Animal Well

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Hey guys,

what's up, Matt?

Well, you ready to be a little bit more?

I'm having a huge day.

Yeah, I'm having a really huge day.

Whoa, whoa, okay.

Great.

What's going on?

I found all these eggs.

Say more.

I'm sorry.

I was expecting like a sentence to follow.

Yeah.

I have a single word question.

What?

Okay, I've been walking around and I found all these different types of interesting eggs and I'm really, I'm really excited about it.

Like an Easter egg hunt sort of thing?

Like, what was this?

No, just like they're just kind of like around there's not really it's easter's you know well way uh in the past i know what time of year it is i'm just like trying to wrap my head around this you just been like pilfering eggs from like birds nests or have you been no they're just for marketing they're just they're just around i've just been fine i've been like walking around minding my own business and then i go like a new way that i haven't been and then i there's like an egg there and i like pick it up and i keep it and then now it's my egg just because i want to make sure that there's not like a miscommunication here happening.

Yeah.

What, what, what do you mean by an egg?

Like, can you describe what an egg is to you?

An egg, okay, like a

travel egg

didn't clarify anything.

Yeah, that's

almost like it took information from me.

Oh, and I have less.

What about like a great egg, for example?

Like something like that?

You may like

egg, like a, like, as we understand it, like a thing you eat for breakfast.

like an egg

we all know what eggs are okay I so I have that as a baseline it's what I understand an egg to be but these are specific types of eggs yeah and they're all just different and unique like I have a future egg as well

a future egg so like an egg that doesn't

map there's so okay so you

I've been walking around I've been picking up eggs this is a big deal to me Okay.

A big deal.

This is the biggest thing I got going on.

What are you doing with the eggs?

Are you doing anything?

Are you cooking them?

No, I'm keeping them.

Keeping them.

I'm on hold.

Sorry.

Everyone's just hanging on.

Hi,

L.A.

Department of Health.

I want to initiate the process of a 51-50 involuntary hold on a loved one.

Yeah, my understanding is that the county law allows for a 72-hour psychiatric hospitalization of someone I think who's potentially a danger to themselves or to others.

Yeah, the name is Matthew Apodaka.

Okay, yeah, you can call me back on this number.

Okay, thanks.

Tell us more about these eggs, Matt.

Okay, so I found a jade egg and a rose.

That's cool.

Oh, that's great.

I'm starting to think you guys actually don't even really care about the eggs that much.

No, Matt, Matt, we love the eggs.

We love the eggs.

We love you.

Yeah.

Nick, how long did they say?

How long did they say?

How long do we got to keep him talking?

Three and a half hours.

Oh, my God.

We toss discs to distract dogs and collect secret eggs as we dip into indie solo dev hit Animal Well this week on Get Played

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

It's time to get played.

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

That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaka.

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premier Video Game Podcast, where this week we are talking about a fairly zeitgeist title that everybody was a buzz about just a few weeks ago, and that's Animal Well,

or as I like to say, Animal.

Well,

interesting.

We'll get into it.

I had a feeling this game was not going to be your cup of tea, but just knowing your tastes and- i haven't said that yet i haven't said that yet all right i haven't said that yet this game came out on may 9th so we are we are relatively on top of it by our record and release standards um this episode will come out just a week and a half after its initial release and uh we've all dug into it a little bit we're going to talk about that in just one second um i do want to give everyone a heads up because you know we do the we play you play on occasion where we spend an entire episode talking at length about one game, deep diving into it.

We are not doing that about Animal Well.

That is not what this format is because we're not going to, you know,

we haven't, I don't think any of us have finished it.

I certainly haven't finished it.

And there's also just so much to talk about, so much to discover.

And we just felt like this game was so new, we didn't really want to

go full on into spoiler country.

So that's not what this is.

But we are going to do that next week, Monday, May 27th, about Fallout the TV series.

We're going to talk through season one of this

really well-received adaptation, and we're going to share our thoughts at length.

Not a game, but hey, it's a game show.

Not a game show

in the sense of like, who wants to be a millionaire?

But you know what I mean.

This is within the realm of the kind of things we cover.

So look for that.

Once we start to see

Fallout the TV series next week.

Once we start covering game shows,

it's over.

It's like you just know that we're like, okay, we're tapped.

Now

we're dissecting the gameplay on an episode of Wheel of Fortune.

That's right.

Although some of those,

it's interesting because there have been some decent home adaptations of those.

There's also like, there's that, there was the, there was a, a release of, I can't remember, I think it was the, um,

I think it was the, uh, was like a Game Boy adaptation of

Deal or No Deal.

And there was no randomizer.

So one, there was like one solution for it.

And so basically, once you knew where the goal, like which cases had the money, you just like knew how to win every time.

I can't remember what release that was, but it was like a.

That sucks.

Yeah, had a notoriously flawed implementation.

I love playing Jeopardy video games

because

depending on when they were released, you're locked into trivia that is almost like time capsules.

Yeah.

Because like the stuff that was important

in, say, 2006's Wii release of Jeopardy

is totally, and that's an estimate.

It might have been

2009, 2010.

I don't know.

Certainly not 2006 now that I think about it because the Wii wasn't out yet.

But anyway, point being that like if you play like a 90s Jeopardy game, it'll be like this bill by Bill Clinton.

And you'll be like, okay,

nobody fucking knows what that is anymore just as much as now it'll be like the ACA is known as this

when when not being called the ACA like in 10 15 years people will be like what the fuck is an ACA um so I love it also happens time locked it happens with like uh like with trivia like trivial pursuit gets time-locked pretty easily too because things just change like so yeah I remember see I remember seeing a card that was like which one of these actors did not play Batman?

And it was like George Clooney,

Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, and Ben Affleck.

And Ben Affleck hadn't been Batman at the time of the game probably coming out.

And then within a few years, that card is obsolete because

there's not an answer.

They should just avoid the Batman franchise and any sort of like

exclusionary trivia because basically every major actor at some point is going to play Batman and or the Joker.

Yeah.

That's just how it works.

You should put somebody who has passed away and that's going to feel safe.

That's a safe way to do it.

But, you know, that's the way that you're going to keep that card in motion, you know?

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All right, let's

talk about some video games, though, not game shows.

It's time for what are you playing?

What are you playing?

In and out this week, boys.

In and out.

It's good to see you.

Good to see you as well.

Hey, you know, Resident Evil Merchant, my understanding is that people were pretty happy to have you on the podcast at length, you know.

I don't want to necessarily encourage this behavior of you sticking around every time, but

once in a while.

Just know that you're appreciated by the listeners.

What do you mean by once in a while?

That seems like too often as well, Nick.

Yeah, maybe, maybe once.

I would say maybe once.

And so you did it.

So we're kind of...

How long is a while to you guys?

Like for me,

how long it takes to get the burger after you order it?

Yeah,

I guess I should have been more.

I think probably, you know, it can be a once every other year sort of thing.

And how long are your years?

See, this is what I was getting into because we've talked about their calendar as different.

Yeah.

Why don't you just like wait for us to tell you when we want you back?

How about that?

We'll invite you.

We'll let you know.

We'll give you a hit.

And that won't work for me.

Okay, no, we can't really do that.

Won't it work for you?

No, but I promise I'll take a long

pause

because I got a lot of offers in.

After last week.

Yeah.

Wow, how exciting.

It's real exciting.

This is a town of movers and shakers.

That's great.

I uh well, if you can't say what kind of offers, that's okay.

But, you know, I'm guessing

some more, you know, prominent podcasts.

Like, maybe you're gonna we might hear be hearing the Resident Evil merchant popping into Marin or something.

Uh, they they asked me to host the event

that precedes uh the World Monetary Fund uh conference.

Interesting.

So I'm I'm I'm considering that.

I got to get an agent.

Well, yeah, you are, you know, hey, you do your business as business.

So talking with all those global movers and shakers, you might be right at home.

A lot of people I know in the biz say that you don't really need an agent.

You just need a really good manager.

Oh, is that true?

You know, it might depend on where you're at in the business.

Maybe if you're further along, you might not necessarily need an agent.

You know, Reno famously didn't have an agent or manager.

He just had a

lawyer.

