40: The Geekenders: ESO Danny Chats about Baldur's Gate 3, Space Marines, and more!

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Mega Rand, Jesse, and Dodger.

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Number one geek podcast, without a doubt.

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Without a a doubt.

Hello, everybody.

Hello.

Welcome to Geekenders.

I didn't give them any sort of a run-in on that.

I feel really bad.

Hello.

Welcome to another exciting episode of Geekenders with Jesse and Dodger and our lovely guest, ESO Danny.

Hello.

Who I have just met recently.

And I think we vibed very well.

So I'm so glad that you're on the show.

How did this meeting happen?

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

What do you mean just met recently?

What was the like,

was it a bit cute?

What happened?

It is, it is good.

Part of it is NDA.

So we can,

we can do it.

I do want to talk about our first meeting because we were literally, well, metaphorically, we were put in a room and we had a vibe check to see

if there was a vibe between us.

yes what is this wait what

that was very strange

all right so what you're clearly under nda so i am gonna try and interpret this okay the two of you went to a cult and while you were there the cult said hey we need people to group up for the next activity which may involve some form of sacrifice and we need to know that you vibe together because if you don't it's gonna make the sacrifice really weird so we're gonna stick you all in a room together we're gonna call call it seven minutes of heaven and if the two of you can sacrifice someone in that room then we know you're ready for prime time

yeah i mean you're almost there

it was in a glass box and people were observing us while we tried to vibe together That's so weird.

That's way weirder than what I thought.

Yeah.

There were a bunch of rich fat cats.

It was like a one-sided mirror and like they could see inside and see whether or not it was a social experiment to see if we would sacrifice somebody.

Yeah.

There are these guys in pink jumpsuits with like symbols on their faces and they kept yelling at us and some money was hanging in the sky.

It was very weird.

Yeah, it was crazy.

No,

we are co-hosts for a indie showcase called Convergence that hasn't gone live yet.

We can't talk about what's in it or any of that sort of stuff.

But yeah, they basically came to each of us individually to be hosts for it.

And then they were like, but we need to make sure that you guys don't hate each other.

Yeah, like it was, you could either not, like, we could have beef.

We've never met.

We could have beef because we're streamers.

So streamers always have beef with each other for, I don't know, we've stepped on each other's toes.

Or the other reason was maybe like we just can't, like, I don't know, just

chat and mingle.

And yeah, there's no chemistry.

It's just boring to watch.

Let me ask, let me ask a question.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is there still the potential for beef?

Because we've been looking for beef with this show.

I am.

Oh, damn.

That's how you get ultra ultra famous is if you like beef with someone.

And I'm just, even though there's like, what is better?

This is a genuine question.

Beef with no history or friendship that blossoms into beef.

Because I feel like that's got some like loaded, you know?

Yeah.

Like it's only

because you were friends before.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like, I like the element of history there because then when you have beef, you can bring up like some deep dark stuff, you know?

Oh, goacha.

I think, I i think the best way to like create beef is to get a bunch of friends together put them in like you know a land party and then play like mario kart like that is how you create beef you know like friendships relationships everything just gets thrown out right i feel like um

this is a process learning to beef you can't just walk in onto the stage and be like I'm beefing.

You got to like start from the ground and work your way up from,

you know the hoof up to the snoot you gotta get that beef going

to lose oddly enough we were put into a call to see whether or not we would you know have good like friendship chatting chemistry but it feels like people with beef would also need some sort of a vibe check to see like is your beef exciting enough you know oh yeah

You can't start a beef with someone and the other person not reciprocate the level of beef that you have.

Like, if I come at you with full beef and you're like, yeah, fourth of a pound of beef, that's not good beef.

I do.

Because then you just come off the super aggressive, and the other person is very relaxed.

As the observer, when there is a situation when there's some sort of drama where one person's like, they're my rival.

I hate them so much.

And the other person's like, I don't even know who you are.

I eat that up.

It's just so awkward.

It's so awkward.

I just love it.

I don't know.

Maybe that's messy of me.

No, no, that's great.

Who doesn't love that?

We always love to see that, you know.

But someone comes in at this energy level and the other guy's just like, what?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so much worse to be neutral.

If somebody loves you or hates you and the other person is neutral, it's like.

Oh, that's disappointing.

So is this

secret thing?

Anyways, is this secret thing a thing that has already happened or is it a thing that will happen?

We have recorded, it's a our segments are pre-recorded.

So we've recorded it.

We know everything that's in the show, but that's the part that's anyway.

We can't talk about what's happening.

That's the one thing I never realized was the fact that we've watched Laz Games, you've watched so many game showcases, but I never realized how much effort actually goes into it behind the scenes to put that kind of thing together.

It was a lot of work.

Especially when it's not just live streamed, right?

Like, I feel like you can just wing it when you're live streaming stuff and you're just reacting to things.

But this was, yeah, there was so much work went into this.

Like, not just, I think you see the co-host and you're like, oh, yeah, you know, they're doing their thing.

But oh man, there's so many other people that are working behind the scenes to put it all together.

And that was what was super surprising to me.

So being a part of that was really cool.

Question for the two of you.

So I get a vibe of this without you spoiling anything.

We'll answer if we can.

Did you have to

dress up or were you just in t-shirts?

We did not dress up i think it's okay for us to say that yeah i think i think that's okay i feel i feel like i'm like what vibe are we giving off here where like what do you think that is gonna happen in the show where we're dressed up

i think i think he means like were we were we like

like really put together or were we like you know formal

Yeah, were you like

in a giant dinosaur suit?

You know, like there's levels of indie showcase that's true and sometimes indie showcases get like a little too big for their bridges and sometimes it's like we're doing indie games let's have fun and sometimes it's a cult and i just want to know where you were and sometimes you get thrown into a glass chamber with some rich fat cats and you sacrifice your day rich fat cats which happened in my version

I know Dodgers like rich fat cats and you, I think you mean just like wealthy dudes, but in my version, it's you in a blue dress box surrounded by giant cats who are smoking cigars like meows that would be better

that would be better yeah

yeah so yeah that's how that's how uh we met and um long story short i thought we got along quite well me too now it would be funny i could create the beef there and be like actually

you should have i mean no we didn't we didn't get along well

i hated you so much i invited you on the the show.

Yeah, so that we could air it out live on the show, please.

The worst part is there's definitely a show out there that that's the premise.

I met you and I hated you.

We're going to air our drama out right now.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Only good vibes too.

Yeah.

Can we start beef with that show?

Because I feel like that's perfect.

Oh my gosh.

We've never talked about doing that.

Starting beef with another podcast.

There's potential here.

There's potential.

Someone in mind

to have.

We know a lot of people with podcasts, but it would have to be the right one.

Yeah, it would have to be one that wouldn't hit below the belt because I don't want to be, like, I don't want to, I don't want it to hurt.

I don't want us to get horrifically ratioed because

that's embarrassing.

Also, because I don't want us to be the guy that's like, I hate you, you're my rival.

And they're like, we don't know who you are.

We can't do that.

Yeah, no, I don't know.

I'm not an outsider.

Also, I feel like our viewers don't have the like they're here to watch and have fun and then go about their life.

I don't think they have the zealotry in order to commit to a solid beef.

And I feel like if we go up against another podcast, that's like, you know,

there's some people, I'm just going to say it, their audiences are like a little wild.

And I feel like I don't want that.

I don't want that drama because when they start coming for me, this chat's going to be like, yeah, no, you deserve that, dude.

You really.

We got to match energy, is what you're saying.

I have an angry mobile off to you at that point.

While we were showing the intro and stuff, Jesse was mumbling to himself that there was something he really wanted to remember to talk about on the show.

And I was curious if you remembered what it was.

So the new...

I did.

I did.

The new Ender Lilies game is coming soon.

And I don't know if anyone remembers that game.

It's like a few years old.

The best way to describe it is Metroidvania meets New grounds game is the vibe like the art had a new grounds vibe to it uh extremely hard went back and this past week went through the original still too hard for me still it's still

i really like that game i thought that game was very fun yeah it's very it's it's uh it's one of those things where if if you're looking for a deep story i don't know that's the game for you but it does have some interesting like art and some very cool mechanics and

I'm trying to think of like where I'd put on the scale of like

Prince of Persia-e, where that one was a lot of platform, like get your butt beat by platform things.

This is more of like get your butt beat by a monster that can one-shot you, even though you've outleveled it by like 700 levels.

You know what I mean?

Oh, God.

I'm trying to remember.

This is the one where you're

a

tiny girl and you have you like use other things to fight, right?

You have the premises you're a little bit more.

You're like a stand user.

Yeah, yeah, yeah you're like a little witch girl yeah and you're you're a white witch question mark and you have to uh dispel purge whatever the word may be a world that's covered in blight and something has happened and you wake up and a night ghost question mark is like hey i'm here to protect you and i'm gonna like come with you so you walk around as her but then uh spirits Fight for you.

And so your main one, you have a knight, but you also can get like a nun who has like a mace.

You can get all these different things.

But the best one by far is there's a

guy who's like a

not sure what, some sort of knight, but he has a spear and he, and you can fly across the screen if he grabs you.

And when he grabs you to do different platforming things and fly across the screen, my man just goes,

the little girl just flies like Superman in his arms.

It's hilarious.

Like the worst ability, but you just take it for the meme value.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And it's, it's, it's weird because it isn't necessarily difficult, but things hit so hard that it is difficult, if that makes any sense.

So like,

you'll be fighting a normal enemy and he'll do like an uppercut ability that does two-thirds of your life, even though you're like level 85.

And you're like, how the hell did that happen?

And it's that kind of thing where you have to manage.

just the total beatdown you take, but I guess it's also because you're a little girl.

So, I mean, like, who's uppercutting a little girl?

That's a monster, which is why I got to tell him.

I went to check because I thought I 100%ed that game, and I was missing one achievement.

And now I'm

reaching to level 100.

That's actually the easiest thing to do.

Turns out I have, I'll have to re-download the game and stuff.

Well, you could get the, you can max it out.

There's there's two items in the game: one gives you bonus experience, and another one gives you even more bonus experience.

And equipping both, you just plow through experience.

And so it's like super.

It's it's a fun game.

I definitely hope that they

like, I would say it's a solid eight out of 10, maybe.

But I hope that the sequel is like, they learned a bunch of stuff and they made it a little more fleshed out.

But yeah, I saw that was coming and was like, oh,

so it was nice to, oh, and also, I don't know if it's still there, but on PlayStation, it's free if you have PlayStation Plus at the moment.

Oh, that's great.

You might as well just go grab it.

Definition side scrollers like this, like, what was the other one?

Blasphemous one and two.

2.

Oh my gosh, I love that.

I brought like the R book for that because I was like, the R style is so beautiful.

It's so like grungy, dark, and sort of gothic.

But when I actually tried to play the game, I'm so bad at side-scrollers, I just can't play it.

But I love the art, you know, and I always, this always happens with side-scrollers to me where the art style is stunning, but I'm just not good enough to actually get through it.

