Episode 192 - Life Isn't Worth Living - To the Moon

Don’t tell anyone, but I always thought they were podcasts.

Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today, we’re going to be talking about To the Moon, a narrative game focused around learning about characters through one’s memory. I imagine this description will be quite short, because there isn’t a lot I can cover without spoiling the plot. While technically a sci-fi story, the game revolves around one character’s past, so those elements fall more into the background during the meat of the gameplay. The result is that despite the fantastical premise, the majority of the game feels very mundane which has the effect of making it easier for the player to relate to the characters in the story, and it’s very effective because the game operates on a personal level. As you learn more about each of the primary characters, you can start to see the depth they have and that characterization and what you think about their actions and motivations will influence the way you perceive the overall story. It kind of sounds like I’m just describing how to read a story, but engaging with this game the way you would a book or a movie will probably do you better than coming into it like it was Chrono Trigger. This is an extremely well written story with very little interactivity, and it’s well worth checking out if you’re in the mood for something simple. We’re going to be talking about what being a game brings to the table for this experience, how the game goes handles its characters, and we speak ill (and not so ill) of the dead.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re on the last of our Mystery May games after this, and it’s so far been a year for actually covering the games that have been on our list for a long time. The tragedy of this game, aside from Johnny’s story itself, is that we waited so long to play it that it feels to me almost obsolete as a game, though not as a narrative, which still feels very well written. Did you feel similarly to me, or were you more engaged due to the interactivity? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we ended up rolling a game that is has been on the list for less time than the other games this year, but one we’re excited for anyway, Spiritfarer, so we hope you’ll join us then!

Episode 191 - That Might Be A Pokémon - Half-Life

Forget about Freeman, we’re abandoning the podcast.

Welcome back to the podcast! We may be into June, but we’re in the ides of Mystery May right now, and the fates have deigned we play Half-Life, and I am not one to argue with the fates. Half-Life is one of the most influential FPS games of all time, and part of that comes down to the way the game builds a really impressive world for you to play through. Black Mesa feels as vast in some places and stifling in others as it needs to in order to create a tone that is full of anxiety as you conserve ammunition while fighting enemies with genuinely great creature design. It’s part FPS, part horror title, like Doom was, but with this added environmental element that really pushes it to the next level. The other part of its influence is really just about how good the game was when it came out. Levels are mostly well paced, even from a modern perspective, movement through them feels fluid and like you’re using all the parts of your toolbox, and the aforementioned ammo conservation feels well thought out. This one is an easy game to go back to despite it’s age, and it’s still just as moody while still having that over-the-top 90s sci-fi edge to it. We’re going to be talking about Source Engine movement, the pros and cons of Xen, and whether we were or were not excited to turn on pumps.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ve been consistently hitting the games that have been on our list for the longest this year, and Half-Life is one we’ve been dancing around for a little too long. This game still rules, particularly if you are a fan of its descendants, so if you haven’t given it a shot yet, I recommend doing so. And then let us know what it was like over on our Discord, or in the comment section! Next time, we’re going to be talking about To The Moon, which is not about the stock exchange, so we hope you’ll join us then!

Episode 190 - Goth Mommies - The Wolf Among Us

No, I’m Pod. He’s Cast.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, for the second episode of Mystery May, we’re going to be talking about The Wolf Among Us, a narrative adventure game from Telltale. Telltale’s style of design really exploded with the Walking Dead, and has since led to a number of choice-based adventure games that would cite it as inspiration, but The Wolf Among Us sits in a unique position in their catalogue as the last indie property they would make a game out of following the studio’s previous success. Because Fables, the series that the game is based on, is relatively niche, many of the players for this game were fans of Telltale’s games specifically. This has led to the game having a particularly outspoken following, and a very positive reputation. And one it’s earned, we think. The game centers around a murder mystery, placing you in the shoes and paws of Sheriff Bigby Wolf trying to identify the killer. And this mystery is very well written, with pacing that makes the game’s five episode structure flow surprisingly well even when playing through the game all at once and characters that are deep enough to make sense of their motivations and, importantly, predict their reactions to your choices. Some of the mechanics show their age, with Telltale’s usual reliance on QTEs and truncated dialogue choices introducing a little bit of friction, but if these are things you can deal with, this may be the best example of what Telltale can do out there. We’re going to talk about the audience expectation that comes with writing a story using preexisting characters from two different mediums, managing tone with a mature premise but a silly pretense, and we revel in our success as podcasting magnates.

