Two Point Museum with Mike Drucker

This is a head gum podcast.

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Hey team, we're trying to get in on the next hot trend

in gaming.

And these days, everyone loves a sim game where you just do something mundane.

You know, these two-point games, two-point hospital, two-point campus, now two-point museum, you know,

all these farming simulators, all these business simulators.

We want our version of that.

Okay.

Okay, yeah.

It's always the floor open.

We can do whatever.

The floor is open.

I'm taking any pitches.

We can blue sky it right now.

Well, you know, like, I'm going to start off small.

Start off small.

I always want a candy company.

You know, I thought it would be cool to just simulate a candy company.

That's really

good.

It's a real basic intro right there.

That's a great idea.

Thank you.

I love that.

Thank you.

Candy Company.

Candy Company.

Candy's really good.

Yeah.

What about an arcade sim?

Oh, yeah.

Where you're like managing arcade and you can pick what kinds of games you have in the arcade and you can also play the game.

Oh, I like that.

That's nice.

That's nice.

Can I just stop down for a second here?

I was expecting these ideas to be a lot worse.

These ideas are both pretty good.

These both sound like good games.

Okay, cool.

I'm encouraged by how good this team is at pitching actual games that sound like something people would want to play.

Okay, okay.

I feel encouraged by this.

Yeah, anyway, my idea is a sim where you run a diaper shop, where you buy diapers, only diapers.

Okay.

Diaper store simulator.

If you were sitting on the best idea today, why don't you just say that?

Yeah, yeah.

yeah.

I mean, like, if you, if, first off, I feel like you just like, you gave me a little pat on the head and then you kicked me down a flight of stairs with that idea.

You're like, hey, good job with a candy store.

And then you came out and left field with diaper store.

And I feel like a fucking asshole.

It's like you walked up to me at the urinal, looked at my hog, said nice dick, and then whipped out a fucking monster right next to me.

Yeah, like, what the fuck is that?

Why would you do that?

It's like you're sitting in my restaurant and you're like, I love this spaghetti.

And then you puke all over my shoes and you said, it's your fault.

The fuck is on with you man pigeon a puke sim because I can get behind that you okay now he's batting a thousand this

he's unbelievable with these ideas fuck you John hey what the hey what the fuck

fuck me fuck you fuck you John like I I came in here and I've been sitting on this idea that candy sim for like a week is like the candy sim we might make it you just come in here and you take a bat to my fucking teeth you piece of shit fuck you

know what you know what I think we all need to calm down here we made the decision to stop being longshoremen and work at a video game company.

We made, there was a big midlife career shift.

We're all down at the docks, working, doing hard blue-collar work.

I swear to God, if you're about to pitch what I think you're about to pitch.

Dock simulator.

You motherfucker.

Here's what's so crazy about you, why I hate you so much.

You know what?

It was one thing that you fucked my wife.

I could let that go.

But this is crazy.

Yeah, I was there and you made me watch.

You fucked his wife and you made me watch it.

I thought you were into it.

I I wasn't fucking with you.

I thought you were giving enthusiastic consent.

Well, then now I feel bad because I certainly did not want to make you witness something you didn't want to see.

I feel like I'm in the same situation again because you're here fucking this idea in front of both of us and we just gotta fucking watch it.

There's spitball in here.

Or you have, you know, people in your workplace

and you try to commit acts of infidelity with their spouses.

Maybe make other employees witness that.

Kind of like a cuckoldry simulator.

I think people would be into that.

It's the best idea based on reality.

We collect dinosaur bones and experience what it's like to have an actual job as we discuss beloved Business Sim Two-Point Museum this week on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heatheran Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, Nick Tiger Weiger, along with our third host, Matt Apodaka.

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where we are bringing it to you straight no lies

no angles no takes just the real real 100 top to bottom yeah i might have some takes i just i'm just gonna say i'm gonna have some takes possible you'll hear a take or two from old wikes but all my takes are based in the truth yeah it'll all be truth I wouldn't I'm not going to say anything untruthful.

You really bellowed out that hello, everyone.

I think you were peaking there.

You think I was peaking?

You went for it.

No, I loved it.

Could it be that

it's opening day?

I kind of want to be calling the game for my Los Angeles Dodgers.

I saw a, I took the bus here and I was at the bus stop, and there was a family, clearly tourists from Japan.

Yeah.

And they were like trying to get to Dodger Stadium.

And there happened to be a woman wearing a like a Dodger jersey.

And they said, they were like, you know, said kind of in broken English, excuse me, can you help us get to Dodger Stadium?

And she just goes, follow me, Otani.

And the whole bus stop just goes, yeah.

I was like, this rules.

And this is the thing.

I know that like, this is like not the show for this or whatever, but like everybody likes to sort of, you know, oh, L.A.

is like this like bad place where everything sucks or whatever.

That's community, baby.

Like, that's like,

I love that.

They're all, that's it.

That's amazing too.

Yeah.

Hey, we have a, we have a great guest returning to the show today.

But first, if you haven't listened to the show before, you know our producer, Rochelle Chen, Ranch.

Uh, how you doing, Ranch?

Great.

Uh, so we we got some new ranch lore that I wanted to talk about.

Oh, yes, so Rochelle, you're currently fostering a stray dog, or we're fostering a stray dog, is that correct?

Yeah, I currently am.

Yeah, you currently are.

Uh, and uh, everyone at Head Gum was talking about how good you are with dogs, how all dogs love you.

If anyone listens to uh, to Doughboys, we have our Emma's dog, our producer, uh, Emma's dog, uh, Jemmy, loves Rochelle so much and is skittish around other people, skittish even around me, but like loves Rochelle.

Skid around you.

Everyone's skittish around you.

Parks at me like I'm a T800.

But I was like, I asked you about this because it's just a thing people know about you.

It's like, you're so good with dogs.

And you were like, you're like, well, as we know, you grew up in Thailand

and you and your mom lived with your aunt who had how many dogs?

She had 13 dogs.

13 dogs.

You grew up in a house with 13 dogs.

Yeah, they were all street dogs.

They call them soy dogs in Thailand,

but they all just kind of wandered into her yard.

Yeah, and they just kind of hung out.

Yeah, and whoever came just kind of stayed.

Your aunt does

have a long white fur coat and black and white hair.

Did she?

We did not skin the dog.

My dog is notoriously anti-person.

So I would love to have you over and watch the magic of my dog sniffing a person instead of immediately hating them.

Well, doesn't your dog love Mary?

Yeah, exclusively loves Mary, hates me, hates me in my own house.

Yeah.

Even though we met the dog on the same day.

Yeah.

Bites me.

You think the dog is like, I know we met him the same day, but I really don't like this one.

Yeah.

We haven't.

I mean, the joke, I think I've said it on the show is that the dog knows Mary's name as Mary and knows me as Otherwoman.

Reg, you're.

Back up Mary.

Reg, we need some,

we'll figure it out.

We need some sort of dog-related nickname for you because this is like your superpower.

But I, the 13 dogs, that's totally wild.

And so you just developed a camaraderie with them, a natural way of communicating with our canine friends.

I guess so.

I mean,

they were my only friends for a while.

I don't know.

Maybe I learned how to speak somehow.

Wow, there you go.

You said we needed a nickname.

I feel like we just found the origin of the nickname because it seems like she grew up on a dog ranch.

Everyone's thinking about the dressing, not the amount of dress.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Hey, our guest on the show today, a comedian and Emmy-nominated writer from the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Nintendo.

His new book is Good Game, No Rematch, a Life Made of Video Games available April 1st, wherever you buy books.

Mike Drucker is back.

Hi, Mike.

Hello.

Hello, Mike.

Thank you.

Thank you guys so much for having me.

And I apologize for jumping into the conversation conversation when 13 dogs came up.

No, hello.

I loved it.

You've got to get in there when that's what's being discussed.

That's exactly the quantity of dogs where you must chime in.

Yeah, exactly.

Hang on, hang on, hang on.

It sounds like an understanding.

It also sounds like a video game.

It does.

13 dogs sounds like a puzzle game.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, an indie puzzle game that came out in 2014 that makes you cry.

All right, so

I want to talk about the book.

Good game, no rematch, which I have pre-ordered at at my local bookstore.

I'm very excited to read it.

Tell us all about it.

Sure.

During the 2023 writer strike, I, you know, was trying to think of something that I could still write.

Right.

And so I decided to pitch a book.

And I'd been thinking about sort of doing a one-man show about games in my childhood.

And I couldn't really get it right.

And so I was like, okay, I'll turn these ideas into a book pitch.

And so I pitched it and HarperCollins bought it, which is cool.

And so it's a book that's basically a ton of funny essays about how I've humiliated myself throughout my life with video games.

So it's like at different moments, just embarrassing myself.

Like, uh, there's like, there's a story about me working at Nintendo in the book where they had a big paintball game and I got shot in the nuts like in the first two seconds.

So, like, even at the peak, even at my peak, it's still bad.

Yeah, that's

were you holding the gun?

Not after I got hit, not after I got hit.

I, I, I crawled across the floor under a desk into a box.

What are some of the other,

you know, obviously I've been playing games for a long time.

We're roughly the same age.

We probably grew up with a lot of the same games.

But like, what are some of the games you talk about in the book?

Well, I mean, I definitely talk about Super Mario just because that was like the big thing that introduced me to it.

And

I talk a lot about Final Fantasy.

Oh, yeah.

Because that, you know, gave me very bad ideas of what romance would be when I was 14.

Like Final Fantasy convinced me, like, to be a cool guy, you just had to say nothing and be stoic.

But I did not have the body of a stoic boy.

Like, I clearly looked like I wanted to say something very much.

I talk about that, Dance, Dance, Revolution,

Street Fighter, and then later on I get into games like Nier and

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth when I bring it back and a later thing and a ton of arcade games.

It's kind of like a, like you said, sort of like a scattershot look at our lives in terms of different games.

So I'm late to the party on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

I'm currently playing it and I really loved Remake.

And I was like, so it's kind of like, I feel like I've had this experience.

So that's why I held off on Rebirth.

Ended up playing it partly because Apodake here convinced me.

And

I think it's

so incredibly well done.

But I'm curious.

I mean, you put it in your book, I imagine you're a fan.

Yeah, no, no, I liked it a lot.

I think

at first I don't, I didn't like it.

And then I realized I don't have to do everything.

I can just do the things I want and do the story.

Because I'm not a completionist.

Like, I don't platinum things, but I do feel bad if I see a side quest and I just walk past it.

Right.

Like, it's almost like I'm supposed to do my homework first.

And once I realized I didn't have to go into every fucking Moogle hut, I could actually just go through the story.

I didn't have to fucking play that fucking board game again.

Like, I could just keep going.

I enjoyed it a lot more.

No, Queens game, it's fine.

I mean when you had to jump into like the strategy game.

Oh, okay.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, they remade the strategy game from seven as like a weird thing.

Yeah.

I was thinking about this or what you're talking about, side quests, and I was just thinking about how many unfinished side quests I'll have when I die.

Like, just like so many open questions.

You mean in the real world or in yeah I guess I mean I guess both that's morbid yeah yeah but also awesome

do you think you'll have more in games or more real life wow great question

it's got to be in games just just on sheer quantity of tasks I've accumulated over the years you know true true true well what do you count as a side quest in real life do you count it as like hey I've never used a lathe.

