CSB343: The Olds Gaslit Us Into Early Rise Culture

Yo.

Hello.

How are you today?

All right.

So

I guess my question is, who chooses which clown?

Is it your choice of

Paige?

It's Paige.

Paige clowns.

Okay.

Paige is doing the clown.

So, like, she chooses the clown.

Okay.

Okay.

Because

you mentioned

that we're looking at the face paint on Pat this week is art.

Art from Terrifier.

Could

skate right over into Juggalo territory, you know?

No, man.

But it.

You say that every week.

Every week.

I'm like, no, Juggalo stuff is hyper-specific.

But the black and white of it, it's not angular.

It's got a lot of rounded edges.

Yeah, yeah.

juggalos go more angular they definitely do they definitely do but but the the the high contrast black and white simplicity of it gets it doesn't work

until i until i do a creepy smile and then

and then it then it then it kicks then it absolutely like falls right in i mean you just i i you stick a bottle of faygo in your hand and i think any clown makeup becomes juggalo makeup really you know like anyway that's funny

you every week you are exposing your lack of knowledge and care for the dark carnival.

I will have you every single week.

I know a good bit about Famile,

but I also know that you're a white boy in clown makeup.

What am I supposed to do with that?

Like, it is what it is, you know?

Yeah.

That being said,

once again, the yeah, no, I, I,

commend a commendable job to uh to Paige for the

detail

being put in there.

I can see some of the

gap in between the,

whatchamacallit,

the

chops

is filling in a little bit.

A little bit.

It's getting strategic.

She was trying to figure out a way to do it around the chops, and then she was like, fuck it.

I'm just going paint right over the chops.

Paint right over them.

Fair enough.

How's it going?

How it's going?

It's all right.

Yeah.

It's that good cold weather.

So I got this dog in the bag again.

Because if it's hot weather, if I hold him in the bag,

he gets too hot.

I get sweaty.

But now that it's cold and I turn the heat off in here, I got my little goblin in my bag now.

Yeah, it's that deceptive, like...

It's that deceptive weather of like we went outside with the kid and like

overwarm dressed her, and then it was like, oh, it's actually quite nicer than this.

And yeah, I did that a million times.

Like, oh, I better, better really bundle them up because it's cold.

Get home, sweaty baby.

Nah, nah.

Yeah.

Again, though, the whole, the whole, the, the, the whole temperature thing is, is quite surprising to discover that it's like, actually, they, they chill in the cold a lot easier than they do in the heat.

Oh, dude, last night,

like, the dude was like, Paige was like, oh, he's cold.

So she put like a blanket on him, and he went, he would wake up and go, No,

no blame.

And she, that happened like over and over.

And it's like, okay, man, no blank.

Jesus, Jesus, okay.

Of all the things that

create like a discrepancy between the older generations

and I feel like us is one of the big ones is

older generations, baby, blanket, warm, go, right?

And it feels like everyone dealt with just really cold babies all the time.

And that was a huge warning or huge dangerous thing.

But now when you look everything up, everything says, yeah, keep the baby between 20, you know, 20, 21 degrees Celsius is totally fine.

And, you know,

you can watch them handle like colder temperature a lot better than they can handle like the

increase towards heat will make them more uncomfortable and they'll start crying out of nowhere way faster, you know?

Yeah, because they're, because they're regular people.

Because the increase towards heat makes me start crying faster than the increase towards cold right

um

so yeah that's that's that's always something to figure out i'm just a baby that got bigger and so are you there you go that's the name of the segment

we talked about exactly that yesterday on uh men's birthday stream um

there are there are

adults and you look congratulations on starting uh phone streaming

Yes.

Yes.

That is I didn't have the guts to do that myself.

So I think it's really cool that you went ahead and just went for it.

Turns out that's a thing.

Yeah.

On the back end,

when you create a scheduled stream, it tells you which

service is like, oh, which connect what it's connected to.

So when you preload it, anyway, whatever.

Long story short, if you make it on your phone, it has to be on your phone.

If you make it on your desktop, then it has to be on your desktop.

Like, in hindsight that actually makes perfect sense right uh well the problem is

on there's another back end to it where you're looking at scheduled streams and it seems and like when you connect with obs it can show you every upcoming scheduled stream yeah and then you go to click on them and they don't work and so you i just immediately i immediately gave up on that right away so it would make it would make more sense is is if you could what would make more sense is if you could schedule something and then use it you know but

yeah, there's there's specifics to this that

we're figuring out here.

Either way, all good.

It is kind of interesting, though, in

I noticed how like pretty much every social media app, when you click the live button, they want you like to have as little as possible time to prepare before you go live on your phone.

I have accidentally hit the live button on my TikTok when I'm thumbing through.

It's like, it's a single button press from, do you want to show everyone your balls and the inside of your house and the front of your house?

Like, no, no.

Snapchat, Instagram, fucking TikTok, YouTube, every one of these things.

And like anything that added it later, I'm sure Facebook has

now as well.

It's like you click the camera button and it immediately pulls the camera up and you have one more swipe and you're on your hot hot

setup so that when I hit the start streaming button, it goes, are you sure you want to start streaming?

It's so stupid.

It's so stupid and dangerous, but it's like, I'm sure there's a metric someone got somewhere that it's like, if we show people and force them to be this close to doing it already, they don't back down and it encourages more content.

But yes, you just immediately start doxing yourself right away.

In fact, I think I saw which platform?

It might have been, it might have been like TikToks where it was like, if you want to do like a practice thing to just make sure your camera's okay or to figure out how the screen filter or whatever works, you have like 20 seconds and then it goes, okay, now we're going live.

Is that okay?

And like you have to keep saying, no, keep me offline while I figure out how to use it.

That's just great.

And there's a countdown timer saying, all right, all right, you've labbed enough.

Now go, go, go.

You know?

Like, hurry up.

Get the data out there.

Let us get the info.

We're trying to dox you.

What are you taking so long for?

Fuck off.

I hate it.

It's awful.

Everything's awful.

I don't like it either.

I didn't have much of a week beyond, yeah,

just sat around, did that little chill stream and chatted with everybody.

And,

you know, we all creep further towards our inevitable tombstone, but

some of us creep a little further than others, you know?

And

Min's always been way older than us.

Oh, okay.

I thought you were going to tell me you're like dead.

Oh, yeah.

This is from I'm from Beyond the Grave and podcasting.

Oh, yeah, no, Minzold.

Minzold, yeah, but

you know, keeping it sharp.

Came dressed in his,

you know, sharp sweater and tie and everything,

which actually just contributes to the age, actually.

Yeah.

But, you know, good times.

And

yeah, I just jumped on, did a little bit of local

chained together, which

I had always been curious, you know, and I remember like, yeah, that came up.

We talked about it here.

Oh, yeah, that one.

Oh, yeah.

Now, the funny thing about that is it's clearly meant for shenanigans, online foibles, and stream nonsense.

Oh, that is, that is an actual friend slop.

It's, yeah.

And like, you can, there's so little, there's nothing, there's no content outside of climb the objects and go, You know, it's, it's like Bennett Foddy had the

little

snippets of him giving you advice or whatever that you had to deal with.

And here it's like, there's a voice talking and the little devil that appears, but it's, it's nothing.

It's absolutely nothing.

It's just, but it is fun.

It is, it's just yelling at your friends.

What sucks is, is that it feels like it was, I don't know if the original, if the, if, if it's this way online, but locally, it is, it's got a couch split screen, and it seems to not really give a fuck about the fact that it has that feature, nor have it optimized in any way, shape, or form.

Consistent crashes beating the first level.

Consistent.

Reproduced.

That's weird.

Reproduced crash like four or five times on stream beating the first level.

If you all, if all three cameras are looking up while you climb that first ladder

to the next loading zone, the game crashes 100% of the time.

That's crazy.

Me and Paige played it for hours, had no issues.

If you don't look up,

if you both look straight ahead and it doesn't have to load the sky, then it doesn't crash.

And I see.

Well, then just don't do that.

Well, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And then I switched over to DirectX mode as well to see if that helped.

And the performance got better, but it still reproduced the crash as well.

Can I ask you, I don't know if this is a rude question, but I've been wondering this for a while because you, you are a talented QA/slash tester slash bugman, right?

Have you ever considered

playing a video game like a normal person would and then it would not fly to pieces?

Yep.

No, my mistake was playing the game that wants you to climb and tilting the camera up so I could see the threats that were coming.

How insanely abnormal of me.

You know?

And then the other people gotta admit, actually, that like it's a long-standing thing that players don't look up.

So yeah, actually, that is kind of out of the order.

It's just like for a game that's also so simple, because it's just objects loaded in, and they're the most low, like asset-flippy, unreal store-ass objects dropped into place.

The characters are like nothing, nothing about this game is trying very hard.

It's super basic.

It's got the chain physics going.

And you can see that the game needs to be simple because chain physics can get complicated and the calculations can be dense.

But it also has no collision on like 90% of the objects you walk by, you know.

Every once in a while it does, and that's really cool.

But if you walk between a pole,

the chain doesn't pull, you know?

And

so we're like, oh, so it's keeping itself light on the resources that it would need if you had to like actually twist a chain around the pole because that is when the calculations get expensive and processing power shoots the way the fuck up.

So no wonder this thing looks like dog shit, you know?

But

it was, yeah, it's friend slop, but like I can still

expect too much of the friendslop.

No, no, no, no, no.

I have a critique that I think I can levy legitimately, which is

when it comes to like the traversal and stuff like that, like it is definitely like, okay, everybody, don't fuck each other up.

Let's work together to solve to make it through.

But the kind of puzzles that I would want more of, the first one happens

when you get to the pole.

You get outside of the

second swimming area in hell, and you get to a pole where...

The solution is you both have to drop off and skate and like slide down on your chain on even sides and let the physics drag you down.

And that's the first thing in the game that uses the chain as a solution to a puzzle, which I thought was awesome.

And everything else before that was just platforming with

being tethered.

And I was kind of like, oh, this game should do more with the chain as the solution or as part of what's going on, you know?

I imagine.

Well, maybe it does.

I don't know.

I certainly didn't beat it.

Yeah.

I'd have to go, we'd have to go further to see.

But like, I would I feel as if um this is a game that you know if it were being made by um

uh shit uh fat Sha, I forgot the company name.

Oh, the the it takes two split fiction gang, yes, that remember the name of the company.

Okay, well, there we go.

Them, if it were made by them, if it were made, you know, by

I don't know, Nintendo or even like um

the the Astrobot folks or so, Haze Light is the game.

Hazelite.

You'd be seeing a feature where it's like they introduced this kind of co-op thing and then the chain would become a big part of the gameplay.

Willie, this game costs $5.

Yeah.

They had puzzles in there that did it.

I just thought they should do more of that.

Like when you're placing the objects and you're choosing how to solve the puzzles and climb, the fun ones are the ones that like use the mechanics of the game.

That's all.

It's a very simple observation.

there's always there's a bunch that are kind of like precision jumps and i i feel like you walked into a gas station and picked up a snickers bar and you're critiquing it like it's not like a dessert from your local restaurant

I mean,

it's just trash to put in your mouth to go.

I know, but then we talk about vampire survivors and how sick it is to go through this basic thing and then how it turns out to be awesome.

And I just vampire survivors is a fucking different beast.

For less money than this one.

You know?

Yeah.

Vampire Survivors is primo slop.

Yeah, you know.

Is it truly demanding to just go like, hey, that puzzle that used the chain, you do more of that?

That was a good thing.

I was going to go to a Nintendo game is the moment that I was like, I think he's lost his mind.

Okay, well, the point of bringing that up is just to give an example of like, hey, if you have two characters attached with a chain between them, like, I feel like if a different company took a stab at it, you would see these types of like, oh, we're working together to do a bunch of things.

And you'd see more of what I'm talking about.

It doesn't have to go as far as being that polished.

It doesn't have to be that intense or in-depth or even entertaining, but it should be like...

a little more about the chain and a little less about like it's a single player thing and then occasionally i think i think the use of the word should here is carrying a lot of weight

man i don't know what to say you know it's it sure it sure was slop, but

I feel like the slop term on like it has different angles to this because sometimes slop.

Oh, yeah, you can slop a hundred different ways.

So sometimes, sometimes the slop is, is derogatory and sometimes it's complimentary.

You know, dude, sometimes, sometimes you just want a big old pile of spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, and just throw a bunch of cheese on it and mash it into a fucking taste.

Like a fucking taste, like unrecognizable as food and put it in a bucket.

right?

But that's, you know, I'm not going to sit here and be like, that was gourmet.

It's slom.

You know what I'm saying?

I would say that, like, vampire survivors and ballatro are like slop in the oh, that's, I, you can't bring ballatro into this in a complimentary way.

No, no, that's not fair at all.

No way.

It's just you're insane.

It's just, it's, it's, to me, that's addiction slop.

It's like just you're, you're complete, you are insane.

You are, you, you're, wait, what, okay, we're gonna.

I don't, I don't know, I don't know what, what, what does slop mean to you?

What is it supposed to mean?

What is it supposed to mean?

What is the usage of the term supposed to be?

Slop to me, well, it came from AI slop, like that was its original term in this, but slop to me means quickly made,

sometimes poorly made around an idea for cheap.

Like literally, like, like somebody in the chat said the term friend gruel earlier, which I think is also kind of perfect.

But like Bellatro is like an exquisitely designed, like super detailed, bespoke, like custom thing.

When we're talking about like slop like Chain Together, like we're talking store-bought assets, low efforts.

And I think that Chain Together actually like made like a pretty interesting thing out of its slop origins.

Okay.

And I think it's like worth its $5, but like, like vampire survivors is all custom shit, right?

Yeah.

For example.

Okay.

No, I'll take that.

That's probably that's a better definition than what I was thinking.

I don't know.

I kind of just looked at it as

a vague word for like

simple, like basic.

It's just trying to do one thing and it's not really trying to do much else.

But even if it's doing it in a very like effective way, it's kind of like, yeah, you know what this is.

It's, it's, it, oh, that little thing where we're like, oh, you, you flip the, you flip the cards around, and then it triggers that little, like, ooh, reflex in you.

I was like, yeah, it's, it's, that's kind of how

I was using it in my brain.

Like in my mind, sloppy.

Sure, I'll take this out.

Did they cook here or did they just heat it up?

Did they just warm it up?

Yeah, if the, if the whole point is that it's like, it's low effort, then sure,

then I was not using it in that way.

I was just using it as a thing for like,

I get

simple, but what's the, what's more so the word?

Like, not particularly like, not particularly elaborate.

It's just like, it's doing one thing.

It's one very basic thing, right?

The fact that Vampire Survivors is a bunch of like old-looking sprites and has barely any input to it, but then it turns out to be this like...

That's the best part.

Yeah.

So, but that, but you know what I mean?

It's like deceptively simple, but you kind of just, you buy in on the basis of the idea that it's just like, you're not doing much here.

It's not asking much of you, right?

So if that's, that's kind of, I guess that, that, that's what the feeling is, is to me, I was like, it's not asking much of you.

You just sit back and go, uh, right?

And like, the effort of the thing was less about,

that was less definitional to like

the term slop to me, as opposed to me sitting there with my gut and a mouse just doing this.

That to me was like, yeah, that's a slop kind of feeling.

This is this, this is the gesture.

To you, slop is on the other side of the screen.

Slop is on the the other side

I'm slopping

I'm sitting here slopping you know, that's the feeling I got from it, you know Okay, so I need to stop us right now.

I know some people that like

fucking hate the term slop so much.

I know I know because it's the over

I fucking love the term slop.

It's really great so fun to say and also useful.

Yeah.

So I think I think if it's look whenever it's something that's like you're just your brain is just veging out and it's and it's just a simple thing i kind of was just like that so so all this to say then um

yeah um i think you can do low effort asset flip fucking stuff and slap it together um

but you could slap it together in ways that i guess is is a little like a little more interesting Do you remember there was like an entire YouTube genre that predates the phrase slop that was other YouTubers that were not us playing all those weird hacked together multiplayer games on Gmod that we didn't understand?

