Palworld

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All right, guys.

This is a really exciting time for our company.

We've got,

you know,

PAL World has been a huge success, and we are also a fledgling video game company, and we're going to launch with a big new IP.

So I've called this meeting today to make sure that you guys get a chance to voice your ideas for what that IP could be.

But I want you to think big,

grand experiences.

I want you, whatever, live services.

Nothing is out of bounds.

So fellas,

let me hear your ideas for brand new video games.

Okay,

I do have something.

I've been cooking.

I've been thinking about this for a while.

What if there is a sort of

an outbreak of some kind,

a pandemic of sorts that

it starts from like a mushroom type fungus and it infects people and it stars this like sad like dad, right?

And then

he sort of adopts this like young girl who's like a surrogate daughter, right?

And she is immune and he has to take her, smuggle her, from point A to point B basically.

And point B is like a medical facility of some kind.

And I think, like, that's just sort of like kind of what would happen in the game.

We obviously fill in more stuff.

And

there's like stealth combat and shooting and things like that.

This sounds awesome.

The only thing I'd suggest is, can we just add like a base building?

Like all that, but also you build bases.

Okay, yeah, I mean, it could have base building, sure.

Okay, great.

I think we should do that for sure.

That's great.

No, wait, hold on.

You're not running the meeting, so I don't know why you would approve the idea.

We're just blue-skying in the air.

We're just brainstorming.

We are blue-skying.

But I feel like maybe I was remiss

in not clarifying exactly what it is we're looking for, because what you've just described is the last of us.

It's just the last of us.

So,

you know,

and there are no wrong answers here, so I'll put it up on the board.

What?

Matt went first.

I don't see how he was the last of us.

No, I...

I see what's happened.

We can move past this.

All right.

I think we should get some other ideas.

I think that's a great idea that Matt pitched.

I don't think we should kill it because it's too close to something that exists.

We're not going to kill it.

I'll put it on the board, but

let's hear more new original IP.

Okay, here's what I'm thinking.

What

is more relatable than feeling like you're trapped, feeling like you have no escape?

Isn't that all of us today in society

entrapped by our governments, by the news cycle, by our jobs?

Yes.

And we're also being pursued by multicolored ghosts.

And there's nothing we can do but move forward and continue to consume the dots in our path as we wind through the corridors, just trying to survive.

Chomp, chomp, chomp, until finally we get that power pellet that lets us turn the tables and eat back the ghosts.

This is we have all that plus base building, and that's a game.

I was going to say, I think this is more apt for base building.

I think this is good.

I think that's really good.

What bothers me about your pitch is that in the PowerPoint you just showed, you were using images of Pac-Man.

I don't mean to sound frustrated.

I'm going through a divorce.

So, you know, like, I don't mean to bring that to work.

Yeah, we should tell, we can tell Matt now Heather and I are going through a divorce.

Oh, God.

That sucks.

That sucks so bad.

Wait, who?

You're all going through a divorce?

Well, we're, yeah, we're all, we're all getting a divorce.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, oh, that sucks.

That's That's like,

I mean, that kind of would make Joel kind of like, or, you know, if there was a Joel type character.

Oh, yeah, right.

Maybe it's not that somebody died.

Maybe that there's like a divorced guy.

Maybe Pac-Man has divorced from Ms.

Pac-Man.

Yeah.

I want to just say,

I had to miss the custody hearing in order to be here.

Like, I...

You're really not supposed to.

I thought you guys were coming with your...

With your what?

You're really not supposed to miss that one.

Yeah, well, I had to because I...

we could have met on any day.

I'm thinking like a sports game, but it's got every big sport in one: baseball, bowling, golf, tennis.

And you use a special remote controller to simulate the swing of a bat, or like you're bowling a ball, or like you're swinging a golf club.

Stop!

Yeah, stop!

With base building.

Stop!

Uh-huh.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop!

Stop!

Stopped!

Stop!

Stop!

You're pitching a system!

You're pitching the we.

I just want to tell you something.

You cannot act like this in court.

We beat lambs with clubs and force them to work on our bases as we discuss viral early access potential IP theft bonanza POWRL 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, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

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

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premier Video Game Podcast.

If you are joining us for the very first time, let me tell you, we are three idiot friends

who

just play some video games sometimes together, sometimes alone.

And initially, we were only playing terrible games, but now we play every game.

And this week's game may fall somewhere in between.

Again, we are idiots.

We're going to say dumb shit.

Yeah, yeah.

We rarely ever make mistakes, but a lot of stuff we say is dumb.

This is a yeah, we're we're talking PAL world this week, which we'll get to in a second.

This is a PAL world.

I would say we're we're as video as video game podcasts go, we're not like the most like topical or zeitgeisty or newsy but this is such a big thing that it kind of felt inescapable and i think it also kind of in various ways overlaps with all of our gaming interests so i felt like we should we had to cover it yes yeah uh yeah you know we'll get into this but you know i like a i like a pokemon game right heather likes like a sort of uh like a fortnight sort of like exploration sort of game and nick likes bad stuff.

How dare you?

I actually do like this.

The aspect of me, first off, is the Breath of the Wild aspect, which we'll talk about, but also just like the crafting and the building.

I love like building shit.

I can't wait to talk about it.

I do like the survival aspect.

We'll get to that.

We should also, while we're talking about what we're going to talk about, we're here in February now, and we have our we play, you play format, which is, you know, we were doing it monthly.

I think we're maybe going to do it bimonthly or semi-regularly.

We're not going to commit to doing it at the end of every month because that's a little onerous.

But we are going to talk at length about one game for the final episode of February.

I'm not sure if we set it in stone.

We can talk it out here, but it felt like there were some strong leanings towards finally.

digging deep into Baldur's Gate 3.

7 Remake.

Oh,

I'll talk Final Fantasy VII Remake or Rebirth when it's out, but I honestly feel like we should wait till Rebirth is out and we can talk at length about that game.

I think that makes sense.

No, I think Baldur's Gate 3 is going to be great.

We have talked about this offline.

So

I have dipped back into Baldur's Gate 3 and I refuse to restart despite the long history of what I have done in the game.

I am plowing forward

without save scumming or whatever it is so that we can chat Baldur's Gate 3

and that'll give us different takes also because we'll have very very different experiences.

100%.

So that'll be coming the final Monday of February.

That will be our beautiful year.

It's the final Monday.

It's the final Monday in February and actually going forward, February will no longer have Mondays at that point too.

That's actually a really crazy part of it.

It's a weird quirk in the calendar, but I guess because it's a leap year, they were like, Well, after this one, this is this will be a good final Monday for this February.

Yeah.

Um, next year we're back to 28 days, uh, and we'll, I guess, we'll double up on Tuesdays.

I don't think they're gonna figure it out.

That's well, no,

it's so frustrating because I have read a bunch about this.

They, it doesn't make any sense.

There's gonna be two Tuesdays in the future in February.

What is what is this bit?

I, you know,

can I

can I can I say a conspiracy theory, Please.

So I believe that the calendar, the natural calendar,

as probably practiced by like the early hunter-gatherers, was probably 13 months instead of 12.

Because if you divide 365 by 13, then every month has exactly 28 days, which also means that the moon cycles would line up with the months at the the exact same time every month.

So at a certain point, they just like someone made the executive decision, we're getting rid of Smarch or whatever.

We're like, you know, that one 13th month is going to take a hike and we're going to shift these days around.

Sort of like what they're doing again with the Monday.

They're doing it.

Yeah, right.

Which means that February is the lone

holdover from the original calendar.

I wonder if there's any, because obviously there's all sorts of different, you know, calendars and timekeeping systems around the globe that all kind of got got standardized when we entered an era of global commerce and communication.

I bet there's some truth to that.

And I bet there are some calendars that are a little bit closer to the moon cycle.

I like, as far as the theory, as far as conspiracy theories go, this one pretty benign, I'll say.

I'm a little wholesome conspiracy theories.

Yeah, so I like it.

I think this one's good.

I endorse it.

I like it.

That's the official stance on the Get Played podcast.

We believe there are originally 13 months.

There was a 13th month.

Yeah.

I wonder when 9-11 would have happened if there were 13 months and 28 perfect days.

Right.

Probably in August.

Discord.

It wouldn't.

Depends on where that 13th month slots.

That's true, huh?

I'm adding it to the very end.

Yeah.

Pushing everything up.

Right.

August has its own

origin in Augustus, right?

Am I wrong?

Is that where that's coming from?

Or is it vice versa?

I might be either way.

I should know more about calendars.

Yeah, let's maybe this year we get into calendars.

I think that's pretty good for us.

We'll do an episode.

Right.

We'll figure it out.

A lot of get, but this is the thing, because, okay, if there's a game like Stardew Valley, which is akin to kind of the survival-based building resource management

day, night cycle game that we're going to be discussing at length,

different, but

the same sort of general bucket.

When games have, when game systems have fictional calendars, they do tend to standardize it.