I do feel like Blasphemous 2, they really improved the feel of it.

The first one I remember struggling with landing properly on ledges and things like that.

And I think the second one, they really cleaned that up.

But

yeah, I have to get back to that.

It's fun.

They're fun games.

They're weird.

They're super weird.

The second one, there's like a weird giant floating hand.

If I recall, is that the right?

Is that blasphemous too?

It sounds like it would be, to be fair.

Yeah,

that asks for fervent kisses.

Is that?

I'm sorry, what?

I think it's a blasphemous too.

There's a giant hand that does this.

And when you go to it, it's like, give me fervent kisses.

That was at least the voice that I gave it.

I can't believe I'm typing in.

I'm typing in blasphemous too, giant hand.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, I see it.

Look for fervent kisses hand.

Yeah, and it's a bunch of people smooching the fingers, right?

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.

it's super weird yep that is

believing it's you say all right yeah i uh i refused to kiss that hand for a really long time and i kept waiting for something bad to happen

yeah i mean it's like one day you'll come back and smooch my fingers

it's very weird i do think

the first blasphemous the reason that it that it did as well as it did despite it not always feeling like that that good to play

it's just the the aesthetic and the style of it was so good you know and unique yeah so last of us too is very good i think i'll have to test out on ace of that because i like the first game put me off because i was just like i'm not good enough to play this but at least i'm supporting their art so that's fine do you enjoy metroidvanias in general i'm not i don't really play them to be honest i'm i'm terrible at side scrolls I think like Castlevania, I played as a kid.

And then I was like, yeah, this is pretty difficult.

But mostly role-play games, like 3D Worlds, that kind of thing.

I'm with you on the role-playing game side.

I think because I played so many when I was young, I'm more geared towards that than Metroidvanias or platformers.

The last time I really was into Metroidvanias was like

Symphony of the Night, which is a long time ago.

And so I don't have a lot of, yeah, I don't have a lot of

like

modern Metroavania experience.

So when I play them in my mind, I'm like,

got this.

This is going to be easy.

And then something, I'll just see a ledge and the ledge will be something that I have to have a double jump or some special thing to get to.

And I will

try.

I'm like, maybe,

maybe I make, maybe I can do that.

And I had to like readjust my whole brain.

It took forever.

I'm talking like years of readjusting to be like, okay,

I cannot get that right now.

And I understand.

And so once you like get back in that mindset of, okay, I just need to play, because they have that weird completionist vibe where playing an RPG, if you're walking down a hallway and there's three ways, I'm like, I'm going every way, but the right way right now.

And in a Metroidvania vibe, you cannot do that.

You have to just accept

going where you're going.

And the adventure is you will find it all eventually.

And

it like

drove me crazy for years.

I was just like, it's right there.

And if I just, why can't I, but it's right there.

Yeah.

So you just have to let go.

You have to, it's a little bit of ego death or something.

You just got to let go of it.

Yeah.

No, I'm definitely the RPG player who just likes to do the weird things in the game to see how far you can push it.

That's a lot of fun to me.

Similar in DD.

That's always fun.

Did you get into Baldur's Gate?

Oh, God.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Baldur's Gate was amazing.

That, that, to me, was just like really

showcased to the game industry how high quality video games can be and how they can just be like one price, an incredible experience.

And even just keep adding free content, just keep making it better for free.

It was so weird as a video gamer to sort of go into that and be like, this is what we could have had, you know?

Best game I've played in probably the last decade or so.

I've researched that.

Oh, yeah.

I'm really curious what their follow-up will be and how that will go because

I'm hoping this is not the case.

But one of the things I've noticed is a lot of the times when a company who up until that point has produced good games, but not like universally recognized games, when they have their first big hit.

Everyone's like, that's how you do it.

This is how games should be made.

This is the future of gaming.

And then the next follow-up usually is suddenly because they have attention money is being thrown at it and different people have different opinions and the people who had like there's all sorts of layers and the next one never really lives up to the hype of the first and i don't know that'll be the case here because i feel like just layering as a studio does not give a about anything other than like let's make something fun

but that said many studios like them before have had the exact same vibe and then their next game it just turns out to be like all over the place and they have to recalibrate and get back to where they were.

So I'm really

curious.

I think you're on something there, but I think it's also probably the reason they stepped away from DD partnership so that they could, because they had that all over the place.

Personally, they lost their first Larian projects with the original games they did, which was still good, but they had their flaws.

Then you can see Boulder's Gate was kind of like, you know, Bethesda Game Studios Skyrim, where everything sort of came together at the right time and worked really well.

But then I kind of of got the vibe from Sven in interviews, the CEO of Larry and Studios, when he was talking about, you know, how it was to work with a fifth edition and you've got to answer to wizards about the IP.

I think he wants the freedom again to do what he wants in his own world.

And I wouldn't be surprised if it's like very similar to DND.

But I think it will be

his own thing that's fun.

Different, but still similar.

Because I mean, their last game just still was similar.

It just had like a fifth edition paint Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, and just going back to like

Dodger, did you ever play Dragon Commander?

I know we talked about it.

We talked about it a bunch, but I never played it.

No, but it's like Dragon Commander is a perfect example of a game where the bones of what they do with RPG stuff and character choice are there.

The gameplay is super jank.

It is not necessarily the most fun gameplay in the world, but the like

choice system where

and you know, it's one of my favorite stories in the world.

It literally got with an evil like queen succubus lady and then killed her to become stronger and i was like this is the greatest game i've ever played i was like crazy i was like the choice that i had in this is insane and i'm i and you can see they do that with the divin like original sin games and then to see it like come fully into a dnd setting

i'm i know that whatever they make next will be good and it's not like one of those things where it's gonna be crap they're just gonna be like weird compromises that i'm worried about because of success you know where it's like once you become big time, when you go from being like,

we're a triple A company, but we make double A games, which is especially a lot of European companies have this vibe where it's like, we're gonna release a lot of games and they're gonna be, some are gonna be good, some are gonna be like whatever, but we're gonna have one giant hit.

And then after that, everyone's like, I want in.

How can I help?

And then there's like weird compromise things that happen and the game turns out to be like, it's fine.

It's good, but it's not nearly as good as the first one.

And it happens so frequently, like a lot.

And

yeah, I don't know.

I'm not, this isn't like I don't have faith in Larian.

I'm sure they'll be making a good game, but it's a weird vibe that I just see happen frequently where it's like this game's amazing.

And everyone's like, I can't wait for the next one.

And the next one, you're like, it's all right.

I think that's the problem, right?

It was the same thing with Cyberpunk, where everyone puts, like, after Witcher 3, everyone puts you on that pedestal.

where, and there's like a big cult following.

There's no way the studio can fail.

But the sort of like level becomes so impossible to reach that the game comes out, like, I think it's great, but everyone else, everyone had a different expectation of what that game is going to be.

So it's so difficult to meet that.

And I think, like you say, like, I think Larian will definitely have that in the next game.

No matter what it is, it won't be as good as someone's, you know, nostalgic fifth edition experience of D and D in Boulder's Gate and the stories there.

Although I will, you know, I'll stay corrected.

A lot of American companies do this too.

Dragon Age is a perfect example.

From one to two, total different experience.

You're like, what the hell is this second game?

So, touche.

Yeah, I, uh, it's uh,

it could just be the thing that happens in the music industry, all like that sophomore slump kind of vibe of like, we had a great first album and now we have our like second, and it's all right, but it's not like as good.

Um,

yeah, I don't know.

We'll see.

I'm, I'm excited, though.

I think they've produced a genuine, incredible game that, if anything, they should spend the next X number of years pumping out additional things like they just did and being like, yeah, now you can play as like Cobals and now you can play as this and enjoy.

And we'll give you support for like that game could be.

Mod support, I think, is going to

really change the game now.

Yeah.

To have official mod support.

Yeah.

And

the.

Interesting thing would be if they end up doing what they did with Divinity Original Scent 2, which is like game master mode.

yes.

Which is like, hey, you can just make your own DD story in our game.

If they did that, oh my god, that'd be it.

There'd be so many people who do DD streams.

Oh, I don't forget.

We did this whole thing where poor Matthew Mercer had to be our DM and we made it terrible for him.

Yeah, we did.

I'll never forget that.

I very far

poor Matt.

Back

to me the vlog for that.

That sounds

like it was, it was like back, it was before critical role stuff started started taking off i think i think it was right when critical role started taking off yeah so we the entire time we were talking

oh my god we had we we like became friends with a pig npc and then that pig ended up killing the bad guy it was great it was like one of the most beautiful things ever done but every time he was like

gorgoth the monster approaches you i'm like i talked to him He's like, Gorgoth wants to eat you.

I'm like, why is Gorgoth hungry?

I would like to talk.

He was so stupid.

Mistakes were made.

Very fun.

Oh, that's actually really good.

That sounds like a DM's worst nightmare, though.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, I feel bad.

He deserved better.

That man deserved better than us.

Dude.

Yeah,

there was Satine Phoenix did a thing called Chera D20.

um in LA a while back.

And it was just like a bunch of little DD games all happening at the same time that people could watch and like donate.

And that was, I think, the first time that I met Matt.

And I was sitting there going, Man, this guy's got so many good voices.

Didn't realize he was a voice actor.

Didn't realize like I knew nothing about him.

I just like had the absolute delight of being jump scared by being at a table with him.

And he was so lovely.

And

yeah, I'm glad that he's doing so well now because he's just a

great to see, right?

Like, like a little plucky upstart doing it.

You know, it's nice.

Nice to see he's like making a name for himself or whatever.

Yeah, it's like, you know.

I was there,

is what I'm saying.

Yes.

We have a history.

Oh, dude.

This is it.

Can we start critical roll beef?

Oh, damn.

Oh, yeah.

That's punching up big time, dude.

Yeah, but like, that's punching up, dude.

People will come in the chat and tell us we suck but they'll stick around to see our reaction

that'll be history there as well you've already yeah we do

we do have history we do have history that's true and technically we beat him i believe d d works that you beat the the dm right so i feel like

we beat him we won dnd yeah we're already one and oh against matt mercer so like is this the time do we start the beef and then they'll come into chat and they'll yell at us their fan base and i'll be like no it is you who the ones who suck.

And they'll be like, oh, but they'll stick around because they.

Yes.

And then Matt can go on social media and be like, guys, no, I don't condone this, you know, because

he's nice.

But in that way, people will be like, condone what?

And then they'll come in and then I'll go in the

wise and be like, condone these nuts.

And then, right?

And then all the people start.

Right, right, right, right, right, right.

Then half of the YouTube video addressing the controversy.

And it will wait on.

Yes, yes, yes.

Here we go.

You know what?

I'm on board.

Yeah, let's do it.

We're going to get destroyed.

Have you ever, yeah, not to, not to

use our incredible audience to drive traffic to Critical Role, but like, have you, have either of you watched Critical Role?

I, I can't,

I don't have the fortitude.