Oh, yeah, where you see a HUD that looks like everything's happening at the same time.

Like that was like an entire like five to ten slop era.

And then that has been superseded by your phasmophobias and your lethal companies and whatnot.

That being said, I think Phasmo and Lethal Company and and probably Abiotic Factor, but I haven't seen as much of it.

And that and Valheim and all that shit is like orders of magnitude more interesting and better put together than fucking Trouble and Terrorist Town.

And by using the name itself, I have now painted a big-ass bullseye on my clown face as people are now going to flood, dude.

I loved Trouble and Terrorist Town.

I was five.

Right.

Ah, there it is.

Yeah, it's kind of like

this kind of reminds me of when you talk about like Friday Night Funkin'.

And it's like, there is a, there's a, there's a loyal, religious following to that game that's quite simple.

It's like, yeah, I was young and it's the first time I ever played a rhythm game.

It's my, that's your DDR.

I think

that there's like a genuine, like,

like euphoric joy

in both finding out that that thing you were crazy about sucked because

sometimes when you go back to a thing you were obsessed with as a child and you go back to it as like almost a 40-year-old man and you're like, nope, it was great.

I was right.

Just as good as it was in the 90s.

Holy shit.

This album or movie or game or whatever is incredible.

Yep.

I had amazing taste.

I'm currently experiencing that

right now as

I have been revisiting the Boondocks, the old show.

And it's like...

I was definitely walking, I was walking into that going like, oh man, how's this going to go?

And I was like, oh, shit, no, wait, this is really funny.

Like,

this was formative shit.

Definitely a bunch of it that's like, yep, that didn't age well, but it is, it is, uh, uh, mostly still hilarious, you know, for all the memories.

Um,

but uh, uh, all this to say, and yes, we, we, we don't talk about the last season.

Um, oh, I don't know anything about it.

There was a season four that didn't involve Aaron Magruder.

Oh, well, fuck that.

And that was that.

Fuck that shit.

Yeah.

Um,

but uh, uh, uh, um, yeah, and you know, there's, there's, there's, there's all kinds of bits there, too, where you're just like,

hey, how homophobic can black culture be like

way back in the day, up to current?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, oh, you, oh, me, way back in the day.

Way back in the day.

As opposed to today, though.

As opposed to right today?

Let's take a little trip down memory lane, shall we?

Woo!

Yep.

All right.

Well, I didn't even have to call my uncle on that one, you know?

Like, I could just, just watch it, watch it right in front of your eyes you know so like that you're like yeah that's there that's been there that's not that's not gonna be uh uh uh

that's not gonna feel any different um

but nonetheless uh yeah going back to some of that old and and and being validated yeah sure it is nice but all this to say um that uh i think what the the word that I saw pop up there, which feels like descriptive, is streamer bait.

Streamer bait is incredibly distract descriptive yeah stuff that is like this is great for not because of the what the game is but because it's you in the corner screaming getting mad at what's happening on screen and yeah

and i i would like to to before we even talk about that i think there's a bunch of streamerbait games that are like excellent

like they're not my thing but like my discord pals have had like a blast for years playing uh phasmophobia yeah i think i think i think phasmophobia is a really well

um i but like it's also like perfectly engineered for you on camera to shit your pants and go ah you know and whatnot but those are great examples because phasmophobia is also like um

it's it's very it's very basic i i don't i didn't i didn't do all of it so but i it feels like not the highest effort, like low to mid effort,

right?

So if I'm comparing it to like kind of like with chant together and stuff like that you're seeing this i think like uh among us is a really fun concept for a game that's really great for that type of thing well that's how you pronounce it okay interesting yeah i think um i haven't said among us in like multiple years

um i think one of my favorites was keep talking and no one explodes you know just because these are all games that involve really fun things that require you to like leave the game you know and oh we should play peak um

peak is the new the new streamer bait friend slop of the of the year, but it's uh it's excellent.

Wait, the title of the game is peak?

The title of the game is peak.

It's it's a rogue like where you climb a mountain with your friends.

Okay, okay.

It's they literally call it peak.

It is of very significant higher build quality

than the chains together you you were describing.

Gotcha.

Okay.

I'm throwing my hat in the ring.

Hey, we should play peak.

It's that kind of game.

Okay.

Yeah, so that's that's that's uh um

where was I even going?

I lost my train of thought.

Streamer bait.

You're talking about streamer bait.

Streamer bait.

Yeah.

Larger over arcane category for a bunch of this stuff.

And

the the whatever the streamer bait thing is, the

the the

um

la

I was I was trying to say sorry, my my fucking brain is off.

I was just trying to talk about the uniqueness of whatever the thing is in those games I mentioned where you're disarming the bomb or doing this or that or whatever.

The faster you identify that and lean into it and do cool things with that, I think the more successful.

And I think ultimately the better the game.

No matter what the budget is, no matter how fucking basic bitch over the weekend it was made in.

At a

game jam ass quality game.

It doesn't matter.

It could be fucking solid, you know?

I feel like

the key is to implement some kind of push to force people to interact in a really, really specific way.

So when I think about Lethal Company and I think about how it's got like very discrete goals,

right?

But like Lethal Company is like Pierce de Résistance, like its absolute incredible aspect that made it a clip farm is

the way that your proximity voice chat

fades away and echoes in the distance

is hilarious by itself.

A million percent, right?

Proxy voice chat is the whole star of that game.

And, like, the specifics of the quality and like the distance and the echo and then the cutoff when somebody gets killed.

Like, it's hilarious.

Um,

and uh,

yeah, and

I guess the um

the stuff

also does that.

Oh, okay.

Oh, does it?

Okay, interesting.

Um,

but yeah, no, I, I, I, there's, I kind of had that feeling so while playing this, you know, and then the other feeling I had, which was just watching it crash all the time, was just like, yeah, I was like, oh, man, I, I just, I feel so sad that like the couch is an afterthought, you know?

I never expected the couch, the co-op couch game or

co-op couch mode to be

the priority ever again.

Times have changed and the genres have changed, and people are now growing up playing different things and playing most of the games that they're playing.

They're playing with a screen and table and mouse right in front of them.

So that has just gone, you know, by the way, the past.

But you just kind of want it to be like an offering as opposed to just like the most bare bones afterthought.

You know,

Min was always like the the biggest advocate for that.

That was always like anytime a couch game, a couch co-op game popped up, he'd be like, yo, check this out.

This is, this is, this exists or that exists.

And it kind of felt like people had to like fight for their releases.

And like, you know, if you were still into playing games like that, cool, every once in a while, something would arise and kind of re-spark it a little bit, but it's, it's super dying.

And

well, the loss of couch co-op, I think, like, if you wanted to point to like a single thing, I don't think it's even online play.

I think online play is like a, like a, like a secondary symptom of like the death of couch co-op.

Like the number one reason I think couch co-op is dead or is almost dead is that people aren't having as large families anymore.

The number one place for couch co-op is with your siblings.

I mean,

is I also think though that people just get used to a certain thing, right?

So like if people playing games means, well, this game is me logging into my account and I'm staring at a screen where I'm going to go online and then I could jump on discord and this is what video games are to me then people over a generation just kind of copy that trend no matter what the genre is and then now you run into the problem where you're like hey we should play a game like 2xko off the couch and log in together because duos right and it's like no

that is the because each person needs an account and then you

would point at even one thing in 2xko that i think needs to change the fastest it is insane you can all play duos from the same scene.

But that's that's what I'm getting at, right?

And same thing for just like a lot of these games where it's like, oh, we can do this, but you know, the split screen thing, it's like, no, you have to log into your own account from your own computer.

Split screen is like just legitimately harder.

It takes work and yes.

And admittedly, the more sophisticated the game and the more that's going on with it, the worse that's going to perform, the harder it's going to be on your system.

Chained together.

Right.

Or like a Helldiver style game, you know, or so, where it would be, if that were released back in the day, like that'd be a, for like granted that it would be a, you know, split screen type of game.

But yeah, I just,

I understand the difficulties.

It's like, one, there's the performance, right?

Two, there's the account system, you know, and then if you have like people going online and they're sharing an account and multiple people are on the controller, what's allowed and not allowed?

And, you know, you're getting into this whole thing where it's like, it's just simpler to do what we've always done, which is one person, one game, one controller, et cetera.

I mean, I'll even say that when it comes to testing and QA, the moment a game is multiplayer, it multiplies the complexity of testing quite a bit.

It increases the cost.

It does a whole lot more.

If you're playing on console, testing multiple controllers connecting and which takes over where and so on and so forth.

There's a whole lot to it, you know?

But I miss it.

I think it was cool.

And I wish more games were willing to just be like, yeah, fuck it.

You just go on with you and a ghost account of you, which is a friend next to you, and just prioritizing the idea that, like, sometimes you're going to have people in the same room that can play together online.

That'd be fun.

You know, Nintendo games,

Nintendo games having like, um, um,

uh, uh, what was it?

It was Mario Kart, right?

Where it's like, okay, cool.

Yeah, we were able to do that.

Like, that's great.

That's great.

Um, I feel like they're, they're committed to that idea, but I want

more of this from, I guess, just random multiplayer releases for things that are not that complex.

You know, you know what I would like?

This is a feature that I'm I have never heard anyone but me ever to having described using this feature in my entire life.

I think I'm the only person who has ever brought this up to me, like in my vicinity, right?

Um, you know what I thought was fucking awesome when you played a turn-based JRPG, but you could play uh with multiple controllers and set different characters to different players.

I think being able to pick to play two-player Final Fantasy VI was awesome.

Even if it was extremely limited, it fucking ruled.

I thought that was the coolest thing.

And then I played it in Symphonia and I had a really bad experience with multiplayer Symphonia.

Tails ruins things again.

Thanks, Tails.

I wanted, I really wanted that mode to rule.

And it didn't even, it was such an, it wasn't like, okay, so Devil May Cry 3, second controller plug-in, a plug-in is like, it's the most afterthought afterthought.

It sure is.

It probably, it was almost illegal by their guideline standards, but they let it happen, right?

I bet you people making the game didn't even know that that was a feature at some point.

I bet you some of the team didn't know that shipped.

It's crazy.

But Symphonia,

the main problem was that

they made you able to control another party member, but the camera gave no shits.

Yeah, no, lock a camera.

And the camera would, and if you're a second player, you would just run off camera constantly and you had to fight your way back onto where the main player was.

And then it felt almost unplayable.

Like, it's, I was like, I want this to be good.

I, I want to believe, but it wasn't fun.

It sucked.

And it got, I was really salty about that.

Like metaphor and persona.

Yeah, no, that shit's locked.

Let player two control the fucking other character.

Like, fuck it.

Can't hurt.

Why not?

Well, I mean, it would take more work, but like, I think it would be cool.

Yeah.

Or, you know, and even little, little, those little afterthought versus modes, you know?

I always talked about, like, having a little specialty collection of those because Zone of the Enders, afterthought versus mode, I appreciate it, right?

Unintentional, unintentional versus modes.

I mean, there was a Fisticuffs or two I did like that for fun, because Mega Man 7 had a versus mode for no reason.

Just because

for no reason, exactly.

I had like 50 characters, like really, really no reason.

We did a fisticuffs on that too, you know?

Like, yeah, I love that shit.

I think that's dope as hell.

And

doesn't feel like that happens too often anymore.

You know, like, yeah, you know what?

This is a single-player game we're selling you, but fuck it.

You might have a friend that comes over one day.

Go for it.

Plug in a second controller, see what happens, you know?

That was nice, I did appreciate that.

Metroid Prime 2 multiplayer,

yeah, no one asked for it, but there it was.

Why did no one ask for it?

It had its problems, you know.

Um,

but that was one of the

luckily was attached to like the best Metroid Prime game, so like

who cares if it's bad?

Yeah, you know, debatable, but that was that was one of our early hangouts, was uh, it was Prime 2 multiplayer.

Um,

and i feel like that also was an era when like multiplayer was getting forced into things that didn't even need it but that was more like bioshock multiplayer right or last of us multiplayer whereas like that that had its purpose as an anti-used games uh thing keep keep finding a reason to to to to pop this in after the story mode's done go way off on a tangent here the last of us multiplayer was like a million times better than it should have been.

Like, The Last of Us multiplayer was just as good as The Last of Us single player.

It was absolutely fucking incredible.

And then they didn't include it in the remaster because they didn't want it to compete with The Last of Us 2 multiplayer that they were planning.

And then their live service shit fucked up and then they canceled that.

So now there's no fucking way to play fucking Last of Us multiplayer, which sucks.

It's legit like the most fun thing naughty dog ever fucking made

um i yeah i never even i never tried it you know but it's fucking great and i'm reminded of the metal gear multiplayer modes that like came and went as these extras too that are very disposable with every one of those uh metal gear releases um spent a big chunk of time doing QA on Tomb Raider reboot multiplayer

which i don't know how many of you remembered that that game had a multiplayer mode.

I remember that.

It did, you know.

I mainly remember that because I was like, what the fuck?

There was a multiplayer?

And you went, yeah.

You know, it was a, yeah, this weird era of like, you got to stick one in there whether it needs it or not, you know?

Anyway, anyway.

That you can feel how disposable it is when they do exactly what you just described and like completely remove it from each other.

The Mass Effect 3 multiplayer was like accidentally incredible, and then they never included it.

Oh my God, I forgot that one had it too.

Holy shit.

Yes.

And a bunch of those missions in the single player were just multiplayer.

And I was like, what is with these missions?

Why are they so weird

compared to the rest of the single player?

Oh, fuck.

Yeah.

Because, like, that multiplayer wasn't perfect, but it did pay out on the one thing that I think is Mass Effect's X's biggest weakness?

Was like, hey, can I play as a fucking Krogan or Turian or Solarian or Asari, please?

Can I play as anybody that's not Commander Shepard?

Is that possible?

Yeah,

anyways.

I'll tell you what, I don't miss.

I do not miss the Dead Space 2 multiplayer.

That thing was a pile of shit.

Oh, I guess I'll find out eventually.

You know,

no, you won't.

Wait, was three the one that had a multiplayer like story?

Yes, yeah, okay, okay.

The Dead Space multiplayer is dead and gone, like it is, it no longer exists.

Oh, like you don't even get to fucking

server it or some shit.

No, that shit's done,

gone

anyway.

Anyway, long live the couch, you know?

Assassin's Creed multiplayer.

Oh, God.

I did.

I did play some of that.

Yeah, we all got really into it.

And it came out with Brotherhood.

And the Brotherhood multiplayer was excellent.

It was like, I spent more time playing the game, the Brotherhood's multiplayer than I did in the main game, and I 100%ed the main game.

Sneaking up on people in multiplayer and getting them in the crowd was sick.

That felt great.

And then every single version of that multiplayer they ever made after that was way worse.

And then they were like, oh, nobody likes this anymore.

And it's like, yeah, because you ruined it.

It's way shittier now.

Yeah,

I don't even know that I tried it beyond that initial one.

But I just remember, I remember the hide and it was a hide and seek, yeah, whatever.

Sneaking up on people in the crowd and

using

the blending in to actually fool people.

It worked out quite well.

It succeeded at parts of

that game's fantasy that the main game couldn't do because you were like a special boy.

Yeah.

Anyway,

like I said, long live the couch.

Long live fucking StarCraft 64.

No one asked for it, but you did it anyway.

You know, unnecessary couch co-op.

Has a

creates a little warmth in my heart.

I got to Silk Song Act 3.

Oh,

hey,

I love.

I love

the feeling you have entering into Silk Song Act 3.

I think it's very rare that a game just hits you with the specific emotion of,

I don't know what to call it, and I don't want to spoil it, but it's a very big emotion

that's very specific, and very few games do.

