50: The Geekenders: Are Video Games Doing TOO Much?

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Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

It's time for the geek in this podcast.

Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

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Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, scream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow, number one Geek Podcast without a doubt.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Geekenders

with

your hosts, one of which looks much more festive than the other.

You know, just wishing it was summer again as we get into these cold, cold winter months, as darkness encircles the world and frost lines our high knies,

I am wishing for sunny days.

Chilly, chilly butts.

It's still like 65 here in LA, so it's like not cold at all, actually.

Where I'm at, we've reached the point where if I make a cup of coffee and I stand outside for like three minutes, the coffee's cold.

Which is yeah, no, that's not the case here.

This coffee's been warm for about 25 minutes.

Everything's pretty pretty good, to be honest.

Good damn.

Good damn.

Do you ever like,

I know that y'all still have November to get through, but do you, do you

put things up for Christmas?

Do you ever really like holiday decorate at all?

It doesn't feel like a you thing, but I don't want to make assumptions.

No, I don't at all, period.

My parents keep trying to get me to, by which I mean they give me their old stuff and say, here, you can hang it up and use it.

And then I never do.

It's literally in a box right over here.

I was like, yeah, yeah, I'll bring it to the office.

Maybe we'll like get a tree and put it up in the office.

It's in a box right there.

I don't use it.

I never have.

There are a few ornaments from when I was a kid or that were given to me.

Like I have a box of things from

the old Minecraft days when

like Thomas and, you know, Maywis and all them dudes was like helping me do Minecraft and they made little figures of all of them.

So like a little Lewis slime guy.

And I have those and they're very cute ornaments and I'll keep those because, you know, it's a fun memory.

But,

you know, I have little things that one day, potentially, maybe if I ever have a tree, I'll hang up.

But I absolutely do not.

My parents do less and less.

Really, they do a tree and then they have one very creepy Mrs.

Claws like

stuffed thing

that they put up all the time.

And I think my mom does it now for the meme because she knows I hate it.

It's terrifying looking.

It looks like it's going to come to life and kill you.

And so, so um

yeah yeah but i don't i don't not a big

like uh yeah let's make

i think a lot of it's just to make like a kid's life experience better is what i've come to decide like a child obviously do the tree you do like you got to go to bed because santa could give me the gifts you got to do the whole thing but nah i don't with no kids no

i could care less and uh thanksgiving at this point thanksgiving's like where do you guys want to to go out to eat?

Let's go, let's go, somebody.

Nothing.

Yeah.

I didn't grow up celebrating Christmas or anything in December.

So

I never really had any like festive feelings around the end of the year.

And yeah, the only reason that I've gotten into it is because I have a kiddo now and we live near Sam's family and everyone in Sam's family is super into it.

But I feel like very recently I've met a lot of adults who are super into like the festivities of it.

You know, they just, they just love the vibe.

They want to set up for Christmas literally the second that they're able to because they just like, they just like the vibe of Christmas, you know?

I do completely understand that.

I'm not a set up and put stuff up kind of person, but I'm absolutely here for the vibe of Christmas.

Even though I'm very well aware that it's pretty much all marketing, you know, we're all kind of of marketed what the vibe of Christmas is.

I do enjoy it because kind of everything I like happens around Christmas.

Even things like the bakery down the street in November and December starts making these little like sugar plum Danish things and they're delicious, but they're only available November, December.

Like that kind of thing.

Like even the littlest things, I'm like, oh, I just, it makes me so happy.

It makes me so happy, right?

It's like a different, I don't know, it's a different vibe.

Uh, I saw people on, on Twitter were like laughing, you know, it's like Mariah Carey's coming.

I was like, great.

All I want for Christmas is more Mariah Carey.

Let's go.

I don't know.

Get her in here.

Let's go.

Come on, Mariah.

Wheel her out.

You'll be doing this till you're 90.

Let's go.

I'm totally fine with it.

The vibe is one I'm here for.

I like the seasonal festivities.

I am a big sucker for like,

you know, all the traps and you know, like the trees that you'll see driving down the road, you can buy.

Or all the little weird, like, take your kids to go get candied apples or whatever.

You know, like, there's all those things is very sweet.

And I'm totally here for that.

I just, when you enter my home, you would not know.

You would be like, sure.

And I think from person to person, some people really enjoy.

decorating just in general, right?

And like seasonal decorating, I think is, you know, an offshoot of that.

Like, do you enjoy the process of being like, time to put the Halloween stuff away and take out the Christmassy stuff?

You know, yep, yep.

But like, if you don't enjoy that, then why bother?

Especially for you, you live alone, right?

So, like, who are you trying?

If you don't like it, who are you trying to impress?

Literally, no one.

I've learned that.

I, I am, I'm fully at the I am oppressing no one anymore stage of my life.

Like, I really don't care what you think.

So, yeah, I, I, we did a really fun Shaluminati episode on Christmas and its origins.

And it's very interesting to me that all of the holiday spirit and holiday cheer and all this stuff really at the end is because winter is terrifying.

And for much of human history, people just died in the winter.

And so all the celebrations we have that eventually, you know, funneled into

Christmas in the modern day sense are basically just things people did to like, cheer up, gang.

It's gonna be a long one.

And I just think that's very interesting that that's I had never thought about it like that, but that's so true.

Right.

I mean, because at the end of the day, there's really no, like, biblically speaking, there's no evidence that Jesus was born in December, yet it lines up very nicely with like, you know, all of the different Greco-Roman holidays that were taking place that they were like, yo, what if we combine this all together?

And we do the tree thing and we do, and it's all one thing

and it is get it like a big celebration through the winter, which is why in America, especially, because we had a few rough winters there in the beginning, it's straight up just like Thanksgiving right into Christmas season.

Right.

And that's it.

Like, that's, and then it's like, hey, guys, it's everyone.

Let's be happy and cheerful and bake stuff and everything will be good.

See you in January.

Dude,

when I tell you that Halloween is getting bigger here for sure,

but it's still the Halloween decor before Halloween has happened is competing with Christmas decor in October.

Right.

Like you go somewhere that has home goods and there will be the Halloween stuff and you're like, yay, fine.

But they've already got the Christmas stuff out.

Like,

let's get rolling here, dude.

We got three months left.

We got to just start setting up for Christmas.

It's wild.

I also think it's because it takes a long time and people are like might as well get it out of the way now

but also maybe it's just they like the vibe some people just really

like christmas and and

like compare like there are many holidays that exist all over the world but for some reason it's the christmas vibe that gets people

I would say most people doing Christmas aren't like hyper-religious or doing

there's a lot of

yeah, it's more about the experience of uh gift-giving and gift-receiving and uh cooking like way to vibe and yeah, yeah, yeah, next to the fire with the cocoa or the eggnog.

It's an experience.

I think people just like that because it's also a little bit of an escape where you're like, you know what?

For a while, we're just gonna do this.

Let's just pretend everything's great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah,

I'm very

interested in the fact that

the

you're mentioning Halloween.

I remember vividly being a kid and seeing ads for Nightmare Before Christmas and watching Nightmare Before Christmas, but never in a million years would I think 30 years later

this would it would be like a cultural phenomenon to the point where people are like, my Christmas is my Halloween.

It's like,

how does

Tim Burton got y'all?

Y'all got y'all Disney'd.

Yeah, big time.

Crazy.

Yeah, they really like nailed a thing there because people will get Nightmare Before Christmas decor for Halloween,

but also for Christmas.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's wild.

I mean, it's just a weird, it's a weird vibe to think that like

the Claymation movie that everyone, like, as a kid, you saw, I'm like, that was fun.

It's now like,

guys, it's my personality.

I have a Jack Skeleton backpack.

It's his face.

And when you open it, I have a little oogie boogie key chain in there.

And I know the lyrics to every song.

I feel like my home is covered in skeletons.

Like, oh, okay.

I feel like there's less of that now.

Am I wrong?

I'm not in LA anymore.

Am I wrong?

I think because we're aging up.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Like, our generation is the ones that when Nightmare Report Christmas came out.

I don't think it's our generation.

I I think there's a whole, I think it's like a Gen Z Gen alpha, whatever the hell those young kids, those young whippersnappers are called.

My kid is a lot of that.

I don't think that's people that don't have.

I think that's too young.

Dude, I'm telling you, I don't think so.

I think there's a whole new generation discovering that movie, and they absolutely like are obsessed with it.

Man, I never liked that movie, if I can be real.

Oh, I thought it was like.

The commercial scared me so bad when I was a kid.

And then by the time I watched it, I was like, that was all right.

But I like didn't watch it for so long because the commercials terrified me.

Understood.

Yeah.

I love Night River at Christmas.

Not a big, like, what was the one?

Like, Corpse Bride.

It was whatever.

It's all right.

It's fine.

I watched Coraline like for the first time.

Coraline's great.

Last year.

Great movie.

Coraline is trippy because it's very fourth wall breaky.

There's a lot of like, if you you watch it again and you kind of go through it slowly, they basically spell out 90% of the movie in like subtle crap throughout the film.

It's very, very cool.

There's a lot of good hints as to what's going on in that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm obsessed with...

There's like a smoke.

I think someone...

Oh, I want to give them credit.

Oh, I want to give you credit, person who made this video.

There's a video on YouTube where the person doing the Coreline breakdown talks about how there's like another villain in the story and how it's this like creepy gross like foggy smoke that as the course of the movie takes like goes on it keeps building and building and building and building and it's very very interesting i love stuff like that i was like oh

is it box trolls is that who it is I'm not, I don't know.

So I won't give full credit because I don't, I'm not really sure, but I just want to say that video exists.

Yeah, there were a couple of things that I wanted to, there's a, there's a show, like a mini-series that Clark and I watch every Halloween, and we didn't finish it this year, but it's called Scaredy Cats.

It's by the Airbud Company.

They make a bunch of weird little shows with like animated animals in them now.

And Scaredy Cats is about three little girls, and one of them finds out that her mother was a witch.

And the three little girls learn witchcraft and are able to transform into cats and stuff.

And there's three.

Oh, cute and there's three like sanderson sister esque oh no it's only two there's two sanderson sister esque evil witches that have been looking for her mother's amulet and so they're trying to keep the amulet away it's cute it's a cute show we watch it every year so little of it makes sense

and i love it i love it normally watch that and i also didn't watch over the garden wall this year

You didn't watch it?

I didn't watch it this year.

I can watch it whenever, I guess.

But, you know, it's very autumnal, autumnal, isn't it?

We're still in autumnal.

I guess.

I guess.

I guess.

I mean, I don't watch it before.

I don't

know.

I mean, I'm aware of its existence, but I've never watched it.

Yeah.

But just hanging right over the garden wall.

I think so.

The thing I'm excited for this year is there's a movie that has come out.

You know how there's the Christmas movies?

And they all always

are just

a whole thing.

They're like not good.

Sure.

And they're clearly designed to make you just feel like, oh,

love.

You know, like they're just, they're not great.

Anyway, there's one that has come out.

By the way, last year, we watched a movie where the premise was

an LA Christmas.

We're on a movie set, it was so meta, on a movie set, they're making a holiday movie, but everyone in the movie actually falls in love Christmas movie style, right?

Okay.

And there's one girl who has a

like fourth wall breaking role.

Her whole thing is she's like, first off, I don't know who this actor is.

I want to say I love her voice.

It sounds like a mouse, like a little tiny baby mouse.

She's like, I hope that's her real voice, by the way.

It was crazy.

She's like, this is just like Christmas, a Christmas miracle, right?

Like, that's it.

It was so cute.

And

she's like trying to get them all to fall in love because that's how Christmas movies work.

And in the end, when it all starts to fall apart, she's like, no, this is how we got to serve this because Christmas.

Right?

It was crazy.

Absolutely insane.

One of the weirdest things I've ever seen.

This was less.

It was made by people.

Yes.

It was made by people who make movies, yet none of it seemed like people who make movies made this.

You know what I mean?

Sure.

Like roles, they were like, that's the producer.

And the producer was also directing.

No, no, no.

That totally makes sense because

who would make a movie or a show?

Like, romanticizing the process of making a movie unless they were like people who haven't made very many movies.

I've never made a movie.

Sure, sure, sure, sure, yeah.

Yeah, but this year, oh Dodger, oh Dodger, this year, you know how on Amazon, sometimes you'll just stumble

upon a book that clearly is self-published and clearly is only available on Amazon and clearly is like my night with the werewolf as like some form of erotica and you're like, what?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Hell is this?

Sure.

There's a version of that now.

It's a movie.

I think, boy, I I think it's on Netflix.

I don't know.

I don't know where to watch this, and I want to watch it badly.

Okay.

It's about a woman who makes a very sexy snowman.

And then that snowman comes to life.

I'm so excited to watch this shitty movie.

I know it's going to suck so bad.

Wait, let's look it up.

We have to find it now.

No, it's not Jack Frost, which is about a man who becomes a snowman.

This is about, it's called Hot Frosty.

Hot Frosty.

Oh, I'm so excited.

Hot Frosty.

I imagine this movie will be one of the worst films ever made.

I'm so excited.

Yeah.

The plot is literally, she makes a hot snowman.

That hot snowman comes to life.

Merry Christmas, y'all.

It has a five out of 10 on IMTV.

That sounds right.

That sounds

right down the middle.

You know what's something that maybe you guys have done this before.

I don't really know.

What's something that you and Crendor should do?

And if you don't think Crendor will do it, I will do it with you.

Thank you.

My mom,

every year, have we talked about this before?

I'm trying to remember.

You're not going to send anything.

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

My mom watches every single Hallmark Christmas movie

every year.

She watches all of them.

She records every single one with DVR and she watches them all.

I would love to watch you and Crendor have a series over the Christmas season that's just watching Hallmark Christmas movies.

And again, if you know Crendor would do that, I would do that.

Yeah, I don't think.

Here's the weird line.

I don't think Crendor would do that, but I know he would watch every single Medea movie.

Well, yeah.

Right?

Like, if you enjoyed it,

every time Crendor is on this show, he mentions Medea.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

He loves Medea.

You know what?

I get it.

The thing is, he isn't about Medea.

He's like,

that comedian showed up on the Medea movie, and that's pretty funny.

And I'm like,

what do you mean?

He's like, yeah, that was pretty good.

I'm like, what are you talking about?

So, yeah, we could probably watch Medea at Christmas.

He'd probably love that.

But he does not, I don't think he'd watch Hunky Santa, whatever, Hunky Santa or like sexy snowman or whatever the hell it is.

No.

Yep.

They just make so many.

Too many.

They make so many.

And I don't think I've ever been surprised by a single one.

It's not the sort of thing that you want to watch,

like, to be dazzled.

You You just,

you know, the curtain rises, the credits are done.

You meet a girl in a business suit in the city, and you're like, I bet she's actually from the country, and she's going to have a reason to go back to the country.

And she's going to meet her old boyfriend.

And, but, but she left behind a fiancé back in the city and she's going to fall back in love with the old boyfriend.

And like,

you know, it's going to happen.

And then it's going to be Christmas.

Trope-wise.

Yeah.

The man who is back in her hometown

is still

the college football playing hot boy who, even though he returned home and only wears flannels now, opened a bakery and he loves his mother.

Yes.

And he's just a wonderful man, but he's fine with the small town life.

He doesn't need that big city life.

No.

Meanwhile, the boyfriend back in the big city, he's a big wheeling and dealing businessman.

Also, spoilers, he's a bad guy.

Actually, into some bad shit.

No, and that's why she needs to get away with it.

Now we've reached the point where typically he's a good dude.

It's just not right.

You know?

Oh, that makes it even funnier because it's like, yeah,

I had a great relationship with my boyfriend, but I went home for one weekend and just cheated on him with the guy who owns the bakery.

It's even worse.

That's not a good movie.

We'll get weird flashes back to the city, and her fiancé will be like, I haven't heard from her in days.

I'm going to go out there and surprise her.

And he'll show up and she'll be like, oh, it's not what it looks like.

You know?

Yeah.

It was the Christmas spirit.

Yeah, and then Santa's like, oh,

oh, no, Santa.

And then she wakes up horny around him.

And then like, yeah.

And she wakes up and there's coal in her stocking or whatever.

Yep.

And then the country boy goes, but I still love you.

Yeah, well, that's because he's like, that coal is from my new coal mining operation.

I'll be a billionaire.

And she's like, I love you, honey.

And then they kiss the end.

Money, print money, print money.

Hallmarks, coal in the stocking.

Yep.

Perfect.

I have no idea how or why we started this episode doing this.

I don't know where your head was at.

I don't know what happened here.

I'm glad we had this conversation.

It's just out of nowhere.

You were like,

you want to spend 30 minutes talking about crappy holiday movies and Christmas?

I just asked whether or not you're the sort of person that decorates for the holidays.

And we got here naturally.

Which one of your friends started decorating too early?

Or are you that friend?

You just thought like, you know what, Jesse?

I have a question for you.

What's going on with your holiday traditions?

No, the the thing that I was thinking about is that currently everybody's doing that like playful

elbow nudgy debate where they're like, how early is too early to put up your Christmas lights?

Sure, sure, sure.

Okay.

I was thinking about that.

And then I thought, Jesse doesn't really seem like the sort of person to decorate at all.

And then I thought, maybe I'm being a dick by saying that.

But

I'm being honest.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I will not decorate at all.

That sounds like too much work.

If I'm, if it's just me looking at it,

no, I don't care.

Here's the thing, though: side note: if you're like, I don't really give a shit about a tree in the office,

but like, maybe it would be nice to have a tree in the office,

surely there's a person at your office that you could be like, you're on Christmas tree duty,

get a tiny plastic tree,

we'll just keep it.

They got other work to do.

I feel feel like they can be, it can do other things

besides spend a day hanging up a tree and like putting stuff on it and, you know, lights.

That does.

I'm,

this is really showing me that you don't ever decorate.

To set up a little plastic tree and put decorations on it would maybe take half an hour maximum.

I mean, I can't verify that's true or not.

I wouldn't.

I got no proof.

Where's the proof?

The last time I did a tree might have been 10 years ago.

So I don't remember the actual process.

And most of the time, it's my mom being like, hang this for me.

And I'm like, okay.

And then I do it.

How tall are you?

Sorry.

You don't have to answer that.

What do you mean?

I'm precisely six feet.

Although

I can be a little bit taller with some nice shoes, but I'm precisely six feet tall.

Man, everybody.

Everybody just seems seems like the same height to me.

Why is that?

Because

once you're like a certain amount above my head,

everybody looks the same.

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

I get that.

So it's hard for me to gauge, like, once someone's around six foot, it's hard to gauge, like, if they're...

Higher or lower than that, really.

Does that make sense?

Sure.

How tall is...

How tall is Sam?

6'4.

Can you say this?

That makes sense.

I was about to say, like, because I know Sam's taller than me.

So I was like, but I don't know how much taller and I don't know if we blend together.

I imagine you perceive Sam taller than me.

I do.

All right.

I was about to say, like, because he is.

Yeah.

But.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm five.

I'm five foot exactly.

So you're exactly a foot taller than me.

So that's fun.

Hilarious.

Hilarious.

Hilarious.

And once again, I have no idea why we were talking about that.

But anyways.

No, it's because you were talking about grabbing things from high up.

And I was like.

You know, I, sure, understood.

We got, I'll go down that rabbit hole with you.

You know, I won't not follow you down rabbit holes.

I know.

You can say anything.

And I would be like, With with a pickaxe and a little light on my head, like, where are we going, boss?

And I would just follow you down there i appreciate you very much for that uh yeah i'm look it's my sense of adventure

as long as the adventure is a sitting cute buddy on the podcast

i am good to go buddy i'll speculate any little adventure you like

there's gold in these mines right and i'll just follow you down yeah

I'd have a little canary.

His name's Petey.

Is that a thing?

Don't look at me like that.

What the hell is that, face?

Me trying to hide disappointment, I'll be honest.

Did they use birds and mines?

I thought, I thought, like,

I thought

I thought everyone knew that.

I thought everyone was aware of this historical phenomenon.

No.

Yes, they would use canaries.

because canaries, spoiler, they would die quickly if there was like a problem, like a leak of gas or oh, I see.

So you keep a canary with you, and if it drops dead, then you know you need to leave.

Hence, the canary in a coal mine.

It's a little indicator that you need to get the hell out because

the methane's going to murder you or whatever.

Yeah, yeah.

Interesting.

Yep.

So really not as fun as

because

I couldn't tell if the face you were giving me was Dodger, of course, they didn't take birds and coal mines, or if it was Dodger, of course, they did take birds and coal mines.

I didn't know which one it was going to be.

Oh, no, they 100% did.

Yeah, no, they

specifically for the purposes of dying.

Like, it's dark, it's not pretty.

They would take them there and be like, if the canary dies, get out, guys.

So, if you were to use that phrase, if you were to say it's a canary in the coal mine, it would be like a bad omen or like a heads up that something bad is about to happen or a warning.

Yeah, yeah, it's like an indicator of like, you know, if the canary in the coal mine vibe is like something's, something's coming.

Something bad.

It's a warning.

This is bad.

Right.

Okay.

And it's not a good warning.

You know what I mean?

It's not like the canaries died of happiness.

Like that's not the case.

It's a warning that something bad's coming.

So get out.

I see.

I got you.

Do you remember what you were going to talk to me about?

I do.

Absolutely.

It's

looking at it right now.

So this is, we've talked about this before, and I want to bring it up to you because I think it's very interesting.

So

the like a dragon creator, the Yakuza guy.

Yeah.

Boy, I do not remember his name.

Something Nagoshi.

I don't remember.

Chat will say it, and I will be, I will not be able to pronounce it correctly.

Anyway, recently did an interview that was essentially along the lines of like hey um

guys

i think that

the era of game size being important

is coming to an end

like um making games big for the sake of making them big which we've talked about a lot before yeah which we've talked about yeah and i i uh

Think it's it's very interesting.

And I'll just give you a quote.

Looking at the situation, I think that the number of console games in the lives of ordinary game fans may be a little excessive.

There are still many titles being released, but I feel that the era of games where the volume is the selling point is coming to an end.

And he's talking about, you know,

like a dragon stuff, but...

It's, you know,

this time, while researching existing games, we started by making a fairly large map with roads and highways.

Now we're gradually shrinking it down and exploring the best balance for the game.

That's the point.

You can fill it with some element to create a sense of density, but it's not modern to have a similar experience repeated over and over and over again.

Kind of like just talking about scale and creating games and trying to think of the best way to create them.

And we've talked about this before, and I absolutely fundamentally believe my dude is right on the money.

That what is his first name is Toshihiro?

Toshihiro?

Toshihiro, yeah.

Toshihiro Naga.

I fundamentally fundamentally believe that my man's right on the money.

Like we skewed so far into the world of big is better and it honestly feels a little bit like um

cars in America where we just all decided bigger the car the better even though absolutely not necessary.

Sure.

And it's one of those things that I

fundamentally agree with, like just to my core.

And I'm curious where you're at with this.

I mean, yeah, I've always said that I feel a little overwhelmed by open world games.

And so, I've never been particularly drawn to the selling point of this game is bigger than ever.

I do think that we've brought this up a few times over the last few years, just

in conversation.

And

I think the honestly, the big thing that keeps

game companies from pairing back more often is that

there's somebody that is

their job is to figure out how to outdo other people, right?

And I think at this point, it's like

graphics have gotten to the point where if they keep pushing them too far, it'll go back into the uncanny valley.

And games have gotten so big that people are opting instead for simple games that they'll actually finish.

So what can they do

to outdo each other at this point now?

Sure.

You know,

in like a spectacle sort of sense, right?

Like, you could say, we'll just make a good fucking game, right?

But

with selling points, what's the big selling point that's going to be like, whoa, you know, I think there's a person or a whole team of people with these bigger companies where that's their job is to figure out what's our selling point here.

And I'm not sure what

we go to

now that it wouldn't be graphics necessarily and it wouldn't, it wouldn't be how big the game is, how much there is in the game, you know?

Sure.

I mean, I think this goes back to the conversation we had last week, which I think is,

even though that one was about erotic games,

I think it stands with this as well that

Instead of being everything,

so if you look at a lot of open world games, not only is it an open world game to explore, they also are like, we want you to have the experience of living in the world.

So there's going to be like a food mechanic maybe, or crafting, or a home building situation, or random immersive environmental storytelling.

Or we're going to create a system where when you unlock one thing, you get a quest hub and characters will come to the quest hub and you can get and all these different mechanics that they include.

Really, in the end, they're trying to be everything and not just one.

Like they want to be a life sim

rather than a video game right and you know a great example is final fantasy 7 rebirth i love that game i enjoy it tremendously every one of the minigames can kiss my whole ass i do not like them there i do not like that i have to do them i don't want to be a part of those minigames And that drives me crazy.

Like the minigames in the original Final Fantasy VII were basically like, go to the gold saucer.

Also, here's a few randomly.

But like, it's just so many.

Meanwhile, the mini games in like, like a dragon, for example, I don't know, something about them is hilarious

and a totally different experience.

But with that said,

I think those games are designed with the mini games in mind as being what the game is, where Final Fantasy VII, that did not feel the case at all.

They feel like it felt like they were.

You know, when

I think this is Final Fantasy XIV, I'm trying to remember if that's correct, but they were talking about how in Final Fantasy 14, a lot of the Gold Saucer minigames were designed by like one person over the course of like a week just because.

That's how a lot of the Final Fantasy VII minigames felt.

Like it was clearly like some dudes passed.

We'll figure out where to put this.

Yeah.

And it's like,

some are hit, some are miss.

But I just didn't like the vibe of it.

I was like, we're doing too much.

I just want to get my Final Fantasy VII story and let's keep going.

And I think comparatively between Dragon Age Inquisition and Dragon Age Velgard,

Inquisition was doing too much.

Looking back at that, I absolutely.

And we said that at the time, too.

Comparatively, I'm like, yo, I think I hate Inquisition.

And I think because they were just doing too much.

And they were trying to like even like go to the war table and do the war.

I hate that stuff.

Every time I had to go back and do the war table, I was angry about it.

Yeah.

And meanwhile, Velgard, people crapping all over this game, I'm having so much fun.

It is hyper-focused.

It is very clearly hyper-focused on

like most of the time, I look around the like level design.

I'm like, okay, I know exactly where I am.

I know where things are.

I'm fine right now.

I'm not overwhelmed.

I'm not stressed.

I'm going and talking to people, doing things, and I can see an end in sight.

In Inquisition, I could not see an end.

I literally stopped playing because, like, I don't know how much time I have have left in this game.

I have no idea what I have left to do.

I got the girl.

I felt like I was doing good.

And then I just like burnt out on it.

Yeah.

And I very much understand, you know, people not liking one or the other.

I just happen to have discovered that I have no patience for bigger games now.

And it's not because they're not good.

It's because they're just like.

There's so much to do and most of it is not compelling.

Right.

And that sucks because, you know, there was a time when that wasn't the case.

When Open World games were like really cool and there was stuff to do.

But most of the time, it's kind of like Dev said we're going to make a playground.

So,

you know, it's kind of like the last Zelda game.

The Skyward Princess.

Tears of the Kingdom or whatever.

Yes, Tears of the Kingdom.

That is just a playground.

Yes, Skyward Princess.

That's just a playground.

Like that game, I could not tell you what the story was or how the plot works.

I made a giant mech with like a flame dick, and I was like, well, that's fun.

And then never played it again.

I couldn't tell you nothing about that game.

It just, yeah, it was big and open, and you could build stuff and you could solve puzzles the way.

And I get if you loved it, but like

I was bored.

The thing is, like,

Banishers,

I wound up playing all of.

I did every side quest.

I did all of it because it felt like

all of the content that was in it was like respecting my time, right?

It was like playing the side quests felt like it was contributing to the story.

Like it felt, it felt satisfying to do them

instead of it feeling like, well, I'm trying to fucking complete this game.

So

I guess I'll just do all of the side quests, you you know, like they all led to something interesting that informed the world or the characters more.

And I appreciated doing them.

I was happy to do them.

And that was not a small game.

That was a decently big game, at least for me.

So

I don't think that it's necessarily like a problem for a game to be big, but yeah, if it's like, it's big and you can do whatever you want.

Those are alarm bells for me.

That's a red flag.

If somebody's like, you can be whatever you want to be.

You can do whatever you want to do.

I'm like, mm-mm.

No.

That's just, to me, that is corpo speak for

this game is a kind of like

open,

you make your own adventure game.

We didn't really tell you a story and there's no thing here for a story.

You're making your own adventure, which, you know,

is not the most fun thing after a while.

Like, if you have a bunch of friends, I guess you can goof around for a little bit.

But it's not really, it's not really the point anymore.

Yeah, it's,

again, I think it goes back to the fact that like if you look at Witcher 3, you're looking at Red Dead 2, these are games that are clearly designed to, like, everything you do influences your character and the way that you're going to play the game.

And there's not many

dev teams out there doing that.

And it's just because it's difficult to do and takes forever and a lot of money.

Yeah.

And that's not something people do that often.

Like even I'm not a huge Red Dead 2 fan, mostly for mechanical reasons.

It has nothing to do with the game.

But like it's gorgeous and you want to get lost and walk around.

And like the whole point is you're in the Wild West.

Right.

Like that's the vibe.

So they nailed that.

But if you're doing like,

you know, I don't want to crap all over Far Cry, but there's some points where Far Cry was like,

yeah, F it.

It's, you know, we're going to make it like way too big, but it's also

going to be, you know, Middle America.

It's like,

okay, cool.

Like, watch out for those cultists.

Like, okay.

Yeah.

I'll do it.

I guess climb this tower.

Sort of like what you were saying about Yakuza, right?

You need to know what your game is.

What experience are you trying to give the player?

Does it make sense to have all of that in the game?

Does it inform like the final product?

Right.

Right.

Or are you just throwing it in there so you can be like, and you can fish.

Look, I get jazzed when I find out I can fish in a game, but sometimes, sometimes I'm like, why do they add fishing?

I mean, this is the same thing like in Horizon, the newest, the Forbidden West.

I love the Horizon games.

I have a fun time murdering dinosaurs.

It's always fun, but

this game came with some of the goo like I don't understand what they were like they're like let's include a full ass board game that has the most convoluted rule system in the entire world, and you have to collect pieces for it.

And that's a sizable portion of this game.

Yo, I hated that thing.

I, that can kiss my whole butt.

That puzzles, and then they were like, also,

robot drag races.

Yep, that's in our game now.

You can ride horse, you can ride horses against other people for.

And I'm like, oh my god, I thought you meant like, like, drag race like queens.

And I was like,

I was very confused.

I got it now.

I followed you now, though.

Yeah, I, you know, just like little things like that.

If they would have just stuck to dinosaurs, like the hunting missions in Horizon are a pain in the ass, but I'll do them because it's like, all right, well, I get cool stuff from this.

So, like, it's fine.

But, yeah, I don't want all the other,

I don't want all the other things.

I don't know.

I just wish we focused more instead of trying to make like

I vividly remember in the assassin's creed valhalla assassin's creed games are are notorious

but like valhalla is too damn big yeah but in valhalla they also included a rap mini game

a a like other mini game like they included all these things that like okay that's fascinating but now i'm doing all this instead of trying to get through your 800 hour story and i know it's the idea that like well we can keep them playing and if they play this they oh, by the way, chat, I guess, is discovering there's a rap mini-game in Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

It is in there.

You are like doing a poetry slam.

It's ridiculous.

It's, yeah, just like, I'm.

And that could be a personal thing that I get distracted easily by like little things in your games.

But,

you know, that's that.

What's different is that

I go into,

for example, Assassin's Creed wanting to be an assassin with a creed.

Right.

I go into a Yakuza game being like, I want to run an inn with sexy girls and have girly fights and make prank phone calls to people.

That's what I'm doing.

Like, that's the reason to play that game.

And so the mini games do not, like, me getting distracted by them is the whole point.

And that's because

they're goofy games anyway.

Yeah.

Because that's what they're selling you.

Yeah, yeah.

And I definitely feel like we have lost the plot when it comes to game development.

That's a lot of the time, except for indies, indies have to be focused because they don't have a lot of money.

But big triple-A, quadruple-A now, they're like, F it, we're everything.

It's like, no, you're not everything.

You could be everything in two separate games.

That's fine.

But putting it all in one game, that's crazy.

Like, yeah, we're spending millions.

Well, don't spend that much money on it.

Like, um,

yesterday, I was playing uh Dragon Quest III's HD 2D remake.

It is the same vibe as Octopath, visually, right?

Oh, okay.

And so, I've never played Dragon Quest III, never touched it in my life.

I started playing Dragon Quest VIII.

Shout out to Jessica, my queen.

Dragon Quest VIII was the first one I ever played.

And so, and that was like 2001, maybe.

And I've never played three, sat down to play it, blown away by the visual style.

Gorgeous looking, absolutely beautiful game.

And it's clearly not the Square Enix A team.

They're not spending a fortune on this game.

There's no way they spend a ton of money on this.

And I was like playing it and loving every minute of it, like the beautiful designs of the world.

And I was just like,

we need to get back to being focused on design philosophy.

instead of just make it look next level beautiful and spend a ton of money on it.

Yeah.

Because I was absolutely vibing.

I was like, guys, this would be a perfect Switch game, which it is on Switch because, like, it's so perfect for like, I'm going to hold my hand.

And I could not believe.

I was like, it looks gorgeous.

And it's just, you know, it looks like an old school game.

And why can't we have this?

I don't know.

I just, I was vibing.

with

my uh like a dragon dude because he was like yeah no we got to stop doing this i was like thank you

thank you Yeah, for sure.

And you're right.

Indies are like absolutely nailing this because they have to be focused.

They have to say, like, what is our game?

What are we achieving here?

You know?

Yeah.

And I think at a certain point,

it also

is helpful that most indies are like very small teams.

If not one person, five people, maybe 10.

And so it isn't guys in a boardroom look over your proposal, decide if they're going to give you the money or not, and then base all their decisions off of that.

And it's like, well, we gave you the money, so we have demands.

And it's like, well, okay.

All right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Oh.

Wait, did you play the first golden idol game?

The first golden idol?

Yeah.

That name doesn't ring a bell.

What?

Wait, really?

I'm not saying it wrong, right?

Yeah, the case of the golden idol.

You didn't play that?

I...

I recognize all this, but I don't think I played it.

Something just fell.

That's how shocked I was.

Wait a minute.

Oh, my God.

Put it.

I know your list is huge.

I'm literally going to YouTube right now to look up if I did play this.

That's how much I don't know.

Dude.

If you haven't,

you've got to.

It is.

I have not.

100% not played this.

Oh, my God.

Case of the Golden Idol is an incredible game.

It was, you know, when you have that feeling, that really rare feeling of you finish a game and you're immediately like, I wish I could wipe my brain so I could do this again.

It's that.

Interesting.

It's so good.

It's the format of the game.

Okay, sorry.

Man, you haven't even heard of it?

This is so crazy.

Okay.

I mean, I must have at some point if you're on this train, I imagine you played it years ago.

If it came out in October 2022, I would imagine you've played it before.

Yeah, yeah, a couple years ago, I guess.

And maybe we talked about it, but I don't remember this at all.

Oh my gosh.

The follow-up game literally just released, which is why I asked about it.

Rise of the Golden Idol just came out.

Okay, so the way that these games play is you are given a tableau.

Okay, so you're given like a

here is an image

and you have to figure out what is going on in the image.

Okay.

So all of the images are going to be connected.

They're all telling a story

and you have to use the information available to you.

So you'll like click on a person and it'll show you like what's in their pockets, right?

For example.

So you'll have the tableau, you'll have the picture, and then you'll also have basically a fill-in-the-blank sheet.

So the second image for each level will be a huge like thing that has a bunch of open spaces.

So one of them will have pictures of all of the people in the picture, and you have to slot in what their names are, right?

And so like kind of obra din coded.

A little obra dinny, yeah.

You're trying to figure out what's happening in the picture, who the people are in the picture.

Whatever the secondary sheet is asking you, you need to figure out the answers.

It is so unbelievably good.

I would 100% tune into a stream of you playing this game.

I think a lot of people would love to watch you play this game.

It's so interesting.

I don't even have, I thought, well, maybe I downloaded it at one point in my life and I just never played it.

Nope.

I have, I don't have any, I have zero knowledge of this game, apparently.

Oh my God.

It's incredible.

It is, bro.

Please, trust me.

You've got to play this game.

Done.

Trusted.

I'll buy it.

Rise of the Golden Idol just came out, which is the follow-up game.

And they've made like a couple of quality of life changes according, like, as far as I can tell from playing the demo.

But generally, it looks like it's the same sort of a thing, which is very exciting for me because I thought

the concept, like what Golden Idol is, didn't really need to be fucked with that much.

Like, it's, it's just so, it's such a good like puzzle game format.

Yeah, if, if you like, if you like sort of like solving, solving mysteries, like investigating sort of games, um, it's all, it's all static.

So it's all point and click.

You can really take your time, really figure out what's happening in each picture.

And as the game progresses, you'll like connect more and more dots and be like, oh shit, right?

It's so cool.

So, so cool.

Yeah, all right.

Totally in.

Big fan.

Yeah, fantastic.

All I was going to say is the follow-up game came out, and I was going to be curious if you were going to play it, but instead, I get to just tell you to play the first one.

Oh, I'm so excited for you.

Yeah, I do not at all know a damn thing about this.

So, this is entirely new to me.

I'm all right.

Yeah, this looks great.

Fantastic.

Okay.

That was

fantastic.

Fantastique.

Yeah, I played.

There was a game that I played during the Nextfest called Trash Goblin.

I played it purely.

I'm aware of it.

Yeah, I played it purely based on the name.

But the demo, I wasn't...

I like it was fine, but I wasn't really sold on it.

So I put off playing the actual game now that it's in early access.

With the demo, my complaints with the demo were that the general like gameplay loop is you're a little gabbo,

you're consistently given sacks of like refuse.

And there's

a game inside of the game that's like you chipping away at the dirt and the grime and things.

And so it's all like cube-based.

And so you have a little chisel and you like chip away at like different types of like material, right?

And eventually you find an item.

and then you can choose to clean it up or not.

And customers will show up and ask you for specific things.

So in the demo, it like introduces that mechanic, introduces the customer mechanic.

And then it was like, and also, honestly, you can just slap whatever you want together.

You can just make weird shit.

And I was like,

okay.

So I started slapping weird shit together and I was like, honestly, I feel like there's a missing middle point here.

right?

So there was

you're chipping away at stuff, you're finding treasures, you're giving them to people who want those things.

And then there was, and also you can like put trash together to make your own weird little things and sell them.

I was like, but

surely the midpoint for a game like this is, and actually you can find pieces of things.

And if you find all of the pieces, you can put the pieces together right so you could find a pot that's missing a lid and then later find a lid and be like oh those things go together right right um

so i said yeah i just felt like they introduced like two

ideas but that were not

that weren't totally connected yeah i needed like a middle bit there right the thing that i would be the most interested in that i think i would have the most fun with is like but you can put these two things together that totally make sense together that belong together right and that's absolutely in the game now.

So I played the early access version

and it 100%, I was like, this is

fun now.

So now it's literally that.

So at the start of the game, you are, you're getting sacks and you don't have to wait for them.

The sacks literally just come forever, but you only have so much space like on your person to hold things.

So you chip away, you chip away, you find stuff.

A customer shows up like once every like chunk of in-game time and they'll ask for a thing and you can say no i don't have that or yes i do they will literally wait forever so there's no rush right like this game really leans into

just like a chill meandering vibe like you can it has a day night cycle so you'll reach a point where it's like the day is done you can go to bed when you wake up the customer is literally still there they're like i'm just waiting for my pot my guy you know like they they don't leave until you give it to them or you tell them to leave.

Sure.

Yeah.

So, so

introduced the chipping away mechanic, introduced the customers showing up mechanic.

And then it, it was like a guy showed up and said, hey, I'm looking for a pot.

Just make sure that the handle is there.

It was something like that.

And I was like, oh.

So I already had a pot and I realized, oh, but the pot doesn't have a handle.

So I kept like digging through bags and eventually found a pot handle and was able to connect those two things and then sell it to him.

I was like, this is what I was missing.

This is what I wanted.

I think out of everything that's in the game right now, the thing that feels the most superfluous is the day-night cycle.

It doesn't feel necessary aside from sort of the, um, if you play a lot of games where you're like running a business, people like the element of each day I can see if I'm earning more money than I was before.

So

you go to bed and it'll be like, this is how much money you made, essentially.

Like, night cycle-wise, what are you doing?

So, I imagine in my mind, when you say day-night cycle, I imagine there's a day you wake up, you prep the shop, you open the store, you sell stuff, and then night cycle is you close the store, and then what do you do?

So, you never, you never open or close the store.

So, you

just you exist as a trash goblin, and people will just come to you and be like, trash goblin,

I'm wearing bed pan.

Yeah,

yeah, and and then eventually it'll be like, you've run out of time chunks.

Go to sleep.

And I'm like, okay.

I go to sleep

and it says, you made 118 gold today.

And I go, great.

And then when I wake up, I just keep doing what I was doing.

Right.

So there isn't like a,

you're doing stuff before the shop opens or you're doing stuff after the shop closes.

It's literally if you're awake, the shop is open.

And again, it's not like you have customers like coming constantly and waiting for shit.

There's whoever is the last person person that asked you for a thing,

they just squat, they just hang out until you've given it to them.

Yeah,

interesting.

And they don't say a single thing about it.

And again, it's early access, so I don't know if any of that's going to change, but currently, yeah, they'll stay there for days.

Somebody asked for a single tooth.

There's a character named Mush Romeo, who's a little mushroom character that is just constantly talking about the tail he's chasing, dude.

And so he just constantly constantly comes to you and asks for things and is like, because, you know, I've got a hot date tonight.

Or he asked for a mask at one point and was like, because I'm about to go to a masquerade and I don't need all of these spouses seeing me.

I was like, oh my God.

But one of the characters asked for a tooth and they were like, I only want one tooth.

And I had found dentures, but I hadn't found a tooth on its own and I couldn't take a tooth out of the dentures.

So I was like, okay.

I was looking for

a singular tooth for like three in-game days.

And the person was just like,

I got time.

So

really, the day-night cycle doesn't matter if they just sit there and wait.

It doesn't matter, I don't think.

I don't think it's necessary.

And I'm not sure why

it's there other than to give you like a breaking point.

So that it's not just continuous, but I don't know.

I don't know what it, how much it matters really for it to be continuous.

Does that make sense?

Sure, sure, sure.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I'm not sure I understand why it's there.

I feel like there's another mechanic you could do to just be like, you earned money.

Yeah.

But again, it's probably part of the idea of owning a shop in that it's like, well,

canonically, my character goes home for the day and is like, you know, I'm done.

I've been looking for teeth for three days and I'm going home.

Honestly.

Want to make me a microwave meal and watch the rest of Penguin?

I think it's specifically going to bed that that irks me

like i don't mind the day night side and maybe

maybe they want to include like oh there's some characters that show up as you know in the evening or because because there are repeat characters that show up they've done they've done the cool thing where like clearly there are certain types of like people or monsters and they have you know like 10 different heads, 10 different skin colors, 10 different types of clothing, and then it randomizes, which I think is really cool.

So, like, you'll, you know, you'll get like five mushroom people in a row, and it's like, it's like some of the same assets, but not all of them.

It's always, it's always different enough that you're like, oh, it's a different mushroom, right?

But yeah, maybe, you know, maybe they want to say that like some of the repeating characters only show up at certain times or whatever.

But like, honestly, it just annoys me that the game stops you to be like, you got to go to bed.

I would much rather that it just lets me keep picking away at dirt through the night, you know?

Yeah,

is there, so, all right, Mush Romeo shows up, says, I need two teeth and a tonsil tickler, and

you need to get that to Mush Romeo.

Right.

Is there a time limit?

No.

If there was a time limit, days would make sense.

If he's like, I gotta have the, the, the ball I'm going to is in four days, right?

That would make sense to have day-night cycle.

But if he isn't like that, then I guess what's the point?

Yeah, there's no, like I was saying, it really leans into how chill it is.

There's no way to fail ever.

There's no fail state.

You just keep chipping away at dirt until you find the thing that you need.

You give it to them.

Well, then, wouldn't it make more sense?

I don't know why I'm doing it.

I don't know why I'm like, well, wouldn't it be better to design your game like this?

But wouldn't it make more sense if it was like after you completed your objective,

it's like the next day, and then you do it again.

So the premise would be that every day is one person that you're digging through the trash for.

And then when you solve the problem for them, the next day begins.

So currently,

because you chip away at so much stuff and you find so many things,

there is this

fun

aspect where all of the things you can buy with the gold are additions to your like little hovel, your little home.

And most of it is shelves.

So when you run out of space on your person, you can just start putting shit on shelves and on shelves, right?

Yeah.

And so your home becomes more and more and more cluttered with things because, again, you are a trash goblin, right?

Because you're a trash goblin.

And in the time that I was looking for the single tooth for Mush Romeo, I found 18 other things

and there were no other customers, right?

So I reached a point in the early access, I reached a point where I had like 10 customers in a row who asked for things and I already had them.

So I don't think that it would work with like

you, you know,

each day, quote unquote, you're just finding one thing for one person because you want, you wind up with tons of stuff.

And,

you know, you need that windfall of people who are just like, I want one grandma egg.

I want eight bedpans.

I want, you know, where you're like, fantastic.

I have all of those.

I have all of those things.

Here you go, you know.

Yep.

So, so I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, are you enjoying it?

Yeah.

I think, I think it's really, it's very zen.

It's super fun.

But again, I would like to be a trash goblin that doesn't need to sleep.

I think that that would, I would.

Don't tell me like, don't we all, though?

Don't we all wish that?

Yeah.

I don't mind the day-night cycle as as long as it doesn't make me go to bed, dude.

I just want to keep chipping away at dirt.

Yeah, yeah.

It makes me happy.

So I also hope, I kind of hope that they, that they make the chipping away dirt game more complex.

Currently, there are like four different types of material that you can chip away at.

And it's not that hard to figure out how, like what specifically you need to do with all of those different types of dirt material, whatever.

I would like for there to be like

weirder things that show up eventually.

I think that would be fun.

What do you mean by that?

In your definition of weird, what do you mean by that?

So, currently, there's like

normal dirt that takes one hit and it goes away.

There's like

rock that takes a couple of hits,

even stronger rock that takes a few more hits, and then there's a type that shows up that is really fun.

That it's basically like it looks kind of like a geode.

So you can only hit it from one angle.

So every side of it is impenetrable except for one.

And so you have to like reveal the one spot that you can hit to make it vanish, right?

And I just, I don't know.

I want more.

Sorry, sorry.

That entire, you've ruined the entire, the entirety of what you said was so good natured and lovely.

And you're just trying to describe a video game.

Yet every

like the verbiage coming out of your mouth, so innuendo-coded.

What do you mean?

You know what?

It's too late.

Just you know, rewind it,

think of it, rewind what Dodger said, but imagine you're a pervert and every like

I'm chipping away at geodes.

Yeah, you're hitting it from the right angle.

No, I get it, I get it,

I get it.

I understand.

Okay, yep, yeah, okay

oh my gosh oh wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait

i'm so sorry i don't mean to jump around from game to game so much but like

did you guys play the quarry on scary game squad yes

oh my god

sam and i are playing the quarry for the first time right now bless bless we're like halfway through or like through chapter five i'm gonna say something that might be a little contentious i think the writing in the quarry is way better than the writing in Until Dawn, but I feel like people like Until Dawn a lot better.

I can't remember how Scary Game Squad felt about it.

What I do remember about The Warry,

everyone's favorite game squad.

What I do remember is the thing that I think is across the board with all the super massive and to some extent the Quantic quantic dream and like all the different games that are um

very like

branch pathing kind of games at a certain point

it all kind of falls apart every time like towards the end of the game it gets more and more convoluted based on choices you made because it's trying to like give you everything and also if you made some choices you're missing scenes right and so by the end it always it always falls apart and always seems insane uh every time

but i i love these games There's not a one I don't like.

So, you know, even though sometimes the narrative gets a little crazy because it's, you know, a huge branching path game.

Yeah.

I'm consistently fine with them because I love the idea of these like choice games where if you do something, it can result in something later down the line.

Or if, you know, like one of your characters gets hurt, then like, is that going to affect the thing later?

I'm absolutely a fan of these.

All of them are great.

The one that I loved the most was the one.

It was a dark pictures game it was the one about the uh like iraqi temple i think that's like

the basic premise american soldiers and i think their translator are trapped deep underground monsters terrible

okay great absolutely absolutely house of ashes love that one love that that one's very very good that might be my favorite one Only because most of the time when we play those games, we try to play the character.

Right.

Right?

Because we do not play play who we think these people are.

We play who they are on, like, oh, this guy's a piece of shit.

He's all every answer.

He's going to be a piece of shit.

And usually it works out pretty good for us.

Like, everyone mostly lives to the end because we play them how we think they should be played.

Right.

And,

dude, playing the translator guy.

Playing him how he's like, that was my favorite bit.

That dude kicked ass.

I was so happy.

I was like, my man, let's go.

Like, that was a fun ass experience.

So

I love those types of games.

Big fan.

So we replayed the beginning of Until Dawn.

We were going to replay the whole game.

And they literally.

Did you play the new version?

So, yeah.

So we downloaded the new version and got to a certain point, like only like a couple hours in, I think.

Sure, sure, sure.

And they patched it.

And I guess this patch like broke a bunch of people's saves.

So we literally couldn't keep playing.

But it was enough time replaying that game for me to be like, God, the dialogue in this game is a nightmare.

And then playing the quarry, I was like, okay, these people are still assholes to each other, but in a much more believable way.

The dialogue is so much more believable, right?

Than fucking Emily at the start of the game being like, this guy is my man.

And I was like,

so, um, yeah I'm having a much better time with the quarry I think because these games are so much like they're you know goofy 90s style horror games in in like plot but you spend so much time with these characters talking to each other

like If you don't enjoy listening to them talk to each other, you're like, God, I actually don't care if you die, if I'm being real.

That's so we recently played the casting of frank stone super massive and dead by daylight combo game in that one it there always seems to be one highly intolerable character and in this one there is just a guy who is like every douchey bro you've ever met in la your entire life dudes i'm sure you definitely had a few of them hit on you i i'm pretty sure i remember a few stories like Pure douchebaggery.

Like these guys suck.

And so they just include one of these guys in the game.

And the entire time,

all three of us were like, if he dies, he dies.

I just don't care about this guy.

And like, it's obvious you could save him.

And we straight up were like,

nah, let him die.

Like, it wasn't, we didn't even fight for this man.

Same.

There is a character in LaQuarri

that fully a couple of times now, we've been like, kind of taking a risk to do this with her.

But like, if she dies, she dies.

I'll be fine if she's not here.

It's it's whatever.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the only time that I, that I vividly remember being disappointed with a, one of these games was I did a group scary game squad where we got, it was like a brand deal.

And we all got paid to play one of the characters.

No, like they're trying to really hype up the multiplayer thing.

And you could, each person could play a different character.

We played that and the main character, literally Iceman from the X-Men, the main character died.

We got him killed like the first 10 minutes, and the game simply was not fun after that because half the scenes were gone.

Like, we literally could not see half the scenes in the game.

And I was like, this sucks.

We screwed up so badly.

Man, made me, it made me furious.

Oh, I hated that.

Oh, I hated that.

And it was like, well, we're being recorded.

It's like, we can't just restart.

Right.

Yeah, that's true.

One of the stupidest things I've ever seen in my entire life.

I was so upset.

It was, I'm going to let you know, it was a contentious moment for the Scaregame Squad.

A lot of bickering happened because people were blaming each other.

Oh, my God.

We were just like, this sucks.

You sucked all.

Yo, yeah, yeah.

It destroyed.

Man and my dad almost sunk the squad.

We were so upset.

That was a bad experience.

I don't even know if I trust you to play anymore.

Yeah.

At that point, we realized we cannot one person has to have the controller we can't all have the controller it does not work sure yeah yeah whenever i play a game like this regardless of who i'm playing it with

chat always goofs that if i'm in control of anything that people will die and i always i always take it very personally and i gotta tell you um currently There is something fucked up or wrong with every single one of my characters in the quarry and all of Sam's characters are fine.

So death bonus.

Chad is letting me know.

Death bonus.

Yeah, so I have to just honestly, I have to just take it, I think.

I can't defend myself.

Yeah, I mean, if it's by myself, I'm totally fine screwing around.

In fact, most of the time I screw around in games, it ends up well.

Like

Detroit Become Human was a game where I absolutely was just trying to, like, all right, what's the plan here?

How do I do this thing?

What's going on?

And every single time it worked out well for me.

Yeah.

And I have no idea why.

I didn't earn it.

I didn't, I didn't, like,

I didn't do it.

It just happened.

I got luck.

I got cocks luck.

You got, you got death bonus.

I have

cox luck.

I, dude, I don't know.

I'm so cursed.

I'm so cursed with these games.

But you have a cat, so that's pretty good.

Yeah, this is Gus.

Dude looks right at camera, too, like, that's right.

It's me.

It's me, Gus.

I'm a cat, bitch.

That cat looks like.

That cat, I just want him to turn to screen again, just so everyone can see that I'm correct.

This cat looks like he says, bitch.

He has the vibe of like, that's right, bitch.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can I ask you a question?

Speaking of games that you definitely should have played, yeah, did you ever play Amanda the Adventurer?

No,

what is that?

Oh, dukes.

Oh, dukesers.

Oh, sweet dukes.

I'm not going to say play the second one.

The second one just came out recently.

It's incredibly fun.

But

Amanda the Adventurer is a game that is half escape room, half puzzle, half

semi-horror.

It's not particularly scary.

Okay.

But

the premise is you are a young woman whose aunt Kate

has sent you a letter saying like, oh my God, there's these weird tapes and I need you to not mess with them.

But like, if you want to look at these tapes, like it's whatever, but like, you know, something's going on with these weird tapes.

Okay.

Right.

And so you're in your attic of your house, I think, and you put in one tape.

And it's of a TV show, a children's TV show that looks like an old PBS TV show.

And it's about Amanda, a little girl, and her friend Woolley.

And it literally, you watch through the tape.

You can pause it at any time.

And the tape is just like an episode of the show.

Except it is

corrupted and weird and like

fourth wall breaking a little bit and very strange.

And then

when you turn around, Something in the room will be different.

And there'll be like a weird thing in the room or a puzzle to solve.

right?

And you'll do all these different things, and you're like, Oh, oh, oh, okay, you'll solve the puzzle, and then another tape will appear, and then you get a new tape, and then you look at this new tape, and you can like solve more puzzle.

But basically, you're in a square room, and there are puzzles, and you're escape rooming, but there is clearly something weird with these tapes.

And the more you watch, the weirder it gets, and the more messed up it gets.

And it's like, okay, what the hell's going on?

It is,

I don't know, a solid three, four-hour game.

I definitely think you should play the first one.

I think you would like the first one a lot.

They just released the second.

Oh, okay.

With, I guess, a potential third on the way.

But they're all connected, and it's all one big story.

And the first one is like the intro to what's going on.

Here's what I'll say to you.

Okay.

Not only do you find tapes that show you more episodes,

but if you do things, I don't know, wrong or in a certain weird way, or you try out some weird things, or you like explore and you do things, you'll find tapes of like a red color or blue color, like, you know, different colored tapes.

And on those will be full-ass live-action actors

doing a whole thing that's like lore for what's happening in the game.

Okay.

And you also

find those secretly and separately while trying to find other things.

So otherwise, you would not know the backstory at all.

It would just be a weird tape that does some weird stuff.

And you'd be like, What does any of this mean?

What is this about?

And the more you find, like, it is absolutely a very cool game.

Interesting.

Yes, I think you would love it.

One moment, keep up

anyway, chat.

I think Dodger would love it.

I love how sentence ended.

I'm going to leave.

Like, oh, okay.

Well,

Amanda, that's pretty good.

Yeah.

By the way, we just, Scary Gammasquad just did Amanda 2.

I'm putting it all together.

It's going to be really good.

Hi.

Hello.

What happened?

Did a crazy girl come knock at your door and be like...

Oh, a crazy cat knocked over a bunch of shit.

And I kicked him out.

Did that cat, when he did it, go bouch?

He did.

Sounds right.

Yeah.

Yep.

He did.

He did.

Yep, yep, yep.

Do we have any news?

Oh, do we ever?

Here's our news situation.

Hey.

By the way, hope you're excited about this.

Yes.

It looks like

this is very important.

We all need to know this.

Two copies of Baldur's Gate 3 have been sold to the Vatican, and one is wish listed.

I would like to hope

against hope that the Pope is like,

I want to play at the Boundary Skate 3.

It'll be so good to make out with Lazelle.

Right?

I want that.

Yeah.

I want the Pope to be like, what can I say?

The devil girl is so hot.

Right?

Yep.

Yep.

Uh-huh.

I make it a paladin and I save her soul.

And then we are smooch.

That's all I want.

That's all I want.

All I can see is Mario in a Pope outfit.

That's all right.

It's me.

Let's go.

To the Vatican.

Am I the Pope?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have no idea what that means.

I just think it's really funny that that is something that was

just put out there into the world and now we all know and we should honestly we should know

Also, the best part about the tweet about it is the very first reply says, sounds like a clerical error, and that's a very good reply.

So, good.

A very good reply.

That's what the internet should be about.

Solid replies like that.

That's

perfect.

Yeah.

Also, in the news,

POW World devs are revealing that

basically

the Pokemon lawsuit is a whole thing, and they're talking about how much money they're being sued for.

Oh, my God.

All that kind of stuff.

According to Pocket Pear,

Nintendo and the Pokemon Company want 5 million yen each, plus late payment damages, as well as an injunction against Powell World that would block the release.

What the heck?

Yeah, Pow World, Pocket

Pear developer is going, you know, dealing with some stuff.

At the same time, they don't

I'm very curious because they're, if you look at what they're saying, Nintendo's basically saying that a lot of the characters from POW World are copies of Pokemon characters.

Sure.

And originally, we thought this was going to be about the balls, but they're going after like this character looks like Pikachu, and this character looks like Snorlax, that kind of thing.

So I guess they're.

So it really was as straightforward as.

Yeah, I guess so.

Each bit of infringement, they're going after so anytime there's anything there they're they're going after it

also they are the the catching mechanic which i think is really funny pocket bear said nintendo and the pokemon company are seeking an injunction against the game and compensation for portion of damages incurred

and then they list patents and one of the patents is this image and I'm going to put it in chat and maybe you can include it in the video as well, but this made me laugh so hard because it is just straight up exactly what you think.

It's the catching mechanic, not the Pokeball.

It's literally

throwing the ball and it being like, you got a Pokemon.

Like that's one of the things that they've trademarked.

Right.

And I keep thinking about how that's super interesting that the concept of throwing a ball and it trapping a guy is a trademark property that you simply cannot use, which is wild to me.

That is.

And I never thought of that before.

That's a thing.

and we were thinking it was the balls right like the idea of the balls and like why not make it a cube or a triangle whatever right this is literally like

we are

the concept of throwing a ball

is is ours now and having it pop open and then trap a thing inside of it yep belongs to nintendo yeah that's the patent for nintendo's trap a guy yeah

But with that said,

Pocket Pear is working with Sony to expand the IP.

They're working to get it on mobile.

They're doing all these things.

So even though Nintendo's like, we're coming for you, they don't seem to care.

Yeah.

Then, of course,

in the world of movies and TV, I just want to say for the record, obviously,

having finished Penguin and knowing what that show is.

Yeah.

The

rating of a five out of 10 given by IGN

is insane to me.

I don't know what's happening over there.

I don't know what that was about.

It seems like clickbait the more I think about it because there's absolutely no way anyone would have given it.

Like that last episode was awesome.

Awesome.

The whole show, awesome.

I don't know what the hell they were thinking.

I don't know what

it seems like rage bait.

I have no clue, but it was rage bait before the show even really came out.

So I don't know what they were thinking, but whatever.

IGN be IGN.

And it makes me laugh because most of the time, you know, they're known for the the seven or eight out of 10.

The fact that they would be like, this is bad.

Right.

On a show that is objectively great.

Whatever.

It's done, though.

Big fan of that.

Also, this week, we learned that there's going to be a Black Panther 3.

And in Black Panther 3, Denzel Washington will be in it, which, you know what?

I'm going to let you know.

I am permanently and always here for Denzel.

Yeah.

Anytime, anywhere, I will show up.

But my man Denzel.

Then,

in a world in which we needed this, and I don't know why, but I'm here for it.

Yeah.

We got the trailer for what I assume is the last Mission Impossible movie.

And...

How do they keep making these?

There are so many.

Much, much like,

I think,

the Fast and Fierce movies.

The longer they go on, the more entertained I am by them.

Like, I fundamentally

believe the last movie was very, the last Mission Impossible movie was great.

The one before that might be my favorite, one of my favorite scenes.

And like,

watching them cock their arms like badasses to fight is one of the coolest shit.

You know what?

I love Mission Apostle movies.

No shame in this game.

Yeah.

So very excited for this next one.

There's currently

seven of those movies.

This will be the eighth.

Yep.

That's fuck wild.

Yep.

Yeah, and he's fighting.

He's fighting an AI.

That's literally the plot is the bad guy is an AI.

He couldn't beat the AI last time.

It outsmarted him.

And now he's got to come back for a second movie to fight an AI that's trying to take over the world.

He can't do it.

I love that.

I just love it.

We've got Mission Impossible.

We've got the Bond movies.

We've got Fast and Furious.

And then for some reason, we've got Land Before Time.

I feel like those are the four movie series that have just gone on.

Yeah, those are the four ones that never end.

Yeah.

You know what?

It sucks that someone somewhere was like, guys, what if we milk Land Before Time to the point where it's unrecognizable?

Like the other ones are the same thing.

Like Bond movies tend to go off the wall after a while.

Like

every so often, like they always have to escalate to the point where my favorite Bond movie, by the way, is might be the worst one where the bad guy in the beginning

is killed.

And then gets cosmetic surgery.

A North Korean dictator gets killed, gets cosmetic surgery to become like a taller white dude, and then he's with a British accent.

He's like, James Bond, you'll never defeat me.

Like, it is an incredible, like, that movie's insane.

And there's a laser, and they fight on ice.

Like, it just gets so over the top.

And that's the exact same way with Fast and Furious and Mission Impossible.

Again, my man's fighting an AI that's buried in a sub underneath the Arctic.

Like, just crazy stuff.

Yeah.

And then they did that to Land Before Time too.

They were like, Land Before Time is going to get weird as well.

Like, oh, okay, cool.

Amazing.

Nonsense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then, of course, we have some fun releases.

Farming Simulator 25.

For those of you who love Farming Simulator, I don't know who you are, but

I know you're out there.

I know you're out there because people love Farming Simulator.

They do.

Farming Simulator 25.

Tetris forever.

Obviously, like most of the Tetris games is going to be well reviewed and people are going to love it and play Tetris because Tetris is Tetris.

Dragon Quest III, the HD 2D remake, is out now.

Had a blast playing it.

Very fun.

Solid,

solid addition to the world of Dragon Quest.

Lego Horizon Adventures is here.

If you want to play with Legos and Aloy, go nuts.

It looks to be a ton of fun.

Something I wish.

The normal Horizon games focused on.

Having a good time.

Instead of being constantly depressing.

Also,

Song of Silence, which is a turn-based strategy game, is out right now.

And another one that I absolutely think, Dodger, you might like a lot called Follow the Meaning.

Very rusty-like vibes.

Yeah.

And then next week, just to give you a little heads up of what's coming down the pipeline, Spirit Mancer, Microsoft Flight Sim, and Stalker 2 are next week.

So

get down to clown with those.

Hell yeah, dude.

Yep, awesome.

Thanks so much for the news.

What's going on with you this week?

What's your life?

This week is

kind of

getting some stuff done that should be pretty interesting for y'all, I hope.

Obviously, Amanda the Adventure 2 will probably be Monday on the channel.

I'm just going to upload the whole damn thing, so have fun with that.

It'll be about way too many hours.

And then the next big thing is probably going to be a beginner's guide to Hades because as Hades 2 is coming down the pipeline, we're working on a,

hey, if you want to play Hades 2, but you don't have the time to play Hades, here's a fun little video that will explain what's going on in the super, you know, like the super giant verse of Vinja Games that is Hades.

And you can jump in and experience it for yourself.

So that's also on the list of things coming down the pipeline.

Nice.

Yeah.

Well, for me,

generally, it's the same old, same old.

But in Dodger Coffee News, we have a mug with Crendor that just launched today.

It's very cute.

It's got his little sloth with a Dodger Coffee apron and holding a cup.

It's adorable.

So

if you haven't checked out the store before, it's DodgerCoffeeCo.com.

And we have a roast with him, too, if you missed that.

We've got a French roast with Crendor along with the mug.

So that's fun.

And tomorrow, I'm going to be recording the next episode.

Not tomorrow.

Monday.

Going to be recording the next episode of Anime Cult, which is an anime podcast that I'm on with Mathis and Indy Mouse.

We're doing our solo leveling episode.

So that'll be coming out soon.

And

aside from that, it's just same old, same old over here for me, I think.

Just being a little goofer.

Sounds lovely.

Sounds like a lovely time.

And

maybe we can play more Life is Strange.

I would love to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

also

we need to contact trendor find time for gabo

yes let's gobbo again that was also gabbos is fun love being a gabbo do i enjoy goblining it's potentially the only way i'm ever gonna get through balder's gate so oh my god i forgot to oh i'm so dumb oh really quickly what really quickly before we wrap what

in dragon quest iii Yes, you can create characters, right?

And there are many, many characters in your party you can choose choose from.

And they have everything from a thief to

like a merchant to like, you know, the normal

melee guy and the wizard or whatever.

But they also have a clown.

Okay.

And I was like, what the hell does a clown do?

Why does he have so much luck?

What is a clown's, like, what is clown-based attacks?

How does it work?

So I made a clown named Crendor.

And I've been using him in battle.

Half the time, he does no damage.

Half the time, he falls asleep mid-combat.

Half the time, instead of attacking, he taunts the enemies.

I don't know what his purpose is.

I expected you to say, and he's wound up being my most powerful.

No, but

I gave him a boomerang.

He throws it and hits everyone for one damage.

I gave him a different weapon.

He misses every time.

There's times in combat where he'll be like, Niener, Niener, you stink, and then do nothing.

And I'm like, what is the point?

I literally put him on auto so I don't have to use any of his abilities and I just let him do his thing and nothing gets done.

He is useless to me.

I don't know.

But here's the thing.

He's level 13 and he went from having like 10 luck to 161 luck.

I don't know what luck does for me.

Everyone's saying it increases my crits and makes him like not hitable.

Here's the thing.

The man's not doing anything anyway.

i have no idea what this character is for i don't know i'm seeing this through to the end amazing clown crendor is the goofiest i don't know what the point is i must know

well so that's what i'm doing you reminded me when you said crendor you reminded me of like oh yeah i do have a terrible character in a video game named crendor who's doing nothing of value which is on brand very so it's fine yeah yeah oh my goodness amazing well if you've enjoyed listening to this podcast, watching this podcast, experiencing this podcast, you can find the VOD and the VODs for all of the other geek enders on youtube.com/slash jessecox.

True.

But otherwise, we'll just

be back here, same geek ender time, same geek ender channel next Friday.

Yep.

So take care of yourselves.

Have an amazing weekend and we'll see you next time.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Yeah, yeah, you know what time it is.

It's time for the geek in this podcast.

Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

What up?

Let's go.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow and see what the geekiners are all about.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Go on, stream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow.

Number one geek podcast without a doubt.

Yo, another end of another long week.

Got a job and a kid, I know that you all beat.

So, take a second, grab a drink, and vibe while we catch you up in just a matter of time on gaming, comics, whatever you're doing.

If you're nerdy like us, then you know you should tune in.

Thank you for sharing our world with us.

Now, follow, subscribe, and turn this up.

Yo, it's the weekend.

Yeah, it's time to geek out.

Let it begin.

Come on, scream and shout.

It's Jesse and Dodger.

So give them a follow.

Number one, geek podcast.

Without a doubt.

Elite Basketball returns to the Elite Caribbean destination.

It's the 2025 Battle for Atlantis men's tournament happening November 26th to 28th.

Don't miss hometown team St.

Mary's, along with Colorado State, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, Western Kentucky, South Florida, VCU, and Wichita State, playing 12 games over three days.

It's basketball at its best, plus everything Atlantis has to offer.

Aqua Venture Water Park, White Sand Beaches, World Class Dining, and more.

Get your tickets and accommodations at battleforatlantis.com.

A happy place comes in many colors.

Whatever your color, bring happiness home with CertaPro Painters.

Get started today at Certapro.com.

Each Certipro Painters business is independently owned and operated.

Contractor license and registration information is available at Certapro.com.

There's nothing like sinking into luxury.

At washablesofas.com, you'll find the Anibay sofa, which combines ultimate comfort and design at an affordable price.

And get this, it's the only sofa that's fully machine washable from top to bottom, starting at only $699.

The stain-resistant performance fabric slip covers and cloud-like frame duvet can go straight into your wash.

Perfect for anyone with kids, pets, or anyone who loves an easy-to-clean, spotless sofa.

With a modular design and changeable slip covers, you can customize your sofa to fit any space and style.

Whether you need a single chair, love seat, or a luxuriously large sectional, Annabe has you covered.

Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home.

Right now, you can shop up to 60% off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Shop now at washablesofas.com.

Add a little

to your life.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.