Seems like the good advice of of his his lovely wife mavis as well yeah that would probably she she was kind of uh you know a

working as counsel for him gee mavis what do you think should i host

that show this year

this is that politician you guys are always talking about right

uh you know honestly of all of t of nbc personalities that became politicians i maybe i maybe america would have been better off if leno had been the guy to do it maybe that that would have been the right choice for everyone.

If the race was determined by Biggest Chin, he certainly would have a hearty lead as far as I'm concerned.

He should get a bandana.

Anyway,

so yeah, I got his places to go.

I got a meeting to get to.

My question to you is, Matt Opodaka, Nick Weiger,

what are you bringing?

Wow, so that was actually both of us.

Which one of us should go first?

Me, perhaps?

Because I was going first.

Yeah.

Let me grab something real quick.

Matt Apotaka just got up.

He crossed the room.

We're doing this one.

We're doing this record remotely because my little puppy broke her toenails, so I got to keep an eye on her.

But Matt got up.

He crossed the room.

He got something off his coffee table and he brought it back to the microphone.

What is it?

You know?

What I'm holding in my hand right here is it's like a relic of an older age, a different time,

a media format.

You just got like a stone dildo.

Like a caveman's.

I haven't even figured out what this thing is for.

You know,

this is like a forgotten media format that I decided I was going to support.

And

I'm holding in my hand a hard copy.

of a Game Informer magazine.

Wow.

Now, Game Informer has had a print volume for many years, of course.

I think it's been around for 30 years, Game Informer,

but for a long time was,

I guess, paywalled behind GameStops,

like

whatever it's called, GameStop Pro or something.

You can only get a physical issue mailed to you

through GameStop Pro.

Yeah, when you signed up for whatever their, and

whatever that their club program has has had, I think, a few different names.

But yes, they would always offer you that, or it would just be included as part of it, a print or print plus digital.

I think you used to be able to buy it in stores as a single issue as well, but there had, for a long time, had not been a

way to get the magazine sent to your home otherwise.

But they recently just put out a

a standalone subscription and I subscribed for a year, 10 issues for a year.

And on the cover of this magazine right here, we have Star Wars Outlaws, the new Star Wars game that's coming up.

And I got to say, flipping through a magazine, underrated and a lot of fun.

Lots of really great stuff in here.

There's a profile on Bellatro

that I was digging into just earlier today.

And it's, yeah, titled How a Solo Developer Played His Cards Right to Create Bellatro.

So that's really fun.

And that's basically all I've got going on right now as far as gaming.

Because I did put down Rebirth.

I'm itching to get back into it though, but I've been playing this game non-stop.

I just haven't been able to stop playing it since we decided we were going to do it.

So, like,

I only have this to talk about.

I have about 17.7 hours of Animal Well to speak about.

Wow.

Wow, okay.

You're well ahead of me.

Yeah.

There we go.

That's it for me.

Heather, what are you playing?

Look,

I only have space in my life for one podcast game and one non-podcast game every week.

As a result,

my

time with Fortnite has been truncated by my continued playing of Hades.

Wow, I love it.

Are you playing Hades or Hades 2 in Early Access?

Hades.

Hades.

Okay, great.

Playing old Hades.

And

I'm loving it here on

Second Watch.

I don't know

where I am in the game.

I'm not tracking anything.

It's a perfect little sit down, play a level, get up, go back to work, unless you happen to be on a good run.

And I'm so fucking terrified of like putting my Switch on sleep and then like unsleeping my Switch.

and being in the middle of combat and dying.

I do wish that there was some kind of,

I don't know, I wish there was like some mechanic that would allow you to not, like if you don't have 30 minutes, 45 minutes to do a full run on Hades, I wish there was some way that you could be like, okay, guys,

I have to go back to work.

Can you, can there, can we just like freeze the arrows in midair?

But, but also, if that mechanic existed, it would destroy the quality of the game because you'd be able to do that at any time and look at stuff and like plan an escape.

Um, so there's no real solution to what I'm asking.

I just wish that conceptually it existed.

Um, well, you could, but I mean, like, you could like clear a room and then have that be your stopping point, right?

Like, you could, and then pause the game and then resume there where things were.

Thank you, Nick.

Thank you.

That solves the problem.

I've never considered it.

That's it.

That's the, that's the so thank you.

That's it.

Yeah.

That's the solution.

So, yeah, playing Hades.

Did manage to get a few rounds of Fortnite in with our

Discord players and listeners this week.

Always a blast.

Thank you, boys.

And girls.

And

non-binary people.

It was a good week of my

very infrequent Fortnite runs.

And then the rest of the week, I was playing this week's game.

So, Nick.

wait, before you get off of Hades, because

I'm curious,

as someone who's kind of

a latecomer to this game, I know you played it some initially, but you're back on the horse now, and now it's really clicking for you.

Do you have a sense of why it's working for you this go-round?

And related question, do you have a favorite weapon you've connected with?

Arrows, bow and arrow, my favorite.

The thing that's different is I looked back at what we were doing when we first got Hades.

And I waited for the Switch release.

And the Switch release was the month that we were playing Balin Wonderworld.

Wow.

So the reason I didn't have the space for Hades was because I had to play Balin Wonder World for us.

And that is what happened.

That's why I bounced off it last time, because I played a game so repugnant that it put me off of all games other than the sort of like physical toil of playing Balin Wonder World when we had to do it.

Yeah, it was a, that was a rough playthrough.

I just, I opened up the Steam store to look at some Balin Wonder World reviews while you were talking, and

the top negative comment is Yuji Naka deserved a life in prison.

I forgot to say, too, that I have also gone back to Hades 1.

That's like what I've been doing on my Steam Deck when I'm not playing Animal Well.

By the way, Steam Deck, back in action, as far as I'm concerned.

Good to know.

I got to get one of these.

I got to get one of these bad boys.

They're OLED.

I know.

I'll probably love it.

They're OLED.

Yeah, I know they're OLED.

Heather, you asked me what I was playing before I interrupted you, and I will answer your question.

I have been messing around with Buckshot Roulette.

Now, this is something of a meme game, maybe.

This came out in April, but it wasn't really on my radar.

And then I heard some people talking about it, and I've been messing around with it.

It is developed by a solo dev, Mike Klubnica, and published by Critical Reflex.

This game is nasty.

It is a first-person Russian roulette game with a pump action shotgun.

And on top of that,

so the way it works is that you are going into, you're playing Russian roulette against against a character called the dealer who has just like this really nasty character design He's got like these long teeth these big eyes this this giant bloated head.

He looks kind of like a like a really fucked up Jack Skellington

and It also has this like intentionally abrasive like rust palette for the art these grimy low-res unfiltered textures.

It takes place in the backroom of a club.

So there's like this the club you love to like, you start in a bathroom, you walk through part of a nightclub, and then you get into this back room.

We're going to play Russian roulette against this mysterious figure.

And then there's all this like clunky dawn of computing tech.

It's everything that everything that exists, like, you know, it just makes it feel kind of cool, but also like just unpleasant and unnerving.

So here's the thing.

I think it's really cool.

And I think it's really like, like, fascinating for what it does.

And this clearly comes from just like such a specific, like, there's such a specific idea behind this.

And I do love that about it.

I'm

getting old.

And

that's part of why I'm like the feeling of shooting myself in the face with a shotgun I find to be unpleasant.

So especially the way the game works because you only have characters.

Yeah.

You're seeing from your first person perspective, you're seeing like the barrel of the gun tremble, like your character is like scared to pull the trigger.

And then if it, if it doesn't, if it isn't a blank, if you actually fire around,

um, you know, you get the

harsh sound effect, um, the flashlight, and then a hard like a hard cut to black, like a little too quickly, uh, cutting to black.

So it actually feels like death, like it's really, really effective.

Um, and then if you are still have life left, you'll be brought back with a defibrillator.

So you're feeling and seeing that in first person.

I imagine if this game was in ER, or ER, in VR, I might end up in the ER.

I might pass out because it's it's really intense.

But

it's fun because it really is just like a game about math.

And so much of it is, so in addition to, like, you'll have all the shells that'll be laid out.

And so it'll be like, for instance, there'll be there are four live shells and two blanks.

And so.

In addition to that, as the rounds go on and once you get into double or nothing mode, which is a mode you unlock for finishing the game,

there are all these items that let you affect, you know, have some insight into what the outcome might be and also potentially juice the odds a little bit.

