Now That's What I Call Video Game Music: Cozy Edition

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Hey, Matt.

So, you know, we're going to be playing through some cozy game music this week.

Yeah, that's right.

And I thought we should in advance,

we don't normally do this, but I thought we should just go over our picks just to make sure we don't have any duplicates.

Right.

It's such, it's like a narrow genre.

Yeah, it's kind of a, yeah, right.

So

I don't know.

I feel like we might have some overlap.

Why don't I just go first?

Can I just, this is my first pick.

Okay.

All right.

I send it to you.

You just want to play that for us.

Okay.

So, yeah, I thought this was just like a natural, obvious

game.

So, your song.

You're for sure picking this one?

Yeah, 100%.

This is a lock for me.

Okay,

I also picked this as one of my songs.

Okay.

But I could pivot, and actually, I have a different one that I don't know if maybe you have this one too.

So maybe we'll just clear it with you.

Okay, sure.

Before we start.

Yeah, I think this one does overlap with me.

No, okay, yeah, no, it's the same.

It's like this.

I actually think, yeah, now hearing, I think this is the exact same track.

Well, you know, since we both picked it and we both can't really decide who gets to have it, let's just scrap it completely.

And why don't you see one of your other songs?

Well, why don't we, because, you know,

Heather's not here, but she did did send some picks in oh okay so we should why don't we play one of hers and see if she's uh if she's maybe going in a different direction okay here's uh heather's first one

yeah okay no this we're all kind of picked the same one same sort i mean it makes sense yeah but yeah it's like a good song yeah

well i i'm sort of at an impasse to what to do because i we do need to play songs on the show today.

I did wait.

Did you send

that email I sent earlier?

Because I said email that just the headline.

The subject was just alts.

No.

And I sent you a few different options in case mine got picked.

I saw that and

I didn't open it.

Yeah, I meant to give you a heads up on that.

No, here, let me just try this one.

Okay,

I didn't realize that was the same link.

No, it's like, and you didn't like.

Yeah, I guess you didn't realize maybe you copied the same link or something or no that was my that was my backup pick i guess i just realized that was also my primary pick oh god

um

well

i'm just gonna get ahead of this right now um

i don't think you're gonna like my next pick very much okay

Problem, Matt, is I like this too much.

I picked myself.

It's really cool.

It's a problem, yeah.

Man.

Oh, wait, Heather just texted.

Uh-huh.

Hey, sorry, I couldn't make it, but I actually have a track for y'all to play.

I meant to send this earlier.

Okay, here we go.

I'll forward this over.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Let's table this for now.

Yeah,

we got to, we'll, we'll get in the meat of the episode.

We'll figure this out on the fly.

I, I do want to, though, um,

I, on a different topic,

uh, we did actually get one of our listeners sending a remix of our theme song, which that was really cool.

That's awesome.

A fan did this.

A fan did this, and I thought, like, in the question blocker, maybe at some point during the episode, we'd just be like, hey, you know, but someone remixed the theme song.

We thought this was a lot of fun.

It was a nice little tribute to the show.

But yeah, I don't know if you want to listen to it first.

I'm going to play it just so we know what it sounds like.

Okay, great.

Just in case it's like bad.

Yeah, if it's bad, we don't want to embarrass anyone.

We don't want to crapple over what anyone's doing.

So we kind of want to get ahead of it if it's bad because then we'll just really figure out what the...

it's nice.

No, even if it's bad, it's nice.

Yeah, it's just like we want to maybe like sort of rehearse how we'll react to it when we get to that part in the show.

And I just want to make sure before you play this, this is not the same track that we've been listening to.

This link is blue.

Okay, great.

It's a completely new

piece of music, I think.

And I think we're just going to hear it right now.

Okay, great.

And

this is the cue that it's a remix of the theme song.

Very exciting.

Fuck.

Fucking hell, man.

The problem is it's really good.

It's really, really good.

We bundle up with mugs of cocoa and study to lo-fi beats as we pick and play our favorite cozy video game music 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 nick weiger along with my co-host matt abodaka hello everyone

hello everyone wow that

feels that

you put it put a little stank on it

hello everyone i don't normally do this if we have new listeners there's normally a third host here uh but heather could not make it today yeah so we're doing this i was gonna say solo but it's the two of us I think of it as solo.

We're doing it solo.

I think for Heather's one podcaster, the two of us make up one.

Halves of the whole.

Yeah.

The two of us are each a quarter.

That math about works out.

So yeah, Heather's not here today, but we're going to power through this.

And I did want to bring something up because this is something that people have asked about,

which is our back catalog is currently not accessible.

We are working on that, and we are going to have a solution for that in the next month or so.

So just like we're conscious of it.

We're not trying to, you know,

seal that off.

We want that to to be available for people.

We want people to be able to listen to those episodes, obviously.

It's just a whole contractual framework we have to work out.

But we're going to, we have a solution in the works.

Yes, it's

balls are in motion, as they say, and

the chess pieces are on the board where they belong.

The pawns are positioned and ready to go into motion.

A rook awaits.

The future conversation we have on Get Animate.

But yeah,

that's all going to be happening soon.

And

we'll tell you.

We'll tell you exactly when it's happening

once we have a timeline for that.

But it's in the works.

So fret not.

So that's in the works.

Also in the works, this month's We Play You Play is Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty.

That is going to come out on Monday, October 30th.

So we're going to do a full episode dedicated to the new DLC for the now three-year-old but much updated game game we are all playing.

The game is fixed, isn't it?

That's from the ad.

It's really good.

Oi,

the game is fixed, love.

You should do more impressions.

Hey, it's me, Adris Elba.

Oi, what would it sound like if Adris Elba had a conversation with Jason Statham?

Hello, it's me, Jason Statham.

Oh, my God.

I was going to call you the new Rich Little, but that's like a too old of a reference for even me.

Yeah, but I don't know what you understand.

I don't know.

I don't, I don't know.

Who is the

guy now?

Probably some TikToker.

It's probably some TikToker.

It's the guy who does real Peter Griffin.

That's the guy.

He just has the one impression, but it's really good.

That reminds me of the time I met Adris Elba.

I'd see a movie with those two.

Yeah, 100%.

Make it.

Oh, wait, I did.

Yeah, it came out.

Rock Shaw.

The problem is that movie came out and it's it's kind of forgettable.

That's the issue.

I would see a different one.

Were they brothers or something?

A twins reboot.

Maybe just Shaw?

Which one's the one that's not the rock?

He's Shaw.

He's Shaw.

Hobbs is the Rock.

Maybe we need a Shaw spin-hoff.

You know what?

He's my favorite former murderer, turned friend.

Well, Matt, before we get into the meat of today's episode, and we have kind of a fun sort of like, I think during the spookiest of months, we have perhaps a soothing podcast theme but before we get into that the question I have to ask you and in turn I have to ask myself looking in the mirror is what are you playing wow hey Nick oh my god is it Joel from the last of us yeah I was walking the hallways here in uh at Sirius XM Studio and uh I found one of them coins from the last of us part two oh wait no it's cards it's cards coins no they're coins they're also coins no but i found cards yeah you would you would not be interested in the character who's collecting the coins.

Well,

I would be, you know, in a sort of cosmic sense, I'm interested.

Got it.

Yeah.

But I found these cards, and

there's these cards that Ellie likes based on the comic books that she.

That's right.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah, also, did you find them?

Hey, it's one of them comic books.

Yeah.

Well, you found the pig, the comic books, but I mean, the cards.

We'll be out of the picture by then.

Out of the picture.

Hey, listen.

Be a spoiler light as I can be.

Oh, what do you think I was doing on that day instead?

Playing golf?

Oh, my God.

Grim thing for you to reference.

Oh, what?

I can't have a little fun?

I guess you're the one person who can kind of take ownership of it and make light of it.

I'm Joel dead and loving it.

Like Dracula from the Mel Brooks movie?

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

Different side of you than I expected.

Yeah, I'm a little more fun.

Yeah, that is fun.

Hey, no else is fun.

Idris Elba and Jason Statham were here.

I do get an impression of them.

Oh, you do?

Oh, it's me, Jason Statham.

That's not bad.

That's better than I expected from you.

I do Peter Griffin, too.

I do all sorts of crazy characters.

You just guys just never let me.

Yeah.

I do the Resident Evil Merchant.

Is your favorite...

Like, it's just of the Family Guy characters?

Because I'm trying to think of the timeline.

And I guess the apocalypse would have hit shortly after Family Guy's debut.

So you got like the first couple seasons, but you didn't get the reboot at all.

Yeah, I'm not lucky enough to have seen the new episodes of Family Guy.

I only have

the three seasons and Stewie the Untold, the

Stewie the Untold Story.

Right.

The directory released.

That sort of did put it on the map.

There's a raunchy DVD commentary where Seth McFarlane portrays both Stewie and Brian having a tete-a-tete.

That's a lot of fun.

Yeah, it's really fun.

Yeah, I mean, I own that DVD.

Yeah.

I wish it

was less DVD commentary and more crooning.

I love the songs of Seth McFarlane.

It's what he's known for as much as being kind of an animation kingbin these days.

