Episode 251: In Defense of Short Games

This week we talk about short games and the purpose they serve for us as individuals.

What We're Playing
Balatro
Castaway
Critter Cove*
Spiritfarer
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
Fallout 76
Lies of P
PlateUp
Still Wakes the Deep

What We're Reading
Starter Villain by John Scalzii
Star Wars: Thrawn Treason by Timothy Zahn

What We're Drinking
Sapporo
Uncle Nearest and Fever Tree Ginger Ale
Water

*Code received for streaming and review purposes

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:30):
He Hello, and welcome to episode two hundred and fifty
one of the Not Your Mama's Gamer Podcast, a podcast
where we talk about living, working, playing, in in a mouth,
in and amongst the games industry, and we do so
from a feminist perspective. And because she just heard me
start my podcast intro, my cat immediately started to yell,

(00:55):
all right, So walk one in, y'all, and I'm joined
tonight as in every night, by two of my amazing
podcast hosts, Victoria Breger and Jordan Lukomski. How y'all doing, Victoria.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
How you doing doing good? Doing so good? Thanks for asking?

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Well, I'm glad you're doing good. Who are you.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
So existential? All of a sudden, I'm Victoria. I'm an
assistant professor at Missouri S and T. I primarily research
video game controllers and gamer identity, and recently starting to
dab a little bit more into the disability studies of
it all because why not? And also because the call
for papers just came out for a disabilities game study

(01:49):
and I got the data, so I was like, why not?
Why not add more?

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Why not?

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:57):
I mean, if you got the data, you might as
well use it, right, Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
It needs to go somewhere, so may as well put
it somewhere.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
That's what I screamed. That's what I'm screaming. Makes sense
to me. All Right, What about you, Jordan? Who are you?
How are you?

Speaker 3 (02:17):
I am a senior environment outsource artist at that snow
Moon in Los Angeles, and I'm doing pretty well. I'm
excited to talk tonight. I'm also very sad as my
partner is away in Japan and I thought I would
be there, but very proud of him, and this podcast

(02:39):
is helping get through those final hours before I can
go pick him up from the airport.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
No, that's so sweet. Oh uh Okay, Well I don't
have a sad story. I don't think, but I'll tell
you who I am. My name is Smith Blackman. I'm
an as sociate professor here at Purdue University in West Lapia, Indiana,
where I talk about video games a lot, and video
game design and narrative and other cool stuff like cultural historical,

(03:14):
industry connections between I don't games, game design, game studies,
fun stuff. Whatever strikes my fancy is kind of what
I talk about. Yeah, so that's who we are. So
let's do our usual, which is what we're playing, what
we're reading, what we're drinking. Let's start with what we're playing.

(03:40):
Since we started the last round with Victoria. What about you, Jordan,
what are you playing?

Speaker 3 (03:45):
I am playing a few games. We're continuing to play
played Up and we just unlocked the last recipe the
day before he had to go on the work trip,
so also very excited from come back so that we
can do Stir Fry. I'm also playing Lies of p

(04:06):
continuing to play that. I take back my initial recommendation,
and not because I think that the game is bad.
I'm still really enjoying it, but definitely after I got
through the first couple of chapters, let's just say that

(04:26):
there are a couple moments where I almost put the
game down. I'm like, I can't do this. This hurts
my fingers. This is more souls like than I thought.
But I really like the aesthetic. I'm having fun with
most of the gameplay, so I came back to it.

(04:48):
I'm going to play it, but yeah, it's a lot
different than Jedi Survivor in terms of the souls like description.
And then I played Still Wakes the Deep, which is
a horror game from the Chinese Room and back when

(05:10):
Everyone's gone to Rapture came out. I actually really loved
that game. There's not like a whole lot in terms
of interactions or gameplay in it. It is very walking simulator,
but I really enjoyed the environments and the storytelling and
figuring out these small snippets of people's lives and stories.

(05:36):
Still Wakes The Deep is a horror game that takes
place on like an oil rig in the middle of
the sea and stuff starts to go awry. I don't
know if I liked it. I did finish it. It's
only about six hours. People say four hours, but it's
me and it's a horror game, so six It does

(06:01):
a good job of hitting on a lot of different
types of fear, but once you see more of what's happening,
it kind of loses that momentum a little bit, and
the story and the characters just really I couldn't get

(06:26):
into it. And I know that the game warns you
at the beginning, but oh my gosh, so many flashing
lights and green noise. It was actually pretty aggravating. So yeah,

(06:47):
I don't know. I was pretty disappointed in it, but
some parts were good. If you like horror games. Maybe
look at the trailer, read a few reviews and see
if it's for you, But it wasn't for me. And
then the other game that I play is a game

(07:09):
called Castaway.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah. See you were like, if you like horror games,
see it's it's two things. One is a horror game.
Two I have the last of phobia fear deep Water,
so that sounds everything about that game sounded like a
big gass nope to me, like a big ass nope
all across the board.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
A single player game. I had to have my friend
that I normally play horror cop games with come and
stay on the couch and watch me, because I was like,
I cannot do this by myself, and Alex is not
going to do that because he does not do horror.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
So smart, smart.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
I needed. I love horror, but I hate it, but
I need support to get through it.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
So I get it. I get it. Well. I mean,
it is getting to be spooky game season, and I
do still owe Victoria spooky games, so we don't have
to start thinking about some Victoria unmutes just for that
as actual.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
So many spooky games.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, and maybe I can get you know y'all to
join me in some spooky games and then I won't
have to do it by myself. And I promise I
won't run off and leave you this time.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, I don't believe you.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
I'm sorry. Samon was about to say the exact same thing.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yeah, yeah, I wasn't believing nothing.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
I bought a bunch of ones at Victoria and I
talked about week I have Lethal Company. We talked about
Lethal Company. I don't know if y'all already have Lethal Company,
but we could play some Lethal Company or something like that.
That might not be too bad. I might not run
off and leave you in Lethal Company.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
I just I feel like you will, but we'll play
it anyway. I feel like the first time a monster
shows up, you are just gonna grab stuff and book
it out. You'll be like, I'll be waiting you guys
get the quota. You get the quota of stuff that
we need, and I'll be waiting outside.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
But I mean, if there's no if there's no spooky
stuff outside, I mean, that might be valid. But as
long as I do stuff, as long as I contribute,
I feel.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Even if you're contributing the vibes, you're like, I contribute
to the vibe.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Contribute to the vibes. That's exactly how we roll in.
That's exactly how we roll in. But we'll see I do.
My kid is like she wants to play a scary
game with me. In other words, she wants to sit
next to me and laugh at me as I cry.

(09:52):
Is what that is?

Speaker 3 (09:55):
It's okay, That's what my friend was for. And also,
I'm sorry, Sam, I can't give you too much of
a hard time because you and Victoria braved the house
and fasmophobia and I stayed in the truck.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
I think I said you.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
I was like, watch for ghost storms and you're like okay,
and through.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
The one time I came in, they closed the door
on me, which is like one of my worst bears,
and I couldn't get out and I died. It's like,
I'm stayed in the truck.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yep, yep, I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna do this. I'm
gonna do this. It's gonna be said. I kind of
want to, you know. I feel like I wasn't always
a chicken. I think that's a lie, but I feel
like I wasn't right because we got the Silent Hill

(10:52):
to Remaster coming and for some reason, I really want
to play that.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
But at the same time, I'm oh, I'm probably.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Gonna cry, so I don't know.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
We watched The p and I watched The State.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Of Play last night because it aired like it aired
at like six, so we ended up watching it when
I got home from class because my class doesn't get
out to nine thirty, so I don't get home till
like ten thirty. And we watched it like as we
ate dinner because she always waits for me to eat
dinner until I get homework, which I think is very sweet.
But so we were watching the State of Play while

(11:31):
we while we ate dinner, and she was like, why
is everything scary? And I was like, I don't know.
I don't like this, so.