So for instance, you have handcuffs that will, or I'll start with a magnifying glass.

The magnifying glass just lets you see what the next round is and you can see if it is a blank or if it is a live round.

And if it's a live round, you want to turn it on the dealer.

If it's a blank, you can turn it on yourself safely and get yourself an extra turn.

There's also like

handcuffs that let you handcuff your opponent so that

you can take two turns in a row.

There's a saw you can use to saw off the shotgun so that a shell deals double damage for one round.

So if you know something is a live round or have an idea of, even without mathematical certainty, if you know there are two live rounds

in the gun and one blank, well, I've got a two-thirds chance of this being a live round.

Maybe I'll take a chance and then that will do double damage if you saw it off.

There's also beer, which is just like, and cigarettes, which are just like, you know, again, just add to the general gnarliness of it.

And then, you know, in the other mode, there's like,

in the double or nothing, there's like adrenaline.

There's like expired medicine.

There's a burner cell phone that you can use to get insight into what the rounds are.

So, but it really is, is just like predicting probabilities and kind of

metaphorically counting cards here.

You're counting shells and okay, i've i i know that there uh there's a three out of six chance of this thing how many shells have been have been expended uh how many live rounds are potentially left uh who should i shoot uh the this uh this unholy entity or myself um it's it's a trip it's it's intense but i think it's really cool and you know what it's three dollars

Just like three dollars.

Three dollars.

I bought a coffee today that was more than three dollars.

Wow.

Yeah, so I don't know.

Like for a game that you get a few hours of fun out of, and it's got a multiplayer coming mode that's in development.

I don't know.

I thought it was, I think it's really cool.

And I understand why it's had a lot of success at the Steam Store and again as something of a meme.

Because again, it is just so gnarly.

And just conceptually, a game where you actually simulate Russian roulette in first person with a shotgun

is just just so just such an intense, specific idea.

The other thing that this does, that it has is like, it does present a bunch of like comedy opportunities, you know, that just unintentional stuff that you'll come across.

So for instance, like you'll like, you'll, you, you think you know what, what a round is and you'll fuck it up.

So you like saw off a shotgun and chug a beer and then blast yourself in the face, like, you know, by accident.

Those moments are fun.

So anyway, that's Buckshot Roulette, and that's what I've been playing in addition to Animal Well, which we are going to talk about now.

Animal Well was released unless anyone has anything else.

Nope.

No.

Ranch, you playing anything?

Yeah, I'm playing Fortnite, as always.

Ranch is playing Fortnite.

Ranch, who's your skin these days?

Right now, my default skin is this generic anime girl named Yuki, I think.

Got it.

She's got a little white hoodie.

Fun.

We've got the same haircut.

Classic.

Classic Ranch.

I've been playing as Kylo Wren because it's

Star Wars time in Fortnite.

And every time I kill somebody, I shout into the mic, what girl?

And it's super fun.

This is an absolutely true story.

One time I was in Japan and I had my cell phone with me, but I was

following somebody around in the city and having a good time.

And then they locked me on a roof of a skyscraper because they were a crazy person.

That's a true story.

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

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Animal Well was released on May 9th for PCPS5 and Switch.

It is a Metroidvania slash,

I hear some people using the term search action for this genre, so it's not Metroid and Castlevania specific.

Search action, yeah, like a search sort of exploration platformer,

where you explore as a tiny blob moving through a cryptic underground environment populated by both friendly and aggressive animals.

It is developed by Shared Memory, aka Solo Dev, Billy Basso.

Billy worked as a programmer at Larger Studios for 10 years, spent seven years developing this.

And Billy has some PlayStation blog entries describing the development process, and they're really interesting reads.

He built his own engine and tool set.

He seems to really, really have a strong grasp over the technical side of things.

And this game is doing some really technically impressive stuff.

uh but also you know is is really artful and and creative uh and it is published by big mode which is video game game Dunkey's label.

And it's a cool thing that Dunkey is

doing with his platform and clout and resources, is publishing, spotlighting a cool game like this.

Anyway, as I said earlier, we are not going to veer into spoiler country for this particular Animal Well discussion.

I think we might, you know, if you want to know absolutely nothing about this game, obviously, then this is, you're, you're listening to the wrong podcast.

But I think we are going to keep things pretty peripheral.

And certainly, some of the secrets and some of the really, really deep lore of this game is pretty buried and pretty inscrutable.

And so it's probably stuff that we haven't even been exposed to yet.

But I'm absolutely loving this game.

I just think it rips so hard.

It is just such an impressive achievement and has such an incredible sense of environmental discovery.

It's gorgeous.

It has an excellent soundtrack.

It is extremely playable.

There are

thoughtful environmental touches throughout.

I too like Animal Well.

Here's what I don't like.

If you guys like this fucking game so much, why haven't you played Cave Story?

What's happening?

Oh, shit.

Wait, hold on.

No, this is fair because

the other game along the other Metroid Bania that's a big blind spot for me is

Hollow Knight, which I know if I actually played through all of Hollow Knight, that would be one of my all-time favorite games.

I mean, my brother loves it.

I've played some of it and I just bounced off of it.

It was one of those things where it just kind of hit me at a time where I was playing other stuff.

But yeah,

I should get back on that and I should finally play through Cave Story.

I'm interested.

I don't know how much Cave Story specifically was an inspiration for this one, but certainly aesthetically, it seems to share some DNA.

I'm interested in Cave Story.

This, this right here, this animal well,

is extremely, extremely my shit.

I mean,

I don't want, I can't, I can't spoil.

I don't think anything that I actually have done in the game is considered spoiler because

I've been,

while I've been surprised by everything that I've done so far, nothing I will say, I think, has been like, oh my God.

Like, I haven't really, like, I don't know, my jaw hasn't hit the floor or anything like that.

But

I'm really, really enjoying it.

I am like, I'm just, I'm trying to find nooks and crannies, right?

Like, nooks and crannies with this little guy.

That's really, really fun to do.

But

I end up feeling like a genius with some of these solutions.

So, yeah, that's part of what I think the game does so well.

Like, so we were talking, a big part of this is finding secret eggs.

I mean, those are, those are kind of the, the, the secret MacGuffin that you'll find throughout.

And when you find one of those, it's so satisfying and makes you feel smart, even though that things are laid out for you.

Like, it's like a path is laid for you.

You feel smart for having discovered what the game wants you to discover.

Yeah.

And that's just like a, I don't know, it's just, it's just really, really well crafted in terms of how it's presented.

Because there really is no onboarding at all.

No, I was going to say the game is so obtuse that when I found an egg, I was like, okay, because you find all sorts of shit

and you're just like putting it in your inventory.

There's no like,

one of the items that you find, I was like, okay, this completely changes the way that you like navigate the world.

Is this the point of the game was to find this thing?

But then you find, but, but hearing you guys go on about how important the eggs were, I'm like, I don't even know how many eggs I've found.

Well, here's the thing.

I don't know if the eggs are important.

I know that I'm finding them.

The eggs are important, at least in the sense of it's a marker for how much of the game you fully discover.

Let me read a little bit from Basso's aforementioned blog.

This kind of talks about the higher level design approach.

Quoting here, I am consciously designing the game to have multiple layers.

The first layer is the base game with all the required areas needed to see the ending.

This is going to be a very rewarding experience on its own, and I estimate it will take most players about 10 to 15 hours to complete the game without any hints.

The second layer includes optional items and areas that a dedicated player will find to 100% of the game.

I susplete this layer with only the occasional search online for a couple hints here and there.

This is where most games stop.

The third layer will include far more obscure puzzles whose existence will be unknown to most.

I suspect the internet will need to collaborate a bit to solve these, or they might not solve them.

Then, finally, the fourth layer will be secrets that only I know.

I'm throwing down the gauntlet and challenging the internet to discover everything.

I will be sure to make an announcement confirming my defeat if and when this happens.

Wow.

Yeah.

So there's a lot going on here.

So this game is made by a supervillain.

Because yeah, there's like I clicked something in Animal Well, and there's a machine has appeared in Los Angeles.

Yeah, I just shut the power off of a small residential area.

The thing that I'll say,

yeah, I'm finding this.