I should learn how to use a lathe.

Is that a side quest?

I guess so.

Yeah, if I really wanted to use a lathe, I would add that to my queue.

Like, like, I'm like, here's the thing.

Like, I'm an adult learning to play piano right now.

So, like, I consider that like a side quest, like working on my piano skills.

That's just like an ongoing thing.

That's not my main thing.

So, I think a thing, I guess, things like that.

And I guess you'd classify errands as side quests.

Yeah.

And then maybe larger thing.

If I had a project, like if I was, I did have my own book I was working on, maybe that might be a side quest.

Or maybe that's part of my main quest.

I don't know.

I don't quite know how to categorize it.

Do you think at some point that playing piano will become your main thing?

Man, that'd be awesome.

That'd be so great.

Sort of like a...

My second act name Liberacea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was good that you said second act because I was about to say third.

But imagine you, imagine you at a piano.

Everyone's there to see you.

Yeah.

Everyone's like, I gotta go see Nick Weiger put on his piano performance.

And he's like wearing like a very beautiful suit and like a cape and stuff.

And he's like, this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

Because you know how, like, I mean, other comedy people that some of us have like known in the past have sort of rebranded themselves as like very serious artists now.

Yeah, it's kind of like Seth McFarlane being a crooner.

You know, it's like, it's like, this is the thing I really want to do.

And this is my true passion.

You know?

It'd be great.

Yeah, honestly, that would be awesome.

But that's, I'm, I'm miles away from that.

For a second, I misregistered the name you said as todd mcfarlin and i was like the guy who drew spider-man sings

he might have been why does nick know it created created spawn redefined the toy business and yeah now is an incredible concert pianist

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This is an absolutely true story.

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

Okay, so

your previous book,

which we talked about on the show, was about Silent Hill 2.

And you wrote a recent piece for the gamer that I really enjoyed called I Wrote a Whole Book About Silent Hill 2.

Here's what I think about the remake, talking about the Blueberry Team remake, which I didn't play, but Matt did play.

Yes.

You

overall seem very positive on it.

Have your thoughts changed at all since you wrote that?

Did you end up spending more time with the game?

I did spend more time with the game, and I did enjoy like one of the neat things they do in New Game Plus is a couple of the same things you get in the old game, New Game Plus, but they have different video filters, which actually do give a good atmospheric feel to it at times.

To me, it felt very good.

It felt like I mean, almost like what a movie equivalent of it would be, where it's like, you know, The Grudge is a good movie.

It's a good horror horror film.

It's not as good as the original one was in Japan, but it's still pretty good.

And that was sort of my feeling about this Silent Hill 2 remake was I was like, I enjoyed myself.

I do not regret the purchase.

I still think the old one's better and I'll probably play the old one more, but I really enjoyed this one.

So I don't want to like throw it out entirely just because I enjoyed the original more.

Yeah, I think the comparison I think you land on in the article is like talking about the Resident Evil 2 remake.

And there you're kind of on the opposite side of like, you like the remake more, but like both games are good and you're glad they exist.

I guess, honestly, rebirth and remake and like original OG Final Fantasy VII, I kind of feel the same way about, you know, it's like I'm like that all these versions are available.

Yeah.

I was just going to ask,

what is the, if you could identify one standout element of the remake that is better than the original, what would that standout element be?

That's actually a really good question.

I would say that it's

a little larger in size, so it's a little more detailed.

You know,

I don't like they move away from

static camera angles, because before in the original Silent Hell 2, it's sort of like, you know, like a horror movie where you're looking over someone's shoulder as a hallway is shot from like a weird direction.

This one's more over-the-shoulder third person.

Right.

I would say that it is better in terms of it has a lot of cool details.

They clearly really cared about the game and the world.

So like the details that they add are actually really good.

And they do a fun little twist with how like almost kind of like Final Fantasy VII remake where it's like, is this a remake or is this kind of a sequel?

And they do, and they do a good job with that.

And I'll also say, like, I'm not a person who needs combat in a horror game.

But the combat in this, if you are a combat fan, is much more fun than Silent Hill 2, the original Silent Hill 2.

Now, I might argue that it wasn't supposed to be fun, but in terms of playing a game and feeling good and like enjoying yourself, it's probably a more just just enjoyable experience.

Yeah, Silent Little 2 is not supposed to be a power fantasy.

It's a terrifying psychological nightmare.

Yeah, the thing that I like about the combat in both versions of the game is that James is bad at fighting.

He's not very strong.

And he's like, you know, like just kind of like hits stuff.

Like it's, it's, it's, that stuff's great.

And the thing that you said about it being that sort of meta

part of the narrative that they added on, which is like, is this a remake or is this a sequel?

That to me sort of justifies the existence of the remake entirely to me because I'm like, oh, that's like an interesting, I don't know, that's an interesting idea.

I like it.

Yeah.

And you know what?

They, they really handled Angela's story well.

Like they completely redesigned the look of Angela.

And I remember being like, are they going to change her story?

Because her story is, if you haven't played Silent Hill 2, she has like the saddest story in a very sad game.

I don't know if I should spoil it or not, but essentially very bad things happened to her.

And she did something very violent in response to that.

And, you know, they handled it surprisingly well in Silent Hill 2, the original.

And in this one, they actually expanded on it just a tiny bit, and they really actually did a good job with her story.

It's a very tricky story to pull off.

Yeah.

And I'm impressed that they did her story right.

That's awesome.

I mean, I've thought about playing it.

I am wondering.

And maybe you know the answer to this.

Maybe Heather knows the answer to this.

Like, what is the current best way for someone to play the original version of Silent Hill 2?

Because, you know, the last time when we played it for the show and we had you on, I was doing the PS3 remake, which is not an ideal way to play it, but

it's okay.

But

if you want to actually play the original Title Hill 2, I mean, is it even feasible on modern hardware?

Yes and no.

I mean, you can easily emulate it on a PlayStation 2 emulator and it'll run well.

Got it.

In terms of legal ways, if you can get your hands on the PC version of Silent Hill Hill 2, which still like bounces around on eBay,

there's a ton of fan mods that are still up to date that give you widescreen support and give you new resolutions and make it run better on new machines.

So, if you can get your hands on the PC version, you can actually mod it to be like this beautiful looking

version of the game that works great.

I have a project now.

Yeah, you have a side quest.

Okay, I guess we'll never see that beautiful concert.

Nick reaching out of his grave.

I gave a piano for this.

Did you like the, speaking of survival horror remakes, did you like the RE4 remake?

I did.

I did.

I don't think I went as

apeshit over it as most people did because a lot of people were like, this is like a, this is so much better than the original.

And I was like, it's very good, but the original is just like an all-around great game.

100%.

yeah.

And it, I really liked it, but I think I kind of got it over-hyped to me, which maybe

raised my expectations past where they should have been.

I think we're, Matt, we did an episode with our, with our buddy Zig, and we were, um, we were pretty hype about it, but I also feel like a lot of the energy we had was us remembering Resident Evil 4, and like that game did a great job of remembering that feeling, you know, like we're just recreating that, that in a modern context.

Yeah, and like I've replayed the original resident evil 4 after

you know in in in the subsequent years uh on different platforms and

having one that plays like a modern game though is is is is worth like its existence alone just because it's like it's just and it looks great and it feels good and like it it does sort of remind you of your old friend resident evil 4 yeah sure yeah it's it's it's great and uh i i do like the um i never messed around with the

they had this this other mode where you can play like sort of do runs not like a

not like a like a horde mode yeah like a horde mode or something like that i never really messed with that part of it but i i liked the separate ways dlc which i had not experienced the first time around where you had to play as eight a wong yeah and that was really really fun i liked that quite a bit i was gonna say it's strange that you said that it plays like a modern game because i think

I think something that's happening is there is becoming a control, a default control scheme that is slowly creeping in there's like one set of controls for like third-person action games and then there's one set of controls that evokes demon souls or souls games yeah and i feel like that's becoming the two standards of like how you control a video game do you agree i do agree i like i've said before i this is the kind of thing that i want like some governing body to just issue like a decree on.

Like I want there to just be like, we just need to standardize this.

I can't be going into a new game and like learning, like, oh, this this one has attack on the face buttons.

This one has attack on the shoulder buttons.

You know what I mean?

Like, let's just standardize this.

I don't need crouch to sometimes be on X and sometimes be on circle.

I don't need like A and X and Y and

what's the other one?

B?

I don't need A, B, and X and Y to be in different positions on the Xbox controller and the

Switch controller.

Like, let's just standardize things, make things simple.

To be fair, you are often trying to get the government to interfere in a a lot of different types of things.

I kind of feel like you got to calm down with this.

Well, there is like sometimes that is the thing that is to the benefit of consumers.

Like the USB-C ruling from the EU, when they said lightning cables are bullshit, and now we have USB-C is just more standardized.

That just makes everyone's lives a little bit easier.

So, like, I'm not saying, and the EU also did a thing about getting rid of fairly recently, and I don't know exactly what the

restrictions are, but like in-game currencies

disguise the real world cost of something.

That's good.

This is obviously not on the same level of like predation, but it is the kind of thing that I feel like, I don't know, I'd love for that to be more standardized.

Yeah, I also think the buttons shouldn't have different.

The Nintendo buttons are the same letters as the Xbox buttons, but they're in different places.

And it drives me crazy.

And then, you know, the PlayStation ones are the same shapes.

They should all just be the same.

Who cares?

They can be whatever shape they want.

Yeah, because we settled on four face buttons and four shoulder buttons.

Yeah, they should just all be the same.

We don't have like the weirdness of the GameCube with the C-stick anymore.

No one's riffing.

We've at least

standardized layouts.

And the trigger buttons are, and the

analog sticks are all R1, L1, R2, L2, and then R3 into L3.

That's all across the board the same thing, but the face buttons are all different.

And it's,

you know what?

I think the government needs to get involved.

I don't know how it is anymore, but when I worked in development, you know,

the first parties would give you the specific art for

the iconography of buttons in games, including their D-pads and their, you know,

their shoulder buttons, their face buttons.

So like you'd be using the official Sony

square button if you were going to put that in like a tutorial text tip.

I imagine it's a similar sort of thing, but that, you know, they tend to be, because they use it, especially Sony uses it as part of their branding.

They control that pretty tightly.

I don't know who's going to move first then, but it's such a big part of their thing.

Yeah.

But hopefully we settle this soon.

Mike, I know, you know, like we've, we've obviously talked to you about Silent Hill 2, and we're talking about survival horror here.

Like, is that one of your go-to genres?

Or

are these just games that you happen to like, but like your tastes kind of

lie elsewhere generally?

You know, I'd never thought of it, but it really is kind of my go-to genre as just like, oh, you know, maybe I'll play this for a little while.

Yeah, sure.

And I'm a huge fan of, you know, this wave of like $5 indie games that look like PS1 games.

Right.

And I'd say 20% of them are scams or not.

good to buy, but then you can refund them on Steam because they're usually over in 30 minutes.

But

there's a ton of them that are like really good.

Like, I played this one game called kiosk, where you're just running this weird food kiosk in the middle of the night, cool, and it gets super weird and creepy.

There was this game, Dead Letters, where you play a weirdo who's like, um, you're working for like the post office and you have to type in addresses, but everything keeps getting more fucked up as it goes.

I'm not describing it well, but like, there's all these indie horror games that I've been putting so much time into, usually because they're like, again, they're like five to ten bucks, and you finish them in two to four hours.

Yeah, there, there is, this is not exactly that, but the um, but buckshot roulette was another, like a more of a meme game, but it was just like a, a really just like gristly, violent game where you were playing

and like a potentially lo-fi, like, like grisly aesthetic where you were playing

Russian roulette with a shotgun and it was first-person mode.

So you'd be aiming a shotgun at your own face and pulling the trigger and sometimes you would die.

And I was like, this is a really intense experience.

But I was like, like, yeah, this is worth $3.

I enjoyed my time with this.

I just got mouthwashing because Fantas

recommended it.

It's good.

It's great.

I haven't tried it yet.

I'm scared.

But I bought it in the Steam sale.

It was on sale.

I was like, I'll toss, I'll get this in my library here, but I have not yet worked up the nerve to play it on my Steam Deck.

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Mike, we have one more question that we like to ask you and the room.

What are you playing?

What are you playing?

Hey, it's me, the Resident Edward Merchant.

And I'm here asking all my friends and Mike.

What are you playing?

Okay, now I don't want Mike to feel bad about excluding Mike from.

I think Mike also can be considered a friend.

Mike's my friend?

Yeah, I think so, Resny Barrett.

I love it.

I love to make a new friend.

Can you, in that voice, just say what you buy and what you're selling?

What do you mean in the voice?

In my voice?

In your voice.

What are you buying?

What are you selling?

Like that?

I heard you guys talking about the remake, and I fucking hate it.

Yeah, you, of course, got recast in the remake.

It's kind of a, you know, it's kind of a bummer.

We like the other voice actor, but we missed you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The difference between lived experience

and a voice actor is bullshit.

One of us lived there for years.

I guess I went, what did,

what are you playing?

Do we ask the guest first?

Yeah, I think we can ask that we can ask Mike.

Mike, what are you playing?

Oh,

I uh actually

weirdly uh i did a full replay of warrior wear twisted oh wow

i i found it in because i was i was going through like a bunch of boxes and stuff and i found it in like the bottom of my game boy bag and i was like oh i thought i lost this like i for years i thought like it was one of those games that had just sort of slipped through my fingers somehow and so i loaded it up the cartridge was the battery on it was dead i replaced the battery and It's great.

It's so, it's so fun.

It's such, it's almost like a toy in a way that like only Nintendo games kind of beat are.

It's so good.

So I did like, I spent like two or three days just playing WarioWare Twisted.

And I'm also still playing Avoud.

I love, I want to ask you about Avowed, but I love Twisted.

That was, it had a, like a, I think it was a gyroscope in the gyroscope.

So you're saying like after 20 years in storage, the gyroscope was still functional.

The gyroscope's functional, but it wasn't saving.

Oh, okay, got it.

The thing that what I remember about that game is it played better on the at the regular Game Boy Advance as opposed to the SP because you have to like physically spin the thing and it's a little clumsy to do with the the you know the folding screen.

Yeah, but I've been using it on the uh on the uh analog pocket.

Oh, no, yeah,

yeah, that's awesome.

Uh, what is you what do you think of avowed matt spend some time with it?

Yeah, I bounced off, but I want to get back into it.

I you know what?

I like it for I like it for what it is.

Um, I think a lot of people want it to be Skyrim, and I knew going in, reading all the interviews about it, that they were like, don't go in expecting Skyrim.

And

I understand the criticism that it feels a little bit like a theme park ride, that you're kind of being like ushered along where like there's like diverging paths and whatnot, but like everything seems kind of like pre-planned and staged.

I like that though.

Like I'm a big fan of theme parks.

I kind of like going on like a little adventure where even if there's a little artifice in certain scenes where you're like, the way the characters are lined up or move is just a little too, you know, Disney animatronic.

But

I don't know.

I'm enjoying that.

I'm enjoying sort of that theme park feel of it.

I even,

you know, I don't really care about the combat.

Like, I most, I'm playing as like a, trying to do a high intelligence type character to talk my way out of shit.

But like, yeah, it's fun.

It's, it's, it's a fun game.

It's not my game of the year, definitely, but it's a perfectly fine video game.

It is a video game I won't regret playing.

Right.

You know, almost the way I felt about Resident Evil 4 remake.

I was like, I'm having a good time.

I don't regret it.

But, you know, that's about it.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

I feel like I'm going to like you bounced off it ultimately.

I bounced off of it only because I started then getting in, you know, the weeds with that Pokemon ROM hack that I was playing and then just a couple of nice things that are

that came across my desk recently.

But I would like to get back into it because I was really, really enjoying it.

I was playing like a

like a wizard build with also

like I also then had a sword too, so I was just kind of like

being what a teenager would think is like the coolest thing you could fucking ever

I'm a knight, but I'm also a wizard and I can throw fire at you but it also I was messing around a little bit you could have a you could have a gun.

Yeah

I just think that's so funny.

You can be a wizard with a gun.

It's good.

That's one of one of my favorite parts of Kingdom Come deliverance too is that they do have a gun.

That's so funny.

But it takes solid, I would say, 35 seconds to load.

And the whole time you have to be running away from somebody.

Same with the crossbow.

Like you load the crossbow, you put in one arrow, and then you have to crank for a while to get the cable to come down.

So it's a really ineffective weapon.

It's pretty neat.

Where would you say, Mike, you are in relation to like maybe like finishing the game?

Are you like somewhere in the middle of it?

I'm still in act one.

I'm at the like if the acts are broken up by like where because they're sort of like five open area type places.

Yeah, I'm at the very end of the third.

Okay, or at least I can sense that I can sense that this act is closing out and they're shuffling me towards the next area.

Got it, got it.

Interesting.

Yeah, I have a friend, my buddy Connor, is like super into Avowed right now.

And he's just every time I see him, he's just like, I can't stop playing Avoud.

He's like, he's just so into it, which is great.

That's cool.

I I got to get back into it.

Heather, what are you playing?

I've had a pretty thin week of gaming.

The thing that I've primarily played this week is the Pokemon Pocket card game,

which as of this record, just had a new expansion come out.

I

feel like what's happening in the game, though, is a little bit of stagnation.

Like, there are,

I would say, four top-tier decks.

And if you have those decks, decks, it is, you know, essentially

not a literal in-game coin flip, but it's a coin flip on whether or not you're going to win.

Because there's not a lot of like

elasticity in your strategies that you have to pull.

There's a very minor amount of adaptation.

And I think what I'm experiencing is the difference between a 40-card deck and a 20-card deck, because the actual in-person game is a much, much larger deck.

So there's a lot more variability in what you can build with those cards because you don't have to

your focus doesn't have to be how fast can i do damage

because you can in the larger um tangible card game set up decks with much slower energy builds and have like defensive cards in front of those builds while you like for example you build up charizard um

because the game because the pocket game has so few cards, all of the decks are based on alacrity and like how fast you can get energy on any specific card.

So I'm starting to get a little, I don't know, wary.

I'm like, I'm a little bored by it.

And I'm really hoping that this new expansion

increases the

different builds of cards or decks that you can do.

But there's not even like, it's become so optimized and so min-maxi that like I can't even play the fun decks that I used to play, like the one where I was playing as weeping bell and like pulling people out of their discard pile, or I was doing a Porygon Z deck because it's fun to like strike and then change somebody's energy.

The problem is that there's so many cards now that generate energy that you don't even have to rely on the energy, like the actual energy being created by your

deck.

So yeah, I don't, I don't know.

There's also a ranked mode coming out, and maybe that's going to change things.

But that's been what I've been playing.

I would say I've put in a few hours in that game, but mostly because like I had jury duty.

So like I, you know, like I didn't want to bring a full fucking video game into jury duty because I don't want to be a dick.

But but like, yeah, I just didn't have like a, I didn't have a ton of like gaming time this week.

I was on a jury and like for like two weeks towards the end of last year, and this one woman

was just knitting the whole time.

Like, she didn't stop knitting, and she like went from like having nothing to like a full set of gloves by the end of it.

I was like, that was fucking amazing.

That's so crazy.

Yeah, I for sure would have just been playing my Switch the whole time.

No, yeah, I wasn't doing shit.

I like what you're describing, what you're talking about with card games, because I do really like card games, but I feel like I have the same experience with all of them, which is that I love them, I'm obsessed with them, I get really into the meta, and then then

I, you know, the metagame aspect of it, and then I'm optimizing my desks, and then I get bored, and then I burn out on it.

And I've just sort of accepted that that's my cycle with these sorts of games in the same way with like a roguelike.

I do the same thing.

It's like, I love this so much.

I'm going on so many runs.

Then at a certain point, I was like, okay, I feel like I kind of like have solved how to play this that I just,

I lose the interest in this.

But I think that's kind of the experience.

But, but also what you talked about with deck size, like that was such a thing because Magic the Gathering was like 60 cards, right?

So it's a huge deck.

And then, you know, the first thing Hearthstone does, when Hearthstone drops the scene, is they just cut that cap in half.

So it's a 30-card deck.

Marvel Snap, which is so built for mobile specifically, so built for phones, is a 12-card deck.

So they just keep getting the decks smaller and smaller so that

you're basically always doing just like trying to rush down your opponent.

So yeah, it does

start to feel very, very samey.

Yeah, hope, I mean, what would be great is if they released a premium, like, I know that there's very few pay models that actually work,

but it would be awesome if they released like a full-blown Pokemon card game like for mobile, because I would, I would pay money to play that game.

Right.

I would love it.

Yeah.

You mean like the old Game Boy version?

I mean, I didn't play the Game Boy version, but I mean like if they just digitized the current card game experience.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Yeah.

And you could just play the actual full deck experience, like, I would,

I would pay an enormous amount of money for that.

Nick.

Probably like a normal amount of, probably doing

too crazy with that.

I pay an enormous amount of money.

Nick, what do you play?

Heather, thank you so much for asking.

So, so much money.

$30.

Okay, $30.

That's a lot.

Final Fantasy.

So I've been playing Final Fighters 7 Rebirth, Rebirth, as I mentioned,

but I'm surprised by how much I like Assassin's Creed Shadows.

And I'm like, it's kind of hard to play two big honking games at once.

I need to commit to one of them, but I've just been kind of like dipping in and out of both.

I did restart my Assassin's Creed Shadows playthrough in canon mode after hearing Triple Click rave about it.

We talked about how much we loved immersive mode last time, which is that like instead of all the, instead of it being an English dub, I mean, dub, it's a fucking video game, but whatever.

Like, like, it's Like all the actors speak either Japanese or Portuguese.

And it's like, it's great.

And I think it should just be the default.

And it's kind of unclear what you're choosing when you're doing those opening menus.

But

it totally like it just ups the production value of the game.

But so the canon mode is a thing where it removes all the like bullshit sort of decisions you have to make, like, you know, like save him or spare him or whatever.

And it's like, well, knowing that there's a canonical way that this goes, it feels like these decisions are just arbitrary and meaningless.

So, like, I just don't, I don't want to even have to think about these.