I sound the way I started, right?

Yeah.

His news tracking for me.

Weird thing for a person to say.

No, it's...

Do I sound the way I started?

Yeah,

I think so.

You know, I did hear an old Doughboys recently, and it's interesting what happens to the voice as we age, as we we all hurdle towards our mortalities.

Yeah, your voice becomes noticeably deeper over just a few years.

And then also, I think you become more conscious of your cadence and your manner of speaking, and perhaps become a little bit more particular about it as you speak into a microphone more and more.

I know that Matt had to leave the room for just a second, but can I say something about him that he knows?

Sure.

He's loud all the time.

On mic, off mic.

This guy can't stop talking so loud.

Talking about Matt?

Yeah.

I guess he is a pretty loud guy.

He's so loud.

I guess

I'm also loud, so I'm less aware of it.

I'll tell you something, too.

I met somebody the other day that was so loud that even Matt was like, Jesus.

But anyway, I just wanted to ask you, what are you playing?

I got to go.

Thanks for asking, Joel.

Good luck finding all of those comic cards, trading cards with comic characters.

I love memorabilia, and I'm always on the hunt to give it to Ellie.

See ya.

Take care, buddy.

I got gotta go to the 19th hole, if you know what I mean.

See you on the links, my man.

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Well, what are you playing?

So, and Matt, you may be on the same page here.

When I've been playing a lot of Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, yeah, you passed Joel in the hallway.

That was exciting.

I missed him completely.

Oh, my God.

But you know what?

He's avoiding me.

Too loud, probably.

That's what he likes to say.

He's going to attract a clicker.

Oh, that's, you know what?

I hadn't thought about that.

That he might be triggered by loud noises.

He's got to be quiet.

I mean, you don't have to be quite, you know, like

a quiet place.

Yeah, you don't be quiet place level quiet, but you got to be pretty quiet.

What is the

point?

What is is the weakness?

That movie sucks.

I wouldn't go that far, but that whiteboard is a little sweet.

Yeah, I guess it's fine.

It's all right.

I'm glad there isn't an equivalent.

I'm glad there isn't a whiteboard sketching of a clicker and what is the weakness in The Last of Us?

Because it would probably take me out of it.

Yes.

Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, I am continuing to play.

I've put a bunch more hours, about 10 more hours in it since the last time we recorded.

Matt, are you still playing this?

I am am still playing it, and I am right now in, I'm at the beginning of the We Play, You Play section, the Phantom Liberty section.

Okay, so I still have not dipped into the Phantom Liberty chunk.

I've been a little bit somewhat consciously avoiding it, even though I have the quest to go over there.

I will say it is so fun.

I mean, it's just a blast.

It's great, great.

Look, the walking around, I said this last week, the walking around, the driving around, and the combat were all a little bit overwhelming.

All that stuff is much improved.

And since that's so much of the gameplay, it just feels like a much more cohesive package.

I'm really enjoying.

Yeah.

And I will say that

from the combat side of things, because I'm doing like the Skatana build, also with some stealth elements.

And I do kind of have moments where I'm like, is this worth the trouble?

Because when I just switched to like a random like precision rifle, even though I haven't specced for those skills at all, I just find it so much easier to play this game as a cover shooter and just pick off enemies from a distance.

Yeah, I previously mentioned that I was interested in building or exploring a hacker build, like a quick hack build, and that does require you to

have like a stealth build also.

And I'm not particularly interested in this game as a stealth game.

I think the stealth sections where you do have to do it are pretty fun.

Yeah.

But I...

Unfortunately, the gun combat in this game is so fun and good.

It's fun, and it's also, I feel like, just, I don't know, maybe, maybe this is that may I just have to learn how to play the Katana side better, but I feel like it's balanced so much more towards gunplay.

I think so, too.

And we are talking off pod about this

in the group chat where, you know, everyone's talking about, you know, the game is fixed, isn't it?

And

there are still plenty of bugs.

The game has crashed twice for me, and I did take some screenshots that I forgot to put in

the group chat.

So this is a Nick exclusive right now.

This car is just floating there.

It's half a car floating in midair.

Yeah, it's kind of crazy.

And then this other guy, just right on the other side of this car, if you could believe it, is just sort of like keeled over on

the fire hydrant.

Yeah, I mean, this is, look, it's

I wanted to front load it with positivity because I am, I think this is great.

I think it's a really,

like, if this had been a retail release, I think people would still be pointing out these bugs and, you know, the issues with the physics engine

and

and some of the visual glitches but still it like feels like complete but there but i've for something that has been characterized so much as like this is like kind of the definitive edition of the game i am kind of surprised by how rough around the edges it is let me let me let me heap on a little bit more praise before i get to some of my own bugs because i have a few of them uh but the the the one the thing i do want to say is like from a storytelling standpoint the plotting is so good both for like the overall story and for the individual uh you know the the the kind of

game spanning missions.

There's a few of a different ones that go in different branches that all kind of, you know,

converge in the end game.

And those are all really well realized.

The characterization of a lot of the NPCs is really great.

There's some awesome narrative design in the side missions.

I mean, just small ones like.

And, you know, some of the stuff was in the base game, but just revisiting, it's like you're reminded of how sharp it is.

Like, there's one where you tail the bartender's wife

and then she's like, he's like, she's cheating on me because my baby, our baby looks completely different than, you know, than I do.

And then when you get to the resolution, it's like, oh, wow, there's like a completely, you know, they thought through,

there is a very cyberpunky sort of rationale for what's going on here.

And it's both appropriately bleak, but like a nice extrapolation of what possibilities, you know, could await in the sci-fi reality.

Same thing.

There's like a cute little side quest and it's like super contained, but I love it because it's like, it's just a vending machine.

And hey, I love a sentient vending machine.

There's just a vending machine with a personality.

And the whole quest is he just wants you to move a dumpster that's blocking his view.

And it's just like, oh, that's kind of cool to talk to this little vending machine and help him out.

So

I love shit like that.

And there's another thing that this game does repeatedly, which it does this trick where it throws away the introduction of a major character as kind of like a side thing, and it's so effective.

Like when you first introduce, like you first meet Judy or Pan Am or Takamura, these are all like major characters that are a huge part of the story.

But the first time you meet them, they're just kind of like, you know, like one of even maybe exiting a conversation with another NPC that the scene is going to focus on, or they're just kind of hanging out, you know,

and they seem like a side character.

The way that trick is used is that it makes the world feel so expansive and so rich and real.

So all that shit is great.

But yes,

I have encountered some bugs.

Have you encountered any other bugs?

Or do you have anything else?

Any other positives you've encountered?

Not like too many bugs.

Like just those visual ones that I, you know.

Could really care less about like that's not like breaking the game for me It's like anytime I see something like that I'm like oh, this is like kind of it's like funny like it's it's not it shouldn't be in there, but it makes me laugh when I see it

But and it's only crashed my game twice, which it shouldn't happen at all are you playing on ps5 i'm playing on ps5 yes um but i know that the ps5 version does have some uh

uh some bugs that it are that like sort of break the game kind of um

uh there's like a quest that if you do something where it like makes all the npcs and vehicles disappear somehow like uh not ideal not yeah you kind of need you need those especially to to to continue but uh i think you just reload it and sort of fix it but um

i right now

I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos about Cyberpunk because I just can't get enough of it.

Right.

And there's like things you don't want to miss, like type videos, you know.

And there's like, there are romance options in this game that I didn't,

characters I never even met the first time around.

Interesting.

Never met River.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, man.

I had a whole thing with her.

I hadn't, I didn't meet River, and I never met Carrie.

River, not romanceable if you're a guy, so just be careful.

Yeah, I'm playing a female V.

Yeah.

But, and then Carrie is.

I definitely made a was going to make a pass on the male cop as a male V.

I realized that could be a lethal mistake

in my last playthrough.

You know what?

ACAB dog.

But

the, yeah, so I've been doing that, but like, I'm.

The game does a better job, I think, of like onboarding you to the systems in this patch.

Like, like,

I feel like I'm more aware of what those percentages are on the home screen, like in the pause menu.

Well, yeah, I mean, because like, and also, like, the last end of skill sheet, like, looked completely different.

And also all of the improvements that you could get were all just like incremental, like.

Speaking of percentages, they were like, like, like,

incrementing your crit chance from like 2.3% to like 2.5%.

It's nothing that felt like you had any sort of new ability as you were progressing through, at least in my memory of it.

My percentage for Johnny right now is lower than than I'd like it to be.

So now, like, anytime.

You're talking about the quest percentage, yes.

And so I'm trying to get in his good favor.

So now, anytime he pops up, I'm just like so nice to him.

It's like, whatever you say, man.

But I think what those are tracking, you're talking about the three percentages that are, I think they're tracking progress.

I think so, but I think

for one of the

for the for the Johnny one in particular, you have to have at least 70% to get this other quest

to get the John, like get the Silver Hand ending basically and i'm sort of trying to build toward that one i can't remember what i did in the first one um it's a uh johnny silverhand by the way the the keanu reeves character who lives inside your brain if you're not playing this game and he pops out and kind of is offers a an external internal monologue which is a a pretty effective device and he has like funny things to say like the weird the weirdest thing is that he's mean which is very not keanu so that's the most jarring aspect of it but you know that's kind of just a casting thing.

But speaking of Johnny Silverhand, so the biggest bug I encountered was

this Engram bug with him after the elevator sequence at the Club Clouds,

which is a, you know,

it's kind of a major story quest.

At certain points during the game, your head, your like brain will glitch because Johnny Silverhand is living in there and, you know, your field of vision will become like all fuzzy and occluded.

Your HUD will get scrambled.

So this shit has happened.

And, you know, like I have like a headache and Johnny Silverhand is freaking

my player character V out.

And this happens and then it just stays on.

And it just stayed on indefinitely.

I was playing for like an hour with this like like, you know, screen shake and

fuzz effect.

And, you know, I can't really read my map.

And I was like, what the hell is going on?

I was like, how long is this going?

And I was like, this does not feel like what happened last time.

And I was like, do we need to rest or something?

I rested.

It was still happening.

I being this some bitch.

It's an open bug that's been happening since 2020.

And it depends on picking a specific dialogue option or a specific sequence of dialogue options after the cloud,

the

nightclub cloud sequence, which I did.

And the fix is still reload a previous save.

Yes.

So not the end of the world.

You know, I reloaded a previous save and

the stuff I redid did not take the full hour of gameplay I went through because I knew what I was doing after that.

But it was like just one of those things where it's like, man, I can't believe this is still an issue and that this hasn't at some point.

Look, game development is impossible.

It's a miracle that any game ships in any sort of playable state, but this kind of feels like one where I would have expected that at some point there would just be some sort of kluj fix, some sort of hard-coded solution to handle this contingency if this is still still happening yeah three years after release our pal sean distinction distin also encountered had yeah had this had this bug but he said that he found like he was like looking for what to do like online and he found like an in-game fix for it and it took him hours to to do that's wild like it was like he had to find like he couldn't really even see anything at all yeah yeah and he was he had to go find like this like specific vending machine and shopped there uh and he's like it took me fucking hours to find to find it but he you know he wasn't playing 4d chess and

didn't think about doing the classic reload.

But I think he did too many things

to justify wanting to do that.

Well, again, especially if I hadn't played through this previously, I might have thought, oh, okay, this is just going to be like this for a while.

And it was because I'd played through it.

I was like, I think

this is going on for too long that I thought to resolve it earlier than I did.

That's, I think, what happened to Sean.

I think he was like, oh, this is like a weird choice, but I guess

it just gets it.

My brain is just glitching at this point.

I'm just getting sick.

Exactly.

He's like, what kind of interesting narrative choice and then uh realize that that's not what should be happening at all and that to yeah like did hours and hours and hours of stuff yeah so it's it's kind of again you know for it it's kind of a bummer that stuff like that still exists i don't think it's game-breaking i don't think it's ruinous of any of the experience but it is i'm i'm more just surprised than anything also just things like you know i had

Johnny sometimes pops out of your brain who's like positioned in the wrong place during a dialogue clipping into a wall you know, not that spot where he shouldn't have been.

There's just little things like this is this is, you know, not a high severity bug, but Claire, who is the bartender, who also,

at the afterlife, who also runs street races,

I went to the bar and like had a conversation with her.

And this is after another NPC's death.

Yeah.

And like, there's like a cocktail named after the NPC you order and like kind of this moment where commiserated over it.

And then after that interaction, like five five minutes in real time later, I got a phone call from Claire.

And she was like, it was like a whole thing of like, hmm, not sure I know you.

Anyway, I run street races.

It's like, so this, it just hadn't tracked that I'd already had the interaction.

I've had stuff like that too.

There's just like a button, there's like a veneer of that sort of thing happening throughout the experience where it's like, I can tell things are still slightly out of order or, you know, certain fail-safes haven't been enacted in case you do things out of order.

And so it just feels like a little bit of a less less polished experience than I think it could be.

If you had an interaction like that with somebody in real life, you would be like, you have to go to the hospital.

We just met.

We had a long conversation.

Yeah, we were both kind of sad.

But

it is, you know, despite all that,

it is so fun.

And it's honestly,

it's, and I don't know, maybe this is, could this perhaps be a bold take or a hot take?

I think it's entered Game of the Year conversation.

That's interesting.

It's because it's like it didn't come out this year.

It's brand new fixed-wise.

Like, and obviously, Phantom Liberty is brand new to this year.

But as far as gaming experiences go and how much fun I'm having playing the game,

it's up there with some of the other games I've played that I've really enjoyed.

No, it's a blast.

And, you know, it's always easier to talk about the issues or the complaints you have with a game than talk about what it does well.

But it does, it does, the core gameplay and again, the narrative side are really, really effective.

And I also just think it looks like a million bucks now.

It did, like, yeah, there are still some visual glitches, but like what they've done with the lighting, it just, it's, it's a much more polished-looking game.

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Anything else you're playing, Matt?

I mean,

this game has taken over.

This game and this IP

has really taken over my

spare time, I'll say.

So I've been doing a lot of that kind of stuff, but I, you know,

we're getting cl we're getting close to a couple of big releases,

end of this, you know, not necessarily end of this month but uh pretty pretty close to it and um you know your your super mario wonders and your uh spider-man twos and so i'll have probably more to say about those later on but

nothing nothing else really it's i i haven't even played balder's gate 3 in a couple of weeks i gotta get back to bg3 i i do have one other thing i want to talk about which is not a game but it is game related okay uh so first off i want to shout out jason schreier and the great triple click podcast uh which is like just a smarter, better version of our show.

Yes.

If you want to hear some people talk about video games and know what they're talking about.

But Jason recommended a book called Number Go Up by Zeke Fox.

Oh, yes.

It's a book about cryptocurrency.

And I have been reading it

pretty obsessively since that episode came out.

I'm almost finished with it.

And it's great.

It is like a really terrific deep dive into the world of crypto and just how insane and stupid it is.

And there is specifically, so I'd highly recommend this book for anyone who is looking for something to read.

But there is some stuff that

talks about video games in the book,

largely through this game, Axie Infinity, which you may have remembered.

There were a bunch of ads for it back a couple years ago, back in 2020.

And it was like, it's like kind of like a clear, like kind of Pokémon ripoff, but one that used

cryptocurrency and NFTs as part of its core design.

So I thought I just have a little excerpt from this book I wanted to read real quick just to talk about like how

just what an insane bubble this was and how it specifically

found a home in the Philippines and became briefly something of a national obsession.

So I'll read this real quick.

The Axie Infinity craze started with an ad on Facebook Facebook seen by a 28-year-old in a hot, dusty city about 70 miles north of Manila.

His name was Arthur Lapina, but his friends always called him ArtArt.

He was a chubby man with a buzz cut and glasses.

What caught Lapina's attention about the Facebook ad was Axie's colorful creatures.

He'd always played mobile games and now was looking for a new distraction.

He was still single and the lockdown, this is happening March 2020, had left him largely confined to the leaky, rickety wooden house where he lived with his mother and family.

He clicked.

The game was no better than many of the free-to-play games Lapina had tried on his mobile phone before, but it helped him pass the time.

When he won battles, he would net small amounts of the game's cryptocurrency, which bore the odd name Smooth Love Potions.

These could be used to breed more blobs.

What made the game different from others was these potions could also be traded on some crypto exchanges.

At the time, each one represented by a cartoon image of pink liquid sloshing around a round-bottom glass was only worth about one cent.

Lapina didn't mind.

He enjoyed strategizing to win the battles and seeing his name rise on the app's leaderboard.

But then what happens is that the prize of,

I'm talking to my own words now.

Then what happened is that

the price of Smooth Love Potion started to skyrocket.

It had this huge bubble.

And then, so to pick up a little bit more of this, words spread quickly about Lapina's discovery.

Other people from the town started asking him for help buying their own axes.

One tricycle driver told me she'd borrowed money from a loan shark before seeking Lapina's advice on which blobs to buy.

Another friend, he'd said he'd pawned his trike.

My friend told me it was legit.

The money kept pouring in.

It was if Lapina had cast a magic spell that granted the entire town's wishes.

Houses around Cabanaton started sprouting second floors.

The local dealerships sold out a powerful Yamaha NMAX scooters.

Some grocery stores and gas stations started accepting smooth love potions in lieu of cash.

Townspeople were so grateful to Lapina that they would bring gifts of fast food to the gate of his local home.

Isn't that insane?

That's really wild.

Yeah, when Jason mentioned this book,

I was interested in reading it.

Yeah.

And I just added it to my

on my library app.

I added it to my queue.

So it's on hold for me.

And I want to go check it out because that's

it.

Reading that chapter.

Reading that chapter made me, first off, it's just like, you know,

so many

people got exploited as a result of this bubble.

Yeah.

But also that it was like,

and hey, I'm led to like, look, look, my hands aren't clean.

I was, this is around the same time I was talking on the podcast about buying NBA Top Shot NFTs.

You know, I got, I got hooked into that shit too.

Uh, but like, everyone was

it's crazy how it like affected specific sectors of the global economy.