Thank you for joining us again this week! As we’ve mentioned on the last two episodes, it’s kind of crazy we hadn’t talked about a Telltale game up to this point. We have different histories with the studio, but we both like the games inspired by them and have played multiple games from them in the past, so it was honestly a matter of time. Do you think The Wolf Among Us is The Wolf Among the best games Telltale has released? Do you jive with the general structure and mechanics of this now twelve year old game still? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, the fates have deigned we talk about Half-Life, so be sure to join us for that!

Episode 189 - For Your Daddy - Monster Hunter Wilds

The guild authorizes you to hunt this podcast.

Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today, we’re going to be talking about Monster Hunter Wilds, the latest mainline entry in the series and the game that turned many peoples’ computers into puddles of acid. Wilds is a follow up to Monster Hunter World both in that it was made by the same team and that it mechanically doesn’t stray too far from the systems that World established. This is a good and a bad thing, because it means that the combat in Wilds is much more straightforward than it was in Rise, allowing you to establish a flow with each weapon and understand the basics fairly quickly. On the other hand, it also doesn’t feel like it has innovated much, particularly in the ways the game seemed to advertise itself on. Focusing on the larger environments, Wilds seems to have overstepped its own capabilities a bit, making the new areas harder to traverse, and without your mount, taking a long time to do. Additionally, much of the tracking mechanics have been stripped out, meaning you generally know what you’re hunting and exactly where it is when you set off, making the more-open world basically a nonfactor in gameplay. If you’re a fan of the series mostly because of the combat mechanics, none of these things will be deal breakers, and the new focus mode and wound system changes the texture of fights enough to make them feel fresh again, but there is a lot of truly unnecessary artifice surrounding the game that can detract. We’re going to be talking about what the story does(n’t) bring to the table, the wonderful new monster designs, and the horror that is palicos talking.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Monster Hunter Wilds was one of my most anticipated games this year, and despite what we talk about in the episode, I think it still holds up as a fun entry in the series, even if it isn’t substantially close to some of the previous games for me. How did you feel about the game? Did you manage to muscle through the first 10 or so hours to get to where the game opens up for you, or did you bounce off of it? If you were a new player, did you find this an accessible game? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord server! Next time, we begin Mystery May, where we roll a die to determine our next episode based on our tables (which you can view on our website if curious!). We’re starting with a “short” game (formerly “Pocket”), The Wolf Among Us, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

Episode 188 - Pretty Cute - Immortality

Artists create, podcast, and destroy.

Welcome back to the podcast where today we’re going to be talking about Immortality. Immortality is a game from Sam Barlow, creator of Her Story and Telling Lies and it follows in the same tradition as those games. Largely player-directed, the game involves watching clips of three films and footage associated with them in order to gain an understanding of what happened to the people involved. There is a set point at which the game shows you its credits, but whether you feel done at that point is largely up to you. Differing from the previous games, rather than inputting text to find clips, you click on elements in scenes to cut between them, following actors or props or other elements to see new things, and you can control the speed of playback and even play in reverse. Your understanding of these mechanics and how the internal logic of the match cuts works really determine what kind of agency you can exercise in solving the mysteries, so your milage may vary depending on how much you liked the core loop of Her Story in comparison to this one. Even so, the technical prowess on display here is still incredible, with a surprising dedication to capturing the feel of the eras of film each of the game’s three movies represent and performances that don’t feel like an imitation so much as part of film canon themselves. We’re going to be talking about the feeling of playing Immortality as compared to other games, the surprising directions the narrative takes and how it differed from our own interpretations, and in a spiritual successor to Haunting Those ROMs, we discuss what may be haunting THIS footage.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Immortality has been on the list for a while because we have a particular soft spot for Her Story and how different that game felt to anything else, and while this is more refinement than innovation, it’s still a really impressive title and would probably give you a similar feeling to us if it is the first of Sam Barlow’s games you’ve played. Did you pick up on the game’s secrets? Did you struggle to rewind because you were playing with a mouse? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Monster Hunter Wilds, so I hope you join us then and that you have some free time in the coming weeks.

