transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:02] This is a Headgum Podcast.
Speaker 2:
[00:05] Hacks is back for its fifth and final season, and so is the Hacks Podcast. Join the Hacks creators and showrunners, Lucia and Yellow, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky as they unpack the Emmy-winning comedy series. On each episode, hear stories from the set, what goes on in the writer's room, and how these beloved characters close out their final season. Watch Hacks streaming exclusively on HBO Max and listen to the Hacks Podcast on HBO Max or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3:
[00:43] Hey, guys. Notice anything different about me?
Speaker 1:
[00:50] Well, you couldn't keep a straight face delivering that, so I'm just trying to, like, suss out what's going on here, because it makes me think something's different.
Speaker 4:
[00:58] Yeah, it makes me feel you're up to some mischief, or something, you're going to, it's something stupid.
Speaker 3:
[01:05] Before you even say it, it's not a haircut.
Speaker 1:
[01:10] Because I was going to say, your hair looks good, and you know, Ranch got a haircut.
Speaker 3:
[01:14] Ranch got a haircut.
Speaker 1:
[01:14] It looks great.
Speaker 4:
[01:15] Ranch got a haircut.
Speaker 1:
[01:16] But like, I was like-
Speaker 3:
[01:17] Ranch got a haircut. Turtle power.
Speaker 1:
[01:24] That wasn't it. That's unrelated. That's the thing you did. Okay. What's your news?
Speaker 3:
[01:29] What's happening here?
Speaker 1:
[01:31] I don't know.
Speaker 3:
[01:31] Take a look at this.
Speaker 1:
[01:34] Holy shit. You shot lasers out your eyes.
Speaker 5:
[01:37] My hands. My hands.
Speaker 1:
[01:40] Heather, are you okay?
Speaker 5:
[01:40] Are you okay?
Speaker 1:
[01:41] Oh my god.
Speaker 3:
[01:42] You weren't supposed to put your hand in front of my eyes. I got new laser eyes.
Speaker 1:
[01:46] Well, it's understandable she wanted to see what was going to happen. Well, no.
Speaker 3:
[01:49] Come on, Heather. No, let me see.
Speaker 5:
[01:52] Stop looking at it. You're burning it more. Why would you look at that hand you already burnt? Sorry.
Speaker 3:
[01:58] I was trying to help my friend.
Speaker 5:
[02:00] Don't look at my hand anymore.
Speaker 1:
[02:01] How is she going to play video games without two of her fingers? The wound immediately cauterized over. It's not even bleeding. Matt, you got to be careful with your laser eyes.
Speaker 3:
[02:11] Oh, I'm some big asshole. Great. I'm a big piece of shit because I burned my friend's fingers off.
Speaker 1:
[02:17] Also, there's a hole in the drywall. Headgum's not going to be happy about that. That's a secondary thing, but I'm just saying, like, you got to be more careful.
Speaker 3:
[02:23] I'll wait patiently for somebody to show up and tell me about it. Are you okay? Don't look at me!
Speaker 4:
[02:29] Why are you looking at me?
Speaker 3:
[02:31] I'm sorry. You keep drawing my attention.
Speaker 4:
[02:33] Well, look at my hand. It's terribly burnt.
Speaker 5:
[02:36] Not literally!
Speaker 3:
[02:37] I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:
[02:39] How do the Laser Eyes work?
Speaker 3:
[02:40] Well, I just went to my ophthalmologist and was like, give me the Laser Eyes.
Speaker 1:
[02:44] Oh, that's like a thing you can do now.
Speaker 3:
[02:46] Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[02:47] Stop looking at me, Matt!
Speaker 1:
[02:49] So you, but you can control it. You can just like unleash it at any time.
Speaker 3:
[02:52] Apparently I can't. They're just gonna go in all willy nilly.
Speaker 1:
[02:54] Oh, Jesus Christ. I didn't realize it was happening randomly. Cause you were like, check this out. And then a laser blast happened.
Speaker 4:
[03:00] You gotta, ah!
Speaker 3:
[03:02] Stop it! I'm sorry. I can't. It's really happening to Heather. I really can't. I don't know what to do. I can't. I don't know why you keep looking at me. They gave me a bunch of papers.
Speaker 1:
[03:13] Here, just look at me. Just look at me. You're just a comfort, Heather.
Speaker 3:
[03:15] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[03:17] Wait, why isn't it not, why aren't you burning?
Speaker 2:
[03:26] Why would you look at Nick?
Speaker 4:
[03:27] It's not burning, but when you look at me, it burns.
Speaker 1:
[03:31] It's bright and I guess I feel a little warm, but no, I'm not bursting into flame.
Speaker 3:
[03:35] Wait, hang on a second. Did you get the laser-resistant skin?
Speaker 1:
[03:39] I got the laser-proof skin. That was going to be my thing, but you came in with a notice saying different about me, so I was like, I guess I'll save that for next week.
Speaker 4:
[03:47] Why are you stu— Ow!
Speaker 5:
[03:48] Stop looking at me!
Speaker 4:
[03:49] Why are you stupid shenanigans the source of so much pain for me? You guys, conference on this? Laser eyes and laser-resistant skin?
Speaker 1:
[03:58] No, this is a total coincidence.
Speaker 3:
[03:59] Yeah, and I kind of feel like I've said sorry, and you're kind of being a big asshole about it.
Speaker 4:
[04:06] It's a bitch when it's a girl.
Speaker 1:
[04:11] Yeah, man, that's kind of sexist of you.
Speaker 3:
[04:13] I'm sorry, I was trying to be not that way.
Speaker 1:
[04:17] Well, you fucked up.
Speaker 3:
[04:19] And I'll be sending a no tap apology, and I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:
[04:23] Anyway, could you heat up this quesadilla?
Speaker 3:
[04:25] Yeah, here you go, buddy.
Speaker 1:
[04:29] Mmm, it's good. We explore a deserted hotel and are confused as we discuss indie puzzle game Lorelei and the Laser Eyes this week on Get Played.
Speaker 4:
[05:03] Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Anne Campbell, along with my fellow host, Tiger Wiger.
Speaker 1:
[05:13] That's me, Nick Tiger Wiger, along with our third host, Mr. Games himself, Matt Apodaca.
Speaker 3:
[05:18] Hello, everyone.
Speaker 4:
[05:19] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere of Video Game Podcasts, where this week, oh my god, somebody has made the mistake of joining us on the show.
Speaker 1:
[05:31] That's someone returning to the podcast from Dimension 20 and Rick and Morty. Siobhan Thompson is here. Hi, Siobhan.
Speaker 6:
[05:36] Hello, everybody. What a delight. What a pleasure.
Speaker 4:
[05:39] What a nice time.
Speaker 3:
[05:40] Wow. I'm already having fun.
Speaker 4:
[05:41] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[05:42] Nintendo fly around, Get Played podcast.
Speaker 3:
[05:46] Yeah, we're actually really different now.
Speaker 6:
[05:48] We're different.
Speaker 4:
[05:49] We're different.
Speaker 6:
[05:50] We're different, maybe better than the gods.
Speaker 4:
[05:53] We met a Koopa in real life.
Speaker 6:
[05:57] Wow.
Speaker 4:
[05:57] You know?
Speaker 3:
[05:59] We're not really the same kind of guys anymore.
Speaker 4:
[06:00] Oh, shit.
Speaker 6:
[06:01] Well, I can do that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[06:02] Yeah, it's interesting for Matt to bring that up because I also have to say we're not really the same podcast anymore.
Speaker 6:
[06:08] Oh, God.
Speaker 4:
[06:08] Are we doing this?
Speaker 1:
[06:09] Hold on a second. Ranch, do you have anything? It's okay if you don't.
Speaker 6:
[06:11] Mine are Miu Miu.
Speaker 3:
[06:13] Okay, Ranch, let's have a look. Yeah. This is more correct, the most optimal way to do the show.
Speaker 6:
[06:18] Wow, this is beautiful. I'm going to hold this.
Speaker 1:
[06:19] This is pretty cool.
Speaker 4:
[06:20] It's actually really nice with the lights.
Speaker 1:
[06:21] Actually, it is nice because these lights are bright as fuck.
Speaker 6:
[06:24] The lights are bright.
Speaker 3:
[06:25] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[06:25] They're bright and they're hot. I think people maybe can't realize how uncomfortable the lighting is just for the purposes of producing 90-second clips.
Speaker 6:
[06:32] A video podcast, yes.
Speaker 4:
[06:33] Yeah. We have to film the entire thing just in case there is 90 seconds where we are presentable on camera.
Speaker 6:
[06:41] Yeah. It's tough as a woman to be like, oh, I guess I'll wear makeup now in the podcast recording.
Speaker 4:
[06:47] Literally, I come from work. I get here, I put makeup on in the fucking bathroom, which there's terrible lighting here.
Speaker 1:
[06:55] The lighting is so fucking bad.
Speaker 4:
[06:57] And then I have the makeup on, the only time I wear makeup in my life is in this room, and then I go home and wash it off.
Speaker 1:
[07:05] But yeah, it's a bummer. For people who wear makeup, I feel so bad about the shift to video podcasting because I, as someone who doesn't generally wear makeup, I hate it in and of itself. What I liked about audio podcasting is you have to look like shit all the time.
Speaker 3:
[07:17] Yeah, I mean, we both still look like shit.
Speaker 1:
[07:19] That's the thing, you and I, we just made it our brand.
Speaker 4:
[07:22] I also look like shit but it is so much better than the normal shit that I look like because of the makeup.
Speaker 6:
[07:29] Yes, I definitely thought about what I was wearing today.
Speaker 3:
[07:31] But that whole experience, it's just still, you haven't been here in a while, we're still kind of the same old show.
Speaker 1:
[07:36] Yeah, kind of the same old show.
Speaker 6:
[07:37] It hasn't changed you, you're still humble, still grounded.
Speaker 4:
[07:40] The truth is though, oh what, go ahead.
Speaker 1:
[07:42] Ranch is here, but Ranch is also cool now.
Speaker 4:
[07:43] Oh, yeah, Ranch is cool now.
Speaker 6:
[07:45] Ranch is cool.
Speaker 4:
[07:47] Matt, speaking of travel to Japan.
Speaker 1:
[07:49] How long are we gonna do this?
Speaker 4:
[07:50] What?
Speaker 1:
[07:51] We can do it. We can do it. We'll play this game of chicken, we'll see who blinks first.
Speaker 4:
[07:55] I'm not fucking taking these off.
Speaker 6:
[07:56] Okay, great.
Speaker 2:
[07:57] This is the most comfortable I've ever been.
Speaker 6:
[07:58] I feel great.
Speaker 4:
[07:59] The only thing that would make me more comfortable is if I had the whole helmet on over the glasses.
Speaker 6:
[08:04] Get one of those ostrich pillows.
Speaker 4:
[08:08] I'm totally asleep.
Speaker 1:
[08:10] We're now pot committed to if a genuinely good clip happens later in the podcast, people watching will have no context for why we're wearing sunglasses.
Speaker 6:
[08:19] They'll have to just return to the full pod.
Speaker 3:
[08:21] We cannot guarantee that there will be a good clip later.
Speaker 1:
[08:24] I'm telling you, there won't be.
Speaker 6:
[08:25] Hey, there has to be a good clip later. That's why the fuck am I here?
Speaker 3:
[08:32] You're going to be great. We're going to all be bad.
Speaker 4:
[08:35] I like Nick's assumption that at any time a clip plays, that anybody has any idea what's going on in that clip. It's usually like, what the fuck is this on my timeline?
Speaker 6:
[08:43] Also, that anybody making podcast clips is thinking, this one is the one that the people need to see.
Speaker 4:
[08:50] Matt, it's interesting that you would bring up that we're different now after our trip to Japan, because the truth is, I want to start off this episode with a tiny gift.
Speaker 5:
[08:57] Oh, what?
Speaker 4:
[08:58] Well, here's the thing, guys. When we came back from Japan, I had gotten something for ranch, I got something for Nick, but I had not yet gotten anything for Matt. And it haunted me. It bothered me a ton, man.
Speaker 1:
[09:11] It bothered me, too.
Speaker 4:
[09:12] I'll just say.
Speaker 1:
[09:13] Really? Yeah. I was like, what's Heather got to get into Matt?
Speaker 4:
[09:16] What the fuck? What? I hung out with Matt so much in Japan that I didn't have time or opportunity to be able to get him a gift.
Speaker 1:
[09:28] I know.
Speaker 4:
[09:29] And so once I got here, I was like, you know, Matt had an unfulfilled wish when we went to Japan that we couldn't do. And even though it didn't come inside of the gotcha, I did manage to find a little gift for Matt. Oh my god, Heather. Which is that he was hunting for Weezer gotchapon when we were in Japan and I couldn't get him.
Speaker 1:
[09:53] Look at those.
Speaker 4:
[09:53] And so I got them for him.
Speaker 3:
[09:55] This is so nice. Thank you.
Speaker 6:
[09:57] And my gift?
Speaker 4:
[09:59] Next time.
Speaker 6:
[10:01] Next time I'm on. Next time I'm on. That's great. That's perfect.
Speaker 3:
[10:03] This is the OK Human album, the Teal album, the White album and Pinkerton.
Speaker 1:
[10:08] And are these key rings?
Speaker 4:
[10:10] They're key rings.
Speaker 1:
[10:10] They're kind of like little squares with a photo of the album cover.
Speaker 4:
[10:13] Yeah, they're key rings.
Speaker 6:
[10:14] Is Weezer big in Japan?
Speaker 4:
[10:16] Well, so they're, I mean, I don't know, but there was-
Speaker 3:
[10:20] I think Rivers would like to think he is.
Speaker 6:
[10:22] Sure. Right. Yes, that seems on game.
Speaker 4:
[10:26] Yeah. Right before we went, they'd announced that there were gotcha for Weezer albums and we hunted for them and we couldn't find them. I was like, I don't like an unfinished chapter in a book.
Speaker 3:
[10:37] Thank you so much, Heather.
Speaker 4:
[10:38] I love this.
Speaker 3:
[10:38] You're welcome. I'm glad I'm wearing glasses so nobody could see me get a little teared up. It's really nice.
Speaker 1:
[10:43] Really sweet.
Speaker 6:
[10:44] Fucking sobbing everybody.
Speaker 3:
[10:45] Yeah. So sad.
Speaker 1:
[10:49] Siobhan, have you spent any time in Japan?
Speaker 6:
[10:51] I have never been to Japan. I would love to go.
Speaker 1:
[10:53] I'd never been previously. Matt had never been previously. Rant, you've been in the past, but when you were younger.
Speaker 6:
[10:59] I don't think I've been.
Speaker 1:
[11:00] Yeah, you were a kid. So it's like a different context for it. But like I was just, you know, I'm not well traveled at all. In fact, I'd never crossed an ocean prior to this trip. But my expectations were like, I've heard it's cool. And then I got there. I was like, this is a fucking wonderland. I cannot believe how much better, like I heard this was good. I can't believe it's even better than that. I loved it. And what a great experience.
Speaker 4:
[11:23] Yeah, great experience.
Speaker 6:
[11:24] I'm excited. I really want to go, and this is just me being vapid and disgusting. I just want to go for the vintage shopping. Because there's like really strict laws around frauds and fakes there, which means that if you go vintage shopping, you're probably not going to get a fake, which is a problem.
Speaker 4:
[11:43] This was a vintage from a thrift store.
Speaker 6:
[11:45] It's beautiful. It's such a good condition. It's such a beautiful bag.
Speaker 4:
[11:49] Excellent condition. I, if you go, have saved maps for excellent vintage shopping in Japan, specifically in Tokyo. And I have it broken down my neighborhood. So if you want to do like a Koenji vintage shopping day, I have a Koenji vintage shopping map for you.
Speaker 6:
[12:07] That is incredible.
Speaker 3:
[12:08] I wish there was a law against frauds and fakes in Hollywood.
Speaker 1:
[12:13] How about in the White House? We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Matt, you and I also love to shop.
Speaker 3:
[12:22] So if everyone can see this.
Speaker 6:
[12:24] Well, I guess we're not supposed to be wearing them winds then. No.
Speaker 1:
[12:29] We also love to shop. We all love to shop here. And like I said, the vintage shopping is outstanding. I was like, this is incredible. I can spend all day here, but I got other stuff to do.
Speaker 4:
[12:38] Yep. Great place.
Speaker 6:
[12:39] Yeah. And it's great. Isn't it so great to have type A friends? Like, so many of my fucking friends, because I work in Hollywood and everybody has ADHD and I have ADHD, all of my friends are type B and very loosey goosey. And sometimes I just want a plan and I want to execute it on time. Hmm.
Speaker 4:
[13:01] Is that what type A means? I don't know what it means. Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[13:03] Just like organized. It really just means like on top of your shit. It's, I think, rude to type A people and too polite to type B people. Because type B people is just like flying by the seat of their pants, not making any plans.
Speaker 3:
[13:20] Oh yeah, you're looking at them.
Speaker 6:
[13:22] Letting things happen when they happen, rolling in 45 minutes late with an iced coffee.
Speaker 1:
[13:28] We had, Heather, I will say, because we're all together for pretty much all the trip, Heather had a pretty tight calendar in terms of the way things were scheduled out. You had a lot of prescribed activities at prescribed hours that we generally hit. It was awesome. I loved it. That was great. It got to experience so much of the two cities in a very compressed amount of time when we had a bunch of work obligations as well. But we did have a moment, Matt, where you and I were like, Heather, you were tired and we were just like, we could just hang out. You were kind of like, oh, yeah, we could just hang out. It was revelatory.
Speaker 3:
[14:06] Yeah, Heather's nickname the trip was Clutch because it was good to have somebody that knew what was going on. Because if I look, if you weren't there, I would have been all like, I guess I just go home. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I would have got to DisneySea like an idiot.
Speaker 1:
[14:21] I would have got to DisneySea like an idiot too. And I ran into some New Zealand tourists who were like, DisneySea was a nightmare because it was so crowded.
Speaker 3:
[14:27] We were there during the spring break. Oh. And I was like, hey, maybe if there's like a day, if there's like time to do it, we could go to a theme park.
Speaker 1:
[14:35] I was thinking the same thing. I was like, DisneySea, that's top of the list, right, gang? DisneySea and McDonald's. So those are the things we got to hit up.
Speaker 3:
[14:43] And we did do McDonald's.
Speaker 6:
[14:43] In America, you travel across the ocean for the first time in your life and you want to go to Disney and McDonald's.
Speaker 1:
[14:49] That's right.
Speaker 3:
[14:50] I like spending money stupidly.
Speaker 1:
[14:52] Not me.
Speaker 6:
[14:53] Matt, I want to buy European vintage goods in Japan and that's what makes me better than you.
Speaker 1:
[15:00] I do think about a thing we talked about at Doughboys, which was when McDonald's opened in the UK and then people were just throwing gherkins into the street. There was just a pile of, because people, they hate what we call pickles here on their burgers and it's a standard McDonald's feature. Yes. What an image. What a striking image.
Speaker 4:
[15:17] I want McDonald's for dinner. They've got the Huntrix meal right now. I fucked up. I haven't had it.
Speaker 1:
[15:21] I still haven't had it yet. We can get it for dinner, right?
Speaker 4:
[15:24] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[15:25] Let's get it for dinner tonight.
Speaker 4:
[15:26] Ruin my day.
Speaker 1:
[15:27] Siobhan, you are crowdfunding a movie, The Greatest Treasure in the World.
Speaker 6:
[15:31] Yes. I am making a movie with my good friends, Izzy Rowland and Alex Ferney. Izzy is co-writing it with me. Alex Ferney is directing and then me and Izzy are acting in it alongside a great ensemble of people. Nick Michaelis, Paul F. Tompkins, just so many. Look it up. It's just a real series of ringers. Julie Brist is in it. So many great people. It's about a guy called Rufus Wainwright Bobbins Jr. the third, who is the richest guy in Saltine, California, which is a central California town that nobody lives in. There's like two stop signs, three game stops, kind of a town. And instead of leaving a will like normal when he dies, he instead leaves a treasure hunt in his house for all of the people in the town who are closest to him.
Speaker 4:
[16:22] That's pretty great.
Speaker 6:
[16:22] Love that. So it's been really, really fun. We shot for a couple of days of like test footage, just to make sure that we could do it. It's a movie that is devised, mostly improvised, in the way that like Christopher Guest or Mike Lee or Robert Altman do their movies. All of the actors, we did character creation for all of the actors, sort of like D&D without the stats, but just told all of the actors the premise of the movie, and they came in with ideas. Some people came in like, here are five ideas, do you like one? And then some people came in of like, I sort of want to do this kind of thing, and then we helped them flesh it out, and then built the story around these characters that everybody created for themselves.
Speaker 1:
[17:10] I love that you use Mike Lee as a reference, because I do love Mike Lee, but you're also making me think of, thinking of going and seeing a movie called The Greatest Treasure in the World, starring you and directed by Fernie, that's like a taut family drama. Yes.
Speaker 6:
[17:24] Abortion for everyone.
Speaker 1:
[17:31] That's so cool. Yeah, I mean, that sounds awesome. And, you know, speaking of things that you have, that you're a part of, Dimension 20, I mean, I think, of course, so many people know you from, an actual play show. Now, podcast fans are notoriously intense, but actual play fans seem rabid. Like that seems like, like, like, and I don't necessarily mean the good or bad way. Yeah, but just like, it's intense.
Speaker 6:
[17:53] Some people are too intense, but I feel like that's true everywhere. You know, and I would rather have people be too intense in the way that actual play people are too intense than other sort of fandoms, because generally they're like too intense because they're excited and not too intense because I'm a girl and I'm doing it wrong, you know, which is a lot of the time in other things that I've been a part of. Right. It's nice.
Speaker 1:
[18:22] That's great.
Speaker 4:
[18:23] That's, you know, I haven't experienced that at all in gaming.
Speaker 2:
[18:27] I think it's probably fine.
Speaker 6:
[18:28] Dare you have an opinion.
Speaker 4:
[18:29] No, it's fine. Everything's normal here. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[18:32] Does anything stand out as like this moment in this campaign or this thing, you know, my character did or something that happened to my character in one particular campaign got a particularly strong reaction that stands with you?
Speaker 6:
[18:46] I don't know. Like I think that the biggest surprise is probably in the first season that we ever did because we just didn't know what the response would be. So even people responding to it as much as they did was surprising because we simply had no idea whether it would hit or not. We were making a bunch of different content and this was fucking content. We're making a bunch of different television programs. This is the one that hit. But I played, it's called Fantasy High. It's a bunch of high school students who is like Breakfast Club with Magic. I played a character with an anxiety disorder because I just thought that that would be interesting and we built a mechanic around having panic attacks. Just because as a writer, you're looking at like, okay, it's the Breakfast Club. What is a trope that exists that I haven't seen in a Breakfast Club-y type thing that feels like it's missing? That's where, not that I've never had a fucking panic attack because obviously I have. But it comes from a sort of rightily place of like, where are the tropes that exist but haven't been written yet? People responded to that in a way that, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by, but I was because again, we just did our first season and had no idea.
Speaker 3:
[20:13] You're making it in a vacuum sort of, so you don't really know what the response is until it's out.
Speaker 6:
[20:19] Exactly. It was nice because it feels antithetical in something like D&D to be like, I want a character with a disadvantage. But I think that also in storytelling, it's really useful to have a character have a disadvantage. And that's not something that's built really into D&D. There are flaws if you want them, but they tend to be like personal flaws, like a logical flaws. There's no mechanic behind flaws. And I sort of love to have that mechanic played out because it helped the story. You know, D&D is, it is a game, sort of, but it's not a game that you can win, really, except by having a good time with your friends. It's really much more of like a structure that you can use to improvise a story, and the dice are just a randomization factor. And like, I don't know, I think giving yourself a disadvantage is an advantage as a storyteller.
Speaker 1:
[21:20] That's part of what's so compelling about design-wise and from a narrative standpoint about like a disco Elysium is that the protagonist is so flawed and or like...
Speaker 6:
[21:30] Yeah, and there's three different ways you can play it, flaws-wise, so, you know, yeah, you can replay, which I have not, but I will eventually. I'm sure I will.
Speaker 1:
[21:39] Trade is a homophobic communist.
Speaker 3:
[21:43] It's an interesting type of guy.
Speaker 6:
[21:45] I mean, it picks those stats, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hates gay people, but as long as they're not workers.
Speaker 3:
[22:00] Sleep is so important to me, and I did not realize how much a mattress could change how well I slept until I switched to Lisa. I got the Sapira mattress, which is truly the Goldilocks of mattresses. It's a perfect mix of soft and springy. It feels so upscale that I'm always looking forward to bedtime. When I'm a little kid or something, bedtime couldn't get me there, would not want to go to sleep. Bedtime, no way. I want to stay up, I want to play, I want to see the sun come back up. But now, as an adult, bedtime, yeah, that's my favorite time of day, put me back to sleep, especially on my Lisa mattress. Lisa has a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep. Each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. From night one, you'll feel the difference. Premium materials that deliver serious comfort and full body support no matter how you sleep. Lisa mattresses are meticulously designed and assembled in the USA for exceptional quality. Plus, they back it all up with free shipping, easy returns and a 120 night sleep trial. You could sleep for 119 nights and then be like, I don't think so, and send it back. Lisa has been tested and awarded Best Hybrid Mattress by New York Times Wirecutter and is exclusively featured by West Elm as their go-to mattress partner. Lisa isn't just about sleep, it's about impact. They donate thousands of mattresses each year to those in need, while also partnering with organizations like CleanHub to help remove harmful plastic waste from our oceans. Go to lisa.com for 20% off mattresses plus get an extra $50 off with promo code Get Played, exclusive for our listeners. That's leesa.com promo code Get Played for 20% off mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Support our show and let them know we sent you after checkout. lisa.com promo code Get Played.
Speaker 5:
[23:54] I don't know about you, but I like keeping my money where I can see it. Otherwise, where's my money? I don't know where it went.
Speaker 4:
[24:01] It could be anywhere.
Speaker 5:
[24:03] My money's off having a good time without me.
Speaker 4:
[24:06] I'm alone, and I'm in a half-filled pool. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers also seem to like keeping my money, too. After years of overpaying for wireless, I got fed up with crazy high wireless bills, bogus fees, and free perks that actually cost more in the long run, and I switched to Mint Mobile. Look, it's a phone. If it works, that's all it does. Why would you pay more for it? It's a binary system. If you flip a light switch, it's not like, oh, there's one kind of light, and then there's another kind of light. So if one company is like, hey, I'm going to charge you $150 to turn on the light, and another company is like, I'll charge you $20. Why would you pay $150 to throw it? It's a phone. Stop overpaying for wireless just because that's how it's always been. Mint exists purely to fix that. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with a premium wireless plan starting at $15 a month. Why would you flip on the light switch for more money? All plans start with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Bring your own phone and number, activate with eSIM in minutes, and start saving immediately. No long-term contracts, no hassle. They're telling you you can use the light bulb that you already have. You know, they're not going to give you a shitty bulb. Just flip the switch. Ditch over brazed wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Minmobile for 15 bucks a month. Look, what are we doing? What are we doing? Why are we doing it this way? The phone either works or it doesn't work. Why are you spending money? It doesn't work more. Think about what we're doing. It's not like you're like buying a cemetery plot and they're only going to bury you a little bit. You're either being in the grave or you're not. You're either flipping the light switch and it turns on the light or it's not happening. Ring ring, hello, that's all it needs to do. Mom, I locked myself in my car again. Did you send the text? If it went through, that's it. Why would you pay $150 for that? We could only pay $15. We've gone insane and we have normalized it. And Mint Mobile is trying to show us the exit. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com/getplayed. That's mintmobile.com/getplayed. Upfront payment of $45 for a three month, five gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for three months only, then full price plan options available.
Speaker 2:
[26:50] Taxes and fees extra.
Speaker 4:
[26:52] See Mint Mobile for details.
Speaker 5:
[26:54] Flip the switch.
Speaker 3:
[26:57] After a long day of work, I'm driving home, I'm tired, I'm exhausted, and then, uh-oh, hunger strikes, me hungry. I drive all the way home, I open the dang fridge, there's nothing in there but ketchup and a roll of film, and I can't eat the ketchup, and I won't eat the film again. So I open up an app on my phone, I'm about to spend $30 on a dang burrito, like a fool. What the hell? But for me, eating healthy wasn't a willpower problem, it was a setup problem, user error they call it. That is, until I found Factor. With Factor, I'm hitting all my nutrition goals this season without the planning, grocery runs or the cooking. For example, I mean all sorts of good stuff thanks to Factor. I'm eating all sorts of good stuff with Factor, and my meals, let me just tell you, there's a variety, every day is something different. I'm talking shredded chicken taco bowl. I'm going to be shredded after I eat that. Smoky Gouda mac and shredded beef. I'm going to be shredded after that. Jalapeno, lime, cheddar chicken. You could probably shred the chicken too if you want it, and then eat that, and then you can be shredded after that. Louisiana shrimp, I'd leave that as is. I wouldn't mess with that. The structural integrity of the shrimp would not stand to shredding. Factor has meals built around your goals, whether that's weight loss, overall nutrition, more protein, or GLP-1 support for strength and workout recovery. Now, let me just tell you something about that real quick.
Speaker 5:
[28:33] You know I'm going to be needing that.
Speaker 3:
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Speaker 1:
[30:19] Let's hear those cat names.
Speaker 3:
[30:20] Okay, so my two cats were Hurley and Sawyer, my old boys, who are her, all four of these cats are long past.
Speaker 6:
[30:27] Yes, I agree.
Speaker 3:
[30:28] But Hurley and Sawyer, and then her cats were Beauty and Metallico.
Speaker 1:
[30:32] Oh man.
Speaker 6:
[30:33] Beauty I never met, but Metallico was an angel.
Speaker 3:
[30:36] Okay, Metallico was really great, aka Mr. Boy, shout out to Mr. Boy.
Speaker 6:
[30:39] Metallico that she named when she was like, I think eight or nine years old.
Speaker 3:
[30:43] Yeah, just the actual funniest name I've ever heard for an animal. Beauty was really great. So maybe my question was gonna be, did you ever go over and see all four of those cats? But if you never met Beauty, there's a good chance no, because Beauty was basically like a dead cat when I met her. She was the oldest animal I've ever seen.
Speaker 6:
[31:10] A tiny baby just born yesterday.
Speaker 3:
[31:12] Yes, but was I think Izzy's first pet. So there was like a, you know, like a like, it's hard to say goodbye. It's hard to know when to say goodbye.
Speaker 6:
[31:20] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[31:20] I remember Beauty just being like, this cat is like a cobweb.
Speaker 6:
[31:24] Yes, just like coughing up dust.
Speaker 3:
[31:26] Yes.
Speaker 6:
[31:27] Learning English so it can ask to die.
Speaker 3:
[31:30] Loved me and loved to piss on my bed. Her little sweetie, those cats are great. And her new cats are also great.
Speaker 6:
[31:39] Oh, yes. Digit and...
Speaker 4:
[31:41] Metallica too.
Speaker 6:
[31:43] Tom Thumb I think is the second one.
Speaker 3:
[31:45] I think that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[31:47] So you and Heather have played Fortnite together in the past.
Speaker 6:
[31:50] We have. I think our play styles are different because I view it as a fun hang with my friends where we fuck around and Heather is like, this is my job and I take it very seriously.
Speaker 4:
[32:01] I'm trying to defend the island.
Speaker 6:
[32:03] Yes. I think the last time we played together, I logged on and said, hey, just so you know, I just took an edible and Heather went, why would you play like that?
Speaker 3:
[32:19] Responding as if it were like drinking and driving.
Speaker 4:
[32:24] I'll see what I can do. I got your six. I'll do my best to take care of you, man.
Speaker 2:
[32:30] We'll get through this.
Speaker 1:
[32:33] So, I'm just trying to have fun and you're doing it like you're trying to win a playoff game.
Speaker 6:
[32:36] The way that I play is like, mostly I play with our friend Anne Lane and we do things like, okay, when there were chickens in the game, we were like, let's both pick up a chicken. The first person who drops the chicken loses. It's not really about winning the game. It's just a game for us. There was something that we were doing for a while, which was so horrible, which is squatting up with people, finding one person in another squad, knocking them down, carrying them to a tiny little secret room that we found and then playing music at them. They couldn't get out because we'd close the door. You can't do that when you're down. So, that's how I play Fortnite. It's nice when you win, but it's not important to me.
Speaker 4:
[33:20] There's a new, first off, it was so much fun to play with you guys. So, if I gave the impression that I was serious, it's because I am, but I also had fun.
Speaker 6:
[33:28] Anytime, anytime you want to play, I will play.
Speaker 4:
[33:31] And I do feel like they've taken out a lot of the fun stuff. Like it is becoming a more serious game in general. There aren't chickens, there aren't warthogs.
Speaker 6:
[33:40] I miss the boats, I miss like the witch's brooms.
Speaker 4:
[33:44] It's less silly than it used to be. But also currently, there is a mechanic in the game that allows you to resurrect yourself if you get downed.
Speaker 6:
[33:54] Yes.
Speaker 4:
[33:55] And the only way to prevent somebody from toggling that is that you have to carry them. Otherwise they can hit the button and begin to raise themself. And that's also, if you want them to have to suffer through like a music performance, you have to have one of your squad members pick them up and then everybody else does the music.
Speaker 6:
[34:18] It's playing a mashup of Green Day and Charlie XCX.
Speaker 4:
[34:24] I've been playing as Rick Prime is the newest Rick and Morty skin. So I've been playing as Rick for the first time. And so we'll pick up whoever we've downed and I'll just sing Rick and Morty songs at them. And I'm like, this is taking a fan away from the show. If this person likes the show.
Speaker 6:
[34:43] Rick and Morty fans are so toxic.
Speaker 1:
[34:47] They hate Rick and Morty driving away even further. Oh yeah, yeah. That's like, it's, I haven't played as much Fortnite, although I've enjoyed the amount that I've played. And I will also say your experience playing with Heather mirrors my and Matt experience with Heather, which is that she's immediately sick of our shit. But which also is kind of how we interact in real life. So it's fine, I'm conditioned. What it reminds me of is, and I never really played competitive Smash, like at a tournament level or whatever, but I like watching it. But I don't like playing it as much because you remove all the chaos in front of it because there's no items. Like it's like items off. And I get that, I understand that we're moving that element of randomness, but that randomness is what distinguishes it from other fighters, that it has this, you can just end up with a beam sword or a pokeball and it completely shifts the balance of power.
Speaker 6:
[35:40] I never played Smash really, I never played it as a kid, and then every social situation at which it is being played, it's always suggested by somebody who played it just religiously as a child and is so good. And I'm like, who am I? What am I doing? I'm dead. And what am I doing? Oh, I'm dead. And I just, I have not been given the capacity to learn it. And also frankly, I don't think you can learn it as an adult because there's not really that much to hang your hat on.
Speaker 1:
[36:10] It's a kind of thing that would frustrate me in the, because it can play as a party game. But then you'd end up with guys who are like really, I'm saying guys, pointedly.
Speaker 6:
[36:19] It is guys, it's guys.
Speaker 1:
[36:20] Who are really competitive about it. And then you're playing with some friends, some of whom have maybe played a little bit, but haven't played since like Melee or Brawl or whatever. And then some of the people maybe haven't played at all. And you're still, you're picking your main and you're trying to win as hard as possible. Like, I don't know, just turn items on, play a random character you don't usually play and just sort of mess around a little bit.
Speaker 6:
[36:42] Right, it's the semi-pro at the dodgeball tournament kind of vibe.
Speaker 1:
[36:45] Calm the fuck down.
Speaker 6:
[36:46] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[36:47] There's a guy, well, I'll be careful, but there's like a guy in, I play in a baseball league and a guy on one of the other teams played college baseball.
Speaker 6:
[36:57] Yes, I know who this is.
Speaker 3:
[36:58] I'm like, you can't do that.
Speaker 7:
[37:00] It feels unfair.
Speaker 3:
[37:02] Yeah, you're actually just good. I'm sure he's nice, I don't know him.
Speaker 6:
[37:05] Yeah, sure.
Speaker 3:
[37:05] But I'm like, you can't, he's throwing heat and scaring people on my team.
Speaker 6:
[37:09] Yes, yeah, the person could physically injure somebody.
Speaker 3:
[37:13] Yeah, one of my teammates did take a ball to the ribs and we got the GoPro from the UMP. And I saw it happen in real life, seeing the video, somehow scarier than, it was so scary.
Speaker 6:
[37:26] Jesus.
Speaker 3:
[37:26] He just takes like a, cause you like, like, you know, like.
Speaker 6:
[37:30] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[37:30] It knocked him out, some wind out of him for a second.
Speaker 6:
[37:32] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[37:33] Yeah, really scary stuff.
Speaker 1:
[37:34] Do you, just as a gamer, just in terms of taste, do you gravitate more towards like a multiplayer or single player? Are you a little from Columby, a little from Columby?
Speaker 6:
[37:41] Yeah, I'm more of a single player person or like, maybe like a two person. The thing that I like about Fortnite is, you're not interacting with strangers vocally. I think especially as a fucking girl gamer. I don't wanna have a 14 year old yelling slurs at me that I have no interest in that whatsoever.
Speaker 4:
[38:05] So you didn't dabble in, I think it was called Delulu, which was proximity chat on the island.
Speaker 6:
[38:11] Absolutely not.
Speaker 4:
[38:12] Fucking nightmare.
Speaker 6:
[38:13] Yeah, I would imagine.
Speaker 4:
[38:15] Yeah, you could hear and speak to everybody.
Speaker 6:
[38:18] Yeah, absolutely not.
Speaker 3:
[38:19] You saying Delulu proximity chat on the island just like activated my brain somehow. Those are insane words.
Speaker 1:
[38:27] It was one of those things where like, you know, again, it's like how bad social media is now when we saw all of this happening on like Facebook and Twitter like 15 to 20 years ago. It's like the signs existed back in the early days of Xbox Live. Like once like you get attached like a camera to Uno, it's like the first thing people were doing was showing pictures of the, we're like sharing pictures of their dicks, you know? It's like we knew this sort of thing existed and there's still, it feels like the screening tools are still so archaic, so minimal, you know?
Speaker 3:
[38:58] Yeah, Uno reverse, here's my dick. Oh, you show me yours? I'll show you mine. Now what?
Speaker 6:
[39:05] Stack 15 dicks.
Speaker 3:
[39:09] They ought to be unique angles.
Speaker 1:
[39:13] Do you, I'm curious as someone who, you know, as part of Dimension 20, and you're doing this kind of role playing so frequently, like did you at all engage with Baldur's Gate 3?
Speaker 6:
[39:27] Yeah, I loved Baldur's Gate 3, and that I want to do a group, like multiplayer play through of that. It felt just different enough from D&D for me that I knew what all of the spells were already, so I didn't have to really look anything up, but it didn't feel like playing D&D.
Speaker 1:
[39:49] Larian did, like it's a homebrewed rule set. It's like a little, and they've done more with subsequent patches in terms of just like adding new subclasses that don't exist.
Speaker 6:
[39:57] Here's one thing that I loved that I think that should be in D&D is that you can cast two spells in a round, which pisses me off about D&D, because let me do my spell management. If I want to spend all my big spells in one round, fucking let me, motherfuckers. Like, don't tell me what to do.
Speaker 3:
[40:13] We have to be really careful. We don't know who's gonna get mad from this into the job, so like you can't say stuff like that.
Speaker 6:
[40:21] If I have two fifth level spells and I want to use them both in one round and one is a bonus action and one is a fucking regular action, let me do it. And then I've spent my fifth level spells and then I don't have any fifth level spells. That's on me.
Speaker 1:
[40:33] Leave me alone. It is kind of awesome when you have like, you've just played your turns perfectly, you got your positioning right and then you like, I've got Gail, my husband, in a turn and I can just, a barrage of fireballs. I can just unleash a few of them and just like clear the board. It's like, oh, I feel, I like that I'm not restrained by the rule set.
Speaker 6:
[40:56] Yeah, I also did not play it well the first time around. In a way that like, like I exited the shadow realm or whatever the fuck it's called, the underground.
Speaker 1:
[41:06] The Underdark.
Speaker 6:
[41:07] Underdark, thank you. And had a cut scene of like, oh well, we didn't fix this place, onto the next. And I went, oh, I could have fixed it.
Speaker 3:
[41:17] I know at least one person, you played it better.
Speaker 6:
[41:28] What happened? I know everybody else has had, but I haven't had, let me hear it.
Speaker 3:
[41:32] She basically became the one known terrorist in the world. And like every place she went, everyone was mad at her.
Speaker 1:
[41:38] She was the person who gets the interaction when you go to Minthara and she tells you her devious plans. And then you're like, I already did it.
Speaker 4:
[41:46] No, no, look, I've said it on the show before. Here's what happened. I played a thief in the first town or whatever the fucking town is with the two factions that are like fighting against each other, like wood elves and somebody. I don't even know who those people are.
Speaker 6:
[42:02] And how the tieflings?
Speaker 1:
[42:03] Yeah, it's the tieflings.
Speaker 3:
[42:04] Sort of part of the problem.
Speaker 4:
[42:05] Okay, hold on. Maybe I would have known more about the story if everybody hadn't been attacking me. There's a box or two in that town that are like secluded and I'm a thief, I'm role playing. I'm like, oh, I gotta get in these boxes. I get in the boxes and some fucking person woke up and they were like, get out of those fucking boxes. And I didn't mean to kill that person. They attacked me, I defended myself. What I didn't realize is that that set off a chain incredible reaction in the town where both tiefling and druids were attacking me and I was executing each wave that came at me and I killed.
Speaker 6:
[42:54] That's simply so many people.
Speaker 4:
[42:56] I killed everybody in the town.
Speaker 6:
[43:00] And the children as well.
Speaker 7:
[43:02] That's children as well.
Speaker 6:
[43:03] Yes, and the kids.
Speaker 4:
[43:05] And then everybody I came to in any part of the story was just like, it's you.
Speaker 3:
[43:12] And ran at me.
Speaker 4:
[43:14] I killed them. Which then just made, it just was a not like, there was a tiefling character who I didn't even know was a.
Speaker 3:
[43:23] A tiefling character.
Speaker 4:
[43:26] Carlac.
Speaker 6:
[43:26] Wait, you didn't even get Carlac as a companion?
Speaker 5:
[43:29] She killed Carlac.
Speaker 6:
[43:30] You killed Carlac?
Speaker 4:
[43:31] Because Carlac saw me and went, you and ran at me and I went, oh my God, killed Carlac.
Speaker 6:
[43:38] Heather, if you want to do a multi-play, a play through of Baldur's Gate 3 anytime.
Speaker 3:
[43:43] I'm going to go ahead and just tell you, you shouldn't do that ever.
Speaker 6:
[43:49] I will casually request you do it better.
Speaker 4:
[43:56] There's somebody in some mine later who's like, hey, I'm going to give you a chest. Don't look in the chest. But I had already killed everybody at the chest and didn't know it was a thing. And so when I, again, because every encounter was immediately coming to kill me.
Speaker 6:
[44:18] So you didn't have any social encounters whatsoever?
Speaker 4:
[44:20] I had nothing, no social encounters of any kind.
Speaker 6:
[44:23] And you didn't go, let me go back one save point.
Speaker 4:
[44:27] No, because it's not role playing. And also I was like, at some point, this is going to stop. Like at some point, you will leave the-
Speaker 6:
[44:34] Uh-huh, so like the area.
Speaker 4:
[44:36] Yeah, the area of effect.
Speaker 6:
[44:38] The story of your war crimes won't follow you around.
Speaker 4:
[44:41] But at that point, I had killed so many people that anybody with a relationship in the game had triggered whoever their other person was-
Speaker 6:
[44:48] Astonishing.
Speaker 4:
[44:49] To kill me.
Speaker 6:
[44:50] And what a game that it lets that happen, yeah. Really tough for you to say.
Speaker 4:
[44:54] You shouldn't let it happen.
Speaker 6:
[44:56] Or at least somebody should be like, here's the chance to redeem yourself.
Speaker 4:
[44:59] Yeah, no, but instead, like you get to that girl in the mine and she's like, hey, there's a chest, I need you to go get this chest from me, promise not to look in it. And then immediately after that line of dialogue, she says, wait a minute, oh my god, you've already looked in it, and then she attacked me. I was like, how could I have possibly known that this chest I found hours ago was going to upset you so much?
Speaker 6:
[45:24] Incredible.
Speaker 1:
[45:26] I have not massacred the Tieflings in any of my playthroughs. I cannot bring myself to do it, but I did hear from a friend who just wanted to see what would happen, that part of that experience is that when you have the cut scene afterwards where you're at camp, Shadowheart, who's the key NPC in the game, is so traumatized that she gets drunk.
Speaker 6:
[45:49] Incredible. But I think that that's the only way for you to trigger one of the companions.
Speaker 1:
[45:54] Right, yes. I think the only way you can get Minthara and Act 1 is by that.
Speaker 4:
[45:59] Well, I don't know. Gale wasn't a part of my party.
Speaker 3:
[46:04] You killed her immediately.
Speaker 6:
[46:05] You didn't have Gale and you didn't have Karla.
Speaker 4:
[46:08] I didn't have Karla. I didn't have Gale. I had Shadowheart. I had the vampire. And I had the big angry lady. Who was her name? Lae'zel. Yeah, that's all I had.
Speaker 6:
[46:20] Did you romance any of them?
Speaker 4:
[46:22] No. They were nothing. They did not want to talk to me.
Speaker 6:
[46:27] You are right.
Speaker 2:
[46:28] This is the worst anybody's ever done with a skate tree.
Speaker 1:
[46:32] I will say, I think it's... I wouldn't have even said it was save scumming, but I admire you not going back to save points and just seeing what happens. And mostly I admire your full commitment to role playing as Heather Anne Campbell. So we're going to be talking about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes in a little bit, but this game naturally, it invites comparisons I think most recently to Blueprints. But it's also...
Speaker 6:
[47:01] And I want to be honest that I have not fucking finished Lorelei yet. I've been trying to finish it this week. I have six fucking puzzle boxes left. I say this with so much love and admiration for this game. It is so hard. I love every second of it. I have so many. I forgot to bring my stupid notes. My phone is filled with pictures. Oh, yeah. Because I was like, I can't write this maze picture down, but I need to see it and I can't be toggling between these screens. Let me have it on my phone as I'm wandering around.
Speaker 1:
[47:28] I also have not finished it, but I do really admire its design. And it reminds me of Blueprints, which I didn't quite connect with.
Speaker 6:
[47:36] It's fun to get two really good, big, chunky puzzle games in one year.
Speaker 1:
[47:41] We had a weird experience with Blueprints where I don't think any of us really connected with it. I really admired its design. I'm just so impressed by the solo dev put this together. And it's clearly genius and it's going to inspire a new sub-genre. But I found it to be such a time sink that I went from loving it and being obsessed with it to being exhausted by it.
Speaker 6:
[48:05] Yeah, I mean, Blueprints, the struggle with it was, well, I need to get to the garage. I haven't spawned to the garage.
Speaker 1:
[48:11] Right.
Speaker 6:
[48:12] So I guess I have to keep playing it until I get to the garage. I don't know what to do.
Speaker 3:
[48:16] But yeah, my thing with it was, I think this is mostly all of our thing with it was, you get to the big thing that it's pointing you to, the secret room, you actually then do do it.
Speaker 6:
[48:27] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[48:29] And then it's like, okay, there's actually more now.
Speaker 6:
[48:31] There's actually step one.
Speaker 5:
[48:32] And it's like, no, no, there's not.
Speaker 6:
[48:33] And that's sort of where I ended with Blueprints, is I think I got like two or three of the next levels of keys, and then went, I have a life. I can't do this. I'm putting job hours into this game.
Speaker 1:
[48:46] But we still gave it our Game of the Year, because it was just like, it's incredible.
Speaker 6:
[48:52] But I think Lorelei beat it for me in terms of player enjoyment. Wow.
Speaker 1:
[48:57] We'll talk about that in just one second. But before we get to that game, let's talk about some other video games we're playing right now. It's time for the question we ask each and every week. What are you playing?
Speaker 5:
[49:07] What are you playing tonight? Ask me, the Resident Evil Merchant, and I will ask my friends and our guests what they're playing in the video games or in the other aspect of their life. It's unlimited. You can say whatever you want. So.
Speaker 3:
[49:24] That's new.
Speaker 1:
[49:25] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[49:26] That's a new addendum.
Speaker 6:
[49:27] Oh, you don't do this normally? I was like, oh, I guess Heather's...
Speaker 3:
[49:29] Well, the Resident Evil Merchant is a fixture of the show. I was saying, the addendum that the Resident Evil Merchant gave that you could say whatever you want. That's new information.
Speaker 4:
[49:40] Yeah, that's new information for you, buddy.
Speaker 6:
[49:41] Wow, that's a different Baldur's Gate 3 cut scene.
Speaker 5:
[49:45] Well, I want everybody to know that, you know, you're not pressured to do video games. You can do anything. Your life is unlimited.
Speaker 1:
[49:57] Yeah, I will say, I appreciate the freedom that you're offering. I do think, for the sake of the podcast, that at least we, the hosts, should be making an effort to talk about something video game related to so much of our audience's video game enthusiasts.
Speaker 5:
[50:10] All right. Well, that's your rule, not mine.
Speaker 1:
[50:14] I know, but I'm just saying, like, because it feels like what you were suggesting is that I could talk about a plate of spaghetti.
Speaker 5:
[50:20] Yeah. Nick Wiger, what are you eating?
Speaker 1:
[50:23] No, I'm not going to talk about a plate of spaghetti.
Speaker 5:
[50:25] Oh, I mean, you're playing with it.
Speaker 1:
[50:27] I was not playing with my food. No, I don't have time for that anymore, the grown man.
Speaker 3:
[50:31] I don't have time for it anymore.
Speaker 1:
[50:33] I was a kid. Yeah, I'll play with my food.
Speaker 3:
[50:35] I guess you had all the time in the world.
Speaker 1:
[50:36] Yeah, maybe I should play with my food again, like a pan moment. I think it is a, but again, I appreciate the freedom that you're offering us, the leeway.
Speaker 5:
[50:48] All right, well, you can talk about a video game, but anybody can talk about anything they want.
Speaker 1:
[50:52] Okay, great.
Speaker 5:
[50:54] Nick Wiger, what are you playing?
Speaker 1:
[50:56] Wow, thank you so much for asking, Resident Evil Merchant. I am going to talk about Soul Sesto. This is a game that was made by a three-person dev team and version 1.0 was released on April 10th of this year. It rules. I'm playing the shit out of it. It's so fun. It's like a pure gameplay, almost in slot machine territory sort of design, which I am just like, because I'm very busy right now with work, it's more what I kind of would need with my gaming time as opposed to something like Lorelei, which as much as I admire Lorelei.
Speaker 6:
[51:25] No, it takes a lot of brain energy.
Speaker 1:
[51:26] It really does. It's exhausting. Whereas this one is like, there are some decisions to make. It's definitely like playing a Sleigh of the Spire or something like that or playing a Bellatro, but you can kind of get more into a flow state and be a little bit less precious about each individual move. So pretty much what is is a tactical rogue light in a grim dark fantasy world. You pick your class for each run, peasant, knight, wizard, what have you. And that determines your abilities and survivability as you might expect. But each combat screen, screen by screen, is a four by four grid as you descend down this dungeon. Some squares have enemies, some squares have traps, some squares have treasure, some squares have like other bonuses. All you can select is which row your character goes in, not which square. So it's like four, so like if you got four squares in one row, you can select that row and there's a 25% chance you'll land in any individual square. So part of it is figuring out the way everything is apportioned of like, this row has three enemies and one treasure chest, and this row below it has two treasure chests, one health item and one enemy. Well, it's just better odds for me to get something good if I landed this one as opposed to getting a health penalty by taking the other row. So part of that is just like picking your spots because you would make a certain number of moves to descend to the next level. But also as you progress, you pick up stat boosts and boons that can alter the odds. And that's a big part of the fun of it. It was like, okay, so I'm getting this boon that's going to increase the odds of me getting a treasure chest, but also increase the odds of me hitting a monster that has magic abilities opposed to physical abilities. So that means I have to up my magic stat to counter that. But it's just kind of a push pull that becomes really, really gratifying as you progress. And also because it's randomized, there's still times when you're like, I feel like I did everything wrong and I lost, but the runs are so, so fast that it never feels all that punishing. I also like, the way the gold, the way the meta progression is, the currency that you use to upgrade all runs in a roguelite sense, you have gold, but you have to decide to send some of your gold up to the surface, which means you can't use it at shops in game. And that I kind of like too, is how much I'm going to invest in future runs, but also kind of a sandbag my current run a little bit, based on how deep I am in it. It depends on how much I'm going to invest. I like being able to make that decision. I love the aesthetic. It's like VGA graphics, like a 90s PC game as opposed to kind of the 16-bit pixel art, like Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Mega Drive. Look, I feel like we often get with these sort of retro games. It feels a little bit distinct from that. It also animates so smoothly, like so more smoothly than a PC game of the 90s would, so we kind of end up in this uncanny valley sort of like, this is a reference to a thing that never really existed. But I just think it's such an impressive design, and it's the kind of thing where it's like, like a Vampire Survivors, it's not that type of game. It's a completely different type of game, but is the sort of thing of like, oh, I didn't know this could be an approach you could take, and it's connecting with me so strongly, and it's just, it's got really good boss fights as well that like retain the core gameplay, but also just change it up just enough where it feels fully distinct. I think it's rad. The other thing I will say is that it's a game that's filled with little, like, I didn't even want to call them Easter eggs, because they are things that you can use for your run, but they're things that you kind of have to like pay a little bit of close attention to. Like, there's a flute that you can craft, which has some songs, which are there, there's kind of arcane ways that you can discover what those are. But also like, when you're at the shop with the merchant, you can tug on the merchant's nose.
Speaker 5:
[55:16] Don't do that.
Speaker 1:
[55:18] I'm not saying the Resident Evil merchant. I'm saying the merchant in this particular game, I would never tug on your nose.
Speaker 3:
[55:23] Oh wait, but also, I've got your nose.
Speaker 5:
[55:26] No, no!
Speaker 1:
[55:27] Matt, Matt, that's not cool.
Speaker 3:
[55:28] Maybe I'll give it back?
Speaker 5:
[55:31] Help! Okay, I'll give it back.
Speaker 1:
[55:34] I'm sorry.
Speaker 5:
[55:35] I'm sorry. This is the scariest moment of my life.
Speaker 1:
[55:39] The shopkeeper, we'll call him, the shopkeeper you can tug on his nose, and then that can stun him, so you can like steal one item, and you can do that once per run. So deciding tactically like maybe I'm gonna do that like very early on when I don't have any money, and just to give myself an early booster, maybe I'm gonna wait on that to do it later. I did, there's all sorts of shit like that that you discover that are kind of emerging as you play. That's just makes it feel deeper for a game that is, again, such a slot machine design at a fundamental level. I think it's a rad game. It's maybe my favorite game so far this year. Whoa! Anyway, that's what I've been playing. Heather, what are you playing?
Speaker 4:
[56:16] All right, let me tell you. I have engaged in no combat this week. It was accidental, but also based on the amount of time that I had to play video games. And my primary video game remains, Pocopia. I believe I am at the final task of the game. Wow. Before it opens up and just becomes build and renew the world. I think I'm at the final story task. Still loving the game, still dreaming about it every night. When I go to sleep, I'm dreaming in blocks. Fantastic, fantastic game. By far, my game of the year so far is Pocopia. But additionally to that, I recently, inspired by Matt, the franchise, Apodaca, purchased an Ein Thor, which is a dual screen, Android based retro gaming device, which everybody just loads with emulators and you can play, you know, all the way up to, I guess, PS3 level emulation on it.
Speaker 3:
[57:20] And you can play, it can handle some light steam stuff too.
Speaker 4:
[57:23] Yeah, it can handle, you can like play Balletro on it or you can play, you know, and you can also play Android games on it. You can play Fortnite on it if you want.
Speaker 1:
[57:34] Is there an analog stick or a touchpad or something on that, some bitch?
Speaker 4:
[57:36] There's two analog sticks, both with backlit LED glowing if you want, four face buttons, two triggers on the back, touchscreen on both the top and bottom screens.
Speaker 1:
[57:48] Got it.
Speaker 4:
[57:49] Really, really lovely device.
Speaker 3:
[57:50] Yeah, mine has not arrived.
Speaker 4:
[57:53] Well, so Matt ordered his strict from the company and they've had some shipping issues and his has just gotten a label.
Speaker 1:
[58:03] I know this is not what you're trying to do. You look like you're sulking right now.
Speaker 3:
[58:07] Okay, mine's just mine.
Speaker 6:
[58:08] Matt's crying again. This is the second time this episode that Matt is sobbing.
Speaker 4:
[58:11] You got keychains though.
Speaker 3:
[58:13] I do have keychains.
Speaker 6:
[58:14] Oh, he's happy again. He's happy. There we go.
Speaker 4:
[58:16] But Matt was like, he's talked this thing up for a while. I've been watching videos of it on TikTok and various social media. And so I went and looked on eBay and I was like, I'll just get one off fucking eBay. It had a slight markup, but it was also like, no scratches, like new, et cetera. And I was like, sure, why not? So I get it off eBay, it arrives the next day, it is sealed in box. So it's not even unscratched, it is unplayed. I start setting it up. What a pleasure it is to set up an emulating device.
Speaker 3:
[58:49] That's, I would say, more than half the fun.
Speaker 4:
[58:52] So great. But also, I don't want to dox this website because I'm terrified of anybody ever taking it down. But there is a website that has an enormous library of games that were never released in America, fan-translated, as like functioning ISOs and ROMs. It also has undubbs. So like, if you want to play Final Fantasy X with the original voices, you can play it undubbed but subtitled. Which is great because there's a huge number of like early 2000s to 2015 games where the level of voice acting just wasn't what you expect out of a game today.
Speaker 1:
[59:39] The domestic release of Final Fantasy X, I guess I definitely played it in English the first time at least. But it did not have Japanese voices on the disc. No, it does not.
Speaker 4:
[59:47] It does not. And the only way you can play it with those Japanese voices is to download an undubbed rom. So I got that. I got Final Fantasy XII undubbed. I got The World Ends With You undubbed. A lot of these are games that I already have that my only wish is that I get to play it on a Japanese language track. However, I also downloaded, and this is the game I'd like to speak lightly about, a game that has been a sort of like a grail off in the distance for a while. It's a game called Boku no Natsuyasumi 2. That's my summer vacation. It is a game on the PlayStation 2 that was never released here, a sequel to a game on the PlayStation 1, where the game is, you are a young boy in 1975, rural Japan. It is your summer vacation. You have 30 days and that is it. That's the fucking game. Right. So you walk around your town, you play, you talk to people, you create relationships, no goals, no fucking like combat, no ghost hunting you. It is just a vibes experience. As far as I can tell so far in the game, and the vibes are so fucking impeccable. Like you start playing it and you feel melancholy, but also like freedom, you know? Like just being, you're in your room and the, I think it's your aunt picks you up from the train station, brings you to your room. She leaves and you're just goal-less. There's no list of shit to do. Like I go into the menu screen and one of the options is take off your shirt. And so I like take off my shirt and I'm in my swim trunks. I'm like, I guess there's a swimming place somewhere. Like you can go like look at the books on the shelves. It's like, it's a life simulator. And it is wonderful.
Speaker 6:
[61:43] Like a sleep no more.
Speaker 4:
[61:45] Yeah, except.
Speaker 6:
[61:46] You just go through the, except it's not Macbeth.
Speaker 2:
[61:48] It's just a normal day.
Speaker 4:
[61:50] Yeah, it's just a normal day. And yeah, so far I'm really loving it. It's living up to my expectations and hopes of it as being a vibes experience. And the sort of barricade to me playing this game previously is I always really, really liked to play on original hardware. And so I was waiting to get a optical drive emulator for the PlayStation 2, play it on a CRT. And finally I was like, you know what? I'm never gonna fucking play this game if I wait for this long to do it. So I did, it runs perfectly on the Einthor. It's gorgeous. It's wonderful. So that's the game that I am playing.
Speaker 1:
[62:29] I think you said it, but I missed it. What platform was it on originally?
Speaker 4:
[62:32] It was on PlayStation 2 originally. And it has sort of like Resident Evil style fixed camera angles. So when you're going through the house, like sometimes you're next to the kids, sometimes you're like up in the corner watching him like run through the kitchen. It's great. It's great, great, great.
Speaker 1:
[62:48] That's right.
Speaker 4:
[62:48] Boku no Natsuyasumi 2.
Speaker 1:
[62:51] Siobhan, what are you playing if there's anything beyond Lorelei these days?
Speaker 6:
[62:55] Yeah, I've been slowly working my way through Ghost of Yotai. I'm playing it on story mode, which is the first time I've ever done that for a game. But I was like tired and stressed out. And also my friend is the main character and I didn't want to kill her. But it's such a beautiful game and the writing is so good. And I think the acting is excellent from everybody. That playing it on story mode has just been like really soothing and then there's a two player Rusty Lake game that I'm looking up the name of it now that I just played with my sister and then immediately deleted off my phone and now I don't remember the name. So one second.
Speaker 1:
[63:37] Did everyone, because I forget where everyone ended up being on Ghost of Yote. Heather, you finished it.
Speaker 6:
[63:43] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[63:44] Yeah, I also finished it.
Speaker 6:
[63:45] I just started act three. So I'm like most of the way through.
Speaker 1:
[63:49] Rachelle, did you ever play Yote?
Speaker 7:
[63:51] I did start it. Yeah, but I didn't get very far.
Speaker 1:
[63:54] Got it.
Speaker 6:
[63:55] I just thought it was so pretty.
Speaker 1:
[63:56] Yeah, it's gorgeous.
Speaker 6:
[63:58] A lot of it is just like, let me just get on a horse and gasp every time I crest a hill.
Speaker 1:
[64:05] I mentioned this in the podcast before, but I had a moment of clarity during the pandemic that genuinely led me to change my life in a pretty profound way, which was I was playing Ghost of Tsushima and I was riding the horse. I was scrolling on my phone and I was like, why am I looking at my phone right now when I'm riding a horse in a video game? It's beautiful and I'm having fun.
Speaker 6:
[64:30] You could be playing your flute while riding the horse in your video game.
Speaker 1:
[64:33] Exactly.
Speaker 6:
[64:34] Following a fox around.
Speaker 1:
[64:36] After that, I genuinely changed my phone usage for good. I started instituting. I read a book about getting off of a phone addiction and I still do phone free Sundays. That was a practice that again was instituted because of horse riding in a samurai game.
Speaker 6:
[64:55] I mean, it's just a beautifully. For me, just the right level of open world in that the rail, you know where the rails are.
Speaker 3:
[65:03] Yes.
Speaker 6:
[65:03] You can see the rails and you can go back to them at any time. The subway train will come around again. Yeah, for sure. Something like a Fallout or a Skyrim. I've never finished either of those games because I'm just like aimless and you can do too much. And then I'm like, I got to adopt this child. But there's another child. Why am I only allowed to one child? So this rusty late game is called The Past Within. And the reason that I particularly loved it is that you're playing it at the same time as somebody else. It is a mandatory two-player game. But you're not like logged in together. So you're playing it basically two different time periods. And then giving each other the information over the phone. And I loved it. It was like really like a... I love all of the Rusty Lake escape room games. They don't make many things like Lorelei. Like maybe you get one a year. And so like I play a lot of puzzle games and the Rusty Lake guys really churn those fuckers out. Complimentary. I love every single one of them. I play all of them. But The Past Within was so fun just because you're doing the puzzles, but it's also about efficient communication and being like, okay, if you turn left, I'm looking at a map. If you turn left on the upper left quadrangle, it's that kind of stuff which I think is really fun for me. I don't know. There was a game, not a game, a TV show on the BBC when I was a little kid, that was like a really primitive early version of virtual reality RPG, which was awesome. It was children playing, they lost every week. Because it was written by adults for each other, and then these children were playing it and just dying. It was great. But the game was run by, there was one kid with a helmet on where they could not see anything, in essentially just like a green screen room, and then their friends on the couch watching this kid who'd been like green screened or I guess blue screened at that time, into a mystical fantasy castle, and they had to be like move two steps forward and then three steps to your right, there's a table with bread on it, pick up the bread and break it in half. And that's what playing this game felt like to me because it was about playing the game, but it was also about like sharing the experience with somebody else. And you know, you get a set of clues where you're like, I have like, there's like three triangles that go up and then two that go down. Is there anything in your room that looks like that?
Speaker 3:
[68:03] Yeah, interesting.
Speaker 6:
[68:05] It was really, really, really fun. And there's two versions of the game within the game. So you can play it twice.
Speaker 3:
[68:11] Oh, great.
Speaker 1:
[68:11] And we did.
Speaker 6:
[68:12] And they're very different.
Speaker 1:
[68:13] Do you have, for someone who's new to the Rusty Lake canon, do you have a particularly good jumping on point?
Speaker 6:
[68:21] I wish I could tell you the name of any of these games. They really make a lot of them.
Speaker 3:
[68:26] Right.
Speaker 6:
[68:28] And they're all fun and they all are thematically similar. They're just a little, they're like a very, to me, as somebody who doesn't make video games, it seems like pretty simply made flash point and click video games. They're a little spooky. There's recurring characters and tropes and themes and like a spooky cube. Oh, that's the cube and it's spooky. But they're all, they're all really fun and they don't have, there's no real starting point to them. There's not like, oh, you can't play 12 until you've played one through 11. You can jump in at any point. I'm sure there's somebody online who's ranked the best Rusty Lake games.
Speaker 1:
[69:14] I'm sure someone will chime in in our Discord.
Speaker 6:
[69:15] Sure, absolutely. And then somebody else will go, you idiot.
Speaker 7:
[69:18] That's your favorite.
Speaker 1:
[69:20] And then hopefully our mods will fan the flames, as is their job.
Speaker 6:
[69:24] Yes, as they should. That is what mods should be doing. But I don't know, I enjoy all of them, and especially they take like 20 minutes to an hour each. So it's like a great like, oh, I have an afternoon. I would love to do some puzzles. Let me see what Rusty Lake games are out.
Speaker 3:
[69:42] Have you played, I mean, the main barrier of entry to this is that it requires a VR helmet, but have you played the I Expect You to Die games? No. They're-
Speaker 6:
[69:54] I don't have a VR helmet. And that actually the VR escape room stuff, it feels like everybody sort of got over VR.
Speaker 3:
[70:03] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[70:04] But the escape room stuff was the one thing that I was like, like the fireproof games guys did a VR.
Speaker 4:
[70:12] I'm still heavily invested in VR.
Speaker 6:
[70:16] You're playing that laser?
Speaker 4:
[70:18] No.
Speaker 3:
[70:19] Beat Saver?
Speaker 6:
[70:19] Beat Saver.
Speaker 4:
[70:20] I'm playing, I mean like right now there is a new, there's a new update coming to the Vision Pro that allows you to stream Steam and GeForce games to it. So it's going to be a whole new Vision Pro coming soon.
Speaker 3:
[70:37] I expect you to die.
Speaker 4:
[70:39] What?
Speaker 3:
[70:40] Well, that's the name of these games are. They're like spy, not quite James Bond, not quite Austin Powers, but you get like a mission and then you have to go. You're in like one space, but there's all these little pieces of a puzzle that then you're solving to then stop a room being filled with a certain gas or whatever.
Speaker 6:
[71:05] That seems really fun.
Speaker 3:
[71:07] They're really, really fun and they're very good for somebody like me who is not very smart. They're very easy little puzzles to solve.
Speaker 6:
[71:21] It's the one thing also, I don't have a gaming PC and most of the new point-and-click games, because I love a 32-bit, 64-bit Monkey Island-esque situation, and it just ends up that I only play them when I'm at home with my sister, because she has that set up. But it's the one thing that I'm like, do I get a gaming PC just so I can play 64-bit games on it? This is so stupid. Why aren't these on Mac? Why aren't these on PlayStation? I know it's complicated changing things over, but for me, please.
Speaker 4:
[71:59] Just for you.
Speaker 6:
[71:59] Just for me.
Speaker 1:
[72:01] I do, I'm a PC gamer, I have a gaming rig, and I like those kinds of games as well, and I would, I think it is worth it. And also, if you're trying to play something like...
Speaker 6:
[72:10] Why are you telling me this?
Speaker 1:
[72:12] If you like playing like indie point and click adventure games, you don't need a super powerful rig, so you're not going to necessarily break the bank. So, I mean, I think you get something mid-range and you'd be set.
Speaker 4:
[72:22] Matt, what have you been playing?
Speaker 3:
[72:24] Well, y'all been calling me the franchise.
Speaker 4:
[72:27] Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:
[72:28] That's right.
Speaker 3:
[72:29] And this is because I previously had only ever played Resident Evil 4, that was my only Resident Evil game. Played Resident Evil 2, played Resident Evil 9 when it just came out. Love that. Went straight to Resident Evil 3 remake.
Speaker 4:
[72:45] Yep.
Speaker 3:
[72:46] I took it down. I'm done with it.
Speaker 1:
[72:48] Wow.
Speaker 3:
[72:48] And I would say...
Speaker 4:
[72:49] We also call you the finisher.
Speaker 1:
[72:51] Yeah, you're not just the franchisee.
Speaker 3:
[72:52] I'm not just the franchisee.
Speaker 1:
[72:54] Mr. Gamez, the X-Roc skin.
Speaker 6:
[72:55] And you're calling him this or he's calling himself?
Speaker 3:
[72:58] I think I did give myself Mr. Gamez, but that's it. If everyone's given me one, I can give myself one.
Speaker 6:
[73:08] That's beautiful.
Speaker 4:
[73:08] That's beautiful.
Speaker 6:
[73:09] That's self-care.
Speaker 3:
[73:10] Yeah, I'm Mr. Gamez. I think for me, Resident Evil 3 is weaker than any of the other ones that I've played so far.
Speaker 4:
[73:23] All right.
Speaker 3:
[73:24] You know, I, because it's also, the stories are nonsense. Like, they're all kind of crazy, silly stuff. I mean, it's not silly, you know. There are sort of like intricate plots, and there's always like a double cross of some kind or whatever. It's like very tropey, you know, very tropey, sort of very heightened stuff. This one, to me, is not that different from Resident Evil 2. It's like the same kind of shit, where it's like it is sort of a prequel, midquel sequel to Resident Evil 2, where it's like things are happening before and in the middle of it and afterward. It's the same incident where they're about to like bomb Raccoon City because there's all these zombies and stuff. But now there's an added edition of Nemesis, who I'm sorry, sucks. I think Nemesis is a bad villain for these games. I don't like Nemesis. He's a little too, to borrow a phrase from your other show, Oonga Pachka. Oh boy. He does too much stuff. He's got tentacle arms. He's ugly and nasty. He's big and fast. He's everywhere. I'm like, no, I don't think so. Not for me. But the main thing that's happening in it at a certain point is like, well, you're going around. You're one, you go back to the fucking Raccoon City Police Department. And then at a certain point, you're like, I got to go down to this underground facility and get this vaccine. And then this bad guy gets the vaccine because he wants it. And that's the same shit that happens in the second one. It's the same story. And I'm just like, you can't, you can't do that.
Speaker 4:
[75:05] Maybe that's why 4 was such a big change.
Speaker 3:
[75:07] Yeah, 4 is so different. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[75:10] Definitely, I will say as someone who's playing these games on PlayStation 1, I get to 1 later, but I played 2 and 3 as they came out. It had gotten a little stale by that point. I had not played the remake, so.
Speaker 3:
[75:22] I will say, you know, this might be big talk from somebody who played all of Death Stranding and then played all of Death Stranding 2 and was like, this is a masterpiece. They're very similar in some ways, but I think Death Stranding 2 is a better retread than Resident Evil 3 is to Resident Evil 2. But that said, I did start Resident Evil 7 and Biohazard and immediately think it's too scary.
Speaker 6:
[75:52] I can't play a single one of those games. They are so scary. Even being in the same room as somebody playing, I'm like, I have to leave. I'm upset.
Speaker 3:
[76:01] 2 is pretty scary. 3, I didn't find to be very scary. 4 is a mix of, you're Leon, so it's a power fantasy. You're roundhouse kicking old La Plaga ladies. You're not very scared.
Speaker 1:
[76:16] I will say, I'm something of a horror game coward, though I will play them. I don't find 4 scary at all. It's just an action movie.
Speaker 3:
[76:21] It's just fun. But this one is a big shift in the same way that 4 was a big shift, where this is the first first person one. And I believe I remember reading that they were like, you're drawing more from Western horror than like what just like what they were doing before. And like so it's like the first thing that I like the first big scare is like basically like a Blair Witch like style like scare where there's like a guy standing and like not facing you and you're like, what the fuck's wrong with me standing completely still and you get close to him. You like collapse his face is all fucked up and nasty. And I got scared and I turned it off first thing I have there's going to be more stuff but I know there's like a mold mold is scary to me.
Speaker 4:
[77:10] That's the one where you start with your you've just locked your car and you're walking up to a house. Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 6:
[77:15] See, this is the tough thing about playing a scary video game for me because like I am somewhat of a pussy just generally. But you watch a horror movie and you're like, OK, it was scary. But there was catharsis at the end. You're playing a video game and it's 8, 12, 20, 60 hours of stuff. Do you play until there's a cathartic moment so you can sleep? Or are you like, well, I got to go to bed. But also there are zombies.
Speaker 3:
[77:46] I will sometimes, like, I think I had, I stopped Resident Evil 2 at one point, turned it back on and played it and had 30 minutes left to finish it. I was basically at the very end of it. So I will not even shut down the game. I'll just put it in rest mode and put it away for another day. Like, I'm going to pick it back up tonight and be as scared as I was when I stopped it last night. But the thing that's good about these games, though, I think, is that I feel like across the board, the Resident Evil games are pretty short. Yeah. They're not too demanding so far. I think I did Resident Evil 3 in, like, five hours or something. Like, it's, like, pretty short. That one is short anyway. But, like, I think two and eight or two and nine were, like, 12, 13 hour. Like, I'm playing on easy two because I'm scared.
Speaker 6:
[78:46] Yeah. Because the hot stuff is not fighting the stuff. The hot stuff is listening to the music that is scary for an extended period of time.
Speaker 3:
[78:56] Mr. X fucking wandering around with his little outfit.
Speaker 6:
[78:59] And then you're spending your going out into your life like, uh, uh.
Speaker 3:
[79:03] So that's what I'm playing. I'm excited to get into that one so then I can get into, you know, Resident Evil 8 and then essentially be caught up. But I'm excited about it.
Speaker 1:
[79:12] Rachelle Shan, our producer, Ranch, you have something you've been playing.
Speaker 7:
[79:15] Yeah, I've been playing this game called Fear the Spotlight. I believe it was an indie game and then Blumhouse picked it up to distribute. But it's like a 2000s inspired retro horror adventure game. And it's been really fun.
Speaker 4:
[79:30] Everybody playing horror adventure games.
Speaker 1:
[79:32] Look at that.
Speaker 6:
[79:33] Is that a multiplayer game?
Speaker 7:
[79:35] No, but you do switch playing the two characters, isn't it?
Speaker 1:
[79:39] What is it? Like, what is it?
Speaker 6:
[79:41] Oh, I think I played this.
Speaker 7:
[79:42] Oh, yeah, like two high school girls.
Speaker 6:
[79:44] Yes.
Speaker 7:
[79:44] Yes, yes, yes. That's the one.
Speaker 6:
[79:45] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[79:46] So what's the premise?
Speaker 1:
[79:47] Yeah, what's the premise?
Speaker 7:
[79:48] You're two high school girls and you're trying to figure out the mystery of the school. And it like burned down and it's very much like Phantom of the Opera kind of storyline where I won't give it away, but you're trying, you like do a seance in the library late at night and some weird things happen. And you get transported into a different reality.
Speaker 1:
[80:10] Are you streaming this at all or are you just playing this on your own?
Speaker 7:
[80:12] Oh, I'm just playing by myself.
Speaker 1:
[80:13] That's awesome.
Speaker 4:
[80:20] I've heard I yell too much in the ads. I've heard that people get upset because when it's advertisement time, they have to turn down the volume in their car or they get upset. And I just want you to know that I don't always have to yell to sell you something. Like for example, it's officially springtime. You know what that means? It's time to spring clean. It's getting warmer and it's time to rethink what's in my closet. I like my style and I'm trying to keep fewer things, but I still want an upgrade on the pieces I have now. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. The fits are thoughtful. The price actually makes sense. Quince makes high quality everyday essentials using premium materials like 100% European linen and their insanely soft flow knit active wear fabric. Their linen pants and shirts are lightweight, breathable and comfortable. Basically the perfect layer for spring. The pants strike the right balance between laid-back and refined. So you look put together without trying too hard. And their flow knit active wear? Moisture-wicking, anti-odor and soft enough that you'll actually want to wear it all day. The best part is that their prices are 50 to 60% less than similar brands. How? Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality, not a brand markup. Everything is designed to last and make getting dressed easy. You know what? When we do these ads, they'll send us stuff. And when my wife saw that we were getting quince, she said, give it to me. And I went, wait, can I maybe? And she said, no, give it to me. And I went, really? And she's like, I love quince. This is true. I'm not bullshitting here. She took all my quince and she loves it. Me, I gotta wear a bag. Refresh your wardrobe with quince. Go to quince.com/getplayed for free shipping and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. Go to quince.com/getplayed for free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com/getplayed. Boy, I wish I knew what he was saying, but I don't speak. Animal crossing. Why do most of us want to learn a new language? It's probably not about memorizing grammar tables or topping a leaderboard. It's because we want to speak it out in the real world with real owls and real little sheep and the real little ducks that come to our town. Babbel gets you there fast. Learning a language with Babbel is all about small steps, big wins, and progress you can actually track and feel. Their bite-sized lessons fit easily into your daily routine. Just 10 minutes a day is enough to start seeing real results. Their courses are designed by over 200 language experts, real human beings, to teach you relevant words and phrases you'll actually use. Babbel lets you practice real life conversation step-by-step without the stress. You'll build the confidence to speak up when it matters, from ordering a coffee to chatting with new friends abroad. And Babbel is more than just lessons. They even offer a large collection of podcasts where Babbel experts reveal language secrets and offer an inside look at local cultures. If you're going to listen to one other podcast, listen to Doughboys. Two, listen to Babbel. I felt shame. There were times when Nick was talking and I was like, I didn't even, I forgot those words. And he's swimming confidently upstream into a language he had not practiced before outside of an app. And what's wrong with Heather? She can't drink and she's just in the corner of a bar crying. However you learn best by listening, speaking, reading or writing, Babbel adapts to your style and keeps you motivated with personalized learning plans, real-time feedback and progress tracking. Make fast lasting progress with Babbel, the science-backed language learning app that actually works. Every course comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee. Just ask Nick Wiger. Here's a special limited time deal for our listeners. Right now, get up to 60 percent off your Babbel subscription at babbel.com/played. Get up to 60 percent off at babbel.com/played, spelled babbel.com/played. Rules and restrictions may apply.
Speaker 3:
[85:00] You're probably listening right now, and you're probably thinking, I'm good. I don't need a VPN. I'm happy with only being able to watch content in my own territory. Let me just tell you something real quick. It does more than that. It's doing more than that, actually. And you're making a big mistake by not having one. Because guess what? Did you know you could use it to get a better deal on a flight, maybe? If you change the location. These things, these things we're paying for, they work algorithmically. And you can get around that algorithm by using a VPN to your advantage. So why not use NordVPN? If there are TV shows, films, anime that aren't available in your region, you could switch your virtual location to a country where it is available. That's your right when you use a VPN. And it should be the law of the land. You shouldn't need one. But here we are. Thanks. Thanks a lot. You know who? And if you're traveling abroad, you can access the streaming services back home. And we all get a little homesick when we're out of the country. Switching your virtual location with NordVPN can also save you money. That's what I was talking about earlier by purchasing flights and hotels from other countries at a cheaper price. I'm all about saving that money. You understand? Protecting the bag as it's known. NordVPN can also act as an invisibility cloak for your IP address, protecting your privacy online and leaving no digital footprint, especially while you're traveling and use public Wi-Fi. For me, let me just tell you, using public Wi-Fi, the riskiest thing I do. I'm logging on to whatever I can do. So it's good that I have a VPN to help save my behind. NordVPN protects you wherever you are in the world, anywhere. Could be Los Angeles, California, could be Tokyo, Japan. Those are only two places as far as I'm concerned, but it could be anywhere else. It's super fast, no buffering while streaming, and it stops your ISP bandwidth throttling. I hate that throttling. And you can use one account on up to 10 devices. Now that's a value. Premium cybersecurity for the price of a cup of coffee per month. To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/getplayed. Our link will also give you four extra months on the two year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description. Go save yourself some money.
Speaker 1:
[87:21] Let's talk about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, released on May 16th of 2024. The developer is, I'm not quite sure how to pronounce this, Semogo, or Semogo. It is a Swedish indie dev that also made Sayonara Wild Hearts, which is a very different game, and very well regarded. I'll just read the Steam description, just at the table. A woman surrounded by an eccentric man to participate in a project in an old hotel somewhere in central Europe becomes embroiled in a game of illusions, increasingly dangerous and surreal. Now you are invited to fall into the same rabbit hole in a non-linear mystery with an immense amount of handcrafted puzzles constantly presenting you with new riddles to solve, each leading you closer to deciphering the enigma of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. So this game has been on my Steam wishlist since it released, because it was like, this is going to be extremely shit, and I just never ended up getting it, because I just never budgeted time for it. So I am glad that this episode came about. How did you get into the game?
Speaker 6:
[88:22] My friends, Brian Murphy and Emily Axford were playing it, and just immediately were like, everybody in the world must play this game. And I love a game where I have to take notes. It's a sickness. I unfortunately was exposed to mist at a very early age, and have never quite like, I have been searching for that high for the rest of my life. And yes, it is absolutely deeply my shit. It's just the right level of scary for me, where it's like, but I'm not like running from zombies really. And the puzzles are genuinely hard. I will also say I love the fandom for this game, because every time I've gotten stuck on something, or I'm like, I feel like I should have gotten the answer to this lock somewhere, have I? If you search for it, there's no like that. I mean, there are some like, this is just the walkthrough, but mostly it's people going, have you tried looking in this place? Or don't worry about that lock yet. You'll get to it later. You're just like too early in the game to know that answer. Yeah. Like everybody's really polite. Nobody's spoiling anything. And you know, as with every puzzle, sometimes your brain is just not going to be able to do it, or at least that's my experience. And sometimes just like one little hint will go, oh, it's this thing. Oh, I remember all this book that I opened too early at the beginning to, you know, in a stack of six other books is actually where the answer to this is.
Speaker 1:
[89:57] I agree with you. I like something that's just like kind of nudges me in the right direction at times. This also is a game where my understanding is that the, you know, like there's a lot of numerical codes that are solutions to puzzles. They're all randomized per play. So you can't just get a strict walkthrough that has like, here are all the key codes to unlock everything. Heather, are you about to say something?
Speaker 4:
[90:18] I was about to say that, about the fact that you can't do the straight up walkthrough because it is randomized. But I was also gonna say, you know, upfront, I wanted to praise the aesthetics of the game.
Speaker 1:
[90:29] It's gorgeous.
Speaker 6:
[90:30] Gorgeous.
Speaker 1:
[90:30] Our direction is beautiful.
Speaker 6:
[90:31] It's so pretty and very simple.
Speaker 4:
[90:33] Yeah, it reminds me of a game that I've talked about on the show before, Killer Seven, which is this sort of like reduced poly model like this look. This looks more polished than that game, but as soon as you turn it on, I was like, oh, man, this looks like that, and that's nice.
Speaker 6:
[90:55] Yeah, it's just black, white, and red, and that's it, and that's all you need.
Speaker 4:
[90:59] Yep. And I also really like the sound in it. It has extremely good clicks. When you type into a keyboard, it sounds chunky and real. I like a good, I like it when there's limited sound, and the sound is given such elevated status.
Speaker 6:
[91:17] Yeah, and there's good little haptics on the PlayStation Remote. The PlayStation Remote changes color with the, you know, you go into different rooms, which is like just small stuff, but it's nice, thoughtful.
Speaker 1:
[91:28] So when we asked you about coming on the show, and you pitched this topic, were you actively playing it at that time, or was this also for you an excuse to find a place to?
Speaker 6:
[91:39] No, so I had played about half of it previously, and then just had gotten distracted by life, and it's one of those games that you have to be actively playing otherwise, because you have to keep so much shit in your head, even though I am keeping notes, and the game has a very good note-keeping system.
Speaker 4:
[91:56] Yes, with a good sound.
Speaker 6:
[91:57] Yes, yes, it's satisfying. It's a good ASMR.
Speaker 4:
[92:03] Yep.
Speaker 6:
[92:07] I couldn't play it for a couple of weeks, and then came back to it and went, I don't remember any of this shit. So it was a really nice excuse to be like, okay, I'm gonna dive in and hopefully finish the game, which again, I did not, but I'm at 87.5%.
Speaker 3:
[92:19] Whoa.
Speaker 6:
[92:19] I'm so close to the end.
Speaker 1:
[92:22] Matt, this is always a thing where I think this is a Matt game, but I'm never quite sure. I know this for sure is not a Heather game, but I think this is a game for you. It's definitely a game for me.
Speaker 3:
[92:33] Yeah, I'm enjoying the game. I think it is really, really good. The thing that, look, I've said on the show before, these are like, in general, these types of games, like these sort of adventure, sort of puzzle things, not, it's gonna, every other one is my favorite thing. Like, this one, I like way more. It's such a different thing, but like the comparison, I think, does stand. This is what I wanted Blueprints to be like.
Speaker 6:
[93:03] Yeah. Where like, Yeah, I played this and then I played Blueprints, and everybody was talking about Blueprints, and nobody was talking about Lorelei, and I was like, I was like, Not the, I enjoyed Blueprints, I just think Lorelei is better.
Speaker 3:
[93:15] Blueprints is good, I do, yes. But like, and I've said on the show, I said it earlier, I was like, you know, not that smart a guy, I'm a decently smart guy. Homework was not my favorite thing, school is not my favorite thing, sort of like a school sucks kind of guy.
Speaker 6:
[93:28] Oh, I changed schools so many times and none of them helped.
Speaker 3:
[93:32] But like, so like doing stuff like this in the game, like, you know, I did have to like pull out pen and paper to do pretty, like, sometimes pretty simple math, like on this thing. So I'm like, Oh, it's a math puzzle or like, or it's like an angle puzzle. Yeah, like, and I think that stuff is like really interesting. But then, like, you get a you get a real satisfaction out of out of solving the puzzle.
Speaker 6:
[93:58] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[93:58] And then you get a little thing pops up on the bottom where like, because you have like this, like this list of things that you'll encounter and you'll find a door that you can't open yet. And so you're sort of like your character is like writing this down as you're going along and you see it pop up on like your list and then when you solve something, it crosses it off.
Speaker 6:
[94:18] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[94:19] And that to me, yes, that's everything.
Speaker 6:
[94:21] It's very pleasing to have a to do list that somebody else has written for you, that you then get to go and tick off.
Speaker 3:
[94:27] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[94:28] Very, very different game, but Untitled Goose Game has the same like, like the checklist.
Speaker 6:
[94:32] Which I also loved Untitled Goose Game. And also the two player version of Untitled Goose Game is delightful as well.
Speaker 1:
[94:37] Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:
[94:38] But to the spooky aspect of it, I find it, it's in this sort of interesting spot, because it's like, it's not horror, it's not like actual scares, but it is in this sort of like, this lynchian, like unsettling area, that I think is kind of fun.
Speaker 6:
[94:57] Did you get to a point where one of the guys with the maze head starts chasing you around? Because that's scary.
Speaker 3:
[95:02] No, that sounds, that sounds actually scary.
Speaker 6:
[95:04] That's actually scary. And that, those guys, can kill you.
Speaker 1:
[95:07] I don't like those maze head guys.
Speaker 6:
[95:08] I don't like them either. They're fucking scary.
Speaker 3:
[95:12] I think for me.
Speaker 6:
[95:13] And especially like, like once you get got by one and you're like, okay, I get it now. But the first time you see one and they're just like slow chasing you through the house and you can't get away. Awful.
Speaker 1:
[95:24] It's not, it's not Silent Hill 2.
Speaker 3:
[95:26] No.
Speaker 1:
[95:26] Silent Hill 2 also in terms of scares, but Silent Hill 2 also got a game that's got a guy with a weird head. Yes. Like, like, like I feel like I don't want the weird head guys. Get them out of here.
Speaker 3:
[95:36] Have a normal, if you're gonna be scary.
Speaker 5:
[95:37] Have a regular head.
Speaker 3:
[95:38] Regular head. What's the matter with you?
Speaker 4:
[95:40] I don't know. If there was a villain in a game and his name was regular head, I'd be terrified.
Speaker 3:
[95:46] That is pretty scary.
Speaker 6:
[95:47] Oh no, it could be anyone. Which one of them is it?
Speaker 3:
[95:49] But there's like-
Speaker 1:
[95:50] That's my nickname in college. You know why.
Speaker 4:
[95:58] He just wants regular head.
Speaker 6:
[96:02] Wow, Nick suddenly spawned a second pair of sunglasses.
Speaker 3:
[96:06] They're on his lap. There's like- They're not a puzzle, but there's like- You'll encounter these little monitors that are all fuzzy that you have to turn the dials on, and then something will just be there and you'll be like, oh, then you go typically, in my experience thus far, about I'd say 34 percent. You go to where the guy would be, not even there. Something got left behind for you, a little clue. An interesting little clue that I can't wait to find out what it is.
Speaker 4:
[96:42] You know why he's not there? Because the walk speed is so fucking slow in this game.
Speaker 6:
[96:47] Well, at a certain point, you can unlock getting in a cup of espresso, and then it speeds your walk speed up very slightly, but then you do also have to start going to the bathroom.
Speaker 3:
[96:56] I should use the bathroom immediately. As soon as I found a bathroom, I was like, I better use this. I don't know what's going to happen with this. It might as well. But I also like the aesthetic, and it also has like, not Alan Wake vibes, because Alan Wake is more horror to me. But it sort of occupies that same sort of like, what's going on here kind of world. I like that.
Speaker 1:
[97:18] I was actually going to have this in my notes. I was going to ask you this, because I play the games, I sometimes watch other people playing, I'll watch some reviews, I'll read a bunch about it, just to try to get some different perspectives and sort of see what the consensus is about this. But one review I watched was interesting, like compared it to Control, which, and as the franchise, as the Resident Remedy had, did you also kind of feel that? You just mentioned Alan Wake, too.
Speaker 3:
[97:40] Yeah, I was going to mention Control. It does have big time Control vibes.
Speaker 4:
[97:45] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[97:46] But like, in Control, you can like fly around and run around. And Heather probably liked that a lot more.
Speaker 4:
[97:52] Yeah, I really did.
Speaker 3:
[97:52] Because you could...
Speaker 4:
[97:54] So I got all the way to the final boss of that game and was like, I've seen enough.
Speaker 3:
[97:58] I love it. That's like, I mean, I think Alan Wake 2 is my favorite of those, but...
Speaker 1:
[98:03] God, Alan Wake 2 is so good.
Speaker 6:
[98:04] I haven't played any of these Alan Wake games.
Speaker 1:
[98:06] Like, and you don't like horror games, so it might be, Alan Wake 2 might be a tough look, but it's just like as a writer, I think you would love it, because it's got such awesome narrative design.
Speaker 3:
[98:17] Yeah, I think you would really like Control. Okay, good to know. Control has some scares in it, but it is more manageable, and you can turn stuff on like unlimited ammo and like unlimited health. It's like, you can just blast through it and have a good time and experience the story. It's like a fun, it's like speculative fiction, sort of like weird.
Speaker 4:
[98:39] With some really, really cool concepts in it. Like you'll be like, oh wow, that's a neat idea.
Speaker 3:
[98:44] Yeah. A lot of story that you get just from reading little papers you find and stuff like that. It's good stuff.
Speaker 6:
[98:51] Love that.
Speaker 3:
[98:51] It's good stuff.
Speaker 6:
[98:52] Yes. Bioshock, but just the store, just the tapes.
Speaker 3:
[98:57] Just the tapes.
Speaker 4:
[99:00] The best post I saw when Trump posted himself as Christ, was somebody being like, we were so hard on Bioshock Infinite and they got it right.
Speaker 1:
[99:13] Yes.
Speaker 4:
[99:15] Yes.
Speaker 6:
[99:16] Isn't it so annoying when it's like, wow, that really heavy handed piece of fiction actually was not heavy handed enough. Like I feel like at the time, you know us fucking sophisticates were like, the Bobby movie was good, but it was pretty surface level feminism and then, well.
Speaker 1:
[99:37] Yeah. It's like M. Bison wasn't broad enough in terms of the level of villainy that occupies levels of power.
Speaker 6:
[99:44] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[99:45] The president just called the Pope gay.
Speaker 3:
[99:51] The Pope would be so sick actually.
Speaker 1:
[99:54] I'm abandoned.
Speaker 6:
[99:55] There's been so many gay popes. Catch up.
Speaker 3:
[99:57] That's true. That's true.
Speaker 6:
[99:58] Wager catechism. Catch up.
Speaker 3:
[99:59] I guess I'll be going back to church.
Speaker 4:
[100:02] I wish it was a knife pope.
Speaker 3:
[100:04] Knife pope. Yeah. They should just be different types.
Speaker 1:
[100:06] Yeah. They should be like devils and chainsaw men. They've all got different powers.
Speaker 6:
[100:11] I did a little deep dive into Renaissance Florence recently, just for shits and giggles. I read a great book about the Medici's, which was a book written by a very diligent and honest, but lightly homophobic historian. Every single fucking man who was in any way famous during the Medici periods of Florence was gay. Every single one of them. It's just him going through this book going, unfortunately, Caravaggio, yes, he was gay. Unfortunately. Yes, he was writing hate. Unfortunately, he's writing hate poetry that he was yelling in the street about all of his ex-lovers. I have to tell you because it's true, but I don't like it. It's so funny, every single person, every single one of these men, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, all of the Medici's, every single one of them, very gay.
Speaker 4:
[101:05] Well, the Medici had a pope. Is that what you started?
Speaker 6:
[101:08] The Medici's had multiple popes, yes, and one of them was very gay and bisexual, so they're just like, we're not putting labels.
Speaker 3:
[101:18] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[101:19] We're not putting labels on it.
Speaker 3:
[101:20] It's just chiller.
Speaker 6:
[101:21] Just like open and sexual.
Speaker 3:
[101:22] I got really into Caravaggio when I went to Italy because I was like, this guy's paintings are all fucked up and weird. What's going on? I was like, what's going on with this one? They were like, the plaque was like, this was an apology for murdering a man.
Speaker 6:
[101:34] Yes. Literally Caravaggio absolutely doing fucking gangster rap on the streets of Florence. So funny. And you don't hear about this. They don't teach you this shit in school. Why aren't they teaching us that shit?
Speaker 4:
[101:48] Because that's what would make it good. You'd be like, oh shit, let's go. If they taught actual history, all kids would love history.
Speaker 6:
[101:58] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[101:58] We're basically at the point in Lin-Manuel Miranda's mind where he's like, actually history is pretty fucking cool. Think about it.
Speaker 6:
[102:07] I think that all of us, as millennials grew up in a time when they were teaching history of like, we don't want to teach the great man of history. We're going to teach about grain and how that impacted normal people. And it's so fucking boring. And I know it's important. And now we're living in a fucking great man of history. Where I'm like, if this guy wasn't the president, none of this shit would be happening because for some reason, they just let this guy do whatever the fuck he wants. And all through our childhood, they were insisting that the great man of history was a lie. And over simplification.
Speaker 1:
[102:43] I remember here, there was so much of like, oh, that's actually dead. All these things are systemic. All these things have economic causes.
Speaker 6:
[102:48] Yeah, there was so much stuff about the systemic economics of Germany during fucking 1920s and 30s.
Speaker 1:
[102:55] But so clearly, you get one freak.
Speaker 6:
[102:56] Sometimes it's just this one freak that everybody's like, I guess we'll just do whatever this freak wants for a decade.
Speaker 1:
[103:04] It's, wait, I'm just curious real quick, because you mentioned this book and it's homophobia. When was it published?
Speaker 6:
[103:11] I think it was like late 90s, early 2000s. So like pre-Obergefell, like at a time when they were acknowledging that gay people existed, but really begrudgingly.
Speaker 3:
[103:22] Yeah, at least it wasn't 2026.
Speaker 6:
[103:26] Oh, it just came out.
Speaker 1:
[103:28] You, like Matt, you're talking about the aesthetic. I mean, we're all talking about the aesthetic. And I think not just from the art direction standpoint, I just kind of like tonally that it's out of time and that it has that sort of feeling. There's a big thing more and more I like of just like, oh, this is a weird thing that looks like it's shot on VHS, but it also like people have modern technology. It's like kind of like unmooring, you know what I mean? And I like that this is like, I can't really tell, are these years, is this the year we're in? Is this the year the hotel was built? Is this like, what exactly is going on?
Speaker 6:
[104:04] Yeah, and it plays with that as well. It's very conscious and you're like, you are sort of unstuck in time within the game. And as you go, you're like, am I time traveling? Is this a, what's happening? Where am I? When am I? In a way that I really enjoyed.
Speaker 4:
[104:23] Why am I moving so slow?
Speaker 6:
[104:25] It's time travel. You're moving through both space and time at the same time.
Speaker 2:
[104:29] You're fighting a current.
Speaker 6:
[104:31] E equals MC squared or something.
Speaker 1:
[104:34] Richelle, did you get any time with Lorelei?
Speaker 7:
[104:37] I actually played this a while ago. That's right.
Speaker 1:
[104:39] You mentioned this. Did you finish the game?
Speaker 7:
[104:41] Around the same time was actually playing Blueprint.
Speaker 1:
[104:43] Wow.
Speaker 6:
[104:44] You were puzzle-maxing.
Speaker 7:
[104:45] I had notes for both and never finished either. But it's really cool. Yeah, the aesthetic is so awesome. And one thing that drove me crazy about it is there's only one button for everything.
Speaker 6:
[105:01] Yes, that did really annoy me as I came back to playing it. Give me one of these buttons should just go to maps.
Speaker 7:
[105:07] Exactly.
Speaker 6:
[105:08] I shouldn't have to hit five different buttons just to get to the map.
Speaker 4:
[105:12] I want to say, just as an aside, we keep talking about games where you write stuff down. And Pokopia has enough of an element to it where you can write stuff down that Nintendo released official journal pages.
Speaker 6:
[105:28] Oh, that's cute.
Speaker 4:
[105:28] That you can print and put in your journal to keep track of what you need to do and what's happening in Pokopia and where you've put stuff.
Speaker 6:
[105:36] Wait, so it's a job?
Speaker 1:
[105:37] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[105:38] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[105:39] Is it pre-filled out or is it like, oh, so it's just?
Speaker 4:
[105:42] It's blanks, but they are blanks with categories that would help you. So for example, it'll be like, here's a page for this area, here's a page for this area, here's a page of storage, here is where those storage items are located. Like it's a way for you to manage the different things that you're doing in Pocopia, but it's official Pocopia stationary that you can print at home.
Speaker 1:
[106:07] Are you using this or are you taking any notes as you're playing Pocopia?
Speaker 4:
[106:10] I have hit a point where I'm like, what I find super pleasurable about it is that it is so indulgent for ADHD. Like I can literally just get hyper fixated on like a thing and then fucking forget about it and realize like four days later, oh right, I was clearing that building. Are these guys okay? And like go up and talk and one of them will be like, hey, I made that lumber you asked me for. I'm like, I have no idea why I needed this from you or when I gave it to you. Like I'll be in like-
Speaker 6:
[106:44] And that doesn't stress you out?
Speaker 4:
[106:45] No, because it's just like, because you can just kind of do everything and anything all the time and really choose to get fixated.
Speaker 6:
[106:56] Great.
Speaker 4:
[106:57] It's the inverse of a puzzle. There is no solution. And that's part of what's making it so addictive for me. It's like nobody's like-
Speaker 6:
[107:05] I haven't gotten a switch to yet. I've sort of been waiting for Zelda. You know, which may be a waiting for Godot situation at this point. Like every few weeks I'm like, when new Zelda? Google when new Zelda? And it's like, oh, maybe 2028? So maybe I'll never get a switch to. Or maybe I'll just cave. I don't know.
Speaker 4:
[107:29] I know that we were like, oh, we got to save the switch back in the day.
Speaker 3:
[107:32] Switch to. Yeah, we kind of did.
Speaker 4:
[107:35] If Pocopio had been like a launch title, I would have been like, that's the system seller. It is still staggering to me that there's no Zelda announcement, no Mario announcement, no Star Fox announcement, no announcements of any of the big guys, especially on the heels of a major film.
Speaker 6:
[107:51] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[107:52] I think there's going to be, I mean, I think there's going to be a direct in like June and that'll dictate what the rest of the years will be.
Speaker 6:
[108:00] You think there's going to be an Odyssey Galaxy?
Speaker 3:
[108:05] I mean, I think they're going to, I think they did Star Fox on purpose. I think we're getting a Star Fox.
Speaker 4:
[108:11] I think Star Fox was a pitch from Illumination and we're not getting a Star Fox. I think they're going to announce like the Nintendo rug and we'll be like, what the are they doing? And it'll be like, it's a rug that sometimes will tell you how much you weigh. And you'll be like, sometimes.
Speaker 1:
[108:26] And then in three months, we all got the rugs in our house. Like, why did I buy this fucking thing? It cost me $150.
Speaker 6:
[108:31] Got me again.
Speaker 1:
[108:32] God damn it.
Speaker 6:
[108:33] I did use Ring Fit a lot during the pandemic.
Speaker 3:
[108:37] Yeah, Ring Fit was great.
Speaker 6:
[108:37] Ring Fit was fun. It was great. And like a real workout.
Speaker 3:
[108:41] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[108:41] It really is. It like fucking tire me out.
Speaker 6:
[108:44] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[108:45] Once I get my new setup all established, I fully intend to start doing Wii Fit again.
Speaker 6:
[108:50] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[108:50] Because I loved it.
Speaker 6:
[108:51] Yeah. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:
[108:53] Wow.
Speaker 4:
[108:53] What?
Speaker 1:
[108:54] You're legit going to play Wii Fit?
Speaker 4:
[108:55] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[108:55] Wow.
Speaker 4:
[108:56] I have the scale leaning against my wall, ready for me to set up everything else. Because you can play Wii Fit on the Wii U and then it'll be HDMI into a modern TV. There you go. Wait.
Speaker 1:
[109:07] We didn't talk about this at all. I know we're in Lorelei now, but you sent a text to Group Chat that we have not discussed, which is a Neo Geo, new piece of Neo Geo or hardware with an HDMI app?
Speaker 4:
[109:17] Yeah, it's a new Neo Geo, not an emulator, an actual functioning Neo Geo, launching with, I believe, 23 games, and you can plug in old Neo Geo carts into the fucking thing. They're just bringing back the Neo Geo.
Speaker 1:
[109:33] I've always coveted a Neo Geo. That was like, you said the word Grail earlier. I certainly didn't, there wasn't a vocabulary back in the day, but as a kid, I was like, well, that's the super expensive one I will never have, so of course it's what I want. It's the one that costs $700 in like 1994 money, and games cost $100 a piece. It's like absurdly expensive. But I just like, I was so fucking cool. And because it's a possibility now, I'm like, maybe I'll buy this fucking thing.
Speaker 3:
[110:04] Yeah, it looks cool. You should get it. I have no interest, but you should get it.
Speaker 4:
[110:08] It looks like it is...
Speaker 6:
[110:09] Go over to his house and play it.
Speaker 3:
[110:11] I won't be going over.
Speaker 5:
[110:12] Yeah, he's not coming over.
Speaker 3:
[110:14] Maybe bring it here.
Speaker 4:
[110:18] So it's $250 for the Neo Geo plus the joystick. It launches with 10 games, I was wrong, but all existing Neo Geo games will play on the device. Pre-orders are open now and shipping will start November 12th, 2026.
Speaker 1:
[110:36] Do we have any, is there a list of games? Are there any on there? It's like a Magician Lord on there, King of Fighters, I imagine, some Metal Slugs.
Speaker 4:
[110:44] Games are going tally.
Speaker 1:
[110:45] I do like Metal Slugs.
Speaker 6:
[110:46] This one just fully passed me by as a kid.
Speaker 1:
[110:48] Yeah, I mean, it was like, no one had it.
Speaker 6:
[110:52] It's possible that it didn't even release in the UK because the shit that we got in the UK was different.
Speaker 1:
[110:58] Did you ever see the Neo Geo cabinets in your arcades?
Speaker 6:
[111:03] No, but I also, I don't know if there was an arcade in my town.
Speaker 1:
[111:07] Oh, wow.
Speaker 6:
[111:07] Just like, I don't know, there was also not a comic book shop. Other people had Nintendo's, but we just had a PC. We had a PC. We were the family with the PC. My mom had a computer science master's degree and got us on computers for so fucking cool. And so we were playing Monkey Island and Myst and the Discworld game. Any of you played?
Speaker 1:
[111:36] I never played the Discworld game.
Speaker 6:
[111:37] The Discworld game?
Speaker 1:
[111:39] I heard it was awesome.
Speaker 6:
[111:40] Awesome. There's two of them and they're both great.
Speaker 1:
[111:42] Yeah, I never really-
Speaker 6:
[111:43] They're really stupid.
Speaker 1:
[111:44] Was a Terry Pratchett guy, but I always remember reading about those games and being like, oh, because I was also someone who-
Speaker 6:
[111:49] And Eric Idle is the main voice, which is really fun.
Speaker 1:
[111:52] I love Monty Python. For me also, Secret of Monkey Island was such a formative game for me. Then I played every single LucasArts adventure in the 90s. Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[112:03] Here are the 10 Neo Geo game cartridges launching with the re-release of the system. Metal Slug, The King of Fighters 2002, Garo, Mark of the Wolves, Big Tournament Golf, Shock Troopers, Samurai Showdown V Special, Pulse Star, Twinkle Star Sprites, Magician Lord and OverTop.
Speaker 1:
[112:24] I'm going to get this fucking thing. Who am I kidding? Nintendo Rug will have to wait.
Speaker 6:
[112:28] It's a business expense.
Speaker 3:
[112:29] I know I said I wasn't interested in it. I'm going to get it too.
Speaker 1:
[112:33] I kind of feel like we should have some sort of video game hardware console set up at the studio. Would that be insane? Would that be wasteful?
Speaker 3:
[112:42] Probably. I mean, yeah, we could do it.
Speaker 1:
[112:45] We'd have something we'd dick around with if it was here.
Speaker 3:
[112:47] Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[112:48] We're here often enough.
Speaker 3:
[112:49] We know nobody's going to steal it here because there's no one ever here.
Speaker 6:
[112:53] That is true. There's nobody ever here. Every time I come into this studio, I'm like, I guess one person works here sometimes.
Speaker 3:
[112:59] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[113:00] I think Ranch works here. And then end of list. I'm coming in first thing tomorrow.
Speaker 2:
[113:06] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[113:07] It'll be equally ghostly in here, I would imagine.
Speaker 3:
[113:10] I work somewhere else. And sometimes when I'm working from home, I'm like, should I go work from Headgum? You should, by the way.
Speaker 6:
[113:18] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[113:18] I'll come hang out. It's nice.
Speaker 6:
[113:20] It's a really nice office.
Speaker 1:
[113:21] It is a great office.
Speaker 3:
[113:22] You can gossip.
Speaker 1:
[113:24] I, like, so here's the thing, Matt, I don't think you're a dumb guy. I will say I'm a dumb guy sometimes, but I understand.
Speaker 6:
[113:33] We got him.
Speaker 3:
[113:34] We got him. He admitted.
Speaker 6:
[113:36] Wow.
Speaker 1:
[113:37] But also, like, I know and I do understand that I'm not like a dumb guy. Like, I've never met actual dumb guys. But this game does make me feel stupid in the same way that blueprints make me feel stupid or return to the Oberden. You know, these games sometimes have these really obtuse sort of things where, because I hate the feeling, my least favorite feeling in games is when there's a puzzle that's not really a puzzle. It's like, I know exactly what I'm supposed to do and I see exactly how to solve it immediately. This is just a task. That's just like so dull for me. That's just like a waste of time.
Speaker 6:
[114:12] The puzzles that you get in AAA games, I sort of wish with AAA games because you can change the hardness of the fighting. I wish you could up the level of the puzzles.
Speaker 4:
[114:20] Oh my god, or delete them all together.
Speaker 6:
[114:22] Honestly, I would rather delete them than play the easy puzzles because sometimes they're really time consuming but very straightforward.
Speaker 4:
[114:28] Yeah, it's like, I know you're gonna put the three blocks in the thing.
Speaker 6:
[114:34] But then the actual logistics of it is sort of poorly designed and it takes too long to align everything correctly.
Speaker 4:
[114:42] There's gonna be a prompt that just says solve puzzle, press triangle.
Speaker 3:
[114:45] There's some pretty fun puzzles in the Resident Evil games, actually. Like, it might not be enough to get you in there. They are really scary. But the puzzles are fun.
Speaker 6:
[114:53] I'd need to have the sound off somebody else play the rest of the game for me. I just am brought in as a ringer just to do the puzzle.
Speaker 4:
[114:59] Honestly, this sounds like a perfect situation for me. So if you ever want to do that shit, come here.
Speaker 6:
[115:04] Absolutely, absolutely. We don't talk to each other at all. I just sit in another room with headphones on reading my book.
Speaker 4:
[115:12] Can you just hear me in the other room go, loud enough with your headphones, you just hear, fuck this!
Speaker 3:
[115:18] You see a controller into your brain?
Speaker 4:
[115:22] You've got like a, oh, it's crystals, a chart.
Speaker 6:
[115:26] Great, great.
Speaker 1:
[115:28] So yeah, I hate it when I know exactly what to do and exactly how to do it, and I've just got to fucking do it. It's a waste of time. But I, the sweet spot of course is knowing what you need to do, but like not how to do it. But this game does do the thing where, and it can be effective, but it can also be exhausting. And again, I think it's kind of where my mental state is right now, where I'm like, you know, I'm working in a writer's room, I'm going to record two podcast episodes, I'm getting home at like 9 p.m. Okay, he's booked and busy.
Speaker 6:
[115:54] No, I'm just saying, I'm just like, get home at 9 p.m. And then you go home to your beautiful wife, living a great life. Jesus Christ.
Speaker 4:
[116:00] Humbred in tattoos, everything's hard.
Speaker 6:
[116:03] He's wearing the shortest shorts anybody's ever worn.
Speaker 1:
[116:06] Hold on, I have shorts with shorter ends.
Speaker 6:
[116:09] Anyway, didn't even blast.
Speaker 3:
[116:11] I think you took Humbred too.
Speaker 1:
[116:13] Didn't even break out the big guns for this one. What are you talking about?
Speaker 3:
[116:16] They should be called the little guns.
Speaker 6:
[116:17] You mean the small guns.
Speaker 4:
[116:19] From Matt May's perspective, though, it's just a T-shirt.
Speaker 1:
[116:24] I'm not winning the pooing yet.
Speaker 3:
[116:27] I did see you get stuck in a tarp on your head.
Speaker 1:
[116:29] That is unrelated. But I think because I'm mentally fatigued, the state when I'm not knowing what to do or how to do it is like...
Speaker 6:
[116:41] Is this a clue? Maybe. You'll find out. It could be. You want to write it down?
Speaker 5:
[116:46] Ooh.
Speaker 6:
[116:47] Might be a clue.
Speaker 3:
[116:49] Hee hee.
Speaker 6:
[116:49] There's a lot of that kind of stuff with this game, which I really enjoy, but also if I was busy, I would piss me off.
Speaker 3:
[116:56] It does have big hee hee energy.
Speaker 1:
[116:58] There is a little bit of hee hee.
Speaker 4:
[117:00] Yeah. My... Because I was keeping a little book of notes while playing this, and it just says, off, this sucks, it's shit.
Speaker 3:
[117:10] There's a puzzle, I mean, it's like a...
Speaker 4:
[117:13] And then like, the gate sucks.
Speaker 2:
[117:16] The gate, that's the first thing you do.
Speaker 3:
[117:21] The ones, it's like, you go to these, you get these shortcut doors, and then they like, those are all like, you get a book of, you get a book of all the puzzles.
Speaker 6:
[117:28] Yes, and like, that's, that is the type of game it is, right? You go to a library, there's just a book, and you go, is this book relevant? There's 60 pages of book. And then you get to one of these things, and you're like, oh no, it is. Let me go back. And then you like, but it's in your memory, so you can like look at it. But like, it was nice in this second play through, remembering that that was what it was, so I could kind of get through it quickly. I still had to solve the puzzles, but I knew what the puzzle was, which a lot of this game, especially in the early stages, is like, the puzzle is figuring out what is a puzzle.
Speaker 4:
[118:07] Yeah, like what does this dog want?
Speaker 6:
[118:09] Yes, nothing.
Speaker 3:
[118:10] It's like a little pet.
Speaker 4:
[118:11] That's not, it's want something, everything in this game wants something from you.
Speaker 3:
[118:15] But I like the photographic memory as a device, like, because every item you interact with gets stored basically in this memory, so you have a long list of things, and they're all broken up into different categories, and everything is really extremely helpful.
Speaker 1:
[118:33] It's kind of Alan Wakey, is it the, is it the Memory Palace?
Speaker 3:
[118:37] Yes, the Memory Palace, or the Mind Palace.
Speaker 1:
[118:40] You go into your own brain.
Speaker 3:
[118:42] But there was one puzzle that weirdly gave me a hard time, and then when I figured out what it was, I felt dumber than I've ever felt in my life, because it wasn't like a regular numbers puzzle. It was one of the game consoles.
Speaker 6:
[118:56] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[118:57] There are these, there are these like, they're not, it's a directional input puzzle.
Speaker 6:
[119:03] Yes, to unlock the gaming console.
Speaker 3:
[119:05] Exactly, so you find a sheet of paper with like a little like design on it that is just angles, and it's like, it's going, you know, one up, one to the right, and then there's like a long one, and then, you know, right down. Yeah, and so you have to type that in on the game pad. What I didn't realize, because my first assumption was, I was like, oh, a long one, that's a long press.
Speaker 5:
[119:27] Ah, yeah.
Speaker 3:
[119:29] As like somebody playing games, I'm like, oh, that just kind of like makes a little more sense to me.
Speaker 6:
[119:32] Like a Morse code situation.
Speaker 3:
[119:33] Yes.
Speaker 6:
[119:34] Got it.
Speaker 3:
[119:35] Then I was like, oh, it's not working. Okay, okay, okay. I must have typed it in wrong. I'm doing it a million times, and this is one that I took a picture of, right, from like looking at my phone, I was like, I'm typing in exactly this, and then I'm like, I bet it probably wants me to type, press up twice to make the line longer, and then that is what you have to do, and I was upset.
Speaker 6:
[119:55] It's both satisfying and annoying when you figure it out.
Speaker 1:
[119:58] Yeah, very annoying, but when you get something wrong, it's very, at least not like, ha ha, you idiot. It doesn't give you anything.
Speaker 2:
[120:08] No, it gives you nothing.
Speaker 3:
[120:09] That is a hee hee element, that you're not being taunted.
Speaker 2:
[120:12] No.
Speaker 1:
[120:13] It almost is like, no. Maybe try again, hee hee.
Speaker 2:
[120:20] Could be something else, could be something different.
Speaker 4:
[120:23] There was, I will say, I looked at the design documents for this game and apparently there was almost combat in it and I feel specifically slighted by the fact that they took it out.
Speaker 2:
[120:32] There are guys later on that if you don't get the answer right, they'll shoot you in the head.
Speaker 3:
[120:35] No, you can die.
Speaker 2:
[120:36] So you can die, but it's no combat.
Speaker 4:
[120:38] But you can't fucking kill them.
Speaker 1:
[120:40] No.
Speaker 4:
[120:40] Well, think about that next time maybe a little bit, guys.
Speaker 1:
[120:44] Yeah, think about that next time maybe a little bit sometime, guys.
Speaker 2:
[120:48] They should be fighting.
Speaker 4:
[120:49] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[120:50] It's so funny because you're so cerebral in the rest of your life and then the idea of a puzzle is like viscerally angering you.
Speaker 1:
[120:56] Why do you want to escape? Let her have some killing.
Speaker 4:
[120:57] That's the only thing that I get to do that's not that.
Speaker 2:
[121:00] Well, but also the meticulous way that you unravel a story and you have very specific, like at page 3, line 8, This Must Happen. Like you live your life as a puzzle maker and then somebody else makes a puzzle for you and you're like, fuck you, go yourself.
Speaker 4:
[121:21] Give me a gun to shoot the puzzle.
Speaker 3:
[121:23] I heard Heather verbally describe a hypothetical movie to a roomful of people and everyone was riveted. This happened today.
Speaker 1:
[121:33] Wow.
Speaker 3:
[121:33] And yet when it comes to gaming, Heather's like, I need a club.
Speaker 1:
[121:37] I need something. Well, it's just so funny to me though because too, even in the stuff that you watch, all of it's very interesting. But have you seen a John Wick movie?
Speaker 3:
[121:46] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[121:46] Do you like them?
Speaker 3:
[121:47] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[121:48] Okay, never mind.
Speaker 4:
[121:48] They're great.
Speaker 1:
[121:49] Yeah, they're fucking awesome.
Speaker 3:
[121:50] Yeah, they're sick as fuck.
Speaker 4:
[121:52] I love John Wick and also I saw when Hard Boiled came back to theaters, I saw Hard Boiled. I love combat in movies.
Speaker 3:
[121:59] No, you do love action movies. I know this about you.
Speaker 1:
[122:01] That's what I was trying to get at. I was like, are you a big action movies guy?
Speaker 4:
[122:04] I love action movies. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1:
[122:06] I love it.
Speaker 3:
[122:07] You'll like the odd game, like a game of this type will really connect with you. Maybe not this one specifically, but on occasion, a story-driven game will be like, wow, this is for me.
Speaker 4:
[122:17] Yeah, for sure. There's no combat in Disco Elysium and it's my favorite of all time. That's for real, actually, not like Fortnite being at the top of my list because it has to be. Yeah, because otherwise I'm disingenuous. But yeah, I don't need combat in order for a game to be engaging. But I had a lot of trouble with this and I was like, oh man. I get it. I wish that I wasn't me.
Speaker 2:
[122:46] It is a masochistic enjoyment. I completely understand because it is like walking on pins, but in a way that's, you know what it feels like to me for my brain, it feels like getting a really hard full body massage. When you're lying on that table, you're like, I have to accept that I'm going to get all of the pain for the next two weeks in this one hour and it's going to hurt so much. But for them for the next two weeks, I will not be in pain. That's sort of how for my brain this kind of puzzle feels to me. It tickles something that needs to be tickled, that I'm not getting anywhere.
Speaker 1:
[123:26] I've described getting a deep tissue massage to my wife as somebody is just beating me up in a very specific way.
Speaker 2:
[123:35] Yes, I need a 4'8, 65-year-old Thai woman to jump up and down on my back.
Speaker 1:
[123:43] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[123:44] And that's what this game is doing for my brain.
Speaker 1:
[123:45] Absolutely.
Speaker 3:
[123:47] It's interesting because you talked about, you're playing some games with combat, some games with action on story mode, but then clearly you really gravitate towards challenging, obtuse puzzles. I'm always fascinated by people who have kind of their different segments of gamer brain. They're different things, they're different strengths and weaknesses. It's just like, because I can, I'm certainly not the gamer that Heather is when it comes to combat-based games, certainly not with games where you have a gun, or driving games, like that stuff, but I can do a platformer. I'm very, very capable of precision platformer. And then turn-based games, I feel like this is extremely my shit. I can fuck up a strategy game.
Speaker 2:
[124:32] I think a big part of it is that I didn't grow up with any kind of, I didn't have a Nintendo or a Sega, anything. And we had a PC at home and my mom is a big early adopter of like mud games and Zork and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Seventh Guest and Mist and Riven and all of these games. Like those are the games that were just in my house. And so I think playing those from a very early age just meant that by time that I'm now, I need something that's really hard.
Speaker 3:
[125:13] Totally get that. Yeah, I think for, and mud for our younger listeners.
Speaker 2:
[125:19] Oh yes, I'm ancient by the way.
Speaker 3:
[125:23] I know for sure you're not as old as me, but I am old as shit. Multi-user dungeon, these were like text-based predecessors to MMOs basically.
Speaker 2:
[125:33] Exactly, text-based adventure games. I don't think they really had any combat in them exactly, although sometimes you could be like hit monster. Like they were very specific commands. The famous one in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is one of those like urban legend almost games of like this is the hardest game ever written, is that the prompts were so specific that nobody could fucking finish the game. Like in Hitchhiker's Guide, it starts off with like darkness, a blank slate and you have to type in, open your eyes.
Speaker 1:
[126:06] So from minute one, it's with you?
Speaker 2:
[126:08] So from minute one, it's fucking with you. And this is why I'm like this.
Speaker 1:
[126:13] Yeah. So yeah, you grew up playing these types of games. So to you, this is what video games are?
Speaker 2:
[126:19] Yes, exactly. So I can't play things like Smash Brothers because I did not grow up playing them. I would go over to friends' houses and play Mario and Zelda and stuff, but this is not a thing that I got to practice.
Speaker 1:
[126:35] Yeah. So even you playing Ghost of Yote, you're like, this is a different type of game to me. Even though for me, I would say that that's the most of the types of games that I play.
Speaker 2:
[126:43] Yeah. I will never be great at those games because I don't have the child muscle memory that a lot of my friends do. I'm fine with them. I'm not like...
Speaker 1:
[126:52] You're playing them. You're doing well.
Speaker 4:
[126:53] I played Fortnite with you. You're good.
Speaker 2:
[126:55] Thank you. But I'm not like good, good.
Speaker 4:
[127:00] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[127:01] It sounds like you're fucking around when you're playing.
Speaker 2:
[127:02] Yeah. I'm also fucking around when I'm playing, which doesn't help.
Speaker 4:
[127:06] Siobhan's like, let's see if we can get this car onto the second story of this house. Okay.
Speaker 2:
[127:14] That's winning for me. That's my win state.
Speaker 1:
[127:18] Winning can be anything.
Speaker 2:
[127:18] Setting your own win state is what you can do when you're playing games. People don't talk about this enough. But our good friend, Zakkayama has 100 percent in Mario Odyssey when it came out. There is no way I could still be playing it if I was trying to 100 percent it. I don't have those skills.
Speaker 1:
[127:44] Zack's so cool.
Speaker 2:
[127:45] He's so freaking cool.
Speaker 1:
[127:46] Zack's awesome.
Speaker 2:
[127:47] He can do karate.
Speaker 4:
[127:48] He's cool.
Speaker 2:
[127:48] He's cool.
Speaker 4:
[127:49] He's awesome.
Speaker 2:
[127:50] He's cool. He's cool.
Speaker 1:
[127:51] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[127:52] He's so cool.
Speaker 2:
[127:53] But he was also angry the whole time getting it to 100 percent.
Speaker 1:
[127:57] Yeah. He's not enjoying it.
Speaker 2:
[127:58] The skipping games that you have to do to get stars. He was like, I'm going to die.
Speaker 1:
[128:02] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[128:03] Doing these stupid skipping games for hours on end. I don't know why I've set this challenge for myself, but here I am stuck in it.
Speaker 3:
[128:10] There also is, this is Mario specific though, there are other platformers that do this where it's just like the final bonus level threshold, last of the challenge levels is like this extraordinarily long gauntlet with no checkpoints that you have to get through in one go. And it's the sort of thing of just like, I did, I was like, this is a younger man's game. When I'm at those, like there was a time in my life when I would go through all of this and I would make sure I get the 100%, I'd get the achievement. And now I'm just like, I know I can do this. If I put in enough hours, I just choose not to. I'd rather do something else.
Speaker 4:
[128:46] What's frustrating about those to me is how similar they hit my brain to a puzzle, which is that I know exactly what it is that I have to do and I don't want to deal with the tedium of doing it.
Speaker 2:
[128:58] Yeah. And that's how I was playing Celeste, for example. Like so many of my friends were like, I love Celeste. And I died two times in Celeste. I was like, I'm done. And the whole point of Celeste is you die over and over and over again until you figure it out. I have no interest in that whatsoever.
Speaker 4:
[129:13] Well, with these-
Speaker 3:
[129:14] How dare you. Sorry. It's one of my favorite games of all time.
Speaker 4:
[129:16] Sorry.
Speaker 3:
[129:17] No, I get it.
Speaker 4:
[129:18] I get it. I also think that there's a difference between the elasticity of combat in Ghost of Yote and one of these like ultra hard, like the last few levels of Astrobot, which are just the challenge, the bonus levels. It's like there is only one real sequence of button presses that is going to get me through this experience. And there's extremely small amounts of adjustment along the way. But most of it is, if I were to program a robot to do these motions at this time, then you're going to get through that level, which makes it into a bit of a pattern puzzle. Whereas like with Ghost of Yote, every time you come at these guys on horses, they're going to split in different ways. And you get to have a little bit more fun with it.
Speaker 3:
[130:00] I have much more fun at this point in my life, like fighting a souls born boss and like figuring that out versus like navigating one of these ultra long platforming levels as much as I love platformers. But you know, I'm impressed by people who have the dedication to-
Speaker 4:
[130:19] Yeah, of course, it's very impressive.
Speaker 2:
[130:20] I'm not going to play Cuphead. And that's okay.
Speaker 1:
[130:23] That's okay, you don't have to do it.
Speaker 2:
[130:25] I don't have to.
Speaker 1:
[130:25] Who's making you do this?
Speaker 2:
[130:26] Nobody. Nobody.
Speaker 4:
[130:28] I'm going to do it.
Speaker 2:
[130:29] Thank you. Wow, what a gentleman.
Speaker 1:
[130:31] You can't do that. You can't make her do it.
Speaker 3:
[130:34] I think you should do it.
Speaker 2:
[130:35] I do think that would be a real personal hell for me. Is playing Cuphead while people watched.
Speaker 3:
[130:42] Oh, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:
[130:43] I think I would, that's my like no exit level, like, oh, you have to live in this for the rest of your life because you did something profoundly evil.
Speaker 3:
[130:51] I finished Cuphead in the DLC twice and I like, I still would not want to play it in front of an audience because I'm like, I'm going to fuck up and I'm going to embarrass myself and look like I don't know how to play video games.
Speaker 1:
[131:02] We don't want to see what you're doing with Ms. Chalice.
Speaker 3:
[131:04] All right, that's on my own time.
Speaker 2:
[131:07] Wow, the short's got short.
Speaker 3:
[131:09] I do have a, I will just button up my thoughts on Lorelei by saying that like, I'm glad we're playing and Siobhan, I thank you for finally getting this game into my catalog. I am not going to finish this game in my library. I'm not going to finish this game right now, but I'm going to return to this game at some point in the future.
Speaker 2:
[131:29] When you're done, when you're in hiatus. And you can have a long weekend just to sit in your own shit and play one game.
Speaker 3:
[131:37] And ignore my beautiful wife.
Speaker 2:
[131:38] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[131:42] I'm going to play this game and I bet I'm going to, I'm already really appreciated, but I bet I'm going to really connect with it when I can just buckle down. It's a very impressive design. Again, we've already talked about what an aesthetic marvel it is.
Speaker 1:
[131:55] Yeah, for me, it's something I want to keep playing. If I run into a roadblock, that might be it for me.
Speaker 2:
[132:05] I will again say the community online is so great and very easy to search if you're stuck.
Speaker 1:
[132:12] I've been having a great time. It is scratching a particular itch.
Speaker 4:
[132:17] They were hugely helpful when I was like, what does the dog want?
Speaker 1:
[132:28] Should we do a segment?
Speaker 4:
[132:29] Let's do a segment.
Speaker 1:
[132:30] This is our video game, Would You Rather segment, Would You Blathers. Wow. We know how Would You Rather works. I'm going to propose a series of Would You Rather scenarios. You can decide which one you'd rather do. That's all there is to it. Here we go. Would You Blathers. Walk around an empty hotel aimlessly with no knowledge of what's going on like an empty hotel. Like an empty hotel aimlessly with no knowledge of what's going on like in Lorelei and I have to take these off. I can't read with them on.
Speaker 2:
[132:54] You got the screen thing on it that you can see through water, but also you can't see screens.
Speaker 1:
[133:01] No, my eyes are just like every other part of my body just starting to go.
Speaker 2:
[133:08] Welcome.
Speaker 1:
[133:09] Yeah, and I'm increasing the size subtly. Like I'm pinching zooming in right now. Here we go. I have glasses. What am I doing?
Speaker 3:
[133:22] All this stays in the episode.
Speaker 2:
[133:24] You haven't written any of them. This is all just him vamping.
Speaker 1:
[133:27] Absolutely panicking.
Speaker 2:
[133:28] Hoping that the ideas come into his head. You've got four of them you said?
Speaker 1:
[133:33] Yeah, I wrote four. Here we go.
Speaker 3:
[133:35] Would you brothers have sunglasses or regular glasses?
Speaker 1:
[133:41] Would you blathers walk around an empty hotel aimlessly with no knowledge of what's going on like in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes or walk around a house aimlessly and every time you go into a room, it's different than the last time, like in blueprints?
Speaker 2:
[133:53] That's so easy. Are you kidding? First of all, I love a hotel and that is how I interact with the hotel. I don't know where I'm going. I'm wandering into random rooms. Oh, a salon. Did somebody book this? Can I be in here? Oh, this is where the pool is. Yeah. It's an escape room, but you don't want to escape.
Speaker 3:
[134:15] I also will take hotel. I really like when I'm clearly on a floor I'm not supposed to be on. I'm like, oh, I'm on the conference room floor. There's no conferences today, but you know what? That restroom's open. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[134:28] My friend, John Timothy, I don't know if you know John Timothy, used to run a for for his birthday every year. He would have it at the Waldorf Hotel in New York. This is a dirtbag improviser who wrote writes for CBS's Ghosts. We would have fake conferences that we were attending, and it was a scavenger hunt to see who could get into the most shenanigans at the Waldorf Hotel. You were in teams and there was a winning team. And it was things like anything from like, get a business card from somebody at the bar to take a photograph in somebody's robe in their room. Wow.
Speaker 1:
[135:11] This has big Ki-Ki energy also.
Speaker 2:
[135:13] It was great. And the Waldorf at the time was not renovated, so you could take the escalator and the elevator up to any floor, which now you have to, I'm sure, like key card into it as you can't have to in most hotels. But it would end then you could break into the roof. And you would have a party on the roof with like a full live band. It was sick. Maybe I shouldn't be saying this because these are crimes that we all did. But I think the Statute of Limitations is probably over. This is like 15 years ago. Anyway, those are great memories and that's what makes me do it. Also, the president is a pedophile. I think I'm going to be okay.
Speaker 1:
[135:52] We're going to finally crack down with this very specific crime.
Speaker 3:
[135:55] Heather, what's your answer?
Speaker 4:
[135:57] I think hotel, because you can opt out of like doing any of the other bullshit if you're in the hotel. Whereas like in a house where every time you go in a different room, it's a different room, you're like, fucking God damn.
Speaker 2:
[136:14] I think it would be psychically upsetting to have it happen in real life. That's like, am I suddenly schizophrenic?
Speaker 4:
[136:20] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[136:22] Let me make a case for house for just a second.
Speaker 2:
[136:24] Great.
Speaker 1:
[136:25] In the scenario, you are a homeowner.
Speaker 2:
[136:27] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[136:28] That's huge.
Speaker 2:
[136:28] Okay.
Speaker 3:
[136:29] That's nice.
Speaker 2:
[136:31] You could be a homeowner in the other scenario.
Speaker 1:
[136:33] You could be a homeowner in the other scenario, but you own this really crazy house. And there is this thing, people say you shouldn't take the same way to work every single day just to keep those neural pathways going. So maybe go into a different room every day.
Speaker 4:
[136:47] Imagine you're watching television and you're like, I should probably go to the bathroom and you have no idea where it is.
Speaker 2:
[136:51] Or even if there is one.
Speaker 4:
[136:52] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[136:53] There might not be a bathroom.
Speaker 4:
[136:54] I got to go to work. Where's the garage? I didn't spawn today.
Speaker 2:
[136:57] I don't know, but I guess maybe I'll take note of this chest piece because that feels like it might come along later.
Speaker 1:
[137:02] You get a horny text from a significant other and you're like, I'm in this room. You're like, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:
[137:07] I can't get to that room unless I spawned in the garden.
Speaker 4:
[137:12] Game of the year.
Speaker 3:
[137:14] Ranch, what say you?
Speaker 4:
[137:16] Oh, definitely hotel. I'd blow my brains out if I was in a hotel.
Speaker 1:
[137:21] Would you blathers be forced to remember the specific drink preferences of every customer that comes into your coffee shop like a coffee talk, or have to make random orders for your customers as fast as you can, like an overcooked?
Speaker 3:
[137:36] I will take the overcooked one because I'm just going to forget all those orders. I'm just going to like everyone's coffee. I mean, playing coffee talk, I would like fuck up their orders. And also, if it's a sexy mermaid, I'm like, sorry, I'm focused on something else right now.
Speaker 1:
[137:51] Yeah, I'm too busy going like this. Wow.
Speaker 3:
[137:56] I talked about this before, but this is when I was streaming. I streamed coffee talk, and one of the first characters you meet is a character, I believe is a dwarf in the fantasy sense, a cop. And he tells you he's lactose intolerant and orders a specific drink. And I would just ask the chat like what drink to make each time, and everyone say, milk, milk, milk. So I streamed this guy, triple milk, order after order after order, and he kept getting so sick.
Speaker 1:
[138:32] And that was a real cop. He's trying to kill me.
Speaker 2:
[138:35] There's fentanyl in my coffee.
Speaker 4:
[138:40] I think between the two scenarios, I would choose coffee shop because overcooked is stressful, and I don't want to try and shop vegetables. After somebody's been screaming at me, salad, now salad. I think it would be hard to memorize everybody's order, but I think if you start small, you learn the first three, you fuck up the fourth one, and then once you've got that pattern down, then you start with the next three, you'd be okay.
Speaker 1:
[139:07] I've become a pretty bad guy when I play overcooked. My friends and I, we all like it. It's because we make each other laugh doing it, but I scared one of my friends one time.
Speaker 2:
[139:16] Incredible.
Speaker 1:
[139:18] Because I paused it mid run and looked at them like, what the fuck's the matter with them?
Speaker 2:
[139:26] I saw a TikTok of somebody playing overcooked, but they had one person on Expo, and I think that's really smart. If one person who's not playing at all, they're just telling everybody else what to do and organizing everything, and that makes sense. I think I also will say Coffee Talk because playing overcooked is very stressful. But it's also like, it's over quickly. A round of overcooked is three minutes max, whereas Coffee Talk is somewhat unending.
Speaker 4:
[139:57] Yeah. Well, there's nothing in this scenario that says that you have to talk to them. It just says you have to remember their orders.
Speaker 1:
[140:04] I left out a foot part where you have to talk.
Speaker 2:
[140:06] You have to make conversation with a sexy mermaid.
Speaker 4:
[140:08] Here you go, cinnamon latte. All right, see you later. Look at my phone.
Speaker 3:
[140:13] I'm talking to them in the Overcooked scenario, too. Chopping it up with everyone.
Speaker 1:
[140:17] This guy loves chatting. I do. Which one do you want to do?
Speaker 2:
[140:19] Yeah, you can set yourself on fire at Overcooked.
Speaker 1:
[140:21] I feel like I thrive in Overcooked.
Speaker 3:
[140:23] Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:
[140:24] OK.
Speaker 3:
[140:25] That is the kind of ranch character detail we'd get, which is just, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[140:29] That's beautiful.
Speaker 1:
[140:29] Can run a line like a general. Would you blathers? OK, hold on. I'm embarrassed about this one.
Speaker 2:
[140:40] You wrote four.
Speaker 1:
[140:41] I wrote four of them.
Speaker 2:
[140:42] And two of them were mad.
Speaker 1:
[140:43] This will everyone's going to be mad at me when I read this one.
Speaker 2:
[140:45] OK, great.
Speaker 1:
[140:47] Would you blathers be a lonely ditto in a post-apocalyptic Pokemon world with no knowledge of what happened to your trainer and the world or. Be a ditto left in a Pokemon daycare forced to breed with the with the other Pokemon to make clones with ideal stats, which is what people do with dittos typically in a regular Pokemon game. They'll get a ditto and they're like, oh great, I can min max my entire team if I just like breed, or I can breed a shiny version of it too.
Speaker 2:
[141:19] Would you rather be alone forever or a sex slave? That's your question.
Speaker 1:
[141:24] I already said everybody's going to be mad at me.
Speaker 3:
[141:27] I at least can answer this one. And it's easier for me. Put me out to stud. Give me some Ms. Chalice rule 34 and I'm ready to go.
Speaker 2:
[141:38] You also have to fuck Mr. Vibe.
Speaker 3:
[141:41] I could do that.
Speaker 1:
[141:44] You sort of know what he's going to want to do because he's been acting out before.
Speaker 4:
[141:48] I saw a Pokopia build where people had caged the Pokemon that do tasks for you so that you could just come and know exactly where they were.
Speaker 2:
[141:56] Oh my God.
Speaker 4:
[141:56] And fucking give them the stuff.
Speaker 2:
[141:58] Damn.
Speaker 1:
[141:58] I hate it.
Speaker 2:
[141:59] That's upsetting.
Speaker 4:
[142:00] Yeah, it's no good.
Speaker 1:
[142:01] We'll just move on to the last one.
Speaker 4:
[142:02] Wait, I didn't answer.
Speaker 1:
[142:03] What's your answer?
Speaker 4:
[142:04] Pokopia.
Speaker 1:
[142:04] Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I assume everybody's answer is Pokopia. It seems a little bit better.
Speaker 3:
[142:07] It seems like it.
Speaker 1:
[142:08] Yeah. Finally, would you blathers have metaphorical laser eyes like in Lorelei and the Laser Eyes or have actual laser eyes like Cyclops from X-Men?
Speaker 3:
[142:19] Give me the Ray Chase, baby. I want them laser eyes.
Speaker 1:
[142:21] Yeah, give me those fucking laser eyes, baby.
Speaker 2:
[142:23] I don't know. He seems pretty miserable.
Speaker 1:
[142:25] It is tough.
Speaker 2:
[142:26] He's the saddest jock in the world, right? Cyclops?
Speaker 3:
[142:30] I'm sad already.
Speaker 4:
[142:31] All the X-Men are sad. None of them are happy.
Speaker 1:
[142:35] You're telling me-
Speaker 4:
[142:35] Nightcrawler is the closest.
Speaker 2:
[142:37] Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:
[142:38] I could have laser eyes, cum gutters, be one of the X-Men. I'm in, baby.
Speaker 2:
[142:44] No, you don't get the cum gutters. You wrote the hypothetical and in that you didn't say cum gutters.
Speaker 1:
[142:50] I get the whole deal, baby.
Speaker 2:
[142:53] Get the girl.
Speaker 4:
[142:54] I think part of what makes Cyclops a hero is the way he looks while also having laser eyes. I think if I had laser eyes and I went outside, I'd get shot by the cops instantly. Nobody would be like, that's a hero. They'd be like, that's the devil.
Speaker 1:
[143:12] Yeah. I'm taking the laser eyes.
Speaker 4:
[143:14] I'll take them.
Speaker 2:
[143:14] Yeah. You have to be really hot in order to have something that tough.
Speaker 4:
[143:19] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[143:20] Get the cool visor.
Speaker 4:
[143:21] I don't want laser eyes. Wait, but I've asked this before.
Speaker 2:
[143:25] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[143:26] Can he see out of the laser eyes?
Speaker 1:
[143:27] He can see.
Speaker 3:
[143:28] Yeah, he can see.
Speaker 1:
[143:28] He has vision. Everything I believe is red.
Speaker 2:
[143:32] That's tough.
Speaker 4:
[143:32] That sucks.
Speaker 1:
[143:33] I think.
Speaker 4:
[143:35] He's constantly seeing beam, right? Because his glasses are just holding in beam.
Speaker 1:
[143:42] I mentioned this before, somebody did correct us, they're not beams. They're portals to the punch dimension.
Speaker 3:
[143:47] Of course.
Speaker 1:
[143:47] So they're concentrated kinetic energy.
Speaker 3:
[143:51] I mean, but his whole reality, if he's viewing everything, the red prison.
Speaker 1:
[143:54] The punch dimension?
Speaker 3:
[143:56] Pretty good.
Speaker 2:
[143:56] Whoever wrote that?
Speaker 1:
[143:58] It's probably Stanley himself.
Speaker 2:
[144:01] Well, I'm glad he's dead.
Speaker 1:
[144:04] You would have killed him otherwise.
Speaker 2:
[144:05] Yeah. Punch dimension. Take less cocaine.
Speaker 1:
[144:12] I can't. It gives me my power.
Speaker 4:
[144:13] I'm going to take actual lasers. Ranch? Actual lasers.
Speaker 2:
[144:17] What do the metaphorical lasers give you? I guess not having lasers.
Speaker 1:
[144:22] Yeah. I mean, I did sort of read what they were. I don't know if it's a spoiler or not.
Speaker 2:
[144:25] I'm going to say metaphorical lasers because I wouldn't be able to take my glasses off. That kid killed his parents.
Speaker 1:
[144:34] God, that would suck. He's got a sad life.
Speaker 4:
[144:37] Wait, Cyclops killed his parents?
Speaker 1:
[144:38] Yeah, I think he burned his house.
Speaker 4:
[144:39] On the way out on the birth canal?
Speaker 2:
[144:41] No.
Speaker 4:
[144:42] That's.
Speaker 1:
[144:44] He performed his own C-section.
Speaker 2:
[144:45] It's obviously different in every iteration. But my memory of it is he got his powers during puberty and either zapped through his parents or set his own house on fire depending on the version. And then he's standing in the rubble of his house and Professor X comes along and says, you want to go to boarding school?
Speaker 1:
[145:06] For me, I just wouldn't do that.
Speaker 4:
[145:10] Yeah, weird that you would have a moment where you had laser punch coming out of your eyes and your instinct wouldn't be to close your eyes but rather look at people. Like, wouldn't you just close your eyes and be like, ah, something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong, I'm gonna look at the floor.
Speaker 2:
[145:26] I think it's hard for him to close his eyes.
Speaker 1:
[145:27] I think it hurts to, yeah, he has to.
Speaker 2:
[145:29] Cause he's almost like being thrown back by the lasers.
Speaker 1:
[145:32] That's why every time he's doing it, he's like, fuck!
Speaker 2:
[145:34] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[145:35] He's, it hurts to close his eyes?
Speaker 2:
[145:38] Yeah. Well, cause he's closing it against the punch.
Speaker 3:
[145:40] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[145:40] Imagine how strong your eyelets have to be to close them against a fist.
Speaker 4:
[145:45] In the movies, though, when he loses his fucking glasses, he just closes his eyes.
Speaker 3:
[145:50] He's in constant agony.
Speaker 1:
[145:52] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[145:53] Okay, so I guess I would choose that over looking at my parents with a blaster.
Speaker 1:
[145:59] I'm picking the laser eyes, still.
Speaker 3:
[146:01] I'm sticking with laser eyes. You're going to stick with laser eyes?
Speaker 5:
[146:04] Yeah. That's a right call.
Speaker 3:
[146:05] That's This Week's Get Played. Our producer is Rochelle Chen. Ranch twitch.tv/yardunderscoreunderscorestart. Our music was by Ben Prunty, benpruntymusic.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. Get Played merch at kinshipgoods.com. And there's a bonus episode every Wednesday on our Patreon, Get Played DLC. Matt, what are we doing this week?
Speaker 1:
[146:22] This week, Heather and I, a couple of weeks ago, did an arcade builder, and this week, it's a game room builder. We design our own best game rooms, and we have a lot of fun doing it.
Speaker 4:
[146:37] Yes, we do.
Speaker 3:
[146:37] And I can tease, we have something fun coming for May on the Patreon.
Speaker 1:
[146:42] We don't want to get into it. We don't want to get into it.
Speaker 4:
[146:43] Fun in quotes.
Speaker 1:
[146:45] We don't want to get into it, but, you know, Justin Timberlake, get your ass ready to say your favorite little thing you say.
Speaker 4:
[146:52] What?
Speaker 2:
[146:52] Is this gonna ruin the tour?
Speaker 3:
[146:54] Cry Me a River?
Speaker 1:
[146:55] What? He says it's gonna be me, but he says it's gonna be Maine. People memed it, and it's not funny, but I said it.
Speaker 3:
[147:03] I liked it. patreon.com/getplayed. And we understood that it was not funny. Siobhan Thompson, you're the best. Thank you so much for joining us, spending so much time with us. What an absolute joy. Anything you'd like to plug?
Speaker 2:
[147:19] Once again, we're crowdfunding to make this dang movie, The Greatest Treasure in the World. So you can just search Seed&Spark, Greatest Treasure in the World, or go to bit.ly forward slash treasure film to find it, or anywhere on social media that I am on. There's links, baby.
Speaker 1:
[147:37] Yeah, we'll put it in the episode description.
Speaker 2:
[147:39] We're slangin that shit.
Speaker 1:
[147:40] Yeah. There you go. Oh yeah, it's gonna be everywhere.
Speaker 2:
[147:42] Everywhere.
Speaker 1:
[147:44] I guess I'll do it. Go for it. I'm sorry, Siobhan, but...
Speaker 2:
[147:48] Oh no.
Speaker 1:
[147:48] You got played.
Speaker 2:
[147:49] Fuck!
Speaker 1:
[147:53] I didn't want to do it, but I did. Shit! Sorry.
Speaker 5:
[148:02] That was a Headgum podcast.
Speaker 7:
[148:04] Hi, I am Mandy Moore.
Speaker 5:
[148:06] Sterling K.
Speaker 3:
[148:06] Brown.
Speaker 5:
[148:07] And I'm Chris Sullivan.
Speaker 3:
[148:08] And we host the podcast That Was Us, now on Headgum.
Speaker 7:
[148:12] Each episode, we're gonna go into a deep dive. From our show, This Is Us.
Speaker 5:
[148:16] That's right.
Speaker 7:
[148:16] We're gonna go episode by episode. We're also gonna pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors.
Speaker 3:
[148:25] Are we gonna cry?
Speaker 5:
[148:26] Yes. A little bit.
Speaker 3:
[148:27] Are we gonna laugh? Often.
Speaker 5:
[148:28] A lot.
Speaker 2:
[148:29] A whole lot.
Speaker 5:
[148:29] That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to That Was Us on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday.