Game Under Podcast 130

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Introduction
0:00:20 ASMR Segment

Tom Towers REACTS... the the news.
0:03:25 Nvideo 3080 3070 3060 Video Cards
0:10:11 Xbox Details
0:15:30 PS5 Price Speculation
0:21:01 Halo 3 Impressions from Tom
0:25:05 Nintendo News - Switch Pro, Nintendo 35 and more

Final Impressions - Towers
0:29:50 Iron Harvest

Trademark Banter
0:46:15 Vegan Aussie Confectionary and Pizza
0:49:30 Shatterd Union RTS on Xbox
0:50:50 Sky: Children of Light 1 Year Old Final

Impressions - Fogg and Towers
1:03:00 Night in the Woods 1:36:00 SPOILER ALERT
1:43:27 SPOILERS END HERE

Transcript

Phil: Hello, and welcome to Episode 130 of The Game Under Podcast, Australia's longest running video games podcast.

Phil: I am Phil Fogg, and I'm joined by my co-host and founder, Tom Towers.

Phil: Hi, Tom.

Tom: I am indeed present.

Phil: Yes, it is.

Phil: Actually, you know what?

Phil: I haven't been watching the news quite closely.

Phil: We should probably tell people that you will be eating during this podcast, but you are eating a croissant, which is very, very low in terms of its interference for our video, audio recording.

Tom: So you will not be able to hear me eat the croissant, but you may be able to hear evidence of it being in my mouth while I speak.

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Phil: Yeah, we just thought this whole ASMR thing is something that might be able to help us get some new listeners.

00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:58.640

Phil: So I will not be eating what I usually eat, which is some chilli kettle chips.

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Tom: That will be like an episode with Gargan.

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Phil: Oh, is he really...

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Phil: he eats chips while he's on the show?

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Tom: He eats anything, and the louder the better on his podcast.

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Phil: Yeah, I have...

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Phil: Now that everyone's recording from home, which we should explain to our listeners because of these unprecedented times in which we live, we are both recording from our home studios.

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Phil: So if you do hear any audio things going on, crazy things like cats meowing, that's the reason why.

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Phil: But do you have a go-to food for when you're playing games, when you're video gaming?

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Phil: Because chips is not good.

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Phil: I mean, they're greasy, they mess up your controller.

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Tom: Usually I'm not eating when I'm playing games.

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Phil: Not at all.

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Tom: Though actually, if I'm playing...

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Tom: At the moment, usually I am actually playing a game while eating breakfast.

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Phil: Oh, okay.

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Tom: That is in fact how I played, for the most part, one of our items on the show today, Night in the Woods.

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Phil: Yes, yeah.

00:02:02.780 --> 00:02:04.860

Phil: I actually just finished that just before the show.

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Phil: I made sure I did all my homework and got it done in time.

00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:10.220

Phil: Me my go-to...

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Phil: Like if I had a food item, like I found the most efficient way is to put peanuts, flavored peanuts in a cup, and then I can just sort of drink them out of the cup and that keeps my hands nice and clean.

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Phil: So that's a pro tip for all the listeners out there.

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Tom: I believe an effective way supposedly of cleaning controllers is using screen wipes that you shouldn't actually use on your screen.

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Phil: No, you should not use screen wipes on your screen.

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Phil: Absolutely not.

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Tom: But they're apparently great for cleaning plastic safely.

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Phil: Now I know why you don't use screen wipes.

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Phil: Do you want to explain?

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Phil: I didn't know that this was something that other people knew besides me.

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Tom: Well, I believe they're usually alcohol-based, aren't they?

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Phil: Yep.

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Tom: And would not alcohol be an abrasive and dangerous substance to be applying it to a sensitive surface like a screen?

00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:02.300

Phil: Yes.

00:03:02.660 --> 00:03:09.540

Phil: And in fact, I always use dust, I mean like a dust cloth to clean your monitor.

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Phil: Yeah, exactly.

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Phil: But if someone's actually gone and touched your monitor and you do have to clean it or your screen, just warm water with a microfiber cloth is the way to go, making sure you wipe only in one direction.

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Tom: Absolutely.

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Phil: So those screen things, man, come on, they leave streaking, they're terrible, it's bad.

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Phil: It's bad for you.

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Phil: And another thing that's bad for you, have you kept up on the, we'll just hit some of the big items in the news this week, we'll get the Tom Towers reacts to the news.

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Phil: But of course, this will come as no surprise, because, you know, this has been everything.

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Phil: It's been the big story.

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Phil: The thing I'm most interested about is, have you looked over the new Nvidia graphics card, the RTX 3080?

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Tom: 3080, 3070 and 3060, in fact.

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Tom: And this is probably bigger news than the Xbox Series S and the price of the X, because everyone was anticipating a very unimpressive series of Nvidia cards coming up and at extraordinary prices.

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Tom: But what we ended up with is incredible for the complete opposite reason, in that the 3070, at least on paper, is essentially a 2080 Ti that is only $500 in the US, which is just an extraordinary deal.

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Phil: I was going to say, this is really your area of expertise.

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Phil: I'm looking at the prices of these, and the 3090 is going to go for $2500 for the Founder Edition.

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Tom: I think it's $1500, isn't it?

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Phil: Well, $2500, that's Australian money.

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Phil: And the 3080 is going for $1140, which sounds insane to me.

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Phil: But if you actually look at the thing, I mean, it's a beautiful piece of engineering, and I'm sure it's very capable.

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Phil: And again, you know that I'm a neophyte when it comes to graphics, so would it be worth the jump?

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Phil: I mean, what games would actually make use of that?

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Tom: Well, presently none.

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Tom: Well, actually, certainly the 2080 Ti, if you were to attempt to play Metro Exodus in 4K with the highest ray tracing settings on, it hovers around 60 FPS, if I remember consistently, but you're not getting much higher than that.

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Tom: So when it comes to even more demanding 4K titles with ray tracing, then it's conceivable that the 3080 and 3090 will actually be being utilised.

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Tom: But unless you are playing ray tracing at 4K, it probably is not very useful to have.

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Phil: I'm just seeing here, you can get a 2080 Ti.

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Phil: The cheapest is like a thousand bucks from MSI.

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Phil: And then they also have some for like 1800 bucks, 2300 bucks.

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Phil: So I guess I don't really understand the difference there.

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Phil: I guess it's all in terms of configurations with cooling fans and other things like that.

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Tom: Well, were you comparing the 2080 and the 2080 Ti?

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Phil: Just the 2080 Ti is all I was looking for.

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Phil: And these are all Australian prices on eBay.

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Phil: Even so, a thousand bucks for a video card.

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Phil: I mean, like at this point, would you go...

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Phil: Would you say, no, don't get a 2080 Ti because of the RTX 3080?

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Tom: You would not want to get...

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Tom: The only video card that would still be useful to purchase at the moment would be in the realm of very good deals on things like the 1650 and more budget-orientated cards.

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Phil: Because, yeah, you basically buy these cheaper ones because that's where you're going to get the most bang for your buck without feeling like you're going to have to make a major reinvestment in a short amount of time.

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Tom: Exactly.

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Phil: Yeah, and a 1650 TI, I'm having trouble getting a price for it, but what do you think they go for right now?

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Tom: When I was looking at them a while ago, if I remember correctly, and my memory is probably completely wrong, they were around the $500 mark.

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Phil: That's amazing value, which is kind of a funny thing for me to say, given the next topic, if you're ready to move on to that.

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Tom: Yep, and just last thing, the main appeal of these cards is definitely just for higher resolution rendering at this stage and things like ray tracing.

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Tom: So if you were playing games at 1080p, you really did not need more than a 1650 unless you were targeting ultra and ray tracing features in everything.

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Phil: Would it help for VR and stuff like that?

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Tom: Well, again, it depends on if you're targeting ultra.

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Tom: If you are going for ultra, and because a lot of VR is at least 1440p, then it does help in VR as well.

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Tom: But you can easily get away with something like the 1650ti with VR if you're playing on medium.

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Phil: You haven't dropped into VR yet, have you?

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Tom: No, I haven't.

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Phil: Yeah.

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Phil: Any interest there or?

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Tom: I'm definitely interested in trying it.

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Phil: Yeah.

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Phil: It's just a matter of getting the right rig or?

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Tom: Well, I would need to try a low budget version of it because the odds of it being unusable is pretty high, considering the weight of it and the likelihood of nausea.

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Phil: Yeah.

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Phil: Yeah.

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Phil: And I'm the same way.

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Phil: It's like, I'm interested, but realistically, with the short bursts of time I have for gaming every day, I'm not really going to get immersed in a thing, and I really don't want to spend that kind of money until I can try before I buy.

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Phil: And trying before you buy in these days, I was going to say it would be great if these VR rig manufacturers could send you a loaner sort of thing, but in these unprecedented times, that's probably not a good idea.

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Phil: Speaking of which, for our listeners that don't know, you're based in the hotspot in Australia of this whole COVID thing.

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Phil: Are you guys still in complete lockdown?

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Tom: We are still in stage 4 lockdown, yes.

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Phil: Yeah, which basically means that you can't be out after 8 o'clock at night.

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Tom: I think there's an 8 o'clock curfew, but that is I think about to change to 9 o'clock.

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Phil: Yeah.

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Tom: And you can go out for non-work reasons or shopping to exercise for one hour, I believe.

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Phil: It sounds really extreme for someone who's not living under those circumstances.

00:10:09.160 --> 00:10:09.800

Tom: Potentially.

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Phil: So the other, I mean, probably the biggest news, of course, for the last week, has been the Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S pricing and launch dates.

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Phil: They're going to come out November 10th, and the prices in the United States are 500 bucks or $4.99 for the X, and then the S Series is only going to be $499.

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Tom: $300, right?

00:10:38.260 --> 00:10:41.260

Phil: $300, yes, $299, which is incredible.

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Phil: The only downside about that is that it doesn't have a disc, and it has fairly limited onboard storage.

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Phil: And given that the whole value proposition of the Xbox is Game Pass, and the fact that you won't be able to use a disc, so therefore you're going to have to download games, that sort of, I think, hamstrings the Series S.

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Tom: It should be easy to upgrade the storage though, shouldn't it?

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Phil: Well, they're using a proprietary storage, so it's not like what we've become accustomed to over the last couple of generations with just hooking up an SD drive, an external USB drive.

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Phil: On the Xbox, you actually, there is a proprietary plug, which is unlike anything that's out there already.

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Phil: So you'll only be able to use Xbox-licensed memory upgrades.

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Tom: Surely, there'll be a converter for that?

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Phil: Yeah, possibly.

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Phil: And whether or not Microsoft will allow it.

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Tom: If not, what is the storage on it?

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Phil: It's got 1 terabyte of storage on board, which would be what basically you can download Call of Duty Modern Warfare and APAC.

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Phil: So I think that really does hamstring it.

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Tom: What appeared at first to be an amazing deal is suddenly not looking so good.

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Tom: While you would be hoping for there to be a converter so that you can plug a normal SSD in or something to that effect, the description of it is that it has an internal 1 terabyte SSD and that there is an expansion slot on the rear to add an optional 1 terabyte SSD.

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Tom: And with the case of the Wii U, for instance, you were, without homebrewing it, limited to a maximum hard drive size.

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Tom: So if they're limiting you to 1 terabyte unless you are doing homebrew stuff, that is absolutely horrendous.

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Phil: And I think also, you know, you say, well, what about a converter?

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Phil: I'm pretty sure Microsoft's going to have this locked down for security and piracy reasons.

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Phil: They don't want anything accessible going next to it, which is probably why they've gone with this proprietary adapter.

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Phil: Though of course this thing will still have USBs, so it's kind of, yeah, who knows?

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Phil: But I can't imagine Microsoft will tolerate dongles.

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Phil: But we'll see.

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Phil: Because everything else they're doing is extremely consumer-friendly.

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Phil: The price down here in Australian dollars will be $749 Australian, which translates to about $585 US.

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Tom: Typically that's for the Series X.

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Phil: That's for the Series X, yes.

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Phil: But when you add in GST, which our sales tax is included in that, whereas in the United States, depending on the state you're in, you're paying 10% to 12% of sales tax, then there are ways to skirt that by buying online.

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Phil: Amazon no longer is a way to do that, but other smaller retailers.

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Phil: So when you look at that $500 in the US for the Series X, with, say, a 10% sales tax, you're actually paying $550.

00:14:00.560 --> 00:14:04.780

Phil: We're paying $585 here in US dollars.

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Phil: So we're not really getting pounded that much.

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Tom: That's pretty impressive.

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Tom: There's basically no markup on it at all.

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Phil: There's no tax, basically, to get it here to Australia, which is considerable, which is a considerable concession, given that we're a smaller population.

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Phil: It costs more to ship stuff to Australia than it does to major population centers.

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Phil: So I don't begrudge them on that one.

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Phil: I thought it was going to be $500 US, and it was.

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Phil: The surprise was the value of the Series S.

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Phil: $299 for a brand new console with the specs that it's got.

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Phil: It's unbelievable.

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Phil: And so if you're in an internet-friendly country, and you don't mind constantly deleting and re-downloading your games, and you don't mind that, it's an extremely great value.

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Phil: But they're probably looking at, you know, small G gamers will get that, because they're only going to want two or three games.

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Phil: They'll try a game, delete it off, you know.

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Phil: So it's a great message, and I think Microsoft has done a tremendous job in keeping this all under their hats for so long.

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Phil: And it really puts Sony in a difficult situation, because they've already announced their two models, and the only difference between the two is one has a drive and one doesn't.

00:15:27.580 --> 00:15:29.520

Phil: Rather a disk drive and one doesn't.

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Tom: So it will be interesting seeing the price of the PS5, given that they historically are always the more expensive console.

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Phil: I'm thinking 800 bucks here on the store.

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Tom: Have any consoles previously launched at more than 500 US recently?

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Phil: No.

00:15:49.720 --> 00:15:49.980

Phil: No.

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Phil: No, that's been the cap.

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Phil: That's been the very top.

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Phil: Like the PlayStation 3, I think was 499.

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Phil: It could have been higher.

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Phil: I can't remember.

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Phil: But I don't see the PlayStation down here being any less than 800 bucks, unfortunately.

00:16:08.840 --> 00:16:14.800

Phil: And my guess for the state will be that it will be 549.

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Tom: I'm thinking maybe the Disclos version will be $500 if they really want to not be in the same realm as what Microsoft is doing.

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Tom: I think the original PS3, it had the harder and smaller hard drive version.

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Tom: I think the smaller hard drive version was 500 and the larger one was 600.

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Tom: So they might be doing something similar again.

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Tom: But that is a tall order for them to be competing with the $300 Series S.

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Tom: But of course, with the PS5, the only difference is the disc drive, whereas the Series S has a weaker GPU in it as well.

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Phil: Yeah, and can't do native 4K, but it can do 4K media, and that's where I think they're actually pulling a PlayStation 2 or a PlayStation 1.

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Phil: So whereas the PlayStation 2 was an affordable DVD player, which is why it sold so well.

00:17:18.260 --> 00:17:20.060

Tom: The PS3 as well with Blu-ray.

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Phil: And the PS3 with Blu-ray, although the value proposition wasn't there.

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Phil: But if you go to the small G Gamer...

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Tom: It was for the quality of the Blu-ray player in the PS3.

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Tom: You could get cheap Blu-ray players, but if I remember correctly, it was the cheapest one that was of beginner enthusiast quality.

00:17:43.540 --> 00:17:59.140

Phil: So what I'm saying though with the Series S, if you haven't got a 4K player right now, for $299 US, you're getting the Xbox, basically the new Xbox.

00:17:59.160 --> 00:18:04.040

Phil: It can play 4K media, can't play 4K games, but a small G game is not going to care about that anyway.

00:18:05.060 --> 00:18:11.380

Tom: I don't know if that's really good value though, given that you can get a $50 or $100 computer that will do 4K.

00:18:11.940 --> 00:18:17.180

Phil: Yeah, but again, we're talking about people who gaming isn't their primary disposition.

00:18:17.200 --> 00:18:22.520

Phil: They just have to have a gaming console in their house for various other things, like watching Netflix.

00:18:23.640 --> 00:18:26.760

Phil: It's a brain dead way to get Netflix and other things into your house.

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Phil: And in addition to that, with Microsoft's financing, they're basically offering a $25 a month thing to get the game pass, which means you're going to get every new Xbox game quote for free, you know, on release.

00:18:49.160 --> 00:18:51.780

Phil: You know, so it just sounds like a great deal.

00:18:51.800 --> 00:18:55.980

Phil: And yeah, I think Sony is going to really struggle to catch up.

00:18:57.100 --> 00:19:05.920

Tom: But they have always positioned themselves as the more high end and expensive console.

00:19:05.940 --> 00:19:18.940

Tom: So as impressive as the price of the Series S is, it's still a somewhat similar situation to previous generations, particularly with the PS2 as a comparison.

00:19:19.620 --> 00:19:20.540

Phil: Oh, absolutely.

00:19:20.560 --> 00:19:24.560

Phil: And also on games as well, you know, Sony is saying, no, we're a games console.

00:19:24.620 --> 00:19:26.820

Phil: Yeah, we have these other things, but we're a game console.

00:19:26.820 --> 00:19:27.920

Phil: We have exclusives.

00:19:27.940 --> 00:19:33.700

Phil: We have 17 worldwide studios around the world, and we'll actually have games at launch.

00:19:34.320 --> 00:19:40.980

Phil: Whereas Microsoft, you know, with Halo Infinite falling off, you know, doesn't really have a great launch lineup.

00:19:41.780 --> 00:19:59.160

Phil: But again, all that stuff doesn't matter because capital G gamers are going to buy the great new tech at launch, and small g gamers aren't going to notice that there isn't a great lineup as long as it's got, you know, Madden and the recently re-released Tony Hawk 1 and 2, which is apparently phenomenal.

00:20:00.740 --> 00:20:03.300

Phil: So yeah, in any case, it's all good.

00:20:04.600 --> 00:20:13.360

Phil: I wasn't eager to get an Xbox Series X at launch just because it wasn't really a compelling game for me to get along with it, and that's always important at a launch.

00:20:15.180 --> 00:20:16.500

Phil: But yeah, it'll...

00:20:16.800 --> 00:20:17.380

Phil: It's still...

00:20:17.460 --> 00:20:24.260

Phil: I'm still obviously very interested in the Xbox Series X as opposed to the S because of my internet limitations.

00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:30.520

Phil: And so is either of them compelling to you now that you've got a supercomputer?

00:20:30.540 --> 00:20:43.100

Tom: If not for my computer, if I was considering getting a non-Nintendo console, it would absolutely be the Series S because that is just an incredible deal.

00:20:43.120 --> 00:20:51.320

Tom: You're essentially getting a 1440p high-end computer for $500.

00:20:52.060 --> 00:20:52.340

Phil: Yeah.

00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:53.480

Phil: Yeah.

00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:54.860

Phil: Yeah, it's great.

00:20:56.020 --> 00:20:59.820

Phil: Again, if not for the internet, I'd be pre-ordering an S today.

00:21:00.540 --> 00:21:12.260

Tom: Before we move on from Microsoft, you just reminded me of a game that I completely forgot about when we were doing the show notes that I have played the first level of, and I have to bring up.

00:21:12.280 --> 00:21:13.560

Tom: That is Halo 3.

00:21:15.900 --> 00:21:23.160

Tom: And we all remember how tremendously disappointed I was in the first level of Halo Reach.

00:21:24.120 --> 00:21:24.480

Phil: Yes.

00:21:24.680 --> 00:21:35.480

Tom: Yes, it was from the narrative to the gameplay to the look of the game, a tremendously disappointing experience.

00:21:35.960 --> 00:21:39.820

Tom: Halo 3, I am pleased to say, is the complete opposite.

00:21:39.840 --> 00:21:44.320

Tom: It is perhaps the best opening to a Halo that I have played.

00:21:45.140 --> 00:21:48.420

Tom: Coming from Reach, it's amazingly colourful.

00:21:48.640 --> 00:21:56.280

Tom: It's like it's a combination of Killzone 3 and Crisis, but better than both visually.

00:21:58.500 --> 00:22:02.860

Tom: The level design is on a completely different level.

00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:43.220

Tom: There's a combination of corridor sections, absolutely, but even the corridor sections are usually within areas that you can move out of the corridors, and you can use the corridors as cover to fight enemies outside of the corridors on platforms or in little hollows, and you can move from hollow to hollow as well, completely ignoring the corridors, unlike in Halo Reach, which was really static environments that were just basically plain open areas without any sort of detail affecting how you were moving and where the enemies were.

00:22:45.120 --> 00:23:10.040

Tom: The story is not some terrible imperialist Call of Duty fanfiction as the Halo Reach opening was, but a very much on-point Halo 3 semi-serious science fiction The World Coming Together story, essentially the complete reverse of what Reach was.

00:23:10.040 --> 00:23:17.020

Tom: And maybe Reach later on subverts Halo 3, the Halo style, interestingly, but the opening certainly didn't.

00:23:18.540 --> 00:23:27.900

Tom: And just again on the great tone of the story, the grunt banter is brilliant and on another level compared to what it was in Reach.

00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:33.960

Tom: The enemies are more densely populated due to the better design.

00:23:33.960 --> 00:23:38.000

Tom: It is just an absolutely perfect Halo opening.

00:23:39.100 --> 00:23:41.000

Phil: Does it start in a jungle setting?

00:23:41.020 --> 00:23:41.920

Phil: Yes, it does.

00:23:42.060 --> 00:23:43.460

Tom: No, it is in the jungle.

00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:47.760

Phil: I remember Halo 5, I remember Halo 1 and 2.

00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:51.720

Phil: The game you're talking about, I remember now.

00:23:53.300 --> 00:23:55.780

Phil: But I can't remember Halo 4 for the life of me.

00:23:56.440 --> 00:23:57.760

Tom: I think a lot of people can't.

00:23:58.580 --> 00:23:59.060

Phil: Yeah.

00:23:59.120 --> 00:24:08.040

Phil: And well, Halo 3, I didn't like it at the time because I was so hyped up about it, you know.

00:24:08.060 --> 00:24:09.760

Tom: A lot of people were disappointed at the time.

00:24:09.760 --> 00:24:14.200

Tom: It was, yeah, the majority opinion was that it was a massive disappointment.

00:24:14.220 --> 00:24:19.220

Tom: But at this stage, I think a lot of people consider it to be the best.

00:24:19.580 --> 00:24:23.740

Tom: The ones people choose as the best, I think, is 3, Reach.

00:24:24.780 --> 00:24:27.840

Tom: I think ODST is the hipster choice.

00:24:28.740 --> 00:24:31.460

Tom: And obviously 2 and 1 as well.

00:24:32.100 --> 00:24:34.020

Phil: Yeah, well, Reach is the best for sure.

00:24:34.220 --> 00:24:37.220

Phil: And then 1 is my favorite.

00:24:37.240 --> 00:24:41.140

Tom: Well, Reach certainly has the worst opening without any comparison.

00:24:41.800 --> 00:24:44.960

Phil: Yeah, I don't remember, but I've only played it twice, I think.

00:24:44.980 --> 00:24:46.300

Phil: But on Halo 3...

00:24:46.320 --> 00:24:50.700

Tom: Well, that might be an issue if you've played the game twice and you do not remember the opening.

00:24:50.720 --> 00:24:51.520

Phil: Can't remember, yeah.

00:24:52.100 --> 00:24:53.460

Phil: There's a lot of things I don't remember.

00:24:53.780 --> 00:24:57.060

Phil: But hey, Master Chief Collection, I do have that.

00:24:57.080 --> 00:24:58.780

Phil: So it looks like I'm in for a big update.

00:24:58.820 --> 00:25:01.640

Phil: And I've written Halo 3 down on the list.

00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:07.800

Phil: Speaking of the list, we've both been playing a game.

00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:14.300

Phil: I really wanted to know what our next itch.io game is, if you can think about that while we're talking about stuff.

00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:16.860

Phil: I don't think we have to spend too much time on Nintendo.

00:25:16.860 --> 00:25:28.000

Phil: I mean, there is a rumor that a Switch Pro is coming out that will not be portable at all and will provide 4K support on some level.

00:25:28.800 --> 00:25:34.640

Phil: I don't think it's entirely necessary for Nintendo to be doing this, but it won't hurt.

00:25:34.660 --> 00:25:41.640

Phil: I mean, it gives gamers another thing to buy, and then they can continue down two tracks that way.

00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:46.900

Phil: But I don't think that a non-portable...

00:25:47.280 --> 00:25:51.620

Phil: I think a non-portable Switch is as compelling as a non-dockable Switch.

00:25:51.820 --> 00:25:54.920

Phil: I don't see the point.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:03.600

Tom: I think a Light is a more compelling console than a non-portable at all Switch would be.

00:26:05.320 --> 00:26:14.440

Tom: Because there are people who only play handheld games, or would be interested in only playing Switch games as handheld games.

00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:28.920

Tom: I'm not sure how many people would be interested in playing a Switch that can upscale to 4K, but does not have the portability of either the standard console or the Light.

00:26:30.040 --> 00:26:35.240

Phil: Well, the portability for me enables me to play so many more hours of gaming every week.

00:26:36.180 --> 00:26:40.580

Phil: So for it to be non-portable is a deal breaker for me.

00:26:40.640 --> 00:26:46.700

Phil: And I just don't think there's enough people that would want upgraded graphics if they can just play it at home and only at home.

00:26:47.480 --> 00:26:56.600

Phil: I've got to say I play my Switch so much portably that when I do dock it and I play like Deadly Premonition 2 on the big screen, it's very impressive.

00:26:57.160 --> 00:27:00.840

Phil: It's like, oh my god, this is incredible.

00:27:01.200 --> 00:27:06.480

Phil: Because you're just playing it portably, you put it onto the dock, you pick up your pro controller and keep going.

00:27:06.920 --> 00:27:13.020

Phil: And just seeing everything that you're so used to seeing on a small screen come up on a big screen, it's just magical.

00:27:13.240 --> 00:27:18.980

Tom: So it's better fidelity than the Wii U then, because a lot of games are on the Wii U.

00:27:19.160 --> 00:27:32.060

Tom: If you're playing it on the gamepad, then you switch to a 1080p monitor or television screen, and it's 720p and you think it looks a lot better on a tiny screen.

00:27:33.660 --> 00:27:34.560

Phil: Look, there's nothing...

00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:40.760

Phil: The other Nintendo stuff is obviously the Mario 35th anniversary, which other shows have talked to to death.

00:27:41.380 --> 00:27:42.960

Tom: And it's a terrible deal.

00:27:43.740 --> 00:27:46.740

Phil: Yeah, it's terrible, obviously.

00:27:47.380 --> 00:27:55.440

Phil: It does make me want to go back and play Mario Sunshine on my GameCube, but other than that, it's not great.

00:27:55.460 --> 00:27:58.340

Phil: They did give away All Stars for free, but come on.

00:27:58.360 --> 00:28:04.620

Phil: I mean, they gave it away for free to people who are subscribing like myself on a monthly basis to Nintendo Online.

00:28:05.020 --> 00:28:07.740

Phil: And it's like, well, this should be there already anyway.

00:28:07.820 --> 00:28:14.220

Phil: I mean, their offerings for the online NES and SNES libraries is pathetic and pitiful.

00:28:15.340 --> 00:28:17.360

Tom: So you can only get that by subscribing?

00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:18.740

Phil: Yeah, exactly.

00:28:18.760 --> 00:28:20.260

Tom: So it's not available in the store?

00:28:20.280 --> 00:28:21.920

Phil: Oh, yeah.

00:28:22.500 --> 00:28:23.620

Phil: I don't know, honestly.

00:28:23.660 --> 00:28:24.540

Phil: That's a good question.

00:28:24.560 --> 00:28:29.880

Phil: And the thing that's interesting about it, Tom, is that this is the 24th month.

00:28:29.940 --> 00:28:37.100

Phil: So if you subscribe to Nintendo Online the first time around, this is where your second renewal subscription is coming up.

00:28:37.660 --> 00:28:43.040

Phil: So I believe this was an enticement just to continue doing it.

00:28:43.300 --> 00:28:51.160

Phil: Because honestly, other than Tetris 99, there's no reason to have Nintendo Online because the online offerings for their free stores...

00:28:51.180 --> 00:28:52.720

Tom: Splatoon 2, I believe.

00:28:53.280 --> 00:28:57.920

Phil: Yeah, Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart, you know, Tetris 99.

00:28:59.520 --> 00:29:00.960

Phil: Those are all good reasons to have it.

00:29:00.980 --> 00:29:02.140

Tom: Is Rocket League on Switch?

00:29:03.300 --> 00:29:04.060

Phil: It is, as well.

00:29:04.080 --> 00:29:05.140

Tom: There's four reasons.

00:29:05.660 --> 00:29:07.300

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

00:29:07.620 --> 00:29:09.160

Phil: I mean, and it's a good value.

00:29:09.180 --> 00:29:09.740

Phil: It's only like...

00:29:09.740 --> 00:29:10.720

Tom: It's not good value.

00:29:11.060 --> 00:29:13.040

Tom: You are paying for Nintendo Online.

00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:16.140

Tom: In no world is that good value.

00:29:17.220 --> 00:29:17.900

Phil: Yes, you're right.

00:29:19.100 --> 00:29:19.940

Phil: My apologies.

00:29:21.180 --> 00:29:28.000

Phil: But they did announce that Mario 35, which is like a Tetris 99 thing, but you haven't played Tetris 99, so you wouldn't fully get it.

00:29:30.800 --> 00:29:31.120

Phil: Yeah.

00:29:31.260 --> 00:29:36.080

Phil: Okay, well, with that, I think we're probably ready to talk about a game you're playing.

00:29:36.540 --> 00:29:46.540

Phil: Last time we talked about a 90s shooter that I did look at, it's 20 bucks on the Switch, but I just want to finish Deadly Premonition 2 before I get another Switch game.

00:29:47.200 --> 00:29:47.980

Phil: What was it called?

00:29:48.940 --> 00:29:50.060

Tom: Project Warlock.

00:29:50.700 --> 00:29:52.080

Phil: Project Warlock, right.

00:29:52.180 --> 00:29:55.500

Phil: And we talked about Iron Maiden, which is a similar type of game.

00:29:56.280 --> 00:29:58.180

Phil: You've actually been playing Iron Harvest.

00:29:58.440 --> 00:29:59.200

Tom: Yes, I have.

00:29:59.620 --> 00:30:07.440

Tom: And this is an RTS, I believe, originally a Kickstarter title by King Art Games.

00:30:07.640 --> 00:30:25.580

Tom: And followers of The Game Under Podcast should be well familiar with King Art Games because they are the developer of The Book of Unwritten Tales, which was a very successful adventure game series in the 2010s.

00:30:26.260 --> 00:30:34.200

Tom: So it's interesting that they're making an RTS in the first place, but they apparently at one point made a turn-based strategy game.

00:30:35.200 --> 00:30:41.640

Tom: And they have made a tactical RPG, so this is apparently within their wheelhouse to some degree.

00:30:41.660 --> 00:30:46.340

Phil: So this is a German developer, and then Iron Harvest is available.

00:30:46.360 --> 00:30:48.240

Phil: You're playing it on PC or Xbox?

00:30:48.260 --> 00:30:51.260

Tom: I was playing the open beta on PC.

00:30:51.280 --> 00:30:52.480

Phil: Okay.

00:30:52.640 --> 00:30:58.080

Tom: But it is now out, so I am not currently playing more of it yet.

00:30:58.200 --> 00:31:07.740

Tom: I may get it at some point in Steam sale, but obviously no one with any sense of self-dignity buys anything on Steam that is not heavily discounted.

00:31:09.380 --> 00:31:16.720

Tom: But the open beta was actually about, I think, five of the ten missions of the first of three campaigns.

00:31:16.740 --> 00:31:21.260

Tom: So it was a reasonably in-depth demo that anyone could play.

00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:26.240

Tom: Being an open beta, you didn't need to try and get into it or anything like that.

00:31:27.200 --> 00:31:33.880

Tom: And the whole hook of the game is that it is an alternative history dieselpunk setting.

00:31:33.900 --> 00:31:57.620

Tom: Basically, it's set during the, I think, just after the First World War in the lead-up to the second in Polania, which is obviously Poland, which is stuck between Saxony, I think, they're called, Germany, and the Rusviets, which is obviously a combination of Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union.

00:31:59.100 --> 00:32:05.920

Tom: And also being an adventure game company, you would expect the story to be somewhat interesting.

00:32:06.620 --> 00:32:19.940

Tom: And the hook at the beginning is essentially you, it's more in the vein of a company of heroes than it is something like StarCraft, although there are base elements to it.

00:32:20.120 --> 00:32:28.980

Tom: It's more about the minute-to-minute strategy in combat than it is about mining resources and harvesting stuff.

00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:47.480

Tom: And an example of this is in the levels where you do have bases, while the harvesting of resources is important, the main way you actually get it is by taking over enemy oil rigs and mines and things like that as you are exploring the map.

00:32:47.500 --> 00:32:52.880

Tom: And then at some point, you reach an area where you have to set up base and build things.

00:32:53.380 --> 00:33:01.400

Tom: And that's made a lot easier by having already taken over previous mines and things like that that the enemy had.

00:33:01.420 --> 00:33:16.980

Tom: So even when building is important, at least in the first half of the campaign, it's usually as part of a mission, rather than as you're plonked in an area with a base and you have to go out of the base and slowly take over the map from there, destroying enemy bases and so forth.

00:33:17.500 --> 00:33:29.640

Tom: So it is much more in the vein of something like Company of Heroes, and as a result as well, the heroes and special units and so forth are more important than in something like StarCraft as well.

00:33:29.800 --> 00:33:50.420

Tom: And the story of the Polanyian campaign is about a Polanyian peasant girl, and it starts off with a hilarious introduction, teaching the controls where you have a snow battle with a group of boys who don't want to play war games with you because you're a girl.

00:33:51.860 --> 00:34:03.020

Tom: And this sense of humour and amusing, but also serious tone to the story is kept throughout, and it's got a lot of interesting historical references.

00:34:03.040 --> 00:34:20.820

Tom: For instance, the girl during the story befriends a bear who goes around as a medic later on healing your troops, which is a reference to a bear that the Soviet Union had in a squad as a mascot at some point.

00:34:20.840 --> 00:34:30.580

Tom: I think, not sure if it was in Poland or a different part of the Soviet Union, but there's many references like that.

00:34:30.820 --> 00:34:35.780

Phil: Yeah, I just watched the theatrical intro, and it's comically bombastic.

00:34:36.460 --> 00:34:46.240

Phil: And it's got the bear, it's got the robots with the glowing eyes, it's got a little boy playing with what looks to be battle tanks now that I'm watching gameplay video.

00:34:47.440 --> 00:34:51.220

Phil: I'm looking at the gameplay video of it in real-time strategies.

00:34:51.240 --> 00:35:10.600

Phil: Like, the only one that I've really played beyond Castles 2 was Halo Wars, and I was so enthralled with the genre from Halo Wars because it was made by one of the preeminent developers of RTS.

00:35:10.900 --> 00:35:17.920

Phil: I forget their names right now, but they were subsequently closed by Microsoft, and it was their last game, in fact.

00:35:18.160 --> 00:35:26.500

Phil: And I absolutely loved the genre, but for the fact that it created an extreme level of anxiety.

00:35:27.860 --> 00:35:33.280

Phil: I was so stressed out while I was playing it that I just couldn't play it again.

00:35:34.840 --> 00:35:42.460

Phil: You know, I'll play turn-based strategies, but real-time strategies just always had me worried about what I was missing or what was happening off-screen.

00:35:44.140 --> 00:35:47.980

Phil: But I'm looking at the gameplay of the beta.

00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:58.160

Phil: It looks really good in terms of how it operates, but they're jumping backwards and forwards from the front line back to defending their bases, and that's the thing that just stresses me out.

00:35:59.200 --> 00:36:03.740

Phil: Is that a common trepidation that players of these things have?

00:36:03.760 --> 00:36:10.960

Tom: Well, I don't think players of them would have that trepidation, but it may put some people off the genre itself.

00:36:11.800 --> 00:36:15.000

Phil: I just want to see the whole battlefield, you know?

00:36:15.960 --> 00:36:17.980

Tom: And you're limited by Fog of War as well.

00:36:19.120 --> 00:36:19.960

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

00:36:20.100 --> 00:36:32.040

Tom: But it would actually be an interesting mechanic in an RTS to have a drone-eyes view over the entirety of a battlefield.

00:36:33.120 --> 00:36:36.940

Phil: That would make me less stressful because I'm always worried about what I'm not seeing.

00:36:36.940 --> 00:36:42.600

Phil: So I was always just moving around the whole screen the whole time, making sure that I wasn't missing something.

00:36:44.580 --> 00:36:46.940

Phil: Yeah, but talking just...

00:36:47.100 --> 00:36:57.560

Phil: I'll let you get back to it in a second, but talking about playing pre-Baters and early access, I've only ever played one early access game, and I don't know why.

00:36:57.580 --> 00:36:58.380

Phil: I must have been drunk.

00:36:59.320 --> 00:37:01.600

Phil: But I bought Prison Architect.

00:37:04.260 --> 00:37:15.760

Phil: And I played the Beta, and I had fun with it, but it was janky as hell, and I just played so much of it that by the time the game came out and I had full access to it, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:37:16.520 --> 00:37:27.600

Phil: And I keep updating it, thinking I'm going to go back to it, but because I had the early access impression of the game, I'm still like, got that thing in my head that, yeah, well, I've sort of...

00:37:28.020 --> 00:37:35.540

Phil: I've already enjoyed the best parts of it, and it was janky, and that sort of turns me off from going back to playing the full game.

00:37:36.540 --> 00:37:37.300

Phil: So I'm not sure...

00:37:37.320 --> 00:37:41.080

Phil: Again, I don't know if this is a common thing, but I've just got to...

00:37:42.260 --> 00:37:44.700

Phil: I just think early access is a bad idea.

00:37:44.760 --> 00:37:55.980

Phil: It's a good idea in terms of getting money up front, but from a gameplay perspective, I think it sort of shoots you in the foot, at least for a small share of the population such as myself.

00:37:55.980 --> 00:37:58.680

Tom: I think it depends on the game and how it's done.

00:38:00.340 --> 00:38:03.900

Tom: For instance, this was basically like an extended demo.

00:38:06.560 --> 00:38:07.780

Tom: That works pretty well.

00:38:08.480 --> 00:38:27.120

Tom: The one thing you would potentially be annoyed about, I anyway would, other than the Steam sale, if you could not continue from where you were up to, I would want to wait a while to continue because the five missions is several hours worth of gameplay depending on how fast you are.

00:38:27.140 --> 00:38:30.520

Tom: And I'm not particularly good at RTSs.

00:38:30.540 --> 00:38:36.100

Tom: I'm okay at turn-based strategy games, at least tabletop ones.

00:38:36.520 --> 00:38:43.360

Tom: But RTSs, though, I have a reasonable amount of experience playing quite a few of them, and I do greatly enjoy the genre.

00:38:43.380 --> 00:38:50.260

Tom: I'm not good at them because I'm terrible at the building aspect of them, for the most part.

00:38:51.320 --> 00:38:55.360

Tom: So that would be several hours of redoing the same thing if you could not continue.

00:38:56.420 --> 00:39:03.600

Tom: But as I said, the building stuff was secondary, so I did not do too badly in it.

00:39:04.660 --> 00:39:14.700

Tom: And there are some issues with it, though, which hopefully are fixed in the final version, but the open beta was obviously just before the game released, so who knows?

00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:17.900

Tom: But take this with a grain of salt in case they have been fixed.

00:39:18.340 --> 00:39:39.180

Tom: But there were numerous glitches where, with mechs that had the ability to embank themselves in an area and basically become an immobile turret, they would glitch into doing that themselves, and from then on, you could not move them.

00:39:39.220 --> 00:39:43.480

Tom: So you would have a unit stuck there that you could not replace.

00:39:43.600 --> 00:39:49.740

Tom: And being a company of hero style thing, the amount of units you have is extremely limited.

00:39:50.120 --> 00:40:04.960

Tom: So when you have a unit randomly just plonk itself down somewhere and become completely useless for the entire mission unless an enemy happens to wander over to it, that rather handicapped me on several occasions.

00:40:06.200 --> 00:40:10.280

Tom: So that would be extremely frustrating in the main game as well.

00:40:11.620 --> 00:40:44.560

Tom: The pathfinding of units as well is a little bit weird because one of the aesthetically really enjoyable things about the game is that the mechs can just walk through buildings and they will collapse, but the pathfinding of mechs, they will often not try to take the direct route somewhere, but walk all over the place to avoid stuff that they can walk through as if they are standard infantry, which also makes how you're attacking things a little bit awkward to plan as well.

00:40:45.980 --> 00:40:58.440

Tom: So there are issues like that, but with the exception of one mission that was simultaneously a pretty very interesting concept, was also a little bit annoying.

00:40:59.040 --> 00:41:05.320

Tom: Basically, you were escorting a train that could shoot mortar through an area from one side of the map to the other.

00:41:05.980 --> 00:41:13.700

Tom: So on the one hand, this is a really cool and interesting idea that you were escorting this train that can also provide mortar support.

00:41:13.980 --> 00:41:20.840

Tom: On the other hand, it did become a bit of a slightly annoying escort mission as you were protecting the train.

00:41:21.740 --> 00:41:42.460

Tom: But most of the missions are really interestingly paced and do combine light base management and more standard Company of Heroes exploration and figuring out how to attack a base with taking into account the cover of the troops and all that sort of thing.

00:41:43.080 --> 00:41:49.860

Tom: And the other issue as well is mechs are rather overpowered, in my experience.

00:41:49.880 --> 00:42:06.880

Tom: So you essentially have, to my understanding of it, and take into account that I am not very good at RTSs, so I could have been completely wrong, there's not much motivation to actually use infantry once you unlock mechs other than engineers who repair mechs.

00:42:07.940 --> 00:42:10.040

Tom: And they're also a little bit overpowered as well.

00:42:10.360 --> 00:42:39.120

Tom: So you essentially just make a squad of mechs, take into account that some mechs are better at killing mechs, and some are better at killing infantry, have basically an engineer to repair them when they take damage, and you're then not really in too much damage, and you also do not really need to take into account cover and how to attack enemies to the same degree as if you were using infantry because mechs can essentially blow up cover.

00:42:40.420 --> 00:42:45.520

Tom: So mechs seem to be tremendously overpowered, so it may also...

00:42:46.540 --> 00:43:06.280

Tom: That's certainly an issue as far as the campaign is concerned, and online it would probably make it less interesting just because you're probably involved in massive mech battles against each other, but obviously if you're playing against someone else, it won't feel like it's making it easier because they'll be doing the same thing.

00:43:07.800 --> 00:43:10.300

Phil: The name of the game we're talking about is Iron Harvest.

00:43:10.480 --> 00:43:11.100

Phil: It is a...

00:43:12.500 --> 00:43:13.040

Phil: Sounds like a...

00:43:13.520 --> 00:43:16.880

Phil: Because the RTS genre has kind of been fallen off lately.

00:43:17.720 --> 00:43:18.680

Tom: Due to MOBAs.

00:43:19.200 --> 00:43:20.120

Phil: Yeah, exactly.

00:43:20.120 --> 00:43:24.180

Phil: So it seems to be a pretty welcome reignition of the genre.

00:43:24.200 --> 00:43:27.500

Phil: It's available for Xbox, PlayStation 4 and PC.

00:43:28.900 --> 00:43:31.160

Phil: King Art is a German developer.

00:43:31.380 --> 00:43:37.580

Phil: So when they're dealing with this World War I era staff, obviously in Germany there's...

00:43:39.240 --> 00:43:40.900

Phil: Post-World War I, pre-World War II.

00:43:40.920 --> 00:43:41.500

Tom: Exactly.

00:43:42.060 --> 00:43:44.460

Phil: So it's the guys with the spiky helmets.

00:43:45.060 --> 00:43:46.720

Phil: We haven't gotten to Nazism yet.

00:43:46.740 --> 00:43:47.180

Tom: Correct.

00:43:48.580 --> 00:43:54.500

Phil: So it's generally getting a very good response from people who enjoy the RTS genre.

00:43:55.600 --> 00:43:59.060

Phil: So everything you're saying about it seems particularly favourable.

00:43:59.080 --> 00:43:59.820

Tom: Yep, definitely.

00:43:59.840 --> 00:44:11.320

Tom: There are those issues that could be really frustrating at times, but it is, outside of that, a really enjoyable, lightish RTS experience.

00:44:11.340 --> 00:44:14.280

Tom: And the setting is absolutely fantastic.

00:44:14.300 --> 00:44:16.520

Tom: The mechs look tremendously good.

00:44:16.540 --> 00:44:19.980

Tom: They fit the era absolutely perfectly.

00:44:20.080 --> 00:44:32.240

Tom: And the combination of historical references as well, for instance, Tesla is going around in it as a character in the background, or at least he's referenced, and lots of stuff like that.

00:44:32.920 --> 00:44:35.600

Phil: Yeah, it looks like a lot of fun.

00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:45.200

Phil: I've got to say that one thing I wanted to ask you about, because it's something I've been thinking a lot of since I've been playing Night in the Woods, is the audio design.

00:44:45.260 --> 00:44:48.320

Phil: In an RTS, is that kind of neither here nor there, really?

00:44:49.400 --> 00:44:52.100

Tom: It's probably not as important as most other genres.

00:44:52.520 --> 00:44:57.860

Phil: Yeah, and that's because your focus is so enthralled with what's going on in the screen.

00:44:57.880 --> 00:44:59.260

Phil: I mean, it's just...

00:44:59.740 --> 00:45:02.720

Phil: RTSs are just fucking sensory overload.

00:45:03.160 --> 00:45:26.300

Tom: But I do think there's two aspects where they're important, and one of the reasons that I played Age of Empires and StarCraft over other games is the first thing that the audio is important to is in the voice acting, in giving the units and so forth some character, which adds to the enjoyment greatly.

00:45:26.320 --> 00:45:55.140

Tom: The other thing is from a tactile perspective, the sounds related to what you're doing in StarCraft, for instance, in terms of when you're starting unit building and looking around the map and navigating unit trees and all that sort of stuff makes what can in other RTSs be a slightly cumbersome and annoying experience as a satisfying and engaging part of the gameplay as well.

00:45:56.580 --> 00:45:59.600

Phil: Well, do you have much more to say about Iron Harvest?

00:45:59.820 --> 00:46:05.760

Tom: No, but it was, in spite of some pretty annoying issues, a pretty favourable first impression.

00:46:07.040 --> 00:46:07.500

Phil: Indeed.

00:46:07.520 --> 00:46:12.280

Phil: Hey, before we get on to Sky, Children of Light, you've done a...

00:46:13.160 --> 00:46:14.440

Phil: Well, we'll get into that in a moment.

00:46:14.460 --> 00:46:21.020

Phil: I've got to tell you, I'm seeing a lot more vegan food around that I didn't really expect to see.

00:46:21.460 --> 00:46:25.460

Phil: Peters is an ice cream company here in Australia.

00:46:25.720 --> 00:46:26.780

Phil: I don't know who owns them.

00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:29.420

Phil: They have like a vegan drumstick now.

00:46:29.600 --> 00:46:31.360

Phil: So Australians know what a drumstick is.

00:46:31.380 --> 00:46:37.840

Phil: I'm not going to waste our international listeners describing what it is, but I was just walking around and on the sign it said vegan.

00:46:37.960 --> 00:46:48.660

Phil: You know, it's like some coffee drumstick thing, which isn't hard to believe, because if you taste that ice cream, it doesn't sound, it doesn't taste like, it has any dairy content whatsoever.

00:46:49.540 --> 00:46:56.360

Phil: And then I bumbled into the fact that Domino's has a broad array of vegan pizzas.

00:46:57.400 --> 00:47:01.280

Phil: Because it's something I have at my company, and I said, no, no, you know, I don't eat pizza.

00:47:01.760 --> 00:47:07.460

Phil: And then they ordered like a part of, a whole bunch of vegan pizzas, so I could have lunch with them.

00:47:08.160 --> 00:47:14.840

Phil: And there was like four or five different varieties of Domino's vegan pizzas.

00:47:16.180 --> 00:47:17.120

Phil: Are you aware of this?

00:47:17.200 --> 00:47:17.900

Tom: Yes, I am.

00:47:17.920 --> 00:47:20.720

Tom: I have in fact tried the vegan drumstick.

00:47:21.640 --> 00:47:22.340

Phil: Oh, you have?

00:47:22.660 --> 00:47:23.040

Tom: Yes.

00:47:23.660 --> 00:47:26.200

Tom: I thought this may have even come up on the show.

00:47:26.560 --> 00:47:27.180

Phil: No, no.

00:47:27.500 --> 00:47:28.280

Tom: Previously.

00:47:28.560 --> 00:47:29.840

Phil: No, no, no.

00:47:29.880 --> 00:47:31.100

Phil: There's news to me.

00:47:31.120 --> 00:47:33.920

Phil: And it just tasted like vegan ice cream, right?

00:47:34.140 --> 00:47:34.760

Tom: Correct.

00:47:35.080 --> 00:47:38.620

Tom: Not the best vegan ice cream I've tasted by far.

00:47:39.040 --> 00:47:48.140

Tom: And the biggest difference between the normal drumstick and the vegan one is in the texture, more so than the flavor.

00:47:48.160 --> 00:47:55.580

Tom: The vegan one is a bit more gritty as one might expect and less prone to melting.

00:47:56.460 --> 00:48:05.680

Phil: You know, a sanitarium, an Australian company down here, has a vegan ice cream called So Good, which is made of soy protein.

00:48:05.880 --> 00:48:14.200

Phil: And I find it to be great, but then also I've been a vegan for a long, long time, so I probably don't even know what real ice cream tastes like at this point.

00:48:15.280 --> 00:48:18.540

Phil: But hey, thumbs up for the vegan Domino's pizzas.

00:48:18.820 --> 00:48:22.800

Phil: They tasted just like a Domino pizza, or my memory of them.

00:48:23.860 --> 00:48:30.640

Phil: So yeah, very low in terms of its quality, but it was Domino's pizza.

00:48:30.760 --> 00:48:32.620

Phil: They've replicated it exactly.

00:48:33.580 --> 00:48:38.880

Phil: So the cheese was just like you'd imagine, and the fake meat was just like you'd imagine.

00:48:38.900 --> 00:48:40.480

Phil: So yeah, thumbs up.

00:48:40.800 --> 00:48:43.000

Tom: It tasted just as fake as the real thing.

00:48:43.580 --> 00:48:50.620

Phil: If you want a crap pizza vegan experience, I thoroughly endorse the vegan Domino's pizza.

00:48:50.980 --> 00:48:57.800

Tom: And for those listening at home, the owner of Peter's ice cream is Fronieri, which I'm sure we've all heard of.

00:48:58.840 --> 00:48:59.900

Phil: No, I haven't heard of them.

00:49:00.340 --> 00:49:07.720

Tom: They are an English ice cream manufacturer with their headquarters in Lee Ming Bar, North Yorkshire.

00:49:08.200 --> 00:49:09.280

Phil: Wow, that's great.

00:49:09.320 --> 00:49:12.900

Phil: I thought they'd be owned by some American or Chinese conglomerate.

00:49:12.920 --> 00:49:13.840

Phil: So that's wonderful.

00:49:13.840 --> 00:49:18.200

Tom: Peter's was apparently founded by an ex-pat American.

00:49:21.320 --> 00:49:27.780

Tom: So in a sense, it was originally American, but now it's no longer American, and it's been sold overseas.

00:49:28.220 --> 00:49:29.300

Phil: It's lost its heritage.

00:49:30.460 --> 00:49:44.760

Phil: So before we move on to the next topic, I did want to mention that the game that you described, which was an old history RTS, reminded me of a game called Shattered Union, which came out in 2005 by a company called Top Pop Software.

00:49:45.660 --> 00:50:07.700

Phil: These are the guys that they did work on, well, they did Railroad Tycoon 2 and 3, but they're also the company that created Tropico, and Shattered Union was actually their last game before they were folded into Firaxis, which is Sid Meier's company that does the SIBs and everything, which I think is great.

00:50:07.720 --> 00:50:23.200

Phil: I mean, they labored from 1998 to 2005 in the RTS genre exclusively until Sid Meier saw Shattered Union and went, okay, that's enough, you're working for us now, which is a great story, because it was just a very small, small team.

00:50:23.220 --> 00:50:27.960

Tom: Is that because they didn't want them to embarrass themselves further or because they were so impressed?

00:50:28.520 --> 00:50:29.780

Phil: So impressed, of course.

00:50:29.780 --> 00:50:33.240

Phil: In Shattered Union, I'd encourage everyone to look up the story behind it.

00:50:34.120 --> 00:50:40.480

Phil: It was RTS that played on the original Xbox, and the original Xbox had trouble keeping up with the graphics.

00:50:41.840 --> 00:50:54.420

Phil: Now, the next game we're going to talk about is Sky Children of Light, but not extensively, but just to mention that you've put up an article on gameunder.net about its one-year anniversary, and I can't believe it's only been one year.

00:50:54.600 --> 00:50:55.920

Tom: And still no Switch port.

00:50:57.000 --> 00:50:58.180

Phil: And still no Switch port.

00:50:58.200 --> 00:50:59.100

Phil: I checked again today.

00:51:00.900 --> 00:51:01.780

Phil: The one thing that...

00:51:02.100 --> 00:51:17.780

Phil: I read your article, and if you want to give a capsule summary to it, that'd be great, but I remembered while I was reading it that Jenova Chen described Sky Children of Light as a, quote, social global adventure experience.

00:51:18.220 --> 00:51:20.360

Phil: And that was before the game was released.

00:51:21.280 --> 00:51:29.980

Phil: They said that Journey was designed with the intention of you playing it by yourself, and they introduced a small element of social interaction.

00:51:30.380 --> 00:51:41.460

Phil: But basically what they wanted to do with Sky Children of Light, which is a mobile game available on Android and Apple, was to create this social global adventure experience.

00:51:42.220 --> 00:51:46.100

Phil: So it sounds like that was really like the driving force behind it.

00:51:46.400 --> 00:51:49.920

Phil: And after reading your article, I've got to say that they have succeeded.

00:51:50.740 --> 00:51:53.300

Tom: I would agree that they have indeed succeeded.

00:51:54.660 --> 00:51:57.520

Phil: One of the things that you talked about with that is that the...

00:51:58.440 --> 00:52:06.360

Phil: in terms of breaking down national and language barriers, it's really a unique experience and one that's new to the MMO space.

00:52:06.860 --> 00:52:09.020

Phil: Now, I haven't played any MMOs ever.

00:52:10.620 --> 00:52:11.760

Phil: At least RPGs.

00:52:11.900 --> 00:52:15.200

Phil: So, did you want to expand on that?

00:52:15.860 --> 00:52:35.300

Tom: Well, I think it's a phenomenon that probably extends beyond Sky, but because of the way Sky works with more limited interaction to most games and settings, it is amplified in Sky.

00:52:35.320 --> 00:52:49.640

Tom: And one of the ways in which, if I remember, I hypothesized that boundaries between cultures and nationalities and languages were broken down is through memes.

00:52:49.680 --> 00:52:57.240

Tom: And when I say memes, I don't mean literally memes, but that style of participatory humour.

00:52:58.280 --> 00:53:29.460

Tom: Because it essentially offers, with the prevalence of the internet, wherever the internet is, a shared style of and format of humour, which allows obviously there then anyone from any culture to engage in a safe style of banter, which was not at all the case in earlier days of the internet, at least in places I frequented, and certainly not in MMOs.

00:53:30.980 --> 00:53:46.660

Phil: Well, I have to ask you about that because you were a proponent of MapleStory, and so I immediately thought, based on your prior experience, was MapleStory a hostile environment, unlike Sky Children of Light?

00:53:46.760 --> 00:53:49.280

Tom: Well, MapleStory I did not play that much.

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:51.380

Tom: You must be thinking of something else.

00:53:51.400 --> 00:53:53.540

Tom: I did indeed play MapleStory.

00:53:54.080 --> 00:54:18.140

Tom: MapleStory would fit into the category of games like Gunbound, where it's not as extreme as something like private servers or public servers of Ragnarok Online or World of Warcraft or RuneScape, for instance, where there was some crossover between cultures and nationalities.

00:54:18.500 --> 00:54:22.500

Tom: Definitely more so in MapleStory than those sorts of games.

00:54:22.640 --> 00:54:32.320

Tom: But still not to the same degree of as Sky or places like Discord servers and things like that.

00:54:33.900 --> 00:54:41.340

Phil: So with Sky, just to read it out, obviously, there's a translation tool that's within Sky?

00:54:41.580 --> 00:54:48.340

Tom: No, the translation tool that Chinese players in particular use is something unrelated to Sky.

00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:56.460

Phil: Oh, okay, because real time translation through Skype and some other communication tools is a real thing.

00:54:56.760 --> 00:54:58.560

Phil: And they're actually apparently quite good.

00:54:58.580 --> 00:55:00.480

Phil: I haven't had the call to use them.

00:55:01.920 --> 00:55:05.300

Phil: But it's just one of those great resources that's just sitting there waiting.

00:55:07.020 --> 00:55:12.920

Phil: So what I didn't understand after reading that article, I thought that that was endemic to Sky.

00:55:12.940 --> 00:55:17.600

Phil: Like that was something that they had incorporated into it was this universal translator.

00:55:17.620 --> 00:55:18.480

Phil: But that's not the case.

00:55:18.500 --> 00:55:19.300

Tom: Unfortunately not.

00:55:19.320 --> 00:55:21.040

Tom: That would be amazing if it was.

00:55:21.700 --> 00:55:32.980

Phil: So what about the community do you think has led to this being a unique experience where there's less friction between the different languages and cultures?

00:55:33.240 --> 00:56:11.960

Tom: Well, other than the more cosmopolitan internet of today in general, and the shared sense of humour that has occurred concurrently with it, the two things that Sky itself does different, which helps reduce friction even further, is the first contact you have with anyone is not talking to them, but it's purely through what you're doing in the game, and emoticons, which has resulted in an emoticon-based etiquette that has developed, which is quite an interesting phenomenon in and of itself.

00:56:13.140 --> 00:56:21.660

Tom: So when you are talking to someone, it doesn't necessarily mean you've made them your friend and unlocked chat, though that could well be the case.

00:56:21.680 --> 00:56:54.140

Tom: It could be that someone has a table or a campfire, which random people can sit out and talk at, but regardless of the cause, it is a rarer form of communication, and that therefore obviously is going to encourage people to be more interested in using it as a form of communication as opposed to simply trolling because there is some degree of effort or luck required to get into that.

00:56:54.160 --> 00:57:04.160

Tom: That is, effort of unlocking stuff with friends or unlocking a table or campfire yourself, or luck of someone else having placed a table or campfire in an area.

00:57:05.060 --> 00:57:17.240

Phil: One of the games I was hoping that we might play together soon was, well, play simultaneously rather because it's not co-op, is a game called Kind Words, subtitled Lo-Fi Chill Beats to Write To.

00:57:17.260 --> 00:57:18.780

Phil: Are you familiar with this indie game?

00:57:19.980 --> 00:57:23.780

Tom: I'm not familiar with the indie game, I'm familiar with the meme.

00:57:24.660 --> 00:57:26.100

Phil: Oh, okay, well, it's a game.

00:57:26.120 --> 00:57:27.460

Tom: That there's an indie game of this?

00:57:27.940 --> 00:57:28.900

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

00:57:28.900 --> 00:57:34.460

Phil: It's basically a game called Kind Words where basically people send messages and then you get to respond to them.

00:57:34.480 --> 00:57:35.580

Tom: Oh, I know, yeah, I've heard of that.

00:57:39.540 --> 00:58:00.660

Phil: It's not in the HIO godsail that I could find, so you're gonna have to do some digging there for me, because I was thinking you were saying, oh, this is a unique experience, and obviously it is in the MMO world, but Kind Words, I thought that perhaps, you know, that was a place where there was a similar kind of accepting culture.

00:58:01.900 --> 00:58:06.360

Tom: And I think, what are the Sunset Developers called again?

00:58:06.380 --> 00:58:08.120

Phil: Oh, wow.

00:58:08.400 --> 00:58:23.280

Tom: Because I think they are pioneers in this area with their game in which you play as woodland animals and inhabit a wood, and you can communicate to one another through body language and various things, which is...

00:58:24.180 --> 00:58:24.710

Phil: Oh, okay...

00:58:24.710 --> 00:58:24.710

Tom: .

00:58:24.710 --> 00:58:27.740

Tom: very much in the vein of Journey and Sky.

00:58:28.160 --> 00:58:29.420

Phil: That was Tale of Tales.

00:58:29.980 --> 00:58:30.600

Tom: There you go.

00:58:31.760 --> 00:58:36.280

Phil: We probably should check to make sure that they're still around and keep buying all of their games.

00:58:37.300 --> 00:58:39.960

Tom: I'm pretty sure they are not still around.

00:58:40.500 --> 00:58:40.980

Phil: Yeah.

00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:45.360

Tom: I think they rather famously stopped making games.

00:58:45.900 --> 00:58:48.120

Phil: Yeah, in 2013, unfortunately.

00:58:48.140 --> 00:58:48.460

Tom: Yes.

00:58:49.040 --> 00:58:49.540

Phil: Man.

00:58:50.880 --> 00:58:52.160

Phil: I'm just thinking of their games.

00:58:52.180 --> 00:58:53.780

Phil: The Endless Forest, do you remember that one?

00:58:53.840 --> 00:58:54.220

Tom: Yes.

00:58:56.060 --> 00:58:56.820

Phil: The Path.

00:58:58.660 --> 00:59:01.920

Tom: I think the Endless Forest is the one I was referring to, right?

00:59:02.400 --> 00:59:02.720

Phil: Yeah.

00:59:02.980 --> 00:59:03.280

Phil: Yeah.

00:59:03.960 --> 00:59:04.560

Phil: I think so.

00:59:05.680 --> 00:59:18.460

Tom: And the other reason that will contribute to it is just most likely the generally collaborative nature of the gameplay and the aesthetic of it as well.

00:59:19.360 --> 00:59:24.580

Tom: And the aesthetic certainly attracts a lot of artists.

00:59:24.720 --> 00:59:35.360

Tom: The quantity of people who draw things and paint in the game is extremely high compared to the general gaming community for some reason.

00:59:35.380 --> 00:59:38.340

Tom: And probably the reason is in fact the aesthetic.

00:59:39.220 --> 00:59:48.620

Phil: And I think that that's why, I mean, the Jenova Chen aesthetic, that game company's aesthetic, is very artistic and very open.

00:59:48.660 --> 00:59:52.900

Phil: And I'm just, I'm amazed that people actually have found the game, and it's wonderful.

00:59:52.920 --> 01:00:01.720

Phil: The one thing I would conflict with you about, or rather ask you to explain more, is you said it's a very cosmopolitan game.

01:00:03.080 --> 01:00:08.980

Phil: But then you talked about how the sense of humor, the internet sense of humor is becoming uniform.

01:00:09.420 --> 01:00:12.000

Phil: And so, like, I think that's more of a monoculture.

01:00:12.760 --> 01:00:22.720

Phil: And in a way, I think that multicultural views are the same as a monoculture, because I think that's actually killing off cultures.

01:00:22.740 --> 01:00:35.540

Phil: Like, if the internet as a community is having the same jokes and the same sense of humor and this shared, you know, sensibility, then isn't that the opposite of cosmopolitan?

01:00:35.560 --> 01:00:40.520

Tom: I think that's covered in the article, because you can have two things simultaneously.

01:00:41.260 --> 01:00:51.760

Tom: Essentially, the shared sense of humor is there as a foundation of initial communication or in general communication.

01:00:52.760 --> 01:00:53.220

Phil: Ah, okay.

01:00:53.240 --> 01:01:01.260

Tom: But that existing does not mean that fine details of culture cease to exist.

01:01:01.280 --> 01:01:01.720

Phil: Wonderful.

01:01:01.780 --> 01:01:04.260

Tom: I think the two things can exist simultaneously.

01:01:05.120 --> 01:01:25.020

Phil: And 20 or 30 years ago, probably more 20 years ago, I found myself in an airport or on a plane talking to someone using stick figures and drawings, and that would be the universal language, the memes, as a gateway to our communicating, but it still made me an Australian, and it still made them an Indonesian or whatever.

01:01:26.720 --> 01:01:27.580

Phil: Okay, well, wonderful.

01:01:27.640 --> 01:01:28.600

Phil: Okay, well, good.

01:01:28.620 --> 01:01:40.960

Phil: Because I see the monoculture, and monoculture is not an anthropologic term that's used much in terms of the way that I see it.

01:01:41.020 --> 01:01:59.360

Phil: Like I see the monoculture as killing, as the internet killing individual cultures around the world, to the point where when I grew up, like there was such a thing as a aucharism and a way that Australians spoke that you don't see anymore because we're influenced so much by YouTube.

01:01:59.620 --> 01:02:04.380

Tom: I would say there's even a universal aspect, accent, sorry, developing on YouTube.

01:02:04.560 --> 01:02:06.220

Phil: Yes, unfortunately.

01:02:06.700 --> 01:02:10.300

Phil: Well, whatever it is, it is, it's happening, whether it's unfortunate or not.

01:02:10.720 --> 01:02:15.640

Phil: But I was just thinking last night about how Australians used to be notorious for uptalking.

01:02:16.840 --> 01:02:22.680

Phil: And now we're not famous for uptalking, where we increase our inflection toward the end of a sentence.

01:02:22.960 --> 01:02:23.360

Tom: Yes.

01:02:24.080 --> 01:02:27.740

Phil: That was something that Australians were known for as recently as the 90s.

01:02:28.140 --> 01:02:30.080

Phil: And it's not something that you see very much.

01:02:31.100 --> 01:02:38.300

Phil: And uptalking has become, you know, another thing amongst different cultures.

01:02:38.740 --> 01:02:39.580

Phil: So, okay.

01:02:39.600 --> 01:02:42.320

Phil: Well, thank you very much for introducing Sky Children of Light.

01:02:42.340 --> 01:02:42.960

Phil: I will wait.

01:02:43.060 --> 01:02:52.340

Phil: And I do promise you, the day it comes out, even if it's like a $60 full price game, I will definitely be getting it on the Switch and hopefully interacting with you on it.

01:02:53.660 --> 01:02:56.200

Phil: So you've definitely sold a lot of this on it.

01:02:57.600 --> 01:03:00.060

Phil: Did you want to get into the game that we've both been playing?

01:03:00.640 --> 01:03:03.140

Phil: And that is Night in the Woods.

01:03:04.320 --> 01:03:05.000

Tom: Let's do it.

01:03:05.520 --> 01:03:13.620

Phil: Yeah, I do want to say, if we can probably just drop the meta around this, I'd like to talk just about the game and not what has happened.

01:03:14.380 --> 01:03:15.680

Phil: And if we do, I'd like to...

01:03:15.700 --> 01:03:31.220

Tom: We're ignoring the most important aspect of this, which is that we are playing this from God's gift to man, the second coming of Christ himself, that was the itch.io bundle.

01:03:31.700 --> 01:03:35.700

Phil: Yeah, and the tattoo is only still slightly hurting.

01:03:36.700 --> 01:03:49.160

Phil: I was out in the sun today, and my itch.io tattoo is still sore, but it's still a small price to pay for what was an extremely generous sale for a cause.

01:03:49.180 --> 01:03:50.800

Phil: I'm not quite sure what they were doing.

01:03:50.820 --> 01:03:57.260

Tom: It's months later, and I am still flabbergasted, but I go to sleep on many nights just in awe.

01:03:59.440 --> 01:04:08.940

Phil: You've got to tell me, how the F do you find, after the show, tell me how the F do you actually find the games that you bought, because it's becoming increasingly more difficult for me to go back and find it.

01:04:09.440 --> 01:04:10.860

Phil: So you can tell me about that later.

01:04:11.240 --> 01:04:13.020

Phil: It's kind of like a monkey poor situation.

01:04:13.040 --> 01:04:17.320

Phil: I know I have these 5,000 games out there that I paid $5 for, but I can't access them.

01:04:18.200 --> 01:04:23.140

Phil: But I got to tell you, I never would have played Night in the Woods, if not for that itch.io sale.

01:04:25.180 --> 01:04:39.180

Phil: Now, there's something that's happened subsequent to the game, and we may as well just say it, that basically one of the creators of the game committed suicide because of a Me Too allegation from Zoe Quinn and...

01:04:39.200 --> 01:04:44.480

Tom: Well, I don't know if he committed suicide because of the allegation, but the two were around the same time.

01:04:44.880 --> 01:04:47.200

Phil: They were, in fact, very close.

01:04:47.540 --> 01:04:55.040

Phil: And also the allegation of a co-writer or co-developer of the game.

01:04:55.080 --> 01:04:56.440

Phil: Now, this is a game that was originally...

01:04:56.460 --> 01:04:58.620

Tom: I think it was a co-developer on a new project, wasn't it?

01:04:59.140 --> 01:05:00.600

Phil: No, it was one of the...

01:05:00.680 --> 01:05:05.980

Phil: Yeah, so it was a musician of the game.

01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:06.860

Phil: So the game we're talking about...

01:05:06.880 --> 01:05:12.720

Tom: The game was his idea, and he was the composer and programmer for it as well.

01:05:14.720 --> 01:05:15.240

Phil: That's right.

01:05:15.260 --> 01:05:21.240

Phil: And then there was two co-writers, Bethany Hockenberry and Scott Benson.

01:05:21.300 --> 01:05:23.340

Tom: Well, I believe they were the writers.

01:05:23.360 --> 01:05:25.340

Tom: He had the idea but did not write it.

01:05:25.900 --> 01:05:32.440

Phil: Yep, and then Alec Holowka did predominantly the music.

01:05:32.740 --> 01:05:34.480

Phil: And the programming.

01:05:34.640 --> 01:05:36.680

Phil: Yeah, and the programming, very important.

01:05:36.700 --> 01:05:41.360

Phil: And a separate company did the sound design, which is going to be important when we talk about the review.

01:05:41.380 --> 01:05:42.960

Phil: So the game we're talking about is Night in the Woods.

01:05:43.460 --> 01:05:45.580

Phil: It's probably available on everything at this stage.

01:05:46.360 --> 01:05:48.260

Phil: How would you describe the art style?

01:05:50.520 --> 01:05:52.040

Phil: Kind of that South Park...

01:05:52.060 --> 01:05:56.580

Phil: Well, it's kind of that South Park cutout paper type thing, really.

01:05:57.080 --> 01:06:00.500

Phil: Or a marionette style, I guess would be a good way to describe it.

01:06:01.200 --> 01:06:05.820

Tom: I think it's definitely not in a puppet style.

01:06:06.040 --> 01:06:09.620

Tom: I would describe it as cartoon or webcomic.

01:06:09.640 --> 01:06:13.100

Tom: They don't really look or move like puppets.

01:06:14.460 --> 01:06:25.980

Tom: Maybe South Park you could compare it to them, but the limb animation is much more complicated than something like South Park and more dynamic as well.

01:06:26.000 --> 01:06:27.520

Phil: Oh, it's amazing.

01:06:28.160 --> 01:06:30.000

Phil: The animation in this game is amazing.

01:06:30.020 --> 01:06:33.240

Phil: So in any case, I guess it's a single person adventure game.

01:06:33.260 --> 01:06:38.800

Tom: But it is a flat two-dimensional style in silhouette, is I think what you were trying to get at.

01:06:39.240 --> 01:06:40.080

Phil: Yeah, exactly.

01:06:40.300 --> 01:06:40.800

Phil: Thank you.

01:06:40.940 --> 01:06:46.400

Phil: And you're always so much better at describing the visual form than I am.

01:06:47.220 --> 01:06:48.440

Tom: As well as everything else.

01:06:48.980 --> 01:07:00.300

Phil: I remember back to me asking you about, I think it was over the Okami or Mad World, and you pointed out to me that it was a Japanese woodcut style, which is exactly right.

01:07:01.320 --> 01:07:04.380

Phil: So Night in the Woods, I played it on PC as did you.

01:07:04.420 --> 01:07:07.820

Phil: I used an Xbox 360 controller to play.

01:07:07.860 --> 01:07:09.620

Phil: Did you use a controller or a keyboard?

01:07:09.760 --> 01:07:14.800

Tom: I used a combination of both, depending on whether I was eating breakfast while playing it or not.

01:07:15.520 --> 01:07:21.280

Phil: Certainly to get through the copious amounts of dialogue, I leaned on the space bar quite a bit.

01:07:21.560 --> 01:07:37.240

Phil: It is a one-person adventure game, where you play as a cat, female cat named May, M-A-E, who has dropped out of college, much to the chagrin of her parents, because she was the first in her family to go to university.

01:07:37.860 --> 01:07:46.960

Phil: And she's come back to the small town, I forget the name of it, but she's come back to the small town and basically found that...

01:07:46.980 --> 01:07:50.400

Tom: Well, the real world setting is Pennsylvania.

01:07:50.420 --> 01:07:54.100

Tom: I'm not sure if it's referred to as Pennsylvania in the game or not.

01:07:54.100 --> 01:07:55.140

Tom: I think it probably isn't.

01:07:55.260 --> 01:08:00.980

Tom: But it is set in a declining town in Pennsylvania.

01:08:01.580 --> 01:08:03.760

Phil: Called Possum Falls, I believe.

01:08:04.180 --> 01:08:04.680

Phil: Is that right?

01:08:04.940 --> 01:08:05.660

Tom: That sounds right.

01:08:06.160 --> 01:08:07.620

Tom: Or is it Possum Springs?

01:08:08.480 --> 01:08:09.300

Phil: Well, you'll find out.

01:08:09.460 --> 01:08:12.260

Tom: It's some sort of possum-related water.

01:08:12.520 --> 01:08:13.600

Phil: Body of water.

01:08:14.080 --> 01:08:17.680

Phil: So she comes back and she finds that things aren't quite the same.

01:08:17.760 --> 01:08:20.040

Phil: And as the old saying goes, you can never go home.

01:08:20.720 --> 01:08:24.140

Phil: Her friends have moved on in terms of their own development.

01:08:24.480 --> 01:08:27.100

Phil: Things have happened in their lives that have made them change.

01:08:27.960 --> 01:08:39.120

Phil: And you come back, I'm going to say, as a fairly immature person with didactic views, and you hate your parents and all.

01:08:39.140 --> 01:08:53.580

Phil: You don't hate them, but you've got very articulated views that are very definite and binary about things, which tends to piss off your friends, like your alligator friend Bee, who has had to go through a lot of stuff.

01:08:53.600 --> 01:08:55.420

Tom: I would describe him more so as naive.

01:08:56.380 --> 01:08:57.180

Phil: Naive, yeah.

01:08:57.320 --> 01:08:59.380

Tom: And lacking in ideas on things.

01:09:00.600 --> 01:09:00.940

Phil: Yeah.

01:09:00.960 --> 01:09:04.560

Phil: And look, I don't know how long the game took to play.

01:09:04.580 --> 01:09:07.900

Phil: I'm going to guess I probably spent at least 10 hours with it.

01:09:09.040 --> 01:09:12.500

Phil: The game has essentially three chapters and an epilogue.

01:09:12.520 --> 01:09:13.660

Tom: I think four chapters.

01:09:14.560 --> 01:09:14.960

Phil: Yeah.

01:09:15.060 --> 01:09:15.780

Tom: And an epilogue.

01:09:16.060 --> 01:09:18.400

Phil: But the fourth chapter is kind of slight, really.

01:09:20.100 --> 01:09:21.000

Tom: The first is two.

01:09:21.900 --> 01:09:22.540

Phil: Yeah, that's true.

01:09:22.800 --> 01:09:23.420

Phil: Yes, true.

01:09:23.700 --> 01:09:26.160

Phil: So I've probably described enough about it.

01:09:28.100 --> 01:09:29.700

Phil: I've got a lot of praise for the game.

01:09:29.720 --> 01:09:32.140

Phil: I'd like to hear what your impressions were.

01:09:32.640 --> 01:09:36.000

Tom: Well, I want to begin with some definitional questions for you.

01:09:36.740 --> 01:09:39.200

Tom: Can this be classified as a walking simulator?

01:09:40.820 --> 01:09:41.180

Phil: No.

01:09:42.100 --> 01:09:43.620

Tom: Is that because you can jump in it?

01:09:44.440 --> 01:09:45.180

Phil: You can jump.

01:09:46.100 --> 01:09:47.120

Phil: There's mini games.

01:09:48.060 --> 01:09:49.740

Phil: There's lots and lots of side quests.

01:09:49.760 --> 01:09:51.980

Tom: I think some walking simulators have mini games.

01:09:52.720 --> 01:09:57.720

Phil: Some may, but there's a lot of side story in this one, a lot of side games.

01:09:58.340 --> 01:10:19.100

Tom: I think that there is a 2D bias at work here, because if you take, for instance, Tacoma, that is everyone would call a walking simulator, but there is a lot of the sides, not a lot, but there is certainly some side stuff in that you can miss, and there is technically puzzle solving in that as well.

01:10:20.220 --> 01:10:21.940

Phil: Well, there's puzzle solving in this.

01:10:21.960 --> 01:10:23.820

Phil: There's also platforming elements in this.

01:10:24.340 --> 01:10:35.480

Tom: I think that would be the best argument against it, and not because there's platforming elements in it, because they are very simple, but because when you were jumping, you move faster.

01:10:36.320 --> 01:10:46.000

Tom: So I'm thinking perhaps a walking simulator should be defined as being based on the fact that you can only move at one speed throughout the whole game.

01:10:46.400 --> 01:10:47.700

Phil: Yep, I agree with that.

01:10:47.720 --> 01:10:48.960

Phil: We'll write that down in the rule book.

01:10:49.640 --> 01:10:51.160

Tom: Now here's the next question.

01:10:51.200 --> 01:11:01.780

Tom: Is it an anti-work simulator or an unemployment simulator, which arguably should be a subgenre of working simulator?

01:11:03.760 --> 01:11:06.680

Phil: I find that interesting, an anti-work simulator.

01:11:07.020 --> 01:11:17.600

Phil: When I was a young man walking through the streets of Brisbane with my camera that I had overpaid for, I saw a poster which I looked at just a few days ago because I took a photo of it.

01:11:17.660 --> 01:11:24.460

Phil: And the poster just basically had an typewritten font blown up and magnified, Say No to Work.

01:11:26.580 --> 01:11:30.560

Phil: And actually it said, Live your own life, say no to work.

01:11:30.580 --> 01:11:35.840

Phil: And it was like the Brisbane Anti-Employment Union or something.

01:11:36.940 --> 01:11:47.140

Phil: Which in the late 80s, early 90s, I think that was a pretty, you know, like these days, that would be de jure, you know, when you've got your universal basic income and things like that.

01:11:48.120 --> 01:11:53.180

Tom: So it would be de jure in Portugal and very few other places.

01:11:53.540 --> 01:11:54.200

Phil: That's right.

01:11:55.660 --> 01:11:59.300

Phil: So, but even so, like, is this an anti-work simulator?

01:11:59.460 --> 01:12:04.320

Tom: I don't mean anti-work in the sense that it is taking a position against work.

01:12:04.780 --> 01:12:05.620

Phil: Because it is.

01:12:06.160 --> 01:12:27.740

Tom: If you think about it structurally, it is very similar to many work simulators where the gameplay sections are divided up into days, and the flow of the gameplay is based on redoing the same thing in slightly different rays and that building up to a certain climax in each of those areas.

01:12:29.200 --> 01:12:43.100

Phil: Oh yeah, but at the same time, if you look at the message of the game, your friends work in these horrible jobs that they hate or resent or don't take seriously, and you walk around willy-nilly without a job.

01:12:44.980 --> 01:12:50.720

Tom: Well, that's half of the theme, work-related themes, I would say, but we're just looking at this as...

01:12:50.740 --> 01:12:51.460

Phil: Look at your dad.

01:12:51.540 --> 01:12:52.560

Phil: Look at May's dad.

01:12:52.880 --> 01:12:55.400

Tom: We'll get to that in a minute when we get into more detail on the story.

01:12:55.420 --> 01:13:05.660

Tom: I'm just saying from a gameplay perspective, is this not essentially a work simulator although you are unemployed?

01:13:06.700 --> 01:13:10.820

Phil: I would say no, because of the wealth of side stories in it.

01:13:10.840 --> 01:13:14.720

Phil: I think in a work simulator, you've basically got no choice but to go through the procedural.

01:13:14.740 --> 01:13:20.420

Tom: I think you're forgetting in papers, please, that had numerous side stories with the characters.

01:13:20.860 --> 01:13:22.240

Phil: But no side activities.

01:13:22.380 --> 01:13:25.780

Phil: Like, you could not go to the office, you know?

01:13:26.340 --> 01:13:28.060

Phil: I'm going to have to think about it.

01:13:28.080 --> 01:13:32.280

Tom: But you could not do certain things in it.

01:13:32.820 --> 01:13:33.460

Phil: That's true.

01:13:33.480 --> 01:13:35.140

Tom: Which directly affected side stories.

01:13:35.300 --> 01:13:38.340

Tom: It's the same in Death and Taxes.

01:13:39.680 --> 01:13:50.720

Tom: And while you again have to go to the desk in Death and Taxes, for instance, you can literally do nothing on a day and proceed.

01:13:51.640 --> 01:13:55.420

Tom: In this, most days end with you doing band practice.

01:13:55.640 --> 01:14:01.200

Tom: So you can literally just walk from her house to band practice and back and call it a day.

01:14:01.220 --> 01:14:05.460

Phil: Yeah, and how much of the side stuff did you get into?

01:14:05.860 --> 01:14:08.440

Tom: I did as much of it as I could.

01:14:09.420 --> 01:14:21.140

Tom: Judging by having not unlocked only three concept art in the extras menu, I assume, I did the vast majority of it.

01:14:22.840 --> 01:14:39.960

Phil: I'm going to just say that there is a section, you wake up in your room every day, you check your computer, as you do, for messages from your friends, and then you also have the choice, when you're in the room, to play a Guitar Hero, Note Freeway style bass guitar game.

01:14:40.180 --> 01:14:42.360

Phil: And at first I thought, oh, this is kind of interesting.

01:14:42.400 --> 01:14:43.140

Phil: Yeah, look at that.

01:14:43.160 --> 01:14:44.860

Phil: They've introduced this into the game.

01:14:45.820 --> 01:14:50.960

Phil: It's going to be a bit of a gimmick, but it was actually good.

01:14:51.820 --> 01:15:03.020

Tom: You could actually play that following the rhythm of the song rather than the onscreen visual prompts, which is better than a lot of actual rhythm games.

01:15:03.680 --> 01:15:11.220

Phil: Yeah, but Guitar Hero, at least with Guitar Hero, because I didn't play rock band, with Guitar Hero, you didn't really need to follow the note highway.

01:15:11.240 --> 01:15:15.620

Tom: But those are the height of the genre.

01:15:16.260 --> 01:15:19.000

Tom: There are many rhythm games outside of those two.

01:15:19.380 --> 01:15:20.060

Phil: Yeah, that's right.

01:15:20.120 --> 01:15:27.420

Phil: And the thing that I enjoyed about it is if you held a note, like it had a different sound to it, it was like you were holding the note.

01:15:27.720 --> 01:15:33.460

Phil: And at first you're just tap tapping away, and it sounds like crap, but then you realize you can actually hold notes as you play the bass.

01:15:34.460 --> 01:15:40.240

Phil: My favorite song, which is still ringing around in my head, is the song called Die Anywhere Else.

01:15:41.020 --> 01:15:42.680

Phil: And I found myself...

01:15:42.960 --> 01:15:44.340

Phil: Wow, where'd that accent come from?

01:15:45.420 --> 01:15:54.860

Phil: I found myself just wanting to play and just wanting to practice just for the fun of learning that song and getting really good at it.

01:15:54.880 --> 01:15:56.420

Tom: That was the most difficult one, right?

01:15:56.440 --> 01:15:57.080

Tom: The last one?

01:15:58.600 --> 01:15:59.860

Phil: No, I don't think so.

01:15:59.880 --> 01:16:02.280

Phil: Die Anywhere Else is the second one.

01:16:02.300 --> 01:16:08.040

Tom: Yeah, because there were two that were extremely difficult, the second one and the last one that you learned.

01:16:08.060 --> 01:16:12.180

Phil: Yeah, and the last one was difficult, but Die Anywhere Else was the one that goes...

01:16:13.520 --> 01:16:15.460

Phil: Dum dum dum ba da dum.

01:16:17.580 --> 01:16:18.980

Phil: If you can remember that.

01:16:19.040 --> 01:16:20.240

Phil: Yep.

01:16:20.240 --> 01:16:30.320

Phil: So I absolutely loved it, and I thought it was really, really good, which brings to point my favorite thing about this game was the sound in it.

01:16:30.640 --> 01:16:36.800

Phil: The music was very good, but the sound design was exceptional, and I've got to give them their credit.

01:16:37.020 --> 01:16:42.840

Phil: The name of the company that did sound design for this game is called the company A Shell in the Pit.

01:16:43.360 --> 01:16:57.580

Phil: And so while the departed Alec Holocroix did the music, the sound design in this game, I thought was on a level that I haven't been able to appreciate since a game like, I don't know, Deep Space.

01:16:58.560 --> 01:16:59.640

Phil: Dead Space, rather.

01:17:00.740 --> 01:17:05.960

Phil: I know that you'll remind me that there's other games that have had just as good sound design, if not better, since then.

01:17:07.020 --> 01:17:12.660

Phil: But listening to this game, even on speakers, not with headphones, I thought it was brilliant.

01:17:13.040 --> 01:17:15.420

Phil: I absolutely loved the sound design in this game.

01:17:15.680 --> 01:17:22.380

Phil: And I also loved the music and the way that music was used, which would have been a part of the commission for the sound design company.

01:17:23.980 --> 01:17:24.920

Phil: Do you share that view?

01:17:25.300 --> 01:17:25.900

Tom: Absolutely.

01:17:25.920 --> 01:17:58.860

Tom: And I think I appreciated the music at the same level of the sound design, not just in how it was used, but the amount that it added to both the narrative in terms of the contributing to the emotional scenes in the story and also the setting, I thought, really carried it on a level well above both the immediate quality of the dialogue.

01:17:58.880 --> 01:18:00.720

Tom: There's a lot to like about the dialogue.

01:18:01.620 --> 01:18:19.460

Tom: This isn't meant to be suggesting that dialogue is bad particularly, but the main contributing driving force behind the emotion in the game was, I think, both the music as well as the use of the music.

01:18:19.500 --> 01:18:23.420

Tom: And the breadth of the music was incredible too.

01:18:23.440 --> 01:18:29.500

Tom: It covered a huge amount of different styles.

01:18:30.060 --> 01:18:36.900

Tom: And as far as the sound design was concerned, they always picked something out that fitted perfectly.

01:18:38.060 --> 01:18:46.420

Phil: And without spoilers, but in the crescendo of the plot of the game, the sound was used so wonderfully.

01:18:46.560 --> 01:18:48.320

Phil: I mean, it was great.

01:18:48.540 --> 01:18:58.520

Phil: They had some shock jumps or monster closet moments in that game that were tremendous, and the sound brought it all to life.

01:19:00.080 --> 01:19:02.920

Phil: It was never distracting other than how great it was.

01:19:03.400 --> 01:19:07.820

Phil: I just could not get over how good the sound design and music was in this game.

01:19:08.460 --> 01:19:12.920

Phil: And to me, I said I wasn't going to get meta about this, but to me, that's one of the things.

01:19:12.940 --> 01:19:16.380

Phil: I look at this guy that killed himself.

01:19:16.400 --> 01:19:20.000

Phil: I'm like, well, we're not going to get that music anymore.

01:19:21.940 --> 01:19:31.640

Phil: I'm really going to look into A Shell in the Pit as a company to see what other sound design they've done because it's obviously driven by someone with a distinct passion and talent.

01:19:31.880 --> 01:19:33.320

Phil: Now, we're two podcasters.

01:19:33.640 --> 01:19:40.000

Phil: We're doing a podcast because we love audio way before we started this podcast.

01:19:40.720 --> 01:19:46.460

Phil: So you can probably see why we'd be hung up on how good it is and giving them full credit for it.

01:19:47.060 --> 01:19:55.560

Phil: The benefit is, however, the writing, you know, those people are still around, so they'll go on to do great work, I hope and believe.

01:19:55.580 --> 01:20:03.760

Phil: And like you said, the dialogue was really quite natural, but never got bogged down.

01:20:05.220 --> 01:20:13.000

Phil: I felt like it was a way that friends communicate and friends and parents in a healthy relationship talk to each other.

01:20:14.060 --> 01:20:20.460

Tom: I think it basically pulled off what they were attempting to do in Life is Strange, essentially.

01:20:22.080 --> 01:20:29.060

Tom: Which is develop a natural and believable style of banter between friends.

01:20:30.180 --> 01:20:39.480

Phil: And I think Life is Strange 1 works, and I heard this, this isn't my own thought, but I heard this from someone this week on another podcast.

01:20:40.060 --> 01:20:43.980

Phil: The reason why the dialogue works in Life is Strange is the teenage setting.

01:20:44.880 --> 01:20:50.480

Tom: Well, they claim it's meant to be awkward in the way that it is awkward for that reason.

01:20:51.420 --> 01:20:58.620

Tom: And they consulted experts on how teenagers talk and that sort of thing.

01:20:59.180 --> 01:21:46.300

Tom: But I do think having played both Remember Me and Vampyr, that that is something of an excuse, because while people will highlight things like Haller being said in Life is Strange, and Haller is used, interestingly, in Night in the Woods as well, once people highlight things like that, the problem with the dialogue in Life is Strange was, I would suggest mainly that it was French people writing English, which resulted in some weird and unnatural rather than awkward syntaxes and deliveries, because that's there in all their games.

01:21:47.060 --> 01:21:57.540

Tom: And while obviously it's not necessarily translated into English by those writers, it's initially written in French, which obviously is likely to make a difference.

01:21:57.540 --> 01:22:02.560

Tom: And if they were originally writing in English, which they may well be, then the same issue applies.

01:22:03.160 --> 01:22:08.280

Phil: Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason.

01:22:08.300 --> 01:22:11.460

Phil: Yeah, and that's the problem with French people.

01:22:11.460 --> 01:22:15.180

Tom: That's due to the absurdist genius of David Cage.

01:22:15.200 --> 01:22:16.120

Tom: Thank you very much.

01:22:16.540 --> 01:22:18.120

Phil: David Cargay, yeah.

01:22:18.700 --> 01:22:23.680

Phil: And I've got to say, the dialogue with the mother reminded me of Earthbound.

01:22:23.700 --> 01:22:30.340

Phil: I wrote down in my notes, wonderful, in italics and an exclamation mark.

01:22:30.400 --> 01:22:34.700

Phil: I thought the dialogue between May and her parents was just great.

01:22:35.120 --> 01:22:36.700

Phil: I loved every aspect of it.

01:22:37.960 --> 01:22:48.860

Tom: And the other reason that the dialogue worked so well is, again, compared to something like Life is Strange, is there was a consistent or thorial voice.

01:22:48.940 --> 01:23:06.700

Tom: It was not written as if it was a script in the sense of a film, which generally avoid or thorial voice, but of course the best film writing always has a strong or thorial voice, which is even apparent in something like Tarantino.

01:23:07.040 --> 01:23:19.860

Tom: Tarantino, for instance, always is praised due to his interesting dialogue and characters, but basically all Tarantino characters talk identically within films.

01:23:20.620 --> 01:23:24.840

Tom: In different films, there's different styles of talking, but for the most part, there's a really strong or thorial voice.

01:23:25.660 --> 01:23:54.940

Tom: And to find a balance between going beyond something like Tarantino, between having characters talk in a recognizable way, like you'll easily be able to tell if Bia is talking compared to Greg, as the most obvious example, but simultaneously you'll see that throughout that, there's always little beats that connect them all through things like the way they repeat certain things and so on.

01:23:54.960 --> 01:24:14.120

Tom: Which contributes one, to the sense of shared banter, but two, is a grounding aspect of authorial voice that allows everything to flow consistently throughout the dialogue, regardless of what is happening in terms of the emotional quality to the scene.

01:24:14.900 --> 01:24:21.820

Phil: So I've set up that May is coming back to a small town and things aren't what she remembered and aren't what she thought that things were.

01:24:23.880 --> 01:24:27.920

Phil: We should say that the backdrop for the whole game is basically a murder mystery.

01:24:28.640 --> 01:24:32.920

Tom: One last thing I want to add before we move on from the areas we've been talking about.

01:24:32.940 --> 01:24:40.320

Tom: We've mentioned the animation and that it was great, but just an example of why it's so great is, as we said, the limb animation.

01:24:40.340 --> 01:24:56.880

Tom: Everything is, for the most part, really static, but as you're running along jumping, for instance, there's this wonderful elasticity to May's limbs as she jumps, floats in the air and lands in several different stages.

01:24:57.080 --> 01:25:03.760

Tom: In scenes where they're talking, they'll just be having their mouths open and close in a simple manner.

01:25:04.060 --> 01:25:13.200

Tom: Then something exciting happens, and all of a sudden their arms will be flaming in a hilariously elastic manner.

01:25:13.280 --> 01:25:19.720

Tom: The amount that they do with little things, both in terms of the writing and the animation, is just amazing.

01:25:20.240 --> 01:25:38.520

Phil: It's brilliant, and my favorite, which I took many screenshots during this game, but the only time I actually used the Windows Xbox Game video capture, and I've got to say the whole Xbox Games thing where you press the start button and you get all that overlay is brilliant as well.

01:25:39.280 --> 01:25:43.900

Phil: But the dancing, when she danced, I don't know if you remember that.

01:25:43.920 --> 01:25:44.560

Tom: At the nightclub.

01:25:44.880 --> 01:25:45.300

Phil: Yes.

01:25:45.980 --> 01:25:46.880

Tom: Yeah, that was amazing.

01:25:47.420 --> 01:25:54.740

Phil: And you move, based on what you did with the two analog sticks, it was just, I could have done that for hours and hours and hours.

01:25:54.740 --> 01:26:03.740

Phil: And it reminded me how ridiculous dance is and how social dance is and how I hate social dance, and this is the reason why, but I couldn't stop doing it.

01:26:04.180 --> 01:26:08.860

Phil: She just, the arm movements and the leg movements were absolutely brilliant.

01:26:09.240 --> 01:26:11.640

Phil: I completely loved the animation in this game.

01:26:11.660 --> 01:26:14.720

Phil: And when you're doing the platforming in the dream sequences.

01:26:14.760 --> 01:26:30.940

Phil: So the game basically, yeah, you wake up every day, you check your email, you can do side stories, you go hang out with your friends, you can have band practice, but each chapter or each day ends with a dream sequence, which is a very involved platforming segment.

01:26:30.940 --> 01:26:34.600

Tom: And that has some of the greatest sound design.

01:26:35.120 --> 01:26:35.480

Phil: Yes.

01:26:35.560 --> 01:26:49.240

Tom: When you're lighting the lamps, it's amazingly both jarring and satisfying at once, and that fits perfectly the dark yet completely intriguing atmosphere of the dreams.

01:26:49.620 --> 01:27:12.060

Tom: And the lamp lighting actually reminds me, one of the best things about Sky, and it's on a whole other level to Journey, which had incredible sound design, is the sound when you light candles in Sky, which is what much of the gameplay is based on, is just so satisfying, even when you've been playing it for a year.

01:27:12.080 --> 01:27:13.240

Tom: And it reminds me of that.

01:27:13.260 --> 01:27:22.600

Tom: It's much more abrasive, which makes sense given the setting, but it's the same sort of satisfying feeling of striking a match.

01:27:23.840 --> 01:27:28.420

Phil: And I should remind everyone, the game we're talking about is Night in the Woods, which is on pretty much everything.

01:27:28.440 --> 01:27:29.580

Phil: I don't think it's on Switch.

01:27:31.900 --> 01:27:39.780

Phil: So each night you have these nightmares, which is an extreme platforming element, which I think owes a lot to Inside or Limbo.

01:27:39.800 --> 01:27:48.120

Phil: And even though I'd criticize the floaty platforming in Little Big Planet, in this game it just fits perfectly.

01:27:48.180 --> 01:27:55.140

Phil: And it's not particularly floaty, because when you want an action, it actually sticks to it, despite the animation of the character.

01:27:55.160 --> 01:28:05.640

Tom: Well, it's not floaty so much because it has a double jump mechanic, which is not double jump, but every third jump you make.

01:28:05.660 --> 01:28:12.320

Tom: So if you jump three times in a row, the third jump will go about twice the distance and twice the height.

01:28:13.060 --> 01:28:17.780

Tom: So when you're doing that, you obviously have a plan in what you want to do.

01:28:17.800 --> 01:28:21.600

Tom: It's not just the standard jumping easy bits.

01:28:22.420 --> 01:28:37.260

Tom: So I think when you have floating platforming, as long as you play the game with a reasonable amount of advanced planning, floaty platforming mechanics work, which I think they do in Little Big Planet if you take that into account.

01:28:37.280 --> 01:28:43.440

Tom: But if you try and play it like a standard non-floaty platformer, then you run into issues.

01:28:43.460 --> 01:28:57.420

Tom: But because it is on the third jump that this occurs, it means automatically that the player is forced to plan in advance in more detail what they're doing than in a non-floaty platformer.

01:28:59.300 --> 01:29:15.400

Phil: And without spoiling anything, basically, you're trying to solve this murder mystery and the dark side of your town, which I'm not going to spoil here, but I think culminates in basically turning the dream sequences into an actual reality.

01:29:15.960 --> 01:29:31.220

Phil: So as may you're suffering these dreams and headaches and things like that, and then toward the end of the game, those things actually turn into a reality that your friends are experiencing as well as you reach the culmination of the plot reveal.

01:29:32.580 --> 01:29:41.400

Phil: I thought that was all done extremely well, though the one criticism I'll say is that I didn't find the epilogue to be pleasing at all.

01:29:43.020 --> 01:29:45.360

Phil: I didn't like the epilogue at all.

01:29:45.380 --> 01:29:54.000

Phil: I thought the game ended at quite a good point, and that if you were going to have an end scene, it probably could have been like a two minute thing.

01:29:54.140 --> 01:30:00.340

Phil: And I felt that the epilogue let the rest of the game down, though it wouldn't influence my total view of the game.

01:30:01.580 --> 01:30:06.720

Tom: I think it definitely felt from the main plot side of things unnecessary.

01:30:07.560 --> 01:30:18.900

Tom: I think it was there just for the resolution to some of the side things, like the Miracle Rats subplot, for example.

01:30:20.540 --> 01:30:38.720

Tom: And I think you don't really need to give it much more thought than that because while there is some commentary on the main story and interaction with main characters, it really does not add anything that was not already said essentially in the final chapter itself.

01:30:39.560 --> 01:30:40.740

Phil: That's right, yeah.

01:30:41.240 --> 01:30:55.620

Tom: So I think that was more so a slightly awkward pacing thing that they ran into where they couldn't figure out how to shove the conclusion to some of the side stuff into the final day.

01:30:56.140 --> 01:30:58.660

Phil: Right, awkward is the best description of it.

01:30:59.940 --> 01:31:01.720

Phil: So if you just...

01:31:01.780 --> 01:31:04.860

Phil: At this point, I'm just happy to listen to any impressions you have.

01:31:04.880 --> 01:31:06.280

Phil: I've basically said everything I need to say.

01:31:06.300 --> 01:31:19.260

Tom: Well, we will have to go into spoiler territory in the end of the impressions, but two things before we get to that that I think we don't need to mention.

01:31:19.280 --> 01:31:30.460

Tom: The first is, and I'm not sure if I've said this before, but we talked about how much the game makes out of the simplicity of the animation and the writing.

01:31:31.400 --> 01:32:02.600

Tom: It is an amazing testament to the sound design and the music that even with such incredible visual design and incredible writing, the music and the sound design still stands out as driving the entire game essentially, which is just extraordinary given how good and how much is done with fine details in the writing and in the visual design.

01:32:03.260 --> 01:32:03.700

Phil: Indeed.

01:32:05.140 --> 01:32:16.900

Tom: And the other thing that I think stood out about the story, which I think we don't need to go into spoilers to talk about, is the setting is amazing.

01:32:17.020 --> 01:32:42.980

Tom: And if you think about it, it is a setting that is rather ignored, perhaps even taboo in other mediums, because it is set in a Pennsylvania mining town that has gone into industrial decline with the mining no longer driving the economy of the town.

01:32:43.440 --> 01:33:03.160

Tom: And all that is left there for the people is shitty retail jobs that offer no sense of community, because the community has died with the mines, because the community of the place was based on the working class connections between unions and so forth.

01:33:03.580 --> 01:33:22.520

Tom: I mean, this, for anyone who is interested in this, who is interested in American politics or politics in general, should be obviously very relevant to the present state of politics, the world over, and particularly in America with their last election result.

01:33:22.980 --> 01:33:45.700

Tom: So it's fascinating seeing this being depicted in a game and on top of that, not only being depicted in a game, in any medium really, because while you will get references to this, there really aren't many stories in any medium that are directly tackling this sort of thing that I can think of anyway.

01:33:45.820 --> 01:33:48.180

Tom: You may have come across more than I have.

01:33:49.080 --> 01:33:58.960

Phil: Well, I think that, you know, you don't see Pennsylvania and these, you know, rust belt states featured as a location for many video games.

01:34:00.100 --> 01:34:01.560

Phil: Now, when did this game come out?

01:34:02.500 --> 01:34:06.580

Phil: Obviously, it's come out since the election, or the last federal election.

01:34:07.660 --> 01:34:09.120

Phil: Pennsylvania went to Trump.

01:34:09.700 --> 01:34:12.340

Phil: Biden and Trump are both there campaigning today as it is.

01:34:12.360 --> 01:34:13.280

Tom: 2017.

01:34:13.300 --> 01:34:14.080

Phil: Yeah, 2017.

01:34:14.100 --> 01:34:17.500

Tom: So it would have been in development potentially before then.

01:34:17.520 --> 01:34:22.320

Phil: Yeah, so basically the whole concept is that they are...

01:34:22.340 --> 01:34:24.980

Tom: Development began in 2013.

01:34:26.720 --> 01:34:31.320

Phil: But, I mean, that just really underscores the whole position that Trump got elected.

01:34:31.580 --> 01:34:41.100

Phil: We don't want to get into politics, but Trump got elected basically because there's a whole massive group of people who feel like they've been forgotten in the United States because of the change from...

01:34:41.120 --> 01:34:43.740

Tom: I believe they're known colloquially as the deplorables.

01:34:44.520 --> 01:34:46.900

Phil: Well, that's what Hillary referred to them as, yeah.

01:34:47.320 --> 01:34:50.460

Phil: So basically that's the environment in which you're working.

01:34:50.700 --> 01:34:57.700

Phil: This has been something that's covered in other genres such as the Deer Hunter, I would say, the movie from the 1970s.

01:34:57.720 --> 01:34:58.760

Tom: Yeah, but that's from the 70s.

01:34:58.780 --> 01:35:15.860

Tom: I'm saying this is a fascinating thing as a contemporary work of art because as it is tremendously relevant today, it is also a little bit taboo in a sense.

01:35:16.480 --> 01:35:24.380

Phil: Yeah, but it's raw and it's real and I think that the major plot of the game requires it.

01:35:26.260 --> 01:35:28.520

Tom: Well, the plot of the game is about that.

01:35:29.540 --> 01:35:48.220

Tom: It is thematically about mental illness, yes, and the disaffection of many young adults in the education system, but it always links these things to its economic themes.

01:35:49.460 --> 01:35:52.060

Tom: So it is the main theme of the game.

01:35:52.820 --> 01:35:53.700

Phil: Yeah, absolutely.

01:35:54.140 --> 01:36:13.140

Tom: And this is a theme, at least the political results of this sort of thing, is a theme that is at the forefront of many people's minds today, but the potential causations of that is not really covered in much art or media in general.

01:36:13.160 --> 01:36:25.580

Tom: So it really stands out, and it is handled amazingly well, because even the murder cult, potential murder cult...

01:36:26.580 --> 01:36:27.760

Tom: Yeah, we're now getting to spoilers.

01:36:27.940 --> 01:36:37.580

Phil: But back to your point there too, I think that's the whole thing about Brexit as well, is that people feeling that they've been left behind or left out, and that people aren't worried about them.

01:36:38.160 --> 01:36:52.980

Phil: So as we get into the spoilers here, there is a murder cult, and much like ICO, I imagine, where they feel that they must sacrifice people's real lives in order for the benefit of the greater community.

01:36:53.200 --> 01:36:54.040

Phil: Yep.

01:36:54.240 --> 01:37:05.900

Phil: So basically, there's a whole bunch of hooded people, and I was expecting a KKK, and I say KKK because I can't actually say the words.

01:37:09.280 --> 01:37:16.580

Phil: Yeah, not for political reasons, but because of the other speech impediment that we've discussed before with me and you and O.

01:37:16.600 --> 01:37:19.340

Phil: I can't do it.

01:37:19.360 --> 01:37:42.440

Phil: So I was always expecting some sort of KKK type thing, but in fact, it's a union thing, and these people who have been dispossessed of their jobs feel that periodic human sacrifice is required to keep the township of Possum Springs going, and that's what they're doing.

01:37:42.940 --> 01:38:14.220

Tom: Which was a big relief to me that they managed to connect it to the themes of the game because when you approach it from the whole mental illness story of May and her nervous breakdowns and difficulties with coping with life, and also the metaphysical religious themes, and again, managing to work that into the economic commentary is just amazing.

01:38:14.240 --> 01:38:15.080

Phil: It was brilliant.

01:38:15.700 --> 01:38:21.120

Phil: I'm sorry I keep using that word, but it would have been so easy just to do a clan thing.

01:38:22.340 --> 01:38:24.500

Phil: It would have been so easy.

01:38:24.520 --> 01:38:48.580

Tom: If they did that, I would have hated it, because it would totally destroy any of the dramatic and thematic seriousness and emotional resonance of May's return from university and her attempt, yet inability, to cope with life, and her ongoing nervous breakdown that develops as the game goes on.

01:38:49.660 --> 01:39:08.620

Tom: If it made material her fears and anxieties as just some generic horror or uninteresting societal commentary that was not linked to the main non-mental illness theories of the game.

01:39:10.580 --> 01:39:15.500

Phil: The story is so multi-threaded, but simple at the same time.

01:39:15.520 --> 01:39:18.320

Phil: It's like a tapestry, but it's simple.

01:39:18.880 --> 01:39:31.220

Phil: And it really is so impressive that they were able to draw together all of these things, that the writers were able to draw all these things together before you even realize what's going on.

01:39:31.240 --> 01:39:32.180

Phil: And that's what's so good.

01:39:32.240 --> 01:39:39.120

Phil: Like with the sound design, the sound design is great and you notice it, in which point you should say, well, is it really great if you notice it?

01:39:39.540 --> 01:39:41.540

Phil: But with the writing, you don't notice it.

01:39:41.580 --> 01:39:42.660

Phil: It sneaks up on you.

01:39:42.920 --> 01:39:44.920

Phil: They're doing this throughout the game.

01:39:45.300 --> 01:39:46.120

Phil: They're building on it.

01:39:46.140 --> 01:39:52.860

Tom: You notice the dialogue, but you do not notice the important part of the writing, which is the themes and the narrative.

01:39:53.100 --> 01:39:54.860

Phil: Yeah, it's just exceptional.

01:39:55.000 --> 01:40:09.620

Tom: And the other amazing thing about it is, is the whole, after the unions have essentially capitulated, which I thought was another interest, unflinching and amazing depiction of it.

01:40:09.620 --> 01:40:19.360

Tom: Because it's throughout the whole, it's obviously very sympathetic to unions throughout the game, and at the end, and the working classes.

01:40:19.640 --> 01:40:30.500

Tom: But it does not in any way patronise them, or avoid the capitulation that occurred in places like Pennsylvania.

01:40:31.540 --> 01:40:49.620

Tom: And the metaphor of a murder cult it uses is one that is a popular and a reasonable argument about that style of politics, of essentially thinking about it as a human sacrifice and death cult.

01:40:51.560 --> 01:41:02.460

Tom: But it does that without at any point either patronising the death cult, or not treating them with compassion.

01:41:04.680 --> 01:41:18.060

Tom: And as people whose concerns should be listened to and considered, even if you find the expression of them to be despicable.

01:41:18.500 --> 01:41:31.420

Tom: Which I think is again, just amazing, and handled in a manner that is, would be impressive in any medium full stop.

01:41:32.740 --> 01:41:43.520

Phil: I've got to say, like when I think about that, and I think about capitulation and the union movement in the United States, capitulation is death for a union.

01:41:43.720 --> 01:41:54.400

Phil: And I saw this in 2013 with the grocery workers strike, where basically they did exactly what happened in this game, at Night in the Woods.

01:41:55.540 --> 01:42:07.080

Phil: The older union members basically, and I've seen this again and again and again in union movements, sacrificed the young, meaning the new people coming on, for the old.

01:42:07.160 --> 01:42:24.840

Phil: So basically the grocery union workers said, as long as you keep all our benefits intact, anyone hired after 2014, yeah, you can pay minimum wage and they won't get the pension subsidies or contributions that we get, as long as we're taken care of.

01:42:25.000 --> 01:42:34.900

Phil: And that is the selfishness that's seen in this game with these miners basically saying, well, we'll sacrifice the youth so long as we can keep the general good going.

01:42:35.100 --> 01:42:35.400

Tom: Yeah.

01:42:35.820 --> 01:42:42.420

Phil: And that might be painting with a very broad brush, but the union movement in the United States is essentially dead.

01:42:42.620 --> 01:42:43.120

Phil: It's gone.

01:42:43.220 --> 01:42:43.800

Phil: It's finished.

01:42:43.820 --> 01:42:46.140

Phil: There's no powerful unions in the United States.

01:42:46.540 --> 01:42:56.000

Phil: Whereas here in Australia, though they are weakening, we still have a pretty good union movement, though nowhere where it needs to be.

01:42:56.020 --> 01:43:03.640

Phil: And unfortunately, some of the strongest unions are those that are owned by the government, like, you know, teachers unions and nurses unions and things like that.

01:43:05.480 --> 01:43:09.220

Phil: So yeah, that's an interesting point about capitulation.

01:43:10.740 --> 01:43:16.880

Tom: And again, just another example of how amazing, amazingly written the game is.

01:43:17.200 --> 01:43:17.460

Phil: Yes.

01:43:20.040 --> 01:43:24.240

Tom: But I think that's probably all I have to say about it that I can think of.

01:43:25.080 --> 01:43:28.140

Phil: Now, obviously, like, I just wanted to talk to you.

01:43:28.740 --> 01:43:30.120

Tom: Oh, wait, no, I'm forgetting.

01:43:30.460 --> 01:43:40.480

Tom: So we mentioned the Guitar Hero minigame, which is a genuinely good, if not great rhythm game in a game.

01:43:41.520 --> 01:43:57.700

Tom: This also features a minigame called Demon Tower, which is a genuinely great 2D Zelda-style top-down action game in the vein of Titan Souls and Hyper Light Drifter.

01:43:57.700 --> 01:43:59.140

Tom: And it is as good.

01:43:59.340 --> 01:44:00.940

Tom: It's better than Hyper Light Drifter.

01:44:01.300 --> 01:44:04.400

Tom: And mechanically, it's arguably better than Titan Souls.

01:44:04.420 --> 01:44:11.300

Tom: I think the level design or rather boss design in Titan Souls is on another level.

01:44:11.860 --> 01:44:12.720

Tom: It's just amazing.

01:44:12.740 --> 01:44:15.240

Tom: It probably puts it slightly above Demon Tower.

01:44:15.540 --> 01:44:21.600

Tom: But mechanically, it feels so precise and satisfying.

01:44:21.620 --> 01:44:22.500

Tom: And it is so simple.

01:44:22.520 --> 01:44:27.200

Tom: You've essentially just got a dodge button and an attack button.

01:44:27.380 --> 01:44:29.440

Tom: And you've got bars of stamina.

01:44:29.440 --> 01:44:31.500

Tom: And when you dodge, it uses a bar of stamina.

01:44:31.640 --> 01:44:34.120

Tom: And when you attack, it uses a bar of stamina.

01:44:36.600 --> 01:44:38.220

Tom: And the levels are really simple.

01:44:38.240 --> 01:44:42.540

Tom: They're usually basically just a square block with sometimes some paths through it.

01:44:42.780 --> 01:44:45.420

Tom: And you have to find a room which has a key.

01:44:45.440 --> 01:44:46.140

Tom: You get the key.

01:44:46.340 --> 01:44:48.680

Tom: You can then go to the boss room and fight the boss.

01:44:49.560 --> 01:44:51.640

Tom: The bosses are pretty simple.

01:44:52.820 --> 01:44:57.580

Tom: But there are some interesting creative choices with them.

01:44:57.640 --> 01:45:01.200

Tom: For instance, one boss, as they're moving around the level, they're bleeding.

01:45:01.220 --> 01:45:03.980

Tom: And if you touch their blood, you take damage.

01:45:04.940 --> 01:45:11.920

Tom: So you have to figure out how to attack them without taking damage by walking in their blood.

01:45:12.360 --> 01:45:24.460

Tom: And as you're playing through the game, the difficulty increases not just with more types of enemies, each of which is really unique and interesting to figure out how to dodge.

01:45:25.620 --> 01:45:30.100

Tom: You also lose one of your bars of health, but you gain bars of stamina.

01:45:30.380 --> 01:45:45.520

Tom: So you become faster, sorry, you become better at attacking and better at dodging, but you die quicker, which creates this great dynamic as you're going along, where it really rewards skill, but punishes any mistake you make.

01:45:46.360 --> 01:46:01.940

Tom: So in this game, it doesn't just have a great rhythm mini game, it has a great indie 2D retro-style dungeon crawling game that is as good as the likes of Titan Souls and Hyper Light Drifter, among others.

01:46:03.080 --> 01:46:12.100

Phil: I think if we were to posthumously award a 2017 Gundy for Game of the Year, this would have to be it.

01:46:12.120 --> 01:46:18.720

Phil: I mean, Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey basically were the Game of the Year for 2017.

01:46:18.740 --> 01:46:20.580

Tom: What were our Games of the Year for 2017?

01:46:20.600 --> 01:46:22.560

Phil: Well, I don't know that we did it in 2017.

01:46:22.580 --> 01:46:23.620

Phil: We'd have to go back and look.

01:46:23.680 --> 01:46:28.840

Phil: But I think that this is really, with what you've said about this...

01:46:29.680 --> 01:46:32.020

Tom: this would get into the Games of the Decade.

01:46:32.380 --> 01:46:33.220

Phil: Yeah, definitely.

01:46:33.520 --> 01:46:35.080

Tom: Not just 2017.

01:46:35.100 --> 01:46:38.040

Tom: This would be in certainly my top ten.

01:46:38.440 --> 01:46:39.340

Phil: Oh, mine as well.

01:46:39.560 --> 01:46:41.980

Phil: And it'd be probably in the top five, I'd say.

01:46:43.560 --> 01:46:47.820

Phil: Maybe not, but yeah, it'd definitely be in my top ten of the 2010s.

01:46:49.220 --> 01:46:52.880

Phil: So with that, you've got your Diary of Destiny ready to go there?

01:46:53.860 --> 01:46:54.580

Tom: No, I don't.

01:46:54.700 --> 01:46:55.740

Phil: I will get one.

01:46:55.760 --> 01:46:56.760

Tom: You give your score.

01:46:56.780 --> 01:46:58.920

Phil: Well, we're going to close out this podcast now then.

01:47:00.020 --> 01:47:10.360

Phil: Tom's going to get his Diary of Destiny, but thank you for listening, and please go over to gameunder.net where you can read Tom's essay about sky, Children of Light, and some other stories that we've put up recently.

01:47:10.700 --> 01:47:15.000

Phil: But really, we're not a website with a podcast, we're a podcast with a website.

01:47:15.020 --> 01:47:21.160

Phil: So just like and subscribe us, and give us good reviews on Apple so that other listeners can find the show as well.

01:47:21.180 --> 01:47:22.320

Phil: And thank you for your support.

01:47:22.780 --> 01:47:24.900

Phil: I've noticed a pick up in numbers over the last few months.

01:47:26.160 --> 01:47:27.460

Phil: As we've been able to record.

01:47:27.480 --> 01:47:28.720

Tom: That means someone has listened.

01:47:29.200 --> 01:47:30.060

Phil: Yes, yeah.

01:47:30.800 --> 01:47:32.260

Phil: Not just me doing a sound check.

01:47:32.720 --> 01:47:40.300

Phil: So I am happy to give this game a 9 out of 10.

01:47:41.720 --> 01:47:44.360

Tom: And I am now ruling the die of destiny.

01:47:45.420 --> 01:47:46.760

Phil: Keep fingers crossed, everyone.

01:47:47.200 --> 01:48:08.060

Tom: And this game, which I think is one of the best stories about the decline of modern America, as some might put it, full stop in any medium, and I am giving it a 8 out of 10 as the die has landed.

01:48:08.100 --> 01:48:09.180

Phil: Wow, awesome.

01:48:09.440 --> 01:48:10.880

Phil: So everything has worked out great.

01:48:11.300 --> 01:48:12.100

Tom: It has indeed.

01:48:12.120 --> 01:48:14.200

Tom: That's a lucky roll for once.

01:48:14.420 --> 01:48:30.240

Phil: We've already closed out the show, but I do want you to give good thought to the next game that we should both play from our itch.io godsale, because you proposed this, even though I was intending to play it anyway, but you proposed it, and as a result, I really thoroughly enjoyed it.

01:48:30.260 --> 01:48:31.200

Phil: So I thank you for that.

01:48:31.700 --> 01:48:35.680

Phil: And I thank our listeners for listening to episode 130 of The Game Under Podcast.

01:48:35.820 --> 01:48:43.440

Tom: And I do have to bring up Vampyr, because on the website now, or perhaps soon, there will be a short review about it.

01:48:43.720 --> 01:48:45.240

Phil: Yeah, and I've read a preview of that.

01:48:45.240 --> 01:48:53.420

Phil: It's a game by Don't Nod, The Life of Strange People, and I have a ton of questions about it, so hopefully we'll hit that in episode 131.

01:48:53.440 --> 01:48:55.420

Phil: So with that, I am Phil Fogg.

01:48:55.940 --> 01:49:01.940

Tom: I'm Tom Towers, and I must supply a correction, and I've got a question for you, which should be short.

01:49:02.520 --> 01:49:19.440

Tom: But I commented on Lord of the Flies and Thomas Hobbes and their relationship to games and anthropology, and one thing I've noticed is, as listeners are no doubt familiar with, I do make the odd insane comment.

01:49:20.040 --> 01:49:36.000

Tom: But particularly in the sphere of politics and philosophy, you will come across people making just randomly out of the blue completely insane comments, which I do all the time, but I'm aware of, and I get the feeling that they're not aware of it.

01:49:36.020 --> 01:49:56.800

Tom: It's like, for instance, in MineCamp, it seems all perfectly sensible and sane, yet sprinkled throughout it, there's random references to Jews, and it's written by someone else who is insane, but it's apparently not.

01:49:57.260 --> 01:50:06.280

Tom: And you get the sense that Hitler is not aware of the difference between his sane statements and his totally insane ones.

01:50:07.760 --> 01:50:09.620

Phil: Yeah, so those blind spots.

01:50:10.300 --> 01:50:27.020

Phil: And indeed, for you to be aware of your, quote, blind spots, that's incredible, but I'm sure there's tons of stuff that everyone goes through in their daily life where we're saying things or thinking things to us which are completely sane, but don't realize that's one of our insane hangups.

Phil: So yeah, that's really good, Tom.

01:50:30.000 --> 01:50:34.480

Phil: I appreciate that, and I'll talk to you soon on episode 131.

01:50:35.360 --> 01:50:38.120

Tom: And I stand by those insane statements for the record.

01:50:38.500 --> 01:50:39.920

Phil: Hey, it's the only reason I do this show.