So I guess

to

tell you that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a conflicted feeling

that occurs.

The

thing I want to talk about, I guess, go with Act 3.

And

I guess what I have to relinquish here is we've talked many times about how games are released no longer in a vacuum.

Being on the internet and being connected to the community

is part of the release.

The hive mind is part of

our existence now.

And thus it is expected that you can never truly get stuck.

You can always just go get answers online.

That's right.

So,

unless you're really strong, unless you're like, unless your heart is iron.

Well, so it's interesting because, like, at the there's things in this where I kind of went,

all right, look, I just, I don't have the time.

I just want to, what are the secret requirements to figure this thing out, you know?

Um,

and they're simpler than I would have thought.

So, I beat act two and was greeted with um

my my credits, you know, and was like, oh,

oh, this is not straightforward.

There is more to this.

There are things I have to discover and do and such.

And

once upon a time, you know, you can, like, I feel like everyone can go, oh, back in the day, this would have been.

You would have, and then someone would have found something else.

And then there would have been a whole thing about, wait, what?

Right?

Back in in the day, you would have gone to school and be like, dude, I beat Silk Song.

And then someone,

some other kid who had the game a week before you would say, what did you think about

the new fight in the bell beast arena?

And you went, huh?

Sure.

And he goes, yeah, when you, when you get to act three.

And you went, what?

Sure.

Right.

And then you would have the discussion and bring out notes and a whole fucking thing, and you would feel insane.

And sometimes that would happen to you decades later, and

sometimes you would just miss it, and somebody would mention the inverted castle

discussion.

And you would be like, What the fuck's the inverted castle?

You're right.

Sometimes there's that, and then sometimes there's like, yeah, there's this type of thing, you know.

And

it's interesting to live in a world where games are made

with the hypothetical past release in mind, but also as a part of a connected online current future, you know?

So you're looking at this and going, oh, it's not a straightforward walk into Act 3.

You have to go discover how to get to it, how to access it.

And

you have to be interacting with nearly everything the game has to offer.

And you would not have even known there was an Act 3.

If not for there being the internet to put that out to you.

You could have suspected because there are two and shit doesn't usually follow a two act structure well also there's a bunch of stuff you have on your person that doesn't do anything do anything you know yeah um

but but but yeah it it's it's it got me thinking about that and kind of like you know that um

what what is like what should you aim for when you're making a game and and and the answer is whatever you the person making it feels like you want to fucking go for right it's fine to pretend that there is no internet i want to make this as if it were something that you play, you know, on your own in a cabin in the woods offline.

And it's fine to make a game that is like, no, no, no, you're going to be talking about this with everybody online, and there will be no secrets because people will discover it together.

Um, because there are games that go, like, I'm going to make it so that the secrets are hard enough that even the collective internet together working together can't solve it, you know, right away.

Um,

and you know, so, so yeah, in my case, I was like looking at it going, okay, huh.

And there were definitely a couple parts where I kind of went, okay, so what's the deal here?

And I kind of went,

what wall did I not slash?

What ceiling did I not jump into?

You know, do I have to go crawl through every zone to kind of do that again?

I'm like, I don't really want to do that.

And sure enough, there were like a couple of walls I didn't slash and a couple of ceilings I didn't jump into that were

that were needed for critical progress, you know?

And I, so when I went to go kind of look those up, I was like, yeah, okay, I don't feel bad about just grabbing that information.

But what I did see in the process of doing that, and also there are times too, where,

like, I'm progressing and I pick up like three tools back to back, and I'm like,

okay, what's the skinny on this?

Because you can go experiment with a tool for a while to get the feel of it and whether you or not you want to roll with it.

But I'm like, I feel like I've got a,

I'm going to be moving forward at a at a faster pace right now i've got to pick one of these and kind of go with it let's see what the discussion is on how this is used and you know the the give me some of those numbers you know

um

and what i kind of discovered was like a number of people that were like

i were basically like hey i want to inch forward from where i am in silk song but i don't want to know too much can you can people spoiler free stick me in point me in the right direction you know and uh i i i i mean i don't know how much this happened with like Elden Ring or so, but like it felt like a very particular thing in this game where they're like, Okay, I'm holding this object and I kind of have an idea of what it might be for, but don't give me the full thing, just kind of point me in the right direction-ish so I can pare down the feeling of, do I have to scrape all the way from bone bottom to the fucking citadel and hit every wall, or can we just cut some time here, you know?

Um, yeah,

and yeah, no,

I did that and I was like, okay, this is this is sufficient for me.

The

like last couple things, you're like, the last couple things you're doing in Act Two, by the way, also like involve getting some tools that are like, like I said, like you're like, this is an incredible tool.

I don't know how long I'm going to have this for.

A while, actually.

Oh, okay.

Well, it certainly felt like not real, not much longer.

It felt like this is a great.

yeah.

So I can tell you something about Act 3.

Act 3 is literally exactly as long as you want it to be.

The Act 3 adds like,

I would say like 60% of Act 3's content is like completely optional to the point where it doesn't even count for the completion.

Okay.

So, I mean,

it's like Expedition 33 Act 3 almost, right?

Like take your victory lap and do your thing.

You know?

Not quite that word.

Not quite victory lap but take your lap not quite not quite take your lap

yeah and and it also seems to be up to you you know like as in as an expedition as well and stuff where it's just like all right what do you what do you want what do you want out of this you know um

there's an entire zone that i just didn't have to do and didn't even count for completion in act three doesn't even doesn't even have the fucking soap thing on the chip well what i'm curious about because you know like the beginning of it seems to be like hey you've got to get places the slow way for a second and then they then they immediately

feels like some version of the game was like oh do it the hard way and then they've like actually had people do it and they're like this sucks this is too mean well and so what it has me wondering is like i'm like is it truly just like if i choose to go right to the dot do i can i end things right now or is it like yeah, okay.

Because I'm like, it feels like you have some errands to run.

It feels like it would be a bit much to be like, all right, whenever you want, here you are.

Which, again, in Expeditions case, you can do, but it makes sense given how things play out.

And here it feels a little more like,

I hope there's, yeah, I hope you would flesh this a little more.

And I tell you what, quickly.

If we're talking about Act 3, and I think I know a way to talk about this without a spoiler, I don't, I have not cheered and fist-pumped, like actually yelled out loud at a game as hard as I did in a long time when I heard that public domain 45-year-old dog/slash goat snarl stock sound effect.

Yeah, that was pretty cool.

It's this incredible moment with like a sound effect I've been hearing for decades.

Yeah, that was pretty good.

I liked that.

So, yeah, but it is just kind of interesting to reflect on this feeling of like

truly there like there is no offline cabin in the woods gaming, you know, like that is that is a hypothetical.

that you don't have to consider.

And it's okay.

I I guess it's okay.

I just, I, I, I, I don't, I, I, I'm attached to the idea of the things that I'm, that I grew up with.

Yeah.

So part of me always likes the idea of a game that is self-contained offline and requires no external input, you know?

Yeah.

Um,

so I think it's just not the reality anymore, I suppose, you know.

I think Silk Song did this on purpose, and I think they had a very interesting way of going about it, because I think there's kind of like an impetus for that, but the knowledge that like no secret can ever stay hidden for more than like four or five days, right?

Unless it's implausibly hidden.

So, um,

instead, what they did is they just made every one of those secrets hard as fuck.

Do you want to get the rune explosion from First Center?

Fucking go do it, pussy.

Yeah, do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you want it?

Yeah, okay, fine.

Look up where it is, and then you have to do it.

But also, like,

did you hit the wall in the corner of the room in the worst area of the game that you hate being in?

Yes, I did, you know, okay.

Well, then you found it, you know, and and if you didn't, then,

you know, um,

not to mention, like, mitigation for the worst areas only comes after you no longer have to deal with the worst areas.

As always, as always, you know, you've suffered through it.

Congrats.

Now you're going to have to thank you for a various suit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, so it's, it's, uh,

I'm kind of going to just, you know, go back and see that.

There, there's also a very clear feeling of like, oh, the challenge that is sending, that is ending act two

is

very cool, but fucking tiddlywinks compared to the real fights that the game has for you.

Well, I have, I have, I have good news for you, sir

well it's obvious it's quite obvious

the four mandatory fights that await you are motherfuckers yeah i'm sure i'm sure you know that much that much is clear like this is met this is a a uh a cinematic battle that you're experiencing for plot purposes and then there's some real

um

but uh so far so good very cool and uh i i do

it has me definitely going like

I've been kind of passively going through it,

taking in

the lore as it goes.

But now I'm kind of like, ah, shit.

I kind of want to go brush back up on Hollow Knight.

Nah, just watch Mossbag Phineas.

Watch

Mossbag.

Is that a channel that summarizes?

Yes, sir.

It's the Vati of

Hollow Knight.

Nice.

Okay.

Yeah.

He'll give you way more than

you're going to pull out.

Perfect.

Because it seems, no, it's all there for sure.

And I'm just kind of like, yeah, fuck.

It's been too long.

It's too distant to memory.

Some of the stuff that I want to remember is not there anymore.

You know, someone in the chat brings up a class in Remnant 2.

that kind of Diablo-like shitter, kind of soulsy.

It's a class called the Archon.

And they describe how they don't know how you're supposed to get the Engineer naturally because the Engineer class was data mined out of the game.

And that data mining revealed an absolutely, absurdly obtuse series of steps to unlock Engineer that you could never, ever, ever figure out on your own because they had no internal logic.

And the answer to how were you supposed to find that naturally, the answer is it was supposed to be data mined out of the game because it's the Archon class.

Oh my God.

Okay, intentionally.

So, yeah, gastor shit.

Yes.

Yeah.

I made this because data miners exist.

So now this too is part of the game.

Yes.

Yeah,

sure, man.

You know?

Because the Archon can go in between the bounds of reality.

So in order to get it, you need to do it.

Yeah.

Or look at at a YouTube video that shows you.

Doki Doki Literature Club.

You know,

here we are.

It's...

Man, I should go back to Remnant 2.

That game is awesome.

That game's great.

That is a premier Diablo slop shooter.

Let me tell you.

Yeah, I think...

I think that's cool, but it's kind of like...

You know that not every game is going to play with those rules, right?

So like, if you're playing a board game and the board game is like, by the way, like, there's a card hidden inside the box, rip it open and get it, you know?

Or part of this game is like, actually, if you cheat and steal and nobody notices, then that's legal.

That's okay.

And, like, that's every board game.

Yeah, sure, right.

Yeah, every game has those

rule in every game.

No, there's, there's something, there's something

about that where it's like,

if from the outset, you kind of know where the boundaries are.

And if you tell me that, like, the boundaries are your fucking desktop and the folders on it, then I go, okay, cool, got it.

I will take that into consideration

going forward.

And, you know, and then other times it's like not called for.

But

then you watch as the game gets ported.

And then you have to figure out what a console is going to do with a game that wants you to data mine something or go digging through its files.

I don't know if you saw, like, so Doki Doki Literature Club.

I don't know if you've

seen anything about it.

Do you know anything about that?

I do.

That seems like a game that was ruined by its own popularity.

It's still pretty good.

It's still pretty good.

I'm well aware.

However, I bet

I would have played it and enjoyed it a lot more and be more interested in it had I been the target audience of its face

rather than being the target audience of its turn.

Its turn.

Okay, I see what you mean.

I think it pretty much lands the same way that like

Slay the Princess, you know,

kind of does in that like

knowing, having people tell you about the turn doesn't detract from, you know, the fun of how it's executed.

I will say that I unfortunately heard about Frog Fractions.

in its in more or less entirety before I got to it,

which then led to a sequence of events of just like grabbing people and being like, you got to play fucking frog fractions, right?

Which hit the peak where I was like, Paid, you guys stream frog fractions.

She's like, But I hate math.

I'm like, Don't worry about it.

Although, wasn't Giant Bomb basically the ones that

Giant Bomb pushed frog fractions?

And I listened to their podcast religiously at the time, so I knew all about it.

I think most, I think that's where a lot of people kind of caught on to that.

But

when they ported Doki Doki Literature Club to Switch, it was like the game had to be within a desktop browser

inside the game.

And it was like, it's an elegant solution, but it's unfortunate.

There's no other way you could do this, right?

And not break fucking guidelines.

But it just does detract nonetheless.

It's an elegant solution that detracts from

what the game is.

And unfortunately, I can see the same problem with inscription i don't know how that is going to look ported per se um

but uh

you don't get the freedom to play outside the boundaries on any other on console releases of things you know yeah

anywho um

this week um

yeah just the chill stream this monday um got some other stuff going on so um yeah I will.

What is your new schedule?

Well, my new schedule is.

Oh, sick.

My Audacity just crashed.

Ah, fuck.

Ah.

All right.

Start it back up.

Hold on.

Let me export this.

There is some.

All right.

That sucks.

Should we be our

date?

Yeah.

No, I got this.

21, October.

Yeah, just this part will be shit and loss.

Okay, boo.

I don't know why that happened.

Oh, that sucks.

Sorry, dude.

It's fine.

We can make two just windows.

Let's just not let's just not say anything funny or interesting in the stopped time.

Okay.

You want to sync it up?

Yeah, we can do that too.

As long as we don't make anyone miss anything that might be funny or interesting.

Walk a walka.

All right.

Five, four,

three,

two,

one, sink.

Sync.

Yeah.

Hawk, hawk.

Hey, we're back.

I'm a clown.

The

schedule is basically a combination of feeling it out according to

baby needs, which are

vibes.

Is that what you're describing?

Yes.

Yes.

Baby needs are vibes that shift.

every day.

And depending on how much I'm needed or not needed,

I will add and take away from the schedule as we feel it out.

The goal is to eventually, you know,

resume,

but

things are changing from day to day.

So,

and on top of that, too, like I'm still, you know, setting up and recording other stuff.

So,

for this week,

yeah, it's just going to be that Monday I mentioned and then today.

And then I'll let you guys know what the plan is for next week as well.

Um, but uh, we'll be versus on my socials to see the schedule,

what up,

all right?

So, I

have

uh beaten every ending in Silent Hill F.

I have wrung every single piece of information, content, gameplay, narrative

that you can get out of Silent Hill F at a combined total of 40.5 hours.

Have you let it digest?

Yes, that was

earlier last week.

Okay.

That game is absolutely incredible.

It is easily the best game in like 20 years for that franchise.

My current ranking is

two

one F three

two one F three

Wow, that's really good.

Okay, yeah, it's it's

and then four and then every fucking thing they made after that

two remake and two are sitting in the same place no two remake is is excellent, but it's also like a it's also kind of

two remake doesn't need to exist in a world that the second game would be readily available

Like, if you could just get Silent Hill 2 Classic, like, on your PC, normal style,

to remake wouldn't need to exist at all.

As it is, it's very good.

It's absolutely great, but it just, it feels like

it's kind of unnecessary.

I didn't hear this negative turn on it.

The last I heard was all positives when we were speaking about it.

Oh, absolutely.

Part of that was like shock that it was good,

right?

And that it was like well put together.

Yeah, it was, it was, it was praises before.

Yeah, um, but it also does still run like shit, and that will never be fixed.

Um, and

um, it is a little too long, but that's not a big problem.

Uh, F has that problem as well.

Um,

uh, but yeah, F absolutely fits um excellently in good company,

right?

It is a great Silent Hill game.

And I guess it also gets extra points for being a new story as opposed to remake, reboot, report, et cetera.

It is not near.

So, okay.

So,

one of the big complaints about Silent Hill F is that it has nothing to do with Silent Hill.

It takes place in Japan in the 1960s, which predates all the events of Silent Hill.

That is from people that need

the main character of every game to be the same and have the same weapons and be in the same location and don't know what themes are and don't know what motifs are, etc.

Style Hill F is like

not nearly as much of a new story as it appears,

it very, very, very, very solidly fits in with the type of narrative that one, two, and three are.