So, I just went back to canon mode, and then that's just automated.

And you, and it's just, it feels like just like a linear story, which is great.

But it's one of those things, it's like, why even make this an option?

It's like, you know, it's like somebody says, I don't want to go, like, I hate like a pizza restaurant where I have to build my own personal pizza.

It's like, just get, just you make those decisions.

You know what I mean?

I just want pepperoni.

Sir,

sir, I need you to say it, though.

Don't make me say it.

But anyway, I'm kind of torn between these two big games in terms of what I'm going to play.

I might just go, fuck.

I do really like shadows as the thing, but I don't want to not play through Rebirth after I finally got around to it and I'm really enjoying it.

Anyway, that brings me to what I've been playing, Disney Villains Cursed Cafe.

So

this was surprise launched during, as you're listening, this past week's Nintendo Direct.

It was developed by Ontario-based Bloom Digital, which is a self-described idealistic studio that makes games for a hopeful and loving future.

And I gotta say, this game.

They're delusional.

Well, here's the thing:

this game rips.

Oh, wow.

It's so good.

I'm so into it.

I'm playing on my OLED Switch.

I had the thought, like, this might be the last game I play on my Switch 1.

Wow.

Which I was like, that's kind of a weird thought.

But yeah,

it's really, really fun.

It is very much for me.

Is it free to play or do you have to is it?

No,

it's like $15.

Okay, great.

I actually prefer that.

It feels fairly priced.

What Disney Dreamlight Valley is to Stardew Valley, this game is to Coffee Talk.

It's this cozy cafe management game where you're, instead of a barista, you're a potionista because you're making potions for Disney villains like Captain Hook and Ursula.

I mentioned the developer and they've done in the past, like dating Sims and visual novels.

It seems like I haven't played any of their other games, but

there's

talented writers, talented narrative designers there their writing is really fun and clever um it it's almost a visual novel's worth of dialogue like there's there's a lot of it but it's it's all very engaging the art direction is straightforward um but it's effective and also the thing the the the decision they made is the villains all dress in modern attire like they're actually going to a coffee shop yeah so you see that so you see like jafar wearing earbuds it's really

sad

there so the the the way gameplay kind of progresses is there are standard potions that you brew like you know gaston will just want, like, you know, he'll just have some specific requests and you make it for him.

But then there will also be like, oh, Captain Hook is searching for inspiration.

And so he will either, he will maybe request a potion of a specific kind, but you have the decision to be, these are the things that are called story potions.

You'll have the decision to brew a different potion, which maybe puts him on a different path, maybe perhaps a more virtuous path.

So you can kind of lean into like his,

you know, innate evilness, or you can sort of be like, well, what if you,

instead of pursuing this pleasure, what if you looked inside of yourself or whatever?

So

it's kind of fun and it's slight, but in a good way, in a easy, breezy, fun way.

I'm going to keep playing it.

And I'm surprised by how much I like it.

But I'm also not surprised by how much I like it.

It sounds like the exact type of bullshit you like.

Speaking of Nintendo Direct, they had that announcement about the virtual game cards.

And I was like, that's fucking awesome.

it's awesome it's such a nintendo thing of like they kept they they come up with something that no one asked for or thought about and it's either like complete nonsense or like the coolest thing in the world yeah yeah i i like it because i share like i'm a multi-switch house yes me too i think it's great it's awesome yeah For those of you listening who aren't familiar with it, they're making your digital purchases into virtual game cartridges that you can then lend to members of your household so that they can play the game for, I think, two weeks before it automatically retransfers back to you.

That way you can share your digital purchases without, say, sharing your actual Switch.

Yeah.

And that's fucking rad.

Matt, what are you playing?

So I'm also playing Assassin's Creed Shadows.

I haven't dropped it and I have not, and I'm kind of jealous that you started over.

And I wish.

I had heard Triple Click say that before.

I have now put 20 hours into it.

Yeah, you're too you're too concomited to that play yeah i i had a i had a a rare day over the weekend where i just had nothing to do and i was swapping controllers on the charger

i was i was it was disgusting that sounds like parody

the moment i woke up to like basically like when i went to bed oh my god i was playing a satchel cream

it was a wonderful god no it was it was a bad day it was great but i should it was like i should have gone outside for a little bit or something you're living like you got bigged.

My life is kind of like I got big.

I'm always jumping on this big piano.

And fucking an adult woman.

If only.

But so I'm still playing that.

And I just got to the part where you get the

you get the second character back.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Let me tell you something.

Yeah.

Heather, I know.

As soon as you get to that, you're never going to stop.

Because

even my wife remarked on this.

There's a move that he has where you can kick a guy.

Yep.

And you can't just like, you don't just kick him.

You can be you kick him off screen.

And it looks so funny that my wife will request that I kick somebody because it's crazy.

It's like a this is Sparta kick.

Yeah.

Just kicking someone to oblivion.

Yeah, your knee up to your chest, just kicking them just so far away.

Damn it.

It rocks.

But then he's also, but it's also funny because he's so big.

The idea of him sneaking around is kind of funny.

That's like part of the game, the game's appeal.

It's like a very base level.

You have what?

One character who's big and one character who's small.

Yeah.

It's just like, hey, that's fun.

Because you're sort of like, okay, it makes sense.

The small one's good at sneaking.

But like, if you saw this big guy in a fucking mound of grass, you'd see him from like two miles away.

Yeah.

He's the biggest guy.

He's huge.

But I'm just, I'm really enjoying it.

And

I like how they come together within the story.

Yeah.

And

I don't know if like, because I haven't played a lot of these two completions, so I don't know if like the story is like the thing in an Assassin's Creed video game, right?

Like, I mean, I know that there's like narrative elements that are satisfying to people.

I mean, there's village building and stuff.

Like all that shit is really good.

Well, you can build a,

what do you call it?

Your base camp.

You can add things to it.

And I've...

That's not a thing that I like to do.

And I found myself being like, well, I have to have a place to study.

Absolutely.

I got to have a forge of some kind.

I got to, like, so I've been gathering materials to do that.

And I'm sort of taking the open world approach where like, cause I'll get bogged down in wanting to do all the things.

I got to a point in rebirth where I was like, this is good.

I'll never see the end of this game if I'm playing it the way that I'm playing it.

Right, exactly.

And so I'll do that for a while.

But what my approach right now is if there's something on the way and it seems like I could do it quickly, I'll do it.

But if it seems like it's going to be a bigger to-do, I'll just leave it on the map and then maybe circle back to it if I'm feeling a little listless and not wanting to progress the story that much further.

All I do in Assassin's Creed games on my first like, I'd say 10 to 15 hours is go to the high points.

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Like if I can, especially if there's like a couple on the way to attack, I'm like, well, I'm hitting these towers because, and in the, what's good about the high points in this, and I assume a lot of the the other Assassin's Creed games down below is like a base for you to attack and like kill a bunch of samurais and stuff.

Yep.

And so that feels very, very fun.

I just I think the gameplay is really, really great.

I've gotten, I got these, I don't know what they're called, but it's basically like what it's like, it's a two-handed weapon where one is like a ball, like a spiky ball, and the other one is like a blade.

So they kind of play functionally like the blades of Olympus in God of War.

And so that, I've just, I've just been doing that and just like ripping people's fucking throats out with this thing.

It rocks.

It is so, so great.

It's a very satisfying game.

If you could set an Assassin's Creed game in any time of history, where would you want to set an Assassin's Creed game?

My not funny answers, 2016, I think.

But now,

gosh, I mean, you know, it would be kind of honestly, it might be interesting because, you know, the animus stuff is the modern day stuff.

It might be interesting to do like, like, 1930 or something.

It might be kind of cool.

Yeah.

Mike, I, you know, I'm, I, this is the first Assassin's Creed game I've played in a while.

And I, where are you on the franchise?

Are you a fan?

Uh, when I say I'm not a fan, that's not me saying I am against the series.

Right, shit.

It's more like it's, it's one of those series where I think I own most of the games just through Steam sales, and I will play five or ten hours of them and then sort of just bounce off.

100%.

It's just something about them

just doesn't grab me like um

i don't know for some reason they just don't seem to grab me that much and i always want to like i always give them a good try and i just bounce right off is it is it a setting situation like for example if if it was an assassin's creed set in and i'm i'm gonna take a shot in the dark here 1989 tokyo

would you want to play the assassin's creed 1989 tokyo

i don't know like the thing is, I kind of like what you guys were saying about, like, I like jumping up on a building and I like looking out at the landscapes and I like sort of like, you know, watching and, you know, doing the combat, but I don't really get into the story of any of them.

Sure.

And I find like the idea, the whole like sci-fi rapper that it's in to be kind of like

not always not corny.

I also don't find that aspect particularly compelling.

I agree with you there.

And so, I don't know.

I don't know.

Like, I've always just like, and because there's always so much else to play, i just have gone to other things but i have nothing against the series i do think i don't i am not on i am not against assassin's creek shadows if you're listening to this yeah i am not that's not who i am

i i do think the series sort of suffers for there being too many games in the series yes 100 yeah sure yeah too many of them and they're all kind of they're a lot of them are all kind of the same like you know what we talked about last week We forgot about Mirage, which came out like last year, two years ago.

It's like they just keep churning them out.

I didn't do a final count how many there are, but I would have to guess there's somewhere between 15 and 30 Assassin's Creed.

For sure, there are.

For sure.

I think you're right.

If you include like mobiles and like the DS game, yeah.

Yeah, it's like it's it's it's it might be too

too many.

Um just because if if if they were all like if they were all different in the way that Valhalla is different than Shadows,

which I think functionally also just very different, like you played two very different types of characters.

Yeah.

But

I guess three, because there's two in Shadows.

But

and there's like the bird thing in Valhalla.

Yeah.

But there's not, you don't have that in this one.

Right.

Like at least if they were all just a little bit different in the way those are different, that'd be one thing.

But for a lot of them, you're the same fucking guy.

Well, essentially, yeah.

I do wish that there was a little bit more variability

to the set, because it feels like, oh, I'm still in old times.

Yes.

You know, and

most of those old times, like the fact that Valhalla is, I think, the third oldest, so most of them fall in between Valhalla and now.

And that to me is like, oh, that's, you know, that's a thousand years of history.

Like, how fucking awesome would it be to be like the Paleolithic Assassin's Creed game?

Yeah, that's because Odyssey, I know, which I didn't play, but Odyssey was like, you know, set in a more classical era.

Like, it feels like that, those are the, those are what you'd like to sort of explore a little bit more.

Yeah, yeah.

I, I, I, I, I think there's such a

fantastic pipeline for light history in the same way that like a history channel show is light history.

Yeah.

Like they're enjoyable and you do actually learn stuff,

but they're not like, I don't know, academic feeling.

Yes.

And that's kind of pleasurable sometimes, but I do wish there was a little bit more variety in, oh, we're not in, you know, this same 700-year region again.

Like, it would be cool if it was like, it's the Tigris and the Euphrates and you guys are determining how warfare is going to work.

Like that stuff is cool.

That is cool.

All right.

Hey, speaking of franchises

and one that you do play, Mike, Two Point Museum was released on March 4th of this year.

This is the third in the series after Two Point Hospital and Two Point Campus.

It is developed by UK-based Two Point Studios, published by Sega.

And I think this is the highest metacritic of the franchise so far, the museum of the trilogy.

Now, my experience with Two Point, and I want to get at everyone's, but

I know you were the one who pitched this, Mike.

So I want to give you the floor.

But I played Two Point Campus and I enjoyed it and i do really like that it's got this cheeky sort of british sensibility um and it exists in this kind of this real-time you know business sim genre which owes its origins to you know the sims but also like roller coaster tycoon um and obviously there's a bunch more of this this is a whole uh flourishing yeah a flourishing genre these days but where are you where are y'all on the two point i mean heather i assume that this is just a franchise that's completely not for you yeah it was it was not on my radar uh but i you know i played it uh as much much of this particular title as I could since it was announced for the pod.

And the thing that was most exciting to me about it is that my favorite part of Animal Crossing was building the museum.

Right.

So as soon as I was like, oh, wow, you...

It's that part, but, but kind of granular, I got to be honest, I was a little on board.

Wow.

Wow.

Okay.

Mad about yourself.

I had not, I had heard of the other ones.

I had not ever checked in on any of these before.

This game, this game in particular, became on my radar because my 85-year-old father-in-law sent me a review from The Guardian and asked me if I had heard of this.

He sent me like their glowing five-star review.

And he was like, this sounds neat.

He's English also, so he said it like an English man.

But

so then I started checking it out, and I was surprised to find that I was enjoying myself as well.

Yeah, it's a, I mean, the gameplay is very, very hooky.

But Mike, what got you into the two-point games?

Well,

because I believe the two-point games are made by, are like spiritual successors to like Theme Hospital.

Sure.

And so I liked those when I was a kid.

And, you know, I kind of, I love, I love sim games.

I love, I love Sim City.

I love games where you just get to like build up something.

I love the Sims.

And I like that it's super cartoony and fun and goofy and has a good personality.

And that was also part of like the theme hospital, you know, games as well, in the theme park.

So, I don't know.

And kind of like what Heather was saying,

my favorite part of Animal Crossing was building the hospital.

Like, all I wanted to do was to get fish building a hospital, building the museum.

What do you say?

Like, what happened

to your island?

You owe me some bells.

I'm like, the hospital and the terrorist interrogation camp.

And I hate Assassin's Creed Shadows.

But building the museum was my favorite part.

Like, I love getting fish for the museum.

I love getting fossils for the museum

and paintings.

Like, that to me was the most compelling part.

So, sort of like what Heather was saying, this was a chance to play in one of my favorite genres and doing one of my favorite things to do in a game.

Right.

And I kind of, what I like about it compared to the other games in the series, I would say hospital is my second favorite.

Campus is really good.

It's just that the idea of running a college isn't exciting to me.

So it's a little less cookie to me, but I love museums.

And so this is like exactly the right type of game for me on a number of levels.

I also love museums.

What's what, like, what's, what's your, what's your, do you have a favorite museum?

And do you have a recent, like, what's your most recent museum visit that you can remember?

Well, my favorite museum is the Natural History Museum, the New York Natural History Museum.

Oh, I love it in Central Park West.

I love it.

I love it.

I love that fucking museum so much.

It even says Game Boys on the wall in there.

Wow.

When you come in.

And

the last time I went was probably a couple of months ago with a friend of mine.

And she was in town and she was like, she just wanted to do one of those hangs where you can just talk during the hang.

And so I was like, and she was like, do you want to do like a, you know,

do you want to do a hospital or something?

No, should you do a laundry museum or something?

And so we went to the Natural History Museum.

That's awesome.

Heather, most recent or favorite museum, most recent museum visit.

Well, you know, as a Chicago kid, we've got two really great museums, the Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago had, when I was growing up, a a coal mine that you could go into so you could learn about what a coal mine was.

And to a kid, it's terrifying because you have to go into like deep underground in this elevator that's not actually going deep underground.

But as a child, you're like, oh my God, I'm going to die down here.

So

I'm really partial to those two museums, but my, I would say my third favorite museum is the Natural History Museum in New York, which also has two very, very good skeletons of my favorite dinosaur, the Deinonycus.

So love it.

I love it.

I have on my 3DS a ton of photos from the Natural History Museum.

That's cool.

I love that.

That's cool.

Do you remember

the last time you visited like a museum in general?

Three months ago?

What was it?

It was the one downtown here with the rose garden out front.

Oh, okay.

Which I don't know what the actual name of that museum was,

but it also has like a big blue whale in it.

I think it's the Natural History Museum.

It's the one by USC, right?

Yeah, it's the Natural history museum of Los Angeles.

My wife, knowing who I am, was like, do you want to go to a museum?

And I was like, uh-huh.

I like that museum a lot, too, just because they got a lot of dinosaur bones.

And I like to fucking

see that dinosaur.

Show me the bones.

Show me the bones, baby.

Good bones.

Show me the bones.

But I love, anytime I'm in a new city, I got to go to whatever the museum that's closest to where I am is because I just got to see what's I got to see what's going on.

I was in St.

Louis a couple years ago.

I went to three museums

in like a day because it was just like not a lot to do while I was there.

But they had some interesting art.

And one of my favorite ones is actually the,

there's a, there's a, there's a museum in Palm Springs.

I think it's called the

Palm Springs like Modern Art Museum.

And they had a really great glass blowing exhibit there that I was like, this is like the coolest shit I've ever seen.

I love it.

I don't know if this qualifies as a museum, but one place I do want to shout out because I discovered discovered this last year when I was up in Toronto for the first time is Little Canada, which is

this Dutch billionaire who actually I met and had a conversation with,

basically used his fortune to build

like all of Canada in miniature.

And everything is like at model railroad scale.

And so there's like all the major regions of Canada are represented.

And it is so, like, so the sort of thing you hear about is like, all right, sure, whatever.

And then you go in there and it is so enchanting.

It is just absolutely like, I would just, anyone who visits Toronto, anyone who lives in Toronto and hasn't been, absolutely advise a visit to Little Canada.

It is such a, such a labor of love.

And everyone who's working on it is like, so, like, like every, you know, you can talk to the people because they're, they're actively building more of it.

I've just, like, they are all so engaged in it, so committed to, you know, like both like the, this, this kind of very spirited act of Canadian patriotism.

And then also like, just like they all just like love the art of miniatures.

So it's, it's really cool and and it's really well done.

That's really cool.

Yeah.

Speaking of Dutch, as long as we're on the topic, I also want to shout out the Video Game History Museum in Holland, which I visited in 2023.

And it is,

it's a mecca.

It's incredible.

It's

every cabinet, every console,

almost all of them available to play.

Wow.

Including like.

PC games and PC game terminals that are set up to look like the like living rooms of the era in which they are from.

It's a really fantastic experience.

And the most recent museum visit for me was the Nixon Library.

Rancha, you got a favorite museum?

I really love the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Oh, yeah.

That's a fun museum.

Really cool.

I don't even know how to explain what's in there.

It's like kind of like an

art installation.

It's like kind of like a riff on what a museum is.

Yeah.

It's cool.

What's the last museum visit you had?

I guess Griffith Observatory.

Oh, sure.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

With the kind of like a mini museum underneath it.

Yeah.

I like to, they have like the scales there that you can get on that are like, this is how much you weigh on

the planet or whatever.

I like to get on and be like, oh, that's how rude.

So you love museums.

Obviously, it's like a, it's like a fun thing to be considering.

Like, what does the game capture about that aspect of it?

Like, that, that, like, like, in what way does the game represent the, to you, the, the cool part of museums?

Well, you know, you're, a big part of the game is you're actually like hiring, you have to hire a staff.

So obviously you have like security guards, you have janitors and whatnot and so forth.

And one of the class of people you have to hire are called

experts.

And they have like little Indiana Jones hats.

And, you know, the experts have different trainings trainings and you can train them in different things.

And you have to send them on exhibitions where they have to like go find things.

And

what's interesting to me about it is some of them can die on these trips.

Some of them can get sick or like permanently injured or like you have to send them off to a different place.

And so even though it's this very cartoonish game, it's also like sort of saying that like the act of discovery is kind of dangerous.

Right.

And it's sort of like, you know, even though it's very cheerful, there is like a sense of like direness to, you know, some of it.

You know, part of it is you're in kind of imprisoning ghosts in a spiritual museum.

And there's, there's different, there's also different museum themes.

There's like an aquarium, there's like a ghost museum, there's fossils and shit.

They don't call it fossils and shit, you know, fossils and shit.

And then the ghost one, one of the things you have to do is like capture ghosts and then put them on display for people, but you have to like put them in rooms that match their time period or they go like ape shit and break out.

But I don't know, like there's just something about the, you know, the fact that the game makes you discover things and then you get to place it, gives you that same act of discovery you kind of have going to a museum.

Right.

What, what is, so what is new in this game versus campus and hospital?

One thing I read is that they changed up the star system, which I remember

it was like out of three stars in campus at least.

You know, I don't actually know the changes.

I didn't play a ton of campus because I kind of bounced off it, but it did, it feels,

when I say simplified, it doesn't feel like a simpler game, but it feels streamlined a little more.

Like I feel like I'm getting thrown fewer things at once.

I do find the tutorial better here.

Like the tutorial also, I'm usually very irritated by tutorials.

And the tutorial in this one's actually like very good at onboarding you.

And it kind of like

it does something smart, which is it's sort of like, okay, if you just want to like sandbox it for a while, go ahead and then you can come back to these goals.

Like, it doesn't like try to shove you along.

Um,

so I think that was really good, but you know what?

Honestly, I don't know what they actually changed.

One of the things that I found interesting about it was that

there's a tension between your personal desire for aesthetics and the most functional version of the museum.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, like, if there's like a, like a donation, uh, a donation pot in between like multiple exhibits, you can put it in a place where people are most likely to hit the donation pot after going to any of these specific exhibits.

And you can, and it draws all these little dotted lines in between the exhibits and this donation pot, right?

But I don't want it to be there.

Right.

Like I don't want it to be in the middle of the fucking room.

I don't want it to be next to a banner, next to a toilet, next to a trash can.

I want those things to be like pretty.

Oh, yeah.

No, if I walked into the museum that I made, I'd be like, this is the shittiest museum I've ever seen because everything is like crammed in like the

entryway, and then it is a long, empty walk to the gift shop.

Yeah.

I definitely did the thing I did in The Sims the first time I played it where I was like, okay, how big should the employee restroom be?

I don't know, half the building?

I do like it too.

Like, there's something like, I've never played a game where I've had to hire a staff before.

And, like, I was sort of like, this is

somebody's actual job.

Yes.

But I'm having fun.

I'm having fun picking the silly named person that gets to work in my museum.

I mean, you do, you play Dave the Diver, so there is that element when you start managing the restaurant.

Yeah.

But I do like that.

I do like whatever like personality quirks are just like individual attributes someone has when you get to hire people.

It's weird to think of human beings as Pokemon though.

Right.

Yes.

Like, oh yeah.

I mean, I wish I'd written down some of the names because they're all just sort of like cheeky little like puns for the most part.

Yeah.

But it is funny because like I did notice that there's like a timer on them that they're basically like they'll just leave.

And you so you have to have sort of like a rotation,

like a steady rotation going, which is good.

And I just like I

played for a couple of hours and

I was playing primarily on my Steam deck, which I don't think is the way to play the game.

I think the I got to get on a

I got to get a mouse involved here.

I got to get on it.

Yeah, the controller controls are effective, but

they're confusing.

Yes.

Because like I'm also having to then cycle through menus and having to remember which one is which like thing.

And so I just like I'm like, I have to install this on my PC actually if I'm going to spend any more significant time with it.

Cause I was actually enjoying it and would like to like

build out the rest of the museum

and then show my wife what a good job I did with the museum.

See if she likes the museum life.

Get that pat on the head that you want?

Yeah, just a little one.

Something.

But

because yeah, like the Yeah, the Steam Deck controls, it's technically playable on the Steam Deck.

It's not listed as verified.

But I didn't have that much of a problem with it, but there was times where I was getting frustrated navigating the different menus and like trying to pick somebody up, for example, and like move them and then accidentally selecting the

You know the item store or whatever and just being like no, that's not what I wanted to do or accidentally erasing the thing that I was about to build and stuff like that stuff was a little frustrating, but um I like

I liked building the

the little training area for your employees.

You get this area where you can sort of put desks and like little like library stands and stuff and they can acquire new skills and go on different, more complicated excursions.

And I was just like,

guy read more books than me this year, this guy.

There's

maybe this isn't the podcast for it, but there is a weird

tension between

like colonialism and museums.

And it was like the I didn't like that they would go on an expedition because I was like, so you're stealing from wherever that is.

Yeah.

You're going in with my money and you are removing the artifacts and bringing them to wherever this museum is, which is always

the sort of feeling I have.

Like there's a little bit where I'm uncomfortable in a museum.

Yeah.

Did you learn nothing from

longer?

Yeah.

Well, no, I mean, like, cause it's like, okay, there are lots of exhibits.

Like, when the King Tut mask comes through town, you know that it is on loan.

Like, it comes through town and you see it, and you're like, oh, cool.

It's, it's the Tut mask.

And I, I've seen photos of this and here you.

Yeah, if you try to put it on.

Yeah, we all know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they get really mad if you start singing that song about it.

I mean, yeah, absolutely.

I feel like that's that's always in the news.

There's always like some artifact being returned to like, you know, the people who should have it.

But it's like, I mean, invariably by the British Museum.

It's always them.

Yeah, that was the thing when I was in Italy.

Like I went to a few museums over there and like it was kind of amazing because I'm like, oh, like the museums here, especially the museums that I've been to primarily in Southern California, all the stuff is like at most like 300 years old.

And then I'm like looking at something from 10.

Yeah.

Like this is freaking crazy.

And then the other thought that I'm having was, wow, they stole this so long ago.

Well, what's nice about like the Italian museums is like David is in the city where it was built.

Yes, that's you know, that's sick as hell.

Yeah, so, so, like, there's like you go to those museums and you're like, oh, all these were painted within like 20 miles of this place.

So, but, but when you go into like the aforementioned Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, there's a bunch of mummies.

And I'm like, I don't know if these A, should be in a museum and B, are here by like,

by like the, the option of the Egyptian government.

Yeah, and that's also a crazy thing to think about too, because like, there's no way

before you were being mummified that you knew that that was something that was going to happen to you, that you were going to be thinking, somebody's going to have a picture of me on their iPhone 14.

Right.

Such an insane thought.

There's a movie that came out last year with starring Josh O'Connor of Challengers directed by Alice Hororwalker called La Chimera as Italian film.

And it's all like, it's one of those things where it's just like, like in Europe, there is like so much civilization history that like is just buried and uh like like so there's like like actual uh all these artifacts that are just underneath cities yes and so

um he's like with a group of of like basically tomb raiders who just like go into the sewers and like dig up artifacts illegally and like sell them on the black market it's just like that's kind of amazing because that would not exist in like LA you can't just like dig up like an old catacomb no um and and and find like a like a you know a silver goblet yeah well and and meanwhile in Europe, a recent archaeological find was somebody magnet fishing in a river and pulling up a full-blown Viking sword.

And it's like,

it's not even buried in the river.

It's just in there.

Dropped there.

And still where it was dropped.

That's so crazy.

I remembered something from that.

We're turning to it to an older topic, but I remember something from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.

Well, a couple of things.

One is that

there's

the original score, like the handwritten score used by the conductor for the first performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

And

it was a gift from like the Emperor of Austria.

But it's the sort of thing you're looking at it and it's just like under glass and the Nixon Museum is like, why the fuck is this here?

This shouldn't be here.

This is more important.

These motherfuckers from Whittier.

This fucking corrupt president.

The other thing is like there's there's a like there is a Nixon and pop culture section which they acknowledge, and it's got like Nixon and Watchmen, like a huge art of, of that, and they're also Nixon in Futurama, just his head.

I was like, this is, this is kind of awesome.

Suck it to me.

Yeah, they have that too from

Laugh In.

Like, okay, so

are you playing through the campaign here?

Like, like, how do you, what is your normal way of progressing?

My normal way of progressing is

starting in sandbox mode.

Getting very frustrated very fast because it turns out I don't know what I'm doing.

going back to the in this case the campaign mode it the tutorial and the campaign mode are basically the same thing but it works very well um and then so i've i've played a fair amount of the campaign mode and sort of went back and forth to sandbox mode but yeah so i i i don't know how far i'm in i have three museums at this point i have the aquarium supernatural museum and the uh the the fossil fossils and shit this is this this feels like if i'm and it feels like you're, you're not necessarily a one game at a time person, uh, and neither am I.

But this, this feels like maybe like this is the thing that's kind of the game you're, you're playing, you're playing when you're not playing like your main game.

Is that kind of how you're treating it?

Um,

yeah, and it's definitely like the type of game where I'm like, I have 30 minutes before I have to leave.

I'll just put this on because I'll just, because there's, if there's no turns, there's no like big grants, you know, strategy or, you know, it's not like there might be a cutscene that I have to pause or skip, you know, you can play a few minutes and still do something in the game.

And so, it's just been like a both a game that I've been playing a lot in blocks, but also filling the cracks here and there, too.

Yeah.

Mike, what was your first experience with a sim game?

Do you remember like the first time that you sat down either at a computer or a Super Nintendo or whatever and played a Sim?

I think my elementary school had a copy of Sim City.

Wow.

Um, for one of the uh, one of like, when the Macintoshes were first like just getting like CD-ROM drives,

it was like that type of Macintosh.

I don't know if it was on a CD-ROM drive or not, but it was like the, the first SimCity, the old one.

I remember that.

And I think I played that one before the Super Nintendo one, but around that same time, I played the Super Nintendo one.

And I just remember being like so kind of dazzled by the idea of like, not being the mayor in a fancy way, but being like, oh, I'm like building a town and there's people there.

And I can imagine that they have jobs and I can imagine that they're going to stores and they're doing things.

And so I don't know.

It was almost like kind of magical to me as a kid.

Yeah, I had a similar experience where

I think my first experience with one of them was SimCity 2000 on a PC.

And then I later got the Super Nintendo version, which is like

a step backwards from SimCity 2000.

But it, but the first thing that I learned in SimCity was there is a difference between a commercial and a residential district.

Right.

And I was like, wait, you can't build a built no matter what you, there's somebody telling you you can't build a kind of building in an area.

And that was, that blew my mind.

And then I walked out as a kid into the city and I was like, right.

All of the stores are in one place and all the houses are in a different place.

And there's, I love the, like, that little bit of magic.

Like, it was like glasses from, was it They Live?

Yes.

Were you just getting to see the truth a little bit better?

Is the

do y'all like like because I've never played.

I did I did really like the Sim City series.

I'm a huge fan of the Civilization series, but I never got into City Skylines.

But I know people really like that.

Did anyone end up playing those?

Is that the no, no, no, I'm not playing.

It's like a spiritual successor to Sim City as far as I know.

Yeah.

No, no, no, I didn't get into it.

I know what it is, but I didn't get into it.

Yeah, I did not.

Like, Matt,

where did you end up going with the with two-point museum as you kept playing it?

I don't have that much.

I have a lot of like fossils in my

and I, like, I have some, like, complete

dinosaur bones in my museum, which is, you know, I was talking about I love the bones.

But so I haven't expanded into another museum yet.

But I kind of want to, I want to, like, tear the whole thing down and, like, start, not start over, but sort of like, like, rebuild the museum that I'm currently working in and like just make it a little bit nicer because it is ugly.

The thing that I, the thing that

I sort of, I thought these games were cozy and like sort of chill.

No, and they're not.

I would say they're not

at all.

It's not a chill game.

It's not.

I was like not fully stressed out when I was playing it, but there was

in, I guess in like, you know, it's different than like playing, like, say, like, this is going to sound so fucking stupid.

It's different than an Elden Ring or something where the stakes stakes are you die and have to start over again, right?

Sure.

The stakes in this game are you can have a bad museum

and people will leave and then not and you know not pay or you know or whatever or like

steal shit and walk out yeah or straight up or like you won't or you know you have or you're running in essentially an ineffective business.

Yeah.

But you feel like but that's like that's it's the same thing motivating you, which is fear of failure, you know?

Exactly.

So like when I see that like there's a puddle on the ground, but uh you know my my uh janitorial staff has left for the day i gotta hire an you know an additional janitor right do that so you kind of it's just it's a game of all spinning plates all the plates are spinning at the same time you gotta just and as you expand and as you get more things going on the plates just keep coming and as soon as i feel that feeling in the game i am immediately start and and i I don't think this means that I'm not saying this for attention.

The moment I felt that pressure, I was like, well, then fuck it.

I'm going to make the worst place on earth.

Like,

I was like, I'm going to make this horrible for the people inside because

there is so much happening, and I don't want to be stressed out.

So, I would rather lean into making a nightmare space.

Yeah, I will say it is, it is a great shame of mine that my museum is ugly because, like, even I had the same thing with Animal Crossing.

Like, I don't think my island is particularly nice.

I don't think my home is like designed in a particular way that I think that I'm proud of.

But I, you know, it's, I just kind of, that game to me was more about the relationships, of course.

Dom, the sheep, my best friend in the entire world.

Yeah, for sure.

I got into a game that I was playing.

I'm not playing it anymore, but I was playing this back when we were on Twitch and I was streaming this called The Tenants.

And it is a sim game, a business sim where you are a landlord.

And it was wild how the levers of that so quickly just turned me into a complete piece of shit because it's just about extracting as much value as you can out of your tenants.

And so it's things like, is it, do I want to actually fix this problem or do I just like

paint the walls?

And so you understand why you have, you've lived in so many shitty apartments that like don't have a fridge or they just painted over the outlet.

You know what I mean?

Like

you're incentivized to do all the laziest things possible.

My doorbell,

the building that I live in is old.

My doorbell is painted over, and then the bell mechanism is like an actual bell with like a fucking little hammer.

Oh, wow.

And that's what it would, you know, that's what the doorbell was.

That's also painted over.

And I was like, why is this even in my fucking house?

That's insane.

I look at this painted over bell that's worthless and doesn't do anything.

It's just in there.

Well, see, when I found the same mechanism in my old apartment, I took it off the wall and repaired it and put it back up.

But then I found out there was no wiring connecting it to the fucking.

