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0:00:22 Intro - Jaffle Talk
0:02:43 News - Game Pass Downgraded
0:10:57 News - Gamescom and New Valve Game
0:16:22 News - Black Myth Wukong Sells
0:20:30 What Playing - Doom + Doom2
0:29:38 What Playing - Thank Goodness You're Here
0:44:57 What Playing - The Good Time Garden
0:54:05 What Playing - Dear Esther
1:25:03 Emails for Tom from other peoples podcasts
Transcripts
Tom: Hello and welcome to episode of The Game Under Podcast.
Tom: I'm your host, Tom Towers, and I'm joined by the ever present Jaffel, Phil Fogg.
Phil: Jaffel, yes, something our North American listeners wouldn't know what it is.
Phil: I guess I'm the raw toast, your toast, I'm the raw toast, which is what I call bread.
Tom: Jaffel isn't bread, Jaffel is a toasted sandwich.
Phil: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a toasted sandwich, in fact made in a Jaffel iron.
Phil: Do you have a Jaffel iron?
Tom: I've got, I think it's technically called a, actually, I don't know what it's called, but it's a thing that closes over sandwiches and grills both sides.
Phil: Right, it's a toasted sandwich maker, which is different from a sandwich press, which is what most of our North American listeners would be familiar with.
Phil: But a Jaffel iron is something that was made basically in the s, where you can, it's not electrical.
Phil: You take a piece of bread, cheese, whatever you want to make.
Phil: In australia, we call them toasties.
Phil: You compress this thing on it.
Phil: It's like a clam-like thing with handles.
Phil: I wish I knew where ours was.
Phil: And then you put it in the fire, like a literal fire, like camping, and then you flip it over, and then you take it out, and you've got an amazing grilled cheese sandwich, is what we would call it, where I'm from.
Tom: And the way we would make Jaffels as opposed to a toasted sandwich would actually be frying them on either side in a pan.
Tom: Oh, yeah.
Phil: Right.
Phil: Well, that's a grilled cheese sandwich.
Phil: That's, yeah.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: Do you butter both sides of the bread when you do a grilled cheese sandwich?
Tom: You butter both sides on the outside.
Phil: I butter, yeah, well, the outside's obviously buttered.
Phil: You have to do that.
Phil: But I also butter the insides.
Tom: I do not butter the insides.
Phil: Oh, really?
Phil: No.
Phil: Do you butter the insides of your sandwiches generally?
Tom: For a normal sandwich, yes.
Phil: Yeah, but not for grilled cheese.
Phil: Why is that?
Tom: because you got the butter on the outside.
Phil: Well, I think you have to do some reflection on that, maybe next time, butter both sides of the bread and see how it turns out.
Tom: We'll report back to you perhaps in the next episode on the results.
Phil: Important, important raw toast news in the next episode.
Phil: And speaking of news, probably the biggest news of the last couple of days, is that Microsoft has announced that Game Pass Standard and Core, which are the lower two tiers of Game Pass, are no longer getting first-party, i.e.
Phil: Microsoft Games, at launch.
Phil: Standard and Core subscribers will, quote, wait up to months plus.
Phil: This story comes to us from gamesindustry.biz.
Phil: So just to give you a recap, Standard is $a month USD, Core is $a month USD, Elite is $a month USD.
Phil: You currently have Games Pass.
Phil: What level are you on, if you know?
Tom: I'm on the PC version.
Phil: Right.
Phil: Which I think is still going to get the stuff at launch.
Phil: Is that what we figured out a few weeks ago?
Tom: I think that's what we were thinking a few weeks ago.
Phil: Right.
Phil: Well, you might want to check if you're on the Standard or Core because you won't be getting those games at launch, at which point, what's the point?
Phil: So Games Pass has gone from a, or Game Pass has gone from being the best deal in video gaming.
Tom: Second best deal in video gaming.
Tom: I think the itch IO are charity sales with the best deal.
Phil: I agree with that.
Phil: But yeah, this is not, this is interesting for Microsoft.
Phil: I don't know how much we want to talk about it.
Phil: But for example, the games that came out of Gamescom, which I'll talk about next.
Phil: You know, Indiana Jones was one of those games that I've said, oh, well, I'm definitely going to get that.
Phil: Maybe I'll get games pass at that point.
Phil: But now, unless you're playing at the top tier, you're not going to be getting Indiana Jones on day one, unless you pay for it.
Phil: And now at Gamescom, Microsoft has announced that Indiana Jones will not be an exclusive.
Phil: It will be coming to PlayStation.
Phil: Five months after launch.
Phil: So in essence, like if you're relying on Game Pass Standard and Core to get you that game, people on PlayStation will be getting it first.
Phil: Now, albeit they'll be paying for it, but so will you, because if you're paying for Standard or Core, you're paying $a month.
Phil: So they'll actually, if you're on Core, people on PlayStation will be paying less for the game than you are, and playing it sooner, seven months sooner.
Phil: And this is where I think the, you know, Microsoft, you know, following is really sore at Microsoft over this announcement.
Phil: Should they be, in your opinion?
Tom: I think so.
Tom: I think it's probably not really worth having at this stage with that in mind.
Tom: You've still got, were they also cutting back on the Bethesda games, or is that the same?
Phil: Well, the indie game is coming from Machine Games slash Starberries.
Phil: You know, the people that used to be Starberries, and they're owned by Bethesda.
Tom: Okay.
Phil: And so.
Tom: So, essentially, the biggest exclusives are now no longer a part of it in a timely manner.
Phil: No.
Phil: Yeah, I mean, there's some speculation that the next Xbox will be a Switch-like PC that will support Steam and the Epic Store.
Phil: So, I've heard that from two different sources now.
Phil: And when you look at the success, the commercial success at Microsoft had with Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi rush coming out on other systems, you know, I think Microsoft is just making money decisions at this point, which, you know, they're a business and that's what they've got to do.
Phil: But certainly, yeah, gamers are not getting the great deal that they were once getting.
Tom: So, that would then have it competing against the Steam Deck.
Tom: When you put it to me that way, I think more Steam Deck than Switch.
Phil: Yeah, it's basically a Steam Deck.
Phil: What it's looking like is a Steam Deck that comes with, is operating off of Windows essentially.
Phil: Now, it'll be a skinned, you know, shrunken down version of Windows
Phil: You won't turn it on and it'll boot to Windows.
Phil: It'll turn on and boot to, you know, the Xbox interface, but then fully support Steam and the Epic Store.
Phil: So, you know, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Phil: I think that's probably the right move for them right now.
Phil: I wouldn't be surprised to see games like, you know, Halo Infinite coming available on PlayStation at this point.
Phil: I don't think there's anything sacred in the Microsoft library.
Phil: If they see a good business reason to put one of their games on the PlayStation platform, they're going to do it.
Phil: And in doing so, they're going to perhaps be more appealing than whatever PlayStation is offering, or equally appealing, because PlayStation is bringing their games to Steam, albeit much later.
Phil: So, yeah, it's interesting where this is all going to end up.
Phil: Ultimately, I feel that if their hardware offering is a portable system that supports Steam, then that's more attractive than just another Xbox console that is locked, you know, just to Xbox games.
Tom: It is, but I'm also not sure they'd be able to pull it off.
Tom: I think the way Xbox has presented themselves in the past anyway has been as a very traditional sort of console.
Tom: Whereas I don't think, I think the way the Switch works so well is Nintendo presents themselves as offering something different and interesting.
Tom: I don't know if the same thing will work for Microsoft.
Phil: Well, it'll be different in that it's providing the Xbox games, past games, and Steam in a portable, accessible fashion.
Phil: So you can put Windows on a Steam Deck now, but it's still not ideal because you're running the full Windows operating system on a mobile system, which isn't ideal, basically.
Phil: You can include it, but it's not a consumer-ready product.
Phil: And I think if Microsoft were to produce an Xbox that was consumer-ready, dockable, hey, you don't have to be a geek to figure out how to do this.
Tom: As a games console, though, what would be the advantage of Windows ?
Phil: The Steam compatibility.
Tom: But you don't, like, with the Steam Deck, that's got Steam on it without Windows
Tom: So it's not really offering anything different to the Steam Deck.
Tom: The difference is that it will play Xbox games.
Phil: Yeah, and honestly, I don't think there's too much benefit to that.
Phil: You know, like, at that point, why don't you just get a PC?
Phil: But it comes down to them selling game pass predominantly and having a hardware presence, just to say we've got a hardware presence or for people who see PCs as being something that's just beyond their ability to figure out.
Phil: Yeah, I'm not saying I'm in favor of the strategy, but I can see that it is at least better than what they're doing now because I would at least consider a portable gaming platform that supports Steam and Xbox and Epic, as opposed to like there is no chance of me buying another Xbox console when I've got a PC hooked up to my TV.
Phil: And, you know, Steam Big Picture Mode works as brilliantly as it does.
Phil: Like there is no reason to do it at all.
Tom: Particularly not with Game Pass.
Phil: No, that's right, that's right.
Phil: Speaking of Steam, story number two, Valve has admitted to a new game called Deadlock.
Phil: It's been added to Steam.
Phil: You cannot play it or buy it yet.
Phil: It's still invite only.
Phil: And we only mention it because it is a rare thing in gaming when Valve actually makes a new game.
Phil: It's a blend of genres combining...
Phil: Oh, this story critic to this goes to Eurogamer.
Phil: It's a blend of genres combining hero shooters with MOBA.
Phil: And it's an action game vthird-person hero shooter.
Phil: And it takes place across four lanes with aggressively respawning waves of troopers.
Phil: So not really much to talk about there.
Phil: Certainly not a game that's in my wheelhouse.
Phil: But speaking of Gamescom, looking at the coverage, there's two games I'm interested in.
Tom: Can I just ask, what is a hero shooter?
Phil: Hero shooter is like Destiny, or...
Tom: Fortnite?
Phil: No, not Fortnite, the other one.
Phil: The other Blizzard game.
Phil: You'll think of it.
Tom: Starcraft?
Phil: No.
Phil: Lost Vikings?
Phil: No, no, no, not that Blizzard game either.
Phil: It's a hero shooter.
Phil: You know, a hero shooter.
Tom: Is it a first person shooter?
Phil: Yeah, it can be a first person shooter.
Tom: Is it a third person shooter?
Phil: It can be a third person shooter also.
Tom: I'm just questioning the usefulness of the term hero shooter.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Well, look it up.
Phil: It's an actual genre.
Phil: In fact, if you put in hero shooter, it'll probably be the first game that comes up.
Phil: It was extremely popular, if not just for its user-generated pornography.
Tom: Isn't that Fortnite?
Tom: I'm sure that's Fortnite.
Phil: No, it's not Fortnite.
Tom: Overwatch.
Phil: Oh, there you go.
Phil: Overwatch.
Phil: And then, yeah, Randy Pitchford's team came up with another hero shooter around the same time that it was quickly shut down as well.
Tom: So essentially, it's a shooter with character classes in it.
Phil: And the aggressive respawning waves of enemies.
Tom: And why have they gone with hero shooter as opposed to character shooter to be consistent with character action game, which you could also call hero action game?
Phil: Yeah, you could.
Phil: You could.
Phil: I just think at this point, if you want to...
Phil: What was the name of the game that you recalled from Blizzard?
Tom: Overwatch.
Phil: Overwatch.
Phil: If you want people just to know that this is an Overwatch, quote, MOBA, or slash MOBA, then the easiest way of saying it these days is hero shooter.
Tom: I think Overwatch clone would be the best description.
Phil: Yeah, well, that's what hero shooter means.
Phil: It's mean that for a while now.
Tom: So it's a marketing euphemism.
Tom: Yeah, yeah.
Tom: Essentially.
Phil: Yep, it's a catchphrase, a catch-all catchphrase.
Phil: Looking at the other games on offer at Gamescom, two games came out at me that immediately went on to my wishlist.
Phil: One is Atomfall, Atomfall from Rebellion, the people that make Sniper Elite.
Phil: And it's a, it was supposed to be like a Skyrim RPG type game set in North England during the s, post a nuclear apocalypse or nuclear accident.
Tom: It looks very much like Atomic Heart.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Now, what's Atomic Heart?
Tom: Atomic Heart is a, I think the term we're using these days is Soviet shooter, I think.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Yep.
Tom: Which would encompass Metro, Stalker, other various games, which isn't really anything like.
Tom: But it's basically set during the Cold War in a science fiction Cold War setting.
Tom: And when I first saw Atomfall, I thought it was a sequel to Atomic Heart.
Tom: They look so similar.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: So now they started going down the route.
Tom: Maybe, actually, the genre is Atom Shooter.
Tom: That makes a lot of sense.
Phil: So this is the latest Atom Shooter that I've seen, that I've been really interested in.
Phil: And they started out developing it as a obsidian-like RPG, ran into some trouble and then said, well, what are we good at?
Phil: And they went, well, Sniper Elite.
Phil: So they've sort of combined the two.
Phil: But you can play this game by killing everyone in the game or by killing no one.
Phil: Like, you have complete choice as to how you're gonna play it.
Phil: So lots of vibes of Fallout, Las Vegas.
Phil: Yeah, so I'm looking forward to that one.
Phil: The other one I'm interested in is Avowed by Obsidian, which is an action RPG and looks pretty good as well.
Tom: That looks Last of Us inspired.
Phil: Yeah, Avowed, yeah, it's sort of Skyrim-y sort of as well.
Phil: So I'm more interested in Adamfall than I am Avowed.
Tom: So it's more Skyrim-y than The Last of Us, you think?
Phil: I think so, definitely.
Tom: So it's not a last shooter?
Tom: No, no, it's a SkyPG.
Phil: Speaking of game genres, games being turned into genre names, there's a new Souls-like action RPG that's been developed in China.
Phil: It's receiving generally lukewarm reviews, I mean, sevens and eights.
Phil: But it's breaking records for selling over million copies in just three days.
Phil: Now, even the name of the game, it's hard to get your head around, is Black Myth, Colon, Wukong.
Phil: And it's based on the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West.
Phil: And that's like monkey magic, if you're familiar with the old TV show, or Dragon Ball Z has been based on Journey to the West.
Phil: There's video games called Journey to the West for the PlayStation.
Phil: The game that we talked about a couple of weeks ago that I can never remember the name of.
Tom: Enslaved.
Phil: Enslaved, also based on Journey to the West.
Phil: So, yeah, and developed in China, so.
Tom: And Azura's Wrath, is that another one?
Phil: I'm not sure about that.
Tom: There's another character action game based on it.
Tom: I'm just trying to recall which one.
Tom: Yeah, Azura's Wrath.
Tom: Not based on it, it has some references to it.
Phil: Which is a brilliant game.
Phil: And I loved Monkey Magic when I was a kid growing up.
Phil: The question I have is why?
Phil: Why is this game selling so well?
Tom: In what market is it selling?
Phil: Well, it's for PlayStation and PC.
Phil: It's been released, you know, into the Western world and in China.
Phil: I'm having to think it's because of China, right?
Tom: So we don't know where the sales are?
Phil: No, we don't.
Phil: We're relying on the manufacturer to release this information.
Phil: So there you go.
Phil: And like every company in China is owned, in part, at least by the Chinese Communist Party.
Phil: So, you know, this could be propaganda.
Phil: I mean, you know, if we are relying on the developer publisher to give us the information, and that developer publisher is owned by the Chinese Communist Party, maybe we can take this with a grain of salt.
Phil: But, yeah, I mean, like it appears to be a pretty middling game.
Phil: Other than its Journey to the West connection, I'd certainly have no interest in it.
Phil: And also the fact that it's a Souls-like, which is not my cup of tea either.
Tom: I'm looking at it on YouTube, and the trailer has, that is, PlayStation has only million views.
Tom: But you go to the comments, and maybe they're elucidating.
Phil: Oh.
Phil: Are they leguprious?
Tom: Here's an example of one.
Tom: Guys, I'm Hong Kong Chinese.
Tom: We all raised by watching Journey to the West since we were kids.
Tom: We read the novel.
Tom: Boys always plays pretends as Wukong, the same as Western kids dream of becoming Superman or Spider-Man.
Tom: Some of the details are really heart touching.
Tom: They were based on the novel.
Tom: This is a big moment for the Chinese player.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: So that's why.
Tom: Maybe it is the Chinese market thing.
Tom: And judging by the Chinese people I've met on Sky, I wouldn't be surprised if it had sold in such numbers in China, because usually they're very big fans of whatever Chinese game is popular.
Tom: And given they're mainly mobile players, they're not buying games, but they certainly do spend money on in-game purchases.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: That's actually you've come up with the answer there, and I should have known it, because yeah, the stories also reference that this is getting, it's basically seen as a patriotic activity.
Phil: Oh, look how great this game is, and look how popular it is.
Phil: So, yep.
Phil: So you've solved that one.
Phil: But yeah, well, that closes out our news, so we'll move on to what we've been playing.
Phil: I'll quickly mention that I've spent most of my time, which is a lie, playing a Plague Tale Innocence, and I'll have nothing more to say on this game until I finish it.
Phil: But one game I think both of us have been playing, in an interesting development, Doom and Doom or Doom or Doom plus Doom came out.
Tom: I think it's Doom plus
Phil: Doom plus okay.
Phil: And which would equal Doom
Tom: That's what I was thinking.
Phil: I don't think anyone would be interested in that.
Phil: So anyway, turn on my Steam library, and it's like, oh, here you go.
Phil: Doom plus Doom has been updated.
Phil: I'm like, okay, didn't even realize I owned it.
Phil: But yeah, all right, fine.
Phil: I go to play it, and it is the most brilliant remaster of Doom and Doom available.
Phil: The game has been developed by Nightdive in cooperation with ID and Machine Games.
Phil: It's available for PC, PlayStation and Xbox Series console Switch, and even PlayStation and Xbox, Xbox One.
Phil: And it's got player multiplayer.
Phil: It's got a vast array of enhancements, frames per second support on consoles, co-op gaming, and an amazing new soundtrack.
Phil: In the story I was reading, basically said, oh, it's by Legendary, blah, blah.
Phil: And I'm like, okay, this guy's Legendary, so I should probably know about him.
Phil: I look up his game credits and it's like, this guy's not Legendary, but he's done a fantastic job with the music in this.
Phil: Would you agree?
Tom: Definitely.
Tom: Who are we talking about?
Phil: I'm not even going to mention his name because they're saying he's Legendary, and then I looked up his credits.
Tom: So we should all know his name, then, is what you're saying.
Phil: Yeah, and then I looked up his credits, and it's basically like Doom and a cancelled Duke Nukem game.
Phil: And I'm like, well, okay, that's not really Legendary.
Phil: You won't know his name if you look him up.
Phil: And so basically, if you owned a copy of Doom or Doom on all of these consoles, PlayStation Xbox One, Steam, Switch, Epic Game Store, Microsoft Game Store, even good old games, you automatically receive this remaster.
Phil: So yeah, of course, at some point, I bought Doom on Steam because it was probably cents.
Phil: And now I have this amazing remaster that is supports mods and it has like different games inside of it.
Phil: This is brilliant.
Phil: I mean, thank you, Bethesda.
Phil: This is beyond generous, and I have no idea why they've done it.
Phil: Can you speculate?
Tom: I don't know either.
Phil: Certainly appreciated.
Phil: I mean, I've...
Tom: Maybe it's hype for an upcoming Doom or something to do in between that series of Dooms, as in Doom in the reboot series.
Phil: Right, well, there's a new Doom coming out, I think, in February of next year.
Phil: It's the one that's set in the Middle Ages, right?
Tom: So I think it's probably hype for that because the second Doom certainly did not have as much hype around it as the first reboot Doom did.
Tom: So maybe they're trying to bring some more excitement around it.
Phil: Back to the franchise, yeah.
Phil: So the Doom remake was incredible.
Phil: Then they made it really stupidly complicated on the remaster, and it was just confusing and dumb, and I did not enjoy it at all.
Phil: So yeah, it might be just to bring back some of the love, but you know, I'm going to do the thing that I do every episode, you know, the game that you recommended to me, the retro first person shooter, what they'd probably call a boomer shooter these days.
Tom: Project Warlock?
Phil: Oh, Project Warlock.
Phil: I mean, Project Warlock was my game of the year for that year.
Phil: Everyone should play it.
Phil: This is better than Project Warlock.
Phil: But it is just, it is brilliant.
Phil: And I love every, I love every part of it.
Phil: And I find myself, I'll just be like in between something, I'll just be like, okay, I'll just go play Doom.
Phil: And you know, you go, you know, minutes later, you're still playing it.
Phil: It's just brilliant.
Tom: Well, of course Doom is better than Project Warlock.
Phil: Well, of course it is, but it's Project Warlock.
Phil: It's what Doom should be in
Phil: You know, it's great.
Tom: Are there non-aesthetic differences between it and the original?
Phil: Not that I can tell.
Phil: I mean, to me, it feels a lot easier.
Phil: And that might, I mean, because when I was playing this on the original hardware...
Tom: I think the controls are different.
Tom: I think you can possibly aim up and down with the cursor now, whereas in the original, whether you're shooting up or down, everything is on a flat plane.
Tom: So you can change the controls so that you can aim with the mouse, but you're essentially aiming right and left.
Tom: And if enemies are above you, you just need to be in line with them, and you'll be shooting them.
Phil: Yeah, that's right.
Phil: I'm playing with an Xbox controller on PC, and it was funny because I was trying to line up a site of someone that was higher than me.
Phil: And it's like, why isn't this working?
Phil: That's right, I don't have to do that.
Phil: I just have to point my gun in this direction.
Tom: Okay, so that's still the same?
Phil: Yeah, on controller at least.
Phil: Yeah, I haven't tried it with mouse and keyboard.
Phil: But yeah, incredibly generous, and thank you Bethesda for this.
Tom: The other thing is, I think it's interesting, because it looks good.
Tom: The new heavy metal soundtrack by one of the most legendary game composers of all time is very good.
Tom: But I played the first level very quickly, hence my lack of details in my commentary here, because I can do that very quickly.
Tom: I think the part time is seconds.
Tom: So the first level is very short.
Tom: And I then went back and played the original.
Tom: And the difference is night and day.
Tom: The graphics in the original, the music in the original, the sound in the original, everything is just so much better.
Tom: So I just thought absolutely percent.
Tom: The high fidelity.
Phil: Wait, just say that again for people who were driving in their cars and weren't listening properly.
Tom: So I played the first level of the remaster of Doom
Tom: Really enjoyed the heavy metal soundtrack and the high resolution graphics.
Tom: I then went back and played the first level in the original version of Doom, and it just blew the remaster out of the water.
Phil: Yeah, you're wrong.
Phil: You're quantifiably wrong.
Tom: I'm objectively correct.
Tom: Objectively correct.
Tom: % correct.
Tom: If you listen to that, you listen to the music in the original, it is, without comparison, some of the best video game music ever.
Tom: And okay, it's not comparable to techno of the time.
Tom: I think you can make that case.
Tom: But I don't think you can come up with a soundtrack of that fidelity of that era that is night and day better than it.
Phil: So you're just saying the soundtrack.
Tom: The music is significantly better.
Tom: That's one aspect of it.
Tom: I mean, there's really two differences in the remaster.
Tom: It's the music and the graphics, right?
Phil: Yes, yeah.
Tom: So that's what we should be judging it on.
Phil: Yeah, and the inclusion of all the freebies, all the extras.
Tom: The other thing is the graphics.
Tom: On the one hand, you can say it's nice having it at a higher resolution, but the thing with old graphics like that is the lower fidelity allows you to project so much into the graphics that you end up with something that just looks better than what you end up with when you're putting it at a higher resolution, and you can see all the details all like thereof clearly.
Phil: Well, my respect for you means that I will go in and do this, I will go back and play the original.
Tom: I'm not saying that the music isn't great in the remaster and that it doesn't look great.
Tom: The music is great and it absolutely looks great too.
Phil: And it plays brilliantly.
Phil: Yep, of course.
Phil: I think, you know, I'm dealing with memories in my head of playing Doom on a and like I'd actually have Chug, which I'm not opposed to, I'm actually a fan of Chugging graphics.
Tom: You should be able to run it smoothly now.
Tom: I would hope.
Phil: I would think so.
Phil: With that, we will move on to our next game, which we both played.
Phil: It's a game which I think is one of the worst names of all time because I cannot ever remember the name of the game.
Phil: And the name of the game is Thank Goodness You're Here.
Phil: And I keep looking for so glad that you're here.
Phil: It's good that you're here.
Phil: Oh, here you are.
Phil: That's good.
Phil: Am I an idiot in this case or is this a bad video game name?
Tom: I think it's a good video game name.
Tom: It is Sans Out.
Tom: There aren't many other video games with a name like that.
Tom: And it is very reminiscent of an English sitcom from the s.
Phil: Yeah, or before.
Phil: Yeah, because, well, we'll get to that later.
Phil: So this is a game developed by basically two people, one named James Carbet and Will Todd.
Phil: They are the people who run a studio called Coal Supper, as coal as in the thing that you get from the ground.
Phil: It's on the Unity engine and available for Mac, Switch, Windows, PlayStation and PlayStation
Phil: It's just been released.
Phil: And I would classify this as a point and click adventure.
Tom: I would say the same thing, although the controls are not point and click.
Phil: No, but that's, I mean, that's essentially what you do.
Tom: It's certainly an adventure game in the traditional sense.
Phil: So just to frame it, it's a point and click adventure game with hand drawn animation, an original soundtrack.
Phil: Players take the role of a traveling salesman with a lemon head.
Phil: Here's a little tiny man with a head in the shape of a horizontally arranged lemon.
Phil: And he's a traveling salesman who performs odd jobs for the residents of a town that couldn't be described as bizarre in Northern England.
Phil: Yeah, I mean, it's getting a lot of credit for being an extremely funny game.
Phil: That's what it's been, that's its calling card.
Phil: People are saying, oh, this game is hilarious.
Phil: People say video games can't do jokes.
Phil: This is hilarious.
Phil: It's fun.
Phil: just to describe it, as I said, it's hand drawn, so it looks better than any kid's animated TV show.
Phil: It looks absolutely wonderful.
Phil: It's oozing with style.
Tom: I think it reminds me the look of an English cartoon called, this is Pond Life, crossed with Wallace and Cromart.
Phil: Right.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: And I mean, it looks, I mean, like if you think more broadly, you could broadly say that it's kind of like Pepper the Pig type animation as well, with bold outlines and colourful, colourfully drawn characters.
Phil: It's in a D setting and it has, you know, parts of it where you'll go in and out of dimension, you'll get smaller and larger towards the screen, but it's really all about moving to the left, moving to the right, up and down pretty freely.
Phil: It's a beautiful game.
Phil: Would you agree?
Tom: I'm not trying to call it beautiful.
Phil: I think in terms of art style also, Robert Crumb is an influence.
Phil: And in fact, Colesappers logo is a Robert Crumb tip of the hat.
Tom: I think it looks good.
Tom: I just would not use the term beautiful to describe it.
Phil: Well, it's highly stylish.
Phil: I mean, it has its own style.
Tom: It's got a lot of character.
Phil: A lot of character.
Phil: And it's also got a lot of...
Phil: A lot of the humor relies on double entendre, I would say.
Phil: In fact, most of the humor.
Tom: There's a lot of innuendo in it.
Phil: A lot of innuendo and a lot of knowing humor about English life in a small coal town in the north of England.
Phil: Though, when I looked it up, like Lancashire, for example, or Lancaster, you know, it's not Lancashire, rather, like in Wigan and Liverpool and all those areas up there, they're not that far from London at all.
Phil: I mean, it's not like...
Phil: To me, it's not really north England, but anyway.
Tom: We are in australia, though.
Phil: We are.
Tom: So, we probably have different standards of distance.
Phil: That is true.
Phil: We know that's true, because English people think two hours is a long drive.
Tom: That's to get out of the inner city.
Phil: Yeah, it is, actually.
Phil: First of all, speaking...
Phil: Do you just want to frame the game some more beyond what I've said?
Tom: Well, you're playing as an unknown office worker who is sent off by his boss to meet the mayor, to discuss something with the mayor.
Tom: But when you arrive, you discover the mayor is busy, at which point you leave, and that's when a series of incidents where you are helping people occur while you're waiting to finally meet the mayor.
Phil: And you're sent on a series of catch three rats type jobs.
Phil: But did you find this game for its reputation to be an extremely funny game?
Phil: Did you find it humorous?
Tom: I found it amusing.
Tom: That's the word I would use.
Phil: I agree.
Phil: I love British comedy.
Phil: I love, I don't love British culture, but like, for example, I listen to the BBC news every day.
Phil: I don't listen to the australian news.
Phil: So one of the funniest shows I like is Ricky Gervais has a series called The Extras.
Phil: But the best part of that for me is a sitcom within The Extras called When the Whistle Blows.
Phil: Are you familiar with it?
Tom: No, I'm not.
Phil: Oh, it's worth looking up.
Phil: because people on YouTube have taken When the Whistle Blows shows out of The Extras and put them online.
Phil: It's a very, are you being served?
Phil: Again, all the humor is innuendo.
Phil: And it's catchphrases.
Phil: And it's basically like this game as well.
Phil: So I appreciate that sense of humor.
Phil: I prefer the British office over the American office easily.
Phil: And I grew up enjoying English comedy.
Phil: So it's not like I'm not aware of it.
Phil: But I never once laughed out loud during this game, or even chuckled.
Phil: I found it, as you said, I think you've summed it up well.
Phil: I found it amusing, but not like crazy funny.
Phil: Like I wouldn't call it the funniest game I've ever played.
Tom: I would neither.
Phil: Speaking of, what would you, thinking back of the funniest games you've played, can you, any come to mind immediately?
Tom: Yes, without any question.
Tom: What's the serial killer David Cage game called again?
Phil: Heavy Rain.
Tom: Heavy Rain.
Tom: That is, without a doubt, the funniest game I've played.
Phil: I'm gonna say I enjoyed two types of games.
Phil: One was British Humor, which was the game you remembered last episode that I couldn't.
Phil: The third person shooter with the shark gun.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: I found that game to be life out loud funny.
Phil: And again, it's set in England's north again.
Phil: Gosh, I wish I could remember the name of that game.
Phil: Developed by Planet Moon.
Phil: The other game that I found to be funny is American Humor, which was Bullet Storm, which is funny in a Tropic Thunder type of way.
Phil: It's just American bombast.
Phil: And it actually is more Paul Verhoeven, because I think it was developed by a Scandinavian team, and it was their take on American action movies and heroes.
Phil: So it's much more of a Robocop type thing.
Tom: So Dutch humor.
Phil: Dutch humor.
Phil: Yeah, exactly.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: So those, to me, are the funniest games I've ever played.
Phil: Do you want to talk about the gameplay in this and how you enjoyed it or didn't enjoy it?
Tom: Well, basically, you are going through the town, and there's a lot of backtracking, although it's not really backtracking, because as you go from...
Tom: as you unlock each new area of the game, you're essentially given various different routes that take you back to the beginning, and each time you go through, there's usually a different interaction with the same or with new characters, which they do play up in the humour at times, which works quite well.
Tom: You are solving very simple puzzles as you're going through.
Tom: They're usually pretty obvious, so there's not too much thinking involved, and it flows quite well most of the time.
Tom: The focus, I think, is very much on the jokes, as opposed to solving the puzzles.
Tom: And there are minor platforming elements as well.
Phil: That describes it well.
Phil: I also, if people are not aware, I encourage you to look up George Formby, F-O-R-M-B-Y, who was an English actor, singer, songwriter and comedian, who was a worldwide celebrity and one of the most famous people in the UK during the s and s.
Phil: And he sang these songs that were laden with innuendo.
Phil: And because he's from Wigan, it just tied in so much to this game to me.
Phil: When I played one of his great songs, when I'm cleaning windows to my daughter, she smiled immediately and went, oh, that's the song from Lemonhead, which is what she calls this game, because the guy has a lemon, you know, he looks like a lemon.
Tom: He also looks quite a bit like Angry Kid.
Tom: Are you familiar with that?
Tom: That's an English comedy series by Aardman.
Phil: Oh, okay.
Phil: I'll have to, oh, yes, he does look like, oh, God, when did this come out?
Tom: A long time ago.
Tom: I remember discovering it on Newgrounds at the height of Flash games.
Phil: Yeah, so just speaking about this game in terms of its accessibility and simplicity, perhaps, my six-year-old daughter has been playing this game every night.
Phil: After I've beaten it, she's gone back through and played it by herself.
Phil: She loves this game, and it's completely...
Phil: She's playing through it by herself.
Phil: Like, I might give her prompts from now and then.
Phil: I might go, hey, you know, you haven't looked at this part of the screen, or go up to the left and look there.
Phil: But beyond that, I'm not helping her in any way, and she's thoroughly enjoying it.
Phil: obviously, she doesn't get any of the overt humor in it.
Phil: But the click part of this game is basically you go around slapping people.
Phil: So, if you want to activate something, you walk up to it and you slap it.
Phil: And from her six-year-old sense of humor, she's going around slapping people's bums, and she's laughing out loud all the time.
Phil: So, at one point, you can go up to a fellow, and he's bending over to pick up something up.
Phil: You slap his bottom, and then he's offended, and he closes his door and puts up a sign.
Phil: It says close due to slappy bum bum.
Phil: And she would not stop laughing.
Tom: That was a highlight, I think.
Phil: Yeah, she's at the point where she's reading as well, which is, you know, from a parent's point of view, this is a fantastic game, because for kids playing video games, one of the biggest things that you come up with is end state.
Phil: And there's no end state in this game.
Phil: There's no point where the time runs out or she gets killed by an enemy and has to start over.
Phil: She can just explore on her own will and has a tremendous amount of fun.
Phil: The part that she likes the most is when she gets to go through the pipes.
Tom: And can I just say Innuendo is excellent for children.
Tom: In my experience anyway.
Tom: When I was very young, my favourite, one of my favourite comedy shows was without a question, I'm not sure, a series of films, The Carry On series.
Phil: Oh yeah.
Tom: I think Innuendo is a great way to be exposed to more complex language and more complex ways of thinking about language and learning about how metaphor and things like that work.
Phil: It's wonderful in terms of developing your language skills as well, and also developing humor as well.
Phil: So yeah, and she's not getting the jokes, of course, but like when I was growing up, my favorite TV show was Are You Being Served?
Phil: Are you familiar with that?
Tom: Yep.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: So it's a British sitcom set in the department store, which is % Innuendo.
Phil: And, you know, it was pretty groundbreaking at the time, because John Inman was playing a very flamboyant gay character at a time where in every other aspect of society, you know, homosexuality was something that was not, you know, acceptable.
Phil: But, you know, my family, we all sat down and we watched Are You Being Served?
Phil: And weren't laughing at him, but laughing with him and enjoying all of the show.
Phil: And obviously I didn't get any of the jokes or most of the jokes.
Phil: It was just funny people talking in a funny way.
Phil: But yeah, and I think that's the charm of Thank Goodness You're Here.
Phil: I think it was about $to $australian.
Phil: So it's probably $US.
Phil: And something I'd thoroughly recommend to everyone to play.
Phil: How long do you think it takes to get through?
Tom: Maybe about three hours?
Phil: Yeah, I think maybe a little bit longer maybe.
Phil: But yeah, I thoroughly recommend it.
Phil: I think it's a good game.
Tom: I would agree with that.
Tom: I think the other thing it does well, which I think makes it a more enjoyable experience than the humor, is showing the place where the game is set, which is helped by you constantly going back and forth through areas.
Tom: But it creates a very immersive picture of a fictionalized time and place in England, I would say.
Phil: Oh yeah, it's obviously material.
Phil: I would have to think that James Carbott and Will Todd, the designers, have personal experience with.
Phil: And I think that the game opening with actual video of s or s, you know, of a coal city in northern England at that time, I love that.
Phil: I mean, I think it's a fantastic aesthetic choice.
Phil: because when I went to play it for the first time, I went in as cold as I could with it.
Phil: I was like, this is like real video from like what?
Phil: What's going on here?
Phil: I just thought that that rooted the game to the source material majestically.
Phil: I thought that was a wonderful thing.
Phil: I think these guys are very talented.
Tom: And before we move on, we've got to talk about the first game they made, which you can actually play for free.
Phil: For free, it's available on itch or steam.
Phil: Developed by the same two fellas, reading the credits, you know, there's some QA work, but mostly it's thanks to, but it's developed by the same people who...
Phil: And these guys aren't just the designers.
Phil: They're writing the code, they're doing the music.
Phil: It's fantastic.
Phil: And both of these games, I think, have fantastic soundtracks.
Phil: You can, on itch, I think you can pay $and you get the full soundtrack or enhanced soundtrack.
Phil: And the name of the game is The Good Time Garden.
Phil: And I would nominate this for winner of The Gundy, and for those new listeners, The Gundys are our annual Game Under Game Awards.
Phil: They're called Gundys.
Phil: This I am going to nominate for That's a Penis category.
Phil: This, would you disagree with that?
Tom: I would actually, it has to come out this year, doesn't it?
Phil: Well, we might have to do some on, we, this is a category that we've skipped in the last few Gundys.
Phil: So, I think for this year, we might make an exception, since we both played it for the first time this year.
Tom: I think we should always make this exception.
Phil: I agree.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: If it's a game that we've played this year, it's eligible for a Gundy.
Phil: Agree?
Tom: Agree.
Phil: Excellent.
Phil: So, in this game, again, by Cole Supper, you explore a throbbing pink world full of strange naked creatures to gather food for your friend in a game that takes...
Phil: Took me about minutes to play, and it's certainly surreal.
Phil: It, again, features the same frame by frame hand-drawn animation with an original soundtrack, and you interact with the environment by going around hitting things just as you did in...
Phil: Thank goodness you're here.
Phil: That's right.
Phil: This game is basically all vaginas and penises, like the whole thing, right?
Tom: Pretty much.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: I was struck by the opening credits.
Phil: I'm like, this is really good.
Phil: And again, these guys, they have a great sense of style and a great execution of style.
Phil: But, dear, you want to talk about your experience with it?
Tom: I wish I played this after Thank Goodness You're Here, because this is better in every way than Thank Goodness You're Here.
Tom: It's funnier, it's significantly more unhinged, it's constantly surprising, even though it's basically the same sort of joke repeated throughout.
Tom: And if you go blind into this, it's just a completely crazy experience from beginning to end.
Phil: Yeah, and we do use chapter markers.
Phil: So if you haven't yet played this game, again, it's free on Steam.
Phil: It's only half an hour long.
Phil: Maybe just skip to the next section and come back and listen to our comments about this because it is better to go into this game cold.
Phil: When I found out that this game was available for free, I went, oh, okay, well, I'll go play that.
Phil: Then I'll decide if I'm going to buy.
Phil: Thank goodness you're here.
Phil: I was four minutes into this game, and I stopped and I went and bought.
Phil: Thank goodness you're here.
Phil: I think even I was texting you, oh, yeah, Good Time Garden free.
Phil: I'll see if I like it, and then maybe I'll buy this other game these guys are making.
Phil: Right?
Phil: I was four minutes into this game.
Phil: I'm like, this is probably the most perverse game I've ever played.
Phil: I describe it as an infanticide simulator.
Phil: If you wanted to go all Fox News sensationalist on it, you'd call The Good Time Garden an infanticide simulator.
Tom: It's abortion propaganda.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Basically, you are a naked man.
Phil: Yes, that's a penis.
Phil: Walking through this area that's, in terms of art design, essentially a vagina land full of penis-like things.
Tom: Yonic garden.
Phil: Yonic, exactly.
Phil: And you come across this ugly looking thing that wants to be fed.
Phil: And so you go around performing five or six acts like betraying friendships, taking babies away from other living things and feeding it to this thing, killing people who give you their trust, killing people who are helping you.
Phil: Basically, you're doing all of these really bad things to feed this centrally located, disgusting thing.
Phil: And every time you feed it, it changes color.
Phil: It is a vagina, essentially, I would describe it.
Phil: And it's like the first time that you're walking around, it's like, okay, well, what's this coming out of the ground?
Phil: Okay, these look like nipples.
Phil: Okay, I'll just slap these nipples because that's the only thing I can do to interact with them or these breasts.
Phil: So you slap these breasts and then this creature, it merges from the ground, which is both a man and a woman.
Phil: I think you slap them again and they spit out a baby.
Phil: You then take the baby and feed it to the vagina that then takes pleasure from it.
Phil: And then they give you the shout sound from Skyrim.
Phil: The, you know, the dragon shout, the ooh, ah, rah, you know, type thing.
Phil: And then your job is to then go on to the next thing to try and find and solve some simple puzzles to feed this character again.
Phil: And ultimately, spoiler, you are consumed by this thing.
Phil: So your ultimate act is to feed yourself to this thing.
Phil: You go online and there's no reviews of this game.
Phil: It hasn't qualified for any meta critic reviews.
Phil: I'll be writing a review of this as soon as I can because no one else has examined the subject matter of this game.
Phil: This game is profound, different, unique.
Phil: It's worthy of discussion.
Tom: Even on the forum, there isn't much discussion.
Tom: No, no.
Phil: Even in a Steam forum, there's like, oh, I couldn't get this to work.
Phil: Some funny thing about it is that they didn't know what they were doing with Unity, and so it's cooking processes.
Phil: It's quite funny because it's such a simple game that processes are trying to render it, and they didn't cap out the frame rate or something, which is funny in and of itself.
Phil: But yeah, so what do you want to say about this game?
Tom: I think actually that covers it quite well.
Tom: I think the only thing I would add is, I'm not sure we can conclude it is a vagina at the beginning.
Tom: As much as that looks also like a tumor, but by the time you're feeding yourself to it, I think it has become one.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: Do you think there's any significance to that transformation?
Phil: You know, I wanted to ask you what this is about, because I'd like, I'd love to know what this game is about.
Tom: Is it about anything?
Tom: The feeling I got from it was, hence why I called it a Yonic Garden, is it feels like a Garden of Eden setting.
Phil: Yes.
Tom: Which is perhaps why everyone is so happy about all the horrific things that are being done, given as we left the Garden of Eden, was when we gained the knowledge of good and evil.
Tom: And it's, then we end up entering this final vagina and essentially discovering the universe.
Phil: Yeah, being born and then going into a painful world.
Phil: Yeah, because everyone you interact with, they're like, oh, thank you.
Phil: Hey, come and punch me and I'll give you some babies.
Phil: Oh, you've got my baby.
Phil: Take good care of him.
Phil: As you walk off the screen to go feed it to this thing.
Phil: So yeah, The Good Time Garden ends when you enter the vagina.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: I mean, you could, you could nerd out on the meaning of this game endlessly, which is what my review might be.
Phil: Hopefully, I'll write something so annoyingly provocative that the, and then send it to the people that developed it that they'll actually do an interview with this.
Phil: I'd love to talk to these people because I think they have eminent amounts of style and artistry.
Phil: I'm down for whatever they want to produce from here on out.
Phil: Now, thank goodness you're here in The Good Time Garden.
Phil: Very similar in terms of gameplay, very similar in terms of style.
Phil: You wouldn't invest in, thank goodness you're here.
Phil: Like if someone was pitching that game to you, you probably wouldn't give them any money.
Phil: But it's selling well and they've done a fantastic job with it.
Phil: But from the new to the old, we talked a couple of weeks ago about Dear Esther.
Phil: And I brought to your attention to the fact that the game has had a new version released with commentary and graphics.
Phil: And you promised me that you'd go play it.
Phil: Have you gone and played it?
Tom: I have gone and played it.
Phil: You have?
Phil: Correct.
Phil: Was it worthwhile or did I waste your time?
Tom: I think it's every version of Dear Esther is a little bit worse than the previous one.
Phil: Oh, come on.
Tom: But it is still well worth playing without question.
Tom: And I went back because the Dear Esther commentary I read on air was not the Dear Esther commentary that I had in mind.
Tom: And I found, of course, we had our joint top games of the decade.
Tom: We also had our personal top games of the decade.
Tom: And that was where I found...
Phil: Hang on.
Phil: I should say that's at gameunder.net.
Phil: So if you go to gameunder.net and put in top you'll find what we're talking about.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: And it was in the personal commentary that I found the thoughts on the game that I had in mind when we were talking about it.
Tom: And I read a few other things.
Tom: So before we talk about Dear Esther, I just want to say it was a fascinating experience going back and reading the personal top content as opposed to the joint one, where I'm combining your thoughts and my thoughts on games.
Tom: Basically, an agreed upon description, right?
Phil: Oh, okay.
Tom: Whereas the personal thoughts are my own thoughts, and I haven't read any of my games writing.
Tom: Since I wrote it, because there was no need to go back to it.
Tom: But reading it, particularly, I think, this era of my writing about games, when I'm not doing it to learn how to proofread, edit, and learn a few things about writing.
Tom: But just out of fun, I think is, was a mind-blowing experience, because I'm reading it, and the whole time I'm thinking, what the fuck is going on in this person's head?
Tom: There is so much density to what is written, and you'll read one paragraph that's talking about this one thing and it'll have references to ten different things in it, that somehow form a coherent thought.
Phil: Coherent?
Phil: Look, as your co-host and friend for well over years, yeah, I could have told you this.
Phil: Density, you have no problem with, you know.
Phil: And I think perhaps, you know, over the years, you have developed the ability to be just as insightful without the density, or basically, I forget what the word is, but basically, you distillate.
Phil: All that density is distillated, and then we only end up with the end result.
Phil: And yeah, both are good, but yeah, you're a deep thinker, man.
Phil: And that was certainly present in your writing at that time, and well before that as well.
Tom: I think the direction of the writing has been to become progressively more and more dense, and the direction of the podcast content has been in the opposite direction, I would say.
Tom: Yes, yeah, yeah.
Tom: Which I think is the way to do it.
Tom: because if you're reading something, you have time to go back to parts of it easily.
Phil: Right.
Tom: As opposed to if you're listening to something.
Phil: Exactly right.
Phil: Yep, I agree with that.
Phil: And yeah, so that's good.
Phil: So now back to the actual impressions.
Phil: Did you go through any of the commentary type stuff?
Tom: Yes, I did.
Tom: I played both the game as is, and also went through all of the commentary.
Phil: Okay, all of the commentary?
Phil: All of it.
Phil: Okay, well, all right.
Phil: Well, this is your review or your show.
Phil: So you just go through it however you want.
Phil: I'm really interested in what you learnt from the commentary, but you tell me about that in your own time.
Tom: Well, I think the first thing to say is when we get around to, which we probably never will because logically, games would have to stop for this to make any sense.
Tom: When we got around to get around to making a top games of all time list, this would definitely be a nomination on my end.
Tom: And I think time has proven it to be, I would argue, a contender for best indie game, of all time.
Tom: I think the way it came into existence fills everything you'd want from an indie game.
Tom: And there aren't any that could really do that because it's completely experimental, yet it came about in the authentic games community.
Tom: It didn't come out of academia.
Tom: It didn't come out of a publisher supporting them.
Tom: It came out of people making a half-life mod, and it gained all its traction in the half-life modding community.
Tom: It's completely grassroots, yet it was completely unlike anything else that that community had made.
Tom: And I don't think there's any examples of indie games, certainly not early on in the existence of indie games, that would fulfill that.
Tom: I think you could get games that might have had a similar sort of start in the early years of normal game development, but in its era, I think it's a one-of-a-kind thing, and that makes it, I think, a contender for best indie game of all time.
Phil: Yeah, and kudos to Valve for that, and kudos first to id Software, which gave them the code that the Valve engine was built on.
Phil: I remember reading in John Romero's autobiography, where basically they met with Gabe Newell before Valve had formed, and basically said, well, here's the code for Doom, and Quake, go ahead and, yeah, fine, here you go.
Phil: You know, we're coders, whatever, here you go.
Phil: Good luck with it.
Phil: So with that generous spirit, you know, you see all of the things that came out of it.
Phil: What about, yeah, I guess it's not really indie.
Phil: I was thinking about SOCOM and other games that have come out of the Source engine.
Tom: Isn't SOCOM the PSgame?
Phil: Sorry, I didn't mean SOCOM.
Phil: You know what I'm talking about.
Tom: Counter-Strike?
Phil: Counter-Strike, sorry, yes.
Tom: That did begin as a mod, didn't it?
Tom: I'm pretty sure it did.
Phil: Yeah, it did.
Phil: But I don't think it's in, yeah, okay.
Phil: And then if you think about it, Dota.
Phil: I mean, Dota was something that, the original Dota, not Dota was something that was generated independently as well.
Phil: So I'm, you know, like this is being a real pedant.
Phil: But I think there's probably other things that came up out of the Source engine maybe before Dear Esther.
Phil: That was in that Indie space that, you know, came out of mods.
Phil: And the only reason I thought about that was our earlier discussion of Doom, you know, in all the wads that came out of that, that turned out to be real games as well.
Phil: But, you know, I'm not saying that to lessen what you're saying.
Phil: I'm just saying, you know.
Tom: I think it's an important point to bring up because people do sort of act that Indie games didn't exist before the era of Dear Esther.
Phil: Right, yeah.
Tom: When they clearly did.
Phil: Yeah, thank you.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Tom: But the thing that sets Dear Esther apart is not just that it followed a similar track to what those games did.
Tom: It's that it was a game unlike anything else that had been made at that point.
Tom: Or at least there were some games that were pretty similar at that time, but it's the one at least that gained the most traction and did so through the same routes that Counter-Strike and other games that gained such traction followed.
Tom: Whereas Counter-Strike and Dota Counter-Strike is arguably the best online first-person shooter of all time, but there were other first-person shooters that were online at that time too, if that makes sense.
Phil: Right.
Phil: Now, back to my review of Dear Esther a couple of episodes ago, I thought that Dear Esther was basically...
Phil: Now, just roll with me here.
Phil: Like, you know, and I said, like in Half-Life there's a part where you don't have any vehicles and you're just walking up the English coast amongst the heather on your way ultimately to a bridge that you have to cross, right?
Tom: Yep.
Phil: And you crash your car at some point, it runs out of petrol or whatever.
Phil: And I've always said that, like, that was the best part of Half-Life for me, was just this part where I got to walk along the English countryside.
Phil: There was no enemies for me to have to worry about.
Phil: It was just a point where I could really just enjoy being in the environment and just be walking and exploring on my own and looking around on my own.
Phil: And in my review of Dear Esther, I said that, you know, again, another Source Engine game, that basically you could say that Dear Esther was an extrapolation of that with an added narrative.
Phil: So, but that's again, not taking away from Dear Esther.
Phil: I'm just saying that...
Tom: And that's an element within a game, though, as opposed to a game.
Phil: An element within a game, only minutes of a game.
Phil: But, and who knows if the people that made Dear Esther have even played Half-Life or experienced that.
Phil: But I played it and it's like that, that to me was the most deeply moving part of Half-Life out of everything.
Phil: It wasn't the part where I was shooting or driving or talking to anyone or had any narrative.
Phil: It was just like, hey, you know, this is kind of cool.
Phil: This is a pre-modern VR experience of being in a different place and feeling like I'm in that place.
Tom: The other thing that I thought was interesting going back to it after so long was one of the things that always annoyed me about The Game was the aesthetic of the writing, where it's very much copying a lot of modernist writing.
Tom: But to myself, to me at the time, I didn't think it was really copying the style of modest writing for any actual point.
Tom: It felt very much like copying aesthetic, which is based on using very over-the-top stylistic choices, would be one way to put it.
Tom: But it does that to give you a feeling or express a specific thing.
Tom: Whereas I didn't really get that from the writing when I played it the first two times.
Tom: But going back to it, I think the problem was me and not the writing.
Tom: There's certainly things I can criticize the writing for, but I don't think I can criticize it for that.
Tom: because when I was playing it, the thing that I think moved me the most, which was not unlike your experience, was to me, it was like going on a walk through the countryside or wherever.
Tom: And you're just thinking the whole time you're walking about whatever comes into your head, right?
Tom: But listening to the commentary, which I didn't really interpret it as, it makes sense, like it had that feeling sort of, but because I had my own interpretation of it, the two didn't really go together.
Tom: Hearing them talk about it in the commentary was, they wanted it to be like a dream or a unconscious experience.
Tom: And then the style of the writing and the way that it worked started to make a lot more sense.
Tom: So in simulating a dream like experience, if I took it like that, then I couldn't really have the same criticism that I had of the writing originally.
Tom: So for all of the people who complain about pretentiousness in art, and a lot of people complain about that in Dear Esther, you always have to consider that if you're going to be willing to accuse something of being full of shit, because you can't see that it is achieving what you think it is meant to be achieving, you have to consider that you also, you need to have the humbleness if you're going to accuse someone of that, to also consider that maybe you're the person who is full of shit and you're missing something actually.
Phil: You know, that's really mature of you to say that, because I think of the two of us when we go back and look at criticism of narrative and writing, you know, you've always been very robust in your criticism of it, and I've always been like, well, you know, we can only do what we can do, you know.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: We're not all Shakespeare.
Phil: We're not all, you know, and you're probably like, oh, Shakespeare's a hack.
Phil: You know, but I think what would this game be if they took away the narrative and instead the narrative was delivered sparsely and sparingly by a voice that you hear that's inside your head?
Phil: Like, what do you think about that?
Phil: Like, if you were to walk, you know, like, if only you got commentary every to minutes, and it's just a few sparing statements as opposed to what we...
Tom: Well, the original mod is actually more sparse in the amount of narration it contains.
Tom: Each iteration of Dear Esther has added a little bit more narration.
Phil: Wow.
Phil: So they got that guy back.
Tom: Yes, they did.
Phil: Wow.
Phil: I can imagine that call to the guy, who is probably a friend working for free.
Tom: No, this was one of the professionals they hired.
Phil: Okay.
Tom: Possibly the only one, I think.
Phil: Do you know, in the commentary, did they say what other work he did?
Tom: I don't think they did.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: But yeah, it'd be like...
Phil: If I was the voice actor getting that call about, seriously, so this game is like, okay, so this thing that I did once for like two hours, seriously, okay, hey, as long as you're paying, sure, I'll turn up and do my dear Esther, you know.
Phil: Okay, but the voice acting, you cannot say that the voice acting job in this game does it any favors.
Tom: You think he did a poor performance?
Phil: I think it's a bit overwrought and distracting.
Tom: I think the writing is overwrought as well.
Phil: Yeah, yeah, the writing is overwrought and distracting, you know.
Phil: Anyway, I just think less strokes, I'll take the Japanese approach.
Phil: I think, you know, less strokes, less words would have serviced this game better without, I mean, you get, you get what happened with very few cues in this game.
Phil: But in any case, so what, what?
Tom: That's why I've always said my favorite is the original mod.
Phil: Right.
Phil: So in the commentary, was there anything else that came up that was particularly elucidating?
Tom: I think another interesting thing in the commentary, which we were just talking about, is the concept of pretentiousness.
Tom: Now, if you listen to the commentary, you cannot say that a single thing they set out to do is not in the game.
Tom: There's no question.
Tom: Everything they set out to do is there.
Tom: You can debate on how well whatever was achieved, but you can't say that they're trying to do something, that they're pretending to do something that they're not actually doing.
Tom: Which is the whole basis of pretension.
Phil: Yeah, I agree.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: And I think the one thing that amused me most in the commentary was, obviously, it's a game about grief.
Tom: And in the end of the game, you essentially climb up a ladder on a radio tower, and you jump off this tower to commit suicide, but at the last second before you die, you turn into a bird and fly off, right?
Phil: A seagull, in fact.
Tom: And so they were talking about how the game is about coming to terms with and escaping grief, which to me personally is a completely insane and incomprehensible concept.
Tom: I can understand the idea of accepting grief, but I'm not sure how it is possible to escape grief on any level.
Tom: If you can escape feelings like that, I don't think it would qualify as grief.
Tom: What's your thinking?
Phil: I think grief is inescapable from my own personal experience.
Phil: It only gets worse, especially if you're a thoughtful person, and I'll pat myself on the back for that.
Phil: But yeah, if you're a deep thinker, and you've lost someone that's in an integral part of your life, there's no recovery from that.
Phil: And you know, perhaps that's why they had him commit suicide, because that was the only way that he could escape from his grief.
Tom: But then, if you think about it like a dream, and unless he's dead, of course, which still fits the same thing, then he's going to wake up from it.
Tom: So the escape was only within the dream.
Tom: So maybe it still isn't as absurd as it seems on the face of it.
Phil: Yeah, so from my perspective, I saw from the point that you jumped off the tower and became a seagull, that that was all after life after that point.
Tom: I think that's a reasonable interpretation.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: The one other thing I think we have to bring up is the other great thing about Dear Esther is one of the top indie games of the decade.
Tom: And for the record, it did not make my personal list because it was ineligible due to it being a remake of a game that came out before the s.
Phil: Oh, okay.
Phil: That makes sense.
Tom: But the whole debate over what a game is and whether Dear Esther qualifies as a game, I think, typifies the mind numbing stupidity of the gaming community at times.
Tom: And the bizarre hypocrisy of it too, because bear in mind, this is a community that lost shit when Roger Ebert said games were not art.
Tom: But at the same time, and simultaneously wants to exclude one of the most artistically complex games around, because it doesn't fit a totally unjustifiable and absurd definition of games that they have in their head.
Phil: Oh, it's idiotic.
Phil: And I'll put up my hand and say, I was an idiot when this game came out.
Phil: I mean, if it came out before the s, we're talking a long time ago.
Phil: It's like years ago at this point.
Phil: But yeah, it's idiotic.
Phil: If it is an interactive digital experience, it's a game, right?
Phil: Like that's a video game.
Phil: You're interacting with it.
Phil: And you could say, oh, well, Pong's not a game or Freeway's not a game, or a thousand different Atari games are not a game.
Phil: because they don't fit into the current genre definition.
Phil: You know, that's idiotic.
Phil: It's stupid.
Phil: It's in, yeah, as you said, self-loathing at a point where everyone was criticizing Roger Ebert, and then casting the first stone themselves at a thoughtful, interactive, artistic, you know, thing.
Tom: Exactly.
Tom: The reason I bring that up is, here's the thing with games definitions.
Tom: Defining what a game is.
Tom: If you think about trying to define what a game is, that fits all the categories of things that we would generally call a game, is actually an incredibly difficult and ridiculous thing that requires a serious philosophy.
Tom: And most philosophers have failed to come up with definitions of games that actually encapsulate everything that people generally agree upon as being games.
Tom: So, when you come up to a situation like this, my solution to the problem is basically, a game is something that most people agree is a game.
Tom: Right?
Tom: So, in this context, we have the gatekeepers of what is a game, which is the people who are most interested, in this case, video game, a specific sort of game, which is people who are most interested in it.
Tom: And they have something that comes out in an era where there's this whole broader cultural debate as games become a more mainstream thing, about the importance and the significance of games, and that they're an important part of the artistic landscape.
Tom: And the very same people, and we're not doing stereotypes here.
Tom: We were both in the culture at the time, and it is literally the same people.
Tom: It's journalists who hold these two views, and people in game communities and people we know, concluding, let's cut out a whole section of expression in games, because it makes us think and have to consider things, essentially.
Tom: It's just mind-numbingly idiotic.
Phil: Yeah, and that goes across delivery platforms as well.
Phil: Like, you know, we cannot have too much arrogance about excluding mobile games, for example.
Phil: Absolutely.
Phil: Yeah, I think we need to be a big tent party, as they say in America, and if someone wants to say they're a game, until they've proven otherwise, they're a game.
Phil: You know, and I think my definition is pretty succinct.
Phil: If it's an interactive, digital experience, you know, that's a game.
Tom: Specifically a video game.
Phil: Yeah, exactly.
Phil: You know, now you could say, oh, well, changing the channel on the TV is an interactive digital experience.
Phil: It's like, well, that's not what I mean.
Tom: That's why I say it's actually a serious philosophical endeavor to try and define game.
Tom: So unless we're going to do that seriously, which no one within the games community does, the best thing we can come up with is just a generally agreed upon concept.
Tom: If you say game, I broadly speaking know what you mean and vice versa.
Phil: Exactly.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: So your appreciation for Dear Esther was increased by playing the latest iteration of it.
Phil: Is that fair to say?
Tom: I think it increases each time I play it.
Tom: While simultaneously, I think every iteration of Dear Esther is worse than the previous one.
Phil: That's not fair.
Phil: That's not fair.
Tom: But I think that is actually high praise because it demonstrates how good the actual game is.
Phil: The original essence of it, right?
Tom: That's right.
Phil: But you know, hey, this is consistent with you, man.
Phil: You're out there saying the original Doom is better than this brilliant remaster of it.
Tom: Absolutely is.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Hey, and I'm not opposed to that.
Phil: I mean, like this has happened with me with other games as well, where they'll come out with the remastering of it or whatever.
Phil: And I'm like, nah, the original is still good.
Phil: So anything else on Dear Esther before we close out the show with an email for you?
Tom: I think that probably covers it.
Tom: I think the only other thing I would add would be to actually talk about a different walking simulator briefly, because there's not a huge amount that needs to be said about it.
Tom: But it was interesting.
Phil: Don't say gone home.
Tom: No, not gone home.
Phil: OK.
Tom: I wanted to follow up Dear Esther with a very recent walking simulator.
Tom: So I played Pools, which came out in April this year.
Phil: Pools?
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Like P-O-O-L-S?
Tom: That's right, as in swimming pools.
Phil: OK.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: Not a bad name for a game.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: It's inspired by the whole Backroom's Internet law.
Tom: And you're essentially wandering around otherworldly buildings that appear at first to be swimming pools.
Tom: And it's until the end, a completely narratively abstract experience.
Phil: All right.
Phil: Let's not stu...
Phil: Don't...
Phil: hey, don't...
Phil: until the end, stuff, spoil it, all right?
Tom: I'm not going to make any concrete statements on the ending.
Tom: Other than that, I enjoyed the abstract narrative more than I enjoyed the non-abstract narrative.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: So it's a walking simulator that's come out this year.
Phil: It'd be fascinating to see what a take on the walking simulator would be.
Tom: I recommend if you are able to play it some way, do so.
Tom: Then I think it's a very interesting experience to see that all these years later, walking simulators are still a thing and continue to grow and change over time.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: I mean, it's got...
Phil: It's getting overwhelming reviews.
Phil: It's got no user interface, no dialogue, no background music.
Phil: So, yeah, it seems like a completely immersive experience that I look forward to giving a try.
Phil: I'll write that down in my games.
Tom: Hang on a minute.
Tom: I've got to rate...
Tom: I'm sorry to say, I forgot to rate several games in this show.
Tom: So we're going to do...
Phil: We're going to...
Phil: I'm going to take minutes of my life by me editing in a dice roll sound.
Phil: Yes.
Tom: Four times, I think.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Well, keep in mind, every time you roll the die, you're robbing me of three minutes of life.
Tom: It's well worth it.
Phil: Which is the ultimate game.
Tom: It's well worth it.
Tom: So the first game I've got to rate is...
Tom: Is Thank Goodness You're Here.
Phil: Doom and
Tom: Oh, no.
Tom: That's...
Tom: No, no.
Phil: I haven't finished them yet.
Tom: Let's do it.
Tom: No, no.
Tom: I'm going to play them more.
Phil: Work up the wrist.
Tom: I'm going to play them more.
Phil: Thank Goodness You're Here?
Tom: Yeah, Thank Goodness You're Here.
Tom: That receives a out of
Phil: Wrong.
Phil: The Good Time Garden.
Tom: That also receives a out of
Phil: Okay.
Phil: I give Thank Goodness You're Here a out of for style, and I'd give The Good Time Garden a out of for being perverse.
Tom: I'd also give it a out of for style, too.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: And Dear Esther?
Tom: Dear Esther, the latest remake.
Tom: And I should also add, unlike the Braid remake, the Dear Esther remake made a lot of sense because they ported it to the Unity engine so that it could be released on consoles.
Tom: So there was a good reason for it to exist, and I think it's only $which is a price point that I think would have made a lot more sense for the Braid remake as well.
Phil: Well, absolutely, you're right on that.
Phil: And also, if you own Dear Esther on Steam, you'll get the upgrade for free.
Tom: That's right.
Tom: Whereas you don't get the Braid remake for free.
Phil: And I love that generosity.
Phil: Okay, so let's give it a score.
Tom: And if we did, we would have been talking about it, because I would have played a little bit of it.
Tom: And we would have been saying more positive things than solely, why does this exist?
Tom: And it sold like shit.
Phil: Yeah, well, if they had released it, given it all to the same, given it the original people for free, we would have generated a buzz, right?
Tom: I think so.
Tom: I think Gargan, if he got it for free, he would have gone back to it for sure.
Phil: Oh, and generated new sales.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Okay, give it a score, man.
Tom: Four out of ten.
Tom: We've rolled three four out of tens in a row.
Phil: Accumulative twelve out of ten, which is what I'd give this podcast.
Phil: What value and quality we've gotten.
Phil: Now, let's close it out with Phil's questions for time.
Tom: No, no, no, you've forgotten Pools.
Tom: We've got to give Pools a rating.
Tom: You've got three more minutes of your life to waste.
Tom: Pools breaks the trend.
Tom: It gets a nine out of ten.
Phil: Wow, high praise for Pools.
Tom: That is a huge score.
Phil: I give that, Dear Esther, my score for Dear Esther is nine out of ten.
Tom: Okay?
Phil: Actually, I'll give it a ten.
Phil: I'll give it a ten out of ten.
Phil: How would I do anything different?
Phil: It was good.
Phil: It was good.
Phil: Okay, so here's your question.
Phil: And Kami from London writes, now concentrate your mind, Tom.
Phil: Slow it down and get ready for the question.
Phil: You too, listeners at home, how would you answer this question?
Phil: If given the choice in a game, do you choose graphical performance?
Phil: I'm sorry.
Phil: Do you choose performance or graphics quality?
Tom: So this is the-
Phil: Given the choice in the game, do you choose performance or graphics quality?
Tom: I think it depends on the game, but most of the time, I will choose performance.
Tom: In the past, I would have chosen graphics, but these days, I would go with performance most of the time.
Phil: If I'm playing a competitive game online, I would choose performance.
Phil: In every other case, I'm choosing graphics quality.
Phil: And that's probably just because I've got a new PC.
Tom: Then hopefully, you're able to choose both most of the time.
Phil: I am.
Phil: Yeah, most of the time I am.
Phil: With that, thanks for listening to Game Under Podcast.
Phil: You can visit our website, gameunder.net.
Phil: I've recently reviewed some hardware.
Phil: Did you get a chance to have a look at that review, Tom?
Tom: I looked at the picture of it.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Well, that's a good start.
Phil: We'll talk more about it perhaps next episode.
Phil: We've been doing this since so there's a lot of resources covering games from that time to now at our website, reviews, all sorts of things at gameunder.net.
Phil: If you'd like to submit a question, just use the comment section from the front page for this episode.
Phil: Thanks again for listening to episode of The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: According to Audacity, I can record another hours and minutes.
Phil: So we probably only have another shows in us.
Tom: Unless you cough up the money for Phil to buy a new hard drive.
Phil: That's exactly right.
Phil: I'm Phil Fogg.
Tom: I'm Tom Towers.
Phil: Thanks for listening.
Phil: Thank you.
Tom: When I'm cleaning windows.