NOCLIP Pocket E41 - Finish Your Vegetables - Telling Lies

Your podcast’s name is NOCLIP? We’re going to need to come up with a better name.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! This time, for our first episode of Mystery May, we’re going to be talking about Telling Lies. This game is a follow up to Sam Barlow’s previous game Her Story, and the two share a lot of the same DNA. Both are desktop simulations that see you searching through a database to find clips of people talking and use those clips to figure out the characters’ stories. If that sounds exactly like Her Story, well, you wouldn’t be wrong. The main difference comes in a higher level of production value and a much different narrative that is less about uncovering the mystery and more about learning about the characters. Which, I know, Mystery May game doesn’t even have much of a mystery, oof, etc. The mystery that is there, though, is interesting and the characters are all extremely well-acted. It’s hard to pin down exactly what it is that makes us feel so differently about this game as compared to Her Story, but that’s what we’re going to be trying to do over the course of this episode. We’re going to be talking about how the game uses its keyword system to create narrative threads to lead you along its story, the new mechanical elements and design of the clips that makes this game feel and play differently to its predecessor, and we uncover the conspiracy that we agree isn’t a conspiracy.

Thank you for joining us this week! As Her Story is one of our favorite games from the podcast or otherwise, we were excited to carve out the time to finally play this. If you’re a fan of the original, how do you feel about the direction this game went? Did the inclusion of more notable actors enhance the experience for you or take you out of it? Even after doing the episode I still feel kind of torn. And that uncertainty will be the perfect emotional state for the remainder of Mystery May, as for our next pocket episode we’re going to be talking about Hypnospace Outlaw, so we hope you’ll come back for that!

Episode 110 - Fantasy MMMBop - Dragon Age: Origins

Dwarven podcasts! Fine Dwarven Podcasts! Direct from Orzammar.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today we're going to be taking another dive into the world of CRPGs, which of course means that Chad won't be joining us. Instead, Andy will be joined by special guests Daniel and Janelle to discuss BioWare's 2009 classic, Dragon Age: Origins. We'll be discussing engaging world building,  intricate quest design,  important narrative decisions, and most importantly, which characters we want to smooch. 

Thank you for listening to NOCLIP this week! We hope you'll join us next time as we kick of Mystery May with a discussion of Heavy Rain.

NOCLIP Pocket E40 - Felt Like A Sandwich - Donut County

This podcast has great tunes and water balloons.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, where we are making our way through every twee indie game that has made its way to the Switch, apparently. Seriously though, Donut County channels the gameplay energy of Katamari Damacy, or I guess Feeding Frenzy, through a much less chaotic, more relaxed style and into a world that is characterized by clever writing and likeable characters. Well, sometimes the characters are unlikeable, but in a fun way. This writing, which made us realize we may be closer to the nursing home than we had previously assumed, is what brings the game its levity, having less vim and vigor and more of an ironic shoegazy feel with conversations had through text nearly indistinguishable from those had face to face. Along with the games simplistic yet pretty absurd plotline, everything meshes together to create an aesthetic that feels very complete. We’re going to talk about gameplay complexity and how we wished the game would ramp up or maintain its more intricate puzzle elements, how the writing style deviates from the norm in a way that may reveal the path forward rather than stand out as a novelty, and what you can say that could justifiably get you kicked out of a restaurant.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Despite coming out a few years ago, this game only recently came to our attention and fit into that nook of things we are confused and intrigued by, and I can’t say we were disappointed. Did the game’s indie charm work for you, or were you curmudgeonly grumbling about it’s frequent use of “lol”? Let us know on Discord or in the comments below! Next time, we’re going to be entering Mystery May, one of the traditions we’ve managed to keep going, and talking about Telling Lies the successor to perennial favorite Her Story, so we hope you’ll join us for that, as well as the other perplexing titles we’re going to be talking about next month.

Episode 109 - Just Comic, Not a Relief - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

I’ll say something really teary at the funeral, like “Welcome to NOCLIP!”

Welcome to the podcast! This week, we’re going to be talking about Jak and Daxter, which has been on the list for quite some time. Jak was one of the first of the 3D platformers that defined the genre during the PS2 era, and like many of its contemporaries, is one of the games that’s quick to come to mind for a lot of people when talking about the console. Unlike games like Ratchet and Clank or Sly Cooper, though, Jak is light on gimmicks, predominately taking the style of game Naughty Dog established in Crash Bandicoot and expanding it out to offer more freedom and more character. The game’s fairly simple design, mostly revolving around using 3D platforming to get collectables, is what helps it hold up today. We’re going to be talking about world design and the benefits presented by having all the levels exist in a single contiguous map, the cartoony aspects of the game and its characters, and we dissect the true purpose of the bolted shut mine carts in the Volcanic Crater level.

Thank you for joining us this week! On occasion, we get to go back to our original list of games we made for the podcast years and years ago and find something that we finally think it’s time to cover, and this was one of those games. Does it hold up? Yes and no, really. It holds up about as well as you could expect given the decades since its original release, but it still feels worth returning to if you haven’t played it before. Do you agree? Let us know in the Discord or in the comments. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Dragon Age: Origins, but without Chad, so I’m sure that will entice all of you to join us for that episode!

NOCLIP Pocket E39 - Bent Over in the Van - Phasmophobia

The podcast’s name is NOCLIP. Saying it’s name will anger it.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket. We’re a ways off from Halloween, but today, we’re going to be talking about Phasmophobia, with our regular guests Dan, Janelle and Steven. Phasmophobia is a cooperative ghost hunting game where you and (hopefully) your friends use a variety of tools to determine what kind of spirit is occupying a space in the vein of popular ghost hunting TV shows. The game was released last year in early access and drew in a surprising number of players given its pretty janky state. The game is obviously a horror title, but the aforementioned jank also gives the game an (intentionally or not) outlandishly silly tone at times, meaning that emotionally, you’re usually swinging back and forth from laughing and goofing off to running out of a spot where some spooky audio or visual trick happened. All in all, even being kind of unfinished, the game offers a kind of depth and experimental play pattern that does keep it fun and entertaining, especially when you’re playing it with people you like. We’re going to be talking about how the strength of the audio design pulls more than its weight in making this horror game scary, role playing and teamwork in a slow paced horror title and the enviable but occasionally problematic nature of The Guy in the Van.

Thank you for listening to NOCLIP Pocket this week! We decided to talk about this game mostly as an excuse for us to get together online and play games. Is it selfish? Nope, it’s content creation, baby! Did you play this game during its big boom? By how far did we miss the boat on this game? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Donut County, a game where you play as a hole in the ground, which is a concept too intriguing for us to pass up.

Episode 108 - Go Get 'Em Tiger, Grab That Ring - Ring Fit Adventure

Try to focus on maintaining the proper podcast!

Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today, after many months of preparation, our sweat and tears (but fortunately no blood) have culminated in this episode about Ring Fit Adventure! Ring Fit Adventure is a game about exercising set within in a pretty self-aware RPG. You travel from place to place and fight monsters, yeah, but all of your general movement and attacks are performed by doing simple exercises like squats and leg lifts. And that is ostensibly what we’re going to be talking about today. However, if there was ever a way for a video game podcast to analyze the mechanical feel of working out, we haven’t found it, and the artifice surrounding the actual game systems are so buck wild that they steal a lot of the focus. The “Adventure” part of Ring Fit Adventure centers around a quest to regain your ever-present companion’s powers to stop a comically jacked dragon from wreaking havoc, all of which is nestled in a very forgiving game that reminds you to take breaks at regular intervals and to stay hydrated, far from the concerns of your typical RPG protagonist. These things make Ring Fit both a real novelty in the realms of both fitness games and RPGs and help it to hit a ratio between carrot and stick that actually makes it worth playing. We’re going to be talking about item management and fail states in a game that wants you to keep playing it for your own well-being, characters and voice acting existing where you kind of didn’t even think about them as important elements, and we explore the real and unreal universes lorded over by Tipp, Master of the Space Between.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This was a weird one in a lot of ways, and if you didn’t play along, I can’t say you’ll be spoiled exactly. If you did though, how did the game work for you? Did it successfully trick you into doing aerobics in your free time? We were personally surprised how much of an actual workout it was and how little pretense it has for that workout, unlike other games in the genre. Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re jumping back not just from very active games but also to the far flung year of 2001 to talk about Jak and Daxter, so we hope you’ll join us then.