I'm finding stuff in the game.

I'm finding stuff in my inventory.

I have some things that I don't...

I still have spaces, and I feel like where I'm at in the game, I'm close to wrapping it up in the in I'm in the first I'm in the maybe not the first layer.

I guess I'm in the first layer

of where of where things where I could be playing the game.

I'm finding a lot of stuff, but I just like I'm not and maybe Nick you feel this way too.

I don't know what's going on.

I just know that I'm having a good time and that yes, I'm using My brain, I feel like in ways that I don't get to use it in that much where like I'm I'll find something and be like, what the fuck?

What the fuck is this?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I'll come back.

I guess I'll have to come back.

Then I'll get the thing that I know that I need.

It's like, oh, wait.

I think I saw, I remember this this way.

I'll go back and then be like, oh, cool.

Now I'm progressing because I have a new thing.

And now I'm going in this direction.

That's like the joy of Metroidvania's in general.

In general, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, but what this game does specifically is there's so much lateral thinking involved.

And there are solutions that are just obtuse enough where it's not like an obvious, like, oh, there's a, there's a little hook for a, there's a little

ring for a grappling hook.

Okay, I got the grappling hook.

Now I can go back and swing over that ring.

Right.

It's a little bit less,

it's, it's, or sometimes significantly more

complex and obscure than that.

And so when you do discover it, again, it has that more of that sense of, you know, a lot of it is getting over functional fixedness too.

One early thing is, so there's a frisbee you get, which is maybe the first item.

It's a very early item you get.

I do not have this frisbee.

Okay.

So the frisbee is a thing that

I have other things.

Yeah, you can explore this game in different ways.

So like, like, I think I came across one later item earlier than I would, than another item, which I think I was supposed to get.

Like, I think you can sequence break a little bit there.

Yeah.

For sure.

But the frisbee, you can use, like, you use it, and it, like, it obviously seems to function as a projectile, projectile, like a boomerang.

But you, when you figure out that you can jump on top of it, and then it will function as like a magic carpet, you can ride it on its trajectory.

Now you have a new way of traversal, and that's not a thing that's told to you.

Like, a lot of games would be, most games would have a tutorial that would show you how to do this, or they would force you to do this.

Um, this is just the thing you end up discovering.

And there's another item that has another layer to it.

uh another use to it uh uh that comes even later that i found even more satisfying in terms of like, oh, oh, shit, I was not expecting that to work.

And when it did work, it paid off really well.

We're having to talk really vaguely here, I think, because again, so much of the fun of this game is discovering things.

But maybe we should take a step back and talk about just like what this game is for someone who hasn't played it and maybe hasn't seen these screenshots or videos.

Frisbee, you say, frisbee.

Yeah.

It would be labeled a

disc.

It's a disc.

Yeah.

I definitely have not gotten a frisbee i have been using a different device to traverse areas that i guess maybe i'm not supposed to be traversing the way that i'm traversing them i i think

you're stunned at the difficulty because of it i was like wow is this a this is a wall that you hit where you have to be able to time this this way and now i'm like

is it is it i'll just add is it the bubble the thing that generates bubbles that yeah so you're jumping on top of that and you you can kind of do a thing where you can,

you know, if you time it right, yes, you can, you can jump and dispense another one, so you can kind of

jump from bubble to bubble to increase your elevation.

Yeah, there is, there are some situations where you do this, but there's another, there's, there are other items you can use which let you scale things or get over gaps.

Okay, because I've been gently using that bubble gun in between, say, spiky sections, and it was as precise as, say

the infamous Ninja Turtles damn sequence

where I was like ah this is hard as shit well and this is something I mean gosh it's hard to know what is and isn't a spoiler because in most in most this game I think and we'll zoom out in a second this game I think The interesting thing about it is it does things

that you don't think you could do in most games.

Like, if there's a spiky section, I'm not going to ever think, I could probably break these spikes.

I'm like, oh, that's where the spikes, that's where the spikes are.

But then, you know, you're futzing with buttons and you accidentally break one.

You go, oh, they can break.

And then

now you know that.

Yeah, or you stumble upon another creature doing that, like a penguin walking through it.

And you're like, oh, shit, I didn't realize that was a possibility.

So, yeah, there is cool shit like that.

And the way it's revealed is, and then again, that subsequently opens up areas that you previously thought were closed off.

Yeah, all that is really well done.

So basically what this game is, is a, as I talked about earlier, it's a Metroid Vena.

You're a little blob.

You're a tiny little guy.

You're pretty helpless.

You don't have any sort of attack.

You can just basically move and jump.

And then you get some various items that help you navigate.

and interact with the environment in different ways.

But, you know, you don't really have an extensive move set and you're pretty fragile.

You only have a few hearts.

There are definitely a lot of enemies that can just eat you or one-shot you.

So, you know,

you're not like a powerful entity.

And so much of the game is just going from room to room.

So it is, it is Metrovania style, but it is like room-based.

It is screen-based.

So you get to a location and the camera is fixed.

And then you have that one screen, this one kind of play area to mess around with and to solve.

It's not like a continuous scrolling sort of thing for the most part.

And it also has a retro look to it.

It is a 2D game,

a pixel art game, but it doesn't look like anything specific.

And on top of that, and I talked about the

blog earlier

and Basso gets into some of this, it also has just like some awesome lighting and particle effects and animation and physics that would just not be possible on older hardware.

It is like a thoroughly modern game that looks like very retro, but again, isn't retro to anything specific.

For instance, just like just one thing, and part of why this game looks so distinct and so cool, every sprite has a normal map, so like it takes light directionally like a 3D object, which is just like an incredibly laborious thing to implement and not a thing that these games generally do.

It's gorgeous.

Yeah, it looks so cool.

It's,

you know,

in your early areas, you've got a lot of like blue and green, and then the color palette gradually changes as you explore farther and farther into

the cave that this story takes place in.

This cave story that

you're sort of unveiling.

I didn't do anything.

I didn't do anything.

I'm look.

I booted it up.

I played a couple of screens and I was like, ooh, I don't know that this one will be for me.

But then

I jumped and tapped a lantern that I thought was part of the background.

And the lantern made a very satisfying little chime of like tinkling glass.

And the chain swung a little bit.

And the light cast its

fluorescence across the ground in different ways.

And I was like, oh,

that's

pleasurable.

And that was enough to get me to keep playing the game.

Because this isn't, at least where I am, you can't fucking shoot or kill anything.

So it's not like my kind of game.

Right.

Yes.

There's definitely things that you have to fight, I think, later than where I am, or at least escape from.

But

also, I should say, the way I played this game, and I want to be upfront about it, I got that bubble thing before I got any other item.

that was my first item interesting i'm trying to remember if that was the this the the second or third thing i got that was the fourth that was my fourth item and so i think we're all going kind of kind of out of order i'd be i think here and we'll maybe be offline at matt in terms of what you got because i i got something pretty recently that i i won't spoil here but i i i won't mention it because it was so delightful when i got it and when i saw how it was used and how it solved puzzles i was like this is so this is just so dang clever i think i got the same thing today.

Yeah.

And I was like, I think this is the best game.

This is like, this is the, this is,

I was profoundly, I was profoundly tickled when I got this item and when I just got to mess around with it.

So there's one item that I do, that I don't like.

And I like how it works sometimes, but I don't like that you can't really, you can't really control it the way you'd like to control it, I think.

But there's, you know, that's all I'll say about it.

But

I love the little guy, can I say?

I love his little foot patter.

Yeah, good little guy.

I like the way he sounds when he goes up a ladder.

So this is a, and Ether was talking about the little, the little twinkle that you hear when you impact a light source.

It's, yeah, it has, it has a really sparse sound design, but it's really effective.

It's super atmospheric.

There is a

There is basically no scoring.

Like a lot of it just kind of takes place without any sort of ambient music.

But when you do hit it, like

it punctuates a few things, particularly when you get to one of the checkpoints, which are telephones.

Another thing, this game is just profoundly weird, which I think is a big part of it.

Like you're a little blob, and then you're in this weird

subterranean, you know, animal empire, but then there's like rotary phones you'll find.

It's awesome.

And those are your save points.

It's also when

you use the phone, it brings up a floppy disk.

And the floppy disk is how you know that you've saved.