It's so long.

Yeah, I've watched one where they did like a one trick in the Elder Scrolls online universe, which is quite funny because like some of them obviously had no idea like the kind of races and characters that they had to play but they were just like running with it and it was still pretty funny but like yeah it's it's interesting when they've got to kind of do that ip crossover but you don't know much about the ip and there's all these fans watching it must be so hard i i will love watching new players though sorry jesse go for it no haven't watched the show i've even been told this to like at this past uh game awards i was talking to matt mercer i was like dude i have not seen the show once not once however

the animation, great.

It's good stuff.

Box Machina.

Yeah.

It's very good.

Go watch that instead.

You don't have to watch 800 episodes of a DD.

Just watch that.

This is the start of the beef.

This is it right now.

Wait, wait, hold on.

Our start of the beef is, don't watch their show.

Go watch their other show.

That's the start of our beef.

Yes.

Yeah.

Don't watch the show they do.

Because

Box Machina is different from the Critical Role podcast show thing, right?

Is it a podcast?

It doesn't count as a podcast.

I guess because they're on like

story three or whatever the hell you call that.

And that would be their campaign one.

But their campaign two is also being a story.

Look,

when is our story going to be told?

Amazon, call us.

So true.

Does Amazon not know of the DD legend of Grubthack the Deballer and Dodger's character who I don't remember the name of, who would set herself on fire, and the only way to put her out was to pee on her?

What?

What is is wrong like

that my first dnd experiences danny just to give you an idea yeah uh our sweet dodger decided to be some sort of mage that you sacrificed a bunch of abilities just so you could self-emolate and hug people to death i believe is what your ability was that's beautiful it was very good the dm made The DM made a role in order to determine if you could put out the fire.

And

one time she could not.

So I had my spirit wolves pee on her and it put out the fire.

So what I'm saying is, why isn't that Amazon TV worthy?

Don't people want to hear

TV?

I mean, really.

What about our story?

Right.

Right?

Like, what about the story of Grub Factory Baller, a man who takes the balls of his enemies?

What's...

I don't even.

I can see nothing going wrong with Amazon, you know, putting that out there.

And

poor Danny, like, how do i respond yeah no what do i say

i was i was kind of like when i came on here i was like i don't really know much about the podcast yeah apart from what dodg just sent me i've seen a few things and here we are you know just taking people's balls as trophies starting beef yeah yeah

on the podcast i don't know like

we can do anything i mean you know anything we can talk about just about anything yeah yeah

hey on a positive note and a totally different upbeat note sure the new mana game came out.

I've been playing that a bunch.

The new Visions of Mana.

Out of all the mana games I've played recently, it's the most like OG feeling.

Even though it is clearly modern and updated and has a 3D vibe to it, it feels like you're playing the old games.

Even the enemies have that like, why are we killing this?

This is the cutest thing I've ever seen in my entire life.

This guy's like the biggest little goober.

And he's like, man.

You're like, kill him.

That guy's evil.

And you're like, okay.

It's

unless unless you die.

Yeah, it's got some really cool fight mechanics.

You can switch out weapons.

You can have one sword or giant super sword.

Different characters can have like a boomerang or a staff.

There's all sorts of different things you can do.

The magic system feels very old school.

You have like all the old original,

I don't want to say summons, but elementals, like Undine and

Umbra, all those guys.

It feels great.

It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea because it's so very anime like some say the animeist

but um

it's it's very fun gameplay wise having a blast um

yeah i'm like vibing over here with some old fun uh games so like shout out to visions of mana it's a good vibe yeah oh sweet okay i've never even played any of them um the original one like secrets of mana

I've heard of Secrets of Mana, and now they've done it.

I just Googled it all in 3D, essentially.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Secrets of Mana is an incredible game, one of my favorites.

It's during that weird period during the 90s where Square could do no wrong, and it is a phenomenal experience.

But this one, so they've released other ones.

There's like

Legends of Mana, and like there's all sorts of different ones.

They even do like Secrets of Evermore, which is a whole other thing.

But it's like a bunch of different games that exist in the mana universe, but they all have like different takes on it.

This is the first time it feels like we're going to do a modern version of what felt like the old games.

absolutely here for it.

Love it.

So,

yeah, I'm curious.

I'm not that far, so I don't know where it's going to go story-wise.

But the story doesn't seem too all like, whoa, this is some dark stuff.

Right now, it's just like,

although that's a lie.

I take it back.

The main premise of the game is you are taking a bunch of people who have been selected to sacrifice themselves to the mana tree to keep the world alive.

That's pretty simple.

There's a theme today.

However, with that said, everyone's thrilled about it.

Everyone has this vibe of like, yes.

But a character who I'm convinced is going to be the villain, his whole thing is like, they wanted to sacrifice my girlfriend, who, by the way, hot redhead, and I'm with him.

I would have defied, I would have defied the gods on that completely.

And he's like, they want to sacrifice her.

And I was like, hell no.

And my town got destroyed.

And I'm like, but he's like so nice that I'm like, hold on.

Is this guy really gonna be the bad guy?

But I feel like he's going full bad guy.

Anyway, a lot of stuff in there.

It's it's got, but it's a weird vibe.

The whole game is like, gonna walk these people to go die to this tree.

But everyone's like, yeah, we're gonna do it.

And I'm like, is this gonna end up being like Final Fantasy X?

Where Yuna's like, I have to do this.

And it's like, okay.

And then by the end, she's like, that was a terrible idea.

Why'd I get why?

Why didn't you try to stop me?

I feel like that's gonna happen, but we'll see.

Good vibes.

Good vibes.

Good vibes.

Danny, do you have a good vibes game that you played this week?

I've been playing a few games this week.

The new Harry Potter Quidditch game.

And then the opposite, which is 440k Space Marine 2.

Oh my God, Sam.

My husband has been playing that constantly since it came out.

I love that game.

It's fantastic.

I think they've done like a real fan service.

I don't want to spoil it or anything, but if you've played the first one as well, there's like, you know, narrative plots for us that all make sense and all

sort of it just, it really, like, you know, especially if you play the tabletop, you've got like all these miniatures that Games Workshop makes, all these different armies and whatnot.

And then seeing them finally all in action in the cinematics, kind of like how you've tried to imagine them as a child in your head.

It's really cool, like having that come to life.

And I think

it's, yeah, go on.

So, so you've played a lot, yes?

Oh, Spacebring 2, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Story-wise, the first one ends on sort of like, well,

what's happening to our boy?

Where's he going?

Is that addressed at all, or does my man just show up?

Like, I'm back.

Yeah, worry about it.

No, no, it's it's totally addressed in a really cool way.

And I just don't want to, I don't want to spoil it because it's, it's done that well.

Um,

and a lot of the things that happened in the first game hum up again in ways you you really like they're kind of like, oh, damn, okay, you know, and you kind kind of have to play through it to experience it because it would totally spoil it if I sort of like said why it was so cool.

But yeah, playing through that main story was great.

And like all the different creatures and the animations and like the executions and stuff.

I wanted the campaign to be longer, though.

It was only like six hours, 20 minutes

took me to play through it.

And I was like, damn, I just want more of this.

Why does it have to stop?

Sure.

I have no idea.

I haven't looked.

I haven't watched anybody play it.

What genre is this game?

Because I don't think it's what I think it is.

So it's like, what genre?

So it's sci-fi, I would say.

And it's very much like, so have you played Doom Eternal?

No.

Okay, so

fuck.

How do I describe it?

Like, is it an RPG?

Is it a tactics game?

Oh, no, so it's an action game.

It's an action game, like a beat-em-up, like sort of killing everything in front of you sort of thing with very minimal story elements that are like thrown in at the start and end of each mission.

Like Dynasty Warriors?

Gosh, and I'll play Dynasty Warriors.

I mean, on a

experience level, like not a gameplay level, but on like an experience of I'm murdering a lot of people.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But not on like a, like, I'm running in and twirling a blade and like there's a set map in the thing and I I have to, it's like a different vibe completely, but it's the same, like, linear map with like bosses and stuff like that.

To be fair, usually, I don't like games like this that are like a linear corridor that you go down, and it throws enemies, and little bosses after you, and stuff.

But because it's in an IP in a world, I love, like, I'm just like, summing up, this is exactly what it wants.

Yeah,

I mean, I guess, yeah, chat's saying it's like Gears of War.

I mean, I guess I would say that, but

okay.

That kind of combat style, apart from it's very much like, so you have like armor and to regain your armor so it doesn't damage your health, you have to constantly like be executing enemies or doing like the responsive kind of combat elements.

So it kind of feels a bit like Bloodborne where you have to regain your health or like armor by being aggressive.

So it's, it's kind of, it always feels like very engaging gameplay because of that.

I feel like if it was just like, you know,

gears of war where you've just got a health bar

and then you die, it felt well it feels a bit dated now compared to like this way of things which is a bit more like doom eternal where you have to be in the action to regain your health and survive so i kind of like that element of it um that kept me excited about i think as well instead of just like oh i'm killing this enemy again or something and also just

lore wise like in the universe of 40k It would be so stupid if a Space Marine like did a cover system.

You know what I mean?

Like, you have to be aggressive.

You have to, like, you're not going to be this big walking armor massive man and then just be like, and then hide behind a wall.

Oh, shit.

I'm going to hide.

Like, that's stupid.

Yeah.

Do we say cover?

Yeah, you want, you want the experience of being a mass murder machine and you're like, oh, yeah, bugs, kill them.

And then chaos, which is definitely not in this game, no chaos at all.

Yeah, you got to kill that too.

So, yeah.

Yeah, it works well.

I think, like, I think the developers at one point said, oh, we've only got like three player co-op missions because if there was four space marines, then, you know, you'd be too overpowered.

Right.

Yeah, I kind of like that get out.

It's that works.

I'll let you off.

Sure.

I'm very new to the.

I've only recently started to learn what Warhammer 40K is even about or like any of that.

Hold on.

Hold on.

Dukes.

I'm so curious.

What do you like?

How would you describe 40K to us?

Oh,

how would you describe it?

Just off the top, you don't like, just off the top of your head, how would you describe it to us?

Yeah.

Body horror fantasy sci-fi.

I mean, what is 40k?

Because

all of the technology is made out of...

out of people, right?

I mean, it depends.

I mean, I mean,

in a way, you're not wrong.

Like,

there's an element of that for sure, which is like really dark and twisted.

I mean, that's really cheery.

Yeah, the whole thing is just imagine the future, but the future sucks for like everyone.

Yeah,

everybody's awful except orcs?

Ogres?

Orcs.

Orcs are awful, but they have the best time, probably.

But they're happy, right?

Like, they're having a nice time.

Yeah.

Lots of like

weird religious zealotry yeah about a dude who might just be a dude uh

or he might be jesus so like he might be he might be jesus but he might also just be a guy he might just be a really powerful guy he might be a guy right yeah and then you know if people are like

into into that guy enough and then and then you do a thing and you're like that my dude wouldn't like that then you might get turned into a computer or some shit

i mean that's

yeah, no, that's yeah, you might become like a skull computer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, that's it's all, it's all good, yeah,

right.