NOCLIP Pocket E38 - Grape Popsicles and Hugs - Pokémon Puzzle League

Aw, poor baby!

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket (monsters)! Today, due to some scheduling conflicts, we are not going to be talking about Phasmophobia, but instead the 2000 match 3 puzzle game Pokémon Puzzle League. Puzzle League is a game that both of us played a good bit in our younger years, but wasn’t quite notable enough to really maintain any level of popularity long after its release, coming out as part of the never ending deluge of Pokémon branded content that has existed since the series became popular. And do we think that should be different? Well, at the risk of spoiling parts of the episode, no not really, but it is still a fun game, holding up largely by its nostalgic value and simple mechanics. The game largely follows the same design as Tetris Attack, which is definitely a good game, and by extension this is similarly satisfying to play and get better, which is amplified by the one big twist in the form of 3D mode. We’re going to be talking about the Pokémon coat of paint and what it does for the game, how we think the game could have differentiated itself, and we hypothesize about what a show called “Rocket Mode Today” would be like.

Thank you for joining us this week, and sorry we didn’t have the specifically scheduled game ready this time. Did you play this game as a kid, and was it closer to 90 or 100 percent because it had the word Pokémon in the title? And we’d like to know if you enjoyed this episode, because we were able to turn this one out quickly because of our vast experience with the game and there are definitely some other nostalgic hits we could turn out with more of a focus on the emotional experience of a childhood favorite than breaking down why matching colored blocks is fun. Let us know in the comments, or over on Discord! Next time we will almost certainly be talking about Phasmophobia.

Episode 107 - Moldymort - Resident Evil VII: Biohazard

He ain’t eatin’ the podcast, Jack! I made that for him!

Welcome back to NOCLIP! Today we’re going to be touching on a somewhat out of season horror game, but fear not (or fear yes, in fact), as there is a sequel coming in just a couple of months. Resident Evil VII, which released a few years ago, before the series began remaking its games like it was going out of style, marked what is a long awaited return to form for much of its fanbase. The series had progressed beyond its survival horror roots into something more action focused following the massive success of the fourth game, but after a 5 year hiatus following the most controversial entry, to put it generously, in the series, the shift back to the more limited and slow paced style of horror was a welcome one. RE7 is set entirely in first person, a move that both sheds light on the influence Capcom took from popular games in the genre and allows for a VR mode to be implemented without changing the base mechanics, and contains more resource management and slow methodical exploration. Because of this, and the “large domicile” locale, the game ends up being compared more often to Resident Evil than it does to Resident Evil 6, and that feels like a successfully implemented design to me. We’re going to be talking about inventory space limitations and what it brings to the table, the reinforcement and undermining of character and plot, and we have hidden a personality test in the episode that will tell you if you have a big brain or are an ignorant baby.

Thank you for joining us this week! This was a game we’ve wanted to play (both at all and in VR) since it came out, and the buzz surrounding the sequel seemed like a good enough excuse. Not to spoil our thoughts, but we were surprised in a lot of places at how well the game pulls off what it’s going for, and it’s definitely worth playing or revisiting if you’ve been through it before. It may not have a tall lady you want to do frankly confusing but undeniably sexy things to you, but it does have a door you have to put sigils in to unlock, so the sanctity of Resident Evil is safe and sound.