Speaker 4 (11:41):
We'll see how that goes.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
We'll see how that comes anyway, Victoria, what are you playing?
You didn't answer that question yet, did you, No, I
didn't answer.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
We got sidetracked with spooky games.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
I know.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
I'm as always playing my normals, playing Fallow Up seventy six,
playing Modern Warfare three while the I don't know why,
but the final season came out, so I'm playing it.
I like already forty percent through the battle pass because
we were playing a whole lot of zombies.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Gotcha is changing, It's going back, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, yeah, it's going back with the UH with the
new Black Ops coming out, so trying to finish out
all of the UH, all of the zombie the game,
so all of the schematics and just going to the
dark ether a lot to get schematics and to you know,

(12:43):
not die and everything, and so, been playing too much zombies.
What else have I been doing.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
I've been playing, I play.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
I've been playing Balatro since last time we talked. I
got the game. I only have one Joker left to unlock,
and it is the score one hundred million in one hand.
I'm still working on that. Yeah, yeah, so thanks for that.
I've been playing that NonStop, so is Nick.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
I started.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
I bought it while we were doing the podcast last time,
and after I got out of the podcast and I
went and sat on the couch and played the game,
and Nick and I sat there and played it on
my my Xbox all night, and He's like, I think
I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to download this
online too. I'm like yes, because each round was taking
like an hour as we.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
And I saw that you were playing a lot of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I warned you during the last podcast. I warned you.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
I know. It kind of took over my life.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
In the same way.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
When you're like you should get a new game. Have
you played Startuo, I'm like, no, I haven't played start
you and you're like, you should try it, and then
you you messaged me the following Monday, You're like, did
you really play that all weekend or were you just
trolling me? I was like, no, no, I've been dedicated
like forty hours to it already. I had not slept.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah, Like, that's not what I meant. That was not
That was not what I was suggesting when I say
get a new gay.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, well that's yeah. You know me, I fixate something awful.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
I started Spirit Fairer this.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Week, and that's I don't know how to feel about
it yet.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
You know.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
It's a game that deals with grief, and it's kind
of heavy in spots. It's mostly a platformer in many ways,
with a lot of mini games, but it deals heavily
with grief as you take over for Sharon or Karen
and you transport people from life to the afterlife. Yeah,

(14:57):
so that's a but it it's a cute little platformer
and you have a cute little cat named Daffodil and
you can fish and you're boh, and I was I
got it because it said it was it was you know,
strategic management, and you kind of build up your ship.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah, so you can farm on your ship.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
You farm on your ship, and then you you go
and you upgrade it and you like go around and
find stuff.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
And so I've been.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Playing Spiritfair a little bit. It says I'm like eight
percent done with it. I don't know how long I
will keep at it. I'm not sure how invested I
am in it at the moment because of how heavy
it is. And yeah, so that's that's what's going on there.
And then I'm also playing Castaway. Yeah well that sounds

(15:47):
like fun.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah. I here's here's a shocker. I have not touched
Call of Duty since the new season started.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
It's really hard to want to get into it because
we're not keeping anything and it's a season it's gonna
run right into black Ops.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yep. I'm like, do I want to spend twenty five
dollars on this on this black Cel battle pass and
invest all this time when next month we have a
new Call of Duty and we don't get to take
anything with us. You know what.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
The worst of it is, this battle pass is really cool.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
I don't want to hear that.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah it's and it deals with spooky season and so
it's it's really cool. And I was really annoyed when
I saw it, like you gotta be kidding me. You're
saving like the best and nobody's like I'm not gonna
buy it.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yep, just so disappointed.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
See, but I'm a person like I have to.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
I have to have something to work toward, because I
don't I think I play Call of Duty differently than
a lot of people, so I need I'm very task focused, right,
So I like to have the battle Pass because then
I have something to work on, right, unlocking the squares
on the battle Pass. And then I like to have

(17:10):
new weapons so that I can unlock the new weapons,
then fully level them and then unlock all the camos
for that weapon, right and then you know, so I
and then I like to level because then I have
to get to like the new highest level, right, So
I need to because and the highest level thing doesn't

(17:31):
really get me as much as the Camos, and the
Camos do more than anything, right, because that gives me
specific task to do ites like you know, kill like
fifteen people in tax Dance while sliding right with this
you know, with this gun to unlock this camo right,
because just do an XP, I get bored because that

(17:51):
then all I gotta do is run around shoe people
or take points. You right, do the objective. And that's
not as compelling to me as like actually doing a thing.
But yeah, because we've got because we've got a new
Call of Duty coming like in a month, like exactly

(18:15):
a month, that comes out on the twenty fifth.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
I'm just like, so.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
I have not touched Call of Duty at all since
the new season started, which makes me feel bad because
like all my friends that I play Call of Duty with,
I'm like, I have not played anything with them. Well
that's not true. One of the people that I sometimes
play with, we've been playing once Human, So so I
bet I have been playing once Human. Wait did you

(18:44):
finish telling me everything you played, Victoria? Yeah, okay, I
just want to make sure because I just took over
and started talking. So I've been playing some ones Human,
which is like survival but it's not horror. It's more.

Speaker 4 (19:06):
Survival love crafty and kind of.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
And honestly, the I hate to say it, I'm gonna
say it anyway, the game's not very good, but it's
really enjoyable to play. And I'm getting burned out on
that because they did a stupid thing where they reset
every six weeks and so, but they haven't had any
like real new content for pv folks yet, So I'm

(19:37):
playing through like the same content at this point for
the fifth or sixth time and like, and we don't
have any new PvE content coming until the middle of
next month. And even when we do get new PVEE
content next month, I don't even know if I'm gonna
go back and play again, because I'm really fucking sick
of starting over every six weeks.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
That's irritating because like, literally you start over.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
It's not like a new season of cod where you
continue on and you get to keep all your stuff
and you know, you keep leveling up or whatever. No,
you literally start over from level one. You literally start
over from level one, and you get to keep like
your blueprints for your guns and stuff like that, but
you have to go out and get the resources to

(20:23):
make them all over again, and you have to be
a certain level to do stuff, and so I don't
like that. I like, I like my survival games to
be about survival and let me like go in for
the long haul. I don't like having to rebuild my

(20:43):
house every six every six weeks. I don't like having
to go out and like recollect stuff every six weeks
and only be able to bring over certain things. Yeah,
I think I'm kind of burned out on that. I
think I'm kind of we'll see. We'll see what happens
when the new content comes next month, but it is

(21:04):
unfortunate for them that next month I also get Call
of Duty, I mean Black Ops and Dragon Age the Veilguard,
because between those two everything else can suck it. I'm
just saying, let's see. So, yeah, I've been playing that.

(21:30):
I've also been playing Where's My List? I forgot what
I've been playing, y'all. I've also been playing I'm always
playing Blatro And for those of you who didn't know,
Bellatro comes out on mobile tomorrow. I'm just saying, can
I say that, I'm.

Speaker 4 (21:49):
Sorry I didn't hear that.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Now it's portable, I know, and if you have Apple Arcade.
It's free, well I mean as free as Apple Arcade is,
but other than that, I think it's nine ninety nine.
So yeah, my productivity is going into trash because Billatro.