Okay, so that's that's what that's what I know.

No, that's true, that's true.

Um, oh, and the and the guy, the guy like built a bunch of sons, and some of them love him, and some of them hate him.

That's true.

Do you know why some of them hate him?

Yeah,

what do you know why some of them hate him?

Uh, because they found the truth is the reason.

Um, in a way,

Are you about to pitch chaos to everybody or something?

In a universe so corrupt and evil.

Yeah.

Isn't it more likely

that in the dark depths of

space, in the void itself,

that there is an answer?

A real answer to the pain you must be feeling?

Have you ever wondered why people so freely join chaos?

Because it's liberation from the sorrow of their everyday

starting to sound like heresy i don't think so

i don't think so

this is sounding like heresy dude

heresy i don't know

you know what you know what is heresy not

bringing skulls for the skull throne not having blood

for the blood gun not uh giving in to your base lust and and abandon uh not having boils all over your body that make you feel good.

Also, is it the past?

Is it the future?

I don't know.

When is now?

These are great questions that I think only can be answered.

It might be a long, long time ago in a galaxy far away.

Who knows?

Or it might be the future.

Or it might be the future.

Who knows?

Anyway,

burn Jesse, turn him into a computer, and let's get rolling.

Anyways, yeah, so that's what I know about 40k.

It's very, it's very slapdick.

I think it's actually a pretty good assessment of what's just like on a service level.

Yeah, this is kind of what's going on at a snapshot.

Kind of.

How long have you been like

doing 40K?

You said you said since you were a kid?

Yeah, no, no.

So when I was 12, I saw a games workshop store, which you might have seen in the UK.

Now you guys are there.

Like,

and they have all the Warhammer models and everything.

So I went in there as a small child, a young whipper snapper, and I picked up a box set of the Battle for McCrag, which is the Space Marines against the Tyrann.

It's come full circle now, obviously.

So I brought that home, started painting it up, really enjoyed that.

And then I got into the hobby.

And then obviously I had no money.

And I discovered women.

So I stopped playing with small plastic toys.

And then

several times.

It really ruins everything, dude.

They do.

And now I actually, I've painted Warhammer with my wife now and again.

So it's come, it's come from a knuckle, you know.

It's turned into, you know, it's now like, you know, I mean, it's kept kept our love life for like no, I'm joking.

So

got back into it again at university.

Um,

and then I had some money so I could actually afford it because it's just super expensive.

It's not got any cheaper, unfortunately.

But yeah, no, really, really enjoy playing it, the tabletop side of things.

The only issue is is they like update the rules every year, so you just can't keep up with what the hell's going on with all the rules and whatnot.

But my friend, who's a lawyer, he knows everything back to front.

So, I just, I'm like, okay, we'll play a game and I've painted this stuff and you'll tell me if I'm doing the right thing or not.

And that's how I play the game, basically.

Yeah, I do feel like there's a, there's a scale, right?

There's, there's, there's tons of people who are like, I find the hobby of painting the miniatures really nice.

I love to paint the little guys

and then it scales all the way up to I paint the little guys and I also play with the little guys all the time and I know the rules really well and there's there's like a huge gap between those two.

Some people just love the language.

The game is really complicated, isn't it?

Yeah, the game's super complicated.

Some people just love the books and the lore as well.

Like I've met people who didn't even know there was a tabletop, but they've read like all the books, like all the Horace Heresy, which is like, you know,

several books long, or listened to the audio books or something.

So they know the law really well, but they've never picked up a paintbrush and painted a miniature.

So it's really weird how many different people approach this IP from different directions, like whether it's like Arsene crafts, video games, or, you know, reading the books and stuff.

So it's super, super interesting.

I will say, I just want to interject here.

It's a very expensive hobby.

Oh, God, yeah.

It's extremely expensive.

There is one way to lessen that expense though.

Did you know that chaos units can be used for both 40k and

get out of here?

I'm just saying both.

So if you buy just chaos, you can double dip.

And I feel like, isn't that the answer we all should be?

You save money and your chaos?

I'm just saying.

It is true.

I mean, to be honest, back when I was at university, I got a, I think it was like corn demon kin army, and you could, you could triple dip.

You could play in 30K, you could play in 40k, and you could play in Age of Sigmar.

So all three genres.

Yeah, a lot of the chaos units, when you get the models and you put them together, there are bits where it's like, there's one that I have where he's like standing on a body.

And the body, you can swap out either a knight or a space marine.

And I'm like, this is the best option.

Chaos is so affordable.

I'm just saying,

come on over.

Come on over.

We're waiting for you.

My singing teacher's son is really into painting Warhammer minis.

And he's cracked the code.

He waits until people like us

buy the figures, don't paint them, and eventually put them up on like eBay or something or Facebook Marketplace.

And he goes on there and he gets them secondhand and then paints them.

And the price difference is crazy.

It's true.

I mean, like, this is this.

If you know about this, this is very impressive because there's like, it's like a plastic crack addiction where you just buy plastic unpainted because you don't have time as an adult.

You can finally afford it, but you have no time to paint it.

And then you end up just hoarding all of these different miniatures that eventually are like, oh, they've released more miniatures.

So you sell the old stuff that you've kind of gone off now and you're not interested in painting that army anymore on eBay.

And sometimes even like they had like a price increase over COVID.

So I actually made money on the stuff I had brought at a cheaper price that I hadn't painted yet.

So it's

like now it's just like, you know, it's better than socks, you know?

We just buy Warhammer products and sell them eBay.

I must stress to everyone, if you want to like just attempt to get into it and have fun, this isn't shameless chaos promotion, even though it is.

There is a unit called Slambo.

If you can find Slambo, he's always cheap.

It's just Slambo by himself.

I call him Slambro.

And it's just like a knight with two axes.

If you want to just learn to do it, that is the best one to do it on.

He's like a little too big.

There aren't a little, there aren't a lot of like little things going on there.

You can just learn.

Shout out to Slambo.

He is, he's baby's first chaos.

He's my favorite guy.

Everyone, get yourself a Slambo.

You're going to sit there and just learn to do it.

And then you're in.

Someone in chat was mentioning Gunpla.

I haven't built a Gundam in a hot minute, but that's also very expensive and such a fun hobby.

Yeah, I mean, like, I'm curious, where, is there like,

is there like something, because obviously you've got like the Gundam miniatures and you could paint them and you could build them or not.

Is there like something beyond that?

Is that like a show or anything that goes with it?

Or is it just like, yeah, because I don't know anything about this.

Oh, there's, there's, yeah, tons of Gundam anime, like lots of different ones.

Um, and so every time an anime comes out you can get the the gundams that are in that show i had no idea about that it's crazy it's awesome yeah and some of them are ridiculous one of them's basically like a um it's like a cross between uh gundam and sailor moon so it's like a pretty soldier sailor gundam oh wow magical girl and wife fantastic

that's wild She's like, I don't understand these Gundams.

Like, the 40k side looks pretty cool.

You know, I want to paint the Tyranides and stuff.

But the gundams, not so much.

But she liked Sailor Moon.

So she like, she really enjoyed that.

So now I'm like, oh, did you know there's a Sailor Moon Gundam?

Yeah, I think if you have more of like a jigsaw puzzle brain, but you're kind of overwhelmed with the idea of painting, because you don't have to paint Gundams, right?

Like once it's built, sometimes people will like distress them and stuff.

But for the most part, it's like, it's

clicking fun pieces together, and eventually it's a robot, and it's fantastic.

I love it.

He doesn't love robots.

I remember

build an IKEA Gundam, which is pretty dope.

An IKEA Gundam.

An IKEA one, yeah.

Yeah, I think it's on his Instagram as well, maybe.

You have to check it out, but like, what a great idea.

So fun.

Anyways, sorry, I got us off of 40k.

Oh, no, no.

The hobby is always good fun, man.

I love talking about it.

Yeah.

Is there, Dodger, like, what did,

what have you been up to this week?

Is there something that you've done?

Um, I kept

time out.

Those of you who are listening on audio, Dodger just made the face of a person who's like, did I even do a week?

What happened?

This week went by.

So

like over 30 films, though.

You know, it's like, what did I even do this week?

It's already been a week.

I took a couple of days because my kid kid went back to school this week.

So I took a couple of days.

We camped.

So that all that was fun.

I continued to play, speaking of Metroidvanias, to bring us back around.

I continued to play Crypt Custodian, which is that game where you're a cat from the For Reals human world.

You die.

And

you're basically in purgatory.

And for like a small, fiddly little reason, you're told you can't go to the palace, which is basically heaven, and you're sentenced to spend eternity in purgatory,

cleaning purgatory, essentially, being a little like cat janitor.

And you meet some other spirits and you decide,

screw that, we're going to dig our way into the palace.

And it's great.

It's very sad.

Because all of the spirits that you meet, they're all animals that were alive once.

And you can seek out the collectibles that tell you how each of them died and what kind of life they had.

And so every time I find one of those, I'm like, I'm scared to look at it.

But if you like the vibe of like filling out a map.

of exploring a lot, if you like huge sprawling maps, if you like that element that Jesse was talking about earlier where you come to something and you're like, I don't think I can jump this yet.

And you know that later you're going to get to come back and make that jump and feel super cool.

It's got a lot of that.

Yeah, it's very fun.

And from what I can tell,

I don't think I have that much left of it.

So it's a pretty manageable length.

So that's very cute.

I've continued to play that.

Thank you.

And if you want something that if you

is it cute,

the premise sounds dark.

And then he has to dig into the palace while discovering like notes about other spirits.

Yeah, it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's bittersweet, right?

It's like you're a cat that died, right?

But you're meeting all of these other spirits and they talk about, you know, what it was like for them to be alive.

And there's the, there is this sweet element that makes you think about just like the sort of simple pleasures of being an animal, right?

Like all these different animals.

What sort of things would they have loved while they were alive?

And I think that that part of it is very sweet.

And the writing is really, you know, it can be really funny and it feels nice to play.

So,

yeah, okay.

That's cheap.

And then on the flip side, I played a game called Dale and Dawson Stationery Supplies.

Have either of you guys heard of this game?

I'm going to give you a game.

No, no, what?

Okay, ready?

All right.

So this game is

werewolf among us, but set in the office.

You can literally be in a like recreated version version of the U.S.

office show.

I love the all-star.

Yes, it's very silly.

It has proximity VoIP.

You can have like up to 20-something people, I think.

And the way that it works is one person, when you load in, one person is the manager.

A bunch of people are just normal workers.

And then, depending on how many people are playing, it will make a few people slackers.

So, much like in Among Us, right?

Everybody's got tasks that they're supposed to be doing.

So normal office workers, you know, can go to their computers and have to send emails or print off papers or fax things or whatever.

Slackers have things like grab a beer, go smoke cigarettes, you know, like

stuff like that.

And you, as a slacker, are trying not to get caught slacking.

The manager is trying to figure out who the slackers are.

And you get to set how much time there is between meetings.

But every now and then, there's a meeting where the manager has to fire somebody.

And so you're trying to make sure that you're firing a slacker, right?

Yeah.

The first slacker that you fire becomes the janitor.

And the janitor can decide whether they want to help the manager and like be a little sneaky peat and spy on people or help out the slackers.

It's very funny.

fun idea.

It's really RP heavy.

If you, if you have the right group, everybody's just like putting on a voice and being like, I'm sure, I was just faxing my stuff, you know?

Is there actually work to do in the game that the manager is going to be checking on?

You can, so you can literally, it has like a working telephone in the game.

Everybody has an assigned desk.

So yeah, a lot of your tasks are like sit at your desk, send an email to this person, print off the sales confirmation, sign the sales confirmation, leave it on this person's desk, right?

Like it'll be tasks like that.

Oh my God.

But you can literally, there's Minesweeper, there's Snake, there's all these games on there.

You can literally just open up Minesweeper.

You can, you can pick up the telephone and call anybody that you want.

It's like, it's so silly.

Just playing like solitaire on your own.

Yeah.

But again, if you're doing stuff like that, people are going to assume you're a slacker, right?

So

if you're a work, like, so if you're a worker, how do you win?

Because you're just working, right?

From what I understand, there are a couple of win conditions, right?

There's the slackers aren't found.

The slackers are fired.

The slackers aren't fired.

But also, there's a bar at the top measuring whether, how much work is getting done, how productive is the company, right?

So if you're not a slacker, you are legitimately trying to like do your tasks

so that the bar is showing that the company is productive.

Because if too many people are slacking, the slacker bar will just keep going this way.

So if it's sort of like a deadlock by the end, it'll measure how productive the company was anyway, I guess.

Yeah, yeah.

That's actually a war.

I love the idea.

I'm really tempted to play it.

Though I'm like, do I want to pretend to work in a video game?

It sounds fun, but it winds up being very silly.

I spent a lot of time, and you can look over somebody's shoulder and watch them write an email, which I think is hilarious.

So

I was playing with our friend Bree, and I was literally just sending emails like, I know what you did,

stuff like that.

And the manager would be right over my shoulder, like, what are you doing?

Is that on your task list?

I was like, oh,

you know, it's just, it's goofy.

It is very fun.

Imagine playing that with random people online.

That would just be like chaos.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know if you can play it with people.

Oh, you can't.

Okay, okay.

So you've got to convince your friends.

There's this game where we have to pretend that we have an office job.

Right.

I'm actually going to link this game to my wife and see if we can convince some friends to play.

I keep thinking if you could pull off an office space and just be like, you know what?

Michael, I'm not going to come into work today.

And I'm just going to like go meet Jennifer Aniston at the restaurant across the street.

do a like I feel like you could do that and just that's your character is the guy from office space who doesn't care anymore I would love that we should play

never mind I change everything I want to be the guy with the stapler

one of the stapler one of the offices has a basement that you that you

send me to the basement

just sit in the basement steal everybody's staplers have them on your desk and just sit down there absolutely I would just told what I i would say my stapler but they sent me down to the basement and now i'm down in the basement i would just be in the basement the entire time that's it that's all i'm doing is just like they get that i was going to be paid for today but then they did not pay me and i was waiting for my stapler that's that'd be amazing can you can you take things that other people require to do their work

so yeah so like if i printed off a sales assessment or whatever, somebody could absolutely go to the printer and just take that and walk away with it.

And And then whatever's next on your task

would be like, wait a minute.

Yeah.

So something that Sam was doing was he would literally, he would take everybody's mouse.

So you can just pick people's mice up off of their desks.

So he just took everybody's mice and threw them away.

It's like, it's just very silly.

That sounds fantastic.

Yeah.

I can't imagine anyone actually getting any work done in this game.

Like the manager actually winning would be impossible.

It is hard.

You can also mutiny.

You can be like, this manager doesn't know what they're doing.

I was trying to do that, and it didn't work out.

Oh, damn.

I know.

But yeah, now that I know how the game works,

I want to put together big groups.

If you guys want to play.

Yeah, I'd be tempted.

I mean, when you said the name, though, it's like Dale and Dawson Stationary Supply.

Is that what the hell?

It doesn't sound like what it is.

Yeah.

It doesn't sound like it would be fun.

It sounds like a crop hunt thing where you're like pretending to be a stapler in an office and people have to find you or something.

Yeah.

Yes, Jesse, what's up?

Dukes, when you play, let's...

So if I were to play with you.

Yeah.

I've determined my actual play style now.

I want to be Stanley from the office.

I want to come in, do my work, and be like, I'm done and leave.

Like,

I don't want to talk to nobody.

You want to

mortuary assistant, Dale and Dawson.

Yeah, I'm going to do my work.

And if any of y'all give me trouble, I'm going to give you sass and be like, I'm here from nine to five.

I don't like any of you.

I don't want to be here.

I've got a wife and kids.

I have friends outside the office and you are not those friends.

And I'll just like get up and leave.

I'll do my work and just go home.

Right.

And just be like, bye, idiots.

That's what I want to do.

That's how I want to play the game.

And if any of you talk to me, I'll be like, not today.

And just keep working.

That's what I

created a different character on the fly each

time we played.

The last one, I was actively trying to get fired, and I became the manager's assistant because he thought I was so cool.

Oh, damn.

I know.

It backfired.

It did.

Yeah, you can tell that's a game because in no reality would a manager be like, you're so cool.

Like, that's not going to happen.

Yeah.

I went into his office, I stole his cigarettes and smoked them in front of him and said, what are you going to do?

Fire me?

And then he made me his assistant.

So I don't know.

That's hilarious, but that worked out for you.

Yeah, I kept trying to be a slacker.

I wanted to be a slacker so bad, and it never made me a slacker.

So I have to play more so that I get the experience.

Just too hard-working to be a slacker.

Anyways, that just goes to show it will never happen for you, dukes.

No matter what, you're like, I'm trouble.

I'm the hardest trouble there ever was.

And they're like, I'm such a baddie.

Yeah, like, all right, assistant manager.

No.

It's done again.

So it, it, so basically, it just sounds like a

more down-to-earth version of Among Us.

It's, yeah.

I call, I, I said that it was among us, but in the office, and somebody was like, it kind of bums me out that people, that people say among us instead of werewolf now.

But my argument was that in werewolf, you don't have tasks.

Right.

I think

if it's a

like find the guy sort of social deduction game, but everybody has jobs or tasks that they're trying to do, it is more among us-like, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah.

So

that's cool.

But that's that's that's basically

Jesse and I have been trying to play a couple of things

the last couple of weeks and it hasn't happened yet.

So that's my bad.

But

maybe this week

spending all your time playing Dale and Dawson stationary supplies, yeah, because I've been a little tripped custodian cat

and I was camping with my kid,

just doesn't even

talk to me anymore.

I call, I'm like, hello, hello, and she's like, sorry, I'm playing Dale and Dawson.

Sorry, I can't communicate with you.

Just write pretend emails.

I know what you did.

No.

That is, oh man.

Oh, man.

That's, That's, that's writing.

You can write pretend emails, but not real ones to me.

Oh, my God.

Is that where we're at?

I'm so sorry.

You should be.

I'm so mad.

Yeah.

Never heard of werewolf.

Oh, my God.

Werewolf is

an old game, an OG game.

where everybody sits in for reals life.

There are digital versions of this, but you sit in for reals life, typically in a circle or or like at a table.

And correct me if I'm wrong, guys, I haven't played werewolf in a very long time, but uh, one person like runs the game, right?

They're not like technically a player,

and they choose a person to be the detective and a person to be the werewolf.

And each night, so like everybody's awake during the day and they chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, right?

And you try to find each other out.

And then the person running running the game says, it's nighttime.

And you all put your heads down.

And the person, and you say, werewolf, wake up.

And the person who's the werewolf gets up and taps a person

and then sits back down.

And the person who got tapped got killed by the werewolf.

And then you say, everybody wake up.

And everybody wakes up.

And then I can't remember what the detective does.

Oh, is it detective wake up?

And then they tap a person and find out whether or not they.

No, what is it?

I kind of remember.

Uh, the last time I played it, I did like it.

It was like a mobile version where, like, it told you what to do.

It was like, werewolves, open your eyes, and then you could all see each other, like, who were the other werewolves and stuff.

It was, but yeah, it's it's kind of like it's a similar concept that you have to like suss each other out.

Like, yeah, but the bad guys are working together and they know who they are, but no one else knows who they are, so they're like covering up after each other, right?

And that's where it gets like really fun.

Yeah, there's um a show, it's on the US.

I don't like the US version that much because it's like celebrities.

It's called The Traitors.

And in the U.S., it's hosted by, oh man alive, who is that actor?

It is Alan Cummings, I think.

I think that's, I think he's the host.

Yes, Alan Cumming is the host.

And it's like a bunch of celebrities, and it's the same vibe.

Same vibe.

Here's what I'll say: watch the UK version.

Traders UK, look it up.

It is just normal people

doing traders, and it is so good same vibe as werewolf except it is just normal like british people living their lives and i'm like yeah

wait way better super fun is it is it like is it like big brothery like they're in a house or yeah it's like a mansion and there's a there's there's obviously someone going around murdering people oh no yeah

same vibe as Werewolf, except it's like a TV show.

And again, the US version, I think it's on season three now, is like celebrities doing it and like, oh, I'm hamming it up for the camera.

Nah, nah, nah.

Trash.

The UK version, normal ass people, and it's great.

Great.

Love it.

Big fan.

I will check it out.

That sounds amazing.

That sounds fun.

It reminds me of this quest in The Obscurals Oblivion when you're like invited to this house to have a party.

You're like part of the Dark Brotherhood.

So you've got to assassinate everyone in the house.

But they think they're all locked in for a party.

So you can slowly assassinate each person one by one and then talk to them and be like, I think that person's done it.

Then you can convince them to like go and kill that person with you.

And they're like, okay,

everyone's dead.

And now it's just me and you.

And then you can just be like, yeah, I'm the assassin.

And then kill them.

It's just so dark.

But it's definitely one of the funnest quests.

I mean, obviously in this show, no one dies, I hope.

But yeah, that's what it reminded me of.

And that would be a ballsy UK reality show of like, we will kill everyone by the end whoever lives wins the money i'd be like whoa

they have taken it too far they kind of tried to do that squid game oh yeah yeah

what

where everybody everybody had to pretend to die on on camera oh no but oh no that was amazing that was brilliant that was one of the funniest things i've ever seen my entire life Danny, if you've never seen the reality squid game show they made based off the hit TV show, I think they missed the complete point

of of what that was about.

Instead, did a game show where it's, hey, we're going to try and win money.

And it's, but it's squid game.

And the first episode, you know, when they do like the red light, green light game?