NOCLIP Pocket E37 - Tell Your Grandmas - A Short Hike

A fish ate my podcasting license…

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re going to be talking about A Short Hike, an indie adventure game and the third game in our deeply important series of bird based games on Pocket. A Short Hike is a very minimalist game, both in style and length, but there is still a good bit to do and explore, even if the game’s world isn’t so big. Part platformer, part adventure game, you spend much of your time in the game collecting items to reach new heights and complete tasks to deepen your relationships with the animal characters who inhabit the camp in which the game takes place. It’s these charming characters that give the game it’s personality. To the point where it feels reductive to refer to doing things for them as “completing tasks,” as the rewards you get for finishing them are much less important than the mostly tiny stories they all have. Combine that with a surprisingly satisfying set of movement mechanics and a dynamic soundtrack, and you get a really focused experience that oscillates between calming exploration and exhilarating flights around the island. We’re going to be talking about the host of different activities available to do in the game’s open world, how the dialogue really sells the game’s light but personal narrative, and how close we are in age to the target demographic for fishing.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This game comes from a half-joking suggestion on our Discord server we got after posting the Unfinished Swan episode, and I’m personally really happy to have been made aware of it. This type of short, calming game is really welcome during stressful times (see, e.g., a global pandemic, playing Resident Evil VII, etc.), so I hope if you decided to play along this week that this game was able to put you in a more relaxed headspace. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Phasmophobia, partly to act as a counterpart to what we’re playing for the main podcast next, and partly as an excuse to screw around online with some friends, so I hope you’ll join us for that!

Episode 106 - Rocketing Toward the Grave - Hades

Your podcast provides you with a certain mindless strength, but such power has its limits.

Welcome back to the podcast! This week, we’re, along with everyone else over the last few months, talking about Hades, Supergiant’s action Roguelite game. One of Hades’ most successful design decisions was to make the game extremely hard to become frustrated with. With an extensive list of unlockable abilities and upgradeable weapons as well as in depth character relationship paths, every time you die in the game you always feel like you’re making some progress. Even more than that, though, you actively look forward to returning to the hub, as each time you set out, you’ll have goals in mind for what to do with the resources you acquire on the run. This takes away the sting of losing a run that dissuades many people from continuing with Roguelike games most of the time, and makes you feel like you are always stronger than the last time you began. And that’s just scratching the surface of why this game has become so popular. Everything from the music to the dialogue to the art is polished and enticing and the mechanics feel like they have been boiled down from the essence of what made Supergiant’s other games as good as they were. We’re going to be talking about how the themes of the game play with the genre and mix to tell a compelling story, how the core gameplay loop keeps you engaged through multiple runs, and who in the game gives off the best himbo vibes.

Thank you for listening this week! With this game in the bag, we can finally focus on actually playing other games for the podcast… But did you get as sucked into Hades as we did? What gods did you favor, and how many runs did it take you to taste sweet victory for the first time? Let us know in the comments, or over on Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Resident Evil 7, as Village is releasing early and we always have too many games we’re excited to play around Halloween time, so we hope you’ll enjoy a slightly out-of-season horror and check us out then.

NOCLIP Pocket E36 - Above My Play Grade - Downwell

This podcast was recorded in “Arm Swing” style.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, where this week, we’re going to be talking about Downwell, a Rougelike platformer where your goal is just to fall all the way down to the bottom. Obviously this is more difficult to do than it sounds, but even with as difficult as this game is, it’s that simplicity that makes it stand out. You only ever need to move left and right and press a single button, making the game incredible easy to learn and putting you immediately into the loop of getting better, rather than having to take the time to teach you everything you are capable of doing. This also means that the first area of the game never needs to be so easy as to be a tutorial, meaning that your runs begin nearly as intense as the previous one ended. Combined with the short length of most attempts and how quickly you can restart and try again, it makes the game an extremely frantic experience. We’re going to be talking about how the audio and visual elements of the game play into making the mechanics as smooth as possible, how the different powerups and styles affect your decision making, and our overwhelming lack of skill.

