EPISODES
[Cross-post due to scheduling issues]
Welcome back to FWTBT, where we eulogize empanadas and bereave burritos! Today, by popular demand we’re going to be going over the Loaded Griller trilogy and breaking down Taco Bell’s breakfast menu to see where it went wrong, plus so, so much more. So buckle in, because this episode is going to be XXL Stuft with historical menu item content.
This is a podcast that is actually a podcast. This is a big step for us.
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Shadows Over Loathing, a turn based RPG and a follow up to Kingdom of Loathing and West of Loathing, the latter of which we’ve covered on the podcast before. The Loathing games are all RPGs, but the combat isn’t really the part of the game that should draw you in. It’s pretty unbalanced in the player’s favor, and you shouldn’t have much trouble making it through no matter what mechanical choices you end up making. However, the game’s expressive writing, both in the form of dialog and scenario design, is at the absolute top of the pile when it comes to being consistently funny and imaginative. The game is constantly subverting your expectations, aided by the random encounter system, so you can’t possibly guess what’s going to pop up at any given time. Now while this is unequivocally a good thing and the reason you should be playing the game, Shadows Over Loathing, as compared to its kin, is themed around cosmic horror, which is not historically the funniest genre. And it’s true, the game’s tone clashes with its theme a decent amount and it means that while there is some solid horror writing in here, the game never really becomes scary. The tone remains light even in the most Lovecraftian scenarios and it probably doesn’t help that the game’s aesthetic is “stick figures,” though admittedly the detail in some of the designs can be surprising. We’re going to be talking about what areas were the most (and least) imaginative, how the mechanics can rub against the rest of the game in a lightly uncomfortable way, and shoes. We talk about a classic shoes.
Thank you for joining us again this week! I was pretty sold on doing this game from the moment I heard about it, but in the end I think we were a little disappointed at how similar to West of Loathing it ended up being. Still a fantastic game and entirely worth playing if you haven’t played West or just loved it, but it did have the opportunity to be a bit more different and just didn’t quite make there. Did you feel the same? Was this your first Loathing game? Let us know in the comments or over on the Discord. Next time, we’re going to be talking about God of War: Ragnarok, which while a pretty big game for us to be talking about, is still about three months later than everyone else talked about it. So I hope you’ll join us anyway, lol.
Thank you, but the podcast is in another coffin.
Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re talking about Vampire Survivors, the game that seemingly everyone has played. Vampire Survivors released in a form of early access on PC and mobile, and grew a pretty large player base by the time it hit its official release last year and has since popularized a genre that it has become the blueprint for, coincidentally similar to its main inspiration, Castlevania. In a Survivors game, the player defeats hundreds (or thousands, or hundreds of thousands) of enemies to incrementally become stronger, in this case without any controls beyond movement, until the entire play area becomes a visual disaster of exploding projectiles and whips and skeletons and giant plants, etc. That absurd endgame, which only gets wilder as the game progresses, is the main driving force for the player like a bite sized roguelike where the goal is to outscale the challenges the game sets against you. And Vampire Survivors, in its simplicity, has really nailed what makes this work. There is very little input required from the player, meaning that outside of making decisions on how to build your character, and which character to build, the skill floor is very low. Anyone with the desire to beat this game can get to the point where they are clearing levels reliably eventually, and the steady drip of new content up to and including paid DLC means they will have new levels to clear and things to unlock for a long time. Combine that with the nostalgic homage to Castlevania and the sick ass soundtrack, and the picture of how this game is as much of a success as it is becomes pretty clear. We’re going to talk about the unlock system and how it compels you to keep playing the game, how characters and weapons impact your strategy and by how much, and we briefly discuss the merits of referring to this game as a walking simulator.
Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re trying this new experiment this year called “play games Andy won’t like” and so far I think it’s gone pretty swimmingly. With Vampire Survivors being such a smash hit recently, did you pick it up? And if so, did you get a handle on the fuss, and what it was all about? Have you played other games in the budding genre? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re going back to a game that’s been on our list for literally years, but felt appropriate (and short enough to help maintain our schedule), Jazzpunk! We hope you’ll join us for that.
Adds one podcast every one week. Resets on shield break.