Yeah.

And like in the show, people are getting gunned down and murdered.

On the reality show, they clearly have told the contestants, do the same.

If you get shot, lay down on the ground and pretend that you're dead.

And so some people, when they get shot, they go like, oh, and they fall down dead.

Some people, when they get shot, they're like, and they just slowly lay down.

And some people, when they get shot, stand there and like walk off the set.

It's so funny.

There's no cohesion.

It's so funny.

And apparently that whole, I was looking at behind the scenes because it's one of the most messed up shows I've ever seen.

It is truly one of the worst reality shows I've ever seen ever.

And the, there's apparently behind the scenes that one game took hours and hours and hours to film because of all the different things they had to do in order to make it work.

And so you could tell the people who died hours later because they were just like not feeling it they were like oh like walking away it's hilarious can you imagine the funniest shows that was fantastic being there for hours and then getting eliminated anyway i'd walk off too i'd be like

What's even worse, they try to do the same thing they did with the show where they try to do like story beats.

Like, oh, there's this character and this character.

But because they didn't want to reveal who the winner was, none of the people they follow is ever really important.

And none of them ever really have fleshed out stories.

Like one guy, he's like the jock, tough dude, and everyone hates him and he's all bravado.

But then like when he gets into the competition, dude just gets out.

Like he's out almost immediately.

It's like, well, why do we follow that character at all?

What was the point of him?

But it's like, well, we wanted you to like root against that guy.

Well, I don't, I don't even know that man.

You show him to me for one episode.

Now I hate him.

I don't know that man.

It's just one of the worst things I've ever seen.

Absolutely crazy.

I kind of like that.

I need to watch that now.

It sounds terrible.

Oh, it's bad.

It's bad.

It's, I, I'm convinced Netflix cannot make a reality show to save their life.

And they're all, they're all, it's like someone at Netflix said, hey, let's take our most popular shows and then like make a competition show out of them.

And they always suck.

And I'm always sitting there like, I got to watch at least one episode of this.

What the hell is this show?

Why are they?

And every time I'm disappointed, every time I'm like, who?

Greenland, they're wasting all their money on this and not on good TV.

This is crazy.

No one knows how to make a good reality TV show at Netflix, apparently.

No.

When obviously the real solution is just copy a British one.

Like, we've been doing that for years.

Why do we quit that?

Where's the one where we have the naked people who stand in boxes or whatever that show is?

And people are like, let me see your junk.

And everyone's like, okay.

It's like,

i'll i'll date person number three because that guy got a dong like where's that show in america why can't we have that do we need that show in america

yes we definitely need that show in america because all of our other shows are like this man's head exploded isn't that crazy it's like no let's see some butt what are we doing we're way off the mark here

Sex sells,

yeah.

Yeah, if we just leaned a little more towards sex and a little less towards violence, America might be a little better off.

I'm just putting it out there.

Purity culture strikes again.

Yeah.

What is it?

Naked and alive or survive or something.

Or naked and afraid.

Yeah.

Isn't that American or not?

Oh my gosh, is it?

I don't know.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I know that it was on in America for sure.

Yeah.

I'm looking at the wiki right now.

Country of origin, United States.

Yep, we made that.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, we did.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but here's the thing.

We took naked and then added the element of fear.

It wasn't like naked and feeling good.

It was we're gonna make you naked and put you in a forest or jungle and scare the crap out of you.

Like they took the sexuality and then made it terrifying.

That's some Puritan shit right there.

That was like, oh yeah, you want you want nudity?

Sure.

Well, now they're gonna be terrified while they're naked, just like you should be, like all people should.

Your body is shameful.

Like, that's the country we're in.

And frankly, I won't have it.

How many episodes do you think there are of Naked and Afraid?

800.

Oh, there's

probably going to be like a lot, but not that many.

Like, I reckon

100.

Okay.

More than what Danny said, way less than what Jesse said.

212.

200.

There are 200 episodes.

There's 17 seasons of Naked and Afraid.

I didn't realize.

I thought it was just randos,

but every episode is two survivalists.

They just meet while they're naked and then they have to survive for a certain number of days.

But

they're all like trained to survive.

I don't know if that's a good idea.

That's a little better.

This one episode I watched where they had this guy and he was like super serious and like, oh yeah, so I'm a survivor.

Then they had this lady who was like,

she could like make clothing.

And that was like, they had like special skills or something.

I've only seen one episode.

So this is my takeaway.

And

I remember the lady was like there, like knitting banana leaves and stuff together to make like herself like, you know, like a bra and underwear.

And she looked like, oh, damn, like, you know, she's proper surviving out there.

The guy's just there, like, butt naked.

They've had like a disagreement.

He's trying to make like a shelter.

She's weaving together bamboo leaves.

He's got like a full roof and everything.

My dude's like camping out under like a stick, you know, like just absolutely dying.

Apparently he let he left at the end or like, you know, the lady was fine, but he left because he was like mentally not okay.

He couldn't like survive out there.

Just wanted to like, you know, give up basically.

Whereas the lady's like, oh yeah, no, this is fine.

I'm having a great time.

Yeah.

There was such a contrast because he was like, oh, went into it.

Like, yeah, I'm surviving.

I'm like mentally and physically strong and ready for this.

And he was like the first to go.

There was a show that I got really into when I was in college.

And I've talked with chat about this before, and they told me what the name of it was.

I need to look it up.

But it was like the colony or something similar.

And it was like, we're going to simulate what it would be like if

the perfect group of people, like with the, with the right set of skills, all manage to be together during like in a dystopia, right?

Like

they don't have access to things, but they've got a scientist and a survivalist and like an engineer and like all of these people just happened to like be together, right?

Say, how, what, what would they do?

How would they proceed?

It was so fascinating because it was such a, it was such a good snapshot of like, just because you have people with the right skill set doesn't mean that they're going to get along and listen to each other at all.

Right.

Like, it was so much arguing.

It was so many people being like, This is how you filter water.

And another person being like, whatever.

We don't need to filter water.

Right.

Like, it's like, oh my God, please.

You just end up with like all these different disciplines with very different opinions and ways of doing things.

And surely that's going to conflict, though, right?

I think, like, yeah, those, these sort of like survival-based reality shows, right?

There's a part of you that's like, I'm really curious how they're going to proceed with this.

But at some point, there's always a human, a very human element of just like, I don't like this guy.

And there's a part of your brain that's like, I like that you don't like each other.

What are you guys going to do?

You know, and I hate that.

That's why reality TV keeps going.

Yeah.

I must stress the better version of that.

Yeah.

is a show boy, I assume it was early 2000s.

It was called Kid Nation.

And if you've never seen this show,

Kid Nation was a show where 40 kids were dropped off in a deserted New Mexico town and told you're going to run a city in this town.

It's children.

It's one of the craziest, most.

I've never seen anything like it in my entire life.

I can't believe it exists.

It is hilariously bad.

Everything about the show sucks.

You're just like, who created this show?

It's insane.

Like, it's a social experiment.

Oh, it shouldn't be.

40 kids?

It is like Lord of the Flies.

It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen.

I can't believe it.

I just Googled it.

So there's this one meme where it's got like the

show front cover.

And then there's a kid.

And the subtitle says, I think I'm going to die out here.

And then there's a YouTube video where it's like, 40 kids, 40 days, no adults.

And then it says lawsuit.

I was going to say, surely.

Yeah.

This was nuts.

It sounds nuts.

Oh, yeah.

And it's one of the craziest things.

It clearly was the height of, well, what can we get away with?

And

it is, yeah, all the kids are under a certain age.

Don't remember what age it is, but they're all like not even remotely close to being ready or prepared.

They're straight up children out there.

Right.

And then every so often a guy shows up and he's like, hey, kids, how we all doing out here?

And they're like, we chased chickens today.

Yay.

And it's like, boy.

Oh, boy.

Yikes.

But also, like, imagine being the parent that's like, yeah, this is, I want my kid on this.

Yeah, good idea.

I must stress to you that if you were to go look up the IMDB

of

all the kids that were on that show, I promise you more than half are actors of some level now.

They're in a bunch of other.

I promise you it was actor parents.

It was the parents who are like, my kid's going to be a star.

And this is their big break.

Oh, I promise you that was the case.

Because most normal parents wouldn't be like, oh, you want me to send my kid out to the desert for 40 days with a bunch of other children and no rules?

Yeah, that seems safe.

Absolutely.

It's for your career, honey someone said someone said that people do kid nation kids tier lists where they rank the kids

it's so messed up what the hell

oh my god i can't believe it

think like so this was 2007 how old were the kids like you know were they like 10 15 i think no one was older than 16 maybe 15.

that's kind of wild i'm just thinking like

trying to do the math i'm like, okay, so they were kind of like my age.

I was like 1993.

So

they were just like, eight to 15, someone said.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Eight-year-olds.

Like, all right, 13 to 15, short, seems feasible.

Eight to 15?

There's no way I'd send my eight-year-old out with a bunch of 15-year-olds in the wild.

Are you kidding me?

They'd just be like a slave to the older kids, wouldn't they?

Yeah.

Although that would, I want to go back.

Now I want to go back and watch it because I feel like there's some some dynamics there that I never picked up on years and years ago.

Because I imagine there's definitely like

that eight-year-old who like show thing, boss, whatever you say, 15-year-old.

Let's go beat up those kids.

You know what I mean?

Like, I feel like there's that vibe.

Like, in order to survive, the eight-year-olds are like, find the meanest, angriest dude here, and like, let's be his friend.

I don't know.

It's more like prison than a town, is what you're saying.

Yeah, I feel like that's it.

Yeah.

To be fair, there's nothing more terrifying than like, you know, a bunch of kids, like, who are exactly.

so i do think you've you've got that's the right vibe

so i there's just one season as well oh no the company went bankrupt spoilers uh it was a terrible idea and i think they got sued by people it's not it was not smart of them to do i love how they still aired the tv show though i mean that's just wild i've got to watch this It might have been like Survivor, where it was coming out like as they made the episodes.

I don't know.

Yeah.

The kids that survived made it.

What a mess.

I really want, this is making me want to like look up what, whatever the worst rated,

like terribly

just like bad reality shows where everyone was like, this is a terrible idea.

Why did anyone make this?

Like, what's you mean like bad though, or just like downright dangerous?

Dane.

Yeah, where it's like, this, how did this get green lit?

I want to, I want to know what that list is.

Yeah.

What are the shows that got, that got ended like halfway through the season?

You know?

Yeah.

I mean, there's definitely like some stuff where I'm like, surely if someone asked you to do that, you'd be like, no,

that could kill me.

There's two shows that are in the running for one of the worst.

Although one is from the 1950s, which is crazy.

It's called Queen for a Day.

It says here, they dragged a bunch of lower class women in front of an audience and then would talk about their emotional and financial trauma and then give them their best day for a day and then be like all right bye

which is so messed up

that's very exploitative and then a more modern one apparently was a show called the swan that aired in the early 2000s that was considered the worst due to the fact that the whole premise was we're going to take ugly and plastic surgery you into beautiful

oh my god.