Thank you for listening again this week! This is our first Roguelike, though admittedly it’s fairly atypical of the genre mechanically, and it immediately butted up against the idea of how much of a game needs to be played before you can make a judgment on it. For fans of the genre, how much time do you put into a Roguelike before you know you like it? As a genre designed to be difficult from the start in order to make the die and restart flow meaningful, sometimes it’s hard to tell. Let us know in the comments or on Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about A Short Hike, which you could argue is more our speed.

Episode 105 - Final Fantasy X - Arms Are Sweaty

I know it’s selfish, but this is my podcast!

Welcome back! Twenty years after the game’s release and five years of doing this podcast, we are finally going to talk about our first Final Fantasy game. Ten specifically is a game that we have a history with and which has been specifically requested, so we carved out the time to talk about it. FFX is the first Final Fantasy game to be released on the PS2, and made use of the new hardware to create a game that was of an extremely high fidelity for the time, spawning an association between the franchise and high quality visual presentation. Crisp 2001-era graphics aren’t the only innovation though, and FFX also introduced us to the Sphere Grid, an intimidating-looking change to the way leveling was handled that didn’t really get revisited afterward, but is extremely interesting nonetheless. All this set against the typically high-stakes story about saving the world from an ancient evil, now with fully voiced characters portrayed by a professional cast. We’re going to be talking about how the game feels scaled-down from previous games in the series and how this linearity affects everything from mechanics to the plot to the end game content, how complicated the sphere grid really is, and which character is actually an animatronic shark behind the scenes.

Thank you for joining us this week! Doing JRPGs like this always takes us a bit, since they tend to be on the longer side, and that’s probably reflected in the length of this episode. So, I apologize if you prefer us to be a little snappier, but we wanted to give the game its due. Still, it feels like there’s so much involved with this game’s legacy, do you think there’s anything we left out? Were we too hard on Kimahri? Let us know in the comments or on our Discord server! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Supergiant’s Hades, so that I have a reason to stop playing it and do something else with my time, so I hope you’ll join us then.

NOCLIP Pocket E35 - Regular Dude Names - Penko Park

Underneath your seat, you will find your complimentary Podcast Snap-A-Lot 9000.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket. Today, we’re going to be talking about Penko Park, a game that uses unique assets, but is solidly in the very small genre shared by Pokémon Snap. The game’s controls and objectives are largely the same, as you drive around in a self propelled cart and take pictures of the creatures that inhabit the titular park. It’s very interesting to play a game that feels like an intentional refinement of existing game, and we won’t be able to avoid comparing the two throughout our discussion. Where the game sets itself apart from its inspiration is in its tone, which strides the line between horror and humor exceptionally well, never being truly frightening but just unsettling enough to maintain an air of mystery. We’re going to be talking about the application of old, almost nostalgic, mechanics in a new setting, how the audio visual presentation mashes up creepy and joyful in an effective way, and an epic gamer moment.

That’s for joining us again this week! We’re on our way to becoming the predominate Pokémon Snap podcast on the internet, and this game sparked our interest as soon as we heard about it. Next time, though, we’re going to be taking our first steps into the Roguelike genre, taking on Downwell (which may or may not be a sign of things to come, hmmmm?), so I hope you’ll check that out!

The NOCLIP Awards 2020 - We Grasped the Orb

The annual awards show everyone isn’t talking about.

Welcome to the NOCLIP Awards 2020, where we decide the best games we played this year in different categories. Our newly moderated debate format will help show the minute distinctions between which games really were the most perfect for the Switch, or what child in games this year most deserves the coveted Burger King birthday crown. And of course, we’ll be celebrating those most tentpole gaming achievements like Game of the Year, unique mechanics, and smashiest balls. So place your bets, or listen to the episode and then place bets with your friends afterwards to take all the rewards for yourself. Just make sure to get a few of them wrong, because plausible deniability is imperative in a grift like this, and if they start to catch on, we’ll have the car running outside.

Thank you for joining us again this year, and I hope this is as fun to listen to as it is to make. We’ll be back with a Pocket episode on Penko Park soon, and after that our full episode on Final Fantasy X, so keep an eye out, and start thinking of which games will win these awards next year!