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re finishing up our listener suggested games for Fanbruary by talking about Gunfire Reborn. Gunfire Reborn is a co-op first person shooter roguelite title with an emphasis on multiplayer play. This is a very mechanics focused game, with the primary enjoyment coming from the loop of gradually improving your character abilities, finding new and better guns and experimenting to see what works. As such, being someone who likes to get into the details to determine what builds will provide the biggest damage numbers at the end of the day is going to be pretty important to enjoying this game. Between having eight characters, each with their own abilities, upgrades and a small skill tree, the massive overall skill tree, a lot of different weapons, over one hundred scrolls to modify gameplay and a development roadmap that appears at the beginning of the game indicating they’re going to be adding even more, a lot of experimentation is required. And all of this is a good thing, because it gives the game the variety it needs to remain fun over many hours of gameplay. On the other hand, the game’s levels and enemies are less varied, which can sometimes feel a little underwhelming without any major shakeups beyond increasing difficulty. It’s a tricky balance to strike as a game that is designed to be played over a long period. The presentation elements of the game are serviceable, bordering on cool at times, with the character and enemy designs mostly being very solid, but it’s really the multiplayer roguelite elements that are going to carry your enjoyment with this one. We’re going to talk about choosing characters and how different each of them can feel from one another, we judge the feeling of different guns and how they compare to other games in the genre, and we hem and haw about comparing roguelikes to Hades for the umpteenth time.
Thank you for listening to NOCLIP this week! We finally finished Fanbruary deep into March at this point, so I hope everyone is ready for more regularly scheduled programming, so to speak. This game was fun and unfortunately for my coverage of games moving forward from this, I’ve added it to the list of things that I’m playing regularly. How did this game land for you? Did this recapture the feeling of a game like Hades or is it a bit too unpolished for your liking? Let us know over on Discord or down in the comments below. Next time, we’re going to be moving in a pretty vastly different direction and are going to be talking about Shadows Over Loathing, so we hope you’ll tune in then!
You’ve been cursed…to podcast.
Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, and our final Pocket episode for Fanbruary! Today, we were suggested Cursed to Golf, an indie roguelike golf title, which is just the kind of genre fusion to get you excited. Cursed to Golf uses what has been established as the “golf video game mechanics” where you play a timing minigame to set your shot power and the angle of your shot and then the physics system takes it from there, but places them within something akin to a precision platforming level. All of this is then wrapped in the roguelike genre where you play semi-randomized levels and running out of shots means you start again from the beginning, with the goal of completing 18 stages before that happens. We take issues with some of the global decisions that the game makes (and you’ll just have to listen to find out what those are), but from a nitty-gritty design perspective, this game is incredibly clever and the relatively simple gameplay is hyper focused and plays extremely well. Add to that a killer soundtrack and gorgeous pixel art and this game comes off as extremely well made and something that is just fun to be in. We’re going to be talking about the merits of combining the genres this game mashes up, how the game handles its roguelike elements, and whether or not you should always have beer when golfing.
Thank you for joining us again this week! This was an interesting game both to play and talk about because it really kicked our asses across the front and back nine. If you’re a fan of roguelikes generally, what did you think about the implementation of that genre in this game? Were you able to figure out the Ace Cards easily or was there a lot of trial and error involved? Let us know down in the comments or over on our Discord! And while you’re there, feel free to drop us a suggestion. Fanbruary is coming to an end, but we’re always open to hearing what people would like us to play. And as we move out of the month, we’re doing the first chosen-by-us game of the year, and we’re going with Vampire Survivors, a game that you’ve probably already played given its recent popularity, so we hope you’ll join us for that!
An enemy wizard is approaching your podcast!
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, for the first main episode of Fanbruary, we’re going to be talking about Sacrifice, an RTS title from 2000. Sacrifice is billed as an RTS game without a bunch of resources to manage, and it in fact does have only three: your health, mana and souls, the resource you use to summon units, but this did not stop us from being overwhelmed and bad at it. If you are looking for nuanced discussion of the game from seasoned RTS veterans, this isn’t going to be the podcast for you, but from a first encounter with the game, there’s still a lot going on. The production value present in Sacrifice is much higher than we could have expected, and there were many choices, both large sweeping decisions to smaller touches that show a lot of care was put into the game. Voice actors that video game fans and just average people would recognize, imaginative creature designs and a pretty expansive tutorial make this an appealing game to just about anyone. We’re going to talk about managing units in a third person RTS game, how the narrative/gameplay interaction is shockingly robust for a game of this era, and we somehow find a way to shoehorn in a reference to Blitzball.
Thank you for joining us again this week! When we first heard about Sacrifice, we thought we may have another Realms of the Haunting on our hands, but it turned out to be just a very competent entry in the RTS genre that people just seem to be less aware of than the big ones. Is it our unfamiliarity with the genre, or is Sacrifice actually a hidden gem? If you played along, were you able to manage the game easier than we did? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Gunfire Reborn to close out Fanbruary, so be sure to join us then!
Dangerous podcast grows in the northeast. Keep it secret.
Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, and to Fanbruary! We’re back from our time off from the podcast and are diving into games suggested by listeners, the first of which is Strange Horticulture, a plant-based puzzle game that tasks you with identifying supernatural plants and using them to fulfill requests and solve puzzles. That’s the type of description where you’re probably either grabbed by it or not and it exists to fill that particular niche, but I’d say that’s only mostly right. You need to be able to enjoy plant classification as a game mechanic to get the most out of this game, but beyond that, the puzzles are well designed enough to appeal to a very broad spectrum of people. They tend to lean more into the Obra Dinn style of inductive reasoning, requiring you to examine your plants and make inferences given a description of the thing you’re looking for, and keeping that information in your brain to use later as you uncover more pages of your book and more plants to identify. This leans away from the more logic-puzzle style of a lot of dedicated puzzle games and none of them are so difficult that you’ll be held up for too long or too easy as to be a waste of your time. And while this is the biggest selling point if “supernatural plant puzzle game” doesn’t immediately make you want to play it, the presentational elements do a lot of heavy lifting as well. The game maintains a dour atmosphere that helps sell the tone and the visual detail on the plants is impressive, making them look both natural in a group on your shelves and still able to be picked apart as individual species on closer examination. We’re going to be talking about our mild disappointments with the game’s narrative, how much of a positive effect rain sounds can have on a game’s atmosphere and we really put mushrooms in their place.
Thank you for joining us again this week! We took some time off and then accidentally took a little more, so Fanbruary is probably going to stretch on into next month, but we’ll make sure we get four listener-suggested games in before moving on to our regularly scheduled programming. Having now played this game, it probably falls a little bit too much into “we would have played this anyway” but we had no idea what it was about before jumping into it, so here we are. Hopefully you enjoyed it as well if you’ve played it, or at least the episode if you’re listening anyway, and we’ll be back next time with an episode on Cursed to Golf!
Beep beep!
Welcome back to another, uh, sneaky episode of NOCLIP Pocket! Today we’re talking about Hidden Folks, which is a hidden object game and the first game in the genre we’ve talked about. Spurred by a conversation from an earlier episode, we tried finding what a majority of people would consider the “best” game in this genre, as it’s one we have functionally zero experience with, and Hidden Folks was suggested by a pretty large number of sources. And honestly, I can see why. If you have an image in your mind of what a hidden object game is, it likely looks like single screen levels in games developed sort of in the way books of crossword puzzles are, created relatively cheaply for an audience that typically approaches games in a different way and with different expectations than most of the enthusiast market you typically see talking about games. This isn’t a particularly charitable view of the genre, but it’s one I think a lot of people have, if they have a view on hidden object games as a genre at all. This isn’t Hidden Folks, though. This game takes full advantage of the medium, doing things that wouldn’t be possible in a printed book like having hundreds of interactable objects in each level, puzzles to solve before being able to find some items, and absolutely sprawling stages that take a very long time to comb over. Does this mean we ended up enjoying this? Well, not really, but there are parts that we can all appreciate and see why this appeals to the audience it’s built for. We’re going to talk about the daunting nature of the immense levels in this game, how this differs (and doesn’t) from the I Spy books of our youth, and we imagine a version of this game as a Car Town mat.
Thank you for joining us for the first and only Pocket episode of January! Unfortunately, we discovered we aren’t much of hidden object players and likely won’t be playing anything further in the genre unless something really jumps out at us, but I for one am at least glad to have tried one out. Are you a fan of the genre? Did Hidden Folks actually rise above the crop or is our outsider perspective skewed on what most of these games look like? Let us know in the comments or over on discord! We’re going to be taking the rest of the month off (our first actually scheduled break since the podcast started, unbelievably), but we’re coming back with the fiery passion of thousand exploding stars in February with Fanbruary where we play the games suggested by our community! So let us know what you want to see us play by leaving a comment or messaging us on Discord!
For accomplishments in ball smashing
We are closing out yet another year, and like your New Year’s resolution or the mirror in your bathroom the day after a New Year’s Eve party, it’s time for some necessary but unwanted reflection. We had a year of pretty diverse games this time around, and so we have further complicated our awards, giving them inscrutable titles and measuring more abstract criteria than ever before. Not to say we don’t weigh in on quality, as our best and worst of the year are on display mixed in with our coolest ancient artifacts and Bunta Eve Classic awards. So prepare your bingo cards, drinking games, or your own lists and settle in to find out our thoughts on what was interesting about games in 2022, and what interesting games from 1998 can be made relevant with a silly awards category.
Thank you for joining us this week and this year! I hope you enjoy the awards and have had some unique experiences as well. We’re going to be taking a short break through the month of January, with only a pocket release coming up, but be sure to get in your suggestions for Fanbruary before the end of the month. We’re excited to see what we end up playing this year. Until that time, happy New Year!