I, there are sound piece, there's sound

cues or pieces of sound effect in this that are clearly pulled from or adapted from a Super NES library, and they are specific cues, and I can't place them, but it makes the game, which has a retro aesthetic, also

specifically pinch a nostalgia button in my brain.

Um, I don't know.

It's

it's it's a special little game.

I'm loving it.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's just gonna be one of, maybe we're maybe we're we're being hyperbolic in the moment here, but I think it's just so

dazzling and so much care and thought has gone into it that I think it will be one of the games that people remember from this year.

You know, maybe it'll be the game that people remember from this year.

But you know, it also is like speaks to a big part of what I like about video games in general is just like, and why indie games are just so like feel like the vanguard of art right now is because

an individual creator can,

obviously requiring an immense amount of

talent

and

work ethic to do one of these, but an individual creator

like Basso can just can just make something and can make something that's entirely their own and is entirely their voice and is entirely their creation in a way that, you know,

with some other media, you can't really accomplish the same thing.

I just saw a movie I loved called

It's by the director Jane Schrönbern and Schoenbrunn.

I apologize, I'm probably mingling their name, but it is called I Saw the TV Glow.

And it is such a said from such a specific authorial voice.

But it is so rare that you can do that with like film these days, that someone has like the, that especially someone who does not necessarily have a proven track record can be like is given the um creative freedom and the uh and the resources to be able to make something to be be able to to you know make a film um uh that's that's that's their own thing uh but with games because you know one person can do it you end up with things like this like animal well or stardew valley that are just like wholly like one person's um vision and it's it's just it's it's really impressive.

Cave Story.

And Cave Story, Heather.

You know what?

I'll play Cave Story.

I will.

I'll play it after this.

Hey,

I added it to my cart, okay?

Hey,

I own it.

I have owned Cave Story for over a decade.

I just have never played it.

Is Cave Story the same as Cave Story Plus?

Yes.

Okay.

Cave Story was free back in the day.

You shouldn't have to pay for anything.

Any bit.

Any bit of

any bit of it.

I don't know how.

But if you can throw the dev some cash, I think that's fine.

And I did with subsequent

purchases of the game and then like adaptations of the game.

I eventually bought it for the Sega Genesis.

It's so strange when you have, I'm wondering if anyone else has games like that in genres they love.

I already mentioned Hollow Knight and the obviously cave story.

Like Metroidvania includes some of my favorite games.

I mean, Castlevania, Simply Night, Super Metroid were both like shortlisted for me on my, when we were doing our best games of all time, our favorite games of all time.

Yeah.

You know, the Ori games, Ori and the Blind Forest and Will the Wisp.

Love the first one.

I love those games.

Obviously, I'm loving this one.

There's just so many of those games I've played over time, the entire Metroid franchise, and just I never got around to it,

to some of these other ones.

It's weird.

I don't know.

Do y'all have any games like that?

Do you have anything like, oh, this is this one,

this one JRPG I just like that everyone says is great that I never get around to.

This one fighting game, or this one uh, uh, Tony Hawk skateboarding game that I never played.

I did never play Tony Hawk's pro skater, or no, Tony Hawk's ride, I never got the skateboarding peripheral.

Uh, oh, yeah, I sort of knew that that would be a disaster, um, but I don't know, like, I mean, I'm sort of new to this genre, like, I think when

um

I probably played my actual first Metroid when I got my analog pocket, uh, you know, a couple of years ago or something.

You kind of binged the series, though, right?

You went through a bunch of them.

I went through Zero Mission and I got through some of Fusion and I played almost all of Dread.

I've like,

I'm no stranger to them, really, but like,

I had not really ever finished one.

And then I did finish Ori and the...

Blind Forest.

I didn't, I didn't, I've bounced off of the second one for some reason, but there's the new,

that new Prince of Persia game, the lost crown that is a metro game and i'm really it's really really good i just kind of bounced off of it because rebirth came out but like this is a it's kind of different because it's just like i'm just walking around doing stuff and like figuring out how to get around like that's the game it's not really like um

you know it's not like you're samus and you get like a new beam or something right like you get like a like you get a frisbee you're not you're going soft on beams now are you no here's the thing thing.

The only thing that can make this game better is if there was a beam in here.

I'll never go soft on beams, my friend.

That's the beam guy, I know.

Yeah, look, every game can be improved with a beam, whether you like it or not.

That's just how it is.

But

I'm enjoying the lack of combat, kind of, because I am just sort of like,

there's a different thing going on here.

This is, and I know that Heather doesn't love puzzles, really, but I do feel like the puzzles in this game are designed for you to figure them out.

So they're not too, they're difficult.

But once you have an understanding of how you can play the game, they kind of solve themselves in some ways.

There's one, you know, since we've talked about the frisbee, I'll talk about the frisbee for a second.

There's one puzzle where, like, you didn't, I just didn't think you could do something like this in a game like this.

Because, you know, not every surface has

resistance, I guess is the phrase that I, or the word that I'm trying to use here.

So like if you were to throw a frisbee in a game, it would go past most things unless it would hit a wall, right?

But you can use a frisbee to hit a switch, right?

In one direction only.

It's not going to activate it both ways.

But if you're in between two switches and you throw the frisbee and you get out of the way, you've created a loop where the switches turn on and off with the frisbee.

And I figured, when I figured that out, it's an obvious solution.

But when I figured it out, I was like, this game wanted me to know to do this.

That's really, thank you, game.

I figured it out.

You're helping me get to where I need to go to the next thing.

And then that was, that was very, that was a very satisfying thing to figure out and to learn.

And those switches are making platforms and walls appear and disappear so that you're setting it up.

So now you have like a, like, oh, how do I get through this area?

Oh, I've got these.

Now I just have to time out these jumps and time out this maneuvering.

And there's, there's a bunch of things like that.

But yeah, there are are multiple puzzles I've I've gotten through.

I've

solved and been like, oh man, that rules.

That's just had such a sense of satisfaction, not just with my, like myself for, again, feeling smart for doing it, but just admiration at the design of it.

I, what I appreciate about that puzzle that you're describing is that there is not one solution to it.

Because I got this bubblegun thing first,

bubblegun has been my solution for every puzzle.

And

the timing of the platforms

is like, you can't turn on the switches with the bubble gun,

but you can create your own platforms with the bubble gun.

So

there's more than like there, there are puzzles also that I found when I backtracked where I was like, oh, clearly I was supposed to do this first, but now that I have the bubble gun, I can just skip this part by making a bubble bridge.

And it's

bubble.

This

to a woman with a bubble gun, the whole world is screws.

Is that the

yeah, that's roughly it.

Yeah.

So, what the thing that normally frustrates me in these games is that there's typically only one solution.

And there are platforming puzzles per se

that you do have to engage like you would a Mario platforming section.

Like fans, you have to activate or whatever.

But so far, it feels to me like the game is a little bit forgiving with intended solution and improvised solution.

And that is less of a put off for me.

Maybe

I, yeah, maybe there's still some things where it'll be like, oh, I've got to fucking thread this needle through this bird's fucking face in order to unlock a segment of a brit like if i get to that then i'll be frustrated but so far bubble gun solving a lot of issues i got an achievement for

getting around

i got an achievement for getting around in a different way so i think there's like a reward for sometimes figuring out how to do something the wrong way yeah yeah wait um what are you guys playing are you playing on scene i'm playing on my steam

pc yeah i'm playing on switch so i'm not getting achievements for whatever the fuck i'm doing Fucking Nintendo.

Got to make everything so hard.

But my achievements would be.

People like achievements.

Give us some achievements.

What are we doing here?

My achievements would be, I guess you used the bubble gun for this too.

I'll tell you, I mean, without saying too much, I haven't felt like this in a long time with the game.

I've been really enjoying it and really loving it.

I got to a section.

where I stomped my feet earlier when I was playing.

I was so mad.

I had a tantrum because I was like,

I'm in a spot.

And I don't know if maybe Nick knows what I'm talking about or like

can

figure out where I am in the game.

There's like a section where I have to do something for like a long time and I know how to do it and I know that I can do it.

And I've done it, I think, 30 times.

And

I just haven't done it yet, but I know that I'm capable of doing it.