Episode 104 - The Zazu Pieces - No More Heroes

Coconuts are more valuable than podcast lives!

Welcome back! Today on the podcast we’re going to be talking about No More Heroes, a hack’n’slash action game, and likely the game that made Suda51 a name people recognized. A definitely very quirky game with a, uh, we’ll say virile sense of humor, No More Heroes is a game that seems like it tries to make as many choices as it can to stand out and be different from most games released at the time. And I think this wild differentiation is what made it such a remarkable game at the time of its release. The version of the game we played prior to this episode, however, was the Switch port, which notably does not feature the motion controls made so famous by the original. Mechanically translating any game from the Wii is going to cause some hiccups, but without the novelty of masturbating your sword with a physical motion (and maybe some other changes), the blemishes in design really come to the forefront. We’re going to be talking about mechanical strengths and weaknesses both in regular combat and in boss fights, the open world and how it mostly subtracts from the overall quality of the game, and studying the blade.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This was definitely a fun one to talk about, even if there was some disagreement as to whether it was fun to play. One of the side effects of mostly being a retrospective show is that when you put a game like this in a modern context, it makes you think about how far we’ve come and what types of mechanic sets hold up best over the years. Do you think we were too harsh on the game? Not harsh enough? Let us know over on Discord or in the comment section of wherever you’re listening to this, and make sure you join us next time because we’re looking at another game from a lot of years ago in Final Fantasy X.

NOCLIP Pocket E34 - Aren't You Tantalized? - Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP

We Scythians loathe podcasts,

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, an adventure game originally released on mobile platforms. You’re given a sword and a shield and a quest to go do, but the game takes a very irreverent stance toward all of it, meaning the tone is a lot lighter and more jokey than you would expect from a game of this type. Mechanically, the game is mostly about puzzle solving, with the combat sitting somewhere between Punch Out! and a rhythm game, and honestly not playing much a role in the time you spend with it overall. The game has some very unique ideas, especially for the time it came out, and a genuinely likable attitude about it, but as a whole its biggest issue is just that it might not withstand the test of time. We’re going to be talking about how music was implemented in the game, the relative difficulty of the puzzles and the clarity of instruction, and how every description you give of this game sounds kind of like the lyrics to a folk song.

Thank you for joining us again this week! With this game being re-released on Switch recently, it does raise the question: What games are really perfect for da Switch? If only there was an award show coming up soon where we could give our thoughts on this kind of question…Anyway, next time, we’re going to be talking about Penko Park, a creature photography game which is a genre with very few entries and of which I think we’ve covered all of. So make sure to come back and check that one out as well!

Episode 103 - Seal Team Six - Heaven's Vault

Podcasts don’t always have a tidy beginning.

Welcome back to the podcast! This week we’re joined by Janelle and are going to be talking about Heaven’s Vault, an adventure game with a focus on linguistics that was developed by Inkle. As you can imagine based on that description, this game has a very different way of engaging you mechanically than other games, even within the adventure genre. While the game is designed to deliver on its narrative, the story of an archaeologist exploring ancient ruins within the game’s sci-fi setting to discover details about the civilization that once lived there, one the fulcrum that story is balanced on involves deciphering a surprisingly fleshed out fictional written language. While this element of the game can be engaged with in the style of other puzzles in video games, by finding patterns and using the in-game context to figure out which symbols correspond to which words, it still hits on the critical thinking skills many games’ puzzles fail to stimulate. The result is a game that is surprisingly rewarding and does something that very few other games accomplish: making you feel like you’re actually doing the same thing your character is. We’re going to be talking about the robustness of the translation systems and the overarching impact that language has on the game, the highs and lows of the other more video game-y elements of the game, and by which specialty coffee name you should refer to the state prior to “new game plus.”