Episode 187 - Only Rock and Paper - Wanted: Dead

I’m a gourmet. Place your bet and let the Wheel of Fortune make a choice for you.

We’re back with our last fan suggested game this year, Wanted: Dead! This game surely is something. Mechanically, it’s probably best described as a throwback third person action game, having a focus on melee combat in addition to gunplay. The two seldom overlap or string together in a meaningful way, however and the whole process just feels a little clunkier than it probably should. Combine that with enemies who take far longer to take down than they should and spawn near constantly and the combat in this game can be kind of a slog. And it’s not like the levels are full of other interesting things to do to make up for it, either. The game is still kind of great though, despite being a mess. Because where the sloppiness and weird juxtapositions hurt the game mechanically, they make the narrative elements of the game a real marvel. With scene transitions that contrast heavily in mood and tone, sometimes abruptly cutting into minigames without any relevant context, you are being taken for an unpredictable ride. The dialogue only occasionally drives the story and the game’s levels have objectives that are wholly different from one another. I realize that this isn’t “selling it” to a lot of people, but I think if you have an appreciation for the strange it might be worth at least looking into this game. We’re going to be talking about the odd intentionality of the choices in the game, where the lack of cohesive design helps versus hurts the game, and we realize that this falls into a category of game we didn’t think about: Classic Katana Games.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This was a game I was aware of and wanted to at least try out, so I jumped on the suggestion when it was made. It really is baffling to go through, so just know that it isn’t going to make a ton of sense if you decide to try it out. Did you hear about this game and were intrigued? Did you not hear anything about this game, particularly anything good, and so ignored it for a year? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be looking at Immortality, which probably couldn’t be further from the Wanted: Dead experience, so we hope you’ll join us for that and not suffer a grievous neck injury from the tonal whiplash.

Episode 186 - Where Sailors Hang Out - Shenmue

You like the podcast that much? Let me invite you to hell.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re doing another community requested episode (calling it Fanbruary at this point seems a bit silly) on Shenmue. An absolute classic action/adventure game that happened to be a blind spot for both of us. Shenmue centers on Ryo Hazuki, whose father is killed in the opening cutscene in a pretty rad martial arts fight. This sets up the events for you to uncover the reason behind the murder, which you do by talking to characters, learning schedules, driving forklifts and doing a little bit of fighting yourself. The variety of activities to do in this game are what made it so unique at the time and the fact that all of your verbs aren’t based solely in combat still makes it stand out against most triple A titles released even now. That being said, it’s an older game and the number of different control schemes and things to do may feel a bit unintuitive and clunky to you now. What hasn’t aged as badly, surprisingly, are the visuals, which contain a lot more detail than you would expect from the early days of the 3D games. From character models to buildings to interior spaces, the level of fidelity on display is really impressive for the time, even if it did mean the game had to be spread out across three discs on release. Overall this game is a piece of history for good reason, even if the experience isn’t as groundbreaking if you’ve been keeping up with modern games. We’re going to be talking about the more positive aspects of schlocky elements of the game’s story and dialogue, the good and bad ways in which the game’s time-based mechanics impact the play experience, and we lament the necessity in our society to just go get a job sometimes.

Thank you for listening to the podcast this week! Shenmue is a game that really works best if you are able to dedicate the time to immerse yourself in it, and as a result this episode is coming a bit late and also we maybe didn’t get the premier experience it could offer. That being said, there is a lot to like here and even more to respect for the period this game came out, so all in all I think it was worth it. Are you a diehard Shenmue fan? What did you think of our speculation on further games in the series? Let us know over on the Discord or in the comments! Next time, we’re wrapping up our suggested games for the year with Wanted: Dead, which should be a significant departure from everything else we’ve played this year, so much like Shenmue fans, I hope you’re in it for the variety, and that you join us then!

