with other characters,
and it's like trying to keep trackof all of these things is strange.
So the story portion of the game, people have likened it to a visual
novel, but it's a lot morelike a classic point and quick adventure,
but instead of trying to find littleobjects to click on in the world.
When you're having conversations, different keywordsand phrases will pop up in your mind
(43:30):
bubble and you can choose those touse on characters rather then find mouse and
use on cheese like shooting your phrasesand dongan rumpo. Then not quite,
It's like, okay, walk upto person and press A on them to
hear what they have to say,or press X to open your mind bubble
(43:50):
and say that at them instead.Gotcha, okay, okay, okay.
Yeah, I feel like I've donea bad job of explaining this game.
You know you said it. It'sit is a challenging game to explain.
It is very good so far.The music is phenomenal and again it's a
Vanilla Ware game and it looks likeone and I just love the watercolor esthetic.
(44:14):
Everything is mostly motion between static imagesto make animation work, but right,
it's beautiful and for people that don'tknow Vanilla Ware titles, they also
made such games as Muramasa the DemonBlade for the WE and that Got Were
You released? Right? That wasoriginally for the PS two, wasn't it?
Yes? I believe so. GrimGrimoire, which is in the PS
(44:35):
two game Dragon's Crown, which hasreleased at this point. I think on
like Everything under the Sun, itfeels like I think that was VTAPS three
and PS four. It's also onPC now though, Oh is it okay?
Yeah, yeah, I believe so. Let me I think that might
just be a PlayStation family game.Yeah, before I put my foot completely
in my mouth's let's look it up. This game kicks s and looks amazing
(44:59):
on this switch old. Yeah.So, if you are looking for a
anime ass time traveling, hard tofollow mess of a game with a just
absolutely intriguing plotline, definitely spend thesixty bucks on the switch version. If
not, then you know, twentyfive bucks on the PS four so and
(45:19):
PS five, which is kind ofa great price all things considered. Yeah,
and it goes on sale regularly becausethe game came out in twenty nineteen.
Yeah. Oh well no, itis PlayStation only on Dragons Crime.
My apologies everyone, it's okay,it's okay, and we'll be right back.
That brings us to the end ofthis week's episode. Thanks again to
Zalivir and all of that that waschallenging, all of that honesty. Yeah,
(45:45):
that challenging honesty. Yes, Ihope that this podcast has been fun
for you. If it has,please leave a review for us on Apple
Podcasts or you know wherever you're listeningto this podcast, and maybe tell a
friend. You can right into theshow with questions, ideas, and whatever
else you have on your mind byvisiting level select dot cool or writing into
(46:07):
mail at level select dot cool.We've also got a discord channel that you
can visit, which is linked onthe level select at cool website. It
is a small, burgeoning location whereyou can make all sorts of friends who
are like minded. And that isalso a way that you can write in
questions for the show. Also,like, we're still fresh and we're excited
(46:29):
that we're doing this. So ifyou have feedback for the show, we'd
love to hear that too. Letus know what you like, and feel
free to be brutally honest about thethings you don't like. I mean,
we're here to make this as bestas it can be, and so critiques,
criticisms and kind words of suggestion helpus get better all the time.
Yeah, and like I said lastweek, like the show is for us,
(46:49):
But I hope it's also for you. On that note, this has
been Fred and this has been Mike. Thanks for listening and we'll see you
next week. Goodbye. Yeah cool, Now we're recording. Um, this
(47:10):
is not this is not for thepodcast. This is bonus content. So
bonus content, okay content. Doesthat mean I get bonus money for appearing
in it? Yes, you getten percent extra, ten percent extra.
What ten percent of zero is somuch? Yeah? Yeah, not the
(47:30):
worst games at the gig you've everdone, right, Like I've been paid
less in video games
Welcome to Level Select, a showabout games and game development. I'm your
host Mike Devir, and I'm yourhost Fred Wood. How are you doing
today, Fred? I'm good.It's been a fun week. We got
this podcast started finally, and I'vestarted learning Katakana. Oh nos, how's
that going? I went from knowingabsolutely nothing to being able to read a
(00:32):
bunch of ridiculous words like I wasabout to start swearing now that I think
about it, and that's something thatwe try not to do too much on
the show. I learned a wholebunch of swears and how to how to
write those hats. Okay, it'sbeen good, useful in contexts. So
I have learned I think like thirtycharacters so far, in all of them
(00:55):
vulgar, almost all of them vulgar. Yes. But Katakana is the part
of the japp the language that isused primarily like the alphabet of letters that
are primarily used for foreign words,not just English, but like words that
have been brought into Japanese. Andso I was told that it would be
the more useful one as a foreignerto use, because by doing that I'd
(01:15):
be able to understand a bunch ofwords, whereas here Ghana, if you
can read it, then you canread a bunch of Japanese words that you
also still have to know. Soit isn't exactly the most useful thing for
a beginner like me, right right, No, that's awesome though, But
that's been fun. What about you? What you've been up to. I've
been We're working on a book overthe course of the pandemic, and I,
(01:38):
you know, I write it inchunks, and I take a little
break to sort of chart things outand then focus on some other stuff to
avoid burnout. And I've been gettingback to the swing of that. It's
been a very fun thing. Thisis the longest thing I've ever written.
In the past, I have publisheda comic, written a novella, and
then have done some freelance work inthe tabletop gaming space, primarily just doing
(02:00):
sort of write ups for like questlead ins and that sort of thing.