And I was doing this earlier and I was like, so this game's kind of like Dark Souls, kind of.

Or like, not really, but this one section I was like, this game is making, is giving, I sound like somebody who's only ever played one video game.

This is kind of like Dark Souls.

But it kind of has that sort of like,

like, I don't know.

The punishment is the reward because the reward is you get to try it again.

Like, and then you get the feeling of

knowing.

that you uh that you can do it and that you will do it.

And I do love that unlike other

types of games, these Metroidvanias, your character in other games gets more powerful and stronger.

And you basically only ever have four hearts, as far as I know,

so far.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like your character's power level really increases.

I mean, maybe something will happen late game that I haven't gotten to yet, or maybe this is one of the other layers that I haven't quite explored.

But yeah, and so you're pretty fragile, but that's part of the fun, I think, is that your

character is in peril.

Exactly.

And it

makes sense.

It matches the,

you know, it matches the visual

character of the protagonist, the player character.

But like things like that, that

you'll go up to a dog that's like four times your size and the dog will just put you in his mouth and use you as a chew toy, you know, or that a frog will just like eat you whole with his tongue, you know, like things like that.

It's just like you have like actual, you're in actual peril.

You're a teeny, tiny guy and and and so this world is very scary to you

But I I do like that that big that a part of it is like circumventing these things as opposed to killing them like it's not like a combat focused game in the sense of like I'm gonna kill this thing and then pick up whatever loot it drops It's like okay I've got to figure out a way to distract distract these things So for instance, like you can throw a dog a frisbee and the dog will chew on the frisbee and that'll distract them for a second.

But even better, if you can find two platforms, two walls that are facing each other, you can throw a frisbee that goes back and forth between those two walls and then the dog will be

for an indefinite length of time, the dog will be detained because he will be distracted trying to jump up and bite at the frisbee that's sailing over his head.

Yes.

And so like, like shit like that is really cool when you discover it organically.

I'm talking a lot of frisbee stuff, but again, because, you know, I don't want to get too deep into it.

But, but, like,

I just like, it's

there are so many solutions that feel like it's, you know,

it's not like the game is just telling me what to do.

And to Matt's point about like it, the difficulty, I don't think this is a particularly difficult game.

I think it's not like a precision platformer.

As we mentioned, there isn't any combat, really.

But there are some things that are like maybe a little bit.

you know, you just have to do, you have to sequence correctly or you have to do a few things in a row.

and i could see it if there was going to be a thing that could make people bounce off of it it would maybe be things like you know the phones that i mentioned that are your checkpoints are sometimes a little bit sparse um this is a this is a pretty minor minor criticism but it sometimes feels like you go through some one major thing and uh you know you so

If you do fail at one thing, you've got to redo a bunch of different tasks.

And I don't mind that sort of gauntlet design.

I love having to run through a bunch of different things and do them all correctly.

But there are some times where that can feel maybe a little bit tedious.

Yeah, I expect to see a telephone when I do something that I consider difficult.

And when it's not there, I'm like, oh, fuck.

And then you press pause and it's like 20 minutes since your last save.

And you're like, yes, fuck.

So,

yeah, that's tough.

That's tough.

And I do like, you know, it's.

We're talking about it in an obtuse way, but the game is obtuse, right?

But like,

sort of like not knowing, like, to what end am I doing something?

Like, there's something that I've repeatedly done in the game that I'm like, I have no idea what this is for, and I have no, I have no idea why I'm doing this, but every time I can do it, I'm very excited that I did do it.

And

we'll find out what it's for at some point, I suppose.

But if there's no, if there's

no reason for it either, I'll be still happy that I did do it.

It's kind of like, I think the mystery is satisfying, whereas it doesn't just feel like it's like, you know, being too coy or up its own ass or anything.

It's satisfying in the way that like a good horror game or, you know, it's like kind of like mysterious and ethereal, even though this game is not scary, but it has that same sort of feel of like, you know, Silent Hill 2 of like, I never know exactly what's going on.

You can kind of just sort of make a bunch of inferences and you can make some connections.

But I like not really knowing.

You know what I mean?

Like I don't, you don't need clear answers for everything.

You don't need an NPC explaining exactly what's happening at every time, you know?

No.

That being said, the plot of Silent Hill 2 is Pyramid Head wants to kiss you.

That's it.

That's all that you need to know about that game.

I do think that this game is missing Pyramid Head also.

I think if there's Pyramid Head in this game and beams, this would be maybe my favorite game.

But since those two things aren't in there, I guess I'm just going to have to consider it a very, very good game.

That's kind of a blanket statement for all of gaming, though, right?

That could apply to anything in the medium.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, if,

man, they put Kingdom Hearts in, or they put

Pyramid Head in Kingdom Hearts.

I'm back.

I'm back, baby.

Were you ever out?

No, here's the thing.

No, no,

we're so back.

I'm back in a way that I

have always been.

Here I am.

I guess we should talk about the control because this is another thing is this game feels so fucking good.

It's just so responsive.

It's so fluid.

The physics are so great.

It's just, you know, when there are platforming elements, they're really, really satisfying and just it has

a sort of a kinetic feeling to its motion that's just like, I don't know.

I'm playing with an Xbox controller in BC, I think it plays fantastic.

Yeah, it recommends a controller, uh, when you start it up as the switch practitioner in the group, I want to say it is not as precise as I want it to be.

Um,

because you're

you have that you, the analog stick is got a very strange amount of travel, um, and the buttons are tiny.

So, if you're if you're defaulting to the standard Switch Switch layout, it's a little it I I want it I want it to be on a Super NES controller or I want it to be on a I want it to be on a different controller and yes, I can do that with the switch, but I will the default control scheme on a switch a little bit too floaty.

I'm using the D-pad on my Xbox.

How about you, Matt?

I've been

trying to retrain myself to use the D-pad because the

stick, while it does work,

D-pad is the way to go for this, I think.

For sure.

I do like

the way it uses vibration as well.

I don't know, every little bump.

That's in a lot of games.

And obviously, like on the Dual Sense controller, there's haptic feedback and stuff.

But for some reason, the little bit of vibration you get when you bump something or when you jump and you land, or when you climb up a little ladder, and it just goes like it's a little tiny vibration feels really good.

It's like it's it's it's a lot of fun.

They use it really well in this game.

Or he uses it, Billy.

The one guy that made it did a good job with the vibration.

I could never make a video game.

I don't think I could ever do it.

And

I would simply never try as well.

But the fact that, you know, somebody could make a video game and it be this good and they made it by themselves is really interesting

as a concept.

Well, and also just like it's all the, and this is another thing I love about Beyond it just being coming from one, you know, artistic vision

from an auteur is just like the

myriad skill set it requires to do something like this, like to be able to create pixel art that's appealing and animate it and, you know, again,

build an engine from scratch, do all of the coding, do all the design and the writing and the music, like doing all those disciplines converging.

And when someone does it and then every aspect hits, it just,

it feels miraculous.

It's just, it's just such an impressive artistic achievement.

Yeah, I love it.

It's a fucking triumph.

I love it.

Yeah, it feels, it feels impossible that anybody could make this and yet somebody has and it's good.

Yeah.

Also, I've been thinking about your question earlier, Nick, that I didn't answer, and it was Final Fantasy III.

Oh, interesting.

Haven't played Final Fantasy III.

Oh, you haven't?

No.

I've played a Final Fantasy game.

Heather and Campbell hasn't played.

That's an interesting game.

It's true.

That's really interesting to consider for a second, isn't that?

I've played it twice.

I've played it on 3DS and I played it in the pixel version.

I know, I know.

I'm going to lord this over you forever.

That's okay.

This is going to be my cave story.

You should play Final Fantasy 3.

It's pretty good.

I'm sure.

I know it is.

I meant to play it.

You know, I've put hundreds and hundreds of hours into Tony Hawk's San Diego Legends,

which I've never heard you talk about.

I think if that game existed, it would be my possibly my favorite video game

as a long, as a lifelong Southern Californian.

If a video game had San Diego in the title, I'd be like, let's fucking go.

Any other thoughts on this game?

I can't wait to see what else the fuck is going on with it because

I know that I don't know.

And that's kind of propelling me through it too.

Is that I'm sort of like, I know that there's something that I don't know what's going on.