Episode 185 - Roast Beef, Some Chicken, A Pizza - Castlevania 64

This is not the anger of a vampire killer. This is the podcast of all humanity!

Welcome back to Fanbruary! Today, we’re going to be talking about Castlevania 64, an oft maligned entry in the Castlevania series and the first to be in 3D. In classic Castlevania fashion, your goal is to infiltrate a castle and kill Dracula to restore peace to the world, so it doesn’t have a ton of innovation in that respect, but porting that formula to 3D means reworking the design of the platforming and combat, which it does surprisingly well…at times. Being on the N64, this game definitely has some amount of jank, but outside of some specifically problematic areas and letting the sometimes uncooperative camera slide, it feels better than you might imagine. Combat is very punchy, at least playing as Reinhardt, with his whip feeling satisfying to use and enemy effects like parts of skeletons falling off or heavy flinch animations giving meaningful feedback. The platforming is more hit and miss, but it’s serviceable enough that much of the early and midgame challenges feel fair and fun to get through. It hits some weird difficulty levels at points where the systems just aren’t prepared to keep up with the design, and it seems like a symptom of early 3D growing pains mixed with a team unsure how to work within the new limitations. Throw in the fact that the game hits that Castlevania cheesiness in its atmosphere and writing and the resulting game is much better than you may have been led to believe, which is to say, worth checking out, even if it isn’t the most exemplary entry in the series. We’re going to be talking about the importance of a game’s first level, the differences between playing this at the time and in the present, and we wonder if this game’s protagonist might also be a form of transportation.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ve still got more Fanbruary coming up even though it’s technically March now, so stay tuned. This was significantly more competent than we expected given its reputation, and overall had a pretty good time with it. Are you a big fan of the series and have opinions on this entry? Did you play this (or it’s weird expanded version) on the N64 or is this the first you’ve really considered it? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Shenmue, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

Episode 184 - Bring Me the Cellos - Darkest Dungeon

In time, you will know the tragic extent of my podcast,

Welcome to Fanbruary! For our first listener suggested title this year, we’re talking about Darkest Dungeon, an RPG with Lovecraftian themes and light roguelike elements. Darkest Dungeon is known to be a difficult game, and it sticks to this design ethos with a commendable level of commitment. Depending on who you are, maybe too much commitment. With a large number of random factors affecting everything from what characters you get offered, the results of looting and in-combat effects, playing through the game’s dungeons feels like a Rube Goldberg machine of quirks, diseases, attacks and more triggering in a sequence that is almost always bad for you. This makes the climb for upgrades and ever-higher-leveled characters slow, but (I imagine) rewarding for dedicated players. And if you’re looking to become one of those dedicated players, don’t despair, or do despair, I guess, because the game’s non-gameplay elements do a great job of selling an atmosphere of hopelessness and fear, underscored by a charismatic and slightly shmaltzy narrator. This game has a lot going for it, but your enjoyment is ultimately going to be decided by your level of patience and how much you like turn based combat. We talk about the game’s difficulty and what parts of it we felt we could adequately prepare for, our biggest tribulations, and we discuss how part of the game could have been better if it was more like a pretzel.

Thank you for joining us again this week, and thank you for all your submissions for Fanbruary! I’m sure this is starting to sound like a thing I just say every episode, but as usual, we are running a bit behind this month, but we will get four episodes out for Fanbruary that just might bleed a bit into March. This game tried and successfully defeated us, unfortunately, but I’d be curious to hear from more long-term players if they’ve found consistent strategies or what high level play actually looks like, given that I only exhibited low level play. Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Castlevania 64, another game with a bit of a dismal atmosphere, but perhaps lightened by the jank of early 3D games, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Episode 183 - Drive-By Nap - The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

So this is the podcast energy. I’m overflowing with power!