So this is the first time Iam tackling a project of this magnitude,
and it's been very what's the wordI'm looking for, Very educational. I've
learned a lot nice, which isa nice way of saying it's hard.
If you were to throw a likepercentage counter on there. What do you
(02:21):
think. I think it's hard becauseI don't like when books are very long.
And I know that's like a verynebulous thing to say, but I
really all my favorite books tend tobe books that get in, say what
they need to say, and getout, you know, very economic writing,
very quick. This book is notgoing to be one of those.
I can just say that right now. It is already longer than some of
(02:44):
the books I was kind of usingas like a benchmark. I'm like,
Okay, this book is this manywords. You know, if I'm around
there, I'm good. I amat that past that point. So I'd
say probably about fifty five sixty percentof the way through. My hope is
that by the end of this yearbeginning of X, the MANI script is
finished and then I start the laboriousprocess of editing it, and then I
(03:05):
want to try to get this traditionallypublished. So yeah, that sounds good.
Sounds like a productive week for bothof us. It has been actually,
you know, on top of ourday jobs, and yeah, all
of the other stuff that we're doinghas the day job going. It's going
well good, and it's been verynice. You know. Yeah, still
transitioning into certain things, getting usedto certain parts of the job. But
you know, it's fun and I'mworking with developers on stuff, and I'm
(03:30):
reaching out to new ones and I'mplaying tons of great indie games. And
that's not a bad gig. Yeah, No, it seems like a pretty
good gig. Yeah, speaking ofpretty good gigs, this is a bad
transition, but I'm gonna go withit. This week, we've got a
very special guest, good friend ofmine and just wonderful person around, Zoalivir
Nelson Junior of Strange Scaffolding. Heis accomplished a lot in a very small
(03:50):
amount of time in the industry,and we are lucky to have him.
We're gonna have that. Just afterthis quick break, we are joined by
Zalivir Nelson Junior, a dear friendof mine and a game developer who has
done just all sorts of different things, someone who is capable of making me
very angry and laugh harder than Iever have usually at the same time.
(04:13):
Zolivia, how you doing. I'mdoing quite well today. Okay, No,
we're not doing that. No,why not? This is how some
man talks. This is not howhe talks absolutely how I talk. It's
nice to have a podcast. Ican reveal my full self. And I
believe that Fred is so good atcreating welcoming spaces for the developers to show
(04:39):
themselves and the creative intentions, inspirationsand really hopes of dreams. I'm so
angry. I think it's it's reallygood that you're trusting us enough to be
this vulnerable and and I really appreciateyou you doing that, especially concerning that,
you know, we just met alittle bit ago, and even then
you were, you know, veryopen, very generous with yourself. And
(05:01):
I just want to say, onbehalf of Fred, who now is weeping.
You can't see, but see Ido have tears in my eyes.
It's mostly angered, but yeah,you know, anger at himself that it
took so long, yeah, totruly know his friends. Olivia, you've
just been living such a lie outloud. And I believe that vulnerability can
(05:21):
be more than debuff. What isthis accent supposed to be? Tell me
where this accent is from, justso that way when we get in trouble
later, we know who to be. Fred. You can't just ask questions
like that. It's insensitive do youplay insensitive? Yeah, Zlivia, why
didn't you tell us a little bitabout what you've been working on most recently
and then we'll get into just shootingthe chit. It has been a John
(05:45):
packed past few weeks from me.You are jumping in and out of this
accent. Please continue. I liketo think that I'm roaming the continent of
my homeland as I speak and press. That's through my words. So a
few weeks ago we were launched SpaceWarlord organ training simulator, the sci Fi
(06:09):
body wall markup Tycoon that you didn'tknow that you needed on Nintendo Switch,
as well as announced the physical versionand the vinyl Those are both available for
pre order. Very exciting. Weannounced a few days ago that we are
also publishing our first game. It'scalled Purgatory Dungineer. The full title is
My Grandpa died and all he leftme was this one dungeon in Purgatory filled
(06:30):
nhilistic, adventurous, incredible. It'sa brilliant new town building robelike RPG by
Damien Crawford and I'm so stanndingly excitedfor that. And then finally yesterday,
Slash Today we announced which strandings playershave to solve an arg to find the
title of the game. It's aimminently releasing new take on open world games
(06:57):
inspired by the strand type of genrenewly invented by Heyday Kajima. And yeah,
it's a two D experimental open worldstrand like that will be saying some
very interesting things about in the verynear future, and then I'm excited to
delve into both the philosophy and themechanics of it, because I don't think
we've quite seen anything like it ingames before. It has been such a
(07:19):
busy past few weeks that I hadto make cereal in my mouth last night,
which involved point dry cereal into mymouth, pouring in milk directly from
the cotton, and just chewing becauseI was so tired and I was so
hungry and I hadn't eaten old day. And honestly, that that type of
(07:40):
the relief I felt when chewing intothat dry, newly moistened cereal inside of
my mouth, it's much like thesame relief that I feel appearing on this
podcast. Yeah, I really appreciatethat, especially with being so hungry for
progress in these projects and so hungryfor pushing to make the second Strand type
(08:01):
game. Yeah, only the secondone. Only the second Well, no,
I mean there's anime stranding, right, No, I mean I'd paid
two dollars on Steam for a copyof anime Stranding. I don't know if
it's a Strand like or if it'sjust stranded name. I feel like I'm
looking at anime standing first of all, anime standing. You're right, sorry,
put respect on that name, asas the kids would say. But
(08:24):
yeah, I believe that's that's moreof a clone and less of a Strand
type game. It's not really extendingthe genre. And see it's a stand
like. Yeah, although it doesextend it into the cursed abodes of anime,
so maybe there is innovation happening there. There's a lot to dredge up
from anime, most of it verybad. But I would never call Norman
(08:46):
Readas anime, either to his faceor behind his back. I think I
would. I think I would calla normal READI I loved Death Stranding.