I was like, oh, wow, I got gotta get to work I gotta get to work I put it back up on the thing go outside push the button and then nothing happened in one of

this in one of my cabinets too there's like um

uh a piece of like sticker or paper that is painted over so I see the border of what the sticker is and it for sure probably was like an asbestos warning before or something that is just like painted over completely my my least favorite thing like there was a an apartment that I was in where the doorknobs were all painted over yeah and this is like a this this, I, I, I mean, maybe not everybody gets fed this in their algorithms, but I definitely did because I'm exactly this kind of person where I unscrewed the door mechanism, soaked it in paint thinner,

rubbed it back down to the brass polishing, and put it back on the door.

And when the landlord went for the walkthrough, he was like, What's this?

And I was like, That's the door knob.

And he's like,

Did you replace this?

And I was like, No, no, I cleaned it.

And he's like, Huh.

huh?

And I felt like

anger.

They're mad if you fix something.

Yeah.

So,

like, I had, I mentioned not having

a couple of shitty, shitty apartments that don't come with fridges because it's not required by law in LA County.

Um, so like, you have to buy a fridge, and there was a certain point where we're moving out, we're moving to a new place.

This fridge would not fit in that new place.

And so, I just was like telling, like, hey, we're just going to leave the fridge and the next tenant can have a fridge.

They're like, you got to get that fridge out of there.

We don't want to be responsible for that fit that fridge because if they lease it with a fridge then they have to tell the that they have to take tear fix it if the new tenant has an issue with it that's yeah it's like yeah it's horrible yeah i recently i mean we don't gotta get this is like an insane tangent i recently had like a carbon monoxide issue in my apartment and my landlords were they were so fucking mad at me

they were either mad i have to do it i have to do a second of work i i started owning rental properties so i didn't have to work i have to do so many things so fast, all because this fucker didn't die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Have you guys seen?

It's a very old YouTube clip now, but there was somebody who probably bit my finger

who bit a finger.

No,

there was a

NFT now.

Is it really?

Yeah, they turned into an NFT.

Oh my God.

Bit my coin.

Mike.

You don't have to do that.

Yeah, yeah, that's nice, but you don't have to do that.

It hit a narrow slice of common for me.

That's good.

Hell yeah.

Hell yeah.

That's what I'm talking about.

Welcome to the resistance, Mike.

There was a YouTube video, I would say now 15 years ago, maybe 10 years ago, that was somebody who had maximized the

population density of SimCity.

Yes, I think it's SimCity 4.

I know exactly what video you're talking about.

And he made like a megalopolis that was like 10 billion citizens living in like 8,000 square feet of Simon.

Yeah, and he had like, there's all of these maps of the thing where he was like figuring it out and figuring it out, like how to maximize your pixel by pixel density.

And it is a fully loaded top, like it's as big as a city can get.

And it also is

miserable.

Like the people in the city are miserable by that metric.

This video is 14 years old.

Oh my God.

And it is a 6 million

capacity city.

I overstated it by a bit, but yeah, and it was on SimCity 3000.

And it had like a

kind of Quatsi name or something.

It's like a straight.

Magnesanti is what they call it.

They call the city.

Do you think

that's not the idea?

Yeah, I think it's all built on Megalon.

That's what's going on.

And yeah, it just, it does seem like absolute hell to live there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you have a favorite of the museums that you built so far?

Or like, like they, do you just kind of like living in the different sort of aesthetics?

You know, I think, I think because I'm so into the natural history thing,

and because that's the part in the campaign that you dig the most into.

Sure.

No pun intended.

That you, that, I don't know.

That's the one I've been, that's the one I've enjoyed the most so far.

Yeah, it's I mean, I like that these games exist.

I will say that one thing, just

talking about something, you talked about like you don't like turns.

I do like turns.

I love turns.

Like, I'm, I'm all about, like, give me all the time in the world to spend making this decision, and then I'll, I'll decide when I hit the next turn button.

Um, but like, because the real time of it does kind of let make it feel frantic, like you were saying.

And that does sort of sometimes like kind of like, you know, ah fuck, ah, fuck, I gotta do this, I gotta do this.

But I do really appreciate the design of these.

And I do really like the,

again, just sort of like the tone and the sensibility that we were talking about.

I like that they're kind of like lighthearted and

breezy.

Like it's honestly cool when there's like a class of kids in the museum and they're having a good time.

Like it's actually, you're like, this is actually cool and nice.

Yeah.

Ranch, do you ever get into sim games at all?

I've never played a sim game.

Wow.

Wow.

I feel like this is a genre you might like, but I'm not sure.

I think I would be into it, but I'm scared about how much I would be into it.

Oh, yeah.

You can definitely be.

I definitely knew people like when I was younger that like their entire personality was just like playing the sims or playing the tycoon games.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's very also

when you're young and you have like the available brain space.

Certainly when I was young and I didn't have to worry about what was social media doing that day.

Like you would think about your city during the day and you be like, oh, you know what I could do?

And then you go home and you try out that thing.

And that was like such a nice sort of background processing thing to have happening with you.

I love that shit.

God, remember we had time to think?

That was wild.

That was a different time then.

Yeah.

It's just you alone with your brain.

I think I've mentioned this on the pod that I went off social media and news and I've read two books and it's fucking crazy.

Wow.

Like it's like, oh my God, I suddenly have time to read books.

Like I'm in line at the coffee shop and I'm not just on my phone.

I had to bring a book so I wasn't bored in line.

And now I'm reading a book and I'm also aware that I'm like the asshole in line with a book.

And like, you know, like there's like the, the performance of reading, but I don't have anything else I can do because I don't have a phone to look at.

Yeah.

Because I took all that shit off my phone.

Mike, I imagine, but like, I'm not sure how much, how you feel about social media these days, but I imagine you're on it by necessity to promote a book, obviously.

But we originally knew each other from Twitter.

I believe that's how we first met.

And I was on Twitter for a long time.

I got off of it

a few years ago, unrelated to all the X shit.

And recently just opened a new account.

Opened a new account.

The top of the algorithms.

But

I was amazed by how much.

how little I missed it, even though I did meet a lot of people there, a lot of great people there, but how little I missed missed it and then just how much better I kind of felt overall.

Like just my quality of life just generally improved and I never

like I will go on there and post a promotion for like this book, but I don't I don't read the shit there.

Like there, once in a while, I'll make the mistake and like lose five minutes and be like, no, we're not doing this.

It's almost like

weaning myself off.

I mean, the drug metaphor is a cliche, but like, it's like weaning myself off like a...

a low-key drug where I'm like, nope, nope, we're not going to go into like the anger place anymore.

We're just going to read on on blue sky where when people get mad at you it's for rudimentary basic that doesn't matter

i was surprised when i when i last

logged into twitter to see like what was happening to it because like it had been a while since i had been on twitter how much the algorithm has changed yeah like my my feed used to be news almost exclusively and for whatever i mean like i know why

it was different but it was all Gundam stuff from stranger, from accounts that I had no previous interaction with.

And I was like, wow, I haven't been on Twitter engaging with Twitter, but they have gone back through all of my posting and liking history through this new algorithm.

And they've decided the only thing that I want to look at is Gundam stuff.

And I was.

They are right.

They are right.

They are right.

They're completely right.

But I was surprised.

I was shocked.

Yeah.

It was very, it was like, you know, when you haven't gone on Facebook for like 10 years and you go on it and you're like, this looks weird.

Yeah, no, no, yeah.

Yeah.

What is going on?

And also, why is my uncle still playing Farmville?

Any other thoughts on Two Point Museum?

No, I mean, you know what?

Honestly, if you're looking for a game that is lighthearted but not cozy, like it's it's a game that feels good and it's very positive and happy, but it also doesn't feel like you're a bear in the afterlife running a cafe.

Right, sure.

Like, you know, that's a good, that it's a nice experience.

It's not mean.

It's not angry.

There is some darkness to it.

Like, it does have like a little bit of that, but it's super nice and funny.

So it's kind of, if you're looking for a good antidote to the moment, it's kind of a nice game.

And you, and you do get grants and funding.

So it's like from a different time.

Do you think that, like, is this the best jumping on point for someone who hasn't had to play the two-point series?

Like, do you think, like, like, just go straight to museum?

Yeah, I think so.

For me, like, somebody who'd not played one of those games, I was surprised how quickly I was doing things

from the time I had started the tutorial.

You're just tossed in it and just can do, like, make it however you want right away.

It's really cool.

I definitely recommend it.

Hey, shall we do a segment?

Let's do a segment.

It's our video game, Would You Rather, segment?

Would You Blathers?

Would You Blathers simulation game edition?

Oh,

read an either or involving games in the sim genre.

You tell me what you would choose.

And I'm casting a pretty wide net here, obviously.

You know, some people are maybe be pedantic about what comprises simulation.

I'm including business sims, life sims, you know, vehicle sims, crafting sims, basically anything that might appear in the sims tab of the steam soar.

So it's a wide umbrella.

And Ranch, you can play too.

All right, first up, we'll start with Two Point.

Would you, Blathers, administrate a hospital like in Two Point Hospital or oversee a college campus like in Two Point Campus or curate a museum like in Two Point Museum?

If I had to do them for real.

I think I could run a pretty...

Tight school actually you'd go you'd go with campus.

I might go with a campus.

I don't like school.

I think I can make it it's a tough time I think to be running a college campus.

Lolly's petsky protests certainly aren't making it easier for me.

I think

my school would be like, it'd be like

the cool school.

Yeah.

It'd be like a cool sort of like...

You'd be subverted.

You weren't supposed to laugh that hard at it.

I'm going to do a really good job running a cool school.

You'd be subverting the stodgy old dean archetype.

Yeah, I'd be bearing, I'd be basically wearing my exact same clothes.

I'd be like, me, and I'd be teaching the classes would be about like video games and stuff.

And like, that does sound cool.

The school team wouldn't be football or basketball.

It'd be freaking skateboarding.

Yeah, man.

Would you turn turn a chair around before you talked to the class?

Stools only, brother.

Heather hospital.

Campus museum.

It would have to be a museum of those three.

Running a hospital sounds like a fucking nightmare.

Like the insurance companies, the contagious diseases, like all of it is terrifying to me.

And then running a school, like

I don't want to get near any sort of position right now in the United States.

Like I don't want to I don't want to teach anything.

I don't want to tell anybody they're right or they're wrong.

I just want to like back away very slowly.

So museum would be mine.

um and i would be very very conscious of uh of teaching the right history

as opposed to any of these like more recent takes on history uh how about you mike

uh i you know what i think i would i would uh i'd do museum i if it was something like like i think i could i i think i could be like a high school principal

I think like in a different life, I have the energy of a man who's trying really hard and not doing great at it.

but like a college I'm kind of in the same boat where I'm like I would not want to run a college right now I also don't know if I'd want to run a college in general because it feels like that's where you get a lot of like hazing and like I know you get that in like

younger schools as well but college feels like a a bad time of a bad things that happen yes and like that in a hospital i just don't want to deal with like human tragedy every day like i know like in a museum i'll deal with the after effects of human tragedy that i've like put on a wall but i don't want to deal with like ongoing people dying in front of me tragedy.

Yeah.

Ranch, what do you think?

Hospital, college campus, museum?