Thank you for joining us this week, and thanks again to Janelle for coming on and sharing her comparable expertise on the subject, as I think it really helped open up the dialogue beyond what Andy and I could have mustered on our own. How did this game sit for you? Were you excited to begin recognizing patterns of symbols and take the time to figure out what a “morpheme” is? Did you also think that Aliya moved too damn slow? Was Six your loyal companion and best friend forever, or an unhelpful trash robot? Let us know in the comments or on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about No More Heroes, because we thought the idea of doing two games that shared anything in common in a row absolutely repulsive. So join us then to hear more of what you’re used to from us: games from over ten years ago!

Episode 0 - Introduction

Welcome to NOCLIP!

Do you ever wonder “what is NOCLIP?” Well this episode probably won’t help that much, but hopefully it can provide some helpful examples of the kind of rhetoric you can expect from us in episodes of the show in convenient skit form. And remember, like we always say, or have always said after not saying it for one hundred episodes, NOCLIP is the podcast that’s like a book club for people who don’t think books reward them enough for being good at them.

Thanks for listening!

NOCLIP Pocket E33 - The Accident Boat - Firewatch

There might be two naked podcasters out here.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re going to be talking about Firewatch, the first and currently only game from Campo Santo. Firewatch is a walking simulator mystery game set in a open world forest, but that really doesn’t get to the meat of why you should play this game. While the game world is beautifully designed, and it’s fun to explore the forest, the key to the game’s success is in building a relationship between yourself and the game’s other lead character Delilah. Everything from scripting to the voice performances of the lead actors really sells their dynamic and makes the character exploration a real joy to play through, even though the narrative itself is pretty troubling. And that’s the beauty of it. Firewatch does a lot to put you in the headspace of its lead character, making you really focus on the moment to moment little things that are going on, while still being able to explore its big picture themes in the time between conversations. Also, you can adopt a turtle, which is pretty great too. We’re going to be talking about how the A and B plots of the game intermingle and how the tone of each effects how we feel about the game overall, visual style and color, and a hypothetical short film version of Pixar’s Up.

So that’s Firewatch, possibly a couple years late, but it’s been on the list for a while. Did you play this game at release, or at any point over its releases on a bunch of different platforms over the years? Were you aware that they were bought by Valve and if so, are you as sad as we are that their next game seems to have been pretty much shut down because of it? Let us know on our Discord, or in the comments! Next time, we’re going to be tackling another indie game in the form of Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery EP, so be sure to check us out then.

Episode 102 - Wagooigi - Luigi's Mansion 3

Oh yeah. Let’s a go.

Welcome back to the podcast! This has been a pretty rough time for the world in general, and to make things worse, now we’re uploading Halloween episodes in mid-November. Today we’re talking about Luigi’s Mansion 3, the Switch’s entry to the franchise that kind of launched the Gamecube. This series is Nintendo’s take on horror, and it has a number of the traits associated with horror adventure games spanning the almost thirty years. The game is focused on exploration and puzzle solving, which serves to make this a fairly slow experience that allows the game to build an atmosphere that, while never really scary, sets the tone for this goofy ghost game. As before, Luigi is tasked with exploring the setting, a hotel this time, and dealing with ghosts with his legally-distinct-from-a-Proton-Pack Poltergust vacuum cleaner. Combat makes up a more sizable portion of the game than it has in past entries, but the use of a number of tools keeps it dynamic, as you have to discover how to defeat each type of enemy or boss. What this ends up as is a surprisingly engaging game that definitely feels “Halloween” but not “horror.” We’re going to be talking about mechanical and thematic pacing, the utter success that is Gooigi, and the inherent differences between mansion games and hotel games.

Thank you for joining us this week! Sorry to extend the spooky themes out into November, but we wanted to get our two episodes in since episode 100 delayed us a bit. Are you a long time Luigi’s Mansion fan? How was Dark Moon? How much of our appreciation for the first game in the series is just nostalgia? Let us know in the comments on YouTube or on Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Heaven’s Vault, a language-based adventure game from the developers of 80 Days, and just really getting back into the swing of playing games you haven’t heard of.