Um, and uh, it

ended up like making these huge bubbles that like led to a lot of economic, a huge economic boom for some people, but then economic ruination for others, all over something so fucking stupid.

But my other takeaway from this,

book is that, like, especially the Axie Infinity stuff, is like, I'm so glad that games didn't end up going that direction.

Because there was a time when they were talking about that, like, oh, yeah, you're going to be able to use

whatever.

You'll buy a sword in a game, and that will be an NFT that you'll have ownership of, and that will be a unique thing that you can spend cryptocurrency on.

And I'm so glad it didn't go in that direction because that sort of design seems so predatory.

Anyway, that does second Jason's recommendation of number go up by Zeke Fox.

I hope people check it out.

It's a great great read, and it doesn't just talk about mobile games, it talks about the cryptocurrency economy at large.

I listen to TripleClick every week.

We do.

I love it.

It's just, it's great.

They're all such great,

the opposite of me.

They're great talkers.

They're very good at talking

about stuff that they like and

getting in the weeds like that.

So check that show out if for some reason you listen to this one and not that one too.

And also, you know, our show can sometimes be a little bit abrasive and even annoying.

But that show is

that show is a cozy listen.

I'd say so.

And that brings us to our topic.

Now, that's what I call video game music, cozy edition.

We're going to be playing some cozy music from some cozy games.

Nice little fall feature here.

And

you guys can't see us?

Yeah.

Nick and I are under one blanket.

And we're sharing a scarf.

Yeah.

We're both so cold.

We're so cold, but we're so cozy right now.

And there's a fireplace in here.

It's pretty pretty nice.

Just setting a scene.

What, Matt, to you, what makes music in a game feel cozy?

That's an interesting question.

You know, I think

when there's like when it's almost minimal, it has to be sort of like there can be like you know, orchestral elements to it or whatever, but like it doesn't necessarily have to be orchestral.

Not, I would say, not too many instruments, and it can't be like too fast, it can't be like too

exciting, yeah, not too busy

and a slower tempo, sure yeah yeah yeah that's my yeah not my tempo

uh for me it's yeah it's i think that's that's all true i think there's also this kind of that sweet spot of like not too sad but not too happy either yeah just like chilling just like hanging out yeah yeah yeah yeah inoffensive like if you were like at a um

you know a grocery store and it came on you'd be like this is great but also not boring not boring don't want it to be too boring you want to be a little bit stimulated yeah

Like, you know, that

YouTube channel, Chill Lo-Fi Beats.

Oh, yeah.

Not that they all have to be that, but, you know, that's like a good, that's a good zone.

If you like it.

That's a good energy.

That's a good baseline.

Exactly.

Should we get into some picks?

Yeah, do you want to do one of yours first?

Okay, great.

So

for me,

one of the coziest soundtracks ever is a JRPG called Chrono Cross.

This was a PlayStation 1 sequel to Chrono Trigger, and the score is once again by Yasunori Mitsuda.

This soundtrack, I mean, this game is imperfect.

It's got some issues.

I overall like it, but you know,

it's not the masterpiece that Chrono Trigger is, but it is

maybe

Mitsuda's best soundtrack.

It's just so good.

And the soundtrack is so cozy at large that A, I had trouble picking out which track, and maybe I even picked the wrong one, but I, you know, I probably probably overthought a little bit with all these picks.

I'm sure you picked fine.

But B,

this video for this upload of the soundtrack has a fireplace on loop.

That's just how cozy this whole soundtrack is.

So, the track I picked from Yasunori Mitsuda's Chrono Cross score is Shore of Dreams, parenthetical, Another World.

Oh, yeah.

You know, you're just thinking about things.

Sitting in that chair.

Maybe some rain drops hitting the window.

Just looking out.

Thinking about your mistakes.

Thinking about your triumphs.

Okay.

You're getting into uncozy territory.

Well, I mean, but that's part of being cozy, it's just sort of like, you know,

being present.

Okay.

accepting.

Yeah, there's so many cozy tracks on this.

There's also some higher energy ones, too.

Yeah, this is great.

I've not played,

you know, we're getting to the end of the year.

And my New Year's resolution was to play and finish Chrono Trigger.

Well, mine was to do a Half-Life Alex, so I'm not doing any better than you.

I feel like

you'd have an easier time doing yours than I would doing mine.

Chrono Trigger's not the longest JRPG.

Okay.

Yeah, Dan, Dan, I don't know.

I think give it a go.

Anyway, that's my first pick.

This is great.

What a first pick.

What a way to kick it off, Nick.

Good job.

I'll go next.

Wow.

And, you know,

because in doing this exercise, I guess any game can be cozy if you let it, right?

But

there is like a sort of type of game

that people

have, you know, decided are cozy games.

Right.

And that's like a sort of, you know, it's a micro genre or something, or it's like a, like a,

it's, it's, but it's not like people are making them to be like in the cozy game genre.

People are just like, this is a game.

Well, I think people are doing that now.

I think that's the thing.

It's now

recently, yeah.

They're like, we got to get, let's capture that vibe and make a game like that for sure.

And this game, you know,

one of the bigger games this year, and I know that everybody plays this game differently.

I just met, and I didn't meet this person, but I just had a conversation with a friend of mine about

another friend of ours, his wife.

Story is all over the place.

I know.

She played Tears of the Kingdom.

Did all the side quests and everything you could do in the game except

the final boss because she was uninterested in that.

That rocks.

She's like, I just like to hang out in the game and just do the stuff.

not.

She's like, I did the Lionels.

I did all of that.

Ganondorf, no, I don't care.

I don't care about that.

There's that.

I think there's maybe a conscious or subconscious element of, I don't want this to be over.

That's true.

Yeah, yeah.

I didn't try to psychoanalyze this person, but methinks it's a little bit of that.

But

this song is from Tears of the Kingdom.

And it also might be in Breath of the Wild as well, because I know they reused some songs, but this is from the area known as Terrytown, and it's the daytime song.

People in Terrytown are just like,

you know, building their homes.

There's a

home base for

the president.

Did you do the Terrytown quest in Breath of the Wild?

I don't know.

No, I didn't.

Okay, so that's a whole...

That's like one of my favorite side quests in any game ever.

Really?

And

it's, yeah, there is this song or a version of it in Breath of the Wild, but like, yeah, you're you're

intrinsic, Link is intrinsic to the construction of Terry Town.

Wow.

The inception of Terry Town.

I walked through it, saw that there was stuff going on, and I was like, I gotta go, I gotta get out of here.

Yeah, this is a great pick.

And like, yeah, it's just kind of like, you know,

that little horn.

Everyone's just kind of like chilling out.

Yeah, you don't ever, you don't, you don't think to associate a slide trombone with a feeling of being soothed, but it kind of works here.

Yeah, that was going going,

that music was playing when I was trying to go to sleep.

I'm honk shooing in minutes.

Sounds like that trombone.

While you're talking, Zelda, I got another, I got a Zelda pick of my own.

Okay.

So this is actually the version of this track that is in A Link to the Past, but I picked the version that's from A Link Between Worlds because it's just

a better sound chip

on the 3DS.

And this is from The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.

This is Kakariko Village.

The composer is Ryo Nagamatsu, but is of course via Koji Kondo, who did the original.

Oh, yeah.

Just tranquil, pastoral.

Between Worlds is the one where you can get flat, right?

Um.

It's not the flat one or is that the minish cap?

I think it is, I think you do get flat in like Between Worlds.

You might get flat in another one.

Bring back flat link.

In a sense, he's flat in all the 2D games.

Think about it that way.

And I do.

Anyway, this is great.

I feel like because it's like cozy stuff,

we should be doing like that sort of you know, kind of NPR and maybe like sweaty balls.

Well, maybe not the sweaty balls thing.

That's an SNL bit.

But let's do it.

Okay, yeah.

We could do that.

We could do mango.

We can do all of them.

That's a great one, Nick.

I really liked that.

Heather sent some picks in.

Should we play a Heather?

We could play a Heather.

I could

let's play a Heather one.

Yeah, this first one, Heather Sen In, is,

you know, I think this one's a no-brainer.

This is by David Wise.

This is from the Dog Hit Gone Country soundtrack, Aquatic Ambience.

The affection that people have for this song

extends.

We all love it.

I love this track.

This

particular track on YouTube has 5.5 million views.

Top comment.

My childhood.

Actually, can I read the top comment?

Yeah.

What a beautiful life we all have lived.

I love everyone reading this.

But this particular version is Aquatic Ambience.

10 hours.

That's how much people like it.

They just want this on a loop for 10 hours.

It's a great track.

Here's what I would say to Heather if she was here,

which is why it's not on my list, even though I love it.

Is that to me, and I think this is just like coziness is such a personal thing.

This doesn't make me cozy.

This makes me a little bit on edge and anxious.

About it.

Yeah, because you know what?

I am thinking about that a little bit.

I got to get to the next big bubble so I can refill my oxygen level.

But

I don't know.

There's just something about the.

I think there's just something about like the driving pulsing energy of it.

And maybe it's also the minor key that kind of makes me like a little bit more like on edge.

You're afraid of the ocean.

I do.

I'm a little bit of a thalassophobe.

Is that what that's called?

Yeah.

I don't mind the ocean, but just leave it where it's at.

I'm not trying to get in there.

Or down there.

Who needs to get in there?

Ugh.

Leave it to the fish.

Couldn't have have said it better myself.

So that's like, yeah, Donkey Kong Country to me is not a.

That game is quite difficult, I think, or it can be quite difficult.

So I don't consider it a cozy game, but I think that that song has

a quasi-cozy vibe.

Like, I think it can be a little like, you know, it's what you said.

Yeah.

Where it can be a little tense.

But, you know,

I can see why people

toss it on.

Hey,

if it's cozy to you, more power to you.

Nick, you're kind of hogging the blanket.

Sorry, I'm cold.

A bigger guy.

This next one for me is from a game that I honestly didn't finish, but I enjoyed my time with.

And I consider this a cozy game because I think one of the reasons I fell off of it is that it's a little too easy.

It's from Yoshi's Crafted World.

Did you ever mess with that for the Switch?

No, I never played that one.

I bought it because it's really cute.

Yeah.

But

it's a little too easy.

The Yoshi games are like for babies.

Yes.

They are, yeah.

I think the

I can't remember the last proper one I played, but.

Could it have been Wooly World or whatever it is?

Or that was for the 3DS, I believe?

Could be.

I mean, like...

Even Yoshi's Island,

even the Super Nintendo one is like, that's that's a fantastic game, but it's like pretty easy, and then they really you know nerf the difficulty moving forward.

Um, but those games are cool, uh, you know, aesthetically very, very pleasing.

Yeah, this one has like all of the backgrounds are like paper, sort of like arts and crafts kind of stuff.

It looks really cool.

Um, and yeah, this is just the main theme from uh Yoshi's Crafted World.

There's not a lot going on there, kind of like school.

You know, I I like it?

It kind of reminds me of like school and like nap time kind of stuff.

Yeah, this is a different sort of coziness.

Yeah.

This is like...

I have no problems because I'm a kid.

I have no problems.

I'm a kid.

My mom cut my sandwich nice.

Yes, yeah.

I'm about to eat this and then go off.

Yeah.

And I might even get to watch Barney.

Yeah.

Oh, look, I got a balloon.

That's fun.

I got a balloon.

This is really nice.

Maybe

there's talk of ice cream later.

There's talk of it.

Let's see if it happens.

Yeah, yeah.

I feel pretty confident it's going to happen.

You know how the talk started?

I said, can we get ice cream?

And my mom said, we'll see.

But I just think that the game is, I associate it with being cozy because I'll return to it every now and then.

If I'm playing something before bed, I'm like, I'll pop Yoshi.

Oh, sure.

That's a good use for it.

See what's going on in there because I'm not trying to get too stimulated

with like a,

you know

perhaps an underwater level from Donkey Kong

not trying to stay up all night

I have I again I overthought all my picks and

including one from this next game that I wanted to have on the list because I think this is an extremely cozy gaming experience uh the game is Stardew Valley uh the soundtrack is by concerned ape the uh all-in-one Monman band developer of this game.

And I wasn't sure which track to play, which track to pick, but I ultimately landed on this one, which is a little bit of a kind of a sad cozy, but I think it's a good, it's a great energy.

And I think it also

nicely evokes what it is in the world, which is the season of winter.

So this is one of the winter overworld tracks, winter parenthetical, the wind can be still.

I loved

my time with Stardew Valley.

I didn't finish it like you did,

but I think a game like that

is a game that, like, I'll never finish.

I

want, like, Stardew Valley, like, makes me, first off, it makes me feel inferior just as a creator of content that one person did all of this and made something that's so beloved.

The soundtrack alone is so great, but that just, you know, all the art, all of the programming, built his own engine, all the design, all of the writing, all, all one individual laboring over, you know, a four to five year span and continuing to support this game.

And it's like the best one of those.

It's like the best, like, kind of, you know,

farming life sib game.

And

yeah, it's that, that in and of itself is staggering.

But then also, I have moments where I'm like, my life could just be like, I don't have to have a video game podcast.

I don't have to try to keep up with all the video games that come out.

I could just play Stardew Valley.

Don't say that.

I could just be a Stardew Valley guy.

No.

I know people who just play like a game and they like that game and they're just like happy.

That could be, that could be my life.

It could.

But then

would who would repeat stuff to you that you said on a podcast that you don't remember?

Uh,

no, that's hey, there's you know, sliding doors for all of us, you know.

Uh, I could have been a wine somalier,

I had that opportunity right in front of me one time.

You'd fucking crush that, I would, yeah, just make up whatever bullshit.

Yeah, this one has lots of tannins.

This one doesn't taste like shit.

Oh, here's $200, sir.

Uh, Nick, just a moment ago, yeah, you said something

that I'm going to need you to take back.

Okay.

Because

you said that,

I don't even need you to take it back.

It doesn't need to be a fight.

Okay.

Friends.

You said that Stardew Valley is like the one, the best one of these

types of games, these farming sort of simulator life sims.

And that maybe is true.

But

in

early in the pandemic,

let's call it March of 2020.

Is that when the game came out?

I think

a game called Animal Crossing New Horizons comes out.

Oh, yes.

And it was exactly what we all needed at the right time.

100%.

A game that I did,

I guess, in theory, roll credits on.

Because once KK Slider comes to your island, it's sort of like the credits roll

that you know, hey, that's like sort of like the end of the quote-unquote like story.

Yeah, KK Slider is like any request, and a villager yells, yeah, lose the shorts.

I showed that meme to my fiancé, and she said, ew.

That's the only meme I would consider getting tattooed.

It's my favorite meme.

It's so funny.

But the music in that game, there's lots of music.

Like, there's music for stuff that, like,

there's music on the TV that plays.

Oh, yeah.

You can get like records that play different styles of music.

There's fantastic music in that game.

But the walking around music, like just

on your little island, is also really fantastic.

And

they have different music every hour for every type of weather you could have, too.

It's really great stuff.

It's amazingly comprehensive.

Look, that's what you can do

when you have a AAA budget and you have

a studio like Nintendo that is going to throw a bunch of resources at somebody.

Yeah, you can be that comprehensive.

And so I was listening, I was skipping around the different times of day, and I decided to play

the 8 a.m.

music because that's usually when I'm up right now nowadays.

If it's 8 a.m., I've been up for a little bit.

Wow.

Rise and grind, you know.

And so this is the 8 a.m.

music in Animal Crossing New Horizons.

I better get some coffee.

Maybe I'm going to even

have a have a have a piece of toast

Yeah, this is great

This is like start your day kind of but like which isn't I'll maybe say that that's like not the coziest vibe because like a lot of times you're going to work But if I heard this and I was on my way to work I guess I wouldn't be too mad.

Well imagine you live on an island in your homesteading and there's not a problem in the world.

My neighbor is a sheep who's my best friend

You gotta get up and you gotta pick some apples and you're gonna be at the whatever your day

fine, yeah.

This is pretty good.

Yeah, I uh, there's a fucking uh

uh

bird washed upon the shore, uh, and he's a pirate.

Help him get his bearings,

you'll get a reward.

Yeah,

gotta go listen to Blathers talk a little bit, it's fine.

Maybe that uh

that turnip lady is in town, too.

Matt,

yeah, so this is 8 a.m.

All the music

in the game is great.

And listening to this

made me

nostalgic for Animal Crossing.

And I was like, do I boot it back up?

And

I went through such pains

transferring my island from my old Switch to my Switch OLED.

Yeah.

Needless pain in the ass.

Almost completely lost it.

My hundreds and hundreds of hours of work.

And Opposite of cozy dealing with anything with Nintendo hardware software-wise.

By the way, the 3DS online play shutting down 2024.

Wow.

Pretty crazy stuff.

But

that's that one for me.

Nick, do you want to play another one of yours?

Let's play a Heather.

Let's play a Heather.

She sent in one, and this is from a game that we covered in our old format, and a game that has an incredible soundtrack that I do listen to a lot when I'm doing some sort of, you know,

some sort of task.

And

this is an appropriately cozy score.

The game is Coffee Talk, and the track here is Cup of Sweetness.

Yeah, if I was like studying or doing some work, I could toss this on and not be too distracted.

It's great writing music.

Pencil's back up.

Pencils, yeah.

That's what we say.

Pencil's up.

Andrew Jeremy is the composer.

I'm looking right now at a vinyl of this and I was like, ah, fuck, that does look cool.

That's really good art.

And not that I don't even have a record player, but it just looks like a cool thick piece to own.

You know what's great about

vinyl?

The warmth.

The tactile nature of it all, you know?

Right, yes, yeah.

Putting your fingers on the wax.

Right.

It's not not the same with an mp3.

Yeah,

this is also Coffee Talk is one of those ones where you could pick like basically any track and it would work for this exercise.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I loved, I loved playing that game, and I unfortunately have not dipped my toes into Coffee Talk 2 yet.

Me too.

I talked about my issues with the

PC version.

That's right.

And I I gotta, but I gotta play it.

Maybe I'll just play it on Xbox.

I had trouble because I got this widescreen monitor and just

I couldn't find a way to manually change the resolution in the game.

So it looked kind of like all skewed and stretched out.

Okay, that's a,

I like that one a lot.

Let's see.

Is it my turn again?

Let me pick this one.

While we're in the coffee world,

you know,

you know, where you're having some coffee

is in Persona 5 Royal, a game I put 135 plus hours into

and finished and loved

and

played initially for the podcast, and am glad that I did so because it is a recent fave of mine.

A lot of cozy ones from this one, I am going to play Beneath the Mask.

The soundtrack is by Shoji Meguro.

What's great about this one is that there's a few different remixes.

There's one with

There's one with vocals, which hits later in the game.

But I think this instrumental version is a little bit cozier.

There's also another one that has less percussion that plays just when the weather is rainy.

That has also like a cozy vibe.

It's arguably cozier than this one, but I think this is a good baseline.

And has a good baseline.

Nick, what?

Cafe LeBlanc is the coffee shop you're spending a lot of time in, living above and working in

with your surrogate father.

Fucking incredible game.

I wish

I had,

you know,

time enough at last, you know,

to play all the games that I wanted.

That's all any of us want.

Just want to be the guy in the Twilight Zone.

But with no ironic twist.

Exactly.

Get that twist out of here.

No, thank you.

Oh, no, both my thumbs fell off.

Oh, great.

What am I going to do?

Not only can I not play video games, I can't even jack off.

Maybe you saw me just now, but I was

that like a beautiful mind meme

trying to figure out how I get there.

I guess it's more of from the hangover parodying a beautiful mind.

But yeah, I was like, oh, I need my thumbs to jack off.

This next one for me,

you know,

it wouldn't be a music episode

if

I didn't somehow get a Pokemon song in here.

But it's not one of the songs you would think or from one of the games you think.

This is from New Pokemon Snap, a game I haven't talked about that much on the show.

When I played it, I really liked it.

But this to me is like the quintessential definition of a cozy game.

Wow.

Because

there's, you don't do a goddamn thing in this.

You do almost nothing.

You kind of just are on a theme park ride, basically, and you're looking around and taking pictures.

That's it.

That's all you do in the game.

And all you see is cute little Pokemon having a sweet time.

It's great.

So this is the nighttime version of Blushing Beach from New Pokemon Snap.

This has the clearest vacation vibes of anything we've played yet, which I think is key.

Man,

I'd love to be on vacation.

Yeah.

Where would you go?

Pokemon Beach?

probably yeah probably blushing beach

What kind what are the beach Pokemon what do you usually find in the sand or the street no you maybe you can maybe see like a starywhite Maybe a shelder

You know in the water you might find a horsey or a

you can maybe find a squirtle.

Oh my goodness a corso maybe as well hmm You really set me off now, Nick.

You don't realize what you've done.

I was talking to

a friend's son the other night, and

he always wants to talk about Pokemon at dinner, but has no one to talk to about it.

And then I'm sitting there, and he's like,

Do you understand what I'm saying?

I was so excited to just go deep with me on it.

But this young man's knowledge far surpassed mine.

He knows way more about the newer ones than I do.

But that's cool, though.

Very spirited conversation, and everybody was happy that they didn't have to be a part of it.

But I enjoyed talking to this young man.

He was great.

That's a great pick.

And while we're near the ocean, Heather has another aquatic pick.

This is from Super Mario 64.

The track is Dire, Dire Docks.

Oh, yeah.

Weren't that melody hits?

Come on.

It's definitely doing the same sort of things as Aquatic Ambience from Donk Kong Country, but this one kind of puts me in a more in a cozier spot for whatever reason.

but they're both great do you think i could get like a

a piano or uh like harp player to play this at my wedding i'm 100 sure you could

i went to a wedding where someone's snaying snake eater so oh wow

we talked about on the podcast

do that instead yeah

uh and hey while Heather does a couple more picks, let's also play this one.

And this one I'm not familiar with.

This is a game that Heather loves called Cave Story.

And the track is Moonsong Outer Wall.

Cave Story,

another classic solo dev game and

an indie Metroidvania.

And let's hear a little bit of this track.

This is awesome.

This is really good.

Yeah, I have not messed with this, but I see it all the time, like on the eShop and stuff, and I'm like, gosh, do I just get this?

And when

that's the thing.

When, when?

What do you fit it in instead of?

Yeah.

When you choose to play something, you're choosing not to play something else.

It drives you mad.

This is awesome.

This is great.

Part of

what I really like about this one and

why I think it's an impressive pick is that it's like

usually with this sort of

it's harder to make like

I have a lot of nostalgia for chiptuney sounding stuff, but it's kind of like a little bit harder, I feel like, to make that feel cozy.

A lot of times those

you know, just just the nature of the of the

sound chips and what samples are available to you, is it sounds a little bit more percussive and harsh, uh, but that one, that one absolutely rips.

Uh, and hey, let me play my final pick, and then Matt, you have a final pick?

I do have a final pick.

And then we'll, we'll have one more from Heather, and that'll round us out.

Uh, my final pick is from a recent game.

Uh, this is from the composer's Jeff Van Dyke.

Uh, the game is unpacking, which is the most soothingest shit I've ever played in my fucking life.

Whoa, just the coziest fucking game of all time.

It's all cozy.

And it is just unpacking boxes

and, you know, and a narrative is told through objects as you unpack a series of

in the aftermath of a series of moves.

So the game is unpacking.

And this track, tough to pick from the soundtrack, they're all pretty cozy, but I think the coziest is Friends for Life.

Not a lot of games, and you know, I'll be proven wrong as soon as I say this.

Yeah,

I feel like you don't hear like the like acoustic guitar in a lot of songs, like in games like this, like used like this, rather.

And I just love it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Living alongside these synthier, you know,

sounds, it's just like, yeah,

it's such a great counterpoint to it.

Yeah, it just has such a unique soundscape.

I really like this game, and I love the soundtrack.

I have this installed on my Series S, and I haven't played it yet.

This one's a, you know, look, you can, you talked about a game earlier, like a game when you're going to bed.

That could absolutely be this.

Okay.

It's, it's very, very cozy, cozy, very, very soothing.

And then also

it's a brisk playthrough.

You can get through this bad boy in like five hours, I feel like.

The longest game in the world.

All right, Matt, what's your final pick?

My final pick is from a game that

I loved, that I talked about a bit on this show.

And it's the game that I get tagged the most on Discord asking me what it was.

And it's from, it's the game Bloom for the Playdate.

This great little...

Oh,

game that I purchased and had to install on my Playdate.

Like, it wasn't one of the games that comes with it.

I had, I, I, I bought this game and just absolutely loved it.

And this,

they have like a, it's like a lo-fi soundtrack

from the game.

And

I'm just going to play it right here.

Uh, here we go.

This is this is Bloom.

This is big time lofe beats to study too.

Yeah.

It's such a great little game and that was like that's a pure cozy game because you're just running a flower shop.

It gets uncozy when you're like texting your parents about like

lying to them about going to school.

But it's uh, it's, I cannot recommend that game enough.

I absolutely loved it, and uh,

look forward to more from that developer because I thought it was really great.

Is that your favorite thing you played on the play date?

Oh, a hundred percent the bullet justified the purchase to me, I think.

Wow, I gotta play this fucking thing.

It's great.

We should stop doing the podcast.

We have more time for games.

I mean, it's, it's, this is honestly several hours of our week every week.

We could be playing games we haven't played yet.

We could be doing, we could stop doing this.

Uh-huh.

We're not going to.

I just want to make sure that.

I think they're really going to stop doing the podcast.

I think that was like confirmation that they're going to stop.

Heather wasn't there.

They're going to stop doing the podcast.

Yeah, yeah.

They're one by one stopping doing it.

I think about this all the time.

I just didn't have a job.

Or need money.

Yeah.

I'd be playing video games all the time.

That's the need money is the big problem.

Yeah.

Everyone's got to have money.

That's why they call it money to quit, to quote David Mammet.

To misquote David Mamet.

It's a,

but you got to have fucking money.

And so you have to do shit.

So I got to eat food.

Exactly.

I got to have clothes.

I got to buy stuff I don't need.

And you know what they say?

Mo money, mo problems.

And you know what?

Don Draper says that's what the money's for.

He does say that.

Money, money, it's a trip.

What's that from?

Queen Pig Floyd.

Hmm.

You know what Rihanna says?

Bitch, better have my money.

Wow.

It's also from Old Dirty Bastard, I believe.

That's a great pick, Matt.

And Heather has a final pick here.

This is from Final Fantasy 15.

The track is Golden Quay.

I gotta play this.

Yeah, you love 16.

I did not play 15.

We were texting about this the other day, about how,

I can't remember in what context, something

about Final Fantasy 16 came out in the news, and we were talking about that.

And

I was saying that the further we get away from it, the funnier it is that I loved that game.

I'd love that you love that game.

I think that's great for you.

It could be in the top five of the year for me.

So I thought Heather was going to, I was like, I was fairly certain this is a terrific pick.

I was certain that Heather was going to send a Final Fantasy pick.

I thought she might be sending Breezy,

which is a really soothing one.

And

or Fisherman's Horizon, although we've covered Fisherman's Horizon on the podcast, but this one kind of caught me off guard because I'm not familiar with the game, but that's a great, great pick.

A great pick.

Great tunes.

I'll tell you something right now, Nick.

Yeah.

I'm relaxed.

I'm fucking cozy as shit.

I might catch a couple Z's after this.

Yeah.

Lay on another blanket.

Get a second blanket going?

Do you have an electric blanket by chance?

I don't.

Let me tell you something.

You're not living.

I've had electric blankets before, and I feel like I get too hot.

Turn it off.

All right.

Well, smart guy.

I love mine.

I got one last year, and it's really up the game for me when I'm chilly.

Yeah.

And, you know,

I have a cat at home, and a cat loves to sit on the hot blanket.

Oh, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Crazy.

But, Nick, you know, we just finished up that part of the show, and it's time to move on to to the final act of today's episode that's right it's time for the question block

wow he did it wow and so uh these are all from our discord discord.gg slash get played so uh thank you all for writing in over there uh and here we go this one's from running banana how often do you go for the full or true ending not every game has this yeah most games have the one ending these days i check if it's worth it uh-huh like i will like before i commit additional time, especially if there's an added difficulty aspect to it, I was like,

is this worth it?

And if the consensus is it's worth it, you know, like, like, I've been playing Sea of Stars.

I've put the pause on that for a little bit to play some cyberpunk, but I'm going to go back and finish that game.

And I have heard, it's including for people in the Discord, that that game has a true ending that's worthwhile.

So I probably will get the true true ending for that.

But a game like Death's Door that I really liked, I think just had a few more things to do to get a true ending.

But I felt like the ending I got and the normal ending was pretty satisfactory.

So I didn't feel propelled to do it.

So I would say my answer if they ask, how often do I do it?

I'd say rarely.

I have done it, though.

I'd say rarely for me as well.

I think I remember

Arkham Knight having a bunch of, like a couple of endings, and there was like one true one.

And I remember doing it and being like, why did I do this?

Yeah, you want to know what you're in for first, yeah.

Uh, but like, but but like Persona 5 Royal, like, you know, I finished the royal content and everything, and I think that qualifies as getting the true ending.

I think there's just one ending there, you know?

So, I mean, like,

hey, if I, if I really love a game, I want to see all of it.

So,

I do think games should only have one ending.

I don't know if we need multiple endings.

You got to play Chrono Trigger.

Okay.

Oh,

but you also, like, in

Elden Ring, there are different endings that you can get, but we all went for the

whatever that one was.

I didn't finish it, but you got like the.

Oh, you didn't finish it.

You didn't even do what I did.

Yeah.

You haven't seen what I've seen.

You haven't lived in my footsteps.

Got to get back and finish Elden Ring.

I know.

What am I going to fucking do this?

But yes, I got to do this.

Yeah.

The

Chrono Trigger has, I think, 19 different endings.

Okay.

I'll tell you something right now.

I'm getting one.

I'm going to do one,

but we'll see when we do that.

This next one's from Bizless.

Hi, Bizzlis.

Hi, Bizless.

Have any of you bothered to touch Starfield, or does it seem too boring?

I can answer this.

I have touched it.

You played it, yeah.

I played a little bit of it.

And it does seem too boring.

No, I just, I, you know, it's just, we're talking about this a lot.

And it's like, there's just not enough time to do something like this.

And like Starfield seems so big.

And, but I've seen, I feel like the conversation on Starfield right now, they're like, people are turning on Starfield.

You like turning to like, we like, we like it, or there's now a backlash.

No, they're turning like off against it.

Yeah, they don't, they don't like it that much.

Because I feel like I saw like a backlash

pretty early, but you're saying there's like now a wave of just like kind of the consensus is like this game is I've seen many posts that like in a year where uh

cyberpunk is fixed, I can't even pick Starfield back up.

Like the people are now comparing the fixed cyberpunk to the only version of Starfield and are like, it's not even as good as that.

I saw a lot of that with Baldur's Gate 3 too, of just like just talking about how robust the

dialogue system is in Baldur's Gate 3

compared to Starfield and the overall quality of writing and these

two competing massive RPGs and the gulf there.

And

yeah, boy, because I know that

there were a ton of talented developers, but years of work into Starfield.

Again, it's fucking impossible to make a game.

But I think maybe that Bethesda design

model is perhaps just kind of showing its age a little bit.

Yeah.

I don't know.

The thing that made me less interested, answer the question.

The thing that made me

is making me not want to mess around with Starfield, even though it is on Game Pass, which I subscribe to, A, is that there's so many other massive games that I have already committed to, and this one seems like the least interesting of those.

But B, just like as a space game, I'm just like...

It seems inferior to Mass Effect.

And it seems like a lot of these space, or, you know, alternately, if I want to play a game with a lot of space exploration, another game that was fixed years after release, like Cyberpunk, No Man's Sky, like that seems like that much more scratches, like the spaceflight/slash exploration aspect as opposed to Starfield.

So, I don't know.

I guess,

yeah,

I'll play it at some point.

I probably won't.

You've already played it some.

You're gonna put some hours into it.

I mean, like, maybe an hour.

I heard it, I've heard this has sort of turned me off of it.

I've heard people say it gets really good about 12 hours in, and I just don't know if I have 12 hours to not enjoy something.

But, you know, maybe, maybe I, maybe I will.

I'd be happy to be wrong.

But

thanks for that question.

Oh, I'll say this before we continue.

Down with Starfield, get with Garfield.

Matt, that was great.

Thank you.

That's how I feel.

This one's from Glavin Chris.

Hi, Glavin.

What's up?

Their profile picture is Mr.

Bean, so I'm already having a good time.

Oh, yeah.

It's funny.

This might be controversial.

Apple pie or pumpkin pie?

Are you a pie guy?

I'm a pie guy.

I like pie, too.

I think I'd go as far as say, as you put any pie in front of me, I'm going to be like, I'm going to be pretty happy.

I don't think there's a stinker.

There's not really any stinkers.

My grandma, R.I.P., would make, would always make two pies for Thanksgiving and one apple,

one pumpkin.

They would both be great.

I ultimately became more of an apple partisan.

I also think that if you introduce Dutch apple, I think, you know, you get that crumbled topping on there.

That texture clearly puts it over the top.

So I think if I had to pick among the two, I would say apple pie.

I think I'm going to say pumpkin

only because.

I think every pumpkin pie I've had is good.

And I think that

at least it's like, it's passable.

It's like it's just what it's supposed to do.

I feel like there's a margin of error for apple pies that they can be, they could be the highest of highs.

They could be really fantastic.

And then you can get one where you're sort of like, this kind of sucks.

Higher floor, lower ceiling.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Lower floor on the pumpkin.

And a higher ceiling, lower floor for the apple.

That's what I'm trying to say.

I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You ever do like an apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese on it?

I haven't, but I'm curious.

I know that that's a thing people like.

I like, I was skeptical and I had it and it works great.

It's terrific.

I think you need to get red choice.

Yeah.

I'm going to take the piece of cheese over the pie.

I love it.

Yeah, you eat meat too, sure.

In that context, it works.

Yeah, I mean, like, I think I'd rather have a scoop of vanilla ice cream, but

you know, you're at some diner that's got a cheese pie option.

Why not?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Then you go.

What am I going to put a scoop of ice cream on my sandwich?

No, that's that'd be great.

That'd be crazy.

But hats off to whoever thought of that.

R.I.P.

to a real one, your grandma,

for making those two pies.

Grandma Two Pies, we'll call her.

I mean, her name was Grandma Joe, but fine.

Grandma Joe.

We'll update her tombstone.

Do you think people do that?

I got a revision for this one.

It says,

you know, loving friend and

father.

Yeah.

Let's switch it up a bit.

This guy sucked.

Someone gets canceled.

They're going to deface Bob Hope's tombstone.

Actually bad.

Yeah.

This next one's from John B in Space.

Hi, John B.

Hi, John B.

This is an interesting question.

What is your favorite DLC from any game and why?

I have an answer.

I loved the Undead Nightmare DLC for Red Dead Redemption.

That was a big in the time where they would be like a zombie expansion for, you know, Call of Duty

and and games like that and this is a zombie expansion for uh

um for red dead redemption but i feel like it's it's all the red dead redemption you want with no consequences because like your your hero meter doesn't go down for shooting anybody you can just kind of go around it's just all gunplay so i think that's pretty satisfying uh that's a good answer my answer is comes from the days before uh dlc

was a uh common phrase and my answer answer is because, you know, if you're going to have this much new content, it would have been released retail.

The expansion pack, Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction, added two new classes, added a fifth act, added a new resolution, which was completely like this game ran at like 640 by 480, added 800 by 600.

So you had so much more screen space in this 2D engine,

added a whole like rune word system, which completely revamped the late game.

And yeah, it rebalanced a bunch of stuff.

It made it a whole new game.

And that game would not have had the legacy it did and would not have had people in the Diablo 4 era still pining for Diablo 2.

Diablo 2 Resurrected would not have been as big as it was if not for that expansion.

So that is my answer, Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction.

If you want to be specific about something, DLC, I'll have to think on that for something, something downloadable.

But that was what came to mind.

I think that that absolutely counts.

Yeah, because it was like it's it's it would have been DLC in the time of downloading, but it wasn't.

They had to put it on a physical on a physical disc.

Um,

this next one is from Swear Wolf.

Hi, Swear Wolf.

Careful.

They go to Full Moon, they start cussing.

Oh, boy.

Pretty tough stuff.

Uh,

Swear Wolf writes:

As I age, I find my relationship to games and game genres change over time.

How has life and/or aging changed your relationship to games?

Fuck.

Heavy question.

The end of the cozy episode.

I used to not like

first.

First person was a hard no for me when I was younger.

Now I sort of see the merit, and I've played and completed some first person games, and I enjoy them quite a bit.

They're not my go-to.

I don't love them, but

you know, it's not going to turn me off in the same way that it used to.

This is a great question that makes me contemplate my own mortality and my decaying brain and body and

my

less

functional motor skills versus when I was a younger lad.

I think this is a, I think the first thing is I'm less worried about playing like every game slash slash games that are in genres that I'm generally not interested in.

So, you know, there used to be a time was like, well, I should play this big new game.

And now I think I'm more like, you know what?

I generally don't care about those types of games.

There's a limited amount of time in the world.

Maybe I don't need to worry about that.

That's mitigated a little bit by having this podcast and feeling like I do need to touch on some, you know, some major stuff just for the sake of being comprehensive and doing our jobs here.

But for the most part, yeah, like I'm much more comfortable ignoring

a game that I know is in a genre that I'm not super, not going to respond to generally.

The other thing is that I'm better at returning to games that are older, like games that came out a while back that I never got to.

I'm a little bit more like, you know what?

Like, hey, why don't I go back and why don't I finally play that thing?

And have had some great experiences with some of my favorite games that way.

And I think the other thing is that I'm actually a lot more focused on completing games now.

Like, I think I used to fall off of games a little bit more.

And I think because I'm more selective in terms of what I actually play, that when I commit to something and I really am engaged with it, I will see it through to the end because I know how satisfactory that feels.

So yeah, a little bit more, a little bit more focused, a little bit more selective.

Yeah, I think, I think you have to be nowadays because like, you know, we keep saying, there are too many games.

Oh, and also, I'll play Hentai games on my main account now.

Who used to have a different account?

He plays.

I don't care.

Hentai on main.

That's fine.

That's fine.

That's fine.

Who gives a shit?

We're trying to impress.

I have all my,

like, you know, because when you can play

games and it's always online,

you can set your status.

I'm offline across the board.

Nobody needs to know when I'm doing anything.

Yeah, I do a lot of invisible.

I mean, that also kind of came from what I was like, there were times when I was like, I'm playing and I should be at work.

You know, it's like, you know what?

I really need to start making use of this invisible status.

Yes.

Let's just say it's coming handy for this show.

And finally, this one's from Ghost Pumpkin.

Hi, Ghost Pumpkin.

Spooky name for the holiday.

What portion of a typical video game UI slash UX would you want the most for day-to-day life?

I wouldn't mind having a mini-map.

Mini-map's helpful.

I think that's coming.

I think we're going to get a point where we're going to have a mini-map just in our field of view.

Okay, I don't.

I'm saying that I don't mind it.

Yeah.

And I don't think that I would, but I bet you as soon as I get it, I'm gonna be like, get this out of here.

We're no, we're gonna get it, and we're gonna be super reliant into relying, and people are gonna like walk into like fire hydrants and light poles because they're gonna be looking at their mini map trying to navigate to their destination instead of looking at where they're actually going in the world.

That will certainly happen.

I would like it if I, if, if parts of the map I haven't been

are red and can turn normal when I walk through them.

So that like fog of war for planet Earth sort of like

so I could see like what part of the map I haven't seen.

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah.

And similarly, like a little, like, you know, some of the games they have like at the top of the screen, like a compass with a little directional element there.

That would probably also be handy and a little bit less intrusive.

Yeah.

And, you know, I think, I mean, a health meter might be upsetting to see.

Yeah.

Eased to live.

I don't know about that, but maybe like a,

you know, a piss meter.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind a piss meter.

I would, I was just going to say, generally, like a stamina meter, like not like as a contra health, like a from soft, like stamina meter.

Like, okay, how much can I exert myself before I'm going to be fatigued?

And I can be a little bit conscious of that.

And that could also make me be like, oh, okay, you know, I need to sit down for a little bit or I need to hydrate.

My stamina is getting low.

I wouldn't mind the Apple,

like the watch rings as like visual UI.

Sure.

So that way I can be like, okay, I better stand up.

And maybe I'm just checking the watch less.

But I would include

a hydration ring too.

I think the watch needs a hydration ring somehow.

I don't know how they would get that data from my wrist.

But I would like that just so I can know that I haven't drank enough water.

You know what I think is coming?

I think it will be a thing that will happen is.

names over people's like heads or like on their chests like they are i think that will happen and i think there will also be like at a certain point that will that will be a thing that'll be implemented and then people will be like i want to be able to anonymize mine or like hide it, and then there'll be a point where you'll share it with somebody else and then they can and they can see their name.

But I think we'll reach a point, like in the same way, people used to know people's phone numbers.

That completely doesn't, like, no one has any phone numbers memorized anymore.

People used to remember their friends' birthdays because of social media, that doesn't happen anymore.

I think there will be a point where people will not know the names of their loved ones and their friends because they'll be reliant on reading it through AR.

I think that will ultimately happen.

I wonder what the net benefit of that would be.

Their benefit is none.

The main thing is that it would stop being a thing of like, okay, I have someone's trust or I have a level of comfort with someone because I can use their name.

And it will just be sort of like, well, I just know your name because it's out there.

That's public.

Yeah, that's horrifying.

I don't want that.

I don't want that at all.

You know what I'd like?

And I think this is a little bit tangential from the question, but being able to like change your hair style at any time to anything, that would just be.

Just like you look in the mirror and you could just

fucking completely fuck up your look for a day.

But then if you're like, what if you're like,

like you have long hair.

Yeah.

So like,

are you, do you think you're limited to what you can do with long hair?

Or that like, could you go from long to short?

No, I think if you're talking, we're talking about video game terms.

Yeah, no, I can, I can instantly go to a flat top and back again if I want.

That's pretty cool then.

Yeah.

So then like nobody, you don't have to be bald.

No, you don't have to be.

You could if you want to.

Yeah, if you want to do that, you want to do that look.

Yeah, and it's fine if you are.

It's fine if you are.

But I guess I would like, yeah, I guess just like a piss meter.

Yeah, a piss meter would be good.

Yeah, shit, one, two.

So I can know how much food I have to eat before I have to go.

Also, maybe just equipped weapon.

Yeah, if I have a weapon, I want it to be.

Yeah.

Oh, I remember what I was going to say.

So, like, for the name thing,

you know, like

when it's like somebody you know or like an NPC that's like sort of neutral or whatever, it's like, it's like just like all everybody's sort of like one color, but then like bad guys are red.

Do you think bad guys will be red in real life too?

I could see that being a thing where like if it's a person you've blocked in the real world or have some, you know, like that could, they could be signified or like a criminal of some criminal, yeah.

That way like, you know, someone's walking toward me and I'm like, this person chill or what?

And I see that their name's red.

I'm going the other way.

Here's the, here's one I think actually would be useful and actually like more

realistic than the hair thing I was talking about.

Like the, you know, like how you'll pause

a game and you'll be able to see like a pay, like a cutout of your character model that will have like all of its armor and all of its

clothing on.

You can just like see kind of what you look like in your pause screen.

If you did it for you, because right now

you have to get like a full screen mirror to check out your fit.

But if I could just like, I just want to see what I look like right now.

Like, oh, okay, that look combination needs a little stupid or I need one additional thing to like come pull my outfit together.

Whatever.

What if I could have third-person view?

Hey, man, now you're talking.

I'm just like, my vision is above me, and I can see myself navigating through the world.

That sounds

psychotic.

I can obsess on all the flaws on the back side of my body.

It's like, oh, how about that?

Yeah,

I don't just feel like shit.

I look like shit.

Well, thanks for writing in, everybody.

Those are all great questions.

Great questions.

That was a lot of fun.

And you can get in on the

question block fun once a month

over at discord.gg slash get played.

I always set up a thread before we do the question block, and those were some great ones.

So thank you very much.

And hop in the Discord.

It's a nice little community, and we love to have you there.

That's this week's Get Played.

Our engineering is by Alex Gonzalez, Dead Air Alex G on Twitter and Instagram, going along and debugging things for us.

So thanks so much, Alex.

Also, check out our paywalled show, Get Animate.

And over there this week, we are watching the anime companion to Cyberpunk 2077, Cyberpunk Edge Runners.

That show is rad, and you can have access to that.

And then our entire backlog of episodes.

That is only at patreon.com/slash get played.

Get animated at patreon.com/slash get played.

Boom, baby.

And you know what?

Nobody got played because I'm still just too cozy in my blanket.

Oh, yeah.

We're just snuggly as hell.

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