That is a game that boy,there's a lot of ideas there, and
not all of the excution is wonderful. But I had a really good time
with it. Speaking quite seriously,and honestly, I'm yeah, oh you
(09:07):
were saying, I've got tears inmy eyes. I'm just having you on
is just such an honor for me, Sali her so, but it's sorry
you wanted to say something else thatI'm gonna have to hear with the voice
that you're doing my voice. Yes. So the thing that I find exceptional
about Death Stranding is that, atfirst, like many people and I heard
(09:30):
strands type game as a genre,I dismissed it much like Kajima's earlier terms
that or earlier statement that we wouldregret our words and deeds and metal gear
sold five and no one did.She breathed through her skin. That's why
she had to be naked. Imean, plants do the exact same thing,
and plants are naked. Anyway,I am fascinated by this idea that
(09:50):
the strand type game. As soonas I played it, it clicked.
I got it. I believe thething that it presents is a genuinely new
game genre based upon new principles thatfall within intersections of things we've seen before,
but with a different thrust in totalexperience built as a result, which
(10:11):
shand things wasn't originally supposed to bea Shrand type game. It was accidentally
became such. Yeah, it alsowasn't originally called that though it like the
name was born out of the genre, right. We were building a type
of game, and we stepped backfor a second that we are we making
a Shrand type game, and wewere, and we were stunned, and
then we leaned into it, andthat did inspire the name, although we
(10:35):
had something kind of similar in thepast. I believe I do have to
stop you, though, because Ineed you to explain what you think the
core tenants of a Strand like ora Strand type game are. I would
be delighted. I previously did soon Katuku. Actually the headline of that
article is lookout, Hideo Kajima,someone else is making a Shrand game.
(10:58):
There you go. So I believethat the three tenants are nurturing. I
believe the entire goal of the genre, in a very interesting way, is
that you're supposed to everything that you'redoing is directed towards supporting a community or
an individual. The way you dothat nurturing is through transportation. The second
tenant. You bring things from oneplace to another. And the nurturing is
(11:20):
what elevates it from being a simpleseries of fetch quests. And finally,
the glue tying all of this togetheris a physicality, a physical embodiment,
and interaction and logistical consideration of yourenvironment. With these three tenants, you
end up with a game that canbe in many different things, much like
an APS can mean many different things, an immersive sim platformer, but something
(11:43):
that if it fits those three things, what you end up with are the
ingredients for a strand game. Okay, and yeah, I was I believe
Kajima is absolutely right. This islike the second or third time he has
created a genre in his career,which is a pretty stunning thing to do.
As a game does that to keepmaking. You can't really credit many
people for single handedly creating several genres. But even in pitching the game and
(12:07):
creating it, I heard the whispers, the rumors, the little bit of
pattern of Strand type feat other gamesare coming. We just happened to be
here first, and I'm really excitedto especially be the first to explore in
a two D format, attempting tobring those principles to a unique framework with
(12:28):
such a talented team. The spaceWold organ Training similar team with some new
friends, including Manuela Zebania. Justa stunning No, it's Manuela Malastania goes
by manuel as Zebania on Twitter.Just a stunning crew of people. Cool.
It's interesting because I would have thoughtthat a Strand game had to have
the asynchrod as a multiplayer component toit, But no, I guess you're
right, Like, there is noreason why those tenants have to be connected
(12:52):
to other people. So that's cool. I'm really excited to see what other
people do with Astronto. Yeah,I don't know what to do with these
alf here. What are you talkingabout? Fred? Like, there's there's
a lot of things we could talkabout, and I just feel like if
I nudge you in any direction,You're just gonna go yes, because I'm
(13:16):
so open willing to collaborate. Yes, right, And just the multifaceted nature
of all the things that you're workingon. I mean, you know,
releasing a game then immediately rolling intomultiple other projects. That is, releasing
a game that takes advantage of theMicrosoft connect in exciting new ways in the
Year of Our Lord twenty twenty one, Yeah, which is itself a monumental
(13:39):
feat because I mean sometimes even findinga connect can be like unearthing and ancient
relic, but then rolling on intomultiple other projects. I mean, how
do you how do you find allthe time to do that and then make
cereal in your mouth? The cerealin the mouth is the direct thing that
much like transportation to the nurturing tenetof trend likes cereal in the mouth supports
(14:00):
the goal of work on several thingsat the time at the same time.
Of course, if you put milkbefore cereal inside of your mouth, you
are a barbarian, a heretic,and you should be bird at the stake.
