CSB337: Freakbeast Discussion Alert, Sickos Only

I'm bro, let's fucking go.

Yeah,

I'm not sure how much I'm enjoying this phase of you gleefully celebrating my HP draining out of my soul.

Bro, we're like the part of the intro for the podcast where the music's going and the intro's going.

And I hear...

I hear like that sniffle, that telltale sniffle.

How you doing, buddy?

6 a.m.

Yeah.

6 a.m.

That was

bedtime.

That was bedtime.

For you?

For baby?

For me, for me.

Yeah.

For you?

Okay.

Night shift.

And it's 3 p.m.

ish now.

Yeah.

Night shift, bottle feed.

You know,

getting her done.

um

yeah that is a that is a different baby at night

oh yeah the night baby is very different oh the night baby the night baby is not the same baby

you thought the day baby had no patience night baby has no patience for your no patience night baby is actually

more alert and ready to party because day baby is usually when she'd be sleeping in the in the womb but now

like and night baby is when like you know punch bomb would go down to sleep and then that's when baby wakes up because the rocking stops and they're suddenly like whoa

so yeah night baby's like feeding and then not getting milk drunk night baby has got eyes open looking around

yeah yeah so dude you know night night baby for me was how i hit like master rank with bison okay okay because it's like well i'm up yeah i'm fucking up for like five more hours.

So, hey, I got some games to talk about this week.

Yeah, yeah, but no.

What am I going to do?

Try and sleep?

Can't do that.

It's not safe.

But I'll tell you what.

Day baby is getting wrecked by night, baby.

Not a champion of the sun whatsoever.

It is an unfortunate reality that soon after leaving your the safety of mother, you will discover the fact that the past version of yourself is a jerk

and has no care for the future version of yourself, which is now the present self.

It is quite the conundrum.

There's you taking glee

in my

disability.

In a couple of years, you'll be rubbing your hands at the next one.

Yes, yes, exactly.

whatever comes next and seeing what they're doing.

Well, because everybody pays in their dues and then they get to laugh with glee and everybody else going through it.

I will say I am taking some glee at finally dishing back

the ultimate to the audience because for years they've all been making us take damage by talking about how long or how old they were when they started listening or whatever the fuck, all that time damage.

And now I finally get to see people go, oh my god i'm take i'm dying at the idea that these guys these chuckle fucks have kids now so i'm like finally i get to reverse the damage back at you listener as you realize that time has passed and that yes there are children and families involved now that feels good that's a little that's a little solace I think my favorite one is

last week.

I told a story about my boy and there was a thread about it.

And somebody asked, like, oh, did he get all his teeth?

and I was like bro he's had all his teeth for like

14 months

he's like 26 27 months old

they're like what

I thought he was just a little baby

sidebar as I was talking I was like the desktop is visible and the avast antivirus that I scrubbed and deleted from the computer aggressively with every tool possible an icon just went boop and just popped up on the desktop while having this conversation.

Was it a

browser plugin?

No, no, it just found new ways.

Time to start over.

Oh my god.

Oh,

oh, the evil.

Anyway, okay.

Anyways,

I also had a super late night.

I went to bed at,

I fell asleep around 2-ish,

and then I was woken up

every hour by, ah, ah, mom, mom, ah,

um, and then I got up at 6.20.

Okay.

Oh, so, okay, so for you, that was, that was wake time.

Uh, so I'm, I'm having the opposite thing, whereas, like, for me, I get one of those days where that doesn't ruin me, it actually superpowers me.

I'm like wired.

Okay.

Tomorrow will be my downfall.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You, you, you push past and then when the third wind says no, you don't have a third wind.

Okay, so what you're describing, right?

The night terror.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So

in all the prep, folks, that I've been learning about and everything that's, you know, all the education going on, what I did not learn about is

there is a phase in which, okay, so

you know how, you ever see a giraffe get born?

It's crazy because when a giraffe is a baby, they just like, the mom just like plops them out and they land

they land in superhero pose

They land like

fist down head up and they're like where are we going right?

You're my mother you have you lead me to food you lead me to milk.

Let's go.

They come out ready to rock right

humans

Our heads are so big that they can't fit if we fully cook before we come out.

So they have to get, we have to get pushed out earlier.

And, you know, what that means is a whole lot of your body is still figuring out how it works and how to develop while you're out of the womb early, right?

That's why the first three months after you're born are called the fourth trimester.

Correct.

So, you know, we got warned a couple times by some nurses that they're like, hey, yo, just so you know, from week six to about week eight, it's going to get bad and there's just no reason for it.

Right?

We're like, okay, let's just, let's just bunker down and get ready for that.

What nobody mentioned was that

weeks two to

three, or week two to four, it seems.

Yeah.

There's a phase where

baby doesn't know how to digest.

That's right.

And then, and then intestines and all of that are new and don't really fully get how to push the milk through completely.

So, when you're

in the first, you know, two weeks or so, it's kind of just in and out, no problem.

It's like there's no thought.

I would describe it as in and out.

Yeah, and then the color changes, right?

And then, yeah, it's just you're just a tube.

And then the color changes, and things start getting a little more wrinkly, and they start figuring out how to like process and do the whole bit.

And

then the gut biome and the flora start activating and whatever.

Long story short,

in the middle of the night and at random times, the baby needs to learn how to like

push it out,

but doesn't know how

and just has a feeling.

Don't even know how to poop my own pants.

And it's like, but you knew how to poop a week ago, right?

But it was just an automated thing.

But now it's like, no, no, no, no, that was a system that's no longer playing.

It's been updated.

The new firmware dropped.

And now

manual control, but you don't know how manual control works.

So until you figure it out, you're just stressing, sweating, grunting, crying, and getting upset as you go.

Now, I got to be honest, Wooly, I'm nearly 40 years old, and the podcast had to be delayed because I was still dealing with learning how to do that.

Correct.

Understood.

But, but.

yes.

Yeah, and I get it.

But the idea that you can put yourself in the place where you need to be on the bowl and then figure it out while you're there, hopefully, means that it all gets where it needs to go, right?

The baby is like doing the thing where you can feel like her stomach tighten and you can feel the push, but

what's also crazy is that because she doesn't know like what to do and how things work, she's also like straightening her legs out which actually closes you off you know it's the complete opposite position you should be in while forcing really hard what what a what a doofus oh my god how do they not

come on get it together right right and so and like she's kicking and doing all these like completely like not and she's trying random things she's sticking random poses onto random feelings while pushing not knowing how to do it and i'm like is this and they're like yeah it's normal.

This is normal.

This happens a bunch.

Hey, Wooly, I would like to apologize for implying that I would call your child a doofus.

Your child is a perfect angel.

That was facetious.

I take that.

I hear that.

It is understood.

She is flawless and shall remain that way.

And even her inability to figure out how to poop is the most flawless, perfect way to not know how to do that.

So I forget what it was.

It was something similar to this with my guy.

It was a little later, like five or six months.

And I looked at him and I was like, you're being a real big baby about this.

And I just like completely froze because I had meant it unironically.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like I had actually meant you're being a really big baby about this.

And I froze in place like the world's dumbest statue.

So, so we had, I had, we had that moment earlier this week where it was like, we were just changing and she's crying, you know, and I'm wiping it off and doing stuff.

And, you know, you're doing that thing where it's like, okay, now after, okay, I got a, I got a, it's, I know it's really early, and you know, she's really blurred, but I got a lock on and I got a smile, and I was like, that's not a real smile.

And then I did one, and she kind of looked like she was mirroring it back.

And I'm like, this is too early.

I'm getting tricked.

But maybe I'm not.

One,

Wooly, babies don't know shit.

No, they don't.

They don't, right?

Baby doesn't know shit from of course not.

No.

And two, they're not scanning you for

reliability of.

but she is she is no no no no but i am catching on to what she is noticing in the blur that is her vision right for this period of time and what she will notice is the light source in the room especially at night time when when when the night baby is alert right when night baby is alert and like i'm you tried and there's a whole thing about dimming the lights trying to do night feeds so that you don't over stim and all that stuff oh dude i did i did all that shit in in in every light off in the house i have i have really good like i have very good um night vision yeah So like I all I need genuinely in my house I need the the

light that the microwave clock is giving off

to to do my life.

So we can do that help.

Yeah, I'm able to do that too.

The problem we ran into is that like if we if we do that she never wakes up, you know?

So then you're like, oh, that's the fucking dream, bro.

But she won't drink.

Oh.

She won't wake up to drink.

Oh, is that

our guy guy would drink lost.

No, no, that's the thing.

We need to get her.

She will be too sleepy to drink.

And then you're like, ah.

Right.

So then you have to do the stimulation.

And then eventually, after wasting 20 minutes trying to get her sleepily to drink, I want you to drink sleepy.

And she won't do it.

Then you're like, okay, well, now we got to do a diaper change, which is going to fully wake you up.

Hey, hey, drink, don't

drink sleepy, play hungry.

I mean, yeah, you know.

And so, but what I noticed is, so she lucks onto to the lights right and then also she started responding to um when the bottle because i i did some i did like paste feeding positions there's a couple of feeding positions that you do that are based on like trying to not have them gulp too much milk you know more air more spit up more burp etc yeah i hit him with this I had him, I got the dog in the arm like a baby, and I hit him with this.

Yeah,

with that one.

Yeah, that's, so that's the one I was doing.

I was trying to do that.

That's my favorite.

That's my favorite.

Also, check out how much of a baby this dog is.

that I'm just cradling him like a human infant because he's just a sweet guy.

Um, I pointed, I pointed out uh, your very nice new carpet in the back there.

Thanks, bud.

Um, is that carpet a material that would be really comfortable for dragging dog ass across?

No, he doesn't do that.

Okay, okay, dude, this dog's ass is pointing.

It's so high, Sky.

Even if he wanted to, right?

Yeah, okay, you have the perfect anti-worm situation going on.

Perfect.

Yeah, nice.

There you go.

Um, no, so, doing the feed, I was doing like a lying down sideways outward position.

And that's one too where you have an arm free, which is nice and stuff.

But

when doing what you did, that like arm cradle and then bottle diagonal kind of thing, like she starts to cry when the bottle gets pulled away.

But like if it gets pulled away too far, she goes fast.

She cries faster.

And if I just put it aside a little bit, but it's still within that first area, she doesn't cry as quickly, you know?

So I'm like, okay, there is some recognition a little bit.

the the sound of

is proportional to how far back the bottle is pulled from vision so what i would do man genuinely is like when i would go to pull the bottle out i would also dip my shoulder so that it was coming like baby was leaving the bottle and bobble bottle was leaving losing leaving vision ah okay okay right but but like also he was moving away from the bottle it wasn't just me yanking it out yeah yeah um but also he was asleep half the time that i fed him at night okay i'm not getting that.

Yeah.

We're in a different situation here.

But it's just interesting to see these things and to

go back to what you were saying earlier about just like, well, they don't know shit.

And it's like,

so we had a moment where I'm just like, oh, she has never known joy.

Right.

She's.

That emotion has not kicked in yet.

There isn't.

That's like

in three months.

There is no.

You'll see a smile and a laugh.

No.

Like, that's the first one.

There's no, she has not yet known what happy is and that's crazy right what a thought i'm looking at you're like you're like and it's like you're sleeping you wake up to cry to eat and then you go right back to sleep and that's all that life is and it's a wild thing to kind of have that dawn on you right and then all and then at the same time you're like okay and so when It's like, oh, we got to pull, you spat up, we got to pull you away from the food to wipe you off a little bit.

And she's like, this is a nightmare.

How dare you?

And I'm like, you know,

this is the worst thing that's ever happened to her.

Yeah, so

like we're still dealing with that.

Yeah.

And we'll deal with that.

Like

the food being taken out of her mouth is the worst thing that's ever happened in her life.

So like my guy scraped his knee, right?

And he fell on the playground and he scraped his knee on the asphalt, right?

And he started to lose his shit.

And

I'm looking at him.

I'm like, this is the most painful thing that has ever happened to him in his entire life.

It's crazy.

No wonder he doesn't know how to deal with it.

Of course.

Of course.

There's no, you know, no shot.

It's, it's, yeah, the worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you.

And, like,

Wooly, when, because their memories aren't so good, when you put her down for tummy time in a couple of months and she's mad at you, that's the maddest she has ever been because your behavior is outrageous.

You caused it.

Yeah.

And, you know, and I mean, it's not to mention, of course, that like they kind of talk about like, you know, stimulating while you're doing bottle feeding, get your voice in there, use calming tones, and, you know, sort of get them used to the sounds of you.

But when it's night feed and you're like, I'm trying to not wake you up too hard.

I want to keep you a little bit sleepy, then I'm kind of just like feeding in silence.

And I'm like, I hope that's not, you know,

because those are the, because the night bottle is pretty much the main one that I do.

Like, I hope that I'm not like

implanting robotic, silent, okay, you know, feelings at this point.

Wooly.

I love you, buddy.

You

are doing a thing that I'm very familiar with.

It's fine.

It's fine.

It's probably fine.

It's totally fine.

It's probably fine.

Do you talk to the kid?

Like, you're a chatty person.

You have a chatty TV show that you do.

You go, Hey, hey, little girl, what up?

etc.

You're good.

Whenever you, like, because

everything's like pushed to the extremes because of the media landscape that we live in, where you read something, it's like, still face syndrome.

Did you know that if

your face is emotionless and slack too often around your baby, you can give them some kind of mood disorder?

It's like, yeah, and so what happens is moms just start beaming, ah,

big smile every single second.

That's not what still face is.

Stillface is child is in terrible distress and you just cold eyeballing them with no comfort.

Right, right, right.

Right?

Like, just be like a normal guy

and you're, you're, you're killing it.

At first three months, don't drop the baby.

Don't.

Don't drop the baby.

Don't drop the baby.

You're good.

Yeah.

Clean the baby.

Well, the thing is, is is that none of

none of us are gonna know until we got to get some a decade or two's worth of information out there before any of that

you know so comes to fruition i forget what it was she she took like a toy away from him and he had a complete meltdown and she was like oh man i hope that didn't like

hope that wasn't like a formative moment

moment and i'm like i will find out in 15 20 years yeah yeah

no that's i don't i'm not too worried about it

and you know and there's stuff where like because, especially because I'm like, okay, I can hear this.

Now I know the sound of like the low, low alert cry versus higher alert cry and stuff.

So there's times where I'm just kind of like, yeah, I'm just changing your diaper.

We're doing this quickly because I'm getting you out and back to bed sleep quickly.

So I'm like,

right now is not the time for big comfort stimulation, etc.

Right.

And that's actually like, again, what a, what a, a couple of the nurses were like saying is like, yeah, no, go for

an in and out, as back to bed as quickly as possible type of

night situation.

But that's also like the majority of where my

handling of baby stuff is kicking in.

So I'm kind of like, hmm, after a period of time, well, once we're past this three-month phase and things, the cycle starts to look a little more normal.

I'm sure there will be, you know, more of a chance to

get quality time in there.

But it certainly does have the, we've been going back and forth of just like, man,

she doesn't exist yet.

You know, we're just, she's just loading still.

And we're like, there's no, there's no period of time where baby's like, hey, I'm here.

What's up?

What's going on, guys?

And we're just like,

yeah, okay.

We just got to

keep the loading bar going, you know?

Okay, so I'm going to be so real with you.

The first three months, that's the easiest it's ever going to be.

Oh, boy.

Oh, boy.

That is by far.

You're the most tired you're ever going to be.

By far.

By far.

But it's definitely, it's like, I look back on it now.

I'm like, oh, that shit was a cakewalk.

Yeah,

I don't.

Yeah, we'll see.

We'll see.

Your child currently does not have the capability to want things and understand that they have not been given those things.

Or much less the idea that the things that I want, that I am being given, I am also shoving them away with my flails because when I drink milk, it's my whole body going,

I remember what it was.

I remember what it was.

He was like two, three months old and he was trying to pull his own hair out.

Oh, fuck.

And I was like, why are you doing that?

And I tried to stop him and he was like, no, I want to do it.

And then he would go to pull.

I'm like, what are you doing?

What are you doing?

Why are you doing this?

Random.

Mashing buttons, hoping for a result that'll work.

Yeah.

And so that's what it comes down to with the whole like learning how to poop intestines thing.

It's like you just, she's just got to eventually figure out the right position at the right time when her stomach is going to be like, and that is how you feel better, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, there's, there's like, you'll try out a hundred different things.

You'll football.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We do the bicycles and the stummy rubs and all the bicycle stuff.

I did the taps on the stomach.

And like, I remember, I remember Paige was like, I don't think you should be tapping on the baby that, that, the, tapping on the baby's stomach that, that hard.

I'm afraid that you might break the baby.

And then as that happened the baby uh suffered a great deal of relief oh well there you go yeah as a result and she went okay well never mind

no i mean there's i mean there i've seen there's drops that people have for gas there's a little like a windy tube for like fart tubing

you know but all of that shit is just like it turns out that it's like yeah you can help relief it somewhat but the more you do, the less they're going to learn and the longer it's going to take them to figure it out.

That's why they need to go right off that cliff.

So you got to just let them climb up and become the king of iron fists.

Oh, okay.

And what, and it's the constipation and the anger from constipation that actually lets them survive.

How do you think you go all the way up to the top?

Perfect.

Yeah,

that's kind of it.

You sound like you're doing a good job, buddy.

I wouldn't worry too much.

Oh, thank you.

We're just doing it.

We're trying.

But fuck.

So it's funny because all of this stuff I wasn't really worried about.

Like this was all stuff that

I was like, ah, no, I got it.

It was, if I'm not looking at the baby, the baby burst into flames.

That was my big issue.

Like, if I can't see the child now.

So that's.

A car flew off the road into my house.

Yeah,

there's a level of that that I'm kind of,

you know, I'm

getting more comfortable with.

That's fine.

There's things too, as well, where I'll do things like, okay, so when I'm reading up on refreshing my kid

like a baby CPR and baby Heimlich stuff, right?

There's a lot you're you're also reading stories from people and everything and you're kind of like oh yeah, let's just already put out there in my brain that it's not a matter of if it's just when she's gonna choke on food at some point, right?

There's that's not that's not true.

It's gonna happen and you're just gonna need to jump in there and make sure that you're ready for it and know exactly what to do and just preemptively be already in a situation where you're like,

instead of freezing and panicking and freaking out so hard, be preemptively prepared for

that eventuality.

That can be a useful attitude, but the phrase of they will choke, it's inevitable, is not true.

Okay.

That is not a truth.

That would be great if so.

I just want to make sure to know what to do when it's happening and recognize all the signs right away.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

But like, it's, and just, you know, reading, uh, whatever, just reading other people's like, you know, feedback of how, like, it's like you, from the moment you introduce solids or anything like that, or even whatever the case is, up to years, you know, like two, three, or whatever the case is, you're just like

going into every meal, thinking about that as being like, hey, just make sure you catch it, make sure you see the signs of them not breathing, you're listening to the sounds.

That sounds like a good way to be horribly anxious every time you feed them.

Well,

okay, I think

there's a healthy compromise here.

I think like, for example...

I don't think you are going to healthily compromise.

When bottle feeding, right,

I saw a thing that was like, listen for a breath every three gulps.

And I'm like, okay, yeah.

So I'm doing that currently, you know?

And there are, there was once when, like, there wasn't.

There was gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp.

And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

whoa.

And then she went,

and I was like, ah, you see, you drank too much because you don't know what you need.

You do know what you need because there's a whole thing about letting the baby choose how much to drink and stuff.

But if you actually let them drink as much as they want to, they're going to drink themselves into like a to death.

They can't stop.

They're like fish.

Yeah, jokes on you, man.

Me, I was ready to be freaked out, and when nothing happened, I knew it.

Like, are you listening to your own description of this story?

I'm listening out for

just making sure that it's like, okay, hey,

you're doing the right breathing.

And I'm sure later on, when we get to the solid food and so on,

there's other stuff to

look out for.

But I just, the way it kind of came across

in the stories I've read about people who administered

like, yeah, like life-saving stuff to unchoke their baby was

from just like when they're swallowing something, especially something new for the first time that has a different texture, kind of seeing, like, oh, did they swallow?

Or are they kind of just like,

you know, is there sometimes, yeah.

So you got to remember, I'm coming at this from the toddler perspective, and the toddler perspective is,

is that dirt from the ground in his mouth?

How much?

It's fine.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Like,

your tolerance for ridiculous nonsense will increase dramatically.

I also was around, I have a memory of a one-year-old,

somebody's baby that was around that

bit into, like, was playing with like chicken, you know, and had a piece of chicken and just took a bite that was just way too big and did the thing where

didn't know how to spit it out so just kind of held it in the mouth and like got stressed and started having like a freak out and then started hitting himself in the head while trying and didn't and it was like it was intense and pretty scary and I was like holy shit okay you got to be ready for that and there's a really uh there's a really easy solution to that by the way I mean like make sure the pieces of chicken are not so big that that can happen no no you're no you're gonna fuck that up No, don't like it.

I'm gonna tell, I'm looking you in the eye, I'm looking directly in the camera, you're gonna fuck that up, or you're gonna be in the process of fixing the food and you're gonna turn around and they're gonna grab like the largest item they could possibly fit in their mouth and bam.

No, the solution is when you look at them and you're like, Why aren't you chewing?

or you're doing that weird, my mouth is completely fucking full, chew.

Yeah,

you just immediately grab their chin with one hand and you scoop it.

You scrab it out, yeah.

You just scoop the whole thing.

And hey, hey,

if you were eating a meal and I did that to you, you'd be like, what the fuck, right?

Guess what?

Kids also hate that shit and they'll bite you.

Well, yeah, okay, fair enough.

I will say that the case I saw, like, it was one of those ones where I'm like, I don't know if this is formative, but like what you were talking about with Paige the other moment, like, I'm like, that feels like it, like, the kid was really shaken up by that and kept crying for a while afterwards.

And, like, it's the first time I ever saw like baby, like, doing this and hitting their head to like solve a problem.

Nothing's formative.

Okay.

Cool.

So, let me, all right, let me, let me, let me hit you with this.

Let me hit me with this, okay?

You know, that fucked up thing that happened, like, when you were like a really young kid and you remember it, and you're like, wow, it was fucked up and formative?

Sure, right?

Sure.

Whatever it happens to be.

It's something, right?

Sure.

When you think back to like, I don't know, three, four, five, six, and you're like, oh, that was terrible.

That obviously had negative effects on my life going forward.

The thing you're thinking of is actually pretty fucked up.

It's not like they took my toy away and I lost my shit.

It's like, oh no, I got lost in the mall.

Or,

or like, my brother sucker punched me and I fell off a table or, you know, something like that.

I suspect that it's going to be a really, like, it would be a really negative thing until time passes and it becomes normal, and then it becomes less severe, perhaps.

You know, I can see that being the case, as like, you know, life continues onward, and like, you know, your life is only two weeks long, therefore, another two weeks is the longest thing in the world.

Eventually, that becomes a year.

They're not gaining like discrete memories either.

Yeah, and their sense of time is all fucked and all that shit, like, for sure, for sure.

But, um,

but yeah, as as the

as the banality and horror of day-to-day existence becomes more normal, I suppose these moments stand out less and less, hopefully, you know.

But anyway, these are all thoughts that are on the mind when these things are happening, you know?

You're good.

All right.

You're good.

And that's what's going on.

Well, I talked with you for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours before you guys even got pregnant.

And you were probably solid then.

Right?

And that was like a year ago or more.

Like, you're crushing it.

Thank you.

I mean,

it's more just, it's not about like, you know,

is this fucking up or so?

It's more just like, huh, there's so much they don't tell you.

And even when they do tell you, they don't tell you about part two, three, four, five, and six.

Oh, well, yeah,

a lot of the adults and older people and parents and relatives in your life just lie.

Just about this shit.

They just lie.

Yeah.

Just lie.

No, I mean, I just, I love how like all the best practices are just like, or if it's for your own sanity, then just don't do it.

So, there's, there's a, there's a, there's, there's like a, um, one of those things that's like really important, particularly for young moms who could be dealing with PPD or PPA.

Um, particularly if you have multiple young children, right?

And it's like, if the baby's just in one of those moods where they're just gonna go nuts, you know, they're just they're just going nuts, right?

And you've been

you've been like trying to soothe them for like two, three, four hours.

Put them down in a safe spot and walk away.

Yep.

You walk away for 10 minutes.

Yep.

10 minutes.

That's what they tell to people who they're specifically for like, like, there's a whole thing about like, no,

we know we say don't shake your baby, but really, really, really don't do it.

And in fact, if you feel like you're like, just put them down and walk away.

Like, there's a whole thing about that.

Yeah.

They go ham on that.

It's, it's for sure.

Like, you, you do, are, you, you do kind of go like okay all these little tips all these little tricks, you know that

You're supposed to have a handle on I I know that both me and Punch Mom are kind of just like the type of people that we want to go okay

What are the trade-offs, right?

So one of them for example is like if you use the sus

right the sus is magical the sus will

our guy wouldn't take one the whole the whole time not not even a one-time

interesting

So

the pacifier is magic, right?

Because you just, it just, it's the comfort reflex of

it makes me feel like I'm sucking on the bottom.

By the way, for those of you who are not from Quebec, sus means pacifier.

Pacifier.

The pacifier.

Yes.

So the.

Literally just means pacifier.

Yes, we call it a sus.

So anyway,

the pacifier works wonders, and and

it really calms her down.

But then

you hear that it's like, oh, but if you are not doing bottle feeding, if you're just breastfeeding, you don't want to cause nipple confusion.

So maybe you should not use that pacifier until a month or more in when they get used to things or whatever.

And it's like, would you like a counterpoint?

Well, my counterpoint was, fuck you, eat shit.

I'm trying to sleep.

And it works right now.

The counterpoint to that would be a baby that doesn't take a pacifier.

So, well, we do have one grade A pacifier around the house that he's a big fan of.

Its name is Paige.

Ah, there you go.

Yes.

And this means that mom will become mega-trapped

for a year plus

on demand every single time he needs a pacifier.

And you got to be able to identify the body cues that are like, you're rooting, but you're not really rooting.

You're not hungry rooting.

You're rooting for comfort, you know?

There's a difference between app, app, app, app, and,

you know, where is it?

Right.

And you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You need, you need milk.

Um,

so, but, but anyway, so we kind of were, we were just like, you know what?

Fuck that rule.

We don't care.

We're going to use it temporarily here.

And then looking it up a little bit more, it turns out that it's like, okay, and talking to another nurse about it, it was kind of like, oh, okay.

So the main two things are, it's not about don't use the pacifier too early.

It's about don't use it to replace hunger because then you miss the hunger cue and you don't want to be like, you're so, you're,

she's trying to suck and you're not giving her milk.

You're instead just calming her down with this.

That's bad because you're missing a feeding.

And second, um, um,

uh, uh, when there's, um, uh, there's different kinds, there's like a, there's particular like anti-colic, really good ones that are like one piece, you know, like the the avents for example um and You want them to to calmly suck on that but then they suck on and swallow more saliva and if they fill up on saliva There's less room for milk, which is also bad, you know So they're so the thought process is essentially like only after a feeding when they're not worried about food anymore and they're trying and you're trying to put them down that's a perfect time for it because they can't have much more extra anyway, you know?

So it's like it's like, yeah, you can do do this thing that's not what they're saying there, but it makes perfect sense for this context, you know?

I

would offer the counterpoint.

Is the baby clean,

fed, and alive?

Yes.

Then

now that I've gone through the entire infant phase, right, and the early toddler phase, every single piece of advice that I ever received actually just boiled down to, hey, don't be like a stupid asshole.

And like that, like every single one is like, hey, if you think something's like a terrible crutch,

you might be crutching on it a little.

Yeah.

No.

I even started, like, I even was like, I had an idea because I was like, he was using the snoo, you know, because it's like,

you know what?

Oh, that's the best example.

Okay, okay.

Because the snoo helps right now and you'll pay for it later, but you need help right now.

Okay, so learning about, you know, what's crazy too?

Just for people that are all like, how do baby things work, right?

And all these words were, so, like, it's,

the baby goes in this thing and it goes, it just rocks them back and forth, and it plays white noise.

And I'm like, what's the deal with white noise, right?

And all that stuff.

And they're like, yeah, yeah, it helps.

Right.

And it kind of cuts out a little bit of the sound of their own, you know, crying or voice and stuff like that.

And it covers the sounds of your farts.

And just relaxes you, right?

And you're like, oh, all it is is it's kind of just like a machine that's recreating you shaking and going shh.

And you going, shush, you shushing, you shh, is you creating white noise with your mouth.

Right?

That's what that is, which then leads me to go, so when you tell someone to shush as an adult, you're just creating white noise?

I'm going to say right now, you should not tell adults to shush.

It's crazy, but the idea...

I have had a 0%

success rate with that.

Like,

the idea of going to...

I shushed my wife once.

Yeah.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

That's an escalation point.

But saying shush and going shh, the act of doing shh is creating...

baby white noise for them to comfortably be quiet and go to sleep.

That's what that comes from.

Well, because they're supposed to be out in the forest with the animals.

Right.

Man.

They're not supposed to be inside this sedentary box of wood and stone.

Anyway,

so there's all that.

And also some pretty cool tech, too, has been taking baby out swaddled in the big old snooze swaddle and just keeping them burritoed up.

And I'm just like, yeah, you're comfy.

You're fine.

We don't need those limbs flailing everywhere.

You know?

Dude, I love the swaddle.

I remember when we were swaddling him, there was like a movement or some shit, like, don't swaddle your baby.

It's bad for your dad.

I don't give a fuck.

Are you out of your mind?

I don't give a fuck.

If I couldn't swaddle, I would have lost my fucking.

Oh, no, no.

It's great for you and they love it and it's great.

He loved being swaddled.

Yeah.

And in fact,

the fact that they are swaddled allows, I can put her down and the snoo and not even turn it on.

And then when she gets a little fussy, instead of starting at one and then having to go up to two, three, four, five, you start at zero.

And then you get to go up to one.

You get an extra step in there.

It works, you know?

Swaddling rules because it stops them from trying to eat their own hands.

That's true, too.

To those of you who don't have kids, you would be astonished how much time you're having to spend trying to keep them from eating their own body.

I still like swaddling.

When I was a kid, I loved rolling up in the sheets and

rolling to the corner of the bed.

Really?

The corner between the wall and the bed.

Like, I love burritoing up and hitting that corner.

Do you want Punch Mom to wrap you up like a big woolly burrito?

I mean, no, but I'm just saying that I.

Oh, that was like the least convincing no I've ever heard from you.

But I do remember thoroughly enjoying that.

That was my favorite part of the bed to be on.

And the extra bonus was when it was hot, the wall is cool, you know, so you can cool down by flipping your pillow over, and you're getting a full cool wall to like regulate your temperature with it.

You want to be, you want to be bandaged up like that edit of that grappler backy guy who's sitting in the house.

Oh, just

it is comforting, it is comforting, you know.

I mean, it's just weighted blankets.

That's it's just a weighted blanket.

I did, yeah, yeah, which I did.

I got one of those, you know, tried it out.

Yeah, just fucking metapod me up, man.

Let's go.

You know,

um,

no, deeply satisfying.

So, anyway, that's what's happening over here with the Punch Dynasty.

I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tales from the Punch Dynasty.

All right.

So what else is going on?

You know what?

Before we switch over to the rest of your week, I'm just going to fill in my part of the baby cast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hit the quota.

Hit the dad quota.

Let's go.

So, okay,

every phase of your child's existence is depressing because you're saying goodbye to a little guy or a a little girl that you're never going to see again.

That version of them is gone.

So I hear.

So the version of my little guy who wants hugs every single time I offer them, gone.

Wake up in the morning, hey, buddy, you want a hug?

No.

Mama hug.

I'm like, oh, wow.

Like,

oh,

but

it has been replaced with the little guy who also walks up and says, Dad, hold hand.

Oh,

we got, we got, I love yous this week.

Oh!

okay.

Oh, we told him to say goodnight to Elmo and he said, Good night, Catmo.

See you again real soon.

Oh, and then I'm like, tell him you love him.

And he went, I love you, Catmo.

And then he, then he did the whole room.

Oh,

right.

So it's like, okay, that guy, gone.

New guy wants to hold hands and says, I love you, Dad.

Ooh, that's a good one.

That's a good one.

Fuck.

I want that.

I want it now, Pat.

Give me that.

I want that now.

So here's the thing.

This is a dad thing.

Dads really want to get to the more active parts of the baby's life.

But

when the tiny little perfect angel that weighs eight pounds is older, that version will be gone.

Shut the fuck up.

I'm so jealous.

You only get to do it the one time.

I've never been more jealous.

I want the I love you.

I want it.

Wooly.

No, I'm so serious about this.

It will be gone.

And it will never, ever come back.

It'll never come back.

So

you really, really have to enjoy it now.

No,

I'm taking it in.

Taking it all in.

I'm taking it all.

You're going to start doing, where's my perfect angel who did this?

Like,

the baby reflex when you pick them up and they scrunch their legs.

One day, that will be the last time they ever scrunch their legs when you pick them up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then the next time you do it, you won't know, you will have realized, oh, that time was the last time.

Yeah, no, I took, I took, um, there was

one of those, there was a, uh, a particular feed that was happening on a nice calm day as a cool breeze was coming in, and the sun was shining through the trees, and I took a photo and I showed Punch Bomb, and I'm like, this is the photo that I look at before I go into Normandy.

Right?

This is the one you.

If I show this to someone, I will die.

I took it.

I took that photo.

I took the photo that I can't show anybody because if I do, that's the end, right?

I'm going into the last act.

Like, I'm like, ah, okay, there it is.

Got it.

There was only one phase.

that I actually like look back on and go, wow, that was rough.

And it was a phase that was rough for dad specifically.

And it was the boy was active and alert and knowledgeable enough to know that I didn't have any boobs for him.

So fuck you, Dad.

So that's what I was saying.

There's a couple months where it is actually like, I hate dad.

Yes.

That's so fuck you.

I was telling you about that last week.

It's the worst feeling in the world.

No, you're not there yet.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You're not there yet.

No, no, no.

That's later.

Okay, but she's already like really upset at the fact that I don't have boobs for milk and that tummy time and comfort are not really chill time anymore, right?

So we can trick her by having her fall asleep on cardboard cutout.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Or the

Meet the Falkers fucking

attachment.

No.

What we can do is we can trick her and have her get sleepy enough on mom, and then I can, you know, get in there and like kind of steal her safety tummy time

vibe.

But I'm really just transplanting, you know, the mom nap, really.

I'm just, I'm stealing from mom's precious,

you are assistance to mom.

No, I,

a hundred percent, a hundred percent.

But I do feel like I'm like siphoning from her attachment moments where it's like, yes, now that she's bonding with you, I will take her and she will sleep here.

You know, give me some of that beautiful love and energy.

But

the sus

can make baby after feeding be chill enough.

Whoop.

To...

Timo just got leaked for 2xKO.

Who gives a shit about our children?

Word?

Did they...

Did they leave Timo in the fucking beta?

Did they just leave it in there like idiots?

So the, okay, there have been rumors.

We just combo broke out of a fucking

baby talk.

There was rumors about a 10-character

count coming in.

So if that's the case and they already kind of leaked Blitzcrank a minute ago, then...

Oh my God, the fucking the...

I'm not surprised.

There's a photo.

There's a photo of the upcoming battle pass that just has fucking T-Mo.

Okay.

So they also...

But with the support page with Blitzcrank, they also kind of don't care about

the.

Hey, you know what?

Game's good.

Game's good again.

They don't care.

They don't give a fuck.

They got Blitz and Temo in there, just like I told them to, because they listen to me.

There you go.

There you go.

All right.

And you know what?

And while we're here.

I take back everything I said.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Incredible.

Done and done.

While we're here, yeah, whatever.

Because we don't have to.

It's starting up and everything.

But the whole bit about you have to unlock characters and whatever for the beta.

Oh, no, we'll, we'll get there.

Okay, all right, all right, all right, all right.

We'll get there.

Fine.

Um,

so okay, back to our children who aren't Timo.

So, Pacifier calms you down.

Use all the swaddle and pacifier and 15 things to distract you.

And now that you're calm, now I can get some yay, you're gonna be chill on dad time, you know, without rooting.

Um, but you just have to have a million other things taken out of the way first, you know?

Um,

all right,

so

uh, uh, uh, uh,

yes, dad cast segment aside.

I'm going to teach my baby to fight your baby in fighting games.

I'm going to teach my baby to fight your baby in real life.

I have a boy that's two years older.

This is not going to be fair, ever.

You're just trying to get my future child canceled.

I'm going to do some.

Did you hear Pat Jr.

beat up a little girl?

What the fuck?

I'm gonna get some mitt work started nice and early.

She's gonna throw hands.

It's gonna be fun.

Punch punch forever.

All right, fuck it.

We'll fly over.

Let's go right now.

Oh, right now.

Right now, right now.

Right now.

I'll put money down.

It's crazy, actually, how strong she is in terms of like, there are times where I'm like.

Yeah, and the leg kicking out, or the position where I'm like, you know, you're holding leg up for diaper change, or when I'm like, hey, can you look the other way so that your head doesn't flatten out?

And she's like, nah, I'm looking to the right though.

And I'm like, okay, well, let me just turn you to the, and she's like, I said.

And then you're like, oh, well, I can't force it because I'll just snap the kid.

Yeah, like, she's like, I am not looking to the left, son.

I have never in my life had a greater test of strength than trying to get my son's hair out of his hand.

Because it's like, I'm an adult man.

If I really wanted this hair out, I could do it, but I would probably smash your little fingers to bits in the process.

So I have to find the exact level of strength that will open your hand and not hurt you.

Speaking of hurting hands, I'm also extra paranoid when I'm pulling the sleeves down and I'm like, oh, are we seeing all the fingers?

Or is a pinky trapped somewhere?

You know?

Well, then

we learned a trick where someone just showed us, yo, just invert it, grab the limb and pull it through.

And like, yeah, it's fine.

Got that new baby tech.

Yes, okay.

The secret baby moves.

Now, for the they weren't written on the cabinet.

I had to look them up online.

I mean, they're pretty useful

for the fourth time as we escape

the baby segment.

Okay,

what else happened?

I finished Ragebound, Ninja Gaiden.

Oh, cool.

Went back to clear that off because I was like, yeah, I feel like I'm getting glare.

And yeah, sure, sure enough, you know, short and sweet.

Excellent game.

Just really cool.

You know,

well planned.

A lot of fun with the

sort of throwback Ninja Gaiden stuff and new stuff as you have these really fun bounce off of bullets and deflection segments and things like that.

And then, um, very much made

for uh

speed running and replaying and getting your scores and all that stuff, like we talked about last time, you know.

So, um, a really fun system where you kind of are playing two characters in one, integrating with their moves with each other, and like a lot of different ways to approach some of those boss fights, which are fairly challenging right out the gate.

And it makes sense because Ninja Gaiden, the original series, was hard, and then the newer games, the, you know, the

2000 Ninja Gaidens were also hard.

So this is kind of part of the brand identity, you know?

And I really liked it.

And

right afterwards, I was curious.

Oh, there's a really sick kind of like final sequence.

Also, that's like a really fun, like

limiters off type moment, you know?

You always have your little vanquished style like outro sequences.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Okay, so I was really curious.

I was like, now that I've played that, how is Shinobi doing?

So I jumped over and I popped in Shinobi, and I played that for a bit.

That game's great.

It is.

Now,

you've played a bit of both, right?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Now, it's interesting because it's not

the most...

direct comparison because they're not going for the same things.

However,

if I can be real here, and I know this is probably not an this is probably an unpopular opinion.

I have more issues with shinobi so far than I do with Ninja Gaiden.

Yes, what's that?

Um, playing the two of them, I'm like, oh,

this is a there's the main thing that's different about them, besides the fact that one is small contained Metroidvania, like levels that are open

and stuff, and the others are just like traditional kind of nest progression.

Um,

ninja gaiden is a case where your character can do a couple things you have a pretty simple but good move list and the enemy placement and um progression of the stages is fairly challenging um off rip you can make it harder and to and progress and go and and and add to it there's things you can do to make it harder as well by trying to like maximize your your style points and everything but for the most part placement of enemies is kind of bullshit and coming for you and the world is is more challenging and and things are aggressive bosses are also coming at you much more aggressively as well.

In

Shinobi,

you have a beautiful art style.

You have a character that feels so fucking fun to do combos with and has a really generous, free-flowing, like 2D character action style, lots of relaunches and ability to juggle corpses and do some stylish things.

And nothing in the world is actually trying to hurt you.

And nothing in the world is actually being aggressive so far.

And even the more challenging...

No, no, it's coming from like the old Devil May Cry standpoint of enemies are there to be killed and styled off.

And like one of the things right off the bat is like, oh, touching enemies does not hurt you.

You can walk up to them.

They're only...

Oh, we got some...

We have some words to talk about fucking contact damage this week.

Okay.

So there's no contact damage on the enemies.

And in fact,

they only hit you when they swing, right so uh that's you can design your game to be that way certainly like there's a a lot of character action games that that do work that way but if you're going with that style right um i think if you're going with no contact damage then the level of aggression i would expect especially on the hardest initial difficulty that you could pick um booting the game up would be much higher.

I really kind of found that like the game is super stylish and fun while you're comboing the shit out of everything, but not much is challenging you or doing a whole lot to really do anything.

So it's really interesting that you're bringing this up, Woolly, because I have an incredibly similar discussion to add to this later.

I'm not going to get there in this conversation, it's too broad, but

you are.

I'm literally going to point at you and say woolly we are starting to lose touch

oh yeah because we are freak beasts okay at this shit i saw the thread so i know where you're going later on yeah yeah yeah we are starting i know what you're talking about like lose touch with like normal humans okay but that part aside i know what you're gonna get into but that part aside really when you walk up to a room full of enemies they have very very basic and it's the beginning of the game so i'm like okay this is going to be a little bit, so I went a little bit further and I got about, I played about four hours.

I got through, you know, like three areas of like stage thing, you know, and some of the areas, there's like the bosses are kind of very, very like passive with it as well.

Very slow patterning on them, lots of downtime in between actions.

And then the challenging things where they're like, hey, only open this up to unlock a special challenge thing.

These are harder enemies that are more elite.

And they so far were that.

that they're not that much more elite, no, they just have more armor, they're the same slightly more elite, yeah.

They're they have more armor, and you have to break that one armor shield down to then make them a normal enemy.

But it overall was like, oh, yeah, besides comboing on these dummies, the challenge here is extremely minimal, and the game is gorgeous, and it's fun to progress.

The platforming is a lot of fun too, because of all your movement options.

But um, combo beasting aside, I want a game with enemies that are doing more.

And I did appreciate everything else that was going on with it.

But, like, you know, and Lizard Cube is,

you know, it's kind of like similar to Streets of Rage 4.

The ability to like juggle the corpse and do a bunch of cool shit is like, you know, they put a lot of attention into that.

And they made sure that your move list from the moment you start from off rip is pretty extensive.

But

it seems like either I'm gonna have to go, you're gonna have to wait quite a bit for the challenge to kick in or unlock a different difficulty, or so.

Um, because it does feel like if this is what the, you know, this difficulty, the shinobi difficulty is going to kind of be like for now, I'm like, I was having a bit more fun where Ninja Gaiden, you have a little bit less options, but the stage is much more aggressive coming at you.

And like, I,

as you would expect from Ninja Gaiden, as you would expect yeah and I was like I was having more fun with that you know

so

quick comparison point for those two games

do I have good news for you if you're looking for a side-scrolling game hold that will kick your fucking teeth hold the hold the thought hold the thought um

with shinobi Did you feel any of that at all?

Yeah, I didn't feel challenged by it at all.

Okay.

It was mainly just how to combo things.

Ninja Gaiden, every now and then, the level would, well, like,

in classic, in classic Ninja Gaiden

style, the level would be like, I'm throwing a bird at you while you're platforming.

Flip out, die.

Yes, exactly, right?

Okay, cool.

And what I'll say, too, is that like the purest form of like when you can do cool comboing stuff is against bosses in Ninja Gaiden Ragebound.

And the difference between

the volley of attacks and the amount of phases they go through and stuff is just like

it's so far it's just night and day, you know?

So anyway, all that to say, it's still a really cool, gorgeous game.

Looks and sounds amazing, and it's a ton of fun to combo the shit out of everything.

But even with the adaptive difficulty where you can customize it,

you can't dial it up yet.

I hope you can unlock things to dial it up, but that's my biggest complaint with the game so far.

Um,

so yeah, it's it's absolutely gorgeous, but it really doesn't push back on you at all.

It's like uh it's

it's like a

it's like a 10 out of 10 that just lays there

Yeah,

you need some pushback.

Come on.

Right?

Put some effort into it.

So, yeah, that's it.

That's it.

I'm doing all the combos.

You know, I know that you're gorgeous, and I know the music is amazing, and the voice acting is cool, but that's it.

It's all just, that's what we're coasting on.

No, no try.

Yeah, yeah.

Also, also,

I have fond memories of

okay, so Ninja Gaiden, I remember playing with my friends back in the day.

Shinobi, I didn't really, but I remember watching my friend play Shadow Dancer.

So I have strong memories of like Ninja and Dog running through the city doing cool shit.

I played Revenge of the Shinobi 3, which is Shinobi 3.

minute to completion minutes before playing Art of Vengeance

Because it is basically the sequel to that game, like the run and

the white outfit and all that stuff.

But Shinobi 3, not Shadow Dancer, though.

No, not Shadow Dancer.

Because Shadow Dancer has the dog.

Yeah, Shadow Dancer does have the dog.

And,

like, I was emulating it, so I do some rewinds, but like,

compared to like Strider or Ninja Gaiden or something like that, like, no, it was, it was,

it was, like,

way closer to what you would think of as a normal video game by today standards back then on the Genesis.

And there's a bunch of levels that are just one-to-one remakes.

Like falling off the cliff and jumping in the platforms on the falling rocks.

That's just a straight-up remake of a Shinobi 3 stage.

And they're kind of about the same difficulty.

Like,

when I was playing through Shinobi 3, it really stood out to me is that you throw a dart at somebody as soon soon as they come on screen and they don't even get to activate their attacks.

They just die.

Right, right, right.

And then even in this case now, you throw one Kunai out and then you can track right to it if the person if they get activated for their instant kill attack or so.

But I'm also looking at it like, so the Kunai is like a

juggle tool, right?

that you can use to extend your combos and and like, you know, zip around and

bop them up and stuff.

And you can get an upgrade that lets you throw out three kunai or throw out multiple three multiple kunai in a combo and i'm like

i don't want regular gunshot replaced with color up the entire time i want the ability to throw a single kunai out when i need a juggle and give me the option to do three or do the three within the combo you know

So you can deactivate and reactivate certain skills and spells, but stuff like that are permanent upgrades that take away something that might be useful for certain combo moments.

So I was like, ah, don't do that.

Let me, let me take that off, you know?

I kind of...

It's a weird situation where shinobi feels like

they put so much into it that there's less of it.

Like, they gave the player so much ability for player expression that enemies don't really have any ability to express themselves at you they don't they don't and what i'm reminded of is like i'm kind of when i'm playing it i'm like i'm enjoying it it's really it's cool but i'm kind of like going like

strider 2014 oh you

like

i liked strider 2014 and i felt like it it had this kind of open-ended world thing and you're also getting challenge out of the enemies with that and you're Metroidvaniaing across the map and stuff.

You know, yeah, so that's kind of the thing, and you know, um,

whatchamacallit?

Uh, um, yeah, lizard cube, you know,

solid job with all of that, and and we'll see with increased difficulty and stuff and later on in the game how it goes and stuff.

But, um, the blasphemous dudes like just fucking crushed it with rage bound.

Um, and I think, I think, blast, I think their current like metric, it goes Blasphemous 1, Ragebound, and then Blasimus 2 at the bottom.

Okay.

Interesting.

And then on beating Rage Bound, you unlock hard mode, which has a third ending.

So, yeah, it's like, oh, sick.

All right.

Jump back in there.

So

now, that aside, of course,

I was also like, hmm.

With Skong dropping, I should go.

Yeah, that Skong did drop.

That skong did drop.

And with skong dropping,

let me go get that old save file on Hollow Night and see

what I needed to do to refresh.

Yeah, what was left there?

Let me go see what I could refresh on.

So I went to the Switch 2 and I loaded up and found my cloud save from 2018.

And

yeah, and I was like, okay, cool.

This is right where the last boss was when I was kind of like feeling like you know, there's too much game here, but there's a bunch that I didn't go out and

explore.

You went to the final boss, but you just didn't do something.

A bunch of side stuff, exactly.

So I took the time to go back and use the refreshing opportunity to do stuff that I didn't do, you know.

One of those being Grimtroop, right?

So

went and did that.

That dude's a bitch.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was fun.

And,

you know,

when it comes time to make that choice, I was kind of like,

okay, let me just see what I'm in for here, you know?

And I like, it's like, oh, there's a super boss if you go back and

face the face Grimm directly.

So I'm like, all right, fuck it, let's go.

And

difficulty, it's like, okay, here we go.

This is kind of what I'm talking about.

Here comes Night King Grimm.

You know, and I was like,

and that was a nice sit-down and grinded out challenge.

And

yeah,

got that done, you know.

Took a couple tries,

took quite a couple tries.

Not as bad as some of my Elden Ring full day, you know, lock-ins, but

very cool boss fight.

Really loved it.

And I really loved how,

yeah, it was, I guess it was about like,

you know, I was probably at it for like an hour and a half or two hours or so, I'd say.

And it felt like,

well, maybe less than that.

But in any case, it felt like what was cool is this is a really, really hard boss fight, but it's also way less random.

And

it is therefore allowed to be aggressive in ways where if your pattern recognition is, you know,

picking up, you can handle how quickly and bullshit things can get at you, you know?

So I kind of liked how that

played off with that boss compared to some of the other hard bosses in the game.

And then after checking that out, I went to Godmaster and started checking out some of that as well.

Godmaster, I feel very strongly, is bad.

So I really,

and I mean this, I really strongly dislike Godmaster.

Interesting.

Okay.

I, once I saw what it was, I went, oh, this is like a boss butch.

This is just like boss rush.

It's a mode that is a DLC section, you know?

And I was like, okay, cool.

Well, I didn't feel as compelled because it was like,

there is some new content, but it's at the end, essentially.

Yeah, no, that's why I don't like Godmaster.

There are, like, it's just a boss rush.

No, like, multiple brand new bosses bosses that are literally the best boss fights in the game are at the end of, like, 22, 23

boss gauntlets.

Yeah.

That's fucking stupid.

No.

Also, the game's, like, true, true ending is hidden behind a 25-boss boss rush with a unique final boss.

That's fucking ridiculous.

Like, I definitely, I'm always down for the true arena in Kirby, where you have them all there ready to go and you can just go at it.

But it shouldn't be that like well okay the true arena also has like usually like a hidden final boss and then a little piece of lore that you get like whether it's morpho knight or the true void you know and all that stuff but um

the the idea that like no there's actual original characters and content in this dlc but you have it essentially at the end of this mode.

Yeah, that turns a lot of people off.

And for me included, I was like, okay, well, I see what this is.

I'm not going to go all the way through this to go see what that content is, Right?

Grim True.

Yeah, no, Pure Vessel is like the best boss fight in that game, and I'm not going to see it because I don't want to go through a 23-boss rush.

What they easily could have and should have done, I think, would have been to make Godhome an area where there's a unique dungeon and new characters and bosses and all the new stuff

as a part of progressing through that zone while you have access to challenging all these old bosses and doing these rushes for points and for other stuff, you know?

But like putting them together and putting the progression mandatorily at the end is like, yeah, that's not a

they didn't,

I think, play planned that the way they ought to have.

That being said, though, I was like, okay, cool.

Now that I've done that, I think I'm ready to skong.

All right.

Take it away.

Okay, so before I get to skong, I need to do some housekeeping for the Pat Stairs at Twitch channel.

So I mentioned last week that I was doing a sub-a-thon.

Yes.

The sub-a-thon.

By the way, I would like to wag my finger at you.

There's something you did last week I did not appreciate.

When I read out some of those goals, you were like, oh, you're not going to do that.

You just didn't believe me when I said I would actually do those things if those goals got reached.

Which ones were they?

The clown shit

and Vincent pricing my mustache and getting mutton chops.

Okay, fair enough.

I I mean,

so first of all.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Second of all,

this Thursday, I have a barber's appointment to mutton chop myself up on 9-11.

Is it important that it's on 9-11?

No, it just happened to be the date, and I think it's really funny because I'm going to go on to my Borderland stream and be like, look at my face, never forget.

Okay.

Because I think that's really funny.

Well,

fair enough.

Fair enough.

You have committed to all of it.

I mean, I have not seen this level of commitment to the bit

from you

to such a degree.

Hey, listen.

When someone came into my sub and was like, how many subs would it take for you to suck a dick?

I was like, whose dick you got?

Let's talk about it.

Okay.

Okay.

So, yeah,

more than I'm used to, you know?

So, if you have not been following up, I've hit the following goals.

I got new emotes.

I showed you those.

I showed you the zero emotes.

Zero pretty good.

There's now a massive backlog of posts that people have sent to Paige on Blue Sky that she is posting every single day when I'm streaming or like here.

She just posted one about Virtual Fighter that makes me want to throw up.

I hate it.

We did the CSB tier list stream on Sunday.

Nice.

And I'm of the opinion that

Hard R Deep Nut Wheelchair Miracle Piss Bottle Dominance is the best podcast title.

That's that's a fucking strong contender.

Number two, number two in my heart was Julius Caesar the first Roman Cancel.

I think that's the best one you ever wrote.

Oh, I forgot about that.

Because it's like poetry.

It's like four layers.

It's really, really, really good.

I fucking forgot about that one.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

All right.

My blue sky title has now been changed to Mystery Syringe Enjoyer Accepting DMs.

Don't like that.

Don't like that.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

That's the one I don't like the most.

So I was about to say, like, that's a line I never thought you would cross, but here we are.

I took suggestions.

I took the most like ones out of a thread and I put them on a straw pole.

Okay.

And that's the one that won.

Every Rubicon has a price.

I'm doing a Bioshock Infinite LP this week, which I don't want to do.

I really don't want to do it.

Okay.

Mutton chops on Thursday.

We're going to blindfold me, and I'm going to run a page through RA2 Classic

with only my Mind Palace to help.

Can I add a stretch of like, you have to begin that LP by watching the pre-footage of the initial trailer?

I'll get so.

Just to set the tone?

I'll get so mad.

Just to set the tone, you have to watch the early reveal first.

I'll get so mad.

Yesterday, I hit the goal.

I am going to do a stream in which I cook chat a meal.

Wow.

But I will also eat the meal for chat.

Wow.

Because

I'm not going to feed it to the thing.

Full-on mukbang.

Next up is...

Next up is Lisa the Painful LP.

If you're interested.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

Go down to twitch.tv slash patstares at.

Put gift subs in.

There's a nice little tracker on there to let you know what's coming up.

But that's.

I also have like, man, there's a lot coming out this month.

Like, I'm doing a 2xKO stream as soon as the podcast is over at 6.30.

Yeah, that's dropping.

Specific.

Because it's out now.

It's out.

But that's what's going on with there.

But while I've been doing the sub-a-thon, I've also been streaming an absolute fucking shitload of skong.

Yeah.

A crazy skongful amount.

So

let's start in reverse.

How much skong have you skonged?

I just want to say something to keep in mind with Lisa the Painful is that it's a similar situation to

Fear and Hunger and other games like that, where Lisa the Joyful is like the completion of the ideas and

a full...

It goes Lisa the Painful plus Lisa the Joyful, right?

Joyful comes after, yes.

Yeah, that's why, yeah, the goal is Lisa the Painful plus Lisa the Joyful.

Okay, joyful is like an improvement to everything and it's just a.

But it's also Lisa the Painful, too.

Yes, exactly.

And you don't really need to bother with the first one, Lisa.

It's actually not much.

It's painful and joyful.

Yeah.

Okay.

I have skonged a couple of hours.

So

basically,

you know, out of the first area into

that,

you know, into that first whatever zone.

I think the last, okay, the last two things I did was because you can progress in any direction, right?

You can progress in many directions, though the early game is significantly more linear than the later game because of progression and

movement abilities.

Um, yes, uh,

for Lisa one, you can read a wiki about what happens in it, and that's all the context you need.

You don't need to play it for Skong, um, the uh, the last thing I did was unlocked fast travel,

um, which is that's good, which is adorable,

um, very adorable, and uh,

did a bunch of um did did the the uh dive jump uh platform thing to get all the way to above the the um the camp and I fought a barf monster

oh that thing is uh

a fucking piece of shit yeah I killed it yeah you got a single shard didn't you

no

I well what

uh wait, oh, the reward.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got a beast chart.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sorry.

Yeah,

that fucking thing's an asshole.

But it was just like, okay, so I'm looking at it, and it's like, what are you supposed to do here?

It does a million, it does a ton of damage.

Oh, you can keep running to the left.

Oh, what if I just chill underneath here and jump up and hit it one at a time?

And then you just.

You can do it.

Yeah.

And I was like, and I saw him taking damage and I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, we're going to just, we're going to see what happens.

Let's ask a different question.

In terms of movement/slash traversal abilities, what do you have right now?

All I have is the

lance throw.

That's it.

The lance throw that lets you do what?

It just, it's the attack she does in Hollow Knight where she throws out the lance with silk and then pulls it back in.

Oh, okay, sorry.

You mean the R1 ability, the one that uses silk?

Yes, yes.

Also, I swap my buttons because in Hollow Knight, I want healing on R1.

So I swap circle and R1.

Okay.

Because actually...

Silk Spear.

You're talking about Silk Spear.

The Spear, yes.

Side note,

when you want to dash and have charged attacks ready to fight a boss,

but you're holding and you're charging down the attack button but then you want to to use that opportunity to heal between aggressive boss fights phases of like say night king uh grim

having heal on circles sucks because you have to let go of your charge to do the heal so moving heal up to r1 allows you to keep your charge and then cancel straight into the heal and then uh not have to let go and do that right so okay well to you i say that makes perfect sense for Hollow Knight, but in

Silk Song, the heel is a single button press that locks you into place, so it's not nearly like yes, like you can actually get you can actually get the charge out through the heel animation.

Okay, so I

swapped it preemptively because that's what I played Hollow Knight like, and I'm expecting that button to get more magic spells on different directions.

What button do you have

this the silk move on right now?

The silk move is on circle.

Okay.

And heel is on R1.

Okay.

And the rest are as they were.

And the rest are as they were.

It's the same thing.

You're going to end up changing.

Yeah?

Okay.

Because in Hollow Knight.

Like, keep going as much as you want, but you're going to end up changing.

Well, in Hollow Knight's harder fights, I was like, this is a detriment

in the ability to need me to hold down these two face buttons while press these two face buttons, you know, in a way that is not intuitive.

So I kind of assumed that a Hornet was going to get abilities kind of like that, but maybe not.

Yeah.

You know?

So of, so I'm going to, okay, so you don't have any traversals.

So I'm going to be

limit my discussion

to things you either know in your heart to be true,

like a double jump.

Sure.

There is a double jump.

A charge slash, I'm sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or something that was shown off in a prior trailer.

Right.

Sure.

I did do one of those bouncing red flower

traversal things, and I was like, oh,

okay, I see what we're doing here.

So I have played an absolute shit ton of Silk Song.

I've streamed it, I think, six nights now.

I'm way in there.

I'm encountering a very strange thing happening with Silk Song.

It is so much larger than

Hollow Knight

that I feel like I've been halfway through the game for nearly the whole time I've been playing it.

Okay.

Almost the whole time, I'm like, oh, I'm like halfway through.

And then I open up like four more areas.

I'm like, oh, I'm like halfway through.

So is it because, because there's two things about Hollow Knight.

One was every time you walk into a big, majestic area and it feels like important,

or is it that you have a big boss fight with something significant and that the gravity of that makes you feel like something happened?

It's neither of them.

Neither.

Okay.

It's neither of those things.

So

there's a bunch of reasons that combine to that.

First of all,

you get

a huge amount of powerful traversal abilities really fast.

Nice.

Really, really, really fast.

You get her run.

Okay, you get the float and you get

like an air dash like that, which all like like so I'm expecting super fast.

So I'm looking at it going, right.

Well, I'm what I want and expect is her kit from her boss fight to be fully available, right?

Now you get way more than her kit, right?

Because you also get a double jump.

She doesn't have a double jump in Hollow Knight, right?

And it's been in trailers, and it's also, I don't know if you looked at the, I don't know if you you looked at the fucking controller layout very closely but you also get a harpoon

which is mapped to L2 okay basically you get to do everything that she could have done and then there's a float and a run and all that but you get a lot of those like super super super early cool as a result you're gonna notice that a lot of the areas that you deal with in Silk Song horizontally are like three times as large as they are in Hollow Knight because they expect you to be running your shit off.

There's a lot of length to that map and stuff, what I've seen.

Yeah.

Also, just shout outs to the clear reference of animation on its sleeve.

One,

when she turns around and does the full Alucard, leaning down and then starts running.

I'm like, it's the exact Alucard animation turnaround one to the other.

And when she jumps.

There's a lot more Castlevania in this game than there was in Hollow Knight.

Okay.

And then second, I'm seeing Metroid Dread, not Dread, Metroid Fusion.

When she jumps and grabs the ledge and you flip off of it, you know, that's a very Samus-ass

level platforming thing.

So I'm going to tell you something that I only just started doing.

It's really important because it's part of her core kit and it's never explained.

If you slash a projectile and there is a clash, the projectile loses its hitbox entirely.

Okay.

Good to know.

If an enemy throws like a knife at you and you slash and you hit, you see the ting,

the projectile is now part of the background.

Okay.

It essentially no longer exists.

Similarly, if you slap, if you parry an enemy slash part of their hitbox,

the

distended hitbox that is part of their move will lose its hitbox properties.

But their body will not.

Yes.

Hollow Knight worked that way.

There are moments of

Night King Grink swinging at me where I clashed with his sword.

And yeah,

that one attack gets

its hit removed off of it, but the next in the combo obviously does it.

Also, I haven't used it very much, but if you want to start sequence breaking some shit and you get really good at the pogo with her new dive kick, if you click in an R3, she'll use silk to to do a taunt.

Taunt will lure enemies closer to her, which you can then use to platform to places that you wouldn't otherwise be able to go.

Interesting.

I mean, right away in the first area, I pogoed up to get the extra berry, you know, and I was like, okay, I see what you want me to do here.

It's not the Hollow Knight pogo, it's the diagonal, obviously.

But the fact that you know the boss fight version does a full-screen dive, and right now you have a shallow one is like, I'm like, yeah, okay, I want that upgraded version for sure.

Well, you're not going to get it, but

it needs to be pogo distanced for platforming reasons because the game's going to ask a lot of you platforming-wise.

Did you beat the Path of Pain?

I'm not there yet.

No, no, no, no, no.

Okay.

So The Path of Pain was for real

in Hollow Knight.

Oh, oh, I don't remember.

I don't remember.

You would remember.

It's fucked.

Okay.

The Path of Pain was for real, and it required all of your platforming abilities and really pushed the pogo idea to the maximum.

Like,

pushed that idea as far as it can go.

So when you look at Hornet and you start playing Skong,

I'm far enough in that I can say this with like full like confidence.

This is the type of game that you get when you let a couple of guys build their own toy forever for themselves.

under the impression that they themselves will be playing it forever.

And what I mean by that,

if you're like, man, I wish I could play Silk Song, but is there any story that I need to find out about Hollow Knight?

No, there's none.

You absolutely need, absolutely no foreknowledge of Hollow Knight to play Silk Song at all.

I would highly,

highly recommend that you beat Hollow Knight before starting Silk Song because Silk Song is a full difficulty level higher in every way.

Everything does double damage compared to the Hollow Knight equivalent.

Because Hornet is sprinting everywhere all the time, you actually have way less time to react to enemies coming into your field of view.

The platforming is, on average, way harder.

And part of that is that the dive kick is way more finicky than the Pogo.

Then the Pogo, yeah, yeah.

You're not slashing straight down.

That changes a lot.

I have seen a lot of people.

So I adapted to the dive kick immediately and had no trouble, but I've seen a lot of people going like, oh, this fucking, the angle and the fucking dive kick is,

God,

and

then i i went back to hollow knight and discovered oh yeah no the the down pogo in hollow knight is like fucking super powered compared to her dive kick it's so much better than her dive kick it so for me it's not it's not the angle it's the um distance you know of reading how shallow it is and like wanting that you have to be really close to things to pogo on them yeah and i i just i am like i'm like i her attack when she does it to you is like a much further one and you know even after just coming off of shinobi, where you can do a dive kick shallow or hold it for a deep one, you know, that's that would change, that would improve everything for me if I could just get a full distance draw dive kick, you know.

Okay.

Um,

also, um, I thought

what if

instead of getting a full distance dive kick,

you got

a completely different pogo attack instead.

Interesting.

Okay.

Huh.

Cool.

Just

like what you could choose from a wide variety of pogo attacks.

Oh,

equipping stuff.

Interesting.

Okay.

So, um,

this is minor mechanical, but it's fairly early.

So there's no charm system that combines with itself.

No, and I noticed it was more limited because you were stuck putting navigational charms in the navigational slot or passives in the passive part.

Yeah,

I like freedom.

I like

Okay, I'm like kind of having to dance around personally Okay,

for anybody who's out there personally I don't mind if you you can you can say whatever to me about it the game is all it's totally fine.

There's such a minimal yeah, it's okay.

Just and also the you will get one of these fairly quickly so you start off the game and you have a slot for yellow charms, blue charms, and red charms, which are like passive abilities, defensive abilities, and attacks.

And there's also a white charm slot for like, you know, the Silk Spear, right?

And

you may discover, in fact, that you could switch to a different set of attacks that have different

sets of colors.

Oh,

so instead of

one of each, it's like three

yellows and one blue and no red.

This weapon has different

applications.

There's one that has three reds for three sub-weapons and like one of the other two.

Okay, customizability is good.

Yeah.

Right?

And that is what's replacing

open system.

I'm going to mix and match charms to get weird effects is I'm going to replace my entire moveset.

And then that entire moveset is going to change what types of things i can have equipped that makes up for it then yes because playing with charms was was really really dope um and finding builds but of course not doing the same thing is an understandable thing for your sequel so yeah also hornets um navigational upgrades are stronger and better than the hollow knights navigational upgrades

Because Hollow Knight's air dash was an air dash.

Hornet's air dash is an air dash and a full body sprint that includes a vault that launches you off platforms.

Okay, okay.

Navigational, yeah, it's a traversal, not because I'm like, Hollow, because Hollow Knight.

Yeah, her traversal abilities are just straight upgrades to the Knight's traversal abilities.

They are better.

Okay, because I'm like, Hollow Knight gets a fucking teleport back home anytime you want, ass,

you know, spell.

But yeah, yeah, movement.

Interesting.

Okay.

You also get charms that don't have like unique, they don't create like a unique effect when you combine them, but they synergize extremely well.

Like there's there, I found a sub-weapon that

shoots out a drill that hits like 10 times, and I have a charm that adds poison damage to sub-weapon hits.

Okay, so it fires out and it's purple, and it does like fucking 10 hits plus six more hits of poison damage.

So I have to say that right off the bat, when I saw how much

you healed with her silk ability, I immediately thought, oh, they're going to wrap this difficulty up like a motherfucker.

So, here's the thing: this healing is too good.

When I started, people were like, I don't like the heal because you can't heal as many as you want,

right?

It's always three, right?

Are you all right, sir?

Did he just bite his tongue?

Are you dying?

One second, sorry.

Oh, no.

Oh, no, Wooly's dying.

Anyway, so he can still hear me.

But

Hornet's heal is three pips every time.

It's pretty fast.

And it will lock you in place in the air if you do it.

Wooly, do we need a take break?

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

It's good.

Okay.

That was all right.

Excuse me.

A little worried.

All right.

I am not bleeding out the tongue, though.

I'm okay.

Oh, you totally bit your own mouth, didn't you?

I'm okay.

Yeah, her heel like locks you in a place in the air.

So if you get to like a really high spot in like a boss fight, you can heal up there and nothing can touch you.

The reason why you get three pips and it's fairly generous is because everything does like twice as much damage to Hornet as it did in Hollow Knight.

Okay.

Yeah.

You're starting with five crests.

You can get hit three times.

You're going to die.

And

contact damage with bosses is two pips.

Yeah, so I saw, so the barfing boss

was four, I think, or so.

Like, it was.

Well, he's, he's fucked up.

He's like an obstacle.

He's not even, you're not even supposed to fight him.

So I noticed that right off the bat.

And I'm like, okay, yeah, you're letting, and again, the heel is so aggressive.

So I'm like, they are giving you a massive heal because you're going to fucking eat it.

Yeah, you actually have a really small health bar.

Like a weirdly tiny health bar.

It's one of the reasons why I feel that this game is a direct sequel to Hollow Knight in that, like, hey, you beat Hollow Knight last week, right?

Because Hornet has like half as much health as the Knight, and she is twice as mobile.

And

the boss fights and the arena fights

really expect you to be fucking going for it.

Like, I was doing some of the stuff the other night, some arena fights where they're throwing, like, multiple mini bosses at me simultaneously, that I'm like, this is just as hard as like the really hard shit,

like a Dark Souls or an Elden Reign.

Now, you also had the ability with the knight to

make a build that was less about finesse and perfection and more about like taking hits, right?

And like, if you wanted to be like sturdy with your

charms, so

you can't do that.

Okay.

You can, however, make a build that is more about perfection.

You can't sturdy up.

You can actually frail up if you prefer.

Oh my god.

The build that I'm running now has traded the heel for an attack.

I no longer have a regular heel.

My heal is now an attack.

Okay.

So

like freak beast alert.

If I can put a put on the warning.

You know, warning freak beasts are disgusting.

That's hot as shit, and I love it.

However,

I have heard that people are having a bad time.

It's really hard.

Like,

this, I would put the difficulty level of Sulk Song around, like.

In between Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdree.

Okay.

And it's not a DLC.

It's its own game.

But it was a DLC.

And you can.

It was supposed to be.

You can feel that this game was built out

as the thing you do at the end of Hollow Knight after you beat Hollow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But now it's its own thing.

Okay, okay.

And it was playtested for seven years

by like 10 guys who got super good at it.

By the way, Patch coming out next week.

I saw.

Already getting nerfed somewhere.

Exactly.

So I'm like, first newster thing I saw, Patch is coming out to make the game easier.

And I was like, damn, already.

Fun fact.

Yeah.

The bosses they're nerfing are not the boss they need to nerf.

There's one called Morrowing, which is pretty crazy.

I'm not surprised.

However, you can skip it.

Optional.

It's a skippable boss.

There is a boss.

I'll just say that it's the savage boss

that is like,

I fought the second encounter with it, and it's one of the first times I've ever been streaming a game and said the phrase, what do you even want from me?

Okay.

Now,

like, I was actually like, gob smacked.

Okay.

Now, that barfer was something that I felt was like probably a, again, it's either it's an obstacle or a comeback later situation potentially in, you know, the flow of things, right?

Don't stand here and swing at it.

That is a, you will have an ability that will allow you to ignore him.

Okay.

Are there

so far, however, like as many hours as you're in now, multiple examples of this is a challenge you should handle later, but you can do it now if you're stubborn.

oh all the time great now here's the thing now above my head is the text freak beast discussion alert only for sitka correct i ran into an issue where i was talking to page about this and i talked about it on stream in which i had to go through an entire like reddit thread and blue sky thread and back and forth back and forth with people because i was like i'm a little disappointed that the Metroid elements of Silk Song aren't as present as I thought they would be because it's actually quite rare that I have to get stuck or get run into an area that

I don't have the percussion ability for, right?

Like, you know, oh, I don't have the double jump, I can't do it here.

And

instead, I've actually been like cruising fairly cleanly through it, to which I had to be informed by my audience.

That is because I am not getting difficulty locked out of the bosses that

have the traversal abilities standing standing behind them.

Okay.

Right.

Right.

I'm actually just waltzing through Moor Wing or The Last Judge or fucking whatever and

getting the hook shot equivalent or the double jump and then going, oh, it's weird.

There aren't that many areas that are locked out of my current progression.

And the thing, of course, with these types of, with this game and, well, anything of this nature is failure means losing currency, means corpse run, right?

Now the game does something really smart early on in the game i was like this is stupid who is this for you can go to a merchant and you can trade 80 rosary yep which is your currency and 60 you don't get 80 on the fucking rosary though do you pat no you get you get a you get an item in your inventory that's 60 and that fucking bug takes 20 20 rosaries off to roll them up you can later cash in 140 for a bead of 120 which is a slightly better that's a better rate that's a better rate And I'm like, why would I use this shit?

And the answer is, there are areas in the game.

There's an area in the game that has the fucking

area in the game in the upper left that at the door has a rosary string converter.

And you go, what the fuck is this for?

And then you walk into the zone and you go, all right.

And you walk back to the converter and you put them all in

high hands because you're going to fucking lose them.

You're going to lose them.

Because you're going to lose them.

Also, also, and this is one of those things when we're talking about shit that takes years and you're like, what were they doing, right?

They were designing rosary beads to roll on the floor, off the ledge, into your doom.

Yeah, they're like, you know what?

No,

that charm that sucks them all up to you.

That's going to have a lot of value.

You want to put that.

That's going to have a lot of value.

Choose to put that on or you're chasing money around on the floor like an idiot.

And it's like, hey, you only have one spot for a yellow charm.

Do you want the compass, which is insanely useful?

Yeah.

Do you want the ability to even get currency at all?

I fucking knocked a corpse

that I was supposed to retrieve the item off of onto spikes, you know, and it's just like, yeah, nah, fuck you.

It's gone.

So the difficulty isn't just

the enemies.

The enemies are quite strong, and

their movesets are kind of all genius, like in a way that I didn't feel was the case in Hollow Knight.

There is,

you know, you'll fight like Bug Warrior that has like, you know, some daggers and they dash and they go under the ground.

And then you fight bigger Bug Warrior that just slashes and like a dive kick.

And like by themselves, whatever.

Fighting those two enemies together is like actually insanely difficult.

It's crazy how difficult it is to keep track of multiple different enemies that are all attacking you with different attacks simultaneously.

The entire game feels like the Ornstein and Smoke fight being reduced in miniature to normal enemies.

Godskin runs.

It's really, really aggressive.

And on top of that, the boss run backs are

really,

really

mean in this game.

They're really mean.

So that's a combination of two things.

One is the average expectation of your platforming abilities in this game

are way beyond what every other Metroid game would expect of you.

It is a game that is like asking the platforming abilities of Celeste for you, but is also a Metroid game and has like super tough combat.

And it's so interesting how if this were packed at the end of Hollow Knight, it would be an expected upgrade in that progression.

Absolutely.

But because it's packaged as its own thing, right at the start, it's meaning out everybody who's coming in going, the perfect time to join and to play the play the sequel.

And it's not treating it like a mandatory section that you had to get through the base game to get to.

Well, they don't look too close to it, but

there's people in chat cursing a very specific run back.

There is a run back against a very difficult boss.

This is a boss that starts as an arena fight, which means you have to fight every enemy in the zone in

a set of combinations.

And then turns into

a boss fight at the end.

Like, run the arena, then fight the boss.

And the boss is pretty tough.

If you do not find a secret bench,

the run back to that boss is literally the entire zone.

Okay.

And the zone

is really, really really mean.

Yeah.

It's really mean.

There is a, and so, and so, what the, what I can, I can, like, I can intuit the dev idea, which is if you're going, wow, this is a really insane run back, what would be the solution?

Maybe I should explore more and see if I can get some upgrades.

Oh, there's a secret bench or that, you know, what have you, right?

Shrine of Amada, Royal Rat Authority.

Sure.

But the secret bench is really secret.

Like,

really secret.

And

it takes the run back from

the entire zone to half the zone.

Okay.

There is the Act 1 Final Boss

has a run back that if you can absolutely crush the platforming is like 90 seconds.

Right?

If you can't absolutely crush the platforming, it's like 10 minutes.

If you get there at all.

Okay.

Like,

it's all these different things that are compounding on each other to create new levels of difficulty.

It's the enemy boss difficulty equivalent of

the end result is greater than the sum of its parts.

I understand.

So

the boss run back to the Act 1 final boss is really not that bad.

I was doing it in 90 seconds and I fought the boss 12, 15 times and he was pretty tough and then I beat him.

But if I was taking five, 10 minutes and dying on some of those run backs, that 15 attempts, first of all, they're not going to be as good because I'm going to get fucking frustrated.

That's going to balloon out into from half an hour to like two hours, three hours, four hours.

Right?

That boss is harder because if you're not absolutely super locked in on what you need to do to get him every time,

you're going to get there sweaty and frustrated and annoyed.

And we haven't felt this in a minute because Elden Ring all but took it away, right?

Elden Ring put your statues of America or your bonfire graces right outside the boss doors for like the worst of those bosses.

Well, the other thing is that part of Elden Ring's core design was like, wow, this is pretty hard.

I should leave and get stronger or go somewhere easier.

That is actually legitimately not an option in Silk Song.

Every time I was like, wow, this is pretty hard.

I should go somewhere easier.

Turns out

I only found harder areas.

Okay.

And as the massive joke that it is, health upgrades are really rare.

And you need four pieces of a mask to get a health upgrade.

Not three.

Oh, shit.

Okay.

Yeah, you need four.

And the health upgrade pieces are behind by far the game's hardest content.

The hardest boss I have fought in the game so far awarded me one-fourth of a single pip of health.

Oh, my God.

Okay.

Okay.

It was an arena fight into a boss fight.

into a Metroid escape that was really hard.

And it gave me a single quarter of one pip of health.

So, I've noticed that, at least, again, when I came across that bouncing off of the red

flowers, you know, that first one I saw, where I was like, oh, you need precision on this dive.

It's not going to be nice.

There's spikes everywhere, and you either land it or die.

And you have a limited number of tries because that's your health.

Making it to the end, killing everything, getting

the piece or the rosaries or whatever behind there.

And then the game's like, good job, now go back.

You know, at which point I'm like,

or Hollow Knight tech, let me just pause and quit and reload on that bench.

That is a move I have been using a lot.

Fuck you.

You're not making me go backwards.

I can bench it.

I have a question for you.

Did you complete the white flower in Hollow Knight?

2017.

The White Flower is a quest that wants you to get from the west end of the map to the east end of the map without taking a single hit.

No, I don't think I did that.

Well,

guess what?

Yeah.

What if they threw you a bone and said, you know what, you can take a couple hits?

And you're like, oh, well, that's all right.

And then they're like,

because it's timed.

Nice.

Because it's time.

Nice.

Yep.

Yep.

And you know what?

It's not like it's a big deal.

It only has

the single most important upgrade in the entire game locked behind it.

Most important.

It has the nail damage upgrade.

Sorry, the needle damage.

Oh,

don't.

yeah, you're gonna do it.

You are gonna do it

And yeah, okay.

Um you mentioned earlier that there is something that trades off healing for

damage.

How good is that

that trade-off, though?

So it it what it what it may so uh it's it's it's it's really a 50-50.

Uh, it so what it is, is it trades off the heal for a really, really strong attack that if it hits it heals per hit.

Oh, so it's like the same.

Wait, hold on.

It's the same level of healing, but you have to hit all the hits.

And I miss that shit all the time because enemies are super fast and super mobile.

But when you fight a boss and you hit the boss enough times in a row that they get unconscious,

not only am I going to heal up, but I'm going to do

50 hits of damage.

Yeah, that's fantastic.

So it's Feast or Fan.

That's fantastic.

Okay, it also has my favorite moveset, and it has one of my favorite uh charm allotments.

So, that's what I'm gonna be using.

Like, that is also even in even in situations where it's not practical.

I like that challenge like speaks to my soul and says, like, yeah, you designed this so that this is possible.

Now, I have to do it.

You know, that sounds great.

Okay, okay.

Uh, it's um,

it's It's an incredible game.

It is absolutely astonishing.

Its breadth and width is crazy.

In that interview, they said, oh, we just kept thinking of new things and just kept wanting to put it in.

The amount of new mechanical nonsense that you encounter and ideas is so enormous.

It's so crazy.

As long as you're willing to absolutely fucking fight your ass off through it to get it.

Like,

it is for sickos.

And

it's legacy as the Hollow Knight bug game that's cozy, chill,

is like, is getting a bunch of people into it who are discovering that they are, in fact, not sicko freak beasts.

So the game is deceptively simple and always has been, right?

It looks like the most basic platform swing your sword and jump around to hit the boss move cute bug thing for sure.

But yeah, I did see the compilation of like this game is rage bait.

I'm breaking my controller.

You know, like everyone that like, again, the cute art style is a lie, yada, yada.

um

to it, which, I mean, makes me raise my eyebrows even higher.

Like, I'm like,

there's some shit in this that I'm like, you

absolute motherfucker.

I appreciate who you're talking to here, you know.

But this is kind of the thing.

Well, anyway, it's interesting that this comes right after that shinobi discussion, right?

Because very interesting.

Yeah.

However, however, what I will say is that shinobi, you're so cool right away that you can be distracted by how cool you are.

Whereas in this game, you have jump, swing, heal, and so far that's it, you know?

No, you get pretty good.

Well, here's the main thing: once you get the ability to sprint, harpoon, double jump, and air dash, the game's going to demand you use all that shit all the time to avoid getting killed.

So, when you fight a boss and you do like a good attempt,

you are way cooler and more impressive than

Hornet was in her own boss fight in Hollow Knight.

But I'm also remembering

the ability to fine-tune builds in Hollow Knight 2 was really high because things as simple as when you put this charm on, you no longer get pushed back a little bit on each hit.

And I'm like, yes.

Yeah,

I'm sacrificing my slot for no pushback, right?

Or just that little bit of extra meter, a little bit of extra soul on each slash, or whatever the case is, increasing charge time.

Like those little macro changes, or micro changes rather,

made a huge difference, you know?

Sweet, sweet, sweet.

It's exactly what they said it would be.

It is

way larger than it appears.

Of course, of course.

Like, that was something with Hollow Knight, but like now we have Hollow Knight to compare it to.

I have already, I'm not even, I'm not done.

I have like at least six areas I've gotten to and not walked in the door.

I am already like 20, 30% past Hollow Knight's total size.

Man, okay.

It is, it is,

it is, I

got to a point

that there's a room that looks just like the Castlevania inverted castle clock tower room.

Oh, shit.

Okay, okay.

It looks just like it.

It's even got the fucking pendulum in the background.

And I'm like, there is absolutely no fucking way we're going to do an inverted castle.

And we're not.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

But

they did make that room look like that on purpose after all.

And I was like, you can't be fucking serious with this shit.

Fuck.

I was supposed to do a quick late-night stream and call it a night.

It's interesting how,

like, for a character who...

Because Hornet talks, whereas the knight doesn't.

Yeah, she does talk, though.

She has dialogue, but it's also, like,

I mean, so far, sassy.

Yeah, but, but so far, it's like, as far as I know, like, her plot backstory stuff wrapped up in Hollow Knight, right?

So, this is all just brand new world, brand new adventure.

Who knows where we're going?

It could be anything, right?

Are you sure about that?

I think

I thought so.

You sure about that?

No, I'm not.

I'm far from sure, but

that's the impression I have.

All right, well, I'll just tell you this.

Hey, who's Hornet's dad?

Okay.

Now, who's Hornet's mom?

Now, what's Hornet's mom?

And what does that animal do?

Now, what's the name of Silk Song?

Okay.

So

I do

appreciate

quality of the gibberish voice acting.

It's really good.

I really like my boy Sherma!

I love the singing.

The realist, like you have a good voice, and you're singing gibberish.

It's great.

Yeah, no,

there's a whole lot that I'm that's, you know, just fun to that vibe right off the bat.

Little, like little, little, um,

uh, uh, uh, Onion Knight equivalent, I guess, like opening the door for the, the,

um, Sherma.

Sherma, Sherma.

Shima.

Shrumma's the one that's singing at the door.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay.

I was thinking of the shopkeep that was singing.

Because the shopkeep is also singing, and that shopkeep is cool.

Oh, Chakra.

Yeah,

I don't remember yet, but

don't worry, you'll get there.

Very cool.

Where were you?

Where was I?

Oh, I was cleaning up the dog bar.

In conversation.

No,

what I was talking about before.

I don't know.

Give a fuck.

Yo, that game's good, but it's also for sickos.

Buy sickos for sickos.

Yeah, like that, it's it's kind of, it's kind of tricking on people about how sicko it is.

It's

it's kind of funny.

Again, just the, I guess the, the, the part where, um, because I've seen it breach containment, right I've seen the so to speak I've seen you know

the the the normie world whatever people that are kind of like not really

playing paying attention to indie games be like oh yeah Silk song heard about that like jumping in trying out the first game or picking it up because the whole the whole big fever pitch around it taking so long to come out has led to it becoming massively

mythical exactly exactly And it has thus garnered attention of folks that definitely missed the first time around or wouldn't grab necessarily just a random indie 2D souls-like thing.

But

as a result, it's, I think, yeah, it is misleading some folks in on what they think it is or

cute bug game.

Uh-huh.

And everybody's talking about it.

So let's go see what and why.

And oh shit.

Oh, fuck.

You know,

is

an interesting like relaunch to the franchise

now that this big buildup has happened.

You know, because the first time around, it was unexpected out of nowhere.

You know, I don't think, like, again, quiet Kickstarter type of thing.

People obviously that are like listening to this and playing to paying attention to games and indies and stuff or like know and have heard.

But in general, it was more of a word-of-mouth thing that brought it up to where it was

versus this time around where it crashed steam on day one

crashed steam playstation store

um and the nintendo eShop

and there's a list of games that all had to clear the way and move move aside for it

there's a really embarrassing email that I wrote to Humble Bundle because I bought Silk Song from them because they still had keys but then they didn't have any keys when I went to redeem it.

So I sent in a refund request, and the refund request was like a little pissier than maybe I should have wrote.

I was like, I just bought this game.

How come you have no keys?

It's only been out for an hour.

And then the lady wrote back, was like, oh, we have keys now.

Very sorry for that.

Do you still want the refund?

And I had to be like,

no,

I was, I was just being emotional.

Jesus Christ on my video game.

What the fuck?

Okay.

Wow.

I didn't think a human being was going to read my refund request.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, that game's incredible, but it is Force Echoes.

There's a part early on in Act Two

where they start throwing buzzsaws at you.

You know, like Hollandai does.

They start throwing like, okay,

in this environment, we'll touch and kill you.

And

it's like 35, 40% through the game.

And I'm looking at this, going like,

people are going to quit right here.

Like, this is where

a not insignificant percentage of people are going to quit right at this spot.

Are you seeing a line for optional versus mandatory path, though?

The mandatory path is still pretty fun.

Yeah, okay.

Now, there's a bunch of optional ways to get into places, but the optional ways to get into places are to get really, really fucking good at the platforming, which is probably going to be your problem in the first place in the mandatory section.

Okay.

I also like if you can, if you can freak beast your way all the way up to God,

yeah, you can come in the back door, but the whole reason you wanted to get in there a different way was so that you didn't have to freak beast your way to head through the front on the other side of the yeah, right, right, right, exactly.

Like, yeah, good luck, idiot.

Um, yeah, okay.

I, I, I also feel like it's a game, too, where I imagine your path, your, your, like, opt, non-optional, your mandatory path, you still have to find it,

you know,

you still have to wander in the correct direction.

Um,

and I so they're all the correct direction eventually,

eventually,

They've also, the game also has a really, so there was a couple of moments in Hollow Knight, but there's like 10 of them in Silk Song, where you hit a dead end and you're looking at the dead end and you're like, I don't even.

I don't even know what the fuck gets you through this door.

Like, sometimes it's like, oh, I can't run high enough or jump high enough.

But in Silk Song, you're looking at a thing and like, I don't know what the fuck would even happen.

Well, yeah, the Hollow Knight ones were always when you walk out to an empty cliff and the map is like, this doesn't line up with anything.

and you're like this is this the camera has panned over so that the cliff is now

10% of the screen why would you do this and you're like you know why so like you know I'll give you like a really good example I think though I'll give you the best example of why I think this game is a sicko game for sickos the game has a double jump right

it has a double jump That means it's really good.

And in a platforming game that has hard platforming, a double jump can be pretty clutch.

It can save you from a million different scenarios.

Well, in order to get the double jump, you have to complete,

as of right now, the hardest platforming section in the entire game I've encountered.

That is also timed.

Damn.

Okay.

Okay.

And so.

Like, I got to the

fucking double jump.

That's huge.

And I went, wow, I got really good during this process.

I don't even need the fucking reward.

Anymore.

You don't even need the reward anymore.

Turns out I did.

But still.

But still, it's like,

it's ridiculous.

There were people in the chat earlier that were like, I beat the game without getting the double jump because

I fucking couldn't do the platforming to get it.

Okay.

It's like, that's crazy.

Well, I'm going to, at the very least, this time, now that I know this time around,

I'm going to approach this knowing that it's never fucking ending and it's infinitely big and it just keeps shoving more in there so that I'll just sample and chew at it for a little bit and then put it away.

Because it's uh, because I it's pretty big, dude.

Because I did describe how the my the end of Hollow Knight for me

was unfortunately like for you know, not any mark against the quality of the game, but I just it felt like that Okami thing for me where I kind of was just like, I'm I'm ready, I'm ready, and

it won't stop.

You know?

So

I got off earlier, you know,

and there was a lot more to do, clearly, and a lot more to challenge and a lot more lore to it as well.

But

I think this time around, kind of like with the Persona games, where I come in going, yeah, when it says, when it starts giving you ending vibes, completely ignore those.

Just don't even think about it for a second.

You know what's wrong with you?

That'll make you feel a a little better.

Has not given me an ending vibe even once at any point.

I've even gotten to an objective that's like, do these things and open up the biggest motherfucking door.

And I go, well, that's not the end.

There's too much fucking blank space on this.

Exactly, exactly.

Not to mention

the classic.

And then the zone changed.

Haven't had that yet.

Okay.

I've had

the zones change in minor ways.

Like, there was an NPC that I found that was dead when I got to them because I had gone too far in the main quest before meeting them.

Oh,

one of those.

God damn.

Not a fan of that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Interesting.

I never met him.

Darn.

Yeah, game's incredible.

Game's absolutely unbelievable.

All right.

Skong talk.

It's good.

It's a good skong.

What else is going on?

What else?

I hit master rank on Geef.

Hey.

So that's in Street Fighter VI.

I am now Master Rank on Geef and I Master Rank on Bison.

Congrats.

And I played enough of both of them in this season that I am comfortably at 1450 on both.

Cool.

So, like, right where I came in.

And I'm like, I now feel confident that to say that I am

okay,

I guess, at Street Fighter VI.

That is, that's a fine place to be.

Yeah.

It's also, I think Viper is about to get shown off not too long.

Yeah.

That's a pretty cool page.

For me, I'm just, it's a holding pattern until Alex.

Like, I want to play as fucking Alex, man.

How is Sagat for you?

Ingrid you.

How'd you find Sagat?

Nah.

I don't like to play characters that have projectiles.

Okay.

It's just, I like, I never internalized.

Well, unless they're Guile, I guess.

But I just never internalized the fireball gameplay.

I like that Sagat has big, stupid, fat buttons.

I'm a big fan of that.

I was about to point out that Tager has a fireball, and I was like, oh, wait, you completely completely dodged that grappler.

Sure.

Well, now, I played a bunch of Tager, but his Fireball is okay.

But it's not, like, it's also like, it's like basically instantaneous, and it's just as good on block as it is on hit, because it's just situational.

What else?

I played a cute little origami-style platformer called Hirogami.

That was a sponsored stream.

That was earlier in the week.

Just a very little charming origami game.

Everything's made out of like stop-motion little paper guys.

The primary thing of note is that they are the only people that put out a statement that was like, we are not moving our release date away from Silk Song.

We're staying right here.

Stay the chorus.

It came out the day before Silk Song, came out one day early.

And then

I did my sponsor stream that day.

And then the VOD went up the following day.

And if anyone saw that VOD and was like, I'd like to buy Hiragami, they couldn't because Silk Song crashed Steam.

And I'm like, I appreciate your fucking huge ball.

Yeah, no, when you say hold, hold, hold, you think it's because you're standing up to the onslaught.

Little did you know, the world was destroyed under the weight.

The store went away.

That's fucking crazy.

Yeah, the store was gone.

Oh, my God.

Anything else that I played?

Not that I could think of off the top of my head.

I will say that

I probably should watch K-pop Demon Hunter.

You should.

You should, you should.

Because...

I was walking the baby and a pickup truck passed me on the street blasting gold in it like max volume.

And I was like...

that's a combination that means this thing is popping.

Yeah, we're there.

That's about right.

The F-150 blasting K-pop sounds about right.

Yeah.

Like, I felt, I felt the K-pop as the truck passed me.

It's good, man.

It's good.

You know, that's,

yeah.

And, you know, I'm super down for this, like,

whatever, whatever this

puss in boots,

you know, criterion collection is of Spider-Verse style thing, like, certain, you know, it's like, it's like, it's like it's a certain type of animation quality and action style that they're doing.

More of that.

We want more of that.

That shit's great.

And we want it without it costing fucking Karoshi.

You know?

That's pretty much it for me this week.

I did a lot of skong.

Did a crazy fucking amount of skong.

This week is shockingly enough on Pat Stairs at on Twitch, more skong.

It's also going to include Borderlands 4 with Mutton Chop Pat on 9-11 going forward.

Never forget.

I'm playing 2XKO tonight

around 6, 6.30.

It's out now.

It's downloaded.

I have Vanguard on my PC now.

Temo Blitzcrake.

Yeah, me.

Well, Timo's not out yet, so it'll be a Laoi Blitzcrake.

And then Bioshock Infinite starts this week.

So you guys get to hang out with me as I get

super pissed at literally every single narrative and gameplay element of that game.

Like,

hey, Booker, they're all looking for a guy with your hand tattoo on his hand.

Couldn't you, I don't know,

fucking cover that shit up with literally anything?

No?

Go to a big crowd and make a big spectacle of yourself, then kill a guy super hard for no reason.

All right.

Does this include Bariolette, see?

Yeah.

Yeah, and the others, okay.

Yeah, I'm not going to, hey, listen.

Listen, people kicked in a not insignificant amount of subscriptions so that I would play Bioshock Infinite.

I'm not going to go, well, I'm not on the DLC.

No,

if I'm gonna like butthurt play something

i'm gonna get my whole butt all hurt all right yeah maximum damage all right

um

looks like racism goes both ways

What if in the sky?

Oh my god.

I fucking still think like just the on paper the concept, you know?

Again, just like with Rapture, the Ayn Rand fucking hellscape, you know, the Columbia sky racism city.

What a cool, basic premise to start from.

Anyway.

It's actually like really flat though.

Because like Boshock 1 was like, what if a bunch of rich people thought they didn't need the poor?

And they made their fancy society under the ocean, right?

But like, Bashock Infinite is like literally, what if a bunch of racists had blimps?

Like, that's as far as it goes in the concept.

Like, there's no additional depth to it at all.

Sky crimes.

I ain't fucking, you got, I'm there.

You got, you know, I'm.

I think Bashok

Infinite might, I think Bashock Infinite genuinely might be in the running for the worst aged game of all time

because it got like amazing reviews and people were like, oh my god, this is the greatest.

And then like two or three months went by and everybody beat it and everyone just started sitting around going, wait,

wait, it's shit, isn't it?

Oh fuck.

Oh, it's actually Schlock.

Oh, it's stupid.

I don't.

I don't know, and I don't, I'm not sure.

Because there's people like

not everyone

turned on that game.

And

well, luckily enough, this Saturday, I'm going to do my part to help the rest of it.

There's a, like, the

online,

whatever you call this gamer, I don't know, hardcore industry follower narrative versus the gamer zeitgeist.

Yeah, right, versus the folks that were like, yeah, man, Assassin's Creed, fuck yeah.

Like, it was just another AAA that came and was like, yeah, that game, that was cool, and that was it.

So this, the, the, the turn that you're describing was not a universal for sure.

Like, I have, I've, I've seen that in my life, you know?

Well, see, because now you're thinking about the story, but what I'm also thinking about is how it actually doesn't play particularly well, and the environments, while beautiful, actually don't like play very well at all.

Yeah, but if you're somebody that's just like, I got powers up my hands and I'm shooting my gun and I jumped on on the hook.

You can't have discussions over the type of people that you could jangle fucking games in front of.

Oh, wow, it's shiny.

Makes a noise.

And they have money, Pat.

Those key janglers have money.

Listen, we're not doing a fucking hyper-popular podcast for Madden players, okay?

I mean, people in this audience have taste.

At least taste enough to listen to us.

Oh, boy.

Oh, don't.

Did you know

that you're not listening to this podcast?

You're better and smarter than people who don't.

Didn't we just tell them they don't matter?

Didn't we?

No, no, you told them they don't matter.

Oh, you are standing aside as a conscientious objective.

Oh, yeah, no, no.

I'm running a sub-a-thon.

They matter more than ever.

They matter more than ever.

Dude, people kick in five subs, guess what?

Best friends now.

I love them.

Kick in 10 subs.

I would kiss you if we met.

Give me the kiss.

100 subs?

Hey, let's I don't tell my wife.

The animals are leaving.

The planet is

hurting.

But they don't need anyone else.

Just you?

Yeah, just me.

Q the Jarard Leto.

All right.

Yeah, well, if you're a fan of Tron, then you got to take the damage.

I'm not a fan of Tron.

Fuck, man.

I love Tron.

Sounds like I'm free and clear here.

I love Tron.

Sounds like I convincingly won this exchange.

Tron is so cool.

And then I saw the trailer for the new one.

And I was like, wait, more Tron?

And then they're like, the most coolest fucking theory comes.

It's the guy.

And then Jared Leto turns around and you're like, no.

Well, I got to tell you, every single time everything from Tron comes out, someone next to me goes, wow, it's so cool.

And then it comes out and it actually sucks.

And that includes the original Tron.

And that guy is you.

It's, you know what it is?

It's Mirror's Edge.

Yeah, I know.

You had that Olivia Wilde thing as your fucking background for like five years.

Still do.

It's

it's it's aesthetic and it's fucking

it just can't figure out how to deliver beyond that.

But gay, getting Daft Punk was a pretty fucking sick way to do it.

That was smart.

And then this time around, I believe they're getting

nine-inch nails.

So, oh, cool.

You know,

but yeah, then they got to get fucking Jared Leto involved.

All right.

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All right.

So, yeah, we sconged it up for a little bit, talked about that patch.

Oh,

may I take one extra moment to speak on the patch?

Yes.

Let me find it.

Hey, congratulations on beating Moor Wing.

I'm glad you were able to finally get to and beat him now.

He was harder before.

You should feel proud, even though I beat him before he was nerfed when he was harder.

Good job.

There you go.

This is like one of my favorite copypastas.

I actually unironically love it.

And some of it is ironic.

Some of it is not ironic.

Like I'm willing to admit that like, haha, yeah, I beat

there fast.

I beat CR and Shadow of the Earth Tree pre-nerf.

Yeah, my dick's bigger.

And you're like, and you're getting there much quicker than most people are by blowing through it in that first week or so.

However,

you're, I don't know what act you're in, but like,

okay.

So I'm an act two.

Okay, there are patches for things in act three that you have not seen yet.

You know, I didn't fucking know that game had a fucking act three until I read.

I thought for sure, so, for sure, so that game only had two acts because it's so big, and now I'm seeing act three in that thing, and I'm like, yo,

fuck.

So, whatever ass bosses that you're gonna encounter, you know, when this drops.

You know what, though?

I'm a little annoyed.

There is a uh there is a fucking uh boss that i fought

um that fucking cross techned off the fucking screen like four times oh

just like the phase transition just completely failed out and they just left and i had to quit and restart like multiple times

and it sucked

um

and that's not in the patch notes they didn't fix that in the patch notes it sucks

every time you use the word act in a story,

the assumption is.

It's always three acts, right?

Because of...

Yeah, because...

Nearly exclusively.

Yeah.

Or five.

If it's using theatrical terminology, then it's always a three-act story, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

So

we need more video games based around iambic pentameter.

Fuck iambic pentameter.

I fucking hate the iambic pentameter.

Shakespeare Shakespeare can go suck my shit off.

That bow of the bard.

Talk normal, idiot.

I know you were born in 16, whatever.

I don't give a fuck.

I don't even know where it came from, but I just remember one of the earliest JoJo memes I ever saw was old man Joseph in a really shitty scanslation deep fry with the bad text, fuck iambic pentameter laid over it.

That's great.

I was like, yeah, man.

Whatever that means.

Anyways,

that quote will now apply to anything that comes future after this.

There's also some

bug fixes proper on that list of things.

Yeah, there are.

A lot of them are like...

Actually, don't read that list too much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a couple.

There's a bunch of them that are like

lose ability to do X forever, fixed.

Yeah.

Or

get stuck underneath this spot forever.

Fixed.

I mean, I don't know what the...

I want to see the credits to see what the QA team was like, but hopefully the three people they talk about were not including a QA team that needs to go and make sure that these games are clean.

Because if so, this will be the first of many patches as people discover shit.

Surprisingly enough,

I've actually encountered a couple of bugs in Silk Sun.

No, seriously, though, no, I've run into some bugs.

See, you can't, you can't, see, if you're going to say a three-person team, then you're then you're either one person was in charge of the entire QA process or not a three-fucking.

There's like, there's a 20.

Or there is a massive team that was hidden third party that was hired and they're just not getting their credit.

Yeah, no, what I believe,

if you had to put a gun in my head right now, I think they had a problem with playtesters because I think they used the same dozen playtesters like the whole time.

Now, playtesters are not QA, right?

These are two separate jobs and

two separate roles, mind you.

Someone who can, you know, reflect the game flow back to you is not the same as somebody who's going to scrape for bugs and report on compliance.

Well, there's too many bugs in this game.

I would get kicked off that fucking project.

I swear to God.

I would just load up that fucking database with just like, there's a bug in the town.

Its name is

what?

Fuck.

Database, Pat.

They said they don't know what Jira is.

They don't do it.

It's funny.

I feel really good right now.

Do you want to go into a story that'll continue to make me feel really good?

I'm sorry.

I'm all out of those.

Oh, oh, no.

I can give you, I got other stuff here on the menu if you'd like.

There's a brand new story that just happened.

It'll make me feel really good.

Okay.

So I'm really glad that Mr.

Cannon or whoever it is is in charge of following my social media accounts to decide what to do with 2xKO.

Ah.

Saw my ancient tweet.

I don't know if you remember me making this, but on

July 27th, I said, 2xKO's roster looks like shit, but if I can run a Blitz and T-Mo team at launch, it's a good game, and I will send its praises.

There you go.

That was before, that was

over a month before Blitz got fucking,

and Temo got leaked out like an hour ago by accident.

So that was probably unconquerable more than anything, if someone's paying attention out there, because

they actually are, mind you.

But

yeah.

Somebody probably chuckled when they saw that.

Sure.

Like I said, like reading an article that's talking about freak picks,

you know, is

kind of funny.

But yes,

other

mascot character that has merch associated, that's a big league staple,

shows up here.

It's really interesting because they clearly had a course correction at some point.

There was an interview that was not that long ago, like, I want to say a year, maybe 18 months ago, where they just flat out said, There are no Yordles in the game.

We are not planning to put Yordles into the base roster, maybe later, because their size is too much of a problem.

And the backlash to that was super extreme.

And most of that backlash was, are you really gonna make a league fighting game and not put like fucking Lulu or Timo in that or Rumble in that shit?

Are you fucking nuts?

Are you crazy?

Yeah, I think the betas showed a whole gave a whole lot of info, not to mention the getting getting hands-on at the different

offline events.

But like, there was a very clear, like, okay, there's a lot of cool shit people are vibing with.

There's some stuff gameplay-wise that's not quite cooked yet, and they re they changed a whole lot after those betas.

But the number one thing was just like, you know,

league characters, roster size, et cetera.

And it came up every time.

And, you know, we talk about that constantly.

It's like it goes to the first thing that goes there.

But also just looking in general at the discussion off of just this podcast fucking echo chamber sometimes.

It is quite clear that like, no, you got to get that roster ramped up.

So yeah, that's getting getting 10

out there right off the bat.

And also, I hope they continue to be very cavalier about leaks and not give a shit and just like, oops, here's a JPEG of

this loading screen.

You weren't supposed to see it.

It's thrash.

You know, like, it's pretty funny.

I think that's the right, that's the right way to go about it.

Just, oh, no.

Every single thing to do with this game's long-term interest is going to be what characters are coming.

So, like,

everybody wants to have the big fancy reveal trailer, but, like, if you just like, if you just, like, for example, leaked out a picture of Swame,

sorry, Swain, not Swame, that's stupid.

Swain, I'd be like, oh, yeah, okay, Swain's all right.

You know, um, and, and it's, it's one of those things, like, I took Street Fighter has a massive roster at this point.

A lot of fighting games have massive rosters, but this is like a, you know, a game where it's pulling from somewhere else, like a Marvel Rivals kind of thing.

And if you're going to do 10, man, those 10 have to be, like, rock solid.

And I remember talking to you, of course, about this like a year ago.

And I listed off like a huge list of characters that if they were included meant the game sucked.

Like, like the reverse of this.

Because it would be the wrong picks of the hundred characters.

It's like, like, there's, there's, like, 50 to maybe 100 characters that if they included them in like the first 20, I'd be like, oh, this is a bad game.

So straight up.

So, I mean, everything post-beta that we've gotten now, which is Vi, Blitzcrank, and now Timo.

It's like, yeah,

that's probably.

Vi is like the most no-shit thing imaginable

ever.

Your main character lineup, right?

Blitz is like archetypally mandatory.

And so is Timo.

Also, Timo is like the game's like primary mascot.

I see those hats.

Yep.

Yeah, no.

If Garen gets to be in this game,

it is dead in the ground if Garen gets to be in this game.

The other Darius, right?

More boring Darius.

Yeah.

So,

and I guess while we're on that with the Timo leak as well, I saw the other part was they, yeah, as they launched, they announced the

closed beta that's live from today onward and gave the updates on what changed and what's going on with that.

Big one that I saw was this was just one case of like weird reporting or people making threads about like

it only launches with six and you have to unlock the rest.

And that led to a bunch of like shitty feedback on that where a bunch of very, very anger about this.

But it's completely unjustified in the sense that

I want to know in the canon of free-to-play fighting games what the genuine expectation was for people that really hate this I know like the the typical thing is that like you have a couple characters that are free on rotation six is actually fairly high

and like it's more it's it's 60% of the roster so here's the other bit

they the other as far my because I just went to go check and it's like so you know Lee you build up your your currency your your blue whatever to unlock characters

and then originally Valorant had you had a thing where you had to wait for the character to exist in order to build up experience to unlock them.

And then

they went back and removed that and made it so that you could build up currency to spend on a character before they exist.

Right.

But they capped it so that you can't save up for more than one character.

to buy at a time on drop, right?

So I'm like, okay, so they want you to be able to do that.

That makes sense.

If they're switching that system over, I'm going to definitely expect that this will probably be the case here, where they'll be like, you can probably save up as much of a currency as you want to buy a character on drop, but they'll maybe cap it so that you can't go over a certain amount.

But

the other thing with this was

the tutorial gives you two tickets to buy two characters.

Yeah, so

this is where I kind of break down on it.

So people are saying that Killer Instinct started with six free characters, but then you could also buy various versions of Killer Instinct that would just act act like a normal fighting game.

The full package and stuff.

And

like

earlier today, somebody who'll remain nameless was being weirdly passive-aggressive over me going, oh, cool, Blitz and Timo.

I like them.

With like basically, oh, I hope you have fun unlocking them.

And it's like, and then I find out, like, in the 10 minutes I saw since then,

Beating the game's tutorial gives you two tokens, so you will always be able to just grab the two characters you want when you start the game that was which completely bypasses this entire discussion so that's the thing right that came out right after that post and uh that got lost um because i think that was like a community manager communicated or so but one way or another you know when they're talking about of the three characters that are locked two of them you'll have the ability to use the token to get right off the bat so there's only one character you're gonna have locked to progress to and like okay let's say let's say it comes out and that's not a big deal three years they announce, hey, part of this season is going to be Mordecaiser and Yorick.

They would never put Yorick in the game, but let's just say, let's just say they would.

And you go, oh, my God, Mordecaiser and Yorick fucking top forever.

Oh, I definitely want to play as them.

Oh, but I'll have to grind to unlock the characters.

Oh, well, no, because you're starting to XKO, you would actually do the tutorial and you'd use your two tokens to get Mordekaiser and Yorick immediately.

Yeah.

Like that just overtly solves the problem right away.

So I know there's

multiversus, like, comparison point, but, like, I think, like, getting those and going straight to what you're looking for is, you know, that's pretty reasonable for that roster size.

So, um, yeah, that's, that's cool.

Also, they really want you to do the tutorial if they're giving you fucking two free characters for fucking doing the tutorial.

Um, also, I believe that offline mode, you have the full roster available the whole time.

So it's only for online, right?

You can go.

Yep.

Yeah, okay, so there's that part.

So, you know, I kind of am also just like, this is like the whole free fighting game thing is brand new territory.

I'm curious to see how it goes and plays out and what's going to work and not work because obviously free-to-play FPS is not free-to-play MOBA is not free-to-play fighting.

They have different appeals.

It's all different things.

So, you know, I hope I want to see like what's going to work here and how this is going to flow because Tech and Revolution is not the example, and KI free mode is not the example, really, you know.

So I kind of,

yeah, this is going to set the tone, I suppose, and we'll see what people are willing to go for with the game being free.

And, like, you know, we also don't know what grinds are going to consist of necessarily.

I don't know

if we're talking about earning a character of that, that last one is going to, whether we're talking about a day, a week, or I'll get back to you when next week, obviously, when I unlock, it'll probably be Jinx, will be my last unlock.

And

the game's

money-making plan is skins.

Yeah, that's exactly where I was going to go next.

Yes.

So you need to be able to get the characters you want to play to buy skins for them.

So I'm under the assumption that it's probably going to be a lot.

It's going to be...

easier and cheaper to get characters

not expensive to buy skins Yes, and their cosmetic KO screens and their, you know, perhaps stages and other shit like that, you know, profile icons, etc.

I'm expecting those things to be all grindy, seasonal, et cetera, stuff, because that's what they want you to, you know, lock in on is the cosmetics more than the character.

I'm thinking, I'm guessing.

But we'll have to see what that looks like.

The other thing with it.

If they go on the way that League does it, what I assume is going to happen is as the roster increases in size, the amount of characters that are free-to-play will slowly increase to be a

percentage of them.

The rotation is going to be bigger.

We're starting with 10 characters.

When there's 24 characters, it'll probably be

more.

They'll probably throw Blitz and Timo on the free roster.

Okay.

So it's proportional or it scales up as you go.

Yeah, that would make sense.

Now, that being said, if I were them, I would rotate those fucking characters around

because

free-to-play people

are going to create

the majority of this game's player base just in terms of matches played.

You know what?

I don't.

I really want to play as Ilaoi and Blitz and Timo.

I don't want to play against Yasuo Ari.

It's the Jago problem.

All fucking night.

Yes, Kingston.

All night.

Killer Instinct had the Jago problem.

Jago was free, thus Jago was the only person person you fought online in a ton of online matches for a long time, and it sucked.

The rotation is extremely important to get rid of that issue, for sure.

You know, skill levels aside and whatnot, like you,

if you have the idea of like there is a character that needs to be a reference point for people to be like, okay, well, you always learn off of the basic Ryu, you know?

Darius is going to be free forever.

Then that makes, that's fine, but you need to allow there to be a variety so that it's yeah the feeling is not ruined by the weighted darius is this game's jago he's also the character on the icon on your computer for legends of rude and terra he's as much as the game's like ryu as anything

yep he's also got like a really simple clean kit simple easy to pick up and understand yeah yeah yeah um

opportunity for them to sell an extremely annoying temo ko cosmetic screen

you know um will it i i i hope you like so when i say teemo in the game changes my opinion on the game, I want to be like really clear about why that is.

Timo is

like Timo is a joke about being toxic.

Like he's a poison character and is like, he's the kind of guy that if you play them well, you can feel

the slurs manifesting on the other side of the computer.

You can't hear them, but you know they're there.

And they don't have to be accurate, but you know they're at you, right?

And the inclusion of a character whose entire existence is to make the other guy really fucking mad makes me way more interested in the game in general because it means they're willing to do like

stupid, mean shit.

Enabled toxicity is all you need.

Yeah.

And again, like, and would you spend your

fight bucks to purchase further cosmetic toxicity?

Oh, yeah.

Fucking Temo up the fucking screen.

Temo life bars, Temo win quote.

Like,

fucking, let's go.

Let's fucking go.

You know what I want?

I want a fucking Teemo Rage quit icon.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

If, if they had, listen, if you, hey, here's, here's the new guide to 2xKO, day one.

All right.

Do you want to hit the top of ranked immediately?

Okay, here's what you do: play Timo.

And

if the disconnect loss system works correctly, you will just get up into like gold and plat within a couple of hours as people disconnect.

Drop the fuck off.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

We want to make money, right?

We're here to make money.

We want to recoup some of the development costs on this game that took a while to make, right?

Okay.

I

buy the ability with Timo to have a chat pop up on the side of the screen as if I'm typing into my keyboard.

I like that a lot.

You get a little log of like text chat popping up while you play.

I like that a lot.

Oh, spend the money.

Spend the money to make it happen.

But, like, and it's, and Ryan, one of the things that Ryan was actually really good at is when they did Rune Terra, they were able to translate Timo's like annoying ass fuckhead gameplay from like a MOBA to a card game, and it's obviously very, very different,

but like the feeling in your chest playing a T-Mo deck or against a T-Mo deck was the same.

He would just hide mushrooms on your cards, and so you would pull a card to play your thing, and there'd be fucking five mushrooms on it, and you would just instantly die.

And you go, that's fucking bullshit.

I can't fucking believe it.

Oh, it's this man, this character.

And then you'd be on the other end going,

you had the mushroom on his thing.

So that's what I want from him into XKO.

When you play T-Right, I want that energy.

When you play T-Mo, you can't see whether

your opponent can't see whether you're on a wireless or wired connection.

They just see a little T-Mo head.

No, Timo should be able to...

His super should fucking activate Ping Critz and just fucking

becomes like a disconnected fucking hitbox that teleports around at random.

Am I plugged?

Am I not?

Wooly.

Wooly.

passive in league is invisibility.

There is actually

the genuine

reality that he could have a super that legitimately randomly places traps invisibly on the screen and nobody knows where the fuck they are.

That would not even be outside the realm of possibility.

It's happened before Testament and Nauto both do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the thing with this this now, too, as we segue out here, it's even more

important too that like

this game

now that we've seen this weekend, because the Tokan beta went off this weekend,

these are not direct competitors in style.

Like

on a surface level tag fighter thing, they are, but there's very, very different styles of game in terms of what type of tag fighter.

It's very different.

And I think seeing extended gameplay of Tokan, we're learning, you know,

don't look at that as Marvel because it's not

Marvel.

It's just its own beast.

Right?

So, I mean, yeah, Nenpact kind of, you know, evaporated and went the way it did.

Invincible, we're seeing like, yeah, again, a little bit of KI, kind of some Marvel-y stuff to it, but a lot of Battle for the Grid kind of vibes going on.

But

Tokan had a one-day beta, and

no one got in.

And

that's fine, whatever.

They went random with it because it used a PlayStation beta system, so there was no numbers and codes and stuff or whatever.

It was like the

longer talking about how content creators are like, well, I'd cover it, but I don't know anyone who got in.

I didn't get in.

And then a massive second wave of codes went out.

Okay, okay.

Well, whatever.

If it's random, it's random.

That's fine.

But

watching the no we are more important give me a code okay me me though it's it's we are we are I'm a big boy with big boy pants and I need to tell the people about my big boy games

there is a part of this where when we if you play and people watch you play it might

help advertise it sure but there's no need to if we don't get it they don't want to do it that way they don't do it that way that's fine They do what they want, they market how they want, that's okay.

But watching it and watching the, the, um,

there was the first tournament, uh, Tampa Never Sleeps, did a, did a little bracket there, we got to see some of the game.

Uh, for one, Jesus Christ, it's gorgeous.

It looks so fucking stylish.

Pretty hot.

Um, love that pencil board, you know, kind of like look and sketch to everything as well.

Um, a whole lot of fun.

Really seems, and I I hope, I hope that we get to see this game launch with no English voice acting.

Like,

I hope that we're locked in and I actually completely agree with you.

Yeah, I 100% agree with you.

I hope that we commit to Stalordo, you know?

I want all of that to be the only way to play it.

What's fucking Captain America is Super called?

Ah, shit.

Anyway, whatever.

Might as well be called Statue of Liberty.

Yeah, it's great.

It's great.

You know, justice

um

but no anyways um shit's shit's gorgeous and um

the

uh

the part of it that i think took surprised everyone is watching it uh play out in a way where you're like okay is it gonna look more strive like is it gonna look more marvel-like or so dragon ballish it's kind of its own thing

But it's not

if you're looking for the feel that you got off of just like insane insane not so Marvel movement and and

left right character mix dirt like that that exists but hot tagging left and like like crazy with Marvel and Infinite and Marvel 3 and stuff not a thing right tagging is much no you're you're playing you're playing like

you're playing off-brand strive that has extra characters on it yeah um and I did see I felt

Some people were talking about feeling that the game was like kind of not sauceless, but it just didn't have enough like

mix going on with some of the characters and there and people were kind of you know giving it like some flack over that.

I feel that it's it's unjustified in the sense that it's like it's true that it's not crazy with the movement, but it's really early and we're gonna have to see how that shapes up because like for what I was watching and I was seeing like, okay, Captain America very basic character.

He's got that shield tech, but like for the most part, everything else is very vanilla.

So I'm like, all right, not much to him.

Pretty straightforward.

I don't expect to see a whole lot.

And then I saw a clip of Nerd Nerd Josh doing the most insane ping-pong shield shit in the corner up and down.

That was like, oh my God, that's crazy.

That's sick, right?

So I think before, you know, kind of

pushing it away, like

give it give it a chance to

work.

The combo system with the counter, a little more grand blue fantasy-esque is like, yeah, I do prefer, I do think it's a little more limiting, but

I bet this is also that thing where you see this version of the game, and then when it comes back around, there's going to be probably some massive changes to the gameplay.

There might be new meters that didn't exist, you know, and then a whole other new system or so

that comes into play, and then we get the final after that, I imagine.

One of the most surprising things, or not surprising things, but the way the progression of the game works is so different from everything else because every tag battle is about your team versus my team, and we slowly whittle it away until one person is standing.

And in this game, you start small and end big.

So it's the complete opposite momentum, you know?

It's really weird.

Yeah,

you don't get your four characters until the end of the match, you know, unless you're crushing it and doing really nuts and domination on the opponent, but they'll also die real quick, you know?

But you're gonna,

and a lot of people were not tagging at all.

They were sticking to their one character, just calling in assists, you know, so which is easy for people to learn, for sure.

But, you know, as the whole, like, the game is marketed as like, it's like this, the big 4v4 thing, but like 4v4 is your, like, payoff for

progressing to the end of the match of sorts.

And

you don't have

Yeah, you just don't have all the tools right away.

And then even then, tagging is, you have to wait till a specific opportune moment to switch to your opposite character, you know, or to switch to somebody else.

So you just don't get this seamless, like, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, in, out, in, out, left, right thing going with it.

They want it to be a lot more like toned down and 1v1-ish, you know?

So, in a weird way.

They might have made like a Marvel game specifically for me is what you're saying.

Yeah, well, in a weird way, for anyone who's listening to this who's been like, I don't understand how assists work and I'm intimidated by too many characters on the screen.

This has the most characters on the screen ever, but they're also actually like way more relaxed, the most ignorable because you can just stick with your main and not worry about it.

Um,

hey, I have a housekeeping question.

I just referred to Marvel as Marvel.

Are we referring to Marvel Tokan as Tokan?

Yes, Tokan's Tokan.

Okay, because otherwise, that's gonna get super fucking complicated.

It is, it is Tokan's Tokan.

That's that's gonna be the way to go about it.

Um,

and yeah, I think that

the idea that it was going to be like a Marvel replacement is like, well, it's Arxis, first off, right?

Like, they do things their own way.

Nothing they're making is going to have that particular feel to it.

And I don't think I would say it's like a Marvel replacement and that it's going to be a new game that has good net code that you can fucking play.

Yes.

And if all that matters to you is that you're using Doctor Doom and he's being cool, then

sick, right?

So here's the thing.

But if you're here for triangle jumps, then maybe not.

Here's the thing, and this goes into the 2xKO thing, right?

I think way more people care about being Dr.

Doom and him being cool than care about triangle.

I completely agree.

Like,

way more.

I completely agree.

And that's why watching this footage, I was like, oh, these two games serve a different purpose and exist in like

different spaces.

Even though from the walking in, you're like, tag fighter versus tag fighter.

Here we go.

The replacement.

It's here.

And it's like, not quite.

What is a sicko game for sicko freaks that has Marvel characters?

I would say 2xKO is more of the sicko game.

in terms of

how dirty and oppressive and not so it's going to get.

If anything, I think Tokan is the one that's more chill and it's a little more like

specific character-focused, you know?

Um,

the

kits you're seeing, and the way that the combo system kind of works is a little, it's more restrictive in Tokan.

It's more, it's a little more limited.

Uh, we'll see how it opens up, but for the most part, it feels like you're meant to get your bearings fairly quickly.

And once you get your bearings with a character, it seems like you can get them with the rest of them, right?

Everyone seems to be fairly similar, and then they have their trait that, you know, mixes things up or so, but they kind of want people to, you know, and I, and I guess the idea is to, like, if you pick your character and then you have the other three that you're not really wanting to use, if you do decide to mess around and switch over to Captain America or Iron Man, you're not going to be so lost with them.

You might be like, oh, yeah, okay, it's not too bad.

I can, I can wrap my head around this, you know?

It kind of seems to be splitting the difference between

DBZ

Strive

and like the traits are like just a little dash of blaze blue in there, just a little little sprinkle.

Grand Blue, you know, as well.

Oh, yeah, I'm not super familiar with Grand Blue.

You know, and with the

auto button, with the super button layout and stuff like that, you know.

But it is,

yeah, it's, it's, there basically is like, 2xKO is a bit more hardcore about it.

2xKO is definitely, you know, it's got all the FGC folks that are on that balancing team that have been working on it for a long time.

So it's coming out, you know, much more geared in that direction.

And like the Blitzcrank

tutorial video where they introduced Blitzcrank.

So they show you him,

they show you Blitzcrank, they show you the grapple and all the tech and whatever.

And then they go, okay, so

if you do the Lariat, he does like a bit of a run, or he does like his wind-up or whatever.

You can do a Kara cancel to get the first steps of the Lariat canceled into the command grab.

And

this is the first video introducing the grappler character to you.

And they show you a Kara command grab and refer to it as such.

Right?

It's for Sekos.

That's like,

this is their intentions laid bare, is they've made this one-button special game have the ability to do, you know, Carapot Busters.

I gotta say, 2XKO's like

expertise discussion is so weird.

We want everyone to get in.

That's why specials are one button.

Meanwhile, it's a tag game with Kara canceling.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think it's because essentially, again, that's a team where they're like,

the whole

lower the floor, raise the ceiling.

Like, we're sending it to space with this shit.

Yeah.

Here's a really good example.

Someone in the chat was like, I don't know what the fuck you guys are talking about with cara canceling.

Exactly, exactly, right?

They're using FGC lingo.

Sicko technology for sicko language.

The stuff that Stephen King sees on Twitter and his eyes bug out.

I don't know if you ever saw that one, but like Stephen King quote tweeted someone talking about Brian.

Someone was complaining about Brian in Tech N8, asking why a snake edge, like

saying that snake edge needs to be modified because it's a tracking mid that or not or like it's a tracking low and um and they wanted something on the the the and it's plus and not punishable and not launch punishable and like the and Stephen King was like this seems like the English language but I'm not sure like every time I look at it I think I can understand but then it keeps getting more deep and fascinating you know like yeah so anyway um they're baking it into the tutorial with with uh 2x ko whereas tokan is like dumbing it down and simplifying you know

I think there's there's room for all for all kinds on the bus, man.

There's room for all kinds of space here, you know?

And

I always remember, too, that there was that launch, there was that leak list that came out some time ago or whatever, where it were like Tokan got leaked

as a project.

And on that list was a proverbial Marvel 4 on that leak list that was specifically outlined to be not Tokan, you know?

So

I don't know if I believe that.

I don't know.

I think you'd need a whole lot of space, and I think Marvel themselves could always see the success of this project and be like, uh, we're doing this for money now, you know.

Um,

but at the very least, like the idea of an accessible Marvel character fighting game that has a bunch of characters everybody wants to see dropping in regularly

is that should exist, and I, and that's dope.

I think that, alongside 2xKO, are pretty, two,

two pretty solid things holding up the throne.

And

we'll see what happens with Invincible, but I kind of think that people don't care enough about Invincible for that to really take off too much, even though KI is great and Invincible is great, but they're not banner holders, I don't think, you know?

Yeah, I don't feel it.

Maybe, you know, as we've discussed, this is the Sicko Freak podcast for Sicko Freaks, but I don't know.

It's going to be like

Power Rangers, where I love that game, but it's only going to be as appealing as somebody who's down for, you know,

Virgil

quotes coming off of

Adam, you know, doing left-right mix-ups on you.

So,

um,

or rather the Quantum Ranger, excuse me.

Anyway, so that, that, that's what's going on there.

Uh,

before we leave these two, um, I want to talk about just one little tiny thing about Tokan and Tuix KO.

I'm not joking around when I say that my opinion has actually, like, I called it out, like, haha, Timo, Blitzkrank.

I'm so serious that every opinion I have has completely inverted on the screen.

Because now that...

No, hold on, hold on.

All right, all right.

Because now it contains characters I actually really like and want to play.

Okay.

Like, there was always going to be the possibility that, like, oh, they added characters, blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, ah, still.

But, like, and but that's what's also what's going on with DBFZ and Tokan is like,

yeah, I would like to play Star-Lord and Captain America.

That seems really cool.

I would like to play Iron Man and Ghost Rider and Doom.

So, like, absolutely, 100%.

So, you know, what's funny for me with Tokan is as awesome as it looks, I didn't see anyone that was like my particular main material.

Oh, they'll get there.

Yeah, but that's what I'm saying is, but the woolly character doesn't exist yet, right?

However, when I'm interested on the premise of what's going on, I'll find a way, right?

So, you know, Bikin wasn't around.

I'll play Sin.

I want to play this game, right?

I saw...

Star-Lord do

this guy's freaking out like there's someone at the door.

PRB?

So, yes, as somebody who's like, I will often fall in love with a character more than the game itself.

And if that character does not exist, then I can totally just fall for functions.

Right.

And

I saw Star-Lord do an EX rainstorm from the top of the screen.

Yeah.

And I was like, yeah.

Gunslinger.

Yeah, that's the one.

That's all it took.

I don't care about anything else you know kamala doing like like spencer zips was pretty cool but ex rainstorm all the way from the top to the bottom is the hottest shit and i'm i i'm gonna play that character no matter what great in there um

you know and and furthermore i'm almost just like when i started playing rivals i didn't know that i would particularly care about iliana or moon knight but here we are yeah i never in my life thought there'd be a game ever that i was like yeah mr fantastic let's get right what you know.

Um, and

on that note, actually, it's funny because, like, I feel like for all the Tokan guest picks, all you can just look over at rivals homework and like, just be like,

Yeah, we can put Blade in this game,

you know, yeah, who wants Ultron?

Sure, that works.

The Full Fantastic Four, uh-huh, why not?

Like, all

Fantastic Four as one character.

Oh my god,

of the four,

yes, okay, right, yep, mm-hmm.

Um, Um, yeah, you know, and you know, we already, whatever, we see the strange leaks and all that stuff, but uh, they can easily grab any one of those and just yank him in there.

Um,

but yeah, I'm leaning, I'm leaning towards Star Lord.

I think he looks pretty sick.

Also, when those Doctor Doom shot gun like like point-blank gun shot finishes, look sick too.

But uh, anyway, anyway, we'll see.

Um,

on it's What's unfortunate, I will say the one thing I didn't like cosmetically was that, like, maybe this will change, but it seems like the intros are like these really long.

It's not quite Blame the Beasts, but it's just like Tokan Fighters versus Tokan Warriors teams, and it doesn't seem to be like character lore focused.

It seems totally pointless.

Yeah, which is a bummer because the thing we care about and that you would love to see more of is like these characters having their their interactions with each other.

And one of the funnest parts of Marvel Rivals is the conversations and banter they have with each other before the round starts.

You know, the little interactions they get when they're talking shit to each other or cracking jokes and stuff.

And it's like fighting games are a perfect opportunity to do that.

Don't, don't, don't lose out on that chance, you know?

So, um, I hope we see more specifics with

the characters

coming out as lore more than just generic

Tokan teams.

All right.

What else is going on?

So, I know, again, you wanted uplifting stories.

All out of that.

But how about this?

You see any of that restricted mode YouTube shit going on?

I've seen it.

You know what's bad when red letter media makes a video about YouTube monetization,

the thing that they hate the fucking most that they never want to talk about is the content creation part of the gig.

Long story short on this one, YouTube is in the process of insidification, as you do.

I've often said to anybody who asks about the gig, about this type of job, that I'm like, yeah, you never know when these sites are going to shit their bed and completely fuck up

what works.

So just be always be cautious and careful of things exploding.

And yeah, sure enough, that has happened.

A bunch of people on videos are seeing a ton less views, and overall, people that are subscribed to channels are not seeing videos they subscribe to because an AI-detected restriction filter has turned on.

So people's accounts are not seeing stuff that the AI filter is deeming crass, essentially.

They're basically being put on baby jail timeout because the robot thinks they're baby.

And advertiser friendliness is, of course up to up paramount and especially in this fucking master card visa time um everyone's you know twisting up those panties so long story short go to your desktop browser go to your icon in your character on your profile and turn restricted mode off if you see it on because if it's on there's a decent chance that channels like ours that cuss and say bad words i've said a bad word once or twice might be hidden from you and you might not see what the fuck we're publishing because youtube ai said nah um this feels like the kind of thing that they'll have to roll back because people who don't see videos they like anymore don't watch those videos which means they aren't served ads

so like you know like yeah and i think they also don't care as much in the sense that they i know they did some bot cleansing or whatever so there is a general downturn on views and the what counts as a view has also changed some people figured out some stuff because the algorithm is always a mystery.

But all this to say in general that, yeah, that thing is a way that someone, a channel you're subscribed to might not show up.

Their videos might not show up if you have this stupid thing on.

Meanwhile, in the shorts side of YouTube, they're automatically putting on an AI filter that makes shit look like garbage and changes the color of the video.

I saw it on our bullshit.

Yeah, you can't avoid it.

It's automatically on.

It's fucking up my skin.

Something's fierce.

Well, it's so bad that like the Will Smith embarrassment tour is embarrassing enough on its own, but they're making it look like his crowds are AI-generated because a bunch of weird monster faces are showing up in the crowd.

But nope, it's actually real crowds that are just being AI-filtered into looking not real.

You know, so it's it's it's mandatory because, of course, that's how they roll everything out on this fucking platform.

So, good stuff, guys.

Just a heads up on that.

Turn that shit off.

Also, Will, yo,

stop.

Oh, if he knew how to stop.

Like, I'm not a music critic.

Oh,

if he knew how to stop, he would have stopped a long time ago.

But you don't get...

Oh, man, you need to find yourself a new ball

to cock you or whatever.

I don't know.

You do not get to the red table if you know how to stop.

That's not how you make it there.

Anyways, anyways.

Beyond that,

I got

a little bit of damage over here.

Were you a fan of Prey 2006?

No.

Oh, okay.

I was a fan of...

I, ironically enough, am a massive fan of Prey 2017, which has its own controversy over using the name Prey because of the fact that they fucking killed Prey 2 in the attempt to absorb Human Head, which led to Human Head's bankruptcy.

And now a large collection of Prey 2 footage has surfaced.

Apparently, it's awesome.

That doesn't sound convincing.

Well, I'm not going to watch.

Okay, I'm going to pull it up right now.

I took a look.

So, okay, here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

It's one of those things where I'm getting older and I'm getting to the point.

I'm like,

why watch thing to get Matt?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, no, no.

So, so this is, well, for the sub-a-thon, of course.

But you didn't subscribe to my channel to make me watch this.

So the thing is, this, right?

This is a weird situation because I've heard you say nothing but good things about Price 2017.

But yeah, except that game was supposed to be called Psychoshock.

And I am.

And that's it.

Like, there's no, you're not...

It's not like the name makes any sense and that anyone's defending the idea that they should have used the same name to erase this thing.

Clearly.

What I do remember is I have early trailer footage in my head of this game

teasing itself as a first-person shooter with horror stuff going on.

And then there's portals in it.

That's the first game.

That's what I'm talking about.

And then portal was also a thing.

And then I remember it's like, oh, but portal lets you put the portals anywhere.

And this one, portals were just set parts of the stage, I think.

That was the main distinction, yeah.

And it kind of just ate the lunch of that tech, even though it was a puzzle game and a different thing entirely.

It's not an action shooter at all.

In Portal, you can place them anywhere, but you're placing them inside featureless fucking gray rooms where

you had them like all sorts of complicated environments that was fucking right.

12 minus taurus.

It's not a fair comparison.

Yeah, yeah.

But it just, it was that first thing of like, oh, whoa, teleporting portals, that's cool.

And then immediately like, nah, fuck that shit.

Look at this, though.

Infinite looping and splingshotting yourself out and all that cool shit.

And it just kind of like got forgotten as the game that had the portals, but not as good to me anyway.

But

yeah, so there's more footage of that.

And, you know, it's long since gone and whatever.

And that name's been completely absorbed and taken.

So it's like double dead.

But

this footage existed.

So I'm assuming somewhere a dev on it got really pissed off and just went, nah, fuck this, it's been long enough.

Um,

okay, well, some folks definitely are like, yeah, extra mad now.

I think the part that is super fucked up is that, like, Prey 2, sorry, got massively, massively, massively, massively fucked over,

and that sucks.

But Prey 2017 is legitimately one of the best games I've ever played in my life.

So, like.

But it shouldn't even be part of the same conversation because, again, it should just be called Psychoshock or Neuroshock.

Which is a fantastic name.

This is really cool.

That's super cool.

There's a skill in the game called Psychoshock.

Like, it was very obviously going to be that.

No, no, we own the name Prey.

Use Prey.

What, like, the same?

It's not even going to be Prey 2?

Yeah, yeah, just use it again.

Okay, but now when you look up prey you're also getting fucking uh predator

because that movie is a thing and when you look up prey 2 they're like oh is it the sequel to the to that movie with the with the predator in it so it's fucking it's double it's so dumb it's so dumb

terrible what a bad idea

anyway um

and uh last little bit i just thought it was cool i saw uh octopath traveler zero got announced

and um

it

just they're de mobilizing that game it's a mobile game

it's their gotcha game that's why the

people you can

wait hold on hold on it's it the gimmick was like here's how many characters you can have from all sorts of different things including like final fantasy six

right um

but they they've like demobilized it and they're turning it into like a regular game for human beings.

Ah, okay, okay, okay.

Not, which is like, I could go for more of that, please.

So, yeah, not just ported, not just phone ported, de-gatchified.

I don't know if it's gacha, but demobilized.

Demobilized, okay.

I would pay upwards of $45

for Honkey Starrail regular game edition.

Um,

it would be great to enjoy games like this with all of that shit removed, but even the ones like when I played

that mecha game the other day or

the Mega Man game, it's like even when you try to clean it up, you're not really cleaning it up.

The guts are always there.

It's sucks.

Oh, yeah, that game fucked up that shit really bad.

That Mega Man fucking thing.

All right.

One detail about it, I saw that was, I was like, oh, it has a character creator.

That's a cool thing to do for like a sequel, but I guess it's, yeah, it's not quite a full-on sequel in that way.

All right.

Dude, I'm like passively scrolling the 2xKO subreddit.

This is like the most fascinating shit in the world.

I've never seen people, like, more people who don't play fighting games interacting and talking about fighting games in ways that like

it's like traveling back in time to like the 90s about the, like, oh, get rid of the fucking screen shake.

They're not going to remove the screen shake to make it de-gen, like Marvel.

What does that even mean?

Wait, how would removing the screen shake make it degen?

What are you talking about?

Like, it's, it's like SRK in like 99.

It's incredible.

Wait, people are complaining about the screen shake?

Sure are.

What's wrong with screen shake?

I don't fucking know, man.

I don't know.

I mean, okay, hold on.

Screenshake is in Street Fighter VI tells you when you're plus on block, right?

Yeah, and they're super mad about the delay on tagging and shit.

It's super fucking funny.

Remember, these are league players.

League players and fighting game players talking to each other.

So I saw,

there was a post.

that someone made

that was like a meme or whatever complaining about the the fact that there's um

so the way they phrase it is tokan beta comes out and there's no practice range and it's a meme of somebody getting upset or whatever.

Yeah, I saw that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, no, no, configurate.

Okay, I like, I want me a, you know, I want me a lab or whatever, but the funniest part is the first post underneath it was just somebody, like, with the screenshot of Inglorious Bastards with the dude counting to three, like this, and it says practice range.

I'm like, oh, you exposed yourself, you fool.

You called the training mode, you called the lab a practice range, did you?

Fellow fighting gamer?

Fellow fighting gamer?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

You counted without your thumb, idiot.

Oh man, what a great use of that fucking post.

Fantastic.

It's the shot of him looking at, he's got

the three fingers up and from across the bar, he's just like, hmm, I see.

That's how you count, huh?

I actually,

I look at 2xKO with like,

there's like an anthropological social perspective going on here of like forcing people who play League of Legends to interact with non-League of Legends human beings.

AKA human beings.

And that's just so fascinating it's just so interesting

i mean persona fans survived it

they

when arena and ultimax came out you know see i got confused for a second and i thought you were implying that persona fans survived contact with league of legends and my brain went no

they just died no no no no no they just died immediately no they need they need single-player games where you date people and feel comfortable they

You can't put that out there against.

You know who'd play league?

Yosuke.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

He's really comfortable using the type of language a league player would

use.

Would he be playing league or would he play Dota?

He'd play League.

He'd play League?

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

And probably some Daisy.

He'd play fucking Talon and fucking feed mid.

Tarkov.

And then and then fucking crash out.

Yosuke'd play some Tarkov.

And he'd and he'd do the, he'd do the, he'd do the lean.

No, no.

Yosuke would not play Tarkov.

Fucking

fucking Futaba would fucking play Tarkov.

Yeah, okay, fair.

Fine, fine, yeah, okay.

Nothing Tarkov.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If we're bringing Futaba into the mix, then sure.

All right, let's take some letters.

Hey, if you want to send send in, man, I just, that's such a good, like,

what games would fictional characters play?

It's like tickling my brain really specific.

If you want to send in a letter, send it to castlesuperbeastmail at gmail.com.

That's castlesuperbeastmail at gmail.com.

Oh, that's right, dude.

Fucking Shigaraki from Hero Academia is a league player.

That's canon.

Oh, sick.

Okay, okay.

Um, Dojima is a beast at Candy Crush.

That's funny.

My brain was gonna say Kanji plays cooking mama.

Someone said it.

I was thinking the same thing.

I literally was.

Yeah, there you go.

All right.

Um,

let's see over here.

What do we got?

Um

Heg Hegeland.

Hegeland asks,

Dear esteemed drag queens, racial tension and petty cake.

Hmm are those real?

Are those real people?

Let me see.

That's you and me now.

No, I know, but I'm wondering if these names were used.

No, I don't think so.

Racial tension and petty cake.

Why not just go with petty cake?

Petty?

I get all right, fine.

Anyway.

I think I feel like I gotta do the snaps, dude.

You gotta serve.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You gotta, you gotta, you know,

the line between.

I'd rather serve Kant than my country.

Thank you.

There you go.

Let's go.

Paris is burning or whatever.

You can't just go, Paris is burning or whatever, dude.

This is the most low effort shit ever.

The line between drag name and Derby name is extremely razor thin.

But I do appreciate.

I appreciate a good Derby name.

Anyways.

In my eighth grade classmates,

in my eighth grade, my classmates were all starting to get more money from paper delivery, bigger allowance, family businesses, and so on.

There was also a really nice bakery that sold Subway-style sandwiches with their own fresh-made bread.

Had a stamp card where if you bought 10, you got one free.

Coincidentally, this bakery was five minutes away by bike, and my school had weirdly long lunch breaks, like an hour.

So the hustle went like this: I'd stand up and say, oh man, I could really go for one of those sandwiches.

Anyone want me to pick one up?

And enough people said yes, and I ended up getting a lot of free sandwiches.

This is the fucking best.

And I would get all the stands.

You're trading your labor for unknown gain that is not harming anyone.

This is a plus hustle.

At peak, I got three free sandwiches in one week before the others caught on and it fell off.

But I must have gotten over 30 free sandwiches that delicious half year.

Hey, your friends and classmates are fucking idiots.

You're literally going out to get them for them.

You're providing them the fucking time

to not go get it.

I know.

You're not doing it for nothing.

Fuck them.

I know it's not the greatest, but I bought a lot more sandwiches than I got for free, but they were just that good.

How did I do?

Pristine,

distilled, pristine, pure, 101% hustle.

There is not an ounce of scam anywhere to be seen.

There is no difference in that between

the cashier asking you, hey, you don't have your optimum card.

Can I scam

the store card?

And they go, by the way, a lot of places think that's like criminal.

That's insane.

The person standing at the fucking register all day, yeah, use the fucking air miles.

I don't give a fuck.

Take my point.

The person who wants a service gets it.

Identical to what they have requested and an unseen benefit

that it reaped on the system and also they got convenience they got this what they requested plus brought to them true true right hey anyone want me to pick one up is actually like you're doing a labor you're going out to retrieve it for them you know you could you could stand on business and say that like that is my cut is getting the stamps and it is and of course the people at the shop know what's going on and they don't mind because you're bringing them business for 10 sandwiches constantly you're coming in going hey give me 12 sandwiches they're like, yes, sir.

Here you go.

Win, win, win, win.

You know, it's, there's no, this, this drives me so fucking crazy, Woolly.

This is like what's wrong with society.

People discover that someone is benefiting in a way that they are not personally benefiting, and they would rather stop benefiting at

than allow somebody else to get something.

Now, there's no villain directly in the story, but it does sound like after the people found out, they kind of stopped doing it because they're like, I guess you're getting that free sandwich, you know?

What the hell?

You're stealing my stamp.

I went and got it for you.

I'm not stealing shit.

I'm the one who bought it because I went down there myself.

I'm so mad for them.

They are so right about this.

Pure hustle.

I would be mad my whole life about people finding out and going, oh, I hate Tamil.

I would be mad forever.

I mean, you know, know, they seem to be taking the perspective of I ate good for a half year, you know.

So, yeah,

you got it while it lasted.

I just had a version of this.

I would charge

when I was when I was recreating unsolicited backups of PlayStation 1 games in high school

for personal use only.

I would charge $5 a disc.

And,

you know, know, FF9 and FF7 fucking crushed it.

Thanks, guys.

And at some point,

sometime, someone would go, hey,

that's, I just went to Staples and I found out that CDs don't cost $5 a disc.

And I went, yeah.

They're like, well, you're ripping me off.

I'm like, okay, go pay $65 instead of $20, idiot.

Like, what is your fucking problem?

Yep.

I lugged that 24 can of K6 soda, you know, to my locker.

That was my fucking labor.

Takes me all day to fucking print this thing out for you.

Can't use the computer at all.

Shout outs to the Dreamcast burners that actually printed out a label and

stuck it on the disc too.

That was so crazy.

It was so nice.

Like extra service, you know?

i remember i remember when the when the dreamcast piracy i hit there was a moment and it actually kind of backslid for ps2 piracy

like ps2 piracy had you had to use a slide tool and shit like that

but there was a moment with like dreamcast piracy that i'm like i think we might be flying fucking way too close to the sun on some of this shit this

a little fucking well it seems really easy to get really professional i mean yeah the dreamcast one like the the the downside was that it fucked with the lens, you know, like it didn't like that overextended period.

Luckily, the rest of the Dreamcast was extremely durable.

I mean,

it was really just the lens that would break.

Yeah, no, it was a fucking piece of shit.

No, that console sucked.

It was just the lens that would stop working.

The only reason why I got more than one all the time was just because of that one issue.

Yeah.

It was fine.

It's desperate to kill itself.

Desperate.

Yeah.

Anyway, good hustle.

Pristine.

Good stuff.

You know, yeah, that's one of the last good ones there.

Don't get a whole lot of hustles in life these days, you know?

All right.

Let's see.

I'm so mad on their behalf.

I'm so mad for them, dude.

Like,

they were so right.

They were so right.

right.

What was your last good hustle?

Um,

okay, well,

hey, so by the way, I'm running a sub-a-thon this month.

If you want to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

it all dress up in

wear a clown.

There you go, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

I resent you for forcing my hand on this.

I got

an outing the hustle status.

Ah, okay.

I got some Uber rides back in the day.

That was cool.

But yeah.

Let's take one.

Max or Hateful Dead says,

dear castle castle.

You sure did, Woolly.

You sure did get a lot of Uber rides.

Dear Castle Castle Castle, we recently got a new manager at my job, and she felt the need to give me a talking to about my lack of uniform.

She didn't like that I don't come into store wearing my work shirt, which I haven't done in two and a half-ish years that I've worked at the store.

I work graveyard shift

at a grocery store as a stalker.

The store is closed before the shift even starts.

So my uniform is on before the store opens at 6 a.m.

Last manager didn't care.

None of the coworkers had an issue as far as I know.

What is the dumbest thing you've gotten in trouble with or taken aside for at a previous job?

Oh, the worst thing I ever got in trouble with that was stupid as fuck was telling a customer the correct price of an item.

They were completely losing their fucking minds and screaming.

And my manager was like, hey, what's his problem?

I'm like, he wants the, I forget what it was.

It was like, let's say tomatoes.

He wants the tomatoes for like two bucks, but it's actually three bucks.

They're like, just give him the fucking thing for whatever he's asking.

I'm like, no, that's

no.

And then it became my fault that the customer was yelling and making a racket because

I told him the correct price.

And the fact that security had to be get

was my fault

because I wouldn't just capitulate.

And so the end of that story was my manager just went past me and went, yeah, here, here it is.

Just, just, just stop.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah, okay.

Now, like, you haven't detected.

This is why you just let people steal and don't give a shit.

Well, so this is why you have taught me to just let anyone steal and for me to go, I don't give a fuck.

I don't steal as much as you want.

I mean, you, like,

you can tell, I'm sure, when the person is walking in and the outrage is is planned in advance, right?

Like, when the.

Oh, yeah, you can tell.

Yeah, yeah.

This is the performance.

I am now

coughing and preparing to get into my role.

I'm at the grocery store so that I don't have to talk to my fucking horrible wife.

Who else can I yell at here?

Oh, cool.

It's me.

It's me.

I don't think I've ever.

I can't think of getting taken aside on something like this at work, but I do recall that

back at QA, they were not too fond of

me and my friends using wet naps as a term for all incompetence whenever something would come up.

I bet they wouldn't like that.

They didn't enjoy that.

That's really fucking funny.

That's really fucking funny.

Yeah.

The short version of the story was that

we used to get wet naps to wipe down our controller, station, kit, and hands and everything before we left for the day.

And everyone, of course, you're going to sit at a desk that someone else might be sitting at tomorrow.

So it's important to just clean your station.

Sweating all over it and shit.

Etc.

And it was a simple thing.

You'd get a couple of them by the end of the desk and they would just have them on

call available on a regular basis.

Eventually, when cutting down on costs and saving money, they eventually decided to get rid of wet naps, making

it impossible.

Nobody had the ability to clean their stations anymore.

And hey, guess what?

People got more sick, and we saw it.

People were literally getting more sick, and people would come into the office sick and get other people sick and spread that shit around.

And the cost of people not showing up would be reduced man hours on the project, which would ultimately cost more than the fucking

simple go down to the pharmacy and buy more wet wet naps.

Yeah, but look, I saved the money.

Look, I saved it.

I saved on it.

And just like that, right, one person being out for the day is the cost of all those wet naps that you saved money on

thrown out.

And every time they made a stupid decision that was completely backwards and financially made no sense and was the worst thing for them, made everyone's life worse over such a simple, simple thing that anyone competent could manage and handle,

I would just turn to my friend and say, Wet naps, dude.

Wet naps.

That's it.

Nice little litness test.

Dude, it sucks.

There's a lot of people listening to this that know exactly what I'm about to say.

It sucks when you're completely right about something.

Where you're just like, I don't want to be.

You're like, a hundred times out of a hundred dead on about something, suffering from success,

and everybody around you is like, nah, and you're like, okay, I'm just going to wait for the there, okay, there, it happened, it happened, just like I told you.

Now it's my fault.

I'm being negative.

Yeah.

I could have warned, I literally tried to stop you.

Just the demoralizing conversation that I have to have with friends that are working that are just like, it's like, no, no, no, the problem is that you care too much you're putting that's definitely the problem you're putting too much of yourself because you're a you're a good person who wants to do a good job and feel proud in what you're investing yourself into so you're putting too much of yourself into it and they don't want that they don't care about that it's just going to destroy you because they suck and they do not give a fuck about the fact that you're putting that in and the fact that it's it is mismanaged entirely

is it's not on you you need to put less of yourself into it you need to care less Like, it's just, it's not worth that stress.

You know, like every single person I've ever talked to in my life that starts a story.

So I was at work and I figured out a better way to do something.

And then I just go, oh, I know.

Oh, this story's going to suck.

Oh, my God.

Oh, they don't know it sucks right now, actually.

Because the story is just starting.

But over the next couple of days or weeks, this story is going to become dog shit and horrible.

And just

stop.

No.

Hey, unless you work for yourself, don't work hard.

And even then, no.

Yeah,

I...

We had to have whatever.

Okay, no.

QA shit just goes on forever.

Please make the tests dumber.

Please make them heart.

Please make them worse.

Please make the fucking lower the lower the bar and

higher worse, actually.

Anyways.

Can you just say that you tested all the bugs?

Can you just say that so that we can tell my boss that we did 10,000 hours of testing on this and then I can just put the check mark in and go on my vacation?

Can you just say that you did it?

So you joke, but it's literally like...

I'm not joking.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm doing a silly voice, but it's not a joke.

No, it's like you've estimated that this project needs you to look at these areas of the game and cover it in this way.

Can you go back and find some better numbers for me?

And basically what that means is can you go back and decide which areas of the game are not as important to test that you are just going to be like, yeah, we'll just take a risk and not bother checking here as hard.

And in the end, if anything goes wrong, of course it's still your ass because you decided which areas should be lighter on focus.

But eh.

We just don't have the bandwidth for it.

So, you know, make that decision accordingly.

And if anything goes wrong, it's your fault.

But yeah.

Hey, hey, Wooly, I have something to talk to you about the project, and it's really important.

Can we move

from email to a phone call?

This seems like something we should really talk over the phone.

Oh!

Just hash out all the details on a phone call.

Quicker.

Without a paper trail.

Much faster.

No paper trail.

No paper trail, you say.

Mm.

You know what's funny to me?

That is literally every job in the world.

Every single time someone's like, hey, you know what?

We should take this in a Discord call or a phone call or whatever.

And I go, no, email's fine.

I get to my emails very fast.

I'm going to tell you right now, unfortunately, you don't get the,

not every job gives you the ability to resist that.

I know.

I know.

Sometimes they're like, hey, come with me.

We're going to go in here and do this.

And in that situation, if that's happening to you, what I can say is at the end, go, okay, so can I get that all in writing just to confirm that we're on the same page here?

Right.

And at the very least, just go, yeah, yep, gotcha, everything.

Okay, just please write all this down and send me an email so I'll have it to remember, you know, for future sake.

And just always get that receipt.

Oh, sorry, dude.

I totally forgot.

I totally.

What were the details about that?

Oh, can you send that to me an email?

Yep.

Just need that, need that receipt if you don't mind.

Or, I mean, if you're ballsy, you just skip that process and go, I live in a one-party consent state.

So I'm just going to fucking.

yeah

um

good stuff corporate culture oh lots of fun always always love that

Can we get the cyberpunk corporate culture that has like cool arm cannons and and cars and and and sexy robot ladies instead of as a trade-off Walmart is installing lights that make you anxious.

Can we please get that cyberpunk feature instead of this one?

This cyberpunk dystopia just fucking sucks.

Yeah.

All right.

I'm just sad now.

I'm just upset.

All right.

That'll do.

Like, robot legs are my flying car.

Like, yeah, give me my fucking chrome body that I can.

Yeah, I'll pay whatever.

I don't give a shit.

Just give me the full robot.

Atmosmas or my humanity right the fuck off.

I don't give a shit.

So Cyberpunk at least gives you the trade-offs there.

Whereas, you know, like,

I haven't seen it, but I'm hearing that, like, Alien Earth is pretty good, and it's just the full on.

I have seen of something from Alien Earth that has made me way more interested

in anything alien

in like decades.

And it's an alien that's not the xenomorph that hates the xenomorph.

Interesting.

Okay.

I don't know anything about it, but I accept that like we're in that Wayland Utoni, Utani corporate dystopian future where the company runs the planet type of shit.

And it's like, yeah, you don't even get the cool implants.

You don't get the

fun sandy to, you know, while you're living in the hellhole, you just have a fucking Xeno chewing your ass out.

Like, okay, I can't get cool robot legs, but Jeep drivers can get an ad every time they stop the car.

This sucks.

Now, to be fair, about 40%

of the

side missions in Cyberpunk were me picking up a body that had a log on it with somebody that was asking to get something in writing.

Yeah, really?

The person who was going, like, yeah, can I get a ring?

Can I get that in writing afterwards?

It's like, oh, yeah, cool.

Hey, no problem.

You know?

And then just just in the middle of a junkyard somewhere wearing a perfect suit.

So, anyways.

All right, folks.

That'll do.

Have a good one, everybody.

Bye-bye.