Welcome back to the podcast and to the first full episode this year! We’re back from our now-traditional January break and talking about The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. This is the first full game in the series where you play as Zelda herself since the CD-i, which really did need to happen so we could finally stop pointing to The Wand of Gamelon as a standout of anything. This means that while the game hits a lot of the usual Zelda game beats, you interact with the world in a slightly different way. Link’s tools are still available to you in the form of sword, bombs, arrows, but it is tied to a resource meter so you can’t play the whole game in that way. Instead, you have the ability to spawn objects and enemies for a more open-ended approach to combat and puzzle solving. This is objectively cool, allowing you to use clever use of resources to bypass obstacles and come up with clever solutions and makes combat feel differently to other games in the series. However, this does also impact design in a major way with puzzles needing to be more open-ended and generic in order for you to have multiple ways of solving them, and it can get a little samey. How the game strikes the balance between novel, emergent gameplay and satisfying puzzle design is largely going to come down to taste, but it’s at least an interesting thing to have tackled by Nintendo. We’re going to be talking about the similarities between this and other Zelda games (and whether there are too many of them), how the more freeform design impacts dungeons, which are the meat and potatoes of the gameplay, and we test out a few new game design mantras about substituting Bigfoot in for content you couldn’t finish.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re back and extremely ready to tackle Fanbruary in the coming weeks, with this game being one of those that came out last year that we just sort of missed. We have taken the longest hiatus from talking about Zelda games we ever have, which is maybe too much of a dedication to the series because it’s only been a bit over a year, but it’s always interesting to see what this particular pillar of the industry is trying to do. Do you agree this game feels like it might be more of a cult hit? Did you find it too similar to other Zelda games and wish they had done more to change it up? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we begin Fanbruary by talking about Darkest Dungeon, the turn based RPG roguelike, but don’t worry if you haven’t gotten a submission in and would like to. We still have a couple slots undecided, so let us know what you’d like to see us play!

The NOCLIP Awards 2024 - Public Intellectuals

The Smashiest balls were the friends we made along the way.

The NOCLIP Awards are back again this year with all their usual prestige. I know you are all waiting with baited breath to see what games are getting the nod, while knowing full well that the games that released this year are of no object when you compare them to the games that we chose to play this year, which are the real contenders. When it is finally realized that we should be the true arbiters of taste, these awards will defeat all others in the public consciousness and weird new Elden Ring games will be announced on our podcast. This is the world I truly want to live in.

One thing you will learn after listening this year though, is that this was quite a varied year. Which admittedly, we do try to do, but it comes out in the variety of games represented. It’s a thing that always makes me feel good looking back through all the episodes we did and seeing the different experiences we had this year and both how the medium is changing as well as the wealth of games from the past that are still unique and worth revisiting. I hope we’ve influenced you to check out something out of your usual comfort zone, and that this show can make you reflect on the experiences that you had.

Thank you, as always for joining us for another year of NOCLIP and our dumb awards thing. We’re taking a short break, but will be back mid-to-late January with an episode on The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. And please don’t forget to get submissions in, through whatever channel you want (Discord, comments, email, twitter, whatever), for Fanbruary!

Episode 182 - Starring Adam Sandler - Slay the Princess

I need to see how handsome I am.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Slay the Princess, a narrative focused “collect the endings” game that has a truly impressive amount of writing to account for all of a player’s possible choices. The numerous endings, scenes and dialogue choices within those scenes, all voice acted by two people no less, are the player’s primary motivation to try new things and follow new paths. Fortunately for the game, though, the quality of that writing is also surprisingly good. The tone runs the gamut between horror, comedy and romance, in part reactive to the player’s decisions but also in service of a greater narrative, that is largely up to the player to interpret. The fact that the game ends coherently at all, let alone with the possibility of something with real emotional resonance is a testament to just how well put together the game is. We’re going to be talking about the special something the game’s visuals possess that gives it a familiar, appealing quality, the way your initial experience will shape the way you progress through the game, and we misinterpret the game as getting a little…steamy.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We wanted something short and simple to end the year, and while this kind of filled that role, I don’t think we were prepared for the surprising amount of depth on display here. We’re also surprised the game came out as long ago as it did. Did you play it back then? How literally did you interpret the title? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re coming back with The NOCLIP Awards, so we hope you’ll break out the champaign for us next time, and don’t forget to get your suggestions in for Fanbruary!

Episode 181 - It's Jar Jarring - Star Wars Episode 1 Racer

Do goola podcast sa bantha poodoo.

Welcome back to the podcast! As we near the end of the year, we like to look back on a game or two that are more nostalgic for us, and Racer somehow got overlooked until now. Racer is maybe the first of our nostalgia picks that really holds up, at least in our opinion. This is a very straightforward video game, all the things considered, but the focus makes for a surprisingly solid racing experience. True to the movie, podracing in the game is extremely fast and almost 100% guaranteed to end with a lethal explosion. The tracks lose a bit of their focus as the game goes on, but the core mechanics are skill testing in an enjoyable way and the game is short enough that you can get to the point where you’re playing it to improve very quickly. It’s very mechanics first, but it being Lucasarts, due is paid to making sure that the world, characters and sound design fits with the movies. The presentation suffers in some ways, but the worlds of the game are well realized for the time and also Watto is there, which is great. We’re going to talk about the feeling of playing the game for the first time and once you get used to it, the mechanics we did and did not remember using as children, and we spend a decent amount of time just complaining about the prequel trilogy.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This is a great palette cleansing game after what has a been a heady year and one that I was really surprised by. I’ve come to expect the games we liked as kids to pretty much always be worse than you remembered, so for this to hold up as well as it does was pleasant, at worst. If you haven’t played this game in a while, or god forbid, not at all, it’s surprisingly accessible with a recent remaster and the original PC version on Steam, so maybe give it a look. Post your fond recollections of the N64 in the comments or over on our Discord. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Slay the Princess, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

Episode 180 - Your Murderous Urges - Loretta

I won’t reach the truth with podcasts. They can’t give it shape.

Welcome back to the podcast, and as we finally finish the theme (and catch up on episodes in general after a hectic October) of Games Titled After Women’s Names That Begin With “L.” Loretta is an adventure game in the technical sense; it leans heavily on narrative and player choice, with your actions dictating the events of your playthrough. Most of these choices revolve around how many people you do or do not murder. The story revolves around Loretta, the player character, having killed her husband and the fallout of that action. Whether that is justified or even a positive action is determined by your choices going forward, and Loretta has a personality that stays pretty consistent throughout. The game does feature a few gameplay elements outside of this, but they are honestly barely worth mentioning in a format like this. You’re playing this game for its narrative and everything else is just around for the sake of variety. We’re going to be talking about the fact the game needs to put you effectively in the shoes of a killer before being able to explore its narrative branches, the unusualness of the setting adding to the uncanny atmosphere and being a point of interest in and of itself, and murder. We say “murder” more on this episode than we ever have and probably ever will.

Thank you for joining us! Loretta falls pretty comfortably in the realm of those games we specifically like, so we were fortunate it fell into this narrow theme and one that we’re glad we could end it on. Was this game on your radar or was this the first time you’re hearing about it? Did you choose to murder every person you saw in the game? Let us know in the comments or in our Discord server! We’ve pretty much caught up with our outstanding episodes at this point and will be hopefully bringing in some more variety in the upcoming months (though Fanbruary is on you guys). Next time, we’re going to be talking about Star Wars Episode I: Racer, following the vague tradition we have of playing more nostalgic games around the holidays, so we hope you’ll join us then, which you probably will if we’ve narrowcasted enough to pretty much only appeal to people our own age.

Episode 179 - A Rusty Crux - Amnesia: The Bunker

I’m on the podcast tonight? C’est la vie.

Welcome back to the podcast! We’re finally finishing our Halloween games this week with Amnesia: The Bunker. This is the fourth game in the Amnesia series and introduce some light combat elements as well as reframes the series’ physics system to create an immersive sim type experience with several options to overcome obstacles. And of course, it’s still an Amnesia game, so you’ll be evading an ever present monster who wants to maul you. Set in World War I, the game makes good use of its setting with the intermittent sounds of combat keeping you on your toes and the crank flashlight and crude tools playing with the game’s sound mechanics to ensure you never feel fully safe. The game also has a weird relationship with its own mechanics sometimes. With a single save room and the high lethality of the monster, you’ll find yourself back in administration from time to time with more resources than you died with and new information of where and where not to go. This can sometimes encourage dying to reset and save precious generator fuel and to reroute, giving the game a bit of a fragmented feeling. However, if you don’t mind these things or just do a good job of surviving, it has enough interesting things to be worth giving a go. We’re going to be talking about the relative difficulty (and difficulty settings), how the options you have vary and where we think it could have been a bit more varied, and we connect the game to the first game in only ways that are wrong.