That's also logistically challenging, right,because you'd have to like baby bird
it you next straight up and thenlike plopping the cereal in there. Otherwise
when you open your mouth, milk'sgoing to come out. Choking, I
(14:26):
imagine would be a problem. There'sso much effort expended here, much like
the years I've spent adopting the accentthat most people know me for, but
for so little effect, right,because you're living a lie in that aspect,
and that is not nurturing, Thatis not being your true self and
growing, nor is it taking considerationsof your environment and how that can help
(14:46):
people grow. So really, youare a Strand type person. This is
what I endeavored to be at oldtimes. Of course, Norman Reid is
I never try to do anything.I think there's very standards and morality you
can adopt. But even if youare not associated with an organized religion or
faith of some kind, I thinkeveryone can agree that a standard of morality
(15:07):
that we can rally around is thatyou would never want to do anything that
would make Norman Reidas silently shake hishead in disappointing of course, with a
derisive ashing of his cigarette. Theashing of the cigarette, that's the equivalent
of eternal damnation right there. That'san unforgivable sense. Of course, the
shaking of the head is is punishmentenough. Yeah, yeah, have you
(15:30):
played any games that you're excited aboutlately? I don't know. I like,
listen, I had ideas for howthis is going to go, and
I'm just not, like, Ican't do it at this point, and
you're you're in awe. I knowthat you're you're stunned somehow. This is
what I should have known was goingto happen. But much like the latest
episode of Halo, I couldn't havepredicted it, and I don't want to
(15:54):
get into spoilers for the people whoare very passionately enjoying that week to week.
My dad was really into the HaloShow and he hasn't seen the latest
episode yet, and I'm so excitedexcited to share with him his feelings upon
witnessing the latest episode. Gosh,I'm gonna so we got We got a
(16:14):
couple of questions from the audience.Normally we do this on our own.
Zalivier hasn't mentioned any games that he'sbeen playing. Sorry, you're right,
you just set right? Yeah,No, you're right. What are you
doing? I'm not going to editany of this. I think that this
is perfect the way that it is. Yeah, what you've been playing?
Man? So I quite enjoyed GhostWire Tokyo. It's the next game from
the team behind the Evil Within two. I thought Evil Within two presented genuinely
(16:37):
new ideas and one of the mostexciting structures for an open world game that
I've ever seen. So yeah,learning that Ghost Wire Tokyo directly emerged from
what would have been the Evil Withinthree, I bought it as soon as
I got back from GDC. Iplayed it I found it immensely conceptually exciting
and smartly designed. I just occasionallygo back in and chip away at it.
(17:02):
It's very uniquely low pressure in thatregard, and I have adored the
experience of sort of going through thatbinary domain. Is the Bob Bomb Dignity,
one of the best games ever made. The Yucuza team makes a third
person shooter that is near automed forthe Gears of War gam Narration, and
(17:22):
I am astounded. I just metKane. Kane is a French robot.
Yep. He's a French robot witha motor pistol, a machine pistol,
and he says things like wait wait. But he's also a robot, and
I don't know why those two thingsmake him so compelling. Is a French
robot, but he's one of myfavorite characters games now, Blair Domain has
(17:45):
been really good. I've been oneof the things I'm working on right now.
We have eight projects going inside ofstream Scaffold simultaneously right now, and
one of the ones that we haveannounced and I can talk about is El
Paso Elsewhere, which is is asupernatural throwback the person shooter spirtual successor to
games like the original Max Pain Titolsand Dead to Rights. If folks remember
(18:08):
that, incredible And I've been playingthrough the original Max Pain games as well
and finding that very educational. Ina variety of gods, chief among them,
people do not remember how rough thosegames are. No, absolutely not.
But but no one remembers how rougha game is when they use it
as a tempole, right well,especially in eras of games before you know,
(18:32):
the control schemes were let's you know, put big heavy quotations around this
figured out, so to speak.There's a lot of experimentation even just on
how these games handle, barring anythingelse, and whether or not the mechanics
hold up. You know, playinggames that are like pre Halo that our
first person, it's a crapshoot onwhether or not they are even playable by
today's standards. So I can onlyimagine for something like Max Pain another interesting
(18:55):
thing. Having made a Max payinggame, you realize how complex building something
that genre actually is when you startmaking things like that. But one thing
that saves us on El Paso elsewhereis we are still aiming for this intentionally
low fidelity neon noir high fibes watermark. When you take the necessary steps to
(19:18):
build something in the say slow mothat person shooter genre. Just to throw
up a random, potential catch allgenre term, it's that as soon as
you increase the fidelity of that charactermodel, so many things start to break
down, so many problems become apparent. Those deeply wide hallways which had to
(19:40):
exist because max pain can at amoment cover so much ground. As soon
as you put that in a unrealengine five nicely rendered environment, there's a
lot of stuff that breaks down thatthey're going to have to maneuver around.
So I trust the Bremedy team todo it, maybe more so than anyone
else. But I also am deeplysympathetic that challenges, having already encountered the
(20:02):
difficulty of building something like stuff thatthey used to build with modern day technology
and all of the benefits that reliance. No, of course I actually had
considered that and how frustrating that couldprobably get just for general logistics of gameplay.
Also, I've been playing elden Ringwith my dad. Cool. Yeah,
like everyone else in the world,everybody is playing elden Ring with your
(20:22):
dads. Yeah, he's a wonderfulco op partner. Explains why sometimes he
won't answer my calls. Yeah,I'm gonna payot over two questions. Yeah,
how are you doing, Fred,I'm having a great time. We
have a question from Spencer, whichis specifically for you, says, do
you have any interest in developing tabletopgames outside of the role playing space?
(20:47):
Also, are there any resources you'drecommend about role playing design and or tabletop
design in general, board tabletop.I am deeply interested in things that on
role playing games, varying takes oncaught games, games, party games.