Okay,

um,

and

um

like I'll just get some, I'll get some, like, complaints out of the way first.

I like the combat, and I got good at the combat.

The combat is not great.

It is a survival horror game that does not have great combat.

It has like

interesting combat.

And if you get really good at it, it can be a lot of fun.

Um, when I did my first session playing through the game, a lot of enemies have like a like an attack where they kind of VHS out.

And you, if you hit heart attack, you'll counter them and you'll knock their ass over, and then they're basically done for.

And I was going through it, and I was like, I bet whether or not you like this combat is basically dependent on whether or not you can react to this every single time.

So, you and I,

I can parry something convincingly in

convincingly, like consistently in like 16 frames.

And like, maybe I can get something consistently in like 10 frames if I start to really really practice at it right the parry window here it feels like it's 28 to 30 something frames like half a second yeah the MEs ruined Metroid dread for some people yeah and it's it's it's it's slow enough that like the average person should be able to get them some of the time some people won't be able to get them any of the time and some people like me can get them every single time and i'm sure you would be able to get them every single time and that like dramatically changes the scope of the game's combat focus.

It has three combat levels: one is story, one is hard, and one is lost in the fog.

I am absolutely convinced that everyone who complained about this game's combat, like every single person that complained about it, should have been playing it on story where the game takes it a lot easier on you, but didn't want to play the baby ass

story difficulty for children.

So they put it on hard, which is hard.

Like it's pretty hard.

So, combat sucks is a very load-bearing term.

Yeah.

And I've also heard about how really strong your protagonist is and how she's shadow steps and counters and all that shit.

So, I'm kind of thinking then that it's

the problem with it is that it's tedious.

It is.

So, it is tedious.

There are not enough enemy types.

There are two standard enemies that are fairly similar.

There is a medium enemy, there is a utility enemy, and there is a large, annoying spawner.

And like a big brute.

And that's it.

That's that's it.

Like, it's, it's like five or six total for like the whole game outside of bosses.

Uh, you end up getting really, really, really, really good at fighting them if you're good at the countering because

their tails are always going to be the same.

Right.

And you perfect dodging them generates your stamina.

So if you're perfect dodging them, then

basically

you learn to just tear them the fuck apart.

And that goes right into

the game's structure.

So first time through, you will always get ending, let's call it ending one, right?

Ending one is mandatory.

You cannot avoid it.

It is the definitive ending to your first playthrough.

Upon playing it a second time,

you have unlocked the ability to do a couple things that are there, which will get you ending two or three or UFO.

And then upon completing two or three and going into new game plus plus,

you have the ability to do extra conditions to unlock ending four, which is the final ending, or you would call it the true ending.

The reason why you have to do these in this order is because they follow from each other naturally.

Story elements that are present in one are required to understand story elements that are present in two and three, and story elements that are present in two and three are required to understand what's going on in ending four.

Like it is absolutely a definitive, clean line of understanding.

What ends up happening is that you hit the 70% mark of the game, and there is a large encounter that takes place inside Hinako's house.

Hinako's, you know, there's like the fields and the school, and then your house.

The house and everything after that changes depending what route route you are on.

Cutscenes, puzzles, etc.

And then they all lead up to their own finale confrontation in a genuine way.

The big finale, ending four, changes that section of the game by far the most, but is also trading on the expectation of knowledge of everything that you could have possibly gotten, including notes and dialogue that you can only get in multiple playthroughs.

Like, you'll get like Rinko's Diary, and then in New Game Plus, you'll get Rinko's Diary pages 3, 4, 5, 6.

And then in New Game Plus Plus, you get Rinko's Diary, pages 7, 8, 9, 10.

Okay.

And it's just the full documentation is only available after multiple playthroughs.

A lot of people are saying, like, a visual novel, I don't think you or I would be able to speak.

It's very much like a visual novel because it's written by Ryu Kishi07, who's the guy who did Hirigurashi and Umeneko.

Great.

Both games that require multiple playthroughs.

So this is familiar to you once you play visual novels, yeah.

It is definitely this thing.

It's like the closest thing that I could compare it to that somebody might understand and know would be like 999.

Yeah, well, I was bringing up Uchikoshi every time as a frame of reference because that's what I that whatever whatever a game is like you beat it multiple times to canonically push the story further is that I go straight to Uchikoshi stuff.

It's not quite the format because the 999 stuff and the Uchikoshi thing has like much wilder tangents.

But on your new game plus runs, you get the ability to get.

So there's one of the things that is not very talked about in the gameplay is that you can get charms that are like accessories for Hinako.

And some of them are really simple.

They're like

more health or more sanity or

when you pick up health items, you'll heal a little bit when you pick them up, right?

These little modifiers, right?

As you start going through New Game Plus runs and start getting more and more and more and more and more of them, you start to change the way the game functions on like a basic level.

So you start getting ones like when you do counter hits, you heal.

Or counters are automatically performed by Hinako when she sees the counter flash.

Oh, but it takes sanity, which like dramatically changes the way the game works.

Or

any weapon, the one that carried me through multiple runs was any weapon you have equipped will heal other weapons when it kills an enemy.

So I combined that with like weapons at maximum durability, do twice as much damage, and I just swapped through weapon every time that I and like so the gameplay starts to change and become streamlined and become way more action-y.

Yeah, well, that last one you're describing: if you're if you're just managing your sanity, you're neutralizing all threats, basically.

Yeah, basically.

Okay.

And the charm, the charm, like loadout that I had at the end of the game in ending four turned Hinako into a freak, turned them into a Dark Souls character.

A level of

complexity.

And the thing that it's, it's like, I, there are a lot of people that were commenting on it.

There are a lot of people that I've spoken to online.

And there, I went and read a bunch of reviews, including Gene's.

Gene went way above and beyond and did absolutely everything and then like was in a bunch of my streams and watching my LP.

And he had a therapist also beat the game multiple times to talk about for his review.

You should definitely check it out.

And the general gist of what I am seeing in terms of engaging with this game is that people who are not in love with the combat

beat the game the first time and they go, I really don't want to play it four more times, and look up the ending sequences on YouTube and go, oh, cool.

And

that is is

an extremely large simplification of what that game is going for

because

every cutscene from like the 70% mark changes.

Item placements, enemy placements, and like puzzle solutions change to thematically fit the ending you're going for.

I also went and took a look at ending compilation stuff on YouTube and discovered that it like almost all of them are just the final boss and final cutscene.

Like, they don't actually include any of the.

So, like, you are missing out on the guts.

And I'm taking it that, like, the changes in subtlety and tone are very important for the themes being discussed.

So,

let's take the very first scene of the game where you hang out with your friends in front of a candy store.

Hiniko hangs out with three of her friends, and then the silent hill shit starts, right?

On New Game, I'm like, oh, Craig, oh, I wonder what's going on.

On New Game Plus, I'm like, I think I know what's going on.

On New Game Plus Plus, I definitely know what's going on, but I also understand how what I didn't see and didn't realize what was going on last time is affecting other parts of the game that I didn't put together.

And so on and so forth, because even scenes that are like some scenes change on different runs, like certain dialogues will be different, or certain camera angles will be different, or some events will just play out completely differently

but actually just seeing it again with knowledge that you got from before

recontextualizes it multiple times over okay

and

um

there is the stopping point that is like the reason why people are like i'm not crazy about the combat i would like to stop here uh at the 60

after the house sequence there is a like like an hour of combat there's like a straight up hour of like arena combat that sucks

that uh is super long and super hard and lasts forever and is really boring and sucks yeah you were talking about this yeah that thing filters you right the out and it seems to be a deliberate choice because of that vibe so the first time i was like man this sucks this is really hard And then the second and third times was like, I just, I really don't want to fucking do this.

This is so boring.

I know how to do this.

And by the fourth time, I was like, this shit can't even slow me down.

Like, I am flying through these fucks.

No problem.

I've got it down to like 15 minutes from an hour.

And that is how you are supposed to feel because that is how Hinako is starting to feel in each particular run.

Like, it is, it is very thematically appropriate.

Is there any other Silent Hill game that does anything like this?

No.

Like, I would say that a full playthrough of Silent Hill F is 40 hours.

That's fucking huge compared to the others because Silent Hill 1 or 2 or 3, it's like you get to the end and you're like, oh, what did your action shape and what ending did you get?

And then you go on your way.

Okay.

So I have a question that is a swerve, I suppose.

I don't know if you had other points that were like.

Yeah, go for it.

So, um,

ultimately, like

Silent Hill is one before I played them, Silent Hill was the series I remember being the most

linked to the discussion about you're not supposed to really be good at fighting.

That's not what these games are about.

It's about the narrative, the story, it's about the character and how he feels and the horror of it.

And it's about you being

overwhelmed by the threats and not necessarily being able to fight them off whereas in other video games you could yeah they said that in the interviews leading up to silent hill one and then silent hill one came out and they gave you the fucking pickaxe and the shotgun and you're like blowing these motherfuckers away but also it turns out that you're hey guess what you're a gamer in a video game and you have things that are able to fight enemies so you're gonna use them and figure out what the limitations are and exploit those, right?

That's no matter what it is, no matter how bad your controls are, you're gonna find a way to to defensively fight back unless it completely takes away your defensive options, right?

Right.

It says run only

or

shattered memories, right?

Where it's like, no, no, no, the mechanic here is hide in a locker, right?

Yeah, uh,

so

when

a game series goes through this type of identity shift, where it still gives you the other parts of what it was like, you know, mainly about, but it also goes, hey, Final Fantasy fans, there's fucking S rank combo, there's S rank now, right?

You can do stylish combat.

And

it's not done poorly.

It's something that you enjoy, but it's not part of the identity of the franchise.

How do you feel about like what Silent Hill ought to be versus kind of like this combat getting introduced and being something that the protagonist is capable of swagging and going crazy on.

And do you feel that that detracts even if it's fun

or not?

So, um,

the I think

every discussion that we need to have about survival horror combat over the ages has to also be

approached with the knowledge that the people making those first couple of games were almost never good at making good combat.

And that the

I'm I'm putting it in, I'm making the

character play bad on purpose was insane cope.

And we know that that's insane cope because when RE4 came out, they're like, hey, no, we figured out how to make the greatest action game of all time.

So fuck it.

I mean, that's what I thought.

That's what I was.

Tank controls were introduced to me as, no, it's supposed to be hard to avoid a zombie.

No, tank controls being weird is an excuse so that you can have the highest quality graphics that you've ever seen in your entire life on a PlayStation 1.

And we're willing to build the entire game around those control limitations because we want the backgrounds to look really, really, really fucking nice.

Yeah, I mean, you go

alone in the dark and fucking that other game with the boy and girl in Paris were like that.

Although, FF7 had you running around on pre-rendered backgrounds without tank controls, right?

So, well, in FF7, you don't have like, you don't have like what I would discover, like,

describe as violent camera shifts.

Like, if you had 2D controls, like, you have this happen in like the games that support them now.

It's like the fucking character's position will, like, invert.

Oh, see, oh, yeah.

Like, sometimes they had to work a long time to figure out like how much magnetization on your fucking controls do you need to not die instantly when this happens.

Devil May Cry 4 walking down a hallway and then Nero 180s as the camera cuts to run back the other way because you're holding one direction.

A difficult thing.

So for F,

so Silent Hill F

the F stands for women.

I think I've said this every time it has come up.

Yes, um, that it is F for women, uh, it's also F for Fox, it's F for five,

uh, it's F for a lot of things, it's forte,

um, it's a lot, it's F for a lot of stuff,

actually.

Um,

but

um, Hina Ko starting off as like a capable young woman and turning into an absolute freak beast monster demolisher is absolutely part of the game's thematic approach.

Okay.

Her personal empowerment

and your personal empowerment as the player is absolutely vital because when it builds up to the final encounter, it says, you are empowered.

You can do this.

And then you totally can and you fucking crush it with the pike beast Hinako you have built.

Okay, so in this context, the game wants you to be a beast in combat and destroy your your trauma, and it gives you the tools to do so, and therefore it's appropriate because it's narratively appropriate.

Hinako is so strong, is something I said the very first time I fought an enemy, and every time I got to the end of the game, I said it again, and I said it for like more intense and more varied reasons.

Hinako is so strong,

and I say that about the combat, but then that also reflects inside the basically.

This game is like ludo-narrative harmony to the nth degree.

Like, Silk Song actually also has really good ludo-narrative harmony.

When you get to the fucking bench in the fucking citadel, it's like you got to pay to sit here, best.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great.

That's great.

Yeah, I love that.

Like, F's

repeated repeated journey through the same shit and getting more and more frustrated with it until it doesn't bother you anymore is supposed to represent a lot of Hinako's internal life and internal struggle.

I was explaining this to Paige, who has not seen the game at all, and she's like, Yeah, that sounds about right.

I'm like, What do you mean?

And she's like, For women, right?

Okay,

and so to that end, you're down with

a game and its identity or like its relationship with combat changing as that becomes plot appropriate.

Absolutely.

I think the number one responsibility of any series is to be good.

And that the trappings of that series are like nice, but they're not like vitally important.

Like, I was so wrong about Resident Evil 4.

Like, I think this predates me being on the internet.

Yeah, it does, because it it would be 2004, right?

I was like, Resident Evil 4's biggest hater in the universe.

I was like, they took my favorite franchise and they fucking ruined it.

And

they made it this deep horror experience.

And they fucking shitted it up into a fucking game for normies.

Shoot the guy.

And then I played it.

And I'm like, I've never been more wrong about how something was going to turn out.

Holy shit.

RE4 is incredible.

I replayed it before the remake and was like, yeah, still the best.

Crazy.

Now,

does

this

feel different when

for no given reason, a character is just incredible at combat,

but it doesn't fit in necessarily, right?

Yeah, I think James is way too good at combat in Silent Hoe 2 remake.

Okay.

That being said, I got to the end of that game.

You ever do an LP and you realize that like your personal experience with a game is like so far outside the norm that it makes you like a weirdo?

But this is, I was going to get a little close to this with FF16 because when I brought it up just now, I saw a number of right off the bat people going, what a piece.

Combat sucked.

I hated that.

It was bad, et cetera.

And I'm like, you know, the funny part is, I'm like, I'm remembering that combat fondly in the sense that the fact that it was character action-y at all made me care more about this Final Fantasy game than the average one where I don't get to do parries, launchers, air combos, et cetera, and so on.

Even in the fact that it's like, it's not perfect combat and you kind of delete every enemy once you learn how to do the cycle, the rotation, you know.

But some of those DLC, the iconoclasm fight and some of the DLC stuff at its peak, I was kind of like, yeah, I'm thinking more about this game when I'm playing it and wanting to come back to it than i am other games that don't ask me for the things from the genre that i enjoy personally but i know that's super woolly coated and my take on side

is very similar in it's like kind of the opposite but it's like i got to the end of silhouette 2 i'm like man james is like really way too strong And like the melee combat is like way too effective.

And then I was informed that I was like the only person people were watching that was like finishing the game with like literally hundreds of handgun rounds and an inventory that is completely full of health items because other people they had watched had struggled and finished the game with like actually

nothing.

But I just used the pipe and the dodge move like the whole game on any normal enemy and just trounced that shit.

And was like, okay, my opinion that James is too strong might be related to the fact that I got really good at that dodge.

Like a lot of games between you and me, if the character has a powerful dodge that activates within like 40 frames you're untouchable that whole difficulty scales

high frames

okay

um

uh yeah okay because i i i i'm sure there are other franchises where this applies and i i'm going to ff because that's what's recent in my brain but it's always been silent hill as the the the the leader of the discussion of like no no you're supposed to suck it's supposed to be scary and hard you're not supposed to be able to fight against your trauma in this way.

Right away, because in Silent Hell 1 is the scariest of all of them by far.

Silent Hell 1 is the scariest Silent Hell game by like an order of magnitude.

It's way scarier than all the other ones.

Hmm.

Okay.

Like that sewer area with the mole monsters and it's like just pitch black and they don't give you a map.

Oh,

that's spooky.

Yeah, it's also um well, you know what?

Actually, no.

Any game can be designed to be anything.

Like, you can make a

if the

I forgot the creator behind this, but the Umineko writer

Kishi07 decided to

make this not as combat focused and more,

yeah, just, I guess,

about the,

more about the, the story and less about that aspect of it.

Um, I'm like, there was that previous little Silent Hill project, the first-person game that just came out.

Short message.

Has no combat at all.

It has no combat at all, right?

Yeah, okay.

So I was going to say, you just had an example recently of a game that's like, oh, this is also what I, you know, Silent Hill's identity is supposed to be, quote unquote, which is like, it's all that, and the combat is

not very good by comparison, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

So I wouldn't be surprised if this franchise then from here on out just like is like, no, there will elaborate combat, but it'll be part of why, of what's going on.

Maybe.

This seems like the type of so the game is like kind of laser focused on what it wants to get to at the end of the day.

Um, and everything kind of like builds towards that, uh, in a really, really impressive way.

Um, I, that, this game was originally supposed to take place in the United States, oh, um, which is completely insane with how like ins like aggressively Japanese it is.

Yeah, but the whole

setting appeal is that like it's going to a different place.

And Konami was like, We would like you to place it not in the US.

Yeah.

And so they went, okay, we'll do it in Japan.

I'm like, oh, okay, fucking okay.

So I'm very much looking forward to Neo Bards and Ryuki Shio7 doing this.

Fucking every other Cyber Hill game was in America.

Like, why would you do that?

Like,

the setting is an interesting change for the franchise.

Okay.

Well, anyway, yeah, sure.

I would say, if Expedition 33 had not come out this year this would like be the easiest game of the year wow like thing i in almost any year oh it is

and this is post silk song as well oh yeah no silk song's not game of the year okay okay

silk song's absolutely fantastic silk song also has like massive flaws

like huge flaws okay um and hollow night wasn't the game of the year it came out either but it i fucking love it um i know uh uh silks uh what do you call it um

and expedition has this deltar rune discussion and um um death stranding discussion has has moved on oh i i didn't think death stranding was going to be game of the year by the time i was like a third of the way through it okay

interesting i'm i'm

Like I still want to go and get my hands on all of that, but I'm definitely feeling like Expedition for me is my favorite experience I've had this year so far, uh, that that continues to be the case, yeah.

Um, especially given the unexpected nature of it out of nowhere and um, how cool and similar but different it did, how it did things.

I, I, uh, I'm gonna give that a lot of praise over stuff that is um similar to experiences I've had before, I think.

Um,

but wow, F right there in second place.

It's it's um, it's absolutely fantastic.

I think that game is incredible, and

this, this is not like,

I don't usually say this.

This is not you.

Like, I'm usually willing to talk to people about a lot of games under a lot of contexts.

I don't want to hear an opinion from somebody who did not actually get to that game's last ending himself.

Don't talk to me.

Like, I like legitimately, like,

I went and checked tons of the reviews.

Most of the people talking about this, etc., have not actually beaten the game at all.

Okay.

They should shut up.

So, what you're going to need to do, folks.

They don't know what they're talking about.

You need to take a screenshot of the achievement you got for completing the final real ending and then post your opinion.

And if it says that you're one of the 33%

or so that got there, whatever the percentage is, because it's always depressingly low.

It's always real low.

Every time you look down the Chivo percentage on a game and it's like, how many people got to the 50% mark?

Like 25?

Okay, cool.

Oh, it's

for this game.

It's real.

Let me see.

I actually have the game open right now.

Okay, if you are the 7.1% of people

who've actually beaten the game.

Oh, my God.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

We can talk.

7%.

Yeah.

All right.

All right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Fair enough.

And I mean, to be fair, like you're you're selling a product to everybody, like you're not going to expect everyone to fucking just

reasonably, there's a whole lot of people that are like, I'm playing a video game, I'm done, that's good, you know.

Oh, that's fine, but I don't want to hear critique

like on a game that they didn't actually play.

And then there comes the whole thing of like, well, how can what?

I have to, I have to eat my whole meal before saying it's bad.

I'm like, no, of course not, but I don't feel like talking to you about it if I love the meal, if you didn't even try the fries, or etc., blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Um,

yeah, no, I, I think, I think, like, like, I'll put it to you in the clearest possible terms.

How seriously are you going to take the opinion of somebody who says to you, yeah, so I started playing as 9S and I was like, fuck that.

And then

it was good enough for me there.

Ending A only, and then you got to, yeah, like, how, like, how, how much do you actually want to talk to them about Nira Tomata?

We, we have We have not played the same.

We've not had the same experience.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh, yeah, that game's incredible.

More than anything, I'm just like,

because

you were talking about the stuff about to remake that was really good last time.

But

this is a really

high praise to throw it up there in top three alongside the classics with like, you know,

new Konami kind of going and getting outside talent to

try something.

It's so much better than I thought it was going to be.

Like, I was, I was like, maybe it'll be good.

It's, it's incredible.

It's incredible.

It's super good.

How would you feel if they then announced Silent Hill F2 instead of like a completely different thing?

So, uh, they

so I don't know if you saw, but like the Townfall teaser, it has the same F in it.

Oh, the forte?

Yeah.

Yeah,

the logo for Townfall has the same F.

It has the forte for Townfall.

And

I would say that I played through Silent Hill F2

and 3.

I know.

But you know how shitty, sequel-brained fucking companies think.

I think if that was going to be the reality, then they wouldn't have had all their games games be unnumbered and have subtitles.

Right?

They would have done Silent Hill 5, 6.

They have not done numbers since 4.

They haven't done numbers in decades.

Secret numbers.

Secret numbers.

Yeah, no, the internal documentation on the games definitely hasn't been.

Technically, neither has Resident Evil.

Oh, Resident Evil's gotten super complicated.

Super complicated.

Yeah.

Okay, sick.

Right on.

I also played Kronos, the other Bloober survival horror game.

Did I talk about this last week?

I don't think I know.

Is that their, that's their own IP?

That is their own IP.

It is, hey, guys, do you like Dead Space?

And I said, I do like Dead Space.

And they're like, well, we have a Dead Space like for you that takes place in far future Poland.

in which some horrible bio curse has annihilated everybody in Poland.

And you are playing a weirdo Samus

who is emotionally stunted,

stealing people's souls via time travel and shooting goo beasts.

It's really cool.

Dead Space like it's really, really, really cool.

It is a great horror feeling of just constantly going, What the fuck is going on in this fucking game?

Like, what, what, who are you?

Who is that?

What is that?

How does that work?

What year is this?

Oh, oh, oh, the strand game.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, kind of strand.

Okay, we saw the trailer.

We saw the trailer at the reveal, and it looked like a strand game.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Okay, this one.

Super fucking strange.

Everything about it is strange.

It's also an extremely serious survival horror game.

No difficulty options.

And upon defeating the game's first boss, I was left with one bullet.

Me.

Okay.

I was left with one bullet.

Okay.

Okay.

The game demands you properly use every exclusive barrel and choke point and et cetera that you could possibly have.

Its main enemy mechanic is enemies never permanently die ever.

So if you

shoot zombie man and knock it down with bullets, it will stay unmoving forever.

It will never get back up but

if a second zombie arrives it can eat it to upgrade itself to the next tier of enemies

cool um i was this runs i was mistakenly thinking of hell for us hell is us so this runs into a very strange problem in which in a massive melee of like 10 guys

you're like oh i'm shooting i'm i'm you know i'm killing this guy killed this guy killed this guy um and then you look over and one guy is doing the weird tentacle transformation that means he's going to run over and eat a dead body and become twice as strong and regenerate all his health.

So then you have to wonder: are you going to use your one-time use only burn the ground to evaporate all the corpses?

Or are you going to try and kill that guy before he reaches the dead body?

Or are you just going to give up and have to deal with it?

And they stack on each other.

Like they have like, I have seen at least five different upgrades from guy who dies in one hit to upgrade to upgrade to upgrade to upgrade to boss and it's all just based on managing the the enemies at all times so the burn the corpses to deal with the problem thing i will say that having had this experience with signalis i almost never used my temporary uh limited fire resource to deal like like i feel like i'm somebody who was like nope just learn how to run around it just Just learn how to do it the most inexpensive way possible.

Do not use your limited resources when you have your feet.

So it's really interesting.

What they do is they give you, like, you get like, you have like a flare you can shoot to the ground and it will burn everything in like 20 feet like around you.

Like it'll, it'll kill every corpse and it'll do double damage to enemies, right?

It's really, really, really fucking strong.

You get one,

and you'll find dispensers that will like just give you like, hey, here, restock up on your, on your flare, right?

But you can carry one,

so like they're functionally infinite.

You can just go back to the save point and get one.

Okay, okay, that's

only carry one at any given time.

Right, that's different.

Okay, fair enough.

Yeah, so because they've built like the when you get locked into a room and a bunch of monsters attack you, they built it of like, no, you have the one, you have to make your decision as to when to use this one extremely powerful item.

Okay.

So far, Bluber,

Bluber.

It runs really well.

It plays really well.

It's extremely interesting.

It is

so difficult.

I stopped streaming it.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

It is so difficult that I actually stopped streaming it and was like, I am too stressed out to stream this.

I am having a very sweaty time here.

I need to, I would like to play something a little more relaxed.

Don't let them

don't let them merge is a pretty good

trailer stinger line.

So

I guess so this is the thing, the feeling of you walk into a room and see a bunch of small grunts.

No, no.

So here's what broke me.

You want to hear?

You eventually upgrade your gun to have a little indicator that shows you when you point at it what enemies are actually dead and which ones are asleep.

Right.

Okay.

So you you walk in.

So I I walk into a room in some fucking shit ass factory and I start pointing at the floor and there are like 10 enemies that are sleeping in here.

And I have not enough ammunition for them.

And so I'm like, okay, I'll try it.

And I, for like the first time in years, I just straight up completely ran out of ammunition.

Okay.

And I'm like,

am I going to have to kill like half of these guys and then backtrack like the 10 minutes to the save point and then restock my ammunition you know and i eventually did that and i'm like this is asking a lot

this is asking a lot of me

do you have a melee option that's reasonable no it sucks the melee option sucks oh okay

no boot uh

so that game's great but i wanted to take a break and do something a little more easy so i said you know what people have been blowing smoke up my ass about that Digimon Time Stranger demo.

Oh, Digimon, yeah, weeks.

And I don't remember nothing about Digimon other than the movie and the fact that Angel Mon was there, and that there was a little cute little guy called Patamon.

He turned into Angemon, and that was cool as shit.

And the song, right?

No, Bacho Leomon, Yggdrasil, all that stuff.

So I hopped on to

the demo

and

got to the end of the demo and then went, oh,

I got to buy this shit right now and fucking keep going.

That Digimon Times.

So, first of all, the stories,

the title is very strange.

Digimon Story Time Stranger.

There's no colon, there's no comma, there's no nothing.

It's just Digimon Story Time Stranger.

That game fucking rules, man.

That game came out of.

So we talk about this like this feels like a long-lost PS2 game or some shit like that.

Digimon Story Time Stranger is actually, I shit you not, a fucking PS3 game that fell through a time portal.

And I mean that both like thematically, the way it looks, the way it plays, the way it sounds, but actually, it's been stuck in dev hell for years and years and years.

It is actually like a PS3 Vita game that just got kicked down the road year after year after year after year.

In mechanics?

No, no, like it was literally supposed to be released.

Oh, literally.

Okay.

Okay.

Like, like, I'm not being metaphorical.

I mean, it is actually a PS3 game.

Okay.

That just fell through a portal and is now here.

Okay.

It is what if we combine, what if we made a Digimon game that was just a Shinmegami-Tensei game?

What if we just made it?

What if we made it take place in modern-day Tokyo?

What if we had it be about preventing global thermonuclear war with Digimon Digimon and have like a straight-up SMT-style apocalypse?

Yeah, did you?

I was going to say, did you play a Cyber Sleuth?

I played a little bit, not a whole lot.

Okay, because

people were describing similar of that and about why that was so good, too.

So, okay.

But

it is an extremely well-put-together, visually appealing, interesting,

great music,

classic JRPG,

which uses the Digimon evolution system, which I was not familiar with at all because I know Pokemon, I know SMT.

Yeah, the weirdest part about them is that they go up and down.

They don't stay.

So I did not understand that at all.

I did not understand that at all.

So, yeah.

So, Pokemon is like a linear evolution.

Maybe there's a trade evolution.

SMT, you're mashing them together and making them kiss and using them as fuel for a bigger one.

Digimon is like, well, did you get your strength high enough?

Well, you can turn into the strength version that leads from this Digimon.

It's not a tree.

It's a web.

Yeah, you don't have to commit.

It's just an install for the full.

So

I was originally like really overwhelmed, like really, really, really overwhelmed because you'll go to Digivolve and you'll be looking at your cute little Patamon and there's like a fucking list of five.

And it's like, well, do you have the stats or rank or this or this for this one?

And I'm like, I don't fucking know.

I don't know which one I fucking want.

It's um, it's Common Rider.

Yeah, that's all it is.

It's Common Rider forms.

Yeah, and then I find out that the game, one of the games, like meta upgrades, is decrease the stats required, and that also bonus stats acquired from any given thing remain forever.

So I can play as Padamon and level them up to Angemon.

And then when Angemon gets the bonus stats, I can level them back down to Padamon and then level it back up

and go back and forth, back and forth, etc.

It's super,

it is a little more complicated than those other ones, but

it is nice to have a different style of monster evolution that isn't simple enough that it's for babies and doesn't like use up the things that you have.

Like one of the things that I actually kind of got sick of after all these years doing Persona and SMT fusions is like doing this thing where you're like, well, I want the two fusions of these guys, but I want to keep those two.

No, you're going to lose what you had.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No,

the freeforming allowing you to do that.

Or, or the other bit too, is like, I want my cool fucking giant walking tank to also go back to being my cute little buddy.

You know, also, it bears mentioning that Digimon was, everybody who watches this knows this, but to me, I was reminded that Digimon is the pal world of the 90s.

What if your Pikachu evolved to have fucking guns on his arms, dog?

Or what if it became a hot fucking BDSM leather lady?

Yeah.

Or became a sick-ass bancho

with the tattered fucking cloth.

I love it.

That's great.

That's super cool.

I also discovered.

I was able to, so no, just like reminders that,

you know, being friends with Josh means you're exposed to all of it.

And

you get to kind of go like, okay, okay, okay, yes, yes.

Tell me about that one, though.

What's that one about?

That game's just really cool.

It's also like.

It also has given me a type of deja vu I've never felt in a game before.

It might be the strangest experience, like

internally, I've ever had in a game.

So the game takes place in Shinjuku in modern-day Tokyo.

And then there's some events that bring you to Kabukicho because, oh, Digimon activity in Kabukikicho.

And then they're like, you should go down to the theater district in Kabukicho.

And then I'm like, I go to that area and I'm like, oh, why does this area feel so weird?

And then I realize that I'm fighting a boss fight against a war graymon

in the theater square next to the club Sega and the bowling alley that Kiryu goes to all the time.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's the same place

that I've never been to for real,

but it's still the same place and it's super strange.

Yeah, I mean,

whatever, the all the different games that take place in fake Japan or real Japan, you mean you're going to see that neighborhood and know exactly what you're doing or where you're at.

And like in Ditchmon, there's like a weird fake club sega.

Like it's a like it's a generic arcade instead of the real one.

It's it's incredibly strange.

Acubus Strip.

Same thing.

Oh, I haven't played that one.

So yeah, I was back in the day, I was seriously considering a cyber sleuth LP.

And research into that kind of yielded that the LP would probably hit like 80 hours or so.

So, this one's a beefy boy.

This one's like a 60 to 100.

And so, I originally only planned on playing the demo.

And

the people that convinced me to continue forward in at least playing it for a little while, we'll see what happens.

Is

let me say this carefully.

I was not prepared for the level of people in my or probably our audience that are really

specially interested in Digimon to a very extreme way.

I did not expect the level of absolute Digimon level fanaticism that I would see flying by in my chat.

Like I have not seen in like a long time about anything.

Just like

absolute like freak acid.

Oh, you thought Josh was an isolated case?

I did not think that.

Okay.

I did not expect that, like, when I would start the stream, that, like, 20 guys with Digimon tattooed on their foreheads were going to show up to, like, crowd around.

So there's

a number of folks that get sufficiently pissed off at Pokemon, go down Digimon alley and never look back.

You know, there's a, there's a, fuck this bullshit.

I hate the direction that's going in, or whatever the the case is.

And you're like, I'm on this train now.

And then when there's good games coming out that are like, you know, stuff that you can, you have energy, you have a place to put all that energy, then yeah, people get very excited about it.

They have strong opinions.

Also, to be

very

open and honest about my reasons for playing this game, I will admit, and I admitted it when I streamed it, that part of me thinks that ZA looks like shit

and would like a comparison point of a similar monster taming game to let me know if ZA in fact does look like shit, to which I can announce, yeah, it does.

What the fuck?

Do a gooder game, ZA.

I don't know if you saw Gene's review of Pokemon ZA.

I didn't, but I saw people posting the stuff about like the city is one big model and all the stuff.

No,

that's a mistake.

That's actually a uh that's fake news okay um but uh gene's review was like

i'll paraphrase here but it was like

um

i'm glad i lived long enough to play this game it's not very good uh

it's the it's it's the pokemon game that we've been waiting for but it's just not doing it okay well you could always go the other direction and and check out the pal farm i could

uh i'm super impressed with Time Stranger.

It's so cool.

It's so cool.

There's so much of it that's so interesting.

That is a game that really wants you to fight bosses at your peak.

Because

every turn

your Digimaster or whatever, you can just

use items.

You can use an item per Digimon turn every time for free.

And

outside of random battles, if you stay still for a couple seconds, you'll just regenerate all your health and SP to maximum.

Okay.

And

if you get a sneak attack against any enemy that's a little too weak, just auto-kill it.

Like, they don't want the fluff.

They want you to fucking get in there and just fuck on them.

So

at any point, does this game have like

so Digimon Tamers, they had Digivices and then they do these cool like animation poses with all the things and it was glowing and all those poses were cool.

And I was like, do they do those?

Do they do the Digivice poses?

I'm going to send you a photo.

Because I remember

that was one of the first things I, again, when Josh is throwing everything my way and I'm like, yep, yep, yep.

Hey, what's that?

They're doing some cool henshin shit.

And uh, and hold on.

I'm going to send you a I'm sending you a picture.

Okay, so you describe cool henshin shit.

So, the main character of this game, uh, they are common rider characters.

Well, there you go.

There is, yeah, like you are wearing a green jacket and you have a red scarf on.

And the female character you can play as is like skin-tight, latex, and a tiny hand.

That's ridiculous.

You are just a copyright.

And also, Wooly, your digit whatever the fuck, phone.

Yeah.

They also do a cool henshin to the thing and your device.

gun.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

There you go.

There you go.

Yeah.

Like it is Common Rider to the nth degree.

Motherfuckers and tamers doing spinning

Hanoi and charging motions with their with their dig devices.

It is explicitly Common Rider.

Yeah, that show was cool.

I liked it.

I liked it.

And

it's just really cool.

I think it's really cool.

And you have also yet to get to the digital verse at all.

Which I think is going to be very interesting.

Also weird, whoever did the localized casting for like the voices was having a laugh.

Because there's some kind of fuck-ass Digimon that looks like

a gray alien with a big brain and tentacles and has like a little ray gun.

And whoever the fuck cast the English voice actor for them was like, sound like Roger from American Dad.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Because it's really funny when you have a boss fight against Roger from American Dad.

It's fucking weird.

Nice.

Oh, yeah.

Justin Mon, just a fucking cabin rider.

Yeah.

Okay.

The only, yeah, the only thing was, I just, it was just the length.

That was, that was, that was it, you know?

And this, this is a, this is a beefy one, too.

So this is a beefy one, but uh, uh, I did not know that I had a pocket of digital freaks hanging out around.

So, as long as they're happy, I'm happy.

Also, this Digimon thing seems kind of cool.

I don't know.

Some cool Digimons with big boobs in there.

I don't know.

I like that it starts from Pokemon Spite, but and it did.

Yeah, let's be honest.

There you go.

Because, like, I did this thing where I went on social media and I was like, it was like an honest question, but I guess it was inflammatory, which is like, why does Pokemon ZA look like a fake Pokemon game, like a knockoff Pokemon game, but it's like the real one?

And the answer is because, like, Nintendo doesn't give them shit for resources, or Game Freak doesn't give them shit for resources.

Well, so, so, I'm,

as, as I'm sitting out here on the outside watching Pokemon stuff happen, and I've always said for years, I'm like, oh, I want that game where you can look up, and I've described that in a simplest way, right?

And then I'm seeing these Guyana games that are, you know, coming out, and I'm like,

okay, but not, that's not what I meant.

Well, it is what I meant, but

you know, ZA just looks like the like Pokemon's like mobile knockoff.

Yeah, like I'm like, what I really mean is like

good,

like, like, it's really just big and cool, you know.

Like, if you, if you erased my memory right now and said that this is the new Pokemon rip-off game, Pal World, and then showed me ZA, I'd be like, oh, wow, that does look like a rip-off, doesn't it?

So, you know,

yeah,

okay, but that's been it for me this week.

Uh, Digimon's great.

Kronos is pretty good.

Too hard for me right now.

Apparently, apparently, the part that I stopped at was like by far the hardest part in the game.

So maybe I'll go back to it.

Uh, Silent Hill F is one of the best games of the year and one of the best Silent Hill games.

Uh, and if you talk to me about it, but you didn't beat all the endings, I don't want to talk to you.

Um,

and uh,

that's pretty much it.

Uh, if you want to see more stuff over at uh, twitch.tv slash pat stairs at and youtube.com slash pat stares at.

I'm streaming all the time this week.

Oh,

quick silk song bit.

Yeah.

So crests.

Last thing I got was witch.

Yeah, that's a good one.

You know, you get a fucking fancy ending if you beat the game with that, with the pre-witch curse.

Interesting.

Okay.

That sucks.

Yeah.

You don't have the last one, do you?

No.

You want me to tell you where it is?

Is that that's an act two thing that you could have done over here?

No, it's an act three thing.

It's an act three thing.

Okay.

You can get it right now.

What area?

Yeah.

Because, like, the which one is kind of like, oh, you're going to get this.

Okay, got it.

You're going to get this because

you don't want to be annoyed anymore, which I'm like, oh, I remember Hollow Knight having a moment like this where I'm like, what the fuck?

This is super annoying.

This item in my inventory needs to go ASAP.

So yeah, you can, you're at the point of the game where you could look up crest locations if you need to.

Yep.

The last crest

is the one that I used for the entirety of Act 3 and never pulled off.

And it is my favorite.

And I wish I could have beat the whole game with it because it is awesome.

Cool.

Because I'm like, as much as I like the one I just got, I'm like, that's cool.

That moveset's all right, but it's not taking away from, you know,

my trusty trusty favorite and every time i go back and get upgrades and those upgrades end up beefing the one that i don't want to use i'm like i don't care if you make hunter better i don't give a shit can you stop upgrading hunter no the upgrade the hunter is the one that gets all the upgrades oh god damn it that's so annoying

hunter's good man yeah

But this week, I'm going to be checking out Tormented Souls 2.

That's going to be, Dev sent me a code for that.

Very looking forward to that.

Friday, Blind Lady and the Blind comes back.

Me and paige are gonna go i'm gonna put that blindfold back on and go back to re2 and we're gonna totally beat it uh and then on saturday speaking of friend slop on saturday i'm gonna be playing a uh power wash simulator too nice with uh with friend of the show bricky nice

that should be i don't know if you've done those but that looks that good i have not i have not power washed do you feel like you'll be satisfied

i don't know does it do you don't know because i'm looking i look at it and i'm I'm like, yeah, that would scratch a bunch of itches.

That looks like that.

Yeah.

I think I haven't done it yet.

I can't.

I can't.

But Briky was like, let's play power wash.

And I'm like, okay.

He's like, it's just an excuse to shoot the shit while you clean a bunch of bullshit.

I'm like, okay, Bricky, that sounds great.

Do you get enjoyment from watching videos of power washing?

I get enjoyment of watching anything being cleaned well.

Oh, then you're good.

Yeah, you're good.

I was watching

shoe repair videos last night to fall asleep.

There you go.

Yep.

You're solid.

Yep.

All right.

I got to take a quick break.

BRB.

And B.

All right.

Quick word from our sponsors.

Oh, I love our sponsors.

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What do we got going on?

Let's see.

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Excuse me.

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Thank you, Harry's.

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All right.

So this week, what's going on?

Big one.

Rest in peace, Tomonobu Itagaki.

Oh, and also,

hard drive can

go to hell.

What happened?

Did you not see the hard drive Jordan account?

No.

Or the Blue Sky account?

So remember, hard drive split up.

And

yeah, the people who actually

weren't lame left, and what was left behind was fucking drunk.

Yeah, they posted a fucking tweet that was rip Toominobu Itagaki and then posted an oatmeal cookie.

Okay,

well, like the day of his death,

yeah.

Um,

he left a message

that uh

was

I mean, pretty itagaki-esque just being like.

What was it?

I still hate Tekken.

The flame of my life is about to go out.

The fact that this message has been posted means that my time has finally come.

I'm no longer in this world.

My life was a continuous battle, which I kept winning.

I caused a lot of trouble for others, too.

I take pride in having fought to the end,

having followed my convictions.

I have no regrets, but I'm deeply sorry I could not deliver new works to my fans.

I'm sorry.

So it goes.

Tomonobu Udagaki.

Yeah.

And

as depicted, you know, in a bunch of these photos in Memoriam, holding a katana.

Yeah.

Again, just, you know, all these stories of him holding a katana and a bottle of tequila is how he greets journalists being like, do you like Japanese swords?

And they're like, what the fuck are we doing here?

Talk about ninjas.

Yeah.

No, that was, that was nuts.

That's, that's him to the end.

And it's kind of crazy, too, with the timing because Harada was, you know, he tweeted out, like, damn, we were supposed to go for one more drink.

And he recently described all the

what was happening behind the scenes over the years,

you know, itagaki talking about how much he hates Tekken as a franchise.

And the five worst games are Tekken 1, two, three, four, and five.

But then in the

background, like they would actually, you know, they knew each other, and there was an understanding that they both kind of, Herada and Itagaki kind of were like, they were going to be these rock star wearing the shades indoors style developers.

You know,

they didn't just want to be like the geeky software guy.

So they put on, they had kind of created these characters.

And they also had these weird, this weird relationship where like they they were competing, but it was really just Inagaki trying to like talk mad petty shit.

So, you know, Harada described how he one day just got a cold invitation to come see the latest project.

And in an empty room, they popped on DOA2 and he played it.

And they gave him like less than 10 minutes to play the game and then took it away.

And Itagaki's like, so?

Doesn't it blow your mind?

Isn't it the coolest shit ever?

And he's like, I barely got a chance to see what was going on, but what I did see was pretty impressive, you know?

And

he's just being that insane dude.

The other thing I saw popping up was

the God of War director.

Where was that?

Bruno Velasquez.

was talking about it.

When we were making God of War 3, Itagaki came to visit Santa Monica, and we wanted to impress him with something cool and tantalizing.

So we showed him the Gorgon enemy.

And the first thing he said was, Oh, it'd be cool if she could wrap herself around Kratos and squeeze him as part of her attacks.

And they showed him that, like, yeah, we thought the same thing as well.

And we did that.

And so when they showed him the Gorgon squeezing Kratos, he just started grinning and had his shades on.

And he was just smiling and laughing at that.

So they're like, okay, so he knows exactly what he's looking for.

Um,

yeah.

And

I think too, one of the quotes from over the years that

was always just completely batshit

was

asking him about

dead or alive balance in fighting games.

To which he says, I don't believe the way for fighting games to survive is through competitiveness.

Dead or alive one, two, three, and four were made as mere entertainment, not competition.

I declared that a professional wrestler could never beat a ninja, and Dead or Alive never tried to balance that strength of the characters.

I thought it was perfectly acceptable to use weak characters to defeat strong ones, even if it was entertaining, because it was worthwhile to do so.

We still think that way.

That's why DOA 6 is the worst.

Half-baked is a game is what that is.

Yeah.

So just no fucks about balance or whatever.

It's like, that's a ninja.

No one should be able to beat Ryu Hayabusa.

Shut up.

Who cares?

Stupid.

I don't like that.

No, but he believed in it.

Therefore, if you say it with enough conviction, it becomes based, right?

That's the rule.

Even if you're wrong, if you say it with your full chest.

Yeah.

Not all roses, of course.

You know, all that.

There's been all kinds of shit over the years as we've covered him.

But,

you know, rest in peace.

And that was a really sudden one.

He was 58, which is pretty young.

And I don't think anyone knew what was going on with him health-wise.

So it seems like it was another kind of like out of nowhere

situation that like was pre he had a pre-written message that someone posted on his behalf, you know?

And that was that.

Also,

it seems like the timing of that too is like Ninja Gaiden 4,

you know, is like right there.

And it sounds like people are also like super enjoying that and think it's dope as hell.

So,

you know,

even though he's no, it's it's not

his direction necessarily and stuff.

It seems like those franchises live on.

Yep,

that's about that.

That sucks.

Is there any news about what

like how he passed or why?

Nope, nope.

I think it's, you know, just family keeping it private for now.

But it was just uh

whatever it was he knew it was gonna happen because uh like again he he pre-wrote and told everybody that was close to him what the deal was so

um

yeah

i i i you kind of

This is one of those times where it's like, I think one of those garish Russian mobster tombstones is appropriate.

It would not be culturally on point at all, but damn.

Oh, for would you?

It wouldn't, yeah.

Would to just samurai sword and tequila, like etched into the marble,

you know, holding both of just like you like video games with the shades on, you know.

I don't know, man.

Yeah.

Feels, um,

feels like he, he, he, he wanted to, he became the person, he became the character, and then uh, uh, it stopped being a character, you know,

Anyway.

What else is going on?

There was a.

There was a supposedly an Adam Driver Ben Solo Star Wars movie that was going to be directed by Steven Soderberg.

Okay.

When was this supposed to take place?

So it was supposed to take place after episode nine.

And

it's really weird reading about this because, okay, so Adam Driver like liked it.

He said he liked playing Kylo and was down to do more.

The studio liked it.

And getting the weird part about this is like they present, the whole thing is they had everyone there.

They had the script.

And soon as Steven Soderberg legit thought it was a good idea and was down to do it.

And I'm like, that's not someone I would expect to get on a Star Wars movie.

So already I'm like, huh, because that's a a director that would take on, you would imagine, like, you know,

projects that you would, you'd imagine he'd be like, I'm above this type of franchise, you know, surprisingly.

And it was supposed to be called The Hunt for Ben Solo.

Lucasfilm and everyone else loved it.

They understood the angle and why they were doing it.

But then they took it to Bob Iger and they said no, because they simply didn't see how Ben Solo could be alive.

And that was not.

Are you fucking stupid?

So I'm like, okay.

The same fucking movie that said

somehow Palpatine returned.

Really drawing a fucking line in the stand there, huh, bitches?

Oh, wow.

Yeah, I also.

If you're going to fucking throw every rule in the garbage and just slop it the fuck up, then at least do some fun slop.

You could also tell a story that takes place at different times in different ways.

It doesn't, you know, it doesn't mean you can't do something there.

And I would say that, like,

Adam Driver and Kylo Ren and all that were, he did a good job in his role.

And that was one of the things, that was one of the parts of the new trilogy that I thought actually was like nailing it with this new fucking dorky, not Vader.

clone tripe type type dude, you know, like I thought that that was great.

And I loved how.

Oh, Kylo was my favorite part of all three of these movies.

I loved how, like, he was just not Vader.

He was this, like, he was not a dorky kid.

He wanted to be him so bad.

I love that, like, Vader could throw temper tantrums and be this intimidating dude, but, like, the temper tantrums you're watching Kylo throw are like actual toddler losing his mind, getting mad and petty, you know?

Um, and furthermore, I like that, like, the First Order is, like, this kind of pathetic, shitty group of essentially neo-Nazis, You know what I mean?

Trying to harken back to some shit that they're

a thousand Death Stars.

And we're all Star Destroyers.

You know,

the fact that they're super lame makes that work.

That movie is so bad.

I think.

I think.

I think that all that kerfuffling about Last Jedi really got everyone tired and didn't spend nearly enough time hating on just how god-awful that that I can't remember the fucking name of it.

Rise of Skywalker, Rise of Skywalker.

I think that is like kind of an absolute top-shelf franchise-ruining piece of shit to just completely ruin the stakes of like literally anything else that could ever happen.

Oh, yeah, villains come back to life, yeah, whatever.

How many how many death stars?

They got a thousand death stars.

Whoa, shut the fuck up.

What a piece of shit.

We we just had this talk this discussion, you you know, uh, going over it with

Reggie, but it's just like, I,

like, it just, when you look back on this and you go, oh yeah, Force Awakens felt like people were cautiously optimistic, but like, there's some trepidation over like where this could go.

The potential's there.

They played it safe, but we don't know.

Maybe something can happen.

And then you get the next two movies that are just fighting against each other and are too cowardly to commit to anything.

And every move that follows the last one is just, we were too afraid.

So we backed down and tried to go back to something that everything would be safe with.

It just fucking.

Hey, Willie, I got a, hey, I got a great idea.

You ready?

I'm going to, I'm going to, we're, okay, listen.

I'm going to take a billion dollar bet

and have no plan.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No plan.

Well, so that's, that's so weird.

It's like, you hear about with these background things where they're like, oh, we're going to give D and D

a trilogy of their own,

right?

And you're like, what?

But

okay, so here's my favorite part because I that thought connected as you said it.

Okay, so hey, why did DD get fired from the Star Wars project?

Oh, because they fucked up their Game of Thrones thing.

How'd they fuck up their Game of Thrones thing?

Oh, because they had no plan.

All right.

So we don't want to get the guys with no plan.

What we want to do

is have no plan and just get a bunch of guys and them also have no plan.

And we'll just happens.

Like,

like the dumbest part, it's like, I think even if you got like not JJ Abrams or whatever, like, if you got the same person in charge of seven, eight, and nine, at least you'd have consistency and not like three movies fighting each other.

Well, because it was like, hey, you know, George didn't, you know, there were different directors on each of the Star Wars movies, and that what's made them so good.

Yeah, George was there, man.

Like, he didn't direct Empire, but he was, like, there on the set working on the fucking movie.

Just, you know,

when the last minutes of one movie immediately are just fighting against the opening of the next, it's like, what the fuck are we doing?

Anyway.

Thank God I watched that Fortnite video so I could find out what was going on.

So apparently, you know,

all that cowardice and fear for what episode nine was going to be and so on, like, was just same idea, same Bob Iger style shit.

So, at this point, you're almost like, well, why not just make a fucking Kyla Ren movie?

Just, you know, like, why, why not?

Like,

anyway, um,

I, the, the, the, seeing, seeing like

someone like Steven Soderberg attached to it is like interesting to me because I'm like, huh, what were you going to do here that was going to be unexpected or different?

Because I don't think you would get him for a bog standard, you know, movie or something like solo or whatever, like something that wasn't trying something interesting.

I doubt he'd bother showing up for it.

So

in any case,

there's that one.

I'm

deeply, deeply tired of covering giant mega corp gaming industry.

new shit.

Yeah, but this is the economy now.

We can't make any money, so let's just fire everyone and merge.

It's not fun anymore, it's not

fun.

Oh, yeah, it was really fun at the beginning, yeah, you know, yeah.

So

I want off this ride, but whatever.

Um,

Warner Brothers is signaling that it's up for sale.

Oh, yeah, you mean that the best deal ever that we made?

Oh, it's gonna be so good, and then they ruined everything about their own companies, and now they're broke again.

And they're like, please buy us.

Well, the fun, like, this is a please buy us, but the, the, the, the part about the details here is um, where water brothers signals this up for sale for and has received interest from quote-unquote multiple parties and uh you know so this is like please please mega merge please do the super buyout three years ago it just happened it just happened um

but But here, they're like, they're even telling you, they're like, hey, look, guys, we're open to different strategic options.

It doesn't have to be a big corporate buyout.

You can do a split and spin, right?

So you can buy us and split us into pieces and spin-offs like nbc did or you can do a transaction for the entire company or you can do separate transactions for different businesses or discovery global businesses you don't have to buy the full service i can just give you a quick handy

i can i can wear this i can wear whatever you want i can i can put on these i got oh man i definitely ran this company right into the dirt like wow do you want do you want the garter on or off how do you want this you know like wherever you need it back i can come to you or you can you want me to make eye contact or absolutely no eye contact?

It's all good.

Whatever you need.

It's, it's wild to see the one-way proposal immediately followed by, and here's the options, how you can have me.

Oh, fuck.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

It's it, we've entered into a form of capitalism in which there are some companies that have lost any ability to create value at all.

And so they're literally just playing musical chairs with each other's money.

Yeah, well, essentially,

this is the only way for them to create value with their shareholders.

By pitching that it's all on the table, no loads refused.

All holes open.

I saw somebody describe

what's happening to Warner Brothers' Discovery as

them lighting everything in the company on fire to keep warm, and now the fire is dying down.

Like, we've burned everything we own, and now we are left with nothing.

Shit, how do we?

Ah, fuck.

We just need to find more stuff to burn.

When there's nothing left to burn, you must set yourself on fire.

I guess so.

Other fun stuff.

Hey, you know how we talk about how cool the Internet of Things is?

No.

One of my absolute favorite Internet of Things stories this week.

So, I don't know if you heard, but Amazon Web Services had a huge outage yesterday.

It went down.

And a lot of bad things happened, right?

A lot of people lost their apes, for example.

Apes went away.

Oh, man, not my apes.

Yep.

If you went to go look at pictures of your apes, you might have been greeted with some image not displayed.

Sorry, AWS is down.

But

if you happen to have

one of them big honking

smart beds

and then the AW the Amazon Web services outage occurs while you're, I don't know, using the heating on your smart bed, then you might have experienced a bed that was stuck in overheating mode that would not turn off because

no connection to the server means you cannot control the bed or do anything with it.

If you were on a bed that was, for example, tilted upwards at an angle, you could not return that bed to normal position because it locked itself in whatever state it was in as soon as the servers went down.

Some people had beds that they described as bricked.

Yeah.

Because a bed can get bricked now.

Yeah.

So

this is something

that, I mean,

we're tech people, right?

We're gaming people, right, Wooly.

We're in that ecosystem.

And there appears to be two types of those people.

There's people like you and me who, I don't want my fucking fridge to connect to shit.

I want my fridge to plug into the wall and make my fucking food cold.

And then there's...

like early adopters, people that I would describe as like just absolutely obsessed with the cult of the technologically new, who are so obsessed with living in the future that they make sure that every single thing they get is an absolute ready-to-break piece of fucking shit

well and the thing is is that you've you've always have a company that's willing to serve that person exactly what they're looking for if it has a shiny screen on it and some buttons and some noises and uh

10 out of 10 times it's dog shit that doesn't work star trek oh whoa yeah is it get your juice press right yeah exactly Get your fucking flat juice press that has no actual fruits going into it to squeeze your juicero, you know?

I have a dumb bed.

It's a bed that has covers.

Like the idea, and that's the thing is, like, the idea that you would have this type of bed or this type of thing option available and not immediately have a single like physical gear, like thing you turn and it just makes the bed drop back to normal.

Why would you do that?

it's crazy.

Why would you have that, though?

A fail save?

The bed's gonna, but it'll never fail.

It'll never fail, right?

The servers will never go down.

There should never be a problem.

Yeah.

Um,

and like the cheaper the thing is to make in a lot of cases, the more you save by taking away options from people.

So, you know, you see this in like um low-end laptops where they come really affordable, but they're like absolutely bloated to shit with garbageware.

It's bloatware, et cetera.

Runs like crap.

There's buttons, there's add buttons on that topic.

Oh, that's great.

That's cool.

That's so awesome.

All right.

Let me know

when you have it up and running.

Okay.

Hold on.

Holden.

At least I caught it fast this time.

Gotta not be entertaining.

I'm trying not to be entertaining.

Wow, this is great.

This is awesome that this happened three times today.

That's super good.

I like that.

All right, I'm recording.

It's Sonic the Hedgehog.

He's running.

Count it down.

Five, four, three.

Three, two,

one.

Sink.

Great.

Woo.

So, yeah, there you go.

Folks,

if you're buying a smart bed,

don't.

You probably want to get a dumb bed or, you know, get yourself a bed that will not lock you in an upright position while also overheating you when your internet goes down or when worse, a web service goes down.

Right.

Because that's the type of thing where it's like, oh, if the connection in your house fails, it probably has something to be like, oh, no connection found, whatever.

But when your connection to the internet is fine, but the other end server is failing, it's probably getting an error message that it's not ready for, where it's like, well, hold on a minute.

The bed company servers are still up.

Therefore, things are fine.

So what's going on?

What's wrong?

There's something else further that's hitting a cycle that we don't know what to do.

As your bed tries to ping the servers.

So yeah,

good stuff.

Love, love, is it's internet?

It's it's

internet of things, right?

Well, what was the internet?

What was there's um there's an actual account where it's just people having screenshots of like their toaster updating its firmware.

Yeah,

um, don't care for it, horrible,

pretty bad.

All right, uh,

beyond that,

what's going on?

There was

a

oh quick psa um if you're out there and somebody is offering to sell you an autographed copy of a near automata um thing signed by yoko taro uh be wary that the autograph is potentially fake there's a lot of those reselling and he put out a psa to go people are faking my autograph on things and i can tell because i always put little secret codes to make sure that it's real that only i would recognize and

i got a hey,

I got a real special relic here.

I got a piece of the true cross.

I got it straight from the Jesus.

Do you want it?

Well, if it's straight from the Jesus, it's the true cross.

It's just a little piece.

It's definitely not a toothpick I found on the ground.

Okay, but what if Jesus was on Twitter being like, hey, don't buy that?

Do you really know if that's really Jesus?

Are you sure?

I'm right here.

Would I lie to you

um

there's I don't maybe I'm old-fashioned genuinely maybe I'm an old-fashioned piece of shit um I don't think an autograph that you don't personally fucking get counts for shit

I think it is simply a nice thing to collect or have if you yourself want the item i think so go get it if you're doing it for reselling purposes or so, then

yeah,

that's probably the wrong reason to go collect something like that.

But

I shit that I have like that is like because I like having a Daisuke Ishiwatari signed Guilty Gear vinyl for me that I will not be giving to anyone else.

Did he sign it for you?

Yes.

Sick.

Isn't that sick as fuck?

It's really cool.

It's for you.

It is for me.

Yeah.

Anyways,

beyond that, new article.

Someone in the chat asked, well, what if they're dead?

Then your shot at getting their autograph is over.

Like the autograph is not about getting a rare item that you can have and no one else can have unless you're an asshole.

The point is getting a special connection between a place, person, or thing that you really care about direct from it or them.

Yeah, but you see, the baseball card business directly goes against this idea.

So, you know, that's the thing, right?

Anyways, anyways,

they teased the new Art of Fighting game as they said they would, and it just

the largest, loudest why,

like, from anyone,

everyone, really.

I just, I don't even think Art of Fighting fans want more Art of Fighting.

I just don't know what the point is, but there it is.

I was under the impression that Art of Fighting fans were actually just forcibly transformed into King of Fighters fans.

Is correct?

The thing you liked became another thing, and you went, yeah, you know, that's fine.

Like, this is pretty fun.

I'm okay with that.

Like, that is, that is exactly the case.

Nonetheless,

there's some new shit stirring over at Quanic Dream.

They've announced, in addition to working on the Star Wars game that is totally still happening and absolutely

a new multiplayer free-to-play game called Spellcasters Chronicles.

a hero-based third-person action game with death.

I don't don't want to call it a MOBA.

It is, I said,

a hero-based third-person action game with deck building and real-time strategy.

What the fuck part of those words do you not understand?

You stupid bitch.

You stupid fucking bitch.

You stupid whore.

Shut it up.

It looks a lot like Deadlock.

Stop saying that word.

It's a fucking MOBAR.

What is MOBAR a banned word in this game industry?

Oh, you don't want to be lumped in with your MOBR cousins?

That is not what we called it.

There are minions, there are buildings to construct, and there are spellcasters.

Shut the fuck up.

Fucking Mober.

Anyway, we'll see.

Yeah,

it certainly is entering into the genre.

And

good luck, Quadic Dream.

It's really fascinating because Riot's like

Riot's like, we can't get away from this MOBA shit fucking fast enough.

We need, we need something else.

And Valve's like, we're putzing away at our own fucking shit, whatever.

And then here comes Quantic Dream,

late to the party

again.

Ah, just, just the knowledge that, you know, they're, they're, they're right here in Montreal now, you know?

Yeah.

Just, uh,

I don't know.

It just, it feels,

it feels, it feels heavy on the soul.

You know, it feels that there's just, there's something in town.

And

walking by that building, you kind of stare at it, wondering what the fuck's going to come out of there.

What, what

form of

kidney pain am I going to feel in the future from what's being cooked up in that building right over there?

Oh, we got a great quote from Dad Asana in the chat about Battleborn.

Do you remember that Battleborn is hobby-grade co-op campaign genre blended, multi-mode competitive esports, meta growth, choice plus epic Battleborn heroes?

Do you remember that?

I remember that.

I mean, what a sell.

What a sell.

Take my investment dollars right now.

That covers everything.

It covers all things.

I'll tell you one thing: that, like, hey, you, you, you take a stab at this genre and

you do so to fund

whatever your needs are in the background.

You can clearly tell when a project is like, yeah, this is what we put out to make the money to do the other things that are totally still happening.

I feel

like

this is too far out of their wheelhouse.

Well, it's a new studio, so it could be in the wheelhouse of the new studio, but who knows?

I've been watching footage.

It doesn't look bad.

Yeah, the thing is, is just we are like,

I don't know what the cage effect is on this studio anymore.

I don't know what percentage, what amount.

It's been years.

I don't think he does either.

It's been so long that who the fuck knows, you know, whether any percentage of this remains David caged or not.

I guess we'll find out, but one thing is the studio still exists.

They're working on

what they've announced there.

And

I don't know.

Let's see if

a farting dick and balls will make its way into the sprays in the game.

Hey, listen, I know it's wrong to judge a book by its cover.

I know that's not useful and, in fact, incorrect to do, but I would like to point out that the title title of this game is fucking god-awful.

Spellcasters Chronicles.

Yeah.

So, first of all, it's not Spellcaster Chronicles.

It's Spellcasters Chronicles, which I feel is awkward.

But also, having your multiplayer game have the word Chronicles in the title just makes it seem like

shit.

Completely forgettable.

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah.