Thank you for joining us again this week! I realize this has been a long October, but we did want to get through the games we set aside for the spooky time of year. And we ended strong as far as the actual fear went. Would have been nice to actually have landed on Halloween, but here we are. Did you struggle with this game at all? Did you find a use for the flare? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re finishing yet another theme by playing Loretta, a final game named after a woman that begins with the letter L, so we hope you’ll join us then!

Episode 178 - A Bunch of Band-Aids - Cryptmaster

What did you say? Podcast? We’re not going to drop everything and do that.

Welcome back to the podcast. We’re still playing a bit of catchup this month, and to continue with our Halloween picks, we’re talking about Cryptmaster! This is a dungeon crawler in the typing game subgenre, where you solve puzzles and fight enemies using abilities you type out. To gain the abilities, you need to find letters, which you can come across in a variety of ways, which fill out a series of blanks for each of your four characters, and then guess what the full word is, similar to a Wordle or a crossword puzzle style. This, objectively, is a weird and really cool system. And it feeds into the other elements of the game, encouraging you to engage in combat and explore the world, complete sidequests and play the in-universe card game. On the other hand, many of the things you have to do can become a bit tedious, especially relating to the soul resource you have to manage in order to engage in combat effectively, not to mention the huge number of riddles you have to solve with no artifice really over top of them. That being said, the end product is still extremely cool, builds an effective tone which walks the line between being funny and building the feeling of an underworld in a serious way, and is probably worth looking past the irritants if you’re looking for something novel and interesting. We’re going to be talking about how we responded to the challenge the combat posed, the different mechanical choices that did and did not work for us, and how mastering the combat requires the memorization of an educational curriculum in vocabulary.

Thank you for joining us this week! Cryptmaster generated some light buzz when it came out earlier this year, and it was clear it was a game that fit into our preferred level of weirdness. The overall idea here is so cool and I think it’s still great even with some of its contents working against your ability to have fun with it. Did this game overcome its flaws for you as well, or are you just a huge fan of riddles? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time we’re finally finishing up our October games and preparing to move on to greener, less horror-themed pastures, but we’re closing out the theme with Amnesia: The Bunker, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

Episode 177 - Respect Water - Omori

Welcome to cast space.

Welcome back (finally!) to the podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about Omori, a turn-based RPG with a unique art style and dark themes. Though, as we discuss in the episode, don’t think too much of Omori based on its genre, because it’s really putting its worst foot forward. Omori has rich characters, relatable themes and effective comedy. It’s a silly game in the same vein as Earthbound where you fight cartoon sharks and your happy characters will deal more damage against angry foes, but it’s real strength is in making you learn more and more about your party members and their associated friends before stabbing you right in the heart. The game is billed as having psychological horror elements, and those are there, but the game is also profoundly sad and surprisingly moving. And on top of that, it has a combat system that has some depth to it, but takes a long time to come into its own and adds a level of tedium to a game that otherwise keeps you wanting to move forward. We’re going to be talking about the slow build of the combat and where it shines, the tonal differences and how much of it we think was intentional, and we tell you how not to discuss Chrono Trigger.

We’ve been pretty busy, so we apologize for the extremely long delay between episodes. Omori is at least a bit of a gem, so hopefully you enjoy the episode. We still have two more games for Halloween to cover, so we’ll be staying in the genre over the next couple weeks despite the scheduling issues. Did you participate in the Omori Kickstarter? Is it a game you heard about later and checked out based on the art style or the themes? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Cryptmaster, so we hope you’ll join us then!

Episode 176 - Dissolve Those Bones - Crow Country

We’re old enough.