I might have more to share aboutthat in the future, but yeah,
for now, I'll just say Ireally do adore any opportunity to design that
space, and I find that incrediblycompelling and fun, as well as a
(21:11):
unique way of engaging with players thatyou don't receive outside of any of the
context. I recently play tested acard game that I had designed for a
digital game we were building inside astrange scaffold. We replaced it entirely with
something else, but I play testedit physically recently, just showed it to
some people, and it worked somuch better in person. And that's the
(21:33):
kind of alchemy of board and cardgames. Things that would work on the
table might not work in a digitalrealm of vice versa. The second thing
I would say is as far aships for design, I would say one
of the honest paths to take andthe one that has been the primary motivated
for me, especially when it comesto my tabletop operug work, is what
frustrates you about the way that tabletopgames currently operate when you look at a
(21:56):
game and think, God, Iwish you would just do this. I
wish it was different in this way. I wish it appealed to different people
than it the genre typically does.Starting from a point of passion and then
improvement is such a major and intriguingplace to start in for a design in
(22:17):
that space, and you'll learn alot of reasons why I was designed the
way it was, and you'll endup because you want having to code these
things. You might to reach asimilar appeal, but change one small element
to end up creating it an entirelydifferent type of game. And that's good.
That's the magic of that genre.So yeah, I'd recommend being very
(22:41):
introspective and intentional about things you enjoy, things you don't, and things you
would like to see a given gamea game type achieve, and then reverse
engineer a way to bring that tobeing. I know that, like I
had play tested some games that you'veworked on, the things that you're doing
in that space are awesome, andI think you're you have a knack at
(23:03):
making things accessible and playable to peoplein interesting ways that few other people seem
to have. This next question comesin from Mark Lentz of Cheo High Labs.
Since the world knows that you areboth from and passionate about the great
state of Texas and thankfully slivier,you are also a Texan, at least
by some state you're currently in Texas. I'm an adopted Texan, Yes,
(23:26):
yeah, yeah, adopted Texan,but clearly I am from other shores shores
yeah yeah, yes, yes.And if you were to make a Duke
NUKEMB three D mod about Texas,what are the pillars it would have to
include? What about Duke DUKEM threeD isn't already Texas? I know,
right, that is a v Yeah. I feel like Duke Nukem is a
(23:48):
little more LA. I mean itspecifically takes place in La, but Duke
does in its soul gearbox also Texasgearbox three D realms, I mean three
d Realms. Yeah, is isTexan is Heck? Yeah, I mean
on certain drives, I can seethe building. I don't know, like,
I don't know what you need toreally change. The first thing you
need to do is either name thefirst episode or the actual title of the
(24:11):
game. Texts harm Canna, Yes, absolutely get it like Texacana. But
it's like ham in the middle.Do you get it from? Yeah?
I got it right. And thegame the game has to open in the
state fair so that way you cansee a mecca, Big tex A Mecca,
Big tex Yeah, right, rightright, because he's been taken over
by you know, alien forces andyou have to go liberate this, this
(24:33):
icon of Texas history of representation,really of the soul of every Texan.
The giant boot that is at NorthStarml and San Antonio, the iconic giant
Boot. He would make some sortof quip about it going up somebody's ass.
Don't be a boot kisser, Yeah, yes, yeah, something about
(24:56):
cattle, Yeah, rattle wrangling,tipping, barbecue sauce, barbecue sauce two,
stepping out a bar. Yeah,there's there's a lot of Texas for
Duke to explore. I would wantit to be just one giant build engine
map of the entire grade state ofTexas that you have to walk across in
real time. Yeah. Yeah,you have to say one one scale,
you have to walk across it.Yeah yeah, yeah, So you'd want
(25:18):
to mix Duke Nicom three D withDaga foll Yeah, yeah, that's exactly
what I want basically, Okay,less talking to NPCs, more shooting alien
bastards for banging up his ride,what about screaming skeletons though I feel like
that's not entirely Duke, but itis entirely Texas. So okay, yeah,
(25:40):
see then now it's Duke. Yeah, now there you go. As
soon as you say in the voice, it becomes Duke n it is,
Yeah, incontrovertibly due, It's true. I mean, and you gotta you
gotta get John zaon John of course? Yeah, well me, or are
you? I mean? Yea masterof voices? H The accent that you've
affected for so long has been andso obviously not fake. The one that
(26:03):
you use in your day to dayhas been so convincing. I'm like,
I am exhausted by this interview ina way that I didn't expect to.
You are also somebody that this isjust a question from me. You are
somebody who is really great at comingup with ideas that are difficult to execute.
(26:29):
I was curious if you had anythat you wanted to share publicly,
whether or not you can or canI do them. One of my current
projects, the principal mechanic is thatyou play shuffleboard on a Mira golf parameter,
using the oblivion persuading oh oh mygod, Okay, yep, it's
going really well. Yeah no,yeah, yeah yeah, and encouraging everybody
(26:52):
to use the Oblivion conversation wheel hasbeen very easy. I'm sure wouldn't you
say, hey, you remember theOblivion con versation wheel, and then they
say no, And then you've gota PowerPoint presentation explaining all of the various
positive qualities of it. I havea white board in my home and it
looks like a madman's scribblings because I'vegiven in real time the exposition scene in
(27:17):
like a sci fi movie, rightof a certain quality, over and over
and over against saying oh, butthis is how it works, and then
they're like, is this how itworks? It's like no, or maybe
I don't, is that how itworks? What I love about the Oblivion
conversation wheel is that every time youlook at it, you think that it
works differently, no matter how manytimes you've experienced it, or whether or
(27:40):
not you're working on the actual game. Right, So obviously that makes it
incredibly easy to design and consider forusability and accessibility. This is a game
built for human beings to play,yeah, right, and the noble game
of shovelboard. That obviously that thatkind of control is going to be accurately
represented. Gamers are getting older.We need something to help them through the
(28:03):
transitional phase of their life that they'reabout to enter. What better than taking
something that they know and feel familiarand capable of still doing, which is
Mario Golf hitting that button as muchas those thumb joints sure have begun to
atrophy and die. And why notcombine it with the noble sport of shuffleboard,
of course, all through the powerof the Oblivion combat dialogue. We
(28:27):
all sorry, yeah, yeah,yeah. And the great thing about this
kind of era of game is thatyou could say is either Oblivion was the
very first RPG you played as akid, or it was something experienced in
college, or you were an adultsperson and Oblivion isn't Skyrim, but it
was the thing that embedded itself inyour mind and it continues to haunt you
(28:49):
still. I want to make gamesthat haunt players and that haunts me while
I'm in the process of making itsounds beautiful. I cannot wait to have
my soul and my heart contained withinthis game. On the subject of ubiquity,
I know that you were interested inthe play Date. Is that something
that you're still noodling with or havenoodled with? Oh? Yeah. It
(29:11):
was announced last year that with SweetBaby, the incredible Narrative Creatives consultancy slash
production place of up in Canada,we made a game for the play Date.