Yeah, it could be.

I don't think we'll ever, ever beat Dawngate, ever.

I think so, but I've forgotten the ones that have beaten it already.

So that's the problem.

What?

Hey, what's the name of that fucking not StarCraft game?

No, no, the game that's not StarCraft that's made by the Blizzard people, but it's not StarCraft.

That fucking thing.

Oh, can anyone ask?

Is it called Stormgate?

You fuck off.

Storm.

Stormgate.

There's no way.

I think that might actually be called Stormgate.

Stormgate.

Yep, it's called Stormgate.

This bit is eternal.

It's just the eternal bit.

What is up with the word gate in the title of your game, man?

Look, Chronicles doesn't have to be bad, but like, it doesn't.

It also doesn't have to be.

It's fine.

It's fine.

All I was going to say is that when I look at this trailer so far and stuff, it just looks like Quantic Dream trying to become a different company.

Yeah.

I think they're in the process of, you know, trying to leave the identity behind and become something more.

Well, what's the level of toxicity I can expect in

Stormgate Chronicles?

Well, if it's anything.

It's not the name of the game.

That's not Spellcasters Chronicles.

Well, if the level of toxicity in the air while it was being made has anything to do with how the soup tastes.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's good.

I like that.

All right.

That's fine.

Let's take some letters.

Hey, if you want to send in a letter, you can send it to castlesuperbeastmail at gmail.com.

That's castle superbeastmail at gmail.com.

I mean, sure, we could talk about the fact that Xbox dev kits are now getting more expensive, but it's like, just like, yeah, throw another log on the dumpster, you know?

Like, what do we picozy up?

How many stories do we need here?

Oh, I love every Xbox story.

Every single Xbox story is,

there was a different one today that was even funnier, which was

the head of Xbox, I forgot her name, was like,

the next Xbox is going to be like

a highly curated experience,

which is like, oh, so it's not going to play all my fucking Xbox games?

Also, that handheld is like an outrageous piece of shit.

You know that?

That

ships with fucking teams.

on the fucking thing.

Sweet.

And

I watched fucking Dan Rikert get into a fucking boot loop where it just broke and all his Windows recovery options broke on boot and the thing just bricked itself.

Yeah, I feel like we're going from this is an Xbox to the only place to get one is to order it directly from the Microsoft store.

Yeah, and that's a oh, that's so good for

video game.

Also, I'm pretty sure that the reason Audacity is doing this shit to me today is because I have failed to install the new Windows update.

So that's awesome.

Probably going to have to wipe this whole fucking computer.

How fucking dare you?

You will use OneDrive.

You will use OneDrive.

Use OneDrive.

CastleSuperbeastmail at gmail.com.

That's the place to send a mail, like this one.

DSG says, hey, Wooly OS and Pat Buntu.

I recently switched to Linux due to Microsoft being Microsoft.

When I decided

when deciding to choose the distro, I was reminded of the forever war regarding Linux.

Still, what are the forever wars that have been waged, currently being waged, and could be waged once everyone listening to this is dead?

Yes, thanks in regards to DSG.

I think the forever war that'll be waging forever beyond our lifetime is Coke and Pepsi, is just internal.

I recently went to a restaurant and I asked for a Diet Coke and she was like, great.

And then they brought it to me and it was in a glass and I took a sip and I was like,

this is fucking Diet Pepsi.

You said it like that, did you?

Yeah.

No, I did.

I did.

I said it to Paige like that across the table and she was like, oh, gross.

So I feel like, you know, when you see the split between the different corps and like the food companies and all the things they own and subsidiary brands and so on, like Coke and Pepsi is, it's so deep-rooted that, like, it's, it spills out into other rivalries and makes them more rivals.

Like, I feel like Coke and Pepsi is why McDonald's and Burger King are more at each other's throats.

It's the factor, right?

Like, it's a factor.

McDonald's versus Burger King,

yeah, sure, they're, they're Burger rivals, but there's also like Wendy's and all these other fast food joints in the mix, but like those two particular head going out, going off on each other is a part of the Coke and Pepsi war.

You know, it's a forever war?

There's a forever war that I can sum up as a tweet I saw posted by what must have been a New Yorker,

which was,

hey, did you fuck up your dinner?

Don't worry about it.

Just call it Chicago style and serve it as is.

Oh, we talk about garbage plates?

I don't know.

No, that's just a general purpose.

Like, whatever, like, New York and Chicago fighting over their own food styles

is going to be long after the dissolution of the United States and humans in general.

Okay.

The fucking frog creatures that inhabit the earth will find the tomes of New York and Chicago pizza and fight a war over it.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, they're like the

entire, the war between

Greek food and

Turkish food and the similarities and the things that overlap will have an actual body count forever.

Like, that shit is

and and it's because it's so deeply tied in like an actual, like,

you know, uh, there's a period of time where when they were like conquered and like oppressed, and people were like trying to find their own culture within being oppressed by another culture.

They're like, this is our food, but it's borrowing parts of other things.

It's crazy how deep that shit goes.

But, um,

and then don't even talk about like the Albanian part of that mix either and how they all like fucking

the Balkans war goes crazy um

have you ever do you are you aware of the Rochester garbage plate familiar I want you to google the word garbage plate and that is the should I put the word Rochester on that no just just put garbage plate um that is the that is the uh specialty food that's a specialty American dish of course yep that's a specialty dish that you get Rochester style you know what I'll tell you you know I'll tell you I'm gonna say the meanest possible thing that I I can think of.

So the garbage plates and American dish, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Created in Rochester.

This looks like British food.

That's fucking brutal.

That's crazy.

This looks like something that's crazy.

British people invented.

Oh, my God.

Wow, them's fighting words.

Look at the, look, don't just look at the description there, though.

Go to the images.

You got to go.

No, no, no, no.

You got to go to the images.

Oh, it's a big pile of fucking shit.

Yes.

Because if you look at one picture, you're going to go, oh, oh, that's a no, that's not a garbage plate.

Oh, it's a piece of shit.

A garbage plate is anything we have on a put together on a plate.

What do we got?

The 1918 equivalent of a fucking struggle meal.

Just, hey, ask, ask me a question.

Ask me for some food.

What do you got on there?

Yep, we got it.

Hey, I'd like to call out

Gen Call out the whole generation.

Good luck.

I have seen many videos

describing this is my college struggle meal.

This is my long week struggle meal or whatever.

Okay.

And then I will watch it and then they turn on a stove and I'm like, fuck you.

That's not struggle enough.

A struggle meal involves just putting a bunch of fucking ingredients in a bowl and just pretending it's fucking food.

The struggle meal is girl dinner.

It's not food.

If you have an ingredient list for your girl dinner, that's bullshit.

A struggle meal is a spoon, a jar of peanut butter, and like expired yogurt.

A struggle meal, are we talking about just like poor college food?

Yeah.

Yeah, this is what I, this is my struggle meal I ate during college.

And if it's anything but the ramen packets with no water,

you're a liar.

So you have a hot plate for your struggle meal?

Liar.

You're cooking.

That's a meal.

Because

I certainly had a stove in my place, and I know others that did, but the problem was affording the ingredients and or the prep, the preparation.

of

the ingredients was often difficult.

So,

yeah, basic ramen packets would last and you'd find a way to cut up some hot dogs.

Or

I found a place that had

the cheapest beef I could get was little slices made for soup.

And I was like, well, that's my beef, you know?

So

I don't know.

I feel like having access to a stove doesn't necessarily stop you from having a struggle meal.

I would like to segue this into

something I will appreciate as a struggle meal.

I was, I have recently been informed of a new subreddit

last week.

I believe, I think it was Kate Bush's ex-husband that posted it.

But

might be the funniest subreddit I have ever seen in my life.

And it is kitchen cells.

And it is

a good word.

It is like.

That's a funny word.

I like it.

It is

dudes just screaming about how shit their life is and a picture of the dinner they're eating right now.

Ah, okay.

Might be the funniest thing I've ever seen in my fucking life.

Okay.

Like, genuinely might be the funniest thing I've ever seen.

So

there were times when

we were getting our chef boy RD cans

and like that was just, that was dinner.

And every

straight out of the canyon.

Good.

Yeah.

I like this.

This is, this is good.

Yeah.

That was me and my brother would just, that was dinner.

You know, we, that was, that was how we did it.

And

like,

if we were, if shit was popping off that week, we got one of them chunky soups, you know, and it was like, oh, that's a bigger can with like more meat and stuff in there.

And it was like,

oh, fuck.

What are we celebrating?

Yeah.

You know,

I don't know.

I'm assuming I feel like that should count because that's counting, yeah, right.

Right from the canyon, yeah, can of soup, yeah,

yeah, that's struggle.

Okay,

okay,

um,

so yeah, that's a forever war.

Uh, I would say,

um,

wouldn't Mass Brothers players and the law?

Do you know which one?

I'm going to say perhaps

Wizards of the Coast

and

Games Workshop or

whatever.

Am I.

No.

No, not like...

Not like Warhammer and

DD stuff or no?

I would say Sonic Fox and literally every other person who plays Warner Brothers fighting games.

Until they die.

Ask a versus Rey is a forever war.

That is so perfect

because it's like, it's just, it might as well be ketchup and mustard.

Like, it's just too extreme.

Personality archetype.

Sure.

Right?

Sure.

Yeah.

What are you looking for?

You know what?

You know what my favorite thing is?

There was that 4chan post that was like Ray versus Asuka, and they start arguing, and somebody's like, you motherfuckers have been doing this for 20 years.

That was 10 years ago.

That was 10 years ago.

Yes.

And the correct answer is still Misato.

Anyway.

Look how smart I am.

I refuse to

be able to do that.

I'm so much better than this argument.

Yeah, exactly.

Enlightened Misato fans.

You want ketchup or mustard with your hot dog?

I brought my own barbecue sauce.

Oh, look at you.

Yes.

I brought Truffle Mayo, actually.

Fuck off.

Comes with my own penguin.

Oh, man.

All right.

You know what?

I have one.

I have one that will speak near and dear to your heart.

A war that is built in to the human psyche.

I think it might be the single most core difference between humans humans of all ages, races, creeds, genders, et cetera.

And that is between morning people and night owls.

Yeah, sure.

Because morning people think they are better than night owls.

But it's that.

That is it.

But this is pure, like, this feels like you're just born with, this is all nature.

Like, like, that's why it's so fucking nefarious.

I mean, I feel like school, like college cultivated the nocturnal part of me to like be, to lock it in, you know, but even prior to that, I'm like, no, I just, I'm more alert during the night.

I just, I have no say in the matter.

I've always been this way.

I mean, I get up at, I get up at 7 a.m.

every single day now.

I am a morning person now, but I'm not a morning person.

I'm a morning person in the same way that a bear chasing me turns me into a marathon runner.

I do it because I fucking have to.

That is the schedule God provided for me.

The reason why they think they're better is because our culture has developed one of like hard work is associated with waking up at the crack of dawn and going and helping with the farming shit.

And it's a responsible thing to get up early and to not sleep in, be sleeping in as late as you can.

You know what causes that?

You know what the biological reason for that is?

Old people who control society start waking up at fucking 4 in the morning and falling asleep at 3, 4 p.m.

So every single fucking structure in our lives.

We're not a conspiracy.

We read it for you.

No, that's not a conspiracy.

That's real.

Teenagers wake up naturally at 10-11.

Teenagers are built to stay up late, but the school system is like, get up at 6 a.m.

and drag your ass down there.

I don't care if you don't understand first periods.

You can fucking college classes at fucking 8 a.m.

Yeah, did you remember a single fucking thing?

No, it's like a secret.

That's wild.

The olds go to bed early, therefore society must shift earlier.

Yeah, because they're in positions of hierarchical power.

Yeah, you know what?

Sure, that's bullshit.

I'll believe it.

I'll take it.

You remember being in high school, and you had to drag your fucking comatose ass to class only to see your 70-year-old fucking English teacher going, I don't know why everyone's so tired.

Open up your books for Shakespeare at 8:15 a.m.

Hey, come on, be energized.

You're like, you're fucking insane.

You're nuts.

No, it

became quite clear that, like, hey, I'm going to be able to crush this assignment overnight, but right now I cannot think this entire class is pointless to me.

Here, I'm getting my attendance points, but what this is completely useless.

You know, but it makes you.

But yes, the feeling of like you're a responsible person that has showed up early at the crack of dawn.

You're just better than other people because you woke up early.

Oh, my God.

So that's, that's where that feeling is.

Look how much shit I got to do today, but it's not even even 10 p.m.

It's not even 10 a.m.

I got a whole day's worth of shit done.

Granted, I'm going to fall asleep at 8:30 because I'm tired because I got up at the shit ass cracking time.

I'm getting,

dude,

I got up at 6:30 with the toddler the other day, and I brought him downstairs.

He said, It's dark outside.

And I went, Yeah, buddy.

That's when you decided to get up.

It's dark outside.

And he went, oh,

and I went,

let's get you some milk.

I remember when I would have days back in college that were like, you go into the downstairs basement room to work on your renders and you don't come out.

You go in while it's dark outside in the morning and you come out when it's dark outside at night.

And you just never see the daylight.

I also had that period of my life.

And let me tell you, that, that's not good for me.

No, that was bad.

You know, I looked at that.

That was that bad.

And

I remember saying at the time, fuck this.

I'm an adult now.

This doesn't affect me for shit.

And now I look back and I'm like,

oh no, that was very bad for me.

And like, now I'm at the point in my life and like, you know, dude, that Shadow the Hedgehog meme, I think it's Shadow, that just is like, don't trust anything you feel about your life after 9 p.m.

Yeah.

Yeah, dude.

Like, seriously?

Like, seriously.

Just don't.

If there is no sun in the sky, your opinion about your own shit means nothing.

Means nothing.

Wait for the sun to come out.

I

like I don't like the whole like

I think I think I'm I do my best work at night um

but

you do I can tell you I've worked with you you absolutely do your best work at night but I I I and I don't have there's no like seasonal affectation disorder or anything like that no because that's that's a that's a degree of scale not a degree of existence

um

but

there is something about like coming out of the bunker classroom and the only day I see is when I'm going to buy my lunch at the calf and going back down to the bunker that fucks with your head in a way that I still don't understand.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, that'll do her.

I mean, shit, speaking of which, I'm like looking outside right now.

Oh, you want to hear something funny?

You want to hear something really funny?

Because me and Paige are transplants to British Columbia, right?

It rains like 200 fucking days a year, and it's cloudy more days than that.

So the cloudy slash slightly rainy season has befallen us and me and Paige now free from our fear of skin damage and having to wear sunglasses literally every single day are walking the baby just fucking whistling

just fucking yeah oh it's cold woo everyone around us is miserable people who have lived here their whole life

Fucking miserable.

I was at a restaurant and guys were just like like a group of four or five guys were just like, oh, the fucking raining seasons here.

This is such fucking bullshit.

I can't believe it.

Oh, I'm like, oh, wow, really?

This weather's great.

And I got the dirtiest looks I've gotten from strangers in like my entire life.

Yeah.

It is interesting.

I am watching as we like, we did a baby's first night drive.

And she's just like, what the fuck is happening outside the window?

Like,

am I like, just, are we in a portal?

Are we in hell?

Is reality still real?

Like, she's so confused by the state of existence outside the car at nighttime.

So, like, she's a little young, but my toddler's been in full swing for this for like over a year.

And it's like, it cracks me up when I actually think about what's happening.

They fall asleep at random places and random times, right?

But, like, the child's life is that of never knowing where the fuck you're going to wake up at all.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, am I in the car?

Now I'm at the beach.

Am I at the beach?

Now I'm at home.

Is dad holding me?

Where's mom?

Just like, just constantly teleporting all the time.

But also, what are places?

These are just shapes that I recognize or don't, you know, to begin with.

So anyway, all right.

Take it easy.

Have a good week, everybody.