They do tend to be like, hey, you know what?

We're not going to just take the existing like sort of dumb kludge system that we have that exists because of path dependency.

We're going to instead sort of make it like, yeah, these are, these are, these seasons have an even number of days

and because that just makes more sense for everybody.

I think

let's adopt one of those.

I'm sick of this shit.

I'm sick of daylight savings time.

That's and you know what?

13 months?

Bet you we don't have daylight savings time anymore.

I bet you it's gone.

Here's my big thing.

Yeah, I agree.

I don't I don't like daylight saving time.

Keep it as standard time year-round.

By the way, it is one of those things where, and I do love to be pedantic in general, but I love to be pedantic about this.

It's daylight saving time.

Everything is no S.

It sucks.

Daylight saving time.

Lose the S.

Give us another month.

Let's get this over with.

But I have thought, like, could you do like the equivalent of a metric calendar?

Like, could you have a 10-hour day?

of 100 minutes, a 10-day week that turns into like a 100-day year?

Like, could you make the math all kind of of line up where it's all on the decimals?

I'm sure we could.

And then the U.S.

will be the only people that don't do it.

We like ours.

Fuck you.

Worse.

So Baldur's Gate 3 coming into the month.

That's right.

We'll talk about it then.

They have a 10-day week.

in the Baldur's Gate universe.

They keep talking about a 10-day.

That's

the week-like period of time.

I thought they were talking about Chance the Rapper's first mixtape.

Just looking at you blankly.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Brichelle knows what I'm talking about.

Who the what?

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

Let's talk about some video games we're playing now.

It's what are you playing?

What are you playing?

That's where we talk about the things that we're playing.

That's right.

I expected he's been around lately, so I expected the resident EPA.

I kind of thought he would, too.

I thought he might show up, but I honestly don't.

Like, I thought I saw his car parked outside.

Yeah.

What?

What?

I haven't.

What kind of of car does he drive?

I haven't seen his car.

Well, I saw like a burned out car outside.

Okay.

And I thought like that's the kind of thing he would have, yeah, he would have driven.

Yeah.

The blackened husk.

But I guess that wasn't him.

Yeah, technically, like the shape of a car, but it is just ash.

Yeah.

No, and I'm, you know what?

And it's, I don't think I'm, I don't think mentally I could handle it today.

It'd be a lot.

I'm sure.

It's more of chill vibes.

It's the chill vibes.

He'd have his own take on the calendar system, which I don't need to hear.

Every day is my birthday.

Shut up.

Come on, dude.

Every day is your birthday?

Come on.

Get over it.

Every day.

I really hope that he doesn't listen to the show.

No, and if any of this did get back to him, I would be pretty upset, actually, because I wouldn't say this to his face.

Do you think he knows how to listen to a podcast?

And for those of you that don't know who we're talking about, we're talking about, of course, the...

The Resident Evil 4 merchant.

He stops by.

He's a regular fixture on our show.

He'll pop pop in usually to introduce the segment.

Well, he'll pop in often and irregularly to introduce the segment.

Yeah,

not usually.

To varying degrees of success, too, I would say.

I will say more often than not, the segment is introduced.

But it's, you know, always at the expense of our time and the listener's time.

And, you know, sometimes we learn a little too much about this guy.

But.

Not here today.

We're just going to get into it.

Matt, what are you playing?

I'm playing Final Fantasy VII Remake.

And

I'm about 10 hours in.

I'm in chapter like 7 or something.

And I got to say, I'm loving it.

I'm loving it.

I talked about it a little bit last week, and

I was saying that I was already more interested in it because I had already finished the original Final Fantasy VII.

And that's still holding true.

I love my guys.

I love that squad.

That's a good squad so far.

I'm really happy with everybody.

Who do you partied up with at this point?

Right now,

I'm running around with Tifa and Barrett.

And I like that you can switch between

this this type of game is a little more my speed because turn-based is never has never really been my favorite.

Yes, um, but you know, it's sort of an action RPG

It's more really just an action game.

The RPG elements are not really like front and center.

Although there are still like menus.

Like there's still and you can just like pause, like basically, it's kind of real time with pause.

Like you can kind of stop the action at any point.

But I did, I do think they did an amazing job.

I mean, that's what I like most about the game beyond just like its kind of general like

aesthetic majesty.

But is just like, I thought they did a great job of hybridizing, you know, kind of old school slash MMO style combat with like a modern action game, character action game.

And so it's very playable, but also very approachable if you're like coming from an RPG school and don't really play these games.

I was really lost in a lost in a good way in a

one of the weapon upgrade menus.

There's like these like clusters with like little stones on them or whatever.

And you can.

The materia?

No, not the materia, though, like where you can go into,

it's a sub menu for the weapons and you can, it's like stats for your weapons.

Right, right, right, right.

I'm trying to remember what that was.

And I, I, I was having a blast in there.

But you're not slotting materia into that.

No, but you can slot materia into your weapons, but it's like that's a diff that's a different menu.

Yeah.

Uh This thing's got so many menus.

I'm thinking maybe the Cheesecake Factory made this game.

Right.

But anyway, folks, what else?

What else?

I'm just kidding.

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

And so far, I haven't gotten to, because I know the full game hasn't been spoiled for me, right?

Because I know that

the full version, the full remake hasn't hasn't been spoiled for me.

I know that some things are different and some things are, um, you know, unique to this experience, but I haven't gotten to any of that stuff yet.

So, um, and we should just reiterate for anyone who missed it that you recently finished vanilla Final Fantasy VII for the first time.

So, like, I'm aware of that stuff.

And there are a couple of things.

Like, there's a guy, there's a complete guy in this, in the remake so far that I was like, this, he's not in the other one.

This is like a new guy, uh,

but he's like a weird sort of fancy motorcycle guy.

I think he's new.

I don't think he's in the original.

I can't remember which one.

Yeah, he played it more recently than me.

But

I was like, I'll be seeing him again, I'm sure, because you fight him and then he goes away.

He doesn't die.

But I'm playing that.

And I did,

I have, I've put away Prince of Persia for now, even though I was really zipping around loving that.

I got a bunch of new upgrades and stuff.

And so it's made Traversal a little more fun and a little more.

I'm getting into some deeper places.

But I had to put it down for now because I'm focusing on

I would like to finish remake

before

Rebirth comes out, which I think I'm on pace to do, but I just needed to guarantee that I would.

So I had to put down Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown.

I finished remake when it came out and I was just refreshing my memory looking at this upgrade.

I remember this now.

It's like it looks like the solar system.

You've got like all these cores that you're using and it's just like which attributes of a of a the buster sword or what have you you want to upgrade, exactly.

Yeah, so I was having a blast doing that because I realized I had all these all these stats, uh, all these stat points I could spend that I hadn't spent yet.

I was like, oh, and that was making things a little easier.

What a great feeling that is.

This is great.

Uh, but I also just love how it looks.

It's a really beautiful-looking game.

Um, it's so beautiful, so gorgeous, so beautiful, it's nuts.

Like, I really am looking forward to uh, rebirth, but I'm also like, cloud is like buff in a way that I'm like, could I do that?

Could I become like

shredded kind of like cloud?

Right.

I love

a thin buff.

Yeah.

Like a wire thin.

I feel like

when I see cloud, I have the same feeling.

I'm like, could I become like a cloud type body?

Could I, like the lumberjacks on TikTok?

Yeah.

The female lumberjacks on TikTok.

Like, I'm like,

is that, is that achievable?

Right.

His, he's really attractive in remake.

I was like, if I looked like Cloud, I think everybody would like that.

I think everybody would like that.

Puts on a dress, too.

Yeah.

That's great.

Yeah, I definitely, I just don't have the body type where I could be that lean and wiry.

Also, like a famous short king.

Like, that's a big, big, big part of it.

That's why I'm thinking I might be able to do it.

You could pull it off, but I feel like I'd have to get up.

I'd bulk up and be like a Barret type.

I'd have to be like a little bit just sort of like just pure body mass.

Okay, Nick immediately starts sawing off his arm.

I just get to do it.

But I'm loving it, and I can't wait to see what else.

I can't wait to see where the.

Because I don't even know this.

I don't know where the story stops.

Because I know it's.

Yeah.

They're splitting this one game up into three games.

So I'll be interested to see where it stops and what else is maybe a little different.

But I'm loving it.

That's it for me.

I love that you're loving it.

Heather, what are you playing?

So, you know, I'm playing this month's We Play, You Play.

And

I don't want to save this for the actual episode because I'm going to experience a lot more after this.

But it's been so long since I've played the game that I don't remember any of the characters or why they're upset at me.

So diving back in where I am is the same as starting a playthrough of Disco Elysium.

Like,

I am confused about the dungeon I am or what my goal is in that dungeon.

I don't remember how any of the menus really work either.

So I'm like reorienting myself while also being attacked by like spiders and gremlins and shit.

And then also I don't know why one of my party members is dead in the dungeon.

Because I don't remember the dungeon because it's been,

I think the last time I played it was the summer.

Can you generally describe the dungeon?

So I like, do you know where you are exactly?

In a dungeon?

No, just like the environment, the atmosphere, like what kind of dungeon it is.

Don't all the dungeons in this game kind of look the same?

I think they're pretty.

I think they get pretty distinct.

I mean, maybe in Act 1 some.

Rubble.

No, I mean, definitely in Act 1, but they're like bricks and rubble and ladders and candles.

What kind of enemies are around?

You're dealing with goblins.

They're all dead.

Oh, they're all dead.

All the enemies are dead.

Because I,

whatever I did last,

I killed everybody.

You maybe cleaned out the goblin camp.

That's maybe what happened.

I'm just guessing, but I don't know.

The goblin camp.

I don't know.

Well,

I feel like that's not where I am.

Okay.

I'm underground somewhere.

So maybe you're in the underdark.

You can get into the underdark pretty early.

There could be, are there spiders?

You're dealing with spiders?

There was a spider.

Okay, yeah, that's probably where you're at.

You're probably underneath the blighted village.

But isn't the underdark like avatar looking?

It is.

There's parts of it that are more avatar-y that have more like bioluminescence, but also like the underdark is like this whole, like,

it's like the lower level of

Tears of the Kingdom.

Where it's basically the depths, yeah, it's like this entire, thank you, Matt.

It's like this entire like other biome, and there's little chunks of it that you can get into in act one.

But the end of Act One is where you spend the bulk of your time there.

I don't know.

I have no idea.

Could be.

I don't know.

Does Rochelle have a guess?

I've definitely been in the Underdark.

I don't know if I'm in the Underdark currently because I was like, oh my God, this is like, it's like the fucking glowy spaces in Elden Ring.

I'm like, oh, oh, this is crazy.

And I do remember getting absolutely murked by like a floating head in the underdark,

which is not where I am currently.

Like, I'm not where the floating head killed everybody.

Floating head, the beholder, the beholders, I was the big one-eyed guy.

I don't know, some kind of floating head just like looked at me and like it, like

party wipe.

I think that's like looked at my party and party wiped me.

And there were like statues of like, of like frozen people.

Yeah, that's exactly what it is.

There's like a big beholder you fight, giant one-eyed creature, and then there's like there's there's petrified drow.

Yeah, I'm not there.

That's a different part.

Got it.

I don't know what dungeon I'm in.

Got it.

Anyway, so that's, you know, I, I dipped back into BG3.

And of course, I'm playing Fortnite,

which continues to be a delight.

I have, from the Discord, realized a couple of things.

One is the Discord that we have of our get played listeners,

and there is a subsection of that Discord, which is at discord.gg slash get played.

The Fortnite subsection is, I've always referred to it as the Battle Bus,

but it is not.

It is the Battle Buds.

They're the Battle Buds.

The Battle Bus is what they travel, what we all travel on to start a Battle Royale.

Right.

But the Battle Buds are the group.

So

I just want to say, I want to extend my apologies for always calling it the Battle Bus, which is what I thought it was called, but it's Battle Buds.

battle buds but anyway yeah playing fortnite uh

which is great uh there are no current collaborations beyond the weekend who i think signed on to be like the spokesperson of the entire season but he his skin is not selling well i saw i saw a breakdown of the weekend sales skin and it was a few weeks ago and it was something like 2 000 sales uh which for a game as big as Fortnite, you'd be like, oh my God.

And now he is relegated to the bottom of the item shop, like beneath cars and songs.

Like he's way down at the bottom.

You never really see him in game.

Did he, is this all like post the idol kind of like, you know, he's his star has fallen or did he like say something political or something?

Or like what?

Do we have, is there any theorizing?

Yeah, I think, I think he's maybe his star has fallen a little bit.

I'm not sure, but the kids aren't playing as the weekend.

And neither am I.

Kids usually love the weekend because they're not at school.

Matt, that's a great point.

You would think they'd be playing as him more.

I'm so fucking tired, man.

I'm so tired.

Heather and I, our old improv group was called The Last Day of School, and we had a Facebook page way back in the day.

And at a certain point,

I'd never looked at this thing, but our buddy Juda Fonso Marx, who managed the page, was also on the team, part of the group that performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in LA.

He noticed at a certain point, we just started just swelling in terms of followers and had like millions of followers at the time when that was like kind of not a common thing.

Yeah.

And we realized what was going on was that it was a bunch of children who were just liking the concept of the last day of school.

And so we'd have like a post about a show and then some like six-year-old would comment, homework sucks.

That's funny.

It also was funny because, because like we had our cast photos up

on, on the, on the,

which also still has millions and millions and millions of

likes and followers or whatever.

We would have cast photos up and the comments on the cast photos would be, who the fuck are these guys?

Like,

that's excellent.

That's so good.

Yeah.

Yeah, I do think the weekend did say something like

bad.

Like in some, or some article came out about him that he was like mean or something like that.

But I did go to Halloween Horror Nights a couple of years ago, and I go every year.

But a couple of years ago,

he was one of the featured mazes like the concept of the weekend the artist was

one of the mazes and it was very strange and at one point there's like a there's like a music video where there's like a bunch of him so there's like a you know a mirror room or whatever and there's a bunch of guys with like bandaged face and stuff and that's like kind of scary whatever yeah but at inexplicably like at the end there's like a big bug Okay, there was like a big like praying mantis like bug and it was like

It's bigger than you're thinking.

It's like, it was like a guy on stilts, like it was huge.

It's like 12-foot big bug, and we were just like, we weren't even scared of it.

We were just like, what is like, what is this?

Why did he do that?

The artist ones are always so like hit or miss because either they're like super into it or they have like a horror angle already.

Like, like, they used to do it with more like

metal musicians.

Like, Ozzy Osborne did one before.

Slash had one.

Right.

There's a more of a

logical step into horror, a Rob Zombie one.

But then the weekend, you're sort of like, I guess he's just kind of like a weird guy.

Yes, yeah.

It doesn't really make any sense.

But that's

my answer.

Nick,

what are you playing?

Did we ask you what you're playing?

You did not, and I'm going to answer.

What I'm playing is Baldur's Gate 3, which I'll talk about today.

And then I won't talk about it again until we do our we play, you play.

I'm going to continue playing this campaign, though,

because I am basically on to act three.

I know where I am on the story.

I'm in the prelude to the final encounter.

I won't give any spoilers there of the second act.

First thing I want to bring up, I don't think I've talked about shovel yet.

I don't mean the shovel you use to dig with.

I mean the NPC shovel, who you find a scroll that you can summon, that if you have a wizard in your party, they can commit the scroll to memory and they can endlessly summon Shovel the Quasit,

this little fiend who runs around and is the most I've just thought of a Heather Ann Campbell character just being in a video game because

she rather, she is just a little misfit who runs around just like, yeah, fuck you.

Just like this profane little like, like, like shithead who like wants you to get hurt and stuff and goes into combat and says, it's fisting time.

It's like, Jesus Christ.

I hadn't seen this person or this creature before, and I just googled it, and it's exactly what I pictured.

It's great.

It's such a perfect, like a little gremlin, has their own dialogue and everything, and is also like useful, which is another thing I think this game does well is when something is fun, it's also useful.

It's like

it can turn invisible,

can cast fear on enemies.

So it is

pretty useful and fun to just have around in the party.

But I hope the two of you in your respective playthroughs, or if you get back into it at all, do come across Shovel.

So we can talk about it a little bit in a couple of weeks.

I am romancing Gail on my current playthrough.

I have gone for Gail.

Let me tell you this.

Gail's a little bit of a tough nut to crack.

I thought at first like he's being very kind of like flirty and you can kind of like banter back with him.

And when you pick like kind of the sort of playful option, he tends to yes and that.

And that's like, that's like a fun way to interact with him.

But there's a point pretty early on where he's showing you the weave, which is like the magical energy that, you know, it's essentially the force, I guess.

It's an oversimplification, but it's basically that.

He's like showing you this magical energy that unites everything.

And as he's doing this, like you have a moment where you can choose to picture something.

So I picture my character like, kissing Gail.

And I'm like, here we go.

This is a big fat signal.

I'm using semaphore here.

Yeah.

And Gail's like, oh, oh, oh, oh, my goodness,

a surprise, to be sure, but a not unpleasant one.

No, I simply must get back to the library.

Like, he's like, gets so scared.

And so, like, you go through this whole thing where it's like this really prolonged courtship period where like there's a point in, you know, there's a very, there's a big triumphant moment in Act one where you can have romantic scenes with a number of different characters, depending on how you played the game up to that point.

If you're going after Gale, your choice is to sit by yourself and think about Gale.

He's not even engaging with you.

It's really one of those things where I'm like, I've developed a lot of empathy for anyone who's ever tried to date me because it's like,

okay, hey, here's a, I'm interested in you.

Oh, cool.

I'm going to go lock the door to my dorm room.

Yeah, I'm going to go play Resident Evil 1.

So it's, it's, so all that said, I'll eventually reach the point where I went to the next stage in our romance.

And

I really do like that.

I did like how it progressed.

I found it very satisfying.

And I think his character is really interestingly written.

They're all interestingly written.

But like contrasting that versus Lazelle, who at the same time is like coming to me in the middle of the night and is like, I'm here to claim you.

I'm like, man,

they're really at completely opposite ends of the spectrum here.

One small thing I missed on my first playthrough that is in Act Two.

which I really liked.

I was like, oh man, I'm really glad I'm just playing this again in kind of a similar sort of way because I just somehow somehow just didn't come across this.

They're just overwhelmed by all the content that I didn't notice this thing.

There is a Drow in the Moonrise Tower who is specifically wants to be bitten by a Starion and is like,

so you encountered this.

I did, yes, yes.

And I had to go back and bring him with me.

Well, this is the thing.

And I like this about the game versus like something like, you know, in Bioshock, you have the choice where you can just pull one example.

You can harvest the little sisters or you can free the little sisters.

um but ultimately like the advantage you get from one choice or the other or the other is kind of like the same it's like it's it's it's it's essentially neutral by the end game so it's like you're not you don't actually have a moral dilemma there it's just however you want to play it um here there in this game there are actual kind of moral dilemmas or things where like you can get a clear benefit to gameplay but what you're losing is you're either upsetting a character or you are like for instance there's another thing you can do where you can disfigure the player character, but get more advantage in combat.

So like, it's just like, am I trading off the aesthetics of looking uglier, for lack of a better term, for just being more powerful?

And there's another one like that, where Astarion like does not want to be, does not want to bite this weirdo, does not want to feel like fetishized as a vampire, does not want to be like, like, I know that I, this just feels creepy to me.

Don't make me do this.

But if you do bite her, she's going to, she's going to give you a strength potion that will permanently boost your stats.

So that can be a significant advantage for one of your martial characters.

So it is like a real trade-up.

I chose not to do it.

But I think there's a scenario where I was like maybe struggling with this game more or was like playing on honor mode or something.

And like I might do that.

And like, I don't know.

I just find that kind of interesting

that there actually are situations like this where there's a clear advantage to choosing the worst option, you know?

Yeah, well, it's like, so now I'm remembering because when I encountered this character, Asterian was not in my party.

So I was like, oh, I'll bring him over here so we can progress this

conversation.

And I went back and he was very clearly like, I don't want to do this.

And I was like, okay, we're not doing that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

I brought you over here just to see what you're doing.

You're my guy.

I'm not going to upset you.

You're this horny drow.

You can bite me at night.

I'll let you bite me at night.

That's fine.

You don't have to bite anybody you don't want to bite, buddy.

So no, no, thank you.

But what a, I got, man, I missed my guys, actually.

I got to get back in there.

It's really cool because it's such a small, it could just be a throwaway interaction, but they make a meal out of it as they do everything in the game.

Okay, I do want to get through a few.

Maybe I'll save these actually because I have some frustrations with the UX, but that actually feels like something we can all dig into in the We Play Uplay.

I'll save these thoughts for later.

I did also at one point romance Gail on accident and like had the full

we fucked.

Yeah.

And then everybody, well, not everybody.

Shadow Heart was really sad.

Because we were also sort of like on our way to romance.

And I did save scum and like regretted it.

And I felt so bad.

I was like, Gail will never know, but I'll always know.

So, in my playthrough, I hooked up with Lazelle because she just is like, Let's go.

I was like, All right, sure.

Yeah, um, but then, um, Gail gets upset about that.

And again, he's just there.

He's like, so like, mopey and like, so unattractively, like, self-pitying, where he's like, well, I suppose I could have been more forward, but I can only be myself.

I'm like, dude, come on, fucking Fraser.

Yeah, you bitch.

But he's also, he told me he loved me like right away.

Ugh.

Yeah.

Yuck.

I know.

I was like, okay.

A lot of red flags with Gail.

I had some interaction with Gail where he was like, do you want to try magic or whatever?

And I was like, okay, sure.

You know, because I'm playing just the most obnoxious, straightforward, selfish, narcissistic thief.

Yeah.

And

so we do it, you know, some magic scene and it gets kind of like sexy adjacent.

And afterwards, he's like, oh, I,

did you feel that?

And I immediately selected, yeah, it was gross.

Get away from me.

And then from that point forward, I was like, I don't like or trust this guy.

And he told me his whole deal, which I don't want to spoil yet because we're not there.

I mean, we maybe you have to save something for the actual episode.

And he was like, so would you do that favor for me?

And I was like, absolutely not.

So at this point in my playthrough, he is, I think, starving to death.

Oh, my God.

Which

is going to leave me with only my party as

my characters who are in my camp.

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Let's get into PAL World.

So PAL World, developed and published by Japan-paced, Japan-based Pocket Pair.

A little bit of a tongue twister.

It's an early access on Steam and on Game Preview on Game Pass.

They are slightly different builds, so there's a little bit of different content.

We all played on Steam, depending on if you're playing the Game Pass version or actually buying it on Steam.

It is an open world survival game where you capture pals that are just Pokemon,

but

they're pals is what they're called in this game.

And then you have them fight alongside you and or help build and support your base.

And it is an instant, enormous hit, the biggest hit of the year so far.

As of today, Pocket Perry, the developer, posted, as of today, this recording, it's been less than two weeks since PAL World was released.

Thank you.

Steam, 12 million copies.

Xbox, 7 million players.

It reached the,

so it'll be over

20 million players by the time this episode comes out.

It reached the second highest number of concurrent Steam users ever.

So number two

in terms of number of Steam players at one given time.

Does anyone want to guess what number one is?

Yeah, I know what it is.

You know what it is.

It's got to be PUBG.

It absolutely is PUBG, you're correct.

Number one with a bullet.

And PUBG peaked at 3 million players, over 3 million players on January 13th of 2018.

But PAL World is, I mean, PAL World is significantly behind it at 2 million, but still a lot.

The rest of the top 10, I just thought this was interesting.

CSGO, Counter-Strike Go, Lost Ark, Dota 2, Cyberpunk 2077.

Wow.

At the peak of

its launch, basically, even though everyone was mad at it.

Elden Ring, New World.

Forgot about New World.

Remember new world no it was an mmo that was i think was maybe free on amazon prime or something

they were really pushing it for a time and i think it was a kind of a flash of the band thing uh hogwarts legacy and then finally balder's gate three pretty impressive for a single-player uh game that can be played offline wow do you want to do you want to guess

because fortnite is not

a uh

a game that's on Steam.

Right.

So these statistics aren't available on Steam because it's, you know, a separate play service.

Do you want to guess at the peak number of players in a single day that Fortnite had?

PUBG's at 3.2 million.

I'll go, I'll say 6 million.

I'll say.

Matt, you got a guess?

I'm going to go 9 million.

Okay.

In June 2021, according to activeplayer.io,

Fortnite peaked with

31 million concurrent players.

Jesus.

Fuck.

That's staggering.

And it's total player count, like the total number of people who have played

Fortnite

over time is something like 240 million people.

It's really just, I guess, on a completely different level.

from everything else.

Yeah.

I don't know if PAL World is going to get there when it's released retail, but it certainly feels like one of the stronger candidates we've had so far to just sort of like kind of take that sort of that level of prominence.

But then again, maybe it won't have the staying power.

Maybe it'll be a little bit more of a

right now sort of thing.

I want to look up concurrent Minecraft players.

Yeah, Minecraft's its own.

I mean, Minecraft's probably the actual champion.

The, okay, so speaking of Minecraft, this game borrows heavily from Minecraft in terms of and other, and you know, also like building survival games, just in terms of resource gathering, building a workbench, using that to build tools, using that to build other structures,

you know, refining ores,

upgrading what you have.

One of the things you can craft is the PAL sphere, which is essentially their Pokeball and functions exactly like a Pokeball.

Yes.

It's like one-to-one.

And that's a big thing about this game.

which it borrows heavily from Pokemon.

Not just that the PAL,

what they call Pokemon, the PAL characters are designed very similarly and have very similar abilities to Pokemon, but also just like the way that PAL spheres work and the way that they're trapped in a sphere, the way, you know, like it's like all the elements that surround it are also commonalities with Pokemon.

PAL box where they can see

the PAL decks that like logs them, like that kind of stuff.

Yeah, it's all just like, like pretty straightforwardly just borrowed.

And also, I think just as much borrows from Breath of the Wild in terms of the gameplay, uh, the towers, which are a big thing of it, like, you know, just like that as landmarks in the on the horizon, something you can run to and use to unlock fast travel.

Uh, the font is very breath of the wild, the map looks very breath of the wild, yeah, and then also the music, it's got like this sort of like tinkling, uh, jaunty piano that kicks in in combat encounters.

Like, this is just like straight up from Breath of the Wild.

Yeah, I will say that the music of Pal World,

uh,

by the way, we keep calling it a Pokemon-like, and that's not the first time that has happened in history.

Like, Digimon is just Pokemon, and it's like literally, I mean, like, even similar names, like naming convention.

But

the thing about Pal World that illuminated something about Pokemon for me was the music in PAL World is not great.

And the music in Pokemon is so fucking good that, like, hearing it is rousing, you know?

Like, totally.

Even the new

what you totally agree is that what you said, yeah, yeah.

So, I will say that of the things they've copped from other games, I do wish that the as long as you're ripping stuff off,

and and again, maybe I don't even know if we're talking about ripping off.

Like, if you make lies of pee and people are like, this is a souls-like, that's fine.

But if you make a Pokemon-like, people are like,

I don't know about this.

Well, this makes me grumpy.

Right.

I think

it's the interesting thing because inspiration is such a huge part of creating any sort of, you know, artwork, anything creative, as you're drawing inspiration from something else.

That one of the first things that successful artists get to ask are, who are your influences?

But I think there's kind of an unspoken thing, or maybe it is spoken, of just like,

you can't be too, you're not supposed to be too obvious about it.

You're supposed to be like, if you're making the souls like

You shouldn't call what you're gathering souls and have campfires that are your response You know, I mean it's like like all these things should change up a little bit so that like you can see that the the the bones are there, but the specifics aren't what's borrowed.

But here there basically are just just Pokemon who look or I'm sorry pals who look exactly like Pokemon who are who are just very directly like this is this

and I think that's what makes it feel like

what's the

Super Mario Brothers ripoff that was a lot Super Giata Sisters.

Like, that's what makes it kind of feel like that.

But, but I don't know, but it's also to you, but I don't know if I mind it.

It's so weird.

I said to you as we were playing together last night.

That is something we did.

We did get together in the same server and play it together.

And that was fun.

It was pretty fun.

But I do kind of feel this way of like,

this game rips.

Like it's very fun.

It's really well designed.

It's super engaging.

And also it feels like the developer should be in prison.

Like it feels like a crime, but also maybe it's just, maybe it's okay.

I don't know.

I'm interested.

I mean,

it's kind of tough because obviously there's been a lot of discourse about it online.

And like there's a lot of talk about one of the developers.

in particular, I think mentioned like AI as like a positive thing.

And so people kind of glommed onto that and were like, this game was made with AI, which there's no evidence to suggest that that's true.

Um, but that sort of took over the discourse.

People were like, The game's bad, it's AI.

And then the other part of that was

we don't know that that's true or not.

There's no,

they didn't say that.

Uh, so, but it's also like

even

Pokemon

weren't like original.

Like, yes, like the

way that they, you know, exist in the world of it all is like unique, but like a lot of early Pokemon designs share similarities with, I guess, uh, like Dragon Quest monsters.

Like, uh, like, that's like, everything is inspired.

Everything comes from something.

You're sure, yeah.

Uh, but I don't know what my larger point is, but it's, it's just interesting that this is the thing that like, and it did get, it came across Nintendo's desk or a Pokemon Company's desk.

They're, uh, they've really they had to release a statement because so many people were being like, are you going to do something about this?

And their response is, yes, but probably not.

Like it doesn't seem like it's like that big of a fish to fry to them.

Well, okay, so we talked about this while we were playing.

I think, Heather, you might have brought this up that what Nintendo should do is buy this company and be like, what the Pokemon company should do is buy,

you know, this developer, buy out Pocket Pair, and be like, we're going to have you develop or use what this is as a prototype for the next sort of Pokemon game.

Nintendo's not going to do that because they're not that kind of company.

No.

But that's the kind of thing where it's just like, I think a big part of why this game is so successful right now is that people who play Pokemon, Matt, you can probably speak to it.

You can definitely speak to this most specifically, have kind of been starved for like a good new Pokemon game for so long.

And this is something that's actually trying something different and is actually exploring the IP in a way that, you know, it's kind of in its own rut over under the Pokemon company's stewardship.

And I, and I, there is a, there is a hunger for, for exactly that, like for something to take it into the next level.

And I thought we were getting it.

I thought that Pokemon Legends Arceus was going to be the thing that we would be seeing going forward.

And it almost could be, but it's, they kind of took a step backwards with Scarlet Violet and went a little sort of.

It was more open world, sure, but it's like,

it's bad.

It was like a bad version of it.

This,

I'm like, uh,

I, I like, I like the idea of this.

It was very playable like right away.

Is your iPad lock screen Final Fantasy VII art?

Yeah, I love that.

Your FF7 pill.

I'm FF7 pill.

I'm getting all these notifications, too.

I'm just blowing up.

Everybody's trying to get a hold of me.

But I'm saying,

I don't love a survival game.

I don't love

a crafting, building thing.

I like if it's part of it, sure.

If it's like part of the game, yes.

But, you know, maybe if I spent more time in PAL World, I would get to see that there's more to it than that but at the start of it there's one we talked about this yesterday when we were playing not great onboarding for for playing the game no it's pretty it's it there's a there's a very i mean again it's an early access yes so i'm sure some of these this polish is coming but yeah it's it's it's uh if you if you're not familiar with how these games work it's a little bit of a trial and error to figure it out and it has a tutorial that that with a bunch of bullet points but it it's not very elegant no but i also i will speak on that for a second too because uh heather had to go when we were playing, and then Nick and I were playing for a little while.

And I was like really focused on gathering materials.

And I was just like getting materials and putting them in a storage box, kind of running back and forth, doing that for a little while because I wanted to just build a lot of stuff at once.

And then Nick kind of goes away for a little while and comes back and he's like wearing clothes and has weapons.

I was like, What?

I was like, What did you do in the same?

We had the same amount of time.

He fucking put, he built a house

and had clothes.

I was was like, what are you doing?

This is crazy.

But it was, I could see, I understand the appeal of these types of games.

I've never really played Minecraft.

I've never played

Roblox because I'm not six.

But

I understand the appeal because it was like, it was very calm.

It was very meditative.

I liked the sounds of making things.

That is always a good.

And it does have does have good sound effects for that.

But

running around and seeing the pals, I was like, well, I've seen this already, kind of, but I also, I also kind of don't care that they look similar.

That's not enough to me.

Like, some of them look pretty similar and like is like pretty, like, oh, I don't know if they should have done that, but it's not, it's also not this like edgy sort of like because they everyone's advertising it as Pokemon with guns, and there are guns in the game, but like, which is jarring, but I also like don't, I don't know, I don't care.

Yeah, I, I, I want to talk a little bit about sort of so Minecraft and Lego Fortnite are the same, they're the same fucking game, right?

It's the same, you go up and punch a tree until you have enough wood and then you build a bench and then you can make a pickaxe and then you can chop the tree and get the wood faster, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And that's what PAL World does too.

And that's like a whole genre of games.

And I

have

been thinking about the popularity of these games and the

divorced structure of capitalism between labor and achievement.

And I think the reason these games are popular is because people are doing things in the real world and seeing a full separation between that, the thing they're doing, and the goal that what they are doing is supposed to achieve.

And I think that also like

DIY people on TikTok are becoming sort of fetishized,

off-grid living for millennials and

like building farmsteads.

Like all of this is a response to this alienation people feel when they do their job and then nothing happens.

Like you do a spreadsheet and you don't achieve the vehicle, right?

Does that make sense?

No, it does.

It's a great observation.

And I think you're right.

I mean, it's just like your work is intangible.

I I mean,

this is not exactly what you're saying, but I'm thinking of when I worked in game development, there was one of the programmers I worked with.

It was an older person, and he'd worked in,

he'd worked in, like, just worked for a bank, just developing bank software for like 20 years before he was like, got into game development because he'd always love video games.

And he was like, A big part of why I like this is because there's an end point.

Like I feel like I'm making something.

Even though I'm not even making something I like, I'm still like I'm like I'm I'm finishing something I come out at the end of this with something that I've worked on in the same way that yeah in one of these games it's like you're you know there are a lot of jobs that that feel so intangible and insubstantial but in one of these games you are tan you are building things you are constructing things there there are clear results for your labor I think that's a great point Yeah, you'll go like the reason you would go home and relax by doing work on a video game is because you've spent all day hyper-normalizing the fact that you aren't really working.

You're like organizing as part of a huge, you know,

invisible conceptual conveyor belt towards product or even not even towards product, towards financial management of product,

like financial management of somebody else's capital.

So of course you'd come home and be like, holy shit, I can punch this tree, get wood, and make a bench.

And I don't have the physical space capable of.

I also think that that's why, and I won't speak about this because I don't like talking about other people that I work with, but I think that's why my boss Dan Harmon, who's been on the show before, has graduated from Minecraft to physical woodworking because it was like there's

like a stage of

experience that we're all lacking.

And so we're like driven towards these games.

Now, I fucking hate Minecraft, Lego Fortnite, and PAL World

because what I'm missing

is

not the physical process of building something.

When I want to like scratch that itch, I'll like build actual Legos or I'll like build actual model kits.

What I'm missing is the

sort of like

explosive, joyful competition between

people that you like and people that you admire and

being able to lose to them or win to them or win over them.

And I don't get any of that in any experience in the real world.

So I'm constantly refreshing battle royale experiences because I'm like, this is what, this is, I want, I want to run a race and have.

that physical experience of a race being run against people and maybe they win and at the end you high five them or maybe you win and at the end they high five you and and none of that is is happening in in the modern world it's

I don't again I've been thinking about this a lot since we started playing pal world because I was like why do people like this yeah because I can't I I the last fucking thing I want to do at the end of the day is go back to work on something

but also I physically just want to be a writer and all I have to do to achieve that is to type and then the script is there.

It's like a one-to-one experience.

Like,

and beyond that, like the process and the production end of

writing for television is less important to me.

Cause I don't, my goal is not to make TV shows.

It's to be the writer.

So I don't have that, that,

that valley that I'm trying to fill up, that chasm.

No, I get that.

I think that is a, I think you're, you're kind of in the,

to your, to your earlier point, in a semi-unique semi-unique position where you have a job that you find satisfying, like both creatively and, you know, professionally.

I love my job.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And there are a lot of people who are, yeah, I've been reading this book coincidentally by David Graeber, who passed away.

It's this great book called Bullshit Jobs, I think is well known, but it's all just about.

What's that?

David Graeber, David Graeber also wrote,

oh, God, what is it called?

The beginning of everything?

What the fuck is that?

He has a bunch of books.

He has a book about debt.

I can't remember what it's called, but yeah, the one he's the one he, the bullshit jobs, uh, is like all about the kind of, you know, management-oriented or, you know,

purely

superficial

jobs that exist that a lot of people occupy.

Like, I'm just here to fill a chair because

society has decided that I cannot be idle.

And so I just have, I'm given a task, even if this task is to no end.

So from that standpoint, it's, it's, I, I, I do get the appeal of a game like this.

But also, I will just say, speaking personally, I really enjoy Power World.

I think it's great.

And I love this type of game.

I love building in games.

I've always loved building stuff.

You know, I'd love, I love playing with toys and building stuff as a kid.

I loved any sort of video game, like any sort of simulation game or strategy game where you can build things.

I still like those kind of games.

I like base building as a mechanic.

I like when there's an RPG and part of it is, here's a town I'm building.

I always love that shit.

I always love those sub-games.

games and i think this i think it's it's it's again it's all stuff that exists in other games just sort of like its own spin on it but i think it's all well well integrated here so i absolutely get the appeal of this and i'm going to have to uninstall this game because i i just i'm going to play it too much and i've got other things to do like play balder's gate 3 uh but it's like

this is this is absolutely a thing that get that got its hooks in me very like immediately and i totally see the appeal and i get why people like this game

Can we, can we,

I want to go back to the character designs real quick.

Rochelle, I have this link.

This is an IGN thing.

This is a PAL world versus Pokemon comparison.

Just how similar are the designs.

This is a little thing they compiled.

We're going to look at in the room here.

But this is just, we'll see some of the side-by-sides of some of these characters.

And for a lot of these, as you're playing the game, you don't even need the

side-by-side.

You'll just see them.

We're kind of going through these here.

You know, we can just kind of click through the slideshow.

I don't know which Pokemon that is, but this, the Pikachu.

There we go.

The Pikachu and this PAL, the Electricity Pal, the Electricity Rat.

It's, it's, you know, that's even not even one of the more obvious ones.

Yeah, the, the, the Charmander and the, is it fire?

Is it Foxfire?

What's this guy?

Volpix.

Volpix, yeah.

So yeah, we see with the Charmander and the Volpix, and then what, whatever the PAL equivalent of is, which is kind of like a hybrid of the two of them, yeah.

Um, and is also a fire type.

Uh, This one is like very, this is just whatever their penguin is.

Also, I think they're, they also, this is another thing.

They have like a, they're, they have a duck-like pal that is called like

like Fwok.

It looks like fuck.

It looks like fuck.

So it's just F-U-A-C-K.

Yeah.

And I just, and again, fully, they just put that in the game.

The penguin is Pengullet.

Pengullet, yeah.

And

that kind of reminds me of magician Pen Gillette.

That's another issue.

Doesn't the penguin look like, though, doesn't the penguin look like a bomber man-type character?

I feel like there are other games like Bubble Bobble

that have very similar designs to this penguin.

And though, like, it does, you can put it side by side with the Pokemon and be like, look, they're kind of the same, but that, that penguin looks a lot more like, like an older, like an 80s or 90s video game character design than it does.

Specifically, yeah, go ahead.

And also, how many ways can you make a cartoon penguin?

Yeah, I think it's like it's it looks like a penguin because it is.

Yeah, but but there are ones that are that to me are more similar.

Like, so like, look at the look at the snorlax alike, which is like a sleeping cow, and you see it has the exact same expression, and then also the only difference is that on the snorlax, the teeth are upturned, and on the pal cow, a sleepy cow,

the teeth are downturned.

Like, that one seems pretty blatant.

Again, I don't even think this is, like, necessarily the worst thing in the world.

Maybe it helps it that you can completely understand as shorthand who it's supposed to be from a gameplay standpoint, but I don't know.

It is there at least.

It's, I think, worth commenting on.

The meowth too is like kind of similar.

Yeah, the mouth is like, it's pretty, pretty close.

I guess I'm sort of like

being mad about this is boring to me.

Like, I understand

the concern and, like,

on paper, why that's bad.

Like, if it's, like, if they're stealing it.

But if, I think if they were stealing it and it was an issue,

we wouldn't even, we wouldn't have, we never would have seen it, I think.

Or it would be gone by now.

Like, if it, if, if it was, like, a big problem.

Nintendo is so litigious, they routinely take down fan projects that are being made for no money.

So a game that is being sold digitally for $30,

$30,

they would totally send the clamps down on them.

Maybe they will eventually, but I don't know.

This is a little thing from GamesIndustry.biz.

This is a little,

they collected some quotes from lawyers just about this.

I'll read this real quick.

Unfortunately, the line between influence and infringement is not as clear as gamers or developers might like.

Absent a direct theft of assets, characters, textures, or similar.

We're left asking whether the designs themselves are substantially similar in those areas which can be protected.

So not vague shapes, colors, or even proportions, but specifics, which as you can imagine, is largely going to be in the eye of the beholder.

It's a gray area, but not one that really advantages the rights holder, especially if they don't want to run the risk of seeming like the bad guy or setting a bad precedent.

So, like...

Maybe this isn't actionable, but there's also an element of when we're talking about rights and we're talking about IP, so often everything is set up to advantage large media companies over upstarts.

Yes.

And again, it's the kind of thing of like, like, I don't know.

It's, I, I tend to be a little bit, have a little bit more of a, let's say open mind, because that's, that's the wrong use of it.

But I just, I tend to have more of like a, a, give a, give more leeway for something like this, just because I think it just,

you don't want.

You don't want things to be too restrictive in terms of what someone can create.

Yeah.

Like there will be, there will be other games that come out that will have similar mechanics to Pokemon and similar designs.

It's just going to, like, there's, I don't know, it's like a type of game.

Yeah, it's like you see, it's, it's when you see like a, a pop star singing, sue another pop star for having the same chord progression in a song.

And it's just like,

at what level are we kind of like just limiting what people can do?

You know, I don't know.

It's, I don't fucking know.

If it was like, if it was like, if there was like almost a one-to-one Pikachu Pikachu and that Pikachu was saying like, fuck, and like had a gun and stuff, Nintendo would be mad.

It would be mad.

And I would, I would think that, that's more interesting to me, too.

I'd rather have seen that.

Like a conquer Pokemon.

Yeah.

But like, I liked, I liked my experience.

I liked running around.

I did eventually like building stuff.

When I saw that you were putting up the house, I was like, I'll put up a...

I'll put this wall with the door here.

That is a good spot.

No, we were collabing.

That was fun.

Yeah, that was really fun.

We couldn't really figure out how to put the roof on so yeah there well i put the flat roof on i couldn't figure out how to so some of the some of it's a little quirky i couldn't figure out how to put the slant roof on it um but the but while we're talking about playing this game and playing it together so heather with this starts off uh matt and i are kind of like near the the starting area and i'd played some on my own um but uh we're all playing together we're all starting from scratch I would, yeah,

I'd like to clarify that I put in a significant amount of time on my own server or on my own island, like built a bunch of fucking shit, employed slash enslaved the pals and put them to work.

Nick says this, I want to circle back to the thing that you just said.

Yes, yeah.

So, so like I, the, when I played with Matt and Nick, I was like, well, I have different goals right now because I've, I've played the game as it's meant to be played, clearly, filling out the chart of to-dos on the corner, like upgrading my base to level seven, capturing 30 pal, like all that shit.

Like I did, because I'm like, okay, I want to be able to talk knowledgeably about the game.

So, but when we joined our own server, I played as Nick is about to describe.

Yeah, so it's, and I played some on my own too, but we're all starting from scratch together in the beginner area.

Uh, Matt and I are scouting out.

This is a server with a bunch of other players.

So, Matt is so, you know, some of the prime real estate is claimed for bases.

So, Matt and I are scouting out, like trying to find a place to set up a camp.

Um, Heather says, I'm going for that tower and just makes a beeline sprinting.

I think

crafts a stick you can use to hit things with.

All right, I have a club.

I'm going to the tower and just sprints for the furthest landmark on the horizon.

And so Matt and I are just like, okay, I found some,

there's some trees over here.

We might want to set up, you know, set things up over here.

You know, we're just kind of like talking logistics.

And Heather's like, I'm fighting a boss.

Yeah.

I entered a tower, which is a gym.

Like, it's just a Poke gym.

Like, there's an introduction of

a woman and her Pokemon, who is the Pikachu Raichu style Totoro fucking electric mouse thing.

And you're in a

like an Elden Ring style arena with like, you know, places to hide and this fucking Pokemon is running at you and she's riding on its back, which I appreciate,

and it was blasting me with electricity and I was a level one naked lady with a club

and realized that it had 30,000 HP and I had a, when I had hit it and then run,

I had done 30 points of damage to it.

I had a 10 minute time limit and there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to conquer this boss.

But I played until I died, which I didn't know was a thing that you could do in PAL world, is that it finally hit me once and immediately executed me.

And it was like, give up?

And I was like, okay, yeah, I'll press X to give up.

And my character just goes,

and like lays down prone on the ground.

And I was like, oh, no.

Is that, and then you can respawn and start over again.

But yeah, I get to see a boss fight and what that looks like.

And I assume, because again, you can carry pals, multiple pals with you, and then you would deploy them against a boss like this in order to help do damage alongside you.

And I think it was four other people were allowed to be in that raid-style boss encounter.

Since I won't be playing this game again, I'll never know what happens after you beat that boss.

The combat, and you know, I

didn't fully explore using PALs in combat, but I did unlock some things like there's a, I can't remember the name of it, but there's a, there's some specific items you can craft, some specific accessories that interact with specific PALs.

So for instance, there's one that basically it's like Pokemon style.

You throw a PAL ball, PAL sphere, and then you can you can have that companion fighting on your behalf, and then you can recall them when they get low on health or it's fighting the wrong type and swap them out for someone else.

But there's an item you can get where one of them is just sort of like, who's kind of like a,

you know, a dark unicorn who follows you around, will just like be out at all times.

So you can have them just like kind of like floating around like a familiar and then toss out another pal at the same time.

And so like that, that adds to like your, you know, your moveset.

There's also another one you can, you can like craft a harness so you can ride the boar like one around like a mount.

So like there's some like cool shit in here that just lets you explore the game in different ways.

And I don't know how much of these things are in modern pokemon games but it certainly felt like it's like oh okay these are these are adding layers to this uh to this relatively simple combat there's no crafting in pokemon there's no like you can have one like walking around with you like that's sort of like a new feature where like there's because there's now there's pokemon in the overworld so you can throw a pokemon out and like sort of just have it battle while you're walking around and stuff like that's kind of fun but um

that's kind of it you can't you can ride one that's like but it's like the it's like your key item pokemon so it's not really in your party right um but heather mentioned earlier that like you can put some of these you can put your pals to like work yes yes yes right and i've seen a lot of people obviously talking about like oh well actually uh the world of pokemon it's basically the same it's basically uh you know uh you're you're

you're like their master and like you're putting them to work and you're you're making them fight and like that's that's bad too

it's just i just i think it's there's something really dist disturbing about

punching a pal yeah you can punch him in the back of the head right you're not just fighting them with other pals you you actually can physically strike them with your your hands or other weapons

And it took me a short amount of time before I realized that you could construct weapons.

And then I was like, oh, this is great.

Fuck, fuck, axe, bow, and arrow.

Let's go.

So, my first encounters with pals were,

and I was playing with a controller, is running up and just punching them in a submission.

Yeah.

And then

it was like, weaken the pal before you throw a palsphere.

And I'm like, okay, I'm familiar with that mechanic.

What I didn't expect is that you can beat them to death.

Yeah.

And then you can't capture them, which

also,

also, you can feed pals to other pals.

So, like, you can get lamb mutton from the lamb pal,

cook it, and then give it to a different lamb, and it eats it and it makes it happy.

And I'm like, this world is dark.

And the first NPC that you encounter

also

sort of echoes that.

That NPC is like, this is a horrible world.

I've seen so many people die.

I think she said, this place is hell.

Yeah.

And then you talk to her again later, and she's like, I

was dedicated to building a cemetery to my fallen friends, but when I reached a hundred gravestones, I stopped.

And I'm like, what is what?

Like, it really leans into this sort of like

inferred darkness of Pokemon and just puts it up front on display.

And it's fucking, yeah.

At least in Pokemon, like,

once you make a pokemon faint

they'd like disappear off the screen but pals they just lay there dead yeah their corpse is just ragged all about and then yeah maybe there's some some you know wool and uh meat that's strewn about their where their corpse is yeah it does make it and just that because that's the thing in pokemon i mean there's there's like i guess slow poke tails or whatever but it's like you're just sort of you're not just kind of not dealing with the meat of it all but here it's just sort of like the no these are animals we you know um make some fight uh on our behalf we make some labor on our behalf and others we kill and and eat for sustenance it's like uh

yeah i i guess it does kind of it is a stronger comment i guess maybe i don't know how intentionally a stronger comment on our relationship with the animal world

i i don't know that i'll spend more time with it um

I would, there are things in it that I would like to see in other Pokemon games.

I would like them to expand on the Legends Arceus format, which was sort of like their breath of the wild format, kind of where it's, you know,

you can throw Pokeballs without going into a battle.

You could throw monster Pokemon out on the field and they could just walk around and stuff.

That's, that's great.

All that stuff's great.

I love that.

If they wanted to introduce crafting, if there was a need.

uh a want for that sure fine because i i did like i liked building stuff that was pretty fun yeah but I don't, was it the Pokemon company that released a statement?

It was them, I believe.

They were sort of like, we're looking into this, but it didn't seem like they were worried about it because otherwise they probably would have been like, we would have heard about that already.

If they were like going to actively be suing them or something,

it'd be happening.

I think they've realized they can just put out some like chunk of sludge every year and it'll sell like gangbusters and keep making money hand over fist.

So

yeah, that could be the reason for their just sort of laissez-faire attitude towards us.

I'm going to read this later.

I mean,

there is a possibility, and we talked about this while we were playing, there is a possibility that that can change.

Like in the same way that nobody watches Looney Tunes cartoons anymore, nobody's like, oh, where's the next Bugs Bunny cartoon?

You know,

there was a series that was on for a short while.

that everybody loved, but generally speaking, it's not an IP that people are like, oh my God, we've got like, I don't even think Space Jam 2 was a success or three, whichever one it was.

Don't wheel a third into existence.

We don't need another one.

So there's a world where PAL world could become so successful that it sort of like overshadows and eventually

replaces Pokemon.

I don't think that's going to happen, but there is like a version of this where it's like kids could play a better version of Pokemon with more options and building and crafting and

you know multiplayer servers and all that shit.

And then they would go back to that stripped down experience on a Switch and be like, I don't like this.

Yeah, 100%.

I think there's a chance that anyone born after 2000, like all they know of Bugs Bunny is the Lord help me, but it's time to go back to the old me meme.

But yeah,

there was a point where Bugs Bunny was like as big as Mickey Mouse, was like this huge icon.

Yeah.

I want to end my thoughts just by reading this a little bit from a Forbes piece, which I thought was,

I don't know, I think kind of just captured what a lot of people are thinking.

The title is The Pokemon Game I've Wanted Since 1999.

I'm not especially sure how to review PAL World in the traditional sense, given that it's an early access game with no development end date in sight, and aspects are very clearly unfinished.

And yet it's one of the most fun games I've played in the last year, which, yes, includes all of 2023's bangers.

The game has gone from the meme of Pokemon with guns to genuinely being the type of Pokemon game I've wanted to see out of Nintendo for 25 years and have never gotten.

Wow.

I mean, that's depressing.

Yeah, how long can you want something before you like just give up?

But it is interesting.

I think people do want it and obviously people are playing it.

So it is like something that there's a demand for.

So

if there is a lesson to be learned from this it would be it would be really funny if this game that's being accused of stealing pokemon if pokemon just like we're just gonna steal we're just gonna do that we'll just do what they did

but we'll do it uh that'd be that's you know probably the more likely thing to to have happen i think uh i was i was here a little early and marty uh from head gum

like came up to me and was like, all right, Nick, what's the deal with PAL World?

Like, it's like, I think it's enough in the zeitgeist where people are just like, what is this?

He that grabbed grabbed you by your shirt collar and pushed you up against the wall, right?

You're still a new fish here.

Tell me.

Tell me what Pow World is, right?

He had you bent over it, spanking you.

Tell me about Powell World.

Rochelle, have you messed around with Pow World?

I watched a playthrough

before this episode.

You're a Pokemon fan, yeah?

Casual.

Casual.

Did you have any thoughts?

It looked fun.

Yeah.

I do like those building games, though, so I feel like I would be into it.

What's your favorite of the genre?

I've been really doing Lego Fortnite.

Okay, so

I did get in there a little bit, but

I like the way Lego sounds.

You were talking about sounds a little bit earlier.

All the Lego game sounds are really good.

They are good.

They're like some of the best sounds in games.

Unbelievable.

All right, I'm going to play Lego.

It's good.

I think you might like it.

It's really good.

Heather, your mom liked it, right?

Your mom was playing it?

My mom Lego Fortnite so much that she is on Fortnite, she is a higher level than me.

Wow.

Because your account levels are sort of like universal.

So if you play Lego Fortnite all the time, like she's like,

I think close to level 200 or some shit

from playing fucking Lego Fortnite.

And I play Battle Royale and the racing game,

Rocket Racing.

Yeah.

And

I'm level like 104.

Wow.

Like it's it

for people who like that experience, it's a very good version of that experience.

And I agree.

I think Nick would love it.

Okay, great.

I'm going to do it.

I'll report back.

Shall we do a segment?

Let's do a segment.

Segment.

I don't know what to call this, but I have a placeholder name here, and we'll see what we think about it.

Yeah, Matt has a new segment that Heather and I don't know what it is.

And anytime this happens, I'm always terrified.

Yeah, I think this one is like more, this one's normal.

Okay.

I think this is a normal one.

I'm going to say the name of a video game, and you're going to tell me if it's a real video game or a made-up video game from TV, movies, or games within games.

Oh, that's fun.

This segment is called

Real or Fake.

It's just called Real or Fake.

That's what I came up with.

Okay.

I don't have a better name than that.

All right.

Well, that can be kind of just like maybe the idea that gets us the idea.

Yeah, that's what that's what I said.

I was like, I don't, we don't have to call it that.

I was more focused on making sure that the concept of the game was normal.

Like fictional or fictional fictional.

Yeah, maybe fictional or fictional fictional is better than real or fake.

Like a nested fictional.

It's something fictional within a work of fiction.

So these are either real games

or fake games from TV movies or games-loving games.

So here we go.

The first game

Tongue of the Fat Man

Weiger I'm gonna I think this might be a real like weird 3DO game or something

Heather do you want to well that's not fun do you want to do you want fake

You want to say fake we can but we can both if we both guess for then we can like you know if we both get the same thing and we're both right we can get a point or whatever.

That's true.

Okay.

So it is a real game.

It was for the Commodore 64 doss and the mega drive came out wow in uh 1989 tongue of the tongue of the fat man do you have any context for what the gameplay was um no i don't look at it i do not i do not so nick has a point i'll get that there on the board um

it's a great title yeah i wonder if it was a text adventure oh i wonder that is interesting um

I'll let you look that up before I move on to the next one.

No, you can keep going.

I'll just give an update.

The next game on my list here beatman

beatman beat man

uh i'll guess that's that's from a work of fiction i'll guess that's from a movie or tv i'm gonna guess real okay nick is again correct nick for an extra point would you like to guess what it's from beatman um

rugrats It's not from Rugrats.

It's from American Dad from the episode Stand Time.

On Family Guy, they're often playing real video games is the thing yeah it's interesting they fictionalize on american dad i know i wonder i'm sure but i i can guarantee you have you ever seen that the the double dribble bit on family guy no man it's so funny it's just like peter's playing a double dribbling like all right uh i think he's playing against quagmire and quagmire is like you're you're not going to use you're not going to use the bug to score every time are you like no of course not i'll play it straight up And then there's like a bug in the game where if you run to the corner and shoot a corner three, like it goes in every time just so you hit at a certain angle, just like an automatic, like 100% field goal percentage.

And so Peter just going like, no, I'm just going to play it normally.

Corner three.

Peter,

Peter is so funny.

Yeah.

He's so good.

This next, here's the next one.

I have killed Peter Griffin so many times.

Geez, Lois, this is the worst than that time I got killed by Heather and Campbell in Fortnite.

Tongue of the Fat Man was a fighting game.

Can you believe that?

Wow.

Never would have guessed that that's what it was.

Yeah, so I guess kind of like a clay fighter, sort of like a tongue-in-cheek, tongue-in-cheek, sort of like a, you know, cheeky sort of fighting game.

All right, here's it.

Here's the next title.

Looks like shit.

Sorry, keep going.

Spanky's Quest.

Spanky's Quest.

Fake.

Yeah, this feels fake.

It's real.

And it's from the Super Nintendo.

It released in 1991.

This is one of those things that I've noticed about Matt's guessing games is that I can often finish them with zero points, which is statistically unlikely.

Yeah,

they're a challenge.

Spanky was a little

Hansei Zaru, Jirokun no Daiboken,

literal translation is Monkey Reflections, but they localized it as Spanky's Quest.

Here's the next title.

So it's a little ape kid running around.

A little ape kid.

Yeah.

And Nintendo is like, sweetie, we have one of those.

His name's Diddy Kong.

Put Spanky away.

This next one.

If it moves, shoot it.

Well, I know this is a book.

I'm going to say this is a fake game.

What do you think, Heather?

If it moves, shoot it.

Real.

It is real, and it was for the Amiga.

Heather's on the board.

Still anyone's game.

Is it?

Nick's has two points, and you have one.

I still have a few more here.

If it moves, shoot it a schmup.

Yeah.

Shoot em up for Amiga.

Some of these Amiga games looked amazing.

It just had this really cool palette.

Here's another title: Burger Boss.

Ah, God, I keep saying fake, but I think this one is fake.

Real.

Nick is correct.

Burger Boss is from an episode of Bob's Burgers titled Burger Boss.

All right.

Here's another one.

Goblin City.

Fake.

I'm going to say real.

Heather is correct.

Goblin City is from an episode of Yu Yu Hakashu.

Episode 81, Let the Games Begin.

Wow.

Look at how cool this looks.

If it moves, shoot it.

That does, that looks amazing.

Yeah, that's really rad.

Ooh, last one.

We could either tie it up or Nick can win.

Attack of the Mutant Camels.

I'll guess real.

So I have to guess fake strategically because there's no, if we both get it right, then I

still lose.

But if I get it right, then we can tie and I can go home with my pride.

Yeah.

So I'm going to say fake.

It is real.

Released for the Atari in 1983.

Nick is our winner.

Wow.

What was it called again?

What are the camel?

Attack of the camel?

Attack of the mutant camel.

Attack of the mutant camel.

I got to see what this looks like.

Can you imagine a freakier-looking camel?

Those things look already insane.

That's right.

They're big humps, smoking cigarettes.

This game looks like shit.

This is dog shit.

So that was.

What did we land on?

It was fiction or fiction fiction?

Okay, there was an Atari 8-bit for the 8-bit computer

that

looked a little bit better.

Had like some, I don't know if that's some early parallax or something like that, but it kind of looks has a little bit more.

It's still crude, but it looks a little bit better than the Atari 2600 version.

I guess it was on Commodore 64, too.

Well, damn.

Either way, it looks like the gameplay is you are a camel and you walk from left to right.

Costs $60.

The original strand game.

Oh my god.

Oh, well, that was that.

That was real or fake, or fiction or fiction fiction.

We'll come up with a title.

That's a great segment.

We should do that again.

That was a lot of fun.

Kind of fun.

Yeah.

Hey, that's this week's Get Play at our producer is Rochelle Chen.

Yard underscore underscore sard on social media.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

Also, check out our paywalled show, Get Animate, where we continue through the Netflix series Pluto.

We're watching Pluto

on Netflix.

I'm just echoing what you said, but normally you throw it at me on that.

So I felt like I had to say something.

No,

I thought maybe it would be kind of organic.

Like I'd just say it and you could chime in.

But yeah, maybe I should have TV.

Well, how about this?

How about I'll tell our listeners, you know, we're covering one episode.

These are very thick episodes, so they are about an hour long each.

So we're covering one episode per episode of Get Animate.

And you can find Get Animated up on our Patreon,

which is patreon.com/slash get played.

And that's also where you can find our entire back catalog of pre-head gum

get played episodes.

So you get both those things either individually or as a bundle, patreon.com/slash get played.

And guys,

I think this week we got paled.

This was nice.

Punch.

Punch.

Punch.

Oh, ow.

That was a hit gum podcast.

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