It's called Recommendation Dog. We usethe crank to turn a rotary organizer
and find people to solve the problemsof people who come in through the door
(29:33):
of your consultancy agency. And you'rea cute little dog spinning this wheel as
fast as you can and attempting tohelp the people in your town. Awesome.
I'm excited for that. I havebeen playing the new games of the
Drop on the play Date each weekand it's such a cool little piece of
hardware. Casual birder is so charming. I can't remember to the game that
(29:53):
I'm playing right now. Let mejust I've got the play date right here.
And then there's like, there's aphenomenal on a Graham game that somebody
made called Sketch Share Solve. I'vebeen loving that too. Pickpack Putt is
the one that I'm playing right now, which is a match three game with
a bunch of interesting rule sets,and since the screen is entirely black and
(30:15):
white, it is all based onshapes instead of relying on colors. And
I'm a colorblind person, and soall of those match three games are always
like, oh yeah, it's justred, green and yellow or blue,
and it's like, well, Ican't see those all that well that fast.
This has been perfect for that though, And I'd love to shout out
specifically how it handles sideloading, yeah, because it's like nothing I've seen in
(30:37):
games so those aren't familiar with theply date. It has a website,
and when you register your device withthis website and everything that comes with that,
of course you've registered your device connectedto the internet. But most importantly
of all, they have a sectionon the website where you drop in the
zip file up the game that youhave downloaded from sayah dot io, and
(31:00):
you've paid the developer for that gamedirectly. Play Date has received nothing,
yeah, and you upload it andthe servers a panic basically act as intermediary
to allow you to download it asif it was any other game. I've
never experienced anything like it, andso Pickpack Puck was that a play Date
game? Or Pickpack Pup was oneof the weekly Season one games. I
(31:22):
do want to shout out one otherpiece of unique hardware that had the same
service where you would register your systemto their site and then you would be
able to upload games to that andthat would automatically download it to it.
Is it the Uya? Yes?I was like, it's going to be
one of two things for that one. I think yeah, it would.
(31:42):
It would upload to their servers andthen it would sync up on your area,
and then it would be a reallybad way to play a game you
made. Was it twenty twenty onewhere you shipped another Uya game? The
last time I shipped a game onthe Uya was twenty twenty. Yes,
I'm sure that I will do itagain because no one can stop me.
No, No, you do thison puppus. Oh yeah, Oh,
(32:05):
I should put words with freads onso we can finally have one of those
five letter word games available on Couldyou put it on play date first?
I can't because it's two color based, and I'm sure that somebody else is
already putting on on playd I don'tknow how to make played games. It's
all based in loew and C Cplus plus and like I'm not a real
(32:27):
programmer, they also do. Theymade their own tool set. It's called
Pulp. Pulp is very cool,but it's also very limited in terms of
what you can do without knowing theirscripting language as well, and as fun
as it would be to learn that, I have a day job, and
if I wanted to make a newsmall video game for a system that people
(32:49):
hold in their hands, I've beenknown to make an Intendis which game or
two in my spare time. Sooften I don't have any more questions for
you. I love you so muchand you make me so mad. Do
you think that for maybe the restof the podcast you could just affect to
(33:09):
your your fun fake accent that we'realso familiar with. No, all right,
yeah, thanks I'm sure that's greataudio for the listener as well.
It's fine. Why are you tryingto make him not be his true self?
I've grown so accustomed to your fakevoice that this, this real voice
(33:30):
is jarring. I'm going to gaslightmyself and so that it's actually my fault
that Freddy is so uncomfortable with thisnew voice, and I should never have
deceived him or the rest of theworld in the first place. No,
no, no, no, it'sit's fine. I'm glad that you can
live in your truth now I've gottennothing else. I would like to say
it has been a pleasure to meetyou, and to meet the true and
(33:51):
honest you without any let's call itsorceress intentions behind them, any any duplicity
or falseness presented. And I againreally want to just thank you for being
so honest, not just with myselfand Fred, but with our our listeners
and to truly understand what it meansto be duke. Do you remember Fred
(34:14):
when the original bit was whenever therewas a breaking conversation, I would listen
to alf Hey season one, episodeone, Yeah, I remember when you
beat out that, Yeah, becausebecause that would have been a bad idea,
right, Fred, Yeah, Iknow that that would have been bad,
been terrible lookingness. You're right,definitely would have been worse. Boy,
(34:36):
I am sure that this is notthe last time that we'll have you
on this show. Thank you forthis, and yeah, I got Novin.