(22:16):
And yeah, so I'm excited because I'll be able to
play Blatro on my bum. I've also been playing Disney
Epic Mickey Rebrushed because it's the it's the remaster of
the epic Mickey that was on the Wii that was

(22:39):
like a WE exclusive back in the day, and I
couldn't play. It was something I really, really really wanted
to play, like I even own it, but it made
me so horribly motion sick that I couldn't really play it,
so I never got to actually play it. And so

(23:01):
what I did with this time, I was like, I
wonder if it's gonna make me sick again or if
they fixed it, you know, because back a lot of
the earlier stuff that I couldn't play it was just
because graphics, right, the graphics were like too shaky, the
camera was too shaky, and that was a technological limitation.
So a lot of times when they remaster some of
these games, I can actually play it. So I downloaded

(23:26):
the demo and I was like, I'm just gonna play
it was it was late at night, and I was like,
I'm just gonna play enough to see if it's gonna
make me sick. And then because it was Monday night,
it came out Tuesday, and then I'll pre order it
so that I get the pre order like extra costumes,

(23:47):
and then I'll play it. I started that demo and
I was having so much fun. I looked up and
it was like, thanks for playing the demo. I was like,
oh shit, I just finished this whole tema and I
was only supposed to play a few minutes to see
if it made me sick.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
I was like, I guess I like it.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
I guess I like it, and so but yeah, and
then I restarted. So I've been playing Epic Mickey Rebrushed
and it doesn't make me sick, so that makes me
very happy. Critter cod is another game that I've been playing.
It is I don't even know how to It's so

(24:29):
like a resource collecting rebuild a storm destroyed island kind
of game with anthropomorphized animals, which I thought I was
not gonna like but ended up really liking. And I'm

(24:50):
playing Castaway and I'm playing Castaway and as in about
three hours, I'm gonna be playing Bilatro on my phone
as well. Yeah, yeah, I wonder if there's there's there's
not gonna be. There's not gonna be cross progression, though
I seriously doubt that'll be cross progression because there's nothing
to sign into. That might be the only thing that

(25:13):
stops me, because I won't have all my jokers and
stuff that I unlocked. See, there's a way to think
about it. Or since you only have one joker left
to unlock Victoria. Once you unlock that one joker, you
can start playing on mobile and do it all again.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, but I gotta get the other achievements too, So
I gotta get the uh getting gold, the gold chip
on all of the jokers that'll take. That'll take me
a hot minute.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So yeah,
now that I think about it, maybe I won't Maybe
it won't be so bad.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
Maybe it won't be so bad.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
But I play on my steam deck anyway, so it's
not like I can't take it with me everywhere I go.
But it's harder to like fake it in a meeting
with a steamed deck. So maybe I'll have a fake
it save on my phone.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
M meetings.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
I know everybody loves meetings. They're great, They're great. One
hundred all right, and okay, so what do we reading? Jordan?
What's your reading?

Speaker 3 (26:29):
I am still reading Throw On Treason, which is the
third book in the newer Star Wars Throng trilogy. Again,
the middle hit a little bit of a slow point
for me, but I think it's picking back up and
I'm so close to the end. I only have like
one hundred pages, and I'm like, I can do this

(26:49):
because my friend already started the new Avatar Roku book
that came out, and the hundreds of to be read
books on my shelf for all crying, So yeah, I
need to get through this book. Overall, I'm really liking it.
It's not my favorite in the trilogy, but pretty pretty

(27:11):
solid if you can get through a few chapters in
the middle, especially once it starts describing like the fake science.
I have a lot of hard time visualizing some of
the space battles and whatnot because I'm like, I have
no idea what you are describing, but I've seen Star Wars,
so yeah, just ships in space, pew pew. Okay, yep,

(27:38):
about it.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Okay, makes sense. And Victoria, I know you said you
don't read anymore. You've given reading the lie, as my
grandmother would say.

Speaker 4 (27:53):
And that's that's not true. It's one hundred percent not true.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
It's just that I'm not reading for joyment right now.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah. I mean it's first year tenure track that we
all fall into that trap.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
I'm currently reading Computational Humanities.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Oh, that sounds like a blast.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Its tagline is the first book to intervene in debates
on computation in the digital humanities. So that's oh yeah,
oh yeah, yeah, that's some sexy shit right there, right, yeah,
it just it gets your heart pounding. Yeah yeah, I'll

(28:37):
get back to reading for enjoyment. Like my kindle just
sadly stares at me. It's sitting on my desk right now.
It's like, hey, do you remember me? I'm like fondly,
but so close yet so far?

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah. See we're talking before here, so I don't know
if we talked about this before the podcast started or after.
But I'm reading Starter Villain by John Scalzy or I
just actually I just finished it last night. I just
finished it last night, and I said, yay, now I

(29:16):
can start reading my book club book for book club
that meets in just over two weeks. But at the
same time I also saw on the interwebs to day
another book that I really want to read is called

(29:37):
The Talk by Darren Bell. Okay, listen to this. Listen
to this. I mean, and this is not necessary. This
is a fun breed fun.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
I don't even know how to put this.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
It's not fun. It's not fun, right, but it's something
I really want to read, right, and it's not the work.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
Here's the description. Okay, y'all listening.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Darren Bell was six years old when his mother told
him he couldn't have a realistic water gun. She says
she feared for his safety that police tend to think
of little black boys as older and less innocent than
they really are. Through evocative illustrations in sharp humor, Bell
examines how The Talk shaped intimate and public moments from

(30:25):
childhood to adulthood. While coming of age in Los Angeles
and finding a voice through cartooning, Bell becomes painfully aware
of being regarded as dangerous by white teachers, neighbors, and
police officer, and thus of his mortality, drawing attention to
the brutal murders of African Americans. Ow Rose, why did
she keep doing that? That's her new thing is she

(30:46):
jumps on my leg before she jumps.

Speaker 5 (30:48):
Onto the the footstool.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Under the desk.

Speaker 5 (30:53):
I'm sorry, uhus uh.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Where was I drawing attention to the brutal murders of
African Americans in showcasing revealing insights and cartoons along the
way he brings up to brings us up to the
moment of reckoning when people took to the streets protesting
the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. And now
Bell must decide whether he and his own six year

(31:17):
old son are ready to have the talk. And so
this book came out like last June. It came out
June to twenty twenty three. I want to read this
book so bad, like right now, right now.

Speaker 4 (31:38):
But I got to read the book Club book.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
I got to read the book book, and I will
be terribly disappointed in myself because there's only been one
time in the I don't know, We've been doing book
Club for something ridiculous like eight years now almost there's
only been one time in the first book Club. No,

(32:06):
it hasn't been eight years. It's only been six years.
First book Club was June of twenty eighteen. There's only
been one time in that whole six years that I
did not finish the book club book, and that was
because we started reading it. It was something someone else
says suggested. We started, We started read. There were a

(32:27):
lot of people who didn't finish it, and the author
was so horribly misogynistic that we all just quit. We
all just quit.

Speaker 5 (32:37):
We were just like, no, we're not reading this. So yeah, yeah,
but I have to say no to the.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Talk until I at least start and make good progress
through our current book, which and there's nothing wrong with
the current book. It's something I really I bought because
I really wanted to read. It's what the River Knows.
But I think I don't want to read it because

(33:13):
I have to read it. But yeah, that's where we
are with that. That's where we are with that, and
that's what I'm reading. So drinking, what are we drinking, Victoria?
What are you drinking?

Speaker 2 (33:28):
I've just got water today. I'm really boring today. I
just got water.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
It's okay, Water's good. I like water a lot.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah, I'm trying to hydrate as a problematic houseplant, which
isn't good for me because all of my houseplants die
and most of the reason is because I'm really terrible
at watering them. So I'm trying to treat myself like
a houseplant and that's not going great. So I'm gonna
keep myself alive with water. It's gonna it's gonna work out.

(34:00):
Everything's fine, I'm doing great.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
M okay, uh huh, yeah, sounds great. Sounds great. Uh
what about.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
You, Jordan, what'd you drinking?

Speaker 3 (34:19):
I am drinking a sipporo because, as I mentioned, my
partners in a in Japan and when I went to
Ireland's the very first thing that I did when I
walked through the door is he handed me a guinness
and it's like, welcome back. It's not going to be
the same. I was like, oh, thanks. So when he
was in Japan, he was only like an hour away

(34:41):
from the brewery and he said it tastes really good.
It's a little bit different because obviously it's fresh right there.
So I bought a six pack of sapporo and when
he gets back, I'll be like, here, here's your sapporo.
It won't be the same back.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
This will suck. Yeah, yuh, that's cute all right. So
for me, I got I'm I'm, I'm just drinking all
the things. Right now, I have coffee. I finally was
able to steal away from the the TikTok girlies who

(35:19):
somehow discovered Cafe Bustello in the last year, and you've
been unable to get it for love or money at
the grocery store. Since is Cafe Boustello iced coffee with
oat milk creamer. And I'm also drinking water because hydration

(35:39):
is the key to performance. And thirdly, I am drinking
Uncle Nearest with fever tree ginger ale the light one
that has less sugar, so a whiskey ginger, a whiskey ginger,

(36:00):
so it's Uncle Nears with fever treat.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
Because I refuse to go another.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Week being being the one who normally has an alcoholic beverage,
who didn't have an alcoholic beverage. It's okay not to
have an alcoholic beverage at any point, but I normally do,
but I haven't lately. So now I have a whiskey
ginger all the things. So i'm i'm, I'm, I'm triple

(36:27):
drinking tonight, and I feel that's impressive. So with that
that is what we're playing, what we're reading, what we drinking,
all very important things. But what you may have noticed
during that litany of things that we've been doing, reading, drinking,

(36:51):
is that we're all playing one game in common, and
that is cast Away.

Speaker 4 (36:58):
Also hashtag not Spot. It was just I was like,
what would be.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Fun to do. I was like, we haven't done a
game that we've all played together like lately, and I
was like, what would be fun? And there was this
there was this game that I had heard about. I'd
heard about it and it sounded like fun. It also

(37:25):
probably has something to do with the fact that Legend
of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom is coming out tomorrow and
I've been super excited for that. But people were like,
it's it's like a it's like a Zelda ish game,
like old school, like old school Zelda kind of and
it's really short and it's really interesting. And the way

(37:46):
that they built it is that even though it's really short,
it has it also.

Speaker 4 (37:51):
Has like a speed run mode, and then it's.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Got like a roguelike mode where you have to do
like levels of a tower.

Speaker 4 (38:00):
And I think there's like fifty one levels.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
Of the tower and you have to go through and
you can pick up coins and upgrade certain things as
you go through. So the games by Canari Games, and
it came out just last month. It's been out since
August sixteenth. I had to look at the date, and
the description on Steam is retrieve your weapons, face bosses

(38:23):
to save your dog in a retroadventure focused on three dungeons.
Finish the story mode to unlock the Survivor mode a
fifty floor death tower, even though it tells you once
you start the tower that's fifty one floors. I guess
the fifty first floor is the boss floor. I didn't
make it fifty one. I'm interested to see if any
of y'all did. You'll enjoy classic mechanics, charming visual style,

(38:46):
and an enchanting soundtrack. So it is done by Canari Games,
and it came out, like I said, last month, and
it's on Steam right now for like eight bucks. So
the three of us all played it before I before
I start, What did y'all think?

Speaker 3 (39:10):
Well? I made it to level nine.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Okay, to answer your first question, mm hmm hm.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
But what did it to level thirty nine?

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Oh? You got, you got me. I made it to
level twenty one in the tower, like the base game
itself only took me. I don't know, and well I
got I kept I would, I would see, I would
see where I needed to be. But I feel like
sometimes it wouldn't let me go where where I needed
to go because you unlock like different weapons and things

(39:46):
as you go through. Like first you get your sword
because it's dangerous to go alone. Here take this. They
didn't say that, but you know, the animations were very similar. Uh,
and then you unlock a uh pickaxe, and then you
unlock uh what you call.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
It the grappling hook, the grappling hook.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
I was like, it's not a budget cord. What the
hell is it called the grappling hook. So every every
time you unlock like something different, it gives you like
different access to different areas of the map. So you
had to like find your way through like the area
and clear the area to find the key that unlocked

(40:31):
the boss arena, and then you had.

Speaker 4 (40:33):
To fight the boss right, which is interesting because it reminded.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Me a lot of the like the old school Zelda's,
like you know, in some ways right relate to the past.

Speaker 5 (40:48):
Which is best Zelda ever, best Selda ever anyway, uh, and.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
But it was it was. It was it's got levels right,
so you can play like on.

Speaker 4 (41:03):
Easy, normal or whatever the hard.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Mode is, right. So I was like, well, I'm just
gonna play on normal in case it's hard to see
to see, you know, to see how it plays. I
wasn't gonna try easy, and I didn't go. I mean,
there's nothing mangle playing games on easy, y'all. There's nothing
marndle playing games on easy play games however you enjoy them.
But it was really easy, and it only took me
about It took me about I want to say, an hour,

(41:28):
but I don't think it was that long because, like
I said, I've played less than two hours, and and
I did play like the Tower mode, so it took
me probably less than an hour to finish the game.
And I think that's why the game has some mixed

(41:51):
reviews on Steam. So overall it's like at mostly positive,
but the recent reviews say mixed, and I think that
that's because, uh, it's so short, right, it's so short.
I mean the game is theoretically I think that the
developers meant for it to be like a speed run
game right, a game that you because it actually has

(42:12):
a mode that lets you like keep track of how
fast you make it through. So I think that that's
kind of where they saw. I don't want to say
the worth in it because the base game itself was
not was not without work. Let's put that way. Y'all
are gonna make me say nothing about this game to

(42:34):
y'all tell me what you thought about it. You told
me what levels you made it to, what you think
about the game?

Speaker 3 (42:42):
Well, when we first started talking about it, the question
was posed or like a comment posed on like video
games when super busy and when life gets pretty hectic.
So I did not play this game until yesterday because
life is hectic and I think I have slightly less

(43:09):
than an hour. And I played the Bass game, and
I did try the Tower multiple times, and within that
time I really liked it for what it was, and
I enjoyed that I did feel like I could complete
and progress something within that amount of time, and it

(43:33):
really captured like game Boy vibe for me, because I
have not played a game with that type of art
style or music since the Game Boy. Because even started
a valley, while it's pixelated, still feels and plays very

(43:59):
more modernly and this felt like opening a game Boy
on my computer, so I was immediately drawn in and
gotta save the dog. I did think it was pretty easy.
I also played it on normal, but some of the

(44:20):
puzzles got me a few times. I had to go
through them quite a bit. So is this a game
I would necessarily would have like picked up on my own.
I don't think so, but I am glad that I
played it, and I probably will go back to the
tower to see if I can finish it. And as
I played more shorter games and more roguelike or co

(44:47):
op level based games, it was nice to see a
game that was focused on a level of depth for
like fifty minutes, multiple weapons, multiple puzzles, multiple bosses that
all play differently. So yeah, I enjoyed it. I don't

(45:08):
know if I loved it. I enjoyed it, and I
wish there were more like it, though.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
Yeah, I see what you're saying. I'll hold I'll hold
my response, Victoria, what about you?

Speaker 2 (45:20):
I didn't really enjoy it, and I don't know if
it's because, well, first I also forgot to play it,
so I played it today.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Good thing it was short, good thing. It was short.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah, I played it this afternoon, and I don't I
don't think I necessarily enjoyed enjoyed it too much because
I found some of the mechanics frustrating, Like the role
doesn't really do anything. It's not really a combat role
that you can use to dodge things so much. And

(45:54):
then if you hit anything, it jumps you back like
half to even the full role, and it jerks the
screen around and you get stunned for a second, and
it didn't feel is thought through like in the combat
mechanics of the game. And so I think I got

(46:19):
through the base game in about half an hour or so,
and then I moved on to the Tower, and I
was more interested in playing the Tower for the roguelike
experience of it. But even so, it's not procedureally generated,
so if you just memorize a certain memorize the levels,

(46:41):
then you know what's going to come, you know how
to get through the level pretty quickly. And I don't
think it's necessarily a game I would pick up.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
On my own.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
For what it is. It's a short, cute game, but
once you beat it, I don't see any replayability in it.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
And once you beat.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
The tower, get to the fifty on the tower. I
don't think there's replayability there either, because there is no
there's nothing that differentiates it between the levels.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Unless you're just unless you're just looking to speed running
right to see how much time you can shave off
your breast time or.

Speaker 4 (47:28):
What have you, which is not something I ever do.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
Interestingly enough, right, So I think I was drawn to
it because it did remind me of like old school Zelda.
And y'all know I love me some anything Zelda. I
love me some anything Zelda. So cause you know, because
when when they announced like the new the new Zelda

(47:54):
that comes out to myrow Echoes of Wisdom, I was like, well,
you know that's the day one for me that there's
never any question of whether like a Zelda's Day one
for me, and like collecting all the Zelda like limited
edition consoles and Zelda tattoos because Zelda.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
Is Zelda, right, and I love like I loved Zelda.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
But so when they when this one was announced, I
was like, oh, that's interesting because they say it's short
and it's got Zelda like dungeons. A short Zelda like
experience might be nice because we've been talking about it
for the last couple of weeks, like how incredibly busy

(48:38):
we've all been, like over the summer and all and
all semesters so far, right, And so I was intrigued
by the possibility of a short and engaging Zelda like
gameplay experience. It's not, I mean, graphically, it reminds you

(49:05):
of old school Zelda. And but it was, like I said,
I played on normal. Maybe if I played on hard
it would have given me more of a challenge. And
I wish that like once I started and played like
got like to the first key, I would have just
turned the difficulty up. But again, because I've been so busy,

(49:30):
and because I knew I could procrastinate, because I knew
how about how long the game was gonna be. I
didn't start it until yesterday, so I knew. I was like, well,
I have like I didn't start to let.

Speaker 5 (49:41):
Like late last night, I came home from work, fell asleep,
eight fell asleep, and then woke up in the middle
of night, couldn't fall back to sleep.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
So I started it right and then I was like, well,
worst case scenario, I could play it tomorrow like during
the day, and it was too simple, and I never
say that about a game. It was it was too
simple because I was expecting. I was expecting like a

(50:07):
Zelda like gameplay experience that it didn't give me. But
it did give me a weird sense of satisfaction once
I was done, right, because because I've been so busy,
and it also is because I've been playing games lately

(50:30):
that have no end, right, because I've been playing Call
of Duty multiplayer, and I've been playing like Once Human,
which is like a survival horror game, but it's kind
of open ended, right, and the story continues, so it
doesn't go, Hahi, you beat the game, roll credits kind
of thing. So it kind of gave me a weird

(50:56):
sense of satisfaction to roll credits on a game, which
is something that I really like, haven't done probably what's
this this? Yeah, this semester so far right, because I've
just been too busy, So did give me a weird

(51:16):
sense of satisfaction. And I think that that's interesting and
it's something that I don't care about finishing games in
the traditional sense. My kid and I were talking about
this the other day and I was like, I'm finished
with a game when I'm finished, and she was like,
what does that mean. She was like, well, was that
when you get credits. I'm like, no, when I'm done playing,

(51:37):
I'm done. And I don't feel compelled to finish a game,
you know, and roll credits on it if I get
bored with it or I don't like it, or I'm
just like nah, I'd rather play this game over here,
I just do it. I don't. I'm not a person

(51:58):
who feels compelled to quote unquote finish a game. There
are a lot of games that I do finish, and
there are a lot of games that you know, I
don't finish. I haven't finished. Like we talked about it
with Breaths of the Wild and I did. I've done
the same thing with Tears of Tiers of the Kingdom, right,
Like we talked about that. I remember when we did
our first like cast talking about Brothers of the Wild,

(52:21):
Jordan and I were both like we had like one
hundred hours in the game and we were nowhere near finished.
We had only done like so many temples, and I
did the same thing with Tiers of the Kingdom. It's
like at a point I had like one hundred and
something hours, but I had only done. I had only
done so many what is it not shrines? What the

(52:43):
hell did we call them in Tiers of the Kingdom?
Whatever we call them in Tears of Kingdom? Right? And
I had only done so many, and that was okay
because I was getting to play the game one the
way that I wanted to play the game. And two,
I'm not a person who feels the need to rush
through and finish. So for me, a lot of times,

(53:04):
like in games like that where there where things come
in stages, right, Like you play through this narrative bent
and then you do a shrine or a big shrine
or a big dungeon or a big boss.

Speaker 4 (53:16):
That feels like a stage of completion.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
For me, right, because otherwise you're talking about a game
that for me is going.

Speaker 4 (53:25):
To take hundreds of hours to finish.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Because I like to just go out and get lost
and talk to like little weird random people and then
find all the find and unlock all the little outfits
and do all these other little things. And I don't
want to rush my way through it. So having small games,
short games really kind of helps me find my way

(53:52):
through when I'm doing when I'm playing these other kinds
of games, that don't have a quick or acquire able
finished time, or that sometimes games that I won't ever
like traditionally finished, I'll just be finished when I'm finished.

(54:12):
So I like short games for that reason, stuff like
a short height and oh what's the other one? The
haven one or the Stillness of the Wind, like other
like little short indie games like to the Moon. I mean,
there's a ton of like short indie games that I've

(54:33):
played that have been just as fulfilling to me as
like big huge games, right justice fulfilling to me as
Breath of the Wild or justice fulfilling to me as
Tears of the Kingdom, and may have only taken me
a couple of hours to finish. Bastion is another one
that that I always finish in one sitting, so I

(54:56):
have to be very careful when I started right. There's
some about that game that I always finish it once
I started, and I probably played it I don't know
twenty or thirty times at this point, but it only
takes me like five hours to finish it, so I
have to just be very careful and when I started right,
And that game is a short play experience or a

(55:18):
shorter play experience, for someone like me who does longer
play sessions a shorter play experience, but it is always
it always hits me hard, and I always absolutely love
the experience.

Speaker 5 (55:37):
Cast Away, I did not love the experience. I didn't
hate it, but I didn't love it.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
I don't even know if I liked it. I gotta
be honest. I'm thinking about it now, and I don't
know if I liked it. I don't know if I
liked it because I think I was expecting something else,
because I do love Zelda so much. I was expecting
something Zelda like and it didn't give me that. I
won't say I didn't like it. I will say I

(56:06):
was disappointed in it, and that was because of the
expectations that I set up for it. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (56:15):
Yeah, no, I think it does because I have not
played any Zelda except for Cheers of the Kingdom and
Breath of the Wild, and even though it reminded me
of like general game Boy type games, I didn't have
that experience going into it, and I could definitely see

(56:43):
why that would affect kind of maybe the engagement or
enjoyment of it, because yeah, no, for the forty fifty
minutes that I played. I liked it for what it was,
But had I been expecting more because I knew nothing

(57:04):
about this game when we mentioned it, yeah, I probably
would have been disappointed too.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
So as I was playing, when partner came home from
work and he walks in and he's like, what in
the dollar store link is that, I'm like, you be kind, it's.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
Castaway and it did.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
It did kind of remind me of like very classic
nineties link in that like here's your sword. But as
the the opening cinematic was going, I was like, what
in the dragon ball z is happening?

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Mmm?

Speaker 2 (57:54):
And there was just a lot of mechine. I was
like why why am I an alien that is crash?
Why does this matter? Why? Why are the why are
their pterodactyls? And then all of the bosses are snakes
and I don't know, maybe that's being to pedantic about

(58:18):
a game that's just a little little arcade game, but
I had a hard time kidding into it. And then
I had a really hard time with that you saved
the dog and the game ends like that's where the
adventure ends. You'd say, I was so looking for and like, well,
what's the dog going to do? What kind of power
up do I get with the dog? And the answer
is you do not get not anything.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
You get nothing.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
You know, you can't even pet the dog.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, No.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
I don't think that's being too pedantic because one of
the thoughts that I had while playing it was why
are all these robots? I thought like, yeah, pterodactyls around
this and if we fell from the sky, like are

(59:06):
they are robots? Why are they? Yeah? No, So I
didn't like think too much about it, but that was
one of my first thoughts. Once we got through like
the first dungeons, I was like, oh, maybe, like different
areas have different enemies and kind of, but it's mostly

(59:27):
progressions on the robotics and I was confused by that.
And I also like that you pointed out the rolling
because I was frustrated by the rolling. I stopped using
it after the first six minutes.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
Right, you never roll far enough, so if you try to,
like so, if you try to like roll over like
spikes to get across them before they come back out,
like Spike's going up and down, it never you always
get hit by the last roll with spikes because you
never go over that last row. And if you roll
two are like and hit a wall, you bounce back

(01:00:02):
like like Victoria said, you bounce back halfway. Then you're
in the middle of the spikes and you get hit
by multiple rolls of spikes, which was absolutely infuriating.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
The little spiders could stunlock you, Yeah, and that that
was frustrating because where you can't really roll, you have
to get up close to the enemies, and so you
start swinging and then the little spiders spawn out of
the big spider and they spawn underneath of you, and

(01:00:36):
you can get sun locked.

Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
Or there's an alternative. You can also use your damn.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
It, the grappling hook.

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
Grappling hook. I was about to say bungee cording me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
But if you use the grappling hook and then you
then you can't roll fast enough to get the coins
when they drop because they disappear so fast.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Because they disappear so fast, so.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
The game incentivizes you being right on top of things
to kill them and then sunlocks you if the little
the little spiders decided to spawn underneath of you instead
of to the side of you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Yeah, And it's also boring as shit to use the
the grappling hook because you're just standing there spamming what
was it? What was the grappling hook? Why? Maybe I
think it might have been why whatever? It was on
my on my steam deck because I played on the
steam deck. But by the way, it ran really well
on the steam deck. I didn't have any problems. Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:01:32):
But it would just spaming the button like over and
over again to keep hitting it, which you know wasn't bad,
but it got really boring. Thakus with her, it got.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
Really boring because you weren't up close. You were just
standing there like at a safe distance, hitting a spider
with a grappling hook.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Yeah, and then if you're in the tower, you miss
the coins and you can't level up.

Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
Right, right, I mean so.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Exactly. So I mean it's interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
I mean because I play.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Okay, so I play a lot of mobile games, and
I also am a person who I don't know if
it's because I'm a glutton for punishment or.

Speaker 4 (01:02:14):
Just because I'm an inquisitive soul.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
We're gonna take We're gonna go with that last one.
But we all know what a shit show the Nintendo
e shop is. Right with the crappy like shovel weear
games that are in the the the proliferation of the
shovel weear games in the shop is real, but I

(01:02:39):
will regularly, especially when they go on sale and they're
like nineteen cents, I'll be like, I'm gonna take three
dollars and I'm gonna buy I'm gonna buy as many
nineteen cent shovel wear games as I can, just to
see how they are. I mean, and I know it's

(01:03:00):
it's very weird, but I do it all the time,
and and I do it. It's weird because I also
do it on a stream. I'll go shopping, I'll be like,
we're gonna buy all these games just to see, just
to see how they are. And so, and sometimes you
will happen across ones that while they're not the most

(01:03:22):
compelling games and they're not games that I would ever
pay like full price for, even though they're only five dollars,
they can be entertainment, entertaining for you know, ten minutes,
twenty minutes at a time. And I'll even leave them,
like if there's one that I'm finding fun, I'll leave
it on my switch and then like sometimes I'll go
in and I'll play for twenty minutes. And sometimes I'll

(01:03:43):
go in and I'll pay for a half hour, or
sometimes I'll just it'll just like hit like a sweet
spot for my brain that doesn't have like the doesn't
have any focus at all to do anything except for
whatever simple action the games ask me to do, right,
And that happens sometimes. And there are quite a few

(01:04:07):
games like that that I bought on the Switch over
the years for like nineteen cents. This sounds so mean.

Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
I don't know if I would do that with this game.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
I mean I could see myself maybe, like I said,
I got to level in the Tower, I think level
twenty one. I could see myself maybe going back one
more time when I'm not sleepy, because like I said,
I woke up at like I don't know, one or
two in the morning and started playing. So I could

(01:04:43):
see myself maybe going back one more time, just to
see how far I would get in the tower. But
it's not something that I would keep installed on my
Steam deck and like turn it on and ever be like, oh,
I don't know what I want to play? How about
I play Castaway for a bit? But there are games

(01:05:07):
like that, right that are just like little teeny tiny
like games that almost feel like shovel where that have
really simple mechanics, have almost no story, but they've got
such a kind of tight gameplay loop that they can
pull you in. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
Yeah, because I feel like, you know, I would go
back to play the Tower. I said, I'd go back
to play the Tower, but once I finish it, or
if I keep sailing, No, I'm not going to play
like the Bass game again or even the Tower again.

(01:05:52):
I enjoyed by time while I played it, the fifty
minutes or whatnot. I'll play the Tower a little bit more,
but not much beyond that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Yeah. I mean, like I said, I think it's intended
for folks who want to like speed run it. But
that's not my that's not my ministry. That's not something
I want to do. I like to to take my
time and enjoy my games. I like them too, I don't.
I'm not a person who likes to do glitches or

(01:06:28):
like cheats or like.

Speaker 4 (01:06:31):
You know, find the secret entry in a wall.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
I like to like solve the puzzles. I think the
most fun that I had with this game it's like
the spatial puzzles. Right where there are like these gems
that you can only move one square and then it's
like it mixed into those are like boulders that you

(01:06:54):
can break, so you have to figure out, like you
have to figure out how to move the gyms around
because you can only move them one time. You can
move them one square and you can't move them again,
and then break the boulders and find your way through
to get to like the next area. That was fun.

(01:07:14):
That was fun, and honestly, I can say that was
probably about the only fun mechanic that I had. And
the levels just looked so not the levels, the different
areas were just so blooming similar because it all takes place, well,
it kind of takes place in the desert, and every
now and then they'll throw in like low green area,

(01:07:35):
but it all looks so similar. And I have a
horrible sense of direction, and there's no map, no mini map,
right right, there's no map, no mini map. And I
was like, unless I just didn't see it, because it
was like two o'clock in the morning, I would be like, wait,
wasn't I just here? I mean, I was like, no,

(01:07:56):
but I just came out of that came right there.
That was not the cave I went in, So I
came out in another space. So where am I? So
I would just kind of be lost, right, And I
was like, oh, no, I don't. I don't like that
because and that's because I have a horrible sense of direction,
and if I get lost because of stuff like that,

(01:08:19):
then I get frustrated. And I think that that's why,
that's why the it took me as long to finish
it as it did. Like I said, I played almost
two hours and I got to level twenty one in
the tower. I got to level twenty one in the
tower in one run, So it wasn't like I read

(01:08:39):
it multiple times. I would just get lost because the
areas all looked so similar, and I have a horrible
sense of direction, and it was frustrating and it was frustrating.
And I feel like sometimes when I was trying to
use my grappling hook.

Speaker 4 (01:08:58):
And grapple across, like.

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):
I would see like the stone that I wanted to
grapple onto, but my grapple hook. I would do it
like five times, and the grapple hook would be like, nah,
you can't reach that from here, and then I would
do it like a six time and they were like so, I, yes,
you can't, I mean, and it would not be the
ones that were right in front of you would be
the ones that were just like a little off to
the side, and I wasn't one hundred percent sure I

(01:09:25):
could hit them, so I would get frustrated with that too.

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
I mean, I don't want to be mean because I
think that there's value in the game. I feel bad
because y'all know I hate because I know people put
hard work into it, you know, So I don't want
to I don't want.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
To be mean. But at the same time, I think
that for me, it didn't give me what I wanted,
and that is probably because I had expectations that were
too high, right, I had expectations that were too high,
because you know, it's.

Speaker 4 (01:09:58):
Being it was being kind of you know, billed as.

Speaker 5 (01:10:04):
They literally call it a retro adventure, right, and you
can see from the graphics.

Speaker 4 (01:10:09):
I can't believe your partner called it Dollar Store link.
I would have called it TMU link.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
But I understand right that that you know from the graphics.
Like even the fact that he's clearly wearing the uh,
he's clearly wearing the costume from Breath of the Wild, Right,
blond haird with the sword is dangerous to go along
take this but the way that it's being built is

(01:10:35):
clearly supposed to be like a legend of Zelda inspired
is what is the word we're gonna use? Yay, And
it just fell so far short of that that it
was a big disappointment for me.