Welcome back to NOCLIP, and beware, for it is Halloween! To kick off October, we’re talking about Crow Country, a throwback survival horror game that does a lot to stand out in its field. The game is set in an amusement park and has a unique polygonal graphic style that gives an oddly whimsical aesthetic. It makes good use of this with its environments: haunted houses, underwater exhibits and fantasy fairy forests. Each new area feels a little quirky, but always with that chunky, blocky texture that sells the disheveled feel of the park itself. All of this is in service of a short but tightly executed survival horror game with disempowered combat, save rooms without checkpoints, item collection and puzzles to solve. It has the hallmarks of the genre, but each mechanic is implemented in a well thought out way. We’re going to be talking about how the one location setting helps teach the player the layout while hiding surprises, how the simplicity of some mechanics shine light on progression and storytelling, and we make the tough call to shoot everything in sight.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re excited as always to start talking about horror titles, and Crow Country is the perfect first game to play in a month like this. It feels like a nostalgic throwback, but obviously brings with it the lessons learned over decades of innovation in the genre. How did you feel about this relatively short entry into the genre? Let us know over on the Discord server or in the comments! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Omori, which is a more different kind of horror game, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

Nine Years of NOCLIP - Baja Throat Blast

Happy NOCLIP day, everyone, and welcome to our celebration of nine years of doing the podcast! Nine years is such a long time to do anything, but I feel like it gets overshadowed sometimes with ten years looming around the corner. Which makes sense, so rather than argue you should be celebrating an odd numbered year like this, I’m going to reframe this as the beginning of year ten. It’s our decade celebration, which will last for one year until the tenth anniversary, so make sure you tune into every episode because it’s a special time for us at NOCLIP. We’ll really wow you by doing exactly the same kind of content we normally do, shock you with opinions that fall in line with what you would expect given our now extensive history, and thrill you by bringing on special tenth-year guests like probably no one, or just one of our friends you’ve already heard from before. And the best part is, once the clock ticks over to October 3rd 2025, we get to reframe it again as a big milestone. You are all eating out of the palms of our hands and we wouldn’t have it any other way, you suckers.

Seriously though, thank you all for listening to us, no matter how long you’ve been here. We actually have been slowly making changes over the last year, with a new theme song, our switch to remote recording and the process that has been getting us to consistent quality, and merging pocket back into the main show to try and streamline our lives and your experience. We’re honestly very happy with where we are as far as content goes at the moment, but let us know if you have any suggestions for things because we take what little feedback we get seriously. We hope you’ve been enjoying the show and we have a bunch of exciting episodes planned on games both big and small, so we hope you’ll play along where you can and we’ll see you again next year!

Episode 175 - Thoughtpocalypse - Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

I would recommend podcasters to rob banks instead because gambling is immoral.

Welcome back to the podcast and to our very important series on games titled after women’s names that begin with the letter L. Today, we’re talking about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes a puzzle game from Simogo, developer of games like Year Walk and Sayonara Wild Hearts. Taking the form of an enormous escape room, where solving number puzzles and unlocking doors is the name of the game, you progress through an ever growing list of goals to uncover the “truth” as it is quantified in the menu. The game has a few consistent motifs that pop up to anchor you into the narratives main themes and provide clues to the puzzles, and combined with a story that has real concrete answers you can figure out yourself with the information provided, it really meshes a mechanical satisfaction with a narrative one. In the same vein, the difficulty of the puzzles really lands in a spot that will likely be satisfying for most people, if a bit easy for people who are diehard fans of the genre. Mostly more simple than you would think at first glance, recognizing patterns and identifying a pool of answers to choose from will serve you better than raw enigmatology in this case. The game isn’t perfect, a bit too long, and if you’re not a fan of puzzle games generally this likely won’t change your mind, but it’s a stylish package put together by a developer that really knows how to nail a tone. We’re going to be talking about the interconnectivity of puzzles, the stylish execution of a visual style and we determine that person we often most agree with is ourselves.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Not know what this game was going into it may have not been the best idea from a scheduling perspective, and maybe had something to do with us thinking it was bit overlong, but in the end it was still a good time. Do you think our devotion to Simogo’s games is unhealthy? Do you just agree and enjoy their output? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re actually interrupting the GTAWNTBWTLL theme as we enter October and will be talking about Crow Country, so we hope you’ll stay tuned for that.