Hospital.

You're going to hospital.

Wow.

Right away.

Wait, why?

I can't do that.

Ranch could put them there.

Just because you can do it?

You just want the challenge of it?

Wow.

I also like ER.

That's fair.

That's fair.

I think I'd go museum.

All right, next one.

Be a pilot like in Microsoft Flight Simulator or be a train engineer like in Train Sim World.

There's no suspense about my answer.

Choo-choo, motherfucker.

I'm dreading that train.

I mean,

the way planes are going these days, too, kind of want to stay away from those.

Yes, for sure.

Trains,

not immune from incidents, certainly.

Right.

But at least they're on the ground still.

You know what I mean?

I think I got to go with trains because, yeah, gosh, when you were talking about miniatures earlier, I was thinking about this, like

model train.

Like, we talked, we talk about model trains sometimes on the show and how cool they are.

And how much Rod Stewart likes model trains and what an alpha is for being in a model train.

It's so sick.

It's the coolest.

It's the coolest thing about Rod Stewart.

It is awesome.

But whenever I see a model train kit and it's just going, just doing its thing, I'm like, well, this is

peak.

This is unbelievable.

I would do train 100%.

When I was a kid, it was my dream to be a pilot.

Like, I wanted to get a pilot's license and train on the side.

Train to be a pilot, not train on the side.

Yes.

As an adult,

you would barely get me in an airplane.

So trains all the way.

Hell yeah.

Mike, what do you think?

I think against my better judgment, pilot.

Wow.

Just because I think it'll be like the thing that'll sound like fanciest to my mom.

You know, so I think I'd go with pilot because it also seems seems like, I don't know, it seems like when I think

Microsoft Flight Simulator, I'm also just thinking like, you know, standard commercial airline pilot.

Right.

Like, I'm not thinking like a fighter pilot.

Maybe I had a short career in the Air Force and it didn't, I wasn't really made out for the military, so I wanted to get a civilian job.

I don't need a backstory.

Flying a big plane like that seems crazier to me for some reason.

Like, because it's just like, but obviously, like, it happens thousands of times a day, every day.

I think it's actually one of those things where it's weirdly safer.

Like, you're you're in a, um, you know, a hairier jump jet, or if you're in, like, a small plane, like a CESTA, you're more likely to be involved in an accident.

Yeah.

Um, but, uh, Ranch, what do you think?

A pilot or a train engineer?

Pilot.

Wow.

Why is that?

I am.

You're feeling crazy today.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let out your inner joker.

So why do you want to enroll in flight school?

I'm feeling crazy today.

All right.

Right this way, Mr.

Atta.

He trained in my hometown.

Oh, my God.

While I was in high school, he was going to school.

Jesus Christ.

All right, next up.

Would you Blathers be a roller coaster tycoon or a zoo tycoon?

I mean, look,

roller coasters all day.

I love theme parks also.

I love getting on rides.

I'm very interested in how they work, actually.

I think zoos should be illegal.

I hate zoos.

Yeah.

Yeah, same, same.

I would be a roller coaster tycoon.

I can't.

Zoos are sad.

Yeah, I agree for all those reasons.

And also, like,

zoos are just not.

comfortable or fun to go shoot.

No, they fucking smell.

They're always hot.

They smell bad.

You feel bad because of what's happening.

Yeah.

So it would definitely be a theme park, but it would be a theme park that does not have an animal segment.

Yes.

Ranch, what do you think?

Yeah, not crazy enough to buy a zoo.

That's the line of the night.

Yeah.

I'll go against the consensus and say zoo tycoon just because I would want to be called a zoo tycoon.

You want to get the title?

Okay.

It's kind of hard to pass that up.

It is pretty good.

It's a more interesting title.

All right, next up, would you Blathers manage a low fantasy coffee shop like in Coffee Talk?

So like a coffee shop where elves and other fantasy races,

mermaids and the like are

visiting, or manage a dystopian cyberpunk bar like in VAA 11 Hall A, aka Valhalla?

Gosh.

Wait, low fantasy coffee shop or cyberpunk bar?

I always feel like in a cyberpunk world, something bad has happened before that story takes place

for it to be this way.

Whereas

fantasy, that means we still got time.

Like

we could have always been living like this.

But

having like a metal arm or like a

hood

would be kind of cool if I feel like I could get something like that in a cyberpunk world.

I'd be doing stuff like that.

Maybe cyberpunk for me.

I would go low fantasy

in part because I don't drink.

So I'd be so bummed out at the cyberpunk bar.

Cause, boy, I bet those drinks are fucking awesome.

Yeah, can you imagine?

Like,

oh, yeah, dude, there's some liquid ketamine.

Do a shot of this, and you'll suddenly jump three days.

You'll be like, what the fuck is that?

Just mirrored liquid.

Mike, what do you think?

I honestly, I was going to go low fantasy until Heather described the cyberpunk one, and now I'm cyberpunk.

I want to take the shot that like jumps me three days.

Rochelle?

Same as Heather.

I don't drink.

So you go with Coffee Shop.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Here's the thing.

It's like

I know the message of mob movies is supposed to be like, don't be like these guys.

And I know the message of all of cyberpunk dystopian is like, this is a harrowing future where everyone is miserable.

I want to live in every cyberpunk world I've ever seen

in any media.

So I would absolutely do the cyberpunk bar,

even though having played both these games, the vibes are completely polar opposites.

Next up, would you Blathers attempt to survive as a citizen in a blizzard-ravaged apocalyptic Earth like in Frostpunk like in Frostpunk, or attempt to survive as a first-wave colonist on Mars like in surviving Mars?

Oh my God.

You know,

I don't like being cold.

Yeah, we're talking like a snow piercer level of like global like ice storm.

Yeah, that seems way worse to me than being like, because if I'm like one of the first people on Mars, that's like

I feel like I got a lot of say in what's going on.

Here's the other thing I'm going to say, though.

Mars is not exactly warm.

You're a lot farther from the sun.

It's very cold there.

Yeah, it's also very cold.

Am I thinking that because it's red, it's hot?

Yeah.

This guy's the dean.

Look, we don't got books at cool school, all right?

We can't just do whatever the fuck we want, viva la bam style.

Um, average surface temperature around negative 85 degrees.

Wow, man, that sounds like it's probably not too hot.

Yeah.

Um,

I just don't, I don't like the snow.

I didn't grow up around the snow.

Me neither.

Also, for like you from SoCal.

Yeah, so like every time I've experienced snow, it's like been kind of bad.

Like, like, um, like actually falling snow.

Like, you know, I've been up to Big Bear or whatever, and like got to play around in the, you know,

man-made snow up there or whatever.

But, like, uh, actual falling snow hurts the eyes, don't like it.

So I think I'm still going to go with Mars.

Get me, get me the hell out of here.

Get me on Mars, baby.

I don't want to go to Mars.

So by default, I have to take the other option.

Those both sound miserable.

Yeah.

Mike, what do you think?

I'm going to go with, uh, I'm going to go with the Frostpunk one.

Not because it's good.

It's like I've played both Frostpunk games and they are very sad.

Yeah.

But you know what?

When you have snow, you have water, and that is kind of a big start.

And Mars does not have a lot of water on it, or at least a lot of accessible water right off the bat.

And I, you know, I feel like living in a post-apocalyptic Earth is still easier than living on a fresh Mars.

So I got to stick with Frostpunk.

Agree, uh, ranch, ice, or Mars.

Can I kill myself?

Just answer the question.

I think I have to go with Frostpunk because,

A, I just feel like oxygen is so important, and there's no guarantee that they'll find a way to reproduce oxygen on Mars.

But also, the Mars guys are going to be so fucking annoying.

Like, can you imagine having to hang out with those guys?

The first guy that did this that want to go to Mars like now?

Yeah.

The first guy that jacked off on Mars.

Well, okay, maybe I'm back in.

All right, finally,

would you blathers be friends with cool musician dog KK Slider from Animal Crossing or

be friends with bubbly, beautiful dog Isabel from Animal Crossing?

I got to go Isabel here.

Yeah, no, that's tough.

My wife's name is Isabel.

Oh, there you go.

So I got to pick her as well.

Unless it's the KK Slider from that one meme you really like.

The buff KK Slider.

Yeah.

The buff KK in denim shorts.

Yeah.

And the villager yelling out, lose the shorts.

The single best meme that's ever been created.

I want KK Slider not from the meme.

But I think it'd be, I think he seems like a pretty chill dog.

Yeah.

Mike, what do you think?

You know, I'd say Isabel just, she seems like more reliable.

KK Slider seems like one of those.

We all have like a couple celebrity friends where you're like, okay, you know, you're a celebrity.

And it has to be that you know that you're famous.

And I feel like he'd be that kind of friend where he's like, still be the friend, like, still help you out, but just be like, okay, I get how hard it is for you to be famous.

Yeah, the sunglasses are kind of a tell.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rochelle, what do you think?

KK Slider or Isabel?

I used to listen to KK Slider covers on YouTube during COVID.

Wow.

On repeat.

So KK Slider.

Wow.

That's tough for Isabel considering you are a dog's best friend.

She's getting rejected here.

One dog over for another.

It's kind of tough.

Got to make a choice.

Hey, that's this week's Get Played.

Our producer is Rochelle Chen.

Ranch, yard underscore underscore sard.

Are you streaming anything, Ranch?

I will be streaming Resident Evil 7 eventually.

Hey, there you go.

Check that out.

Love to hear it.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And you can find our merch, including apparel, hats, stickers, and more at kinshipgoods.com.

Link in the show description.

Also, check out our Patreon, patreon.com/slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-head gum back catalog, plus ad-free main feed episodes, and our Patreon-exclusive show, GetAnimaid.

Matt, what are you watching this week?

We're watching Look Back this week, actually.

We're watching the movie Look Back.

Yes.

And it's a great little stop-down in-between series.

And next week, we'll be getting into

returning to Gurren Lagan.

But this week, we're talking Look Back.

Look Back, the adaptation of the Tetsuki Fujimoto, author of Chainsaw Man manga, and it is an absolutely incredible film if you hadn't seen it.

Even if you're not on the Patreon,

I encourage everyone to watch it.

It's on Prime, and it's my favorite movie overall of last year, patreon.com slash get played.

Mike Drucker, such a delight to have you on.

The book is Good Game, No Rematch.

Please plug away.

Yep, Good Game, No Rematch.

And it comes out, I think, tomorrow, April 1st.

And so April 1st is my pub day.

And it's available anywhere books are sold.

So you can get it on Amazon.

You can get it at Barnes ⁇ Noble.

You can order it from your local indie store or indie.

I think bookshop.org does a lot of indie stuff.

It's available hardcover, digital, and audio, and I read the audio.

So if you like my voice, you can get seven hours of it.

Hell yeah.

Wow.

I didn't know you narrated the audio book.

I'm going to double dip on this because I definitely want to hear your reading.

Congratulations.

I'm so excited.

I love hearing you.

I love all your reading.

You're like writing about video games.

I love hearing you talk about video games.

I just, I think you have, you know, obviously such an incredible passion for it.

I'm really excited for the book.

I hope people check it out.

I can't wait to read it too.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And also, you got played.

Sorry.

So the show ends.

That was a hit gum podcast.