I can't wait for my return.Thank you so much for having me.
You've both been delightful and so wonderfulto meet you for the first time.
Mike, Yes, it's been mypleasure. Thanks again. Z Olivier.
(34:57):
Hey, Mike, what game haveyou been playing this week? So?
I'm playing a couple of things,but I wanted to touch on something
that we were talking about last week, which was the release and you're playing
through of the Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe, which I wound up picking up and
then checking out because, like Imentioned, when the original Stanley Parable first
(35:19):
came out, I vehemently bounced offof it and I wanted to give it
another go about and this seems likethe perfect opportunity, in the perfect time
to have done that. So pickedit up, started playing it and while
there are still parts like the Ichaff against man, it's yeah, it's
a good game. Like I gottaI gotta recant my statements from like a
(35:43):
decade or twelve years ago, yeah, or however long I think. I
think it was thirteen years ago,but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I've got to recant all my statementsfrom then, because yeah, that's
a that's a swell, what aswell video game that is, and that
makes me really happy to hear I'msmart enough for it. Now, did
you Did you get to the newcontent yet? So I'm still playing through
(36:04):
it. I haven't gotten to thenew content yet. I've seen the door,
okay, yeah, all right,sure, I saw the door and
I was like, Okay, Ifeel like I've got more to explore,
so I'll come back for you later. For the folks that didn't catch the
first episode where we talked about whatStanley Parable is, it is a game
about player choice, and it isa narrative based, hilarious game where a
(36:27):
narrator is telling you what you're doingor supposed to do, and then you
get to choose whether or not you'refollowing alongside it or just really throwing all
that to the wind and just kindof going on your own little adventure of
discovery. And yeah, I mean, it's just a clever commentary on the
nature of video games and making themin what choice is? I mean,
we discussed all this stuff last week, so I'm not gonna labor that point
(36:47):
too much. But it really isan intelligent game, and especially for the
era in which the original came out. All my bulking aside at it originally,
like, yeah, there's a reasonwhy that game is so loved and
why it changed so much within theindustry, and you know why it continues
to be this this landmark title,not just in gaming but like an indie
(37:09):
gaming as as a whole. I'msurprised to see it like it crested the
best seller's list for the week onSteam. Oh wow, really, I
didn't checked that the good f Yeah, and that's that's revenue base too,
so it was like up against theSteam deck and the Valve index and stuff
right right, and then every othermajor game that yeah right now. So,
(37:30):
without getting into spoilers, have yougot into the other video games ending?
Uh? Not to the ending?I mean like there was an ending
where the narrator shows you some othervideo games. Oh yes, yes,
yes, says yes, okay thatI have seen. Yeah, it was
different than the original version because whenthe first game came out was thirteen years
(37:54):
ago. Neither of the games inthat ending existed when that game came out,
right, it was originally Minecraft.It drops you into Minecraft. Oh
that's really good, and I guessfor reasons they decided not to do Minecraft
aget right, right, No,that's really good. I don't think I
(38:15):
knew that from the original. Sincethat's in the original and not an ultra
delect I feel like I can saythat, and I don't want to say
what the games are that they dipinto and ultra because it's real good,
and I feel like this is gonnabe one of those unfortunate things, especially
with a lot of the games thatI'm going to be playing, is there's
going to be a lot of likeme talking around certain details. Sure,
(38:35):
yeah, I mean the game thatI've got this week is entirely narrative based,
and so I can't talk a lotabout it unfortunately. But yeah,
yeah, because what have you beenplaying? So I have put, according
to my save file, nine hoursand thirty six minutes into thirteen Sentinels Ages
Rim, which was a game releasedin twenty nineteen for the PlayStation four,
was originally in development for the PlayStationVita as well. That version got canceled,
(39:00):
but in twenty twenty two the gamecame out on the truest Vita,
which is the O laed Nintendo Switch. Yes, the Vita two. As
everybody knows, it is a primarilynarrative based game. It's a game that
is split into two chunks, andthen like a third tiny chunk, you've
(39:22):
got the destroy section. That's notwhat it's called destruction section, the story
section, and what is basically aglossary that you're unlocking. Oh, but
it follows the story of thirteen charactersacross space and time. So this was
a game released by Sega and Atlas, developed by Vanilla Ware. And you
(39:43):
can tell if you've ever seen aVanilla Ware game and you start this game,
you're like, oh, yeah,it's one of those. It's thankfully
significantly less horny because it's high schoolers. But of course everybody that is piloting
the giant robots, which by theway, they are giant robots called sentinels.
When they're inside the robots, ofcourse they have to be naked,
okay, but like in a likeskin tight bodysuit naked or like no naked.
(40:07):
They're like, I don't know thatI like that. Yeah, no,
I don't either. It's it's veryit's off putting, it's upsetting,
and even the characters are like whyare we naked? And like the next
guy's like, anyways, let's goon. We're just not going to talk
about this one. It is agame that is hard to explain the narrative
(40:27):
of. I mean, so Iam nine and a half hours into it.
I am forty one percent through thestory section of the game. According
to the game, I'm twenty eightpercent through the destruction part of the game,
an eighteen percent of the way throughthe dictionary part of the game.