Podcast Kids 2!
Welcome back and happy holidays! We decided to look back to our own childhoods this month, and to cap it off appropriately during this year’s very unfortunate winter cold snap, we’re going to be talking about Snowboard Kids 2. This is an N64 kart racer, but still not the one you think of when you hear someone say “N64 kart racer.” And also there are no karts. And your snowboards evidently don’t need snow to function. Snowboard Kids 2 is an enigma. It’s a racing game, featuring powerups that are both offensive and defensive, races, challenge modes and boss battles, and a threadbare plot that centers around a villain who just wants to hang out with you, and who you ignore. It’s pretty standard stuff for the genre, but it gets by on its solid presentation and a killer soundtrack. Honestly, there isn’t too much to say or that you need to know going into this one, so tune in to hear us wax nostalgic about old favorites. We’re going to be talking about the sound design and the catchy music, why boss battles should never have been a thing in kart racers, and we rename a powerup in a way you’ll wish we didn’t.
Thank you for joining us again this week! This is a light, fun one that we hope will be enjoyable at this time of year. So we hope you’re staying warm and that any traveling you may have had to do has gone safely, and that maybe we can accompany you on the way back. We’re going to be taking a short break after this. We’ll be putting out the NOCLIP Awards next time and then one more Pocket episode, and then we’ll see you in again in February…I mean Fanbruary. So get your game suggestions in over on our Discord or in the comments or at our email address and we’ll announce what we’re up to near the end of the month.
Podocasta.
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Gorogoa, a puzzle game centered around manipulating the four discrete sections of the screen to progress. While not being too difficult a game, as many dedicated puzzle games tend to be, the depth comes from the sheer number of creative ways they use the core conceit. You can shift quadrants around, which can sometimes uncover additional tiles, create a transparent layer to overlay on another tile, or align two tiles showing disparate scenes into a single image. Add to that the ability to zoom in and out, with different levels of detail having entirely different functions within the puzzle, and it creates a huge number of possible actions for the player to take at any time. The game is plenty interesting from a mechanical standpoint, but the game’s art style feels unique as well and serves as its other main selling point. Because of the level of detail necessary to make the puzzles function, the visual design of the game has a more traditionally “artistic” quality to it, almost feeling like the illustrations in a book. With a solid use of color and minimal animation really highlighting the points of interest, it helps both communicate the minimalist and somewhat abstract story as well as the puzzles’ solutions to the player. We’re going to be talking about individual puzzles that we thought stood out and made a good use of the game’s mechanics, our interpretation of the games events, and we discuss the proper way to use an eldritch monstrosity.
Thank you for joining us again today! It’s pretty rare we talk about puzzle games, but this one caught our eye for whatever reason and seemed to fit well in the schedule to give it a bit of variety. Did you find this game interesting in the ways we did? Was its approachability a positive or a negative for you? Let us know down in the comments or over on our Discord! And hey, while you’re over there, or down there or whatever, why not toss us a few suggestions for Fanbruary? That’s coming up pretty soon. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Hidden Folks, our very first (and depending on how it goes, maybe only) game in the hidden object genre. We hope you’ll join us for that and that you’ll please suggest some games for Fanbruary, please.
That’s a hit podcast for groovy cats. You just don’t dig it.
Welcome back to the podcast and to the final month of the year! Today, we’re going to be talking about Space Station Silicon Valley, a fairly strange puzzle platforming game from 1998 from a developer that would go on to become Rockstar North. When I say “fairly strange,” I’m predominately talking about its concept: you play as a robot’s CPU and are able to jump into and control a variety of robot animals which you then use to accomplish different tasks. That rules. That’s just an objectively cool idea on paper. Unfortunately, whether it’s an inexperience with the medium, pressure to release a game that fits in with other bestselling titles of the time, or just plain bad decision making, the final product just does not do service to the idea behind it. The game is bloated, overlong and full of tasks and missions that don’t take advantage of the mechanics the game sets up. Some other strange decisions include the games tone, writing and music, but these are all things that need a bit more set up we get into in the episode. The game still holds some nostalgia value, and the concept alone is worth at least looking into it, but the strongest lesson you’ll probably take from this title is how to squander a very good idea. We’re going to be talking about early 3D game frustrations this game does not succeed in avoiding, level and mission design in a game where theoretically anything is possible, and we debate on what the main characters’ names are (and do actually get it right!).
The way our preparation works, we usually have games planned for October and November well in advance, October due to the Halloween theming and November holding the games we were excited to do earlier in the year and needed to find space for. Because of this, December usually ends up being a pretty wild time where we end up choosing games that are either recent suggestions or, like Space Station Silicