NOCLIP Pocket E49 - That Certain Elephant - Buddy Simulator 1984

What’s your favorite podcast?

Welcome to Halloween! To kick off the spooky season, we’re talking about Buddy Simulator 1984, which is a kind of a weird melding between a number of different genres, most of which I won’t want to give away if you haven’t yet played the game. While Buddy Simulator definitely has the look and feel of a horror game, especially in its advertising, that mix of genres is equaled by a mix of tones and the game can be as funny as it is unsettling at times. To avoid giving too much away, this is an experimental indie game with a retro art style, old school musical sensibility, self aware sense of humor (and general themes of self awareness) and a quirky way of blending these things together, and that’s either something you probably know if you’re into or not. We’re going to be talking about games that can be both narratively and mechanically different for different players or playthroughs, comparisons to other games and what this says about this game’s design and what it does to stand out, and how the game handles you asking to bring a sea predator around with you at all times.

Thank you for joining us this week! We’re just getting started both as far as our October horror games go and, in fact, episodes we’re releasing today, so be sure to stick around and subscribe for the incoming deluge of episodes. Did you play Buddy Simulator? How do you feel about the infinite comparisons it gets to that certain other black and white indie game? Is it warranted, or does this do enough of its own thing to stand on its own? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Our next episode of Pocket for this month is going to be exploring Sally Face, a hand drawn point and click adventure game with a sort of early 2000’s indie comic aesthetic sense. It’s a bit of an odd one, so we hope you’ll check out the episode!

Episode 118 - Felt Like a Big Man - Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Raiden something happened to me last Thursday when I was driving home. I had a couple of miles to go - I looked up and saw a glowing orange podcast in the sky, to the east! It was moving very irregularly... suddenly there was intense light all around me - and when I came to, I was home. What do you think happened to me?

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Metal Gear Solid 2, the sequel to Metal Gear Solid and arguably the game that cemented Kojima as a designer with an eye for details who was willing to do some of the strangest things in AAA games. And also made it clear that he really wanted to make movies. Regardless of how you feel about MGS2’s plot, or many of Kojima’s plots generally, the game tells its story through some of the most elaborate cutscenes and lengthiest dialogue ever seen to this point in the industry, and that was debatably among the things most discussed when the game came out. Beyond that though, this game is mechanically a step up from its predecessor as well, and does a lot more with its stealth action framework than people were used to, making use of the new first person aiming mechanics as well as a robust inventory of usable items to force its players to think outside the box (ha ha) to tackle its challenges. The game gained notoriety from the surprises it kept hidden in the lead-up to its release, and even afterward received praise for being inventive and focusing on things games usually didn’t at that time. All that said, it’s been twenty years since it first released, so we have to ask if it held up? Is it still a justifiable favorite MGS2 game even when stacked against its later sequels and prequels? Find out, as we talk about the bizarre twists and questionable plot decisions made in the game, the variety of ways you can deal with the games obstacles, and when the bird crap comes back.

Thank you for joining us once again. The spoilers for this game are more or less a known quantity by anyone who plays games these days, but I still don’t want to get too much into them here because they were the type of thing that really intrigued me when I played the game the first time. If you’ve played MGS2, what was your favorite weird thing that happened? Do you think it held up, or is it kind of a nightmare to play these days, or did you always find it kind of pretentious? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re getting into Halloween, our favorite time of year, and we’ll be talking about The Medium, so I hope you’ll join us for that.

NOCLIP Pocket E48 - Murdering You Magazine - Limbo

Press A to Podcast (I don’t know, there’s no text in this game!)

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re going to be talking about Limbo, which is the first game from Danish developer Playdead, and their breakout hit as well. Something about the game’s simplicity, both in controls and art style really struck a chord with people when it released and it became surprisingly successful in the indie space back in 2010. A lot of the cinematic platformer type gameplay seen here would get refined in their next game, Inside, which we talked about like a million years ago, but there is still something distinctly eerie about Limbo. The game is very quiet and pretty dark, with each failure by the player punctuated by a more grisly animation than you would imagine, and the overall difficulty means you’ll be seeing these deaths fairly often. Whether the trial and error gameplay sits well with you is a matter of personal taste, but you can’t deny the tone it sets or the atmosphere it puts you in. We’re going to be talking about difficulty and how the game ramps up in complexity as it goes on, the intricacies in the detail Playdead packed into the world, and how I am a big hypocrite (or am I?).

Thank you for joining us again this week! We felt like this game was an appropriate lead in to the spookiest month of the year, given its dour tone and creepy visual style. What did you think of Inside? Did you play this years ago, or maybe visited it for the first time for this podcast? How did the difficulty of the game strike you, and did you feel it became appropriately complex near the end of the game? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re entering Halloween proper, and for our first Pocket episode, we’ll be talking about Buddy Simulator 1984, so please check us out then… or else! Scary enough for you?!

Episode 117 - Snow Ass Peaks - Super Mario 3D World (and Bowser's Fury)

Mario, this podcast is out of control! I tried to help it but it’s too big and mad.

Welcome back to the podcast! It’s been a long time since we’ve talked about a Mario platformer (depending on if you could Mario Maker, it’s been two to three years), so with Nintendo celebrating the 35th anniversary last year and releasing the Switch port of 3D World, it seemed like a good time. So we waited a year and then did it. Our lack of timeliness aside, 3D Word was the Wii U’s entry into the world of 3D Mario platformers, and like the console it was originally on it was, let’s say, differently appreciated. 3D World follows the design sense of Super Mario 3D Land, a game that was on the 3DS and tried to merge the 3D and 2D Mario titles in the way it was presented and designed and this felt normal and pretty good on a handheld console. 3D World, however, puts the spotlight on some of the stranger aspects of this choice now that it sits in the same circle as games like Mario Galaxy or 64. It being different than Mario’s other 3D outings is not inherently a bad thing, though, and the game is still as charming and polished as you’ve come to expect, but whether or not it’s what you’re looking for in a Mario game will be up to you to decide. As an added bonus, we’ll be talking about Bowser’s Fury, a game that is more in the design space of Mario Sunshine et al., which came packed in with the Switch port of 3D World. We’re going to be talking about camera controls and perspective in a game that is trying to be a hybrid of 2D and 3D platformer design, presentation and absolutely nailing the musical interpretation of Mario, a game series that helped create the video game music paradigm, and we try for several minutes to remember the names of some Mario 64 levels.

Thank you for joining us again this week! It really has been a startlingly long time since we’ve discussed a Mario game, and despite this being a newer title (in the form of the Switch port), it’s still one of the more off-beat games and one we probably would have gotten around to had the port never released. How did 3D World strike you? Did you think Bowser’s Fury was worth getting the game for, or maybe not think we should have devoted almost half the podcast to it? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! We’ve been going back to some older games recently, and we’ve got one more to go before we hit Halloween hard. Next time we’re going to be talking about Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, a heavily anticipated sequel and one that didn’t do what a lot of people expected, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

NOCLIP Pocket E47 - The Three Rs of Adventuring - Sorcery!

POD: By casting this spell, the caster may talk about video games weekly.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Sorcery!, a game based on a series of choose-your-own-adventure books created by Steve Jackson that seek to emulate the experience of a traditional tabletop RPG in a single player format. The task of adapting these books falls to Inkle, the developer of previous podcast game Heaven’s Vault, and it somehow feels so natural I’m surprised I haven’t seen more of these types of books adapted in a similar way. Between the flowery language, some of which was taken directly from the books and others which have been invented for the game, the implementation of the spellcasting system and the beautiful visual presentation of the maps and characters, it really makes you feel like you just hopped on Roll20 with your GM for a weird one-on-one session of an RPG. Not to say that the game doesn’t have its shortcomings, but even as it drags in some places and can feel a little cheap at times (though the pain of getting killed unexpectedly is lessened significantly by the generous retry system), the novelty of it makes it worth checking out anyway. We’re going to be talking about the pushback that your typical player will feel against being able to rewind at any time, how spellcasting works and how it allows for interesting solutions to the game’s problems, and how, if it is in any way, this is like a Jumanji.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This game has been out for some time, and the books it’s based on have been around for almost forty years, but we couldn’t help but play it once we heard about it. Are you an RPG-er (a godless servant of the magiks), and does this game tickle the same fancies that playing D&D or whatever flavor of TTRPG you jive with does? Let us know down in the comments or over on our discord! I realize we are hurtling toward October at this point and it represents a big month for us typically, so to get in the mood, let’s talk about a game that falls more on the unsettling side and less as outright horror. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Limbo! (I’m just excited, this game doesn’t also have an exclamation point in its name) Which, of course, is the breakout game from Playdead, whose later game, Inside, we already covered what feels like a million years ago, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Episode 116 - Wholly Unholy - Devil May Cry

I should have been the one to fill your podcast with light!