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
Yeah, I think the puzzles were the best part to
because again a few times I had to exit the
area and re enter to restart the puzzle because I
messed up. And there were other areas where once I
knew the enemies, I would stop fighting and I would
just run through because I'm like, I just want to
get to the next the next key. But yeah, I

(01:11:21):
don't know, I think. I Yeah, I still enjoyed it
for the thirty to fifty minutes thirty to forty being
the base game, ten to twenty being the tower. I
don't know exactly how that was split up. I think
because my expectation was short game, what can you get

(01:11:46):
across in thirty minutes? And for thirty minutes, I if
I were to like sit down and think, did I
would I want that thirty minutes back to play something else?
I mean, yeah, maybe, But also the thirty minutes, I
was fine with it, and I liked that it gave

(01:12:07):
me the vibe of Game Boy.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
I mean, that's a good question, right, if I had to,
you know, is that thirty minutes I would want back? No,
it's not. It honestly isn't because like I said, I
enjoyed the puzzles, and I enjoyed the puzzles, and the
experience for what it was wasn't terrible. The experience for

(01:12:35):
what I was expecting is a different story. But that
was that was on me because that was my expectation, right,
that was my expectation.

Speaker 2 (01:12:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
And this is also not to like push back against
people not liking it. I can totally see why. Again,
I enjoyed it for my time and what it was,
I didn't love it. But I just think that's why
my like description or take on it is different.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Mm hmmm hm.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
No, I get it. I get it, you know. And
And the question is is if I had not purchased
this game, but I knew what it was and I
saw it, would I purchased it at eight bucks? Probably not?
Mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (01:13:28):
If I start on a Steam sale.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
For much cheaper.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
Yeah, I think that was my main besides mechanics, I
think that was one of my main concerns with it
is like, why is this eight dollars and this is
an hour of my time? And I spent eight dollars
for an hour of my time. And if we're talking

(01:13:54):
about games that busy people use, and it's like, okay,
well I need to just play a game. I've got
like an hour I can unwind with a game. This
game doesn't really have replayability. And if somebody's dropping eight
dollars every time they have an hour to spend, spendah,
then we're getting into why don't we just buy a

(01:14:18):
game that you know is a larger game that you
can then sink about an hour into every now and then,
rather and then not have to keep buying a new
game in order to I guess scratch that itch of
I need to play a game for about an hour.
I have an hour to play a game because this
one won't do it. And that's to me, that's kind

(01:14:41):
of what this game is supposed to be, a game
that you can sink an hour into and then walk
away from and be satisfied. But it only works for
one hour, literally one hour, and it's eight dollars for
one hour.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
Yeah, And I don't mind, like I buy, Like I said,
I buy a lot of short not just the nineteen
cent shovel wear games, but I buy a lot of
short games, right because I buy a lot of indie games,
and like they'll, you know, they'll they'll say, like right
at the beginning, this is a short three hour experience.

(01:15:16):
This is a short two hour experience, right, but whatever
it is, and I'll still buy them because it doesn't
bother me to pay you know, ten dollars or fifteen
dollars or whatever for a two or three hour game
if I feel like I have a good play experience,
right because I've played some indie games that were two

(01:15:37):
hours long or three hours long that like rocked my
fucking world, like narratively right, like left me emotionally broken, right,
I have played games like that, games like that, like,
for example, before I Forget, I don't even know how
long that game. That's what the game is actually called.
Not I'm not saying before I Forget. Let me look,

(01:16:00):
I'm gonna look at how long to Be? Before I
Forget was a very short game? Before I Forget? How
long to be?

Speaker 4 (01:16:11):
Okay, before I Forget? How long to be?

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
Average playtime of one hour is what that is what
that is what the developers actually say. Game is eight
dollars eight dollars, same price, exact, same price, seven ninety
nine currently on Steam. Before I forget, I recommend this
game to everyone. Right, A woman is alone in the house,

(01:16:36):
A mystery and a love story. Explore the president to
uncover the past and in a short story of love
and loss and a life well lived. A narrative exploration
game that examines a world where memories are constantly fading
and jumbled. Game Rocked My World left me in tears.
Eight dollars, one hour, no real replayability because it's a

(01:16:59):
it's a a more linear story. But that game damn
near killed me. So I don't mind paying eight dollars
for one hour of gameplay, but you damn sure better
make sure that one hour gameplay is worth it to

(01:17:20):
me in some way, shape or form.

Speaker 4 (01:17:24):
Also, I highly recommend before I forget.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
But if you if you've ever lost anyone, or have
anyone who is dealing with dementia or dementia or the like,
you might want to there's there's a serious content warning. Yeah,
so I don't, I don't. I don't mind paying the
eight dollars for an hour gameplay, but I just want

(01:17:53):
something that resonates, and this did it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:57):
I was hoping it would, but it didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
I don't know, have y'all had short gameplay experiences that
or am I the only sucker out here buying all
these one hour games.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
I don't think I've bought many one hour games in
that the entire game plays out within an hour. I
would call Blatro like a one hour game, but it's
it doesn't necessarily have a ton of it doesn't have
any story or anything like that. You're just trying to

(01:18:39):
unlock jokers and play poker hands too.

Speaker 1 (01:18:44):
Beat.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
I think it's like eight anties and then you can
go to endless and then it starts scaling exponentially, And
to me, that's more the kind of experience of short
games that I'm used to is games like Balatro mm hmmmmm,
or played up, like games that you can just kind
of play for a little bit and then put down

(01:19:07):
and not have to worry about again, rather than a
game that I completed in an hour and put down.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about that when you said
that earlier, when you said, you know, or buy a
longer game that costs more, but you can play in
one hour like Bursts and the first Blacho was the
first thing that popped into my mind because I'm playing
so much of it, And yeah, you can like do
up run in an hour. It usually takes about I mean,

(01:19:35):
unless you're really bad at it or you just get
an unlucky ass. You just get an unlucky ass blind Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:19:47):
Yeah, No. The only games I would say that I
played that are under an hour or all the like
level based where you can progress in short spurts like
Overcooked or Roguelike, or the intent is to replay things
like Dead by Daylight. The only short games outside of

(01:20:10):
that that I've played are usually at minimum between five
to ten hours, so still Wakes the Deep for me
was six hours. Forgotten and was ten hours. Yeah. The
closest I can get to is that We Were Here series,
which depending on the game is between two to four hours,

(01:20:33):
maybe two and a half to four hours, depending on
the if you're playing one, two, three, or four. And
the story in that pretty confusing. I don't know if
a lot of people play it for the story, but
it's really fun puzzle escape room co op. But that's
the closest I get to like a full finished game

(01:20:58):
within an hour.

Speaker 1 (01:21:01):
Mm hmmm, yeah, I can. I can see all of those, right,
I can see all of those, and they all and
then like I said, now, I think they all have
like merit in their own way, right, and and it
just depends. It also depends on like what mood I'm in, Right,
Sometimes I'm in the mood for a game that's gonna

(01:21:22):
you know, rock me and leave me, like inter feat
of position in the corner, and but it's really short,
like before I forget or oh, what is it? The
what is it? The the The stillness of the wind.
Stillness of the wind is another one that I got
to the end and I it was just like one

(01:21:43):
of those WTF moments And when I got to the
end for both games, and not in a that doesn't
make sense, but a damn, what did y'all just do
to me? Kind of way? And again, you know, short
short games, and and I like games like that because
I think that and I always make this argument, it's

(01:22:07):
a hell I'll die on, is that I think indie
studios have to be ten times more creative than at
least exponentially, We'll stay exponentially more creative than Triple A
Studios because they've got to do more with less. So

(01:22:30):
I'm always interested to see what they're doing and how
they're doing it. So I think that that's why I'm
constantly like buying these little indie games, especially when when
like people are like, oh, that game is so short.
That's a selling point to me. Not necessarily because you know,
I want to I want the gameplay to be short,

(01:22:53):
but I want to see what they can do. I
want to see that.

Speaker 5 (01:22:57):
I'm like, impress me, here, take my fifteen dollars, let's
see what you can do, right kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. And like I said,
and maybe it's because I have played so many games
that have been successful at that that I judge ones
that are judge games that are less successful at that
more harshly. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:23:25):
Hum, I don't know any other things thoughts ideas.

Speaker 3 (01:23:38):
I don't think, at least not for me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
No, not for me either. So one last question and
then I'm gonna let y'all go, because we all busy.
It's a big games week with like games coming out
this week, y'all picking up anything fun? What camps are

(01:24:03):
coming out this week. Oh my gosh, I'm just playing
Disney's epic Mickey Legends of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. Hello,
what else is coming out this week? Blatro on mobile.

(01:24:27):
Tiny Glade came out this week, the little game where
you just like use your curser to build like a
medieval castle thing. Let me look at my list. I
had a list because I was like, what am I
buying this week? I had to pick and choose because
I was not buying fifty seven games.

Speaker 3 (01:24:47):
I was very interested in the Zelda game. I didn't
know it came out this week, but when it was announced,
I was really excited.

Speaker 1 (01:24:53):
Yeah, it comes out tomorrow. And Bloomtown is one I
want to pick up because it it looks really interesting.
It's like Stranger Things meets Persona set in the nineteen
sixties because you play as like kids like you play

(01:25:17):
as a kid who goes to spend the summer with
her grandfather with her little brother, and then you find
out that I don't know that that like all the
kids in the town are disappearing. And then at night
you go into like the demon realm and you, I

(01:25:38):
don't know if you have you capture other demons that
fight with you to fight demons. That's where the persona
part of it comes in. So it basically turns into
pixelated persona at like but like during the.

Speaker 4 (01:25:50):
Day, it's it's more like.

Speaker 1 (01:25:56):
Life sim slash strange things, slash, I don't know, slash something.
It's made by the same developer that did Graveyard Keeper,
which I always thought was really interesting. I liked Graveyard Keeper,
it just didn't hold my excuse me, hold my attention
too long because it wasn't narratively deep enough. But this

(01:26:21):
one is supposed to, you know, have this whole story
going on, so and it's you know.

Speaker 4 (01:26:29):
It looks good, it looks good, it looks fun.

Speaker 5 (01:26:33):
But it's called Bloomtown. I think it's like twenty four
ninety nine. I think it's like twenty four ninety nine.
US came out yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:26:44):
I was like, what's today? Came out Tuesday, just like
Disney's epic Mickey, which is also a lot of fun
if you were if you've never played it the first
especially if you never played it the first time. It's
just the remaster of the last of the of Disney
epic Mickey, the first one. But like I said, I
wasn't able to play it the first time around because

(01:27:07):
just like it was, it was just like all the
shooters on Nintendo sixty four. They all made me horribly motionstic,
so I couldn't play them the first time around. And
Super Mario Sunshine, which I still couldn't play with the
remaster got it. I got to play it one day.
I don't know what happened. My brain was just like,

(01:27:29):
you had your fun, it's over. I got to play
it one day and I was fine, and I played
it probably I don't know, four or five hours, and
like a week later I went back to play it again,
and twenty minutes into my play session, my body was

(01:27:49):
just like, I don't know what you thought. You had
your fun. You might as well turn this off and
never turn it back on again. I was so violently ill,
kind of like I said, with a twenty minutes to
turn in the back on, and it was a game
that I could not play originally because sumer Ario Sunshine
came out on the Wii, I think, and I own it,

(01:28:11):
as I own a lot of these games, because I
was so excited when they first came out, like on
their original consoles, that I bought them. But They've all
made me so sick that I couldn't play them. But Bloomtown,
Zelda and Epic Mickey are I'm trying not to pick
them all up at the same time because I'm not
gonna play them all at the same time, you know

(01:28:33):
what I mean. But I do like to have a
bedtime game, which is something that I can play at
bedtime that won't get me all like riled up so
that I can actually fall asleep, And I wonder if
that might be Bloomtown Zelda will just keep me too
engaged because it's Zelda, and I love everything Zelda, and

(01:28:57):
I can lose way too many hours to Zelda. So
those are the ones that I know of off the
top of my head. To answer your question of what's
coming out this week, but all of this, except for Rizelda,
is me biding my time until dragon Age comes out

(01:29:19):
next month? Are y'all gonna play dragon Age? My the
only one playing dragon Age the Veil Guard, because I Halloween.

Speaker 3 (01:29:29):
I haven't played any dragon Age.

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):
That's okay, that's okay. I've heard that you can play
this one without having played the previous ones I played
the I played the early dragon Age. I didn't play
Inquisition the last one, cause well, I own it. I
played it for about five hours and I was like,
I don't like this. I'm done because it was so

(01:29:55):
different from the first from the first ones, and that's
just like me with Mass Effect and Drama versus the
Mass Effect trilogy. I was like, I don't like this,
it's not right. So I didn't finish that. I did
finish it. I was finished with it. I was finished
with it. So but look howt it. It looks amazing

(01:30:23):
and if you'd like fantasy RPGs at all, And I'm
waiting to see if someone comes out with a great
recap because I was gonna replay. I was gonna replay
Dragon Age one and two before Vailguard came out. I
was like, I'll replay one and two. I'm not gonna play,

(01:30:44):
and I'm not gonna play Inquisition. And I was like, no,
I'm not gonna do that because every time I do that,
and I do that like a lot. If it's like
a game, it's been like, you know, ten years or
twenty years or whatever since the game came out, I'll
replay like all the early ones before the new one
comes out, and every time I do it, I kick
myself because I get burned out on I get burned

(01:31:07):
out on it, and then the new one comes out
and it and then I like take forever to either
start it or I take forever to finish it.

Speaker 4 (01:31:17):
Because I'm so just theamn burned out on that universe.

Speaker 1 (01:31:20):
So I said this time, I was like, I was like,
I'm gonna replay one and two before, and I was saying, no,
I'm not. I'm gonna wait and to see if somebody
does a good recap that will refresh my memory and
I'll watch that, but I'm not gonna replay those games
because Veilguard will come out and I will spend my
money and then I'll be like, yeah, I'm bored. I

(01:31:45):
know myself too well. I know myself too well. But yeah, well,
I appreciate y'all for sacrificing your sales and taking some
time out of your days to play cast Away and

(01:32:08):
to be thoughtful about the process.

Speaker 4 (01:32:10):
Be thoughtful about the process and how you felt about it.

Speaker 1 (01:32:12):
It's hard. It's hard for me to, you know, unless
it's one of those you know AI generated who's he
was his shovel weear games. It's hard for me to
just sit and say, this game sucks kind of thing
because I know that, you know, folks have put their
time into it. But at the same time, I want

(01:32:33):
to be thoughtful about the whole process. I want to
be thoughtful about the whole process and think about why
I didn't like something, and think about why I didn't
like something. And it was good for me to talk
to y'all because it helped me figure out why I
didn't like it, and I said, I think it was expectation.
But I appreciate y'all, thank you for playing, and thank

(01:32:57):
you for talking with me tonight about it. So I
guess with that that is going to bring us to
the end of episode. What episode did we say? This
was one fifty one? I mean two fifty one? Oh
my god, fifty that's like alcohol, isn't it? This episode
two hundred and fifty one. So I appreciate y'all, And

(01:33:23):
until next time when we talk about something totally different,
I would like to say, take care of yourself, take
care of one another, stay safe, stay dry. We got
Hurricane Helene coming. Is it Helene or Helena? No, it's
Helene coming up through from the south through the Midwest.

(01:33:47):
So y'all stay safe, stay dry, take care of yourselves,
and until next time, my friends. Game one.

Speaker 6 (01:34:39):
National Nations, The originations sinnationalnass. The name begins to day,

(01:35:00):
the basics, To name the best master A most name
asks the name, the name page anything, not anybody, then anybody,

(01:37:00):
but not to put t