That's like, that's kind of like that really popular show though, where they had,

oh, it was like, it was like a teenage thing where they had like a girl or a boy, I think usually a girl, and then they had to like go on the show and they'd like dress them up and then take them to like their high school prom or something all like done up and stuff.

But the whole premise of it was really like, oh, you don't look good enough.

You need to wear all this makeup to look good.

And it was just like, honestly, just, I was like, this is terrible, you know, but it was a show that you know, it was on like every evening when I got back from school, like it would be on like the trash TV kind of time, you know.

Um

that kind of I don't know what the name of that is.

Someone must know it in the chat, though.

But I'm all the so many shows like that existed, especially with kids, which just seemed so wrong.

To like

when I was 16, I didn't have a clue how to look good or even care about that.

Yeah, there was an MTV show that used to be on all the time when I got done with one of my uni classes, And it was, I think, my Super Suite 16 or something.

And it's just

rich kids and what crazy shit they did on their 16th birthday.

And I was always like,

I hate the show.

Yeah.

Same vibe as when Lifestyle is the Rich and Famous was on.

And it'd be like, go look at this rich person's home.

And you'd be like, at the time, everyone's like, wow.

And then when you look back, you're like,

F that noise.

Like, what the hell?

And I will say, though, 90% of it still incredibly fake.

Living in LA, you know a lot of people who are on those shows.

Incredible.

Yes.

One of the guys that used to be in our office literally.

So there's a show on MTV where the premise was a girl or guy would date someone new while their current boyfriend or girlfriend sat in a room with the parents who were like, we don't like you and watched the date happen.

I remember that show.

What was that show called?

I don't remember what it was called, but it was like

something, some MTV stupid thing.

And the whole point was at the end, do they choose to go out with someone else or do they stick with their current relationship?

Parental control, parent, something like that.

Yeah,

parental control seems right.

But the whole thing, one of the people we knew was the boyfriend who was in the room.

And he was just an actor.

He was just paid to be there.

So like, you know, I'm not sure how much of that was real at all.

But the fact that that was the premise they set up is so crazy.

And, it's, yeah, I don't know.

It's one of those things where I don't trust half of it, but for some reason, the British version, I do.

If they did a British version of that show, I'd be like, no, that's real.

Dude, that's real.

Do British people really come across as more trustworthy?

I think, you know what?

I think it's partially because shows like Great British Bake Off came out.

and filtered over to America.

And Americans were like, this is such a different vibe from our reality television.

And it's managed to sort of seep into

American perception of like English reality shows in general of like, it's much, it has to be more genuine, right?

The vibe is so much more genuine than American reality shows.

So let me give you a perfect example.

It's, it's not just a genuine vibe, but it's the idea that some British reality shows are genuinely boring.

They're like real.

They're like, it's you're watching a real person do a real thing and they're not even edited or cut in an exciting way.

The best example, hands down, period, that anyone can look up ever,

UK versus U.S.

Kitchen Nightmares.

In the UK, it's Gordon Ramsey going around and be like, this is trash.

I don't like this, but I'm going to help you fix it.

And the music is like,

right?

And he goes around in the U.S.

version, it's like,

he's like, this is dog, you bloody donkey.

This is terrible.

And he's like yelling at them.

And they're like, yeah, I hate you, Gordon, you son of a bitch.

And then the UK version's like, We'll try harder, Gordon.

We're just, we got to make this right.

And he's like, Oh, you French bastard, get out of here.

And he's like, Right.

And it's like they're being like, They're joshing with each other.

And the US version, he's like, It's just a lot of yelling.

Garbage crash, people are fighting in the background.

It's clearly edited to be more like

in your face.

And the UK version, sometimes it's like, wow, Gordon seems like a relatively normal human being.

He's lovely.

I don't know if you've seen him with his kids.

Like, you know, he's just adorable.

You know, he's such a lovely guy.

But yeah, I guess it's set up because he, in that environment, like he has that sort of comes across that way.

It's such good television.

But yeah, it's it's you're right.

Especially with US TV shows, it's all just drama, like a soap opera in comparison to like British.

much more down-to-earth.

I think it's because British people just wouldn't watch that either.

It just wouldn't, they probably outside it.

It probably wouldn't fly here.

Like we'd probably just be like, oh yeah, you know, this is very fake.

It doesn't come across as genuine.

It's the same with sarcasm.

Like, Americans struggle with sarcasm, I feel like.

Do you guys agree with that?

Sometimes I have very blunt humor.

Some of the sarcasm is just different.

Yeah.

I don't know how to explain what's different about it.

It's drier.

In the UK, it's a drier wit and humor.

And then the US.

Yeah, in the U.S., sarcasm is like,

it has to have that tinge of like, I'm saying it like this, like that kind of, so you like, get it.

I also, I feel like American sarcasm is,

I'm saying something as though I'm dumb when I'm not, right?

It's about like putting on stupidity almost a lot of the time.

Yeah, which is not

how English people do it at all.

No, no, no, definitely not.

Like our sarcasm is very much like, you know, someone might say something.

You could have like a sarcastic response and then just be silent.

Like

you wouldn't detect the sarcasm at all.

But if you're a British person, like you'd laugh.

You'd find it funny because you'd know

being sarcastic.

But then I've done it to like American people and it's just been like, how could you?

You get those looks or it's just like, Jesus Christ, did you just say that?

It's like, no, we just have like really dark humor, very dry sarcasm that clearly doesn't translate very well.

Like sometimes when I'm watching something, I'll be sarcastic about it.

And you'll get some comments in the chat that's just like, oh no, that's, you know, did he just say this or that?

And it's, so now I'm quite careful.

I think

having, you know, grown up in America and spent quite a few years in England now, it has become so

starkly clear to me that like, just because we speak the same language does not mean we perceive how one another talks the same way.

You know, and it's really interesting to have a conversation conversation and have a moment like you're describing where you're like, I said a thing that seemed totally fine, but I can tell from the reaction that it's not being taken the way that I said it.

And if I was, if I was in America, it would be taken differently.

But because of like tonal differences and cultural differences and all of these things, there's a huge conversation going on right now about politeness.

and how politeness is different from country to country, culture to culture, right?

Sure,

because somebody made a video where they were like, how come Americans are like allergic to saying please, right?

Sort of, sort of a thing.

And a bunch of Americans were talking about how, depending on where you are in America, sometimes please can come across really aggressive.

If you're, if you're like in a setting where you're asking for something, sometimes please feels really forceful.

And so it's like just politeness is different, right?

And the words you would use in that situation are different.

It doesn't mean that it's not polite.

And it's the same from generate like generational differences, right?

So, yeah.

It's, there's a, there's a vibe where please in the United States, because for so long, it was like, what's the magic word?

And you would say, please, right.

And so people, when I think they use it as sarcasm a lot, which is like, you, you know, if you could just do this, please, like that kind of vibe.

I've, I've figured out the perfect example of American sarcasm.

I've got it.

It's done.

I've figured it out.

Okay.

the episode of the simpsons where homer is told that he's making people happy and he's like oh look at me i'm making people happy i'm the magic man in happy land in a gumdrop house on lollipop lane that vibe where it's just like like oh great you know like that kind of idea of being over exaggerated and like obviously making it a joke so people understand it's a joke yeah that's i think that yeah you have to really spell it out yeah

Yeah, but he says, like, I was being sarcastic.

In the UK, like, if you do that in the UK, it's just, it's about like the subtleness of it, you know?

It's almost like undetectable.

That's, that's what makes like, that's good sarcasm, in my opinion.

Not being obvious.

Whereas, like, yeah, this is like intentionally sarcasms to the point of it just not being funny anymore.

Being construed to that level.

Yeah.

Also, in chat, this is a great example.

The idea of you're welcome versus no problem.

I say no problem all the time.

And my parents are

What?

Like, don't say that.

I'm like, honestly, I'm not gonna, I don't know your ass.

I'm not gonna say you're welcome.

It also seems a little bit like I did the thing for you.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

Like, no problem to me is I opened the door for you and you said thank you.

I'm gonna say no problem because it literally was no, I, I didn't, this wasn't a special thing.

I'm not gonna be like, I'm important because I opened the door for you.

And she's like, no problem, dude.

Enjoy your life.

Like, yeah, there's a, there's an element to it there, an unspoken element, right?

Of like,

I am happy to be doing this thing for you.

It's fine.

It didn't, you know, it hasn't put me out at all.

I'm happy to have done it.

And I guess currently

there's a new generational gap with like current teens in America.

Not to sound old, but

apparently, with them,

they do like a

instead of no problem, right?

So no problem for us is now.

And older generations being like, why can't kids just like, what's

all about?

What does that even mean, right?

Like, it's.

If it's the biggest problem we have, honestly, I'm here for it.

I'll take that.

Rather than,

I read, I read a headline this week.

Oh my God.

It was like,

it was something along the lines of baby Gronk in skibbity feud with the Rizzler.

And I was like, what the hell did I?

And so then I went down the rabbit hole.

I was like, who the hell is the Rizzler?

So I Googled The Rizzler.

That kid's like 13 years old.

I was like, you can't be called The Rizzler at 13.

It's unwell.

I was like, what the hell's happening?

He's peaked already.

Yeah.

He was crazy.

Damn.

You can't have a cool name like The Rizzler.

And being 13 years old, I was so mad.

I was like, are you kidding me?

Baby Bronx.

I'm like, who the hell?

What's going on?

That's all you know.

You're out of it.

Like at a certain point.

Yeah.

At a certain point, you get to the point where you're like, I don't know who these celebrities are.

I don't know who this musician is.

But when just normal people who you're not sure why they're famous, and they have names like the Rizzler, you're too old.

You've officially become too old.

I was like, who the hell?

What the hell is this?

I think that my cut-off point was actually way before that.

And I was like, I just, I'm not going to follow this anymore.

I'm just, I'm out, you know, like, whatever.

Someone can explain this stuff to me now.

That's fine.

I want so badly to not be the person that's like

that was all i mean by words you know but uh

at a certain point yeah i have to just accept like this isn't my generation anymore dude yeah these jokes don't land for me and that's okay

after the dab i think the dab was probably my cutoff that was like okay

i'm doing this thing yeah i also hate dabs yeah right

yeah they're awful

I'm pretty sure we got one on the show today.

The last thing Dodger embraced was the dab.

She was like, I'll make this my first Nazi.

And then that's me.

That's the correct assessment.

Absolutely.

It wasn't just embrace.

She morphed into it.

She swallowed it like the blob.

It became part of her.

She is the dab, the living dab.

I had a period of time where a friend of mine who's just like a few years younger than me was sending me lots of videos where all of the audio was super crunchy.

And he was like, this is so funny, the crunchy audio.

And I was like, I've, I already did it.

We've, I've pat, I'm at the point already now where I'm like, I don't get it.

I don't get it.

I don't get it.

It was funny.

And it wasn't a good feeling, dude.

Yeah, no, I, I totally agree.

I don't like not getting the joke.

Yeah, no, no, I, I, all the time.

Like, you know, especially on YouTube where like you'll watch like videos, like funny compilations and you're like,

what, what is this?

You know, like, who finds this funny?

It's got like, it's got millions of views.

Someone finds it funny, but it's not me.

I'm old.

The problem is, is like, I

could live in this world.

I could, I could.

I do live in this world.

The other day, I found out that Ohio meant lame and boring, and I was like, that's hilarious.

I would use that all the time.

Here's the problem.

I feel like I can't, because once I use it, it becomes uncool.

The minute I say it, I just said the Rizzler, and everyone in chat is probably like, that's no longer cool.

We're done.

Rizzler's over.

That is the teacher's greatest weapon.

Yeah.

But I feel like I could live in this world.

I could yat all day, baby.

I could do whatever you want me to do.

I'll skibbity riz.

I'll do whatever.

I can live in that world.

I'm experiencing.

I could do it.

But I know that everyone would be like, calm it down, old man.

And I'd be like, oh, geez.

And I'd put on my like hat and be like, all right, fellow teens.

And I'd walk away.

That'd be it for me.

Get on my skateboard.

Maybe, maybe there's a midpoint for us, guys.

Maybe, you know, it's the important part is

understanding what people are trying to say to us.

And if that slang is popping up enough with people who are trying to communicate with us, it's important that we know what it is they're trying to say.

But we don't need to necessarily know how to use it.

I don't need to know how to

say skibbity properly.

I don't need to know where that goes in a sentence, you know?

True, true.

But yeah, I mean, you you know, there's understanding that.

And then it's like,

the whole premise seems to have been to not understand it, you know, to just throw that in there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just random.

Like, I just, I remember, like, you know, when we'd just be chatting shit on Xbox Live to each other, and we'd be chatting nonsense, you know?

Right.

And I think it's the same thing,

but in their own way.

For sure.

I don't know.

I think I was listening to the, I don't know.

I guess I was listening to the radio or something.

I don't know how I know this stuff, but they were talking about like Gen Alpha Slang.

I feel like the radio might not be the right source of information.

No, it was much like DJs trying to figure it out.

But one of the things I discovered was that Mog apparently means you look good.

And I must stress, the entire time I was like,

exactly.

Mog, like the Final Fantasy VI.

I was like, well, obviously, that dude dressed amazing.

It makes perfect sense to me.

And it took me a minute to be like, it clearly, and then I was like, oh, like trans mog, like the outfit that you wear and you can change up the outfits.

Like, no, it is not remotely related to any of that.

I still don't know where it comes from, but apparently it's looks maxing.

Look, I don't know, y'all.

I don't have answers.

I don't know what any of it means.

Looks maxing.

That's like new age.

Am I right?

Origin, right?

Looks maxing or something like this.

I don't know.

It's like min-maxing from D ⁇ D.

It all seems like

to be honest, I feel like we're the closest to that world without being in it.

Yeah.

Because

it all sounds like video game terminology.

It sounds like a bunch of gamers made up a bunch of stuff and it became mainstream.

100%.

That's it.

And then it blew up on TikTok and then they just adopted that as their own.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Damn.

Wait, what is Phantom?

Chat's telling Phantom?

Mewing?

All right, now we're off the, now I'm off.

Mewing sounds like a a sex thing.

Mewing, no, it doesn't.

Oh, gosh, I'm probably going to get this wrong.

Mewing is meant to like sculpt your jawline to be an alpha male, you know.

What?

And it has to do with where you place your tongue, I think, holding your tongue in a specific spot in your mouth

to sculpt the jaw.

That's why you see pictures of people going

that, because they're mewing.

So that's like the, it originated from the meme right or was that before the meme you know the meme with like uh well

the dude um

oh i can't remember do you know i've got the giga chat that guy

oh no and then they have like the squidward version of the meme and it kind of looks like the same thing if you're mewing Do you think just do you think we can make a whole Instagram account called mewing, but it's just like really chad looking cats?

Cats that are just like.

Yeah.

Yes.

Oh, you know know, those, oh my God, yes, hold on, we're on to something.

You know those videos?

Yeah.

You know those videos where they take like the perfect face and they'll put an actor's face behind the perfect, and then they'll use the liquify tool to just like pull the face until it's the perfect face.

Yes.

We just do that, but with cats.

With cats.

Oh, beautiful.

Amazing.

Cats with like really pronounced chins.

Yes.

Ridiculously.

Giga cats, if you will.

Giga cats.

Yes.

Yes.

I love it.

Great.

I don't know where we can go from here.

That was.

I don't either.

That was it.

We really haven't done the everything.

Comprehensive guide of slang.

Yeah.

I think people will learn from this vault.

I think so, too.

At the very least, they'll Google stuff that they regret, and that's good.

You know.

It's time to begin Kid Nation, followed by a sesh of Dale and Dawson stationary supplies.

Yep.

Yes, that one.

Absolutely.

Oh, by the way, by the way, I just want to stress.

So I looked up Gen Alpha Slang.

Okay.

She was like, because I was like, I don't know if I believe Dodge about the mewing thing, but it literally says, putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth to have a sharper jawline.

That is the thing it says.

But then it says ring.

Thank you.

A person's romantic appeal or charm.

Like, obviously, Charisma, like, that makes sense.

Yeah.

Phantom tax.

I looked it up.

Apparently, it's the action of taking someone's food, and that's a Kai Sanat thing that I guess is now mainstream.

But the best one here is gyat.

And it says, definition self-explanatory.

What do you mean, self-explanatory?

I assumed it was a gun noise.

Is it not a gun noise?

It just says self-explanatory.

Isn't it like, like, got it?

Or is it like, gat damn?

I thought it was a big butt thing.

Oh, damn.

Okay.

I thought it was like a description.

Like, like, yeah.

Like, that's like, yeah, like, that butt.

Like, I thought it was a thing.

Yeah, that butt.

So we might both be right.

It is.

But my question is, my question is, why does it just say on this thing, self-explanatory?

If you don't know what to go into details of

fine tushes,

I don't know.

It's so obvious that they don't even need an explanation.

They should, like, you should explain it to you, dude.

Yeah, you should.

It's embarrassing that you don't know.

I'm telling you.

I feel like Steve Buscemi in the like radical shirt with the hat.

Like, how do you do, fellow teens?

Like, that's how I feel.

Oh, my God.

And I think I can make it.

I think I can go back to high school and be like, hey, kids, have you played the Minecraft today?

Like, who's excited for Jack Black as Steve, right?

My fellow teens?

And they'd be like, go away, old man.

Have you seen the picture that looks?

I'm so sorry, Danny.

I don't think you've seen or met my husband at all.

But Jesse, have you seen the picture that looks just like Sam?

This is a screenshot from that.

What do you mean?

Oh, you mean,

yes, yes, yes.

Like, if Sam had bangs,

it would just look like the creep, the creeper picture with what's his ass in the pink shirt.

It's just Sam.

Yeah.

Anyways.

Poor Sam.

Poor Sam.

Anywho, Danny, you've been an amazing guest.

Thank you for having me.

We sort of spring this on people, but

we would like for you to give chat homework, a movie, a book, a comic, a game, whatever, an activity, something that you think chat should take the time to do.

They won't do it, but we're going to tell them to anyway.

So what?

You tell them to...

to let and they read a book and then you quiz them on the book next street like what no it's it's kind of like, here's a show that I think more people should watch.

Or

here's a book that I read.

I think more people should read it.

That kind of a thing.

What's something that you think more eyeballs should be on or more people should be engaging with?

Gosh.

Okay.

I think

there's some really good mods coming out for the Elder Scrolls Skyrim, like Sky Oblivion.

So if you play The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, definitely check this out.

They're remaking the entire game in the Skyrim Engine for free.

And it's coming out next year.

So definitely recommend checking that out.

I was going to be like, oh, guys, you need to look up, you know, like these young people's words.

We need to understand their culture.

But

then you'll never understand it, and they can help us next week.

Amazing.

Where can people find you, Danny?

What are you up to this week?

Gosh, what am I up to this week?

Watch your stuff and all that.

So I'm on YouTube playing roleplay games, essentially just mainly replaying Skyrim again and again for over a decade.

It's still not old.

People are still modding it, stuff, new stuff's coming out.

We've even made a mod list that automatically installs, so we take all that drama away from you.

Nice.

We've got like a video guide of how to install it with an ENB and everything.

And there's even different grades of mods.

So you can have either over a thousand mods or just like 300, depending on how good your computer is.

So that's that's kind of like what we're doing and all the new roleplay games I'm playing.

I always feel so awkward like being like, ah, this is what I do, my sponsored segment.

Okay,

check me out if you like RVGs.

Otherwise, don't worry.

It was a pleasure to be here though, guys.

I really enjoyed just

talking about all this old school stuff that I feel like should stay in the past, but now I'm going to go back and relive it.

Gonna go paint some Warhammer minis and watch Kid nation and you know

important pressing things gonna get fun i'm excited for it

jesse what's going on with you this week oh boy uh i am going to attempt to jump into uh

40k um i'm gonna try and and be a little space marine i have it i got it i'm excited Yeah, no, I mean, like, I'm not going to avoid the chaos.

Like, you know, part of chaos is killing other chaos.

It's fun.

So I'm going to, I'll try that, jump into there.

And I also,

I got a game that I'm going to check out.

I got the demo for it called Follow the Meaning.

It seems very up the same alley as Rusty Lake stuff.

So I'm going to check that out.

And

yeah, there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of games that exist.

Also, get ready.

Finally, I'm almost done with my Final Fantasy 14 Dawn Trail review.

It has been, it's taken me forever.

I've

put a lot of time into that.

So that's a whole thing coming at the latest.

It'll be Monday, but I'm working.

I'm putting effort into it.

And then, yeah, we got more, more stuff.

Oh, Scary Game Squad.

Everyone yelled at us to play a full game instead of small indie games.

So I literally, there's a four-hour video of us playing Indica coming.

So get ready for that.

Nice.

That game is

wild.

So

enjoy.

That will be coming soon.

But yeah, that's it.

Also, remember, hey, Stalt, Steven Cinder, it's out.

Pick it up.

Yeah, we produced that game.

If you like Metroidvanias, go grab it.

As for me, I'm going to try and finish Crypt Custodian.

I still haven't played Tactical Breach Wizards, but apparently it's like 10 hours long.

So I definitely want to try and do all of that this week because the demo was so fun.

Keep your eyeballs peeled.

There's, I think, going to be a trailer for the show that Danny and I have hosted that's going on social media soon.

Whoa.

I know.

And

yeah, that's about it.

Have an amazing weekend, everybody.

We will see you guys next time.

Thank you again, Danny.

Thanks for having me.

My pleasure.

Yeah.

Bye-bye, everybody.

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 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 beekeeper.

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.