It's split up in this like reallyweird way that I keep thinking I'm gonna
get lost because they're thirteen primary characters, all with very Japanese names, and
(40:52):
some of them have multiple names becausethey're multiple people. And this game takes
place across time, of course itdoes. It takes place in nineteen eighty
five, it takes place in twentysixteen, it takes place in twenty one
eighty eight, it takes place intwenty sixty five, and like you'll you'll
be in one scene it's like,all right, the year is twenty one
(41:14):
eighty eight, cool, and here'swhat's going on. And it's like one
week earlier and it's nineteen eighty five. It's like, that's not here,
y'all. I mean, but you'veyou've got a hanker in for games that
mess with time, so totally,and like, I'm finally making good to
talk about this game in some sortof review capacity because Sega sent me a
copy of this back in twenty nineteento cover on PS four and I just
(41:37):
didn't have the time. So I'msorry. You can now find the game
for like between twenty five and thirtydollars on PS four. It is still
a sixty dollars purchase on Switch sinceit's a new release, and the new
stuff that they added to the Switchversion, which just kind of makes the
combat portion of the game better,has been backported to the PS four as
(41:58):
well. Okay, so yeah,I'm assuming the combat portion is the destroy
portion. Yeah? Yeah, whatdoes that look like? Oh it's weird.
It is. It is kind ofan isometric real time strategy game where
you are piloting Giant Mecca's against Kaiju, but everything is is very stylized visually
to be like you're looking at acommandhood or something like. It's not realistic
(42:22):
at all, and thank god becausethe switch would not be able to handle
this right. And there are alot of times that when bajillions of missiles
are flying out at bagillions of kaiju, the game does struggle, but it's
it's fantastic. I wish that Icould explain the story, because it's very
interesting, but at the same time, like and not that I don't want
(42:44):
to spoil it necessarily, but likeit hasn't clicked yet. I'm nine hours
in and like I am on theedge of my seat on figuring out exactly
what's going on, and the intriguehas been engaging enough for me to want
to keep going with it. Okay, And I like all these characters.
I like the relationships between them.I like that because they seem to be
(43:06):
losing their memory between time jumps,they have new relationships with other characters,
and it's like trying to keep trackof all of these things is strange.
So the story portion of the game, people have likened it to a visual
novel, but it's a lot morelike a classic point and quick adventure,
but instead of trying to find littleobjects to click on in the world.
When you're having conversations, different keywordsand phrases will pop up in your mind
(43:30):
bubble and you can choose those touse on characters rather then find mouse and
use on cheese like shooting your phrasesand dongan rumpo. Then not quite,
It's like, okay, walk upto person and press A on them to
hear what they have to say,or press X to open your mind bubble
(43:50):
and say that at them instead.Gotcha, okay, okay, okay.
Yeah, I feel like I've donea bad job of explaining this game.
You know you said it. It'sit is a challenging game to explain.
It is very good so far.The music is phenomenal and again it's a
Vanilla Ware game and it looks likeone and I just love the watercolor esthetic.
(44:14):
Everything is mostly motion between static imagesto make animation work, but right,
it's beautiful and for people that don'tknow Vanilla Ware titles, they also
made such games as Muramasa the DemonBlade for the WE and that Got Were
You released? Right? That wasoriginally for the PS two, wasn't it?
Yes? I believe so. GrimGrimoire, which is in the PS
(44:35):
two game Dragon's Crown, which hasreleased at this point. I think on
like Everything under the Sun, itfeels like I think that was VTAPS three
and PS four. It's also onPC now though, Oh is it okay?
Yeah, yeah, I believe so. Let me I think that might
just be a PlayStation family game.Yeah, before I put my foot completely
in my mouth's let's look it up. This game kicks s and looks amazing
(44:59):
on this switch old. Yeah.So, if you are looking for a
anime ass time traveling, hard tofollow mess of a game with a just
absolutely intriguing plotline, definitely spend thesixty bucks on the switch version. If
not, then you know, twentyfive bucks on the PS four so and
(45:19):
PS five, which is kind ofa great price all things considered. Yeah,
and it goes on sale regularly becausethe game came out in twenty nineteen.
Yeah. Oh well no, itis PlayStation only on Dragons Crime.
My apologies everyone, it's okay,it's okay, and we'll be right back.
That brings us to the end ofthis week's episode. Thanks again to
Zalivir and all of that that waschallenging, all of that honesty. Yeah,
(45:45):
that challenging honesty. Yes, Ihope that this podcast has been fun
for you. If it has,please leave a review for us on Apple
Podcasts or you know wherever you're listeningto this podcast, and maybe tell a
friend. You can right into theshow with questions, ideas, and whatever
else you have on your mind byvisiting level select dot cool or writing into
(46:07):
mail at level select dot cool.We've also got a discord channel that you
can visit, which is linked onthe level select at cool website. It
is a small, burgeoning location whereyou can make all sorts of friends who
are like minded. And that isalso a way that you can write in
questions for the show. Also,like, we're still fresh and we're excited
(46:29):
that we're doing this. So ifyou have feedback for the show, we'd
love to hear that too. Letus know what you like, and feel
free to be brutally honest about thethings you don't like. I mean,
we're here to make this as bestas it can be, and so critiques,
criticisms and kind words of suggestion helpus get better all the time.
Yeah, and like I said lastweek, like the show is for us,
(46:49):
But I hope it's also for you. On that note, this has
been Fred and this has been Mike. Thanks for listening and we'll see you
next week. Goodbye. Yeah cool, Now we're recording. Um, this
(47:10):
is not this is not for thepodcast. This is bonus content. So
bonus content, okay content. Doesthat mean I get bonus money for appearing
in it? Yes, you getten percent extra, ten percent extra.
What ten percent of zero is somuch? Yeah? Yeah, not the
(47:30):
worst games at the gig you've everdone, right, Like I've been paid
less in video games
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