I know there's something I'm missing, and I can't wait to

discover it on my own because the sense of discovery that this game

has is just, it's, I don't know, I haven't played a game like this in a long time.

It's making me feel like I love video games.

It's great.

It's just a really great game.

Yeah, it's not just like a beautifully made, like an extremely well-designed, like, like Metroidvania, you know, search action game.

It feels like it's elevating the genre, like it's trying something different, like it's, it's going to, uh, you know, incite changes to, uh, to games of this nature.

It is interesting that it has this like retro.

You pointed this out earlier.

It's retro to not a specific era, right?

But it has a pixel art design.

And then it still has stuff in it that was like, I don't think I've ever seen anything that looks like this.

Like, that's pretty cool.

Like, I don't know, to

see something that looks old, but is new and has new ideas and new things in it is great.

And hats off.

Hats off to Animal Well, really, really, what a game.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like shooting a silent black and white film with like a digital camera.

You know what I mean?

It's like, it's like this is a

way of doing something

that feels old, but also like feels new at once.

That's not a perfect comparison, but that's the kind of thing.

I'd say the Netflix series Ripley is,

you know, it's shot in that gorgeous, high-contrast black and white, looks retro, but is

performed with modern sensibilities and

is extraordinary.

Did you guys know I'm a Ripley?

I'm not surprised at all, but I don't know.

You know what I mean?

That's kind of how I got everything I have.

I Ripley the guy.

Imagine seeing Nick Weiger and being like, this is the life I want to take over.

Yeah, I kind of ripleyed the wrong guy.

But also,

this is how you're living.

Like, you're still this kind of guy.

Yeah.

Didn't have very high aspirations as a Ripley.

This guy eats fast food until he seems like he's in pain.

I'm going to take his existence.

Anyway, Animal Well.

It's a masterpiece.

It's a triumph.

Everyone who loves games should play it.

And hey, maybe if you're someone who doesn't play that many games, this is the kind of one you might want to check out.

It's really, really spectacular.

All right.

It's time for the question block.

All right.

This first one, they're also, these are all sourced from our Discord, discord.gg/slash get played.

I assume, if you're listening to the show and you're on Discord, you're already in there.

But if you're not, come join us.

We're having a lot of fun in there.

This first one is from Beanie Sanders.

And Beanie Sanders writes.

Hello, Beanie.

Hi, Beanie.

Hi, Beanie Sanders.

Have you been messing with emulators like Delta now that they're allowed on iOS?

I've been enjoying playing DS games with touchscreen support and some Pokemon ROM hacks.

Side question.

As a resident Pokemaniac, has Matt ever played a ROM hack?

I'll answer both these questions right away.

One, I've never played a ROM hack.

Be interested in

doing that.

I did.

i have one on my um that i've been meaning to play on my animal pocket that is basically a remake of pokemon yellow but in the um pokemon fire red and uh pokemon like ruby sprites um but it's an exact remake of of pokemon yellow i'd be interested in checking that out and i have checked out

Delta on on my on my phone, but my the thing about games on my phone is that I don't I don't really do that I don't really I I can't really play games on my phone in that way I like my phone kind of to be my phone

But what about you guys?

Have you looked into that at all?

I downloaded Chrono Trigger, which is my always my first game that I download whenever there's an emulator released, I think

and

same I

I haven't been so I haven't been dragging my what is the backbone?

I haven't been dragging my backbone around with me.

And so it's not exciting to touch a screen when there used to be buttons.

So I haven't been, I haven't been doing it.

But I did see somebody who had

modded a backbone with a 3D printer so that the phone sat vertically.

in the backbone and they were playing DS games on it.

And I was like, that's pretty nice.

It's pretty nice.

That's cool.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a Beanie, uh beanie mentioned they were playing ds games specifically with the touch input and that seems like a oh i i could maybe see myself doing that for the most part i try not to have games on my phone because i'm just trying to be off my phone uh you know as as on my phone as little as i need to uh but

like when i have had games that i've liked on my phone they have been ones built around phone input uh anything that involves any sort of controller it's just like it's it's cumbersome you've You've got to have an extra device.

And also, you're playing games in a very different way than when you play on like a console or even a handheld.

You're, you're much more likely to be interrupted and have to use your device for something else.

So

yeah, I mean, like, it's kind of a,

I, I'd be curious what DS games actually work well with just a touch screen.

Uh, because that does seem like it, like, I could see something like maybe like a pit cross or something working well.

But for the most part, yeah, I can't see myself myself doing something that would be any sort of longer commitment yeah uh yeah or be or require any sort of like precision from from a controller or from a backbone right um

thanks for the question beanie uh this next one is from intro course

and intro course writes is there a console or peripheral form factor you want to return i've picked up my 3ds non-excel version and i love everything about how it feels to play the ds light was also one of my favorites With foldable tech becoming more common, I would be happy for it to return to gaming.

I do love something that you could pocket.

The Switch is portable, right?

But it's not how portable is it if you have to put it in like a backpack or a larger bag.

You can't just put it in your pocket.

The question is specifically about foldable.

It's not necessarily formal.

It's just form factor that you'd like to return.

Got it.

I think...

Yeah, I wish that the, I wish you didn't have to have a secondary.

Clamshell devices are great because they protect the screen, right?

The Game Boy SP

was great because you could click it closed and toss it in a bag.

And if your keys scratched up the exterior of the Game Boy, that was fine.

Like, the screen is the part that you want to be flawless.

So that's why foldable stuff and foldable tech is so attractive.

Um, that being said, I do wish that there was a

digital memory card like the VMU that you could

like, if I could take a little tiny game from my PS5 with me, not with like the full portal, but like if there was like some kind of like, I love accessories so much, and I wish that there was just like tiny mini games that I could like keep on a chain, like like a keychain and play on the go.

that then would affect my game when I got home would be pretty fucking rad.

I was looking at because I have a bunch of little devices, of course, right?

But I have those, they released a Mario and a Zelda game and watch that just has like three games on it.

That's like three Mario games and like three Zelda games on each.

And I was like, it would be so sick to mod this

to be

like a retro emulator that just has like a very small because it's so thin It's like it's about i mean it's about like this much of my phone it's like not very big it just has a it's a very

three quarters of your phone yeah and something about it like only having like the two buttons a and b and a d-pad and like that's it and it's thin that was like that could just be on my person at all times that's that's a home run but i was looking into this and everyone's like okay so i have my soldering iron and i have this raspberry pie like i'm not doing any of this i i can't, that's above my pay grade.

I can't do that.

But I wish there was something like that that was thin.

And honestly, I just need a Game Boy Advanced micro.

This is what I need.

That's exactly what I want.

And I just need that because then I'll have everything I'd ever want.

As a snazzy device.

Yeah, I mean, I was thinking

when we were thinking about a form factor, we'd want to return.

I was thinking specifically about the Game Boy Advance SP, the one Heather mentioned earlier, the foldable one.

That was probably the handheld I put the most, got the most use out of.

Actually, I don't know if that's true.

I might have played more DS, but

I do like

that I do end up feeling sometimes having nostalgia for a stylus.

I like using a stylus.

Yeah, the stylus.

Styluses are fun, and it's like a different sort of experience than using a touchscreen.

And also feels distinct from using your phone, which is, again, an experience I want to get away from.

Yeah, but I think like the

new Nintendo 3D SXL, I think it was, whatever the most recent, the biggest, most, you know, like it had the most, the, the, the most outrageously like large screen.

Um, I really liked that one.

I really liked how it felt.

I think there's also something just for we seem to have settled with handhelds on the controllers are going to flank the screen, but I kind of like the Game Boy approach and the Game Boy Advance SP approach of like the controls are below the screen.

Like I don't know.

It feels kind of retro and maybe a little bit cumbersome and maybe a little bit less ergonomic, but I don't know.

I like that at times.

That's what's so great about the analog pocket is that it just really like

got that got that perfectly.

The stylus made me remember the Ninja Gaiden DS game that you had to hold sideways like a book.

Did you ever

play that?

Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

It rocked.

And then the that game also came with a sword stylus so you got to use a sword and then you got to slash people in the game uh with the sword that was really really cool um so foldable uh sp

game boy advanced sp is like the number one like we want that we just want that form fact give me a switch sp and i'm i'm that's that's all i want um

I guess maybe also any sort of orb.

I just want to hold like orbs.

You want to hold an orb?

Yeah, I like holding the orbs.

Like, I like wrapping my hands around something.

You know, like the,

this isn't the exact experience, but kind of like the Xbox controller, the original Xbox controller, the Duke, that huge thing.

It kind of feels like you're holding something kind of massive.

I don't know.

I like that.

There goes Nick with his orbs again.

He loves.

He loves.

He loves orbs, this guy.

Another unlucky one writes, okay.

If we accept that Evangelion is the pinnacle of

an anime experience, what do each of you see as the pinnacle of a gaming experience?

And this is more for Matt and Heather because I assume Nick will say Baldur's Gate 3.

Now, Baldur's Gate 3 is my answer.

I also kind of do think it's Baldur's Gate 3.

Yeah.

I think that is like the most,

in some ways, it is the most video game a video game can be.

Another submission I have, and maybe this is because this is the only game I've played in the last

few months, Final Fantasy VII.

I think Final Fantasy 7 is such a video game you know

disco elysium disco elysium is a good option as well answer uh

and then after disco elysium street fighter 3

and then after street fighter 3 the last of us with factions wow that's pretty good those are some good those are some good games um yeah i might say you know i might add an addition to balder's gate 3 which is my actual answer but i might say some i i i we were talking about Hades earlier.

I think Hades is a pretty good candidate for like, hey, this is a video game-ass video game.

This is so,

it's

one of the most polished games I've ever played.

It has a great story, incredible art, incredible music and sound design, great voice acting, and it plays fantastically.

And

it's another game that uses the medium.

What's unique about the medium, the interactivity and the cycle of failure and death and rebirth as part of

how it uniquely tells its story.

So, yeah,

that's another one for it.

But that's a great question.

Also, fucking Tetris.

Of course, it's Tetris.

And I know me saying this is going to seem like a meme, but Kingdom Hearts 2.

And finally, surveillance rights.

Which now mundane RPG feature would you like to most have in real life?

Examples, saving, fast travel, large portable inventory.

Very punny usernames in our Discord.

A lot of cut-ups in there.

A lot of jokers.

A lot of pundits, if you will.

Nick.

Some of them should be punished.

Nick.

I feel like some of the people who submitted questions belong in a punitentiary.

Nick.

We're having fun.

The question was, what video game thing would I like in the real life?

Yeah.

I think specifically to

modern RPG, modern RPG conveniences.

Nick had all three of those off the dome, by the way.

I got to just point it out.

Nick was able to do those puns immediately.

Very, very skilled.

That's pretty.

Low degree of difficulty.

So

the things I would say is the one that I think is just coming.

I think we're just going to have an AR mini-map in the future.

And I also think that we are going to have AR

NPC character names over people in the same way that do you remember when we used to like remember birthdays?

Probably maybe our younger listeners maybe don't even remember a time we needed to remember someone's birthday, but now it's just a part of like someone's social media profile.

And so it's, it's not a thing you have to remember.

I really think we will reach a point in the future where we don't remember names of friends and loved ones, where we're so used to just having that in front of us that it doesn't become something that gets into our brain.

It's like, and yeah, Nick, I love this.

I have a

lot of and I love it.

Yeah.

Because we're just going to, we're just going to turn off that part of our memory.

We're not going to, since, since we don't need it, it's, it's, it's wasted energy.

Yep.

Uh, so it'll be a thing like, oh, the internet's down.

I can't remember anyone's names.

And it'll be a whole thing.

I love it.

You saying remembering people's birthdays reminded me that I've been dealing with this for, I think, 10 years, and I don't know how to deal with it.

Like, I don't know how to make it not so.

I've tried a million different things.

I like synced my Facebook to like one calendar one time.

God.

And now I just have every person I've ever, every single day I get an alert on my phone.

It's so-and-so's birthday.

And I'm like, like, I haven't talked to this person in 10 years.

I don't know.

Same thing.

And I don't know how to delete it.

And I feel like I've Googled.

I'm not a fucking boomer about this.

Like I've, I've looked for solutions to delete these fucking birthdays.

The problem is that it deletes all birthdays.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no.

I want like some

birthdays.

I want like

local birthdays.

I don't need to know the name, the birthday of somebody that was, that went to my my elementary school.

No,

my calendar is eight birthdays at the top of every day.

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

Who are these people?

That's insane.

And I don't know.

I'll just delete my calendar, I think.

I wish.

Give up.

Just become a new guy.

Yeah, I just become a new guy.

Ripley, someone?

Fast travel.

So the question was...

Fast travel is my answer.

Yeah, I forgot.

It's a great answer.

So fast travel is my answer because

of where we live, Los Angeles.

And then additionally, because if I could fast travel to say amsterdam uh i would go there every weekend uh like i would i would maybe live there and work in los angeles

um if you could just fast travel back and forth like but what a life that would be are you thinking about fast travel as the experience is fast to you but in game when you fast travel real time does pass right so like

depends on the fast travel fast travel but it depends on

depends on the game.

Depends on the game.

Cause some games, it's just instant, you know, you go to a different part of the map.

Yes.

Yeah.

And if it was that time had passed, then no.

But if I could just

fast travel to, I mean, like, if I could fast travel to Japan, I would be there the moment we stopped recording.

I might even do it while we were recording

so that I could hang up.

And yeah.

Fast travel is like the only, it's like kind of the only option i feel like it's like it's such a good it's such a good thing uh yeah it'd be useful it'd be constantly useful i'll give another answer which is if i have the raw ingredients and no recipe that i can just like make any dish in like five seconds right with one little looping animation right like i i get i get to a campfire and i have a skillet

you know, and I have a

whatever.

I have a porter house and I have a

potato and I have some broccolini and I have some butter.

I can make myself a steak dinner right then there

and it'll be a you know like the best steak dinner I've ever eaten.

That feels like that would be really handy.

It also makes me resistant to cold for some reason.

I was going to say

I have two ideas.

I know that solo leveling sort of showed this as a negative.

I do think I would like a skill tree and a way that I can add things to certain

like

attributes.

Maybe I'd balance them all out or I'd make some,

dependent on what I was doing,

make myself strong or whatever.

But another one I like is that I would like to just drink a generic potion and then heal whatever is wrong.

It'd be pretty good.

Yeah, for sure.

You know what I mean?

Like, I'm a little sick.

I would like to immediately not be sick.

I'm going to drink.

this blue potion and I'm not sick anymore, period.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah, or your wounds heal.

Yeah.

That'd be really handy.

That'd be good.

There's so many wounds these days.

God, I'm just riddled with wounds.

Do you find yourself?

I find, I can get, at least I'm getting older.

I just keep, like, I was like, how the, what the fuck did I cut myself?

When did that happen?

You know what I mean?

And then it just takes like a week to heal.

I don't know.

I'd maybe sleep with one eye open, buddy.

That's this week's Get Play at our Producers Rochelle Chen.

Ranch, yard underscore, underscore, sard.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com, and our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com/slash get played, where you can find our entire pre-head gun back catalog

plus ad-free main feed episodes, as well as our exclusive Patreon show, get animated.

Hey, we covered the aforementioned Evangelion, the aforementioned solo leveling, and we're doing something different this week.

That's right.

We're in

the final weeks of get of

animehem.

And what that is, if you haven't heard, is we're watching a random anime and a random episode from that anime.

And we don't know what it's going to be before we watch.

We watch it.

It gets selected.

We watch it.

We react.

Sometimes it's pretty good.

And sometimes, yikes.

But it's a lot of fun either way.

So tune in at patreon.com slash get played.

And who knows what we'll watch next?

Yeah, we've covered an anime about a Yakuza who learns to love theater in prison.

We covered one about girls camping.

You know, we've covered a really boring one.

Who knows what's going to happen?

That's right.

Who knows?

Patreon.com slash get played for all of that.

Guys,

I think this week the game itself got played.

Wow.

Because we played it and we liked it.

We certainly did and we loved it.

Animal Well got played.

Animal Well got played.

In a good way.

Yes, in a good way, of course.

In a good way.

Yeah, in a good way.

Also, Heather got played for not finding the frisbee.

Fuck, what?

That was a hitgum podcast.

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