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Devil May Cry, the first game in the DMC series that defined a genre in a way. Character action games of today all have a bit of DNA (the D stands for “Devil” here, presumably) from this game in them, whether that’s in level design, unlockable moves/combos or just the focus on stylish combat, usually with an accompanying rating system, and so going back to see how they were all implemented in the first DMC game was quite an experience. An experience made all the more unexpected by how well the first game manages all these systems. Truly, the level of competency on display here for what is more or less the first try is impressive and makes me question whether this game really was designed that well, or if the genre hasn’t pushed that far forward in the last twenty years. Presentation and questionable voice acting aside, even the game’s visual style with it’s gothic architecture, quietly grotesque enemy design, and the anime sword biker detective himself, Dante, has gone down as nothing short of iconic in the world of games. We’re going to be talking about the strength in simplicity in a combat system, the elements of old-style design that do manage to hold this game back on a modern playthrough, and how we think that castles are…pretty cool.

Thank you for joining us again this week. We may have played the remastered version of this game, but it did still feel like the proverbial blast from the past to pick it up again after nearly two decades. How do you feel the game holds up? Is this game your favorite in the series, or was it dethroned by one of its many sequels? Do you want to make some kind of meme about our podcast featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series? Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord server where we talk about the games and take suggestions. Next time, we’re going to be taking on another game that’s been remastered in the form of Super Mario 3D World (+ Bowser’s Fury), the Switch port of the Wii U Mario game that presumably very few people ended up actually playing in its original incarnation. We hope you’ll check that one out too.

NOCLIP Pocket E46 - A Unix System - Oxenfree

In the end we all become podcasts,

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Oxenfree, the narrative adventure game about some spooky things that happen on an island at night. The game is extremely focused on its story, so I hesitate to give much more of the plot away from that, but its unique elements come from the way that story is delivered. The primary mechanic of the game is a conversation system that uses fully voice acted dialogue in an attempt to more naturally mimic actual conversations as opposed to more traditional adventure games where you can sit around for thirty minutes before answering someone’s question. Does it always work? Well, no, not always, but it gives a sense of urgency to a system that rarely has one without displaying a hokey timer on the screen. Beyond that, the game’s appeal comes largely from the tone and aesthetic, with a cartoony art style and dreamy synth music all wrapped around a very modern collection of characters who are all written well enough to be believable in a Spielbergian kind of way. We’re going to be talking about how this game fits into the wider genre of adventure games, how the mechanical elements function and help drive the plot forward as well as giving you incentive to act in a reasonable way toward the other characters, and we debate whether the existence of ghosts has any bearing on this fictional narrative.

Thank you for joining us this week! What did you think about Oxenfree? I know the game definitely has a following, likely driven by the likeable characters and deeper mysteries it contains, but on a first playthrough, how much of this did you actually engage with? Did this game inspire multiple playthroughs to see what other endings it offered or were you satisfied with letting the story be what it was based on your decisions? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re breaking out our fancy dice and player’s handbooks to play through Sorcery!, a TTRPG simulation game from Inkle, the developer of Heaven’s Vault, a game we played 8 months ago but feels like it was more recent than that because time is an illusion. Anyway, thanks for listening!

Episode 115 - Optimal Mastication - Xenoblade Chronicles

This is the strongest podcast ever built!

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about another expansive JRPG in the form of Xenoblade Chronicles. A series that debuted on the Wii, and took off, like several before it, due to its protagonist being included in Super Smash Bros., Xenoblade is an RPG with a subgenre that is really tricky to pin down. The overarching game, with its characters and story, feels like a traditional epic JRPG in the same way that a Final Fantasy game does, but its mechanics between combat and its quest system feel ripped straight out of a more Western MMO. With an emphasis on cooldown management and positioning based attacks, there isn’t much like it in the single-player realm of the genre, though the staple classes of Tank/DPS/Healer are all present here. That isn’t to say there isn’t room for experimentation, and the depth present in the game’s systems are arguably one of the most engaging parts of playing this. And if you aren’t here for the mechanical depth and number crunching, the game makes a pretty significant impression aesthetically as well. With an emphasis on huge vistas (which also translate into a large overall world map) and a soundtrack that kicks way more ass than you would expect, it doesn’t really pull its punches in this area either. Obviously the game has its flaws, and it’s been polarizing if public opinion can be believed, but it’s definitely worth checking out if only for the couple of things it does absolutely incredibly well. We’re going to be talking about the mechanical interactions the game almost hides away behind a probably-too-strong protagonist character, how the game’s emphasis on character plays into it both narratively and mechanically in an extremely satisfying way, and we pitch the movie that the expansion should have been and cast the really underutilized Composite Jason Alexander.

Thank you for listening this week! We have been (read: Chad has been) putting off playing this game for a while due to just how long it is, but it was surprisingly easy to sink into the game once it started. What side of the “love it or hate it” spectrum do you fall on? Did Sharla’s incredibly stupid costume design and weird posture make you quit playing this game the second she appeared on screen? Let us know over in our Discord or in the comments! Next time, prepare to have your dark soul filled with light, because we’re going to be playing Devil May Cry (the first one), so we hope you’ll join us for that!

NOCLIP Pocket E45 - God of Gamers - OlliOlli

Frontside Varial Podcast

Welcome back to the show this week! Today, we’re going to be talking about OlliOlli. This is a skateboarding game from 2014 that approaches the genre in a different way than it’s usually handled. While still definitely showing an arcade style high score type of design, your run will end as soon as you bail, enforcing an almost Meat Boy or Hotline Miami style of iterative gameplay, where you repeat a level over and over until you get that “perfect” run. This means that even the early levels can be an intense experience, and when compounded with the controls, which have you performing tricks by inputting a sequence of directions on the analog stick (not unlike fighting game special moves), the game definitely presents a system that is difficult to master, but satisfying once achieved. Given that, the biggest hurdle for this game to clear is whether or not it contains the breadth of content necessary for most people to want to actually make it to that level. We’re going to be talking about the value the difficulty brings to the game, how music can help motivate players, and lament the fact we were never forced to pull out the claw grip.

Thank you for joining us for this episode on a game that is a staggering seven years old at this point. My opinion on this game kinda flipped since first playing it nearer its release, and it feels a lot more interesting these days. How do you feel about this game? Did you make it to the level of mastery we could only speculate on? Do you also think high level play of a pretty simplistic overall game is a cool thing? Does the sequel fix the issues we perceive as being present in this one? Let us know over on our discord or in the comments. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Oxenfree, a narrative adventure game with a focus on puzzles and dialogue, making it about as unrelated to this game as it can be. We hope you’ll join us for that.

Episode 114 - Bring Back Bricks - TimeSplitters: Future Perfect

Podcasts AND zombies? This is seriously supernatural.

Welcome! On this episode of the podcast, we’re going to be talking about TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, a game developed by Free Radicals and and the third and final entry in the TimeSplitters franchise, a console FPS franchise that rode the wave of multiplayer shooters released on consoles during the span of time between when Goldeneye released and when people got sick of them. This particular entry lands on the latter half of that timeline, and is in some ways better and worse for it. Better because there is clearly experience behind the design of this game, with a huge emphasis on variety both in the campaign and multiplayer modes, a bevy of content to unlock, and smaller, arguably more unnecessary, complexities hidden within each of these. And worse because it does feel a bit like a hodgepodge of FPS design philosophies, taking the originality it has in its theme and running with it over that huge amount of content in ways that may stretch it a bit too thin. Either way, if you’re nostalgic for this game, or even just this era of everyone sitting on the couch in the basement, arguing over who gets the good controller and drinking Surge, this game will help you travel back in time to relive that experience. We’re going to be talking about the impact of Rare’s FPS games on the N64 on how the genre, and therefore this game, developed, the aesthetics and theme that place this game somewhere between pastiche and parody to video games’ most favorite media genres, and we discuss which character might be a silly himbo.

Thank you for joining us this week, Dan. This episode was an inevitability that we successfully put off for almost six years. The game holds a bit of special place for a subset of our childhood friends and was a preferred game to play in those after-school moments and weekend parties in the suburbs as a tween. But what about the rest of you? Did you play this game when it came out, or, even more unlikely, revisit it recently? Do you think it holds up as well as we did, or were we fully blinded by the heavy tinting of the nostalgia glasses? Let us know over on Discord or in the comments on YouTube. Either way, we hope you enjoyed the episode and join us next time when we talk about Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition!

NOCLIP Pocket E44 - She Jumps Her Bones (Straight Up and Down) - Tacoma

I suppose there are people who engage more freely with the podcast, and I do prefer it.

Welcome to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re talking about Tacoma, the second game from Fullbright, and one that shares a bit in common with its predecessor, Gone Home. The game is a walking-sim type adventure game, set on a space station, with much of your interaction coming in the form of interacting with documents, some environmental items, and a form of digital recording that shows the characters of the game moving about. You can rewind, pause and fast forward this playback at will and interact with each character’s personal terminals while they’re using them in these recordings. This is getting more difficult to explain, so just consider it a sort of forensic adventure game where your overall goal is to salvage the station’s AI, though the majority of the actual adventure takes place tertiarily to that. We’re going to be talking about unique mechanical interactions in a game without a lot of mechanical interaction at all, the legacy of this game both in relation to Gone Home and its wider influences as well, and we discuss the current Subversion Meta in narrative fiction.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We waited probably altogether too long to play this game from the time it actually came out, so if you were planning on playing it you probably already have. If not, though, I think our overall takeaway is that it is very good and we recommend trying it out if it seems interesting at all. Next time, we’re going to be talking about indie skateboarding game OlliOlli, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

Episode 113 - Just Like Real Life! - Outer Wilds

This podcast is new to me, but I am honored to be a part of it.

Welcome back! Today we’re going to be talking about Outer Wilds, the space sim/adventure/exploration game that, for people who connect with it, is an absolute gem. In this game, you fly around from planet to planet, each of which is individually authored with a surprising number of things to find and learn, and try to discover more about an ancient race of aliens who have presumably died off. This is your express goal, anyway. The one that is given to you by the characters, but the game really starts working when it is your own self-motivation driving you to uncover more, to push further into the secrets of each planet and to stop yourself from dying for even one second. Admittedly, this isn’t an easy goal to achieve and the difficulty present in the systems of the game makes this even harder to get into, but if you push past it, and get a handle on the game, what lies beyond is an extremely deep and satisfying experience with a lot to love. We’re going to be talking about spoilers, and what that means for the game and its community, the long journey of mastering the game systems and how you develop personal goals and obsessions, and we reveal the instrument that your player character is proficient in.

Thank you for listening this week! Outer Wilds is one of those games that got a lot of press (which, episode spoilers, it was for good reason) but because of a lot of elements we weren’t able to check out right away. I have to thank our Discord server for being very into it and keeping it in the forefront of our minds because I really would have kicked myself if I hadn’t gotten around to it. What did you think about the game? Are we being babies when we say parts of this game felt really difficult? Let us know in the comments, or over on the aforementioned Discord server. Next time, we’re going to be talking about TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, which I could attempt to make some tangential comparisons with this game, but it would be an enormous stretch. We hope you’ll join us then anyway!

NOCLIP Pocket E43 - Who's Got the True Magic? - Nanotale

More damage to basic podcast enemy,

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! This week, we’re going to be talking about Nanotale: Typing Chronicles, an RPG that uses a (surprise) typing interface and the follow-up to Fishing Cactus’s previous game Epistory, which we talked about way back in 2017. This new game sees them iterating on the concepts that were started in Epistory, with a more dynamic combat system, more expansive exploration features and less of a focus on the Typer Shark style wave based combat. We discover, though, that the effect of all of this comes down to how you felt about those systems before, as the the result is a bigger, less repetitive game, but one that focuses a lot less on skill, in the form of how fast you can type, and more on your ability to think and solve problems using the tools available to you. In a lot of ways, it’s a very different game with the same wrappings. We’re going to be talking about the intricacy and number of puzzles found throughout the game, the implementation of more NPCs and story elements than were done previously, and how me like type fast.

Thank you for joining us again this week (a day late, for those of you here on the day of)! Epistory always felt like one of those hidden gem kind of games, so I was particularly excited to see where the developer went with its follow up. I fully expect not everyone to have played this game, given it’s small scale and sort of niche genre, but if you did, how do you feel about the changes made? Do you wish it taxed you more on the actual typing front, or did the game’s more puzzle-centric engagement hit the spot for you? Let us know over on our Discord or in the comments on YouTube. Next time, we’re talking about Tacoma in a real “why haven’t I played this yet” moment for both of us as it has been haunting our backlog for much too long given the quality of game it is, and I hope you’ll join us for that.

Episode 112 - Grim Husbando - Grim Fandango

You got anymore dead podcasts back there?

Welcome back to NOCLIP, and thank you for joining us for the conclusion of Mystery May! To round this month out, we’re going to be talking about one of the most prolific adventure games ever made, Grim Fandango. Grim is one of LucasArts’ adventure games from the heyday of the genre, and the studio’s experience combines with the Tim Schaffer’s stellar writing to create one of the most celebrated adventure games of the era. There is a lot of enjoyment to be found in the characters presented here, and on top of that, the mechanics, while not perfect, make puzzle solving a decidedly more fair task than it has been in past games, with a simple inventory system and little to no pixel hunting, depending on how you define that. As for what makes Grim such a strong entry, we think it boils down to a great sense of worldbuilding and a streamlining of the features that made adventure games sort of an inaccessible genre for many years. We’re going to be talking about why Manny Calavera is a cool character while still being a good one, the puzzles and how many are very readable despite the fact that some still stumped us, and we determine that we are, in fact, big Man Boys.

Thank you for joining us again this week, and this year for another Mystery May. Grim was a perfect game to revisit for this month because of its themes, but is also a perennial favorite and we don’t get to talk too much about point and click games these days as the genre has sort of fallen by the wayside. We hope you enjoyed, and you can let us know if you’re an adventure game fan in the comments or over on our Discord! We’ve continued the Mystery May theme for a few years now, probably in spite of our best interests, but do you have any suggestions of what to cover next year? Let us know, but next time we’re heading into June and talking about The Outer Wilds (which could arguably fall into this theme, but whatever)!

NOCLIP Pocket E42 - Big WinRAR Energy - Hypnospace Outlaw

I can play saxophone and record a podcast at the same time.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! To continue our celebration of Mystery May, we're going to be discussing Hypnospace Outlaw. This game is a desktop simulator set in the late 90's and  revolves around a parody of the early internet that users visit in their sleep... What? You expected us to pick a game that wasn't super weird?  We're going to be taking about the games difficulty when compared to more traditional adventure games, the aesthetics and personality that make up this fictional internet, and the immersive qualities that led us to worry about infecting our fictional desktops with viruses.

Thank you for joining us for our final pocket episode for this year’s Mystery May! Next time we're going to be dusting off our mechanical keyboards and talking about Nanotale - Typing Chronicles. We hope we'll see you next time!

Episode 111 - The Pizza Choice - Heavy Rain

If you’re looking for rain, dead bodies and podcasts, you came to the right place.

Welcome to Mystery May! This time we’re starting with an arguably pretty contentious (or at the very least pretentious) title in Heavy Rain, a game developed by Quantic Dream. Heavy Rain is essentially an adventure game that is loaded to the brim with quick time events and branching narrative paths. Say what you will about the core engagement present here, but a lot of the story elements are pretty intelligently designed with paths branching and reconvening convincingly around a mystery that actually pulls off its twist elegantly. Other elements of the game don’t age quite as well, with stiff animations and a voice cast that fluctuates wildly between solid performances and laughably inconsistent ones. For these reasons mostly, this is a game we recommend enjoying (responsibly) with a few beers by your side or at least a couple of friends. We’re going to be talking about what the game gains by treating one of its characters mostly as a mechanical punching bag, how QTEs play out as the primary mechanical interaction and when it feels appropriate, and we debate the appropriate time to describe something as “in shambles.”

I realize this is the second episode we released this month, but just bear with me. Or pretend that Dragon Age is more mysterious than it probably actually is. Either way, thank you for joining us for our most unlikely of continuing traditions. Did the mystery land with you in this game? Were you able to look past the gameplay itself to find something enjoyable underneath like we did, or does David Cage’s name equate itself to poison in your mind? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! And if you thought QTEs were a dated mechanic, we invite you to brace yourself, because next time we’re going to be talk about the most classic of point and click adventure games: Grim Fandango! We hope you’ll dust out your A drives and plug in the PS/2 connector of your IBM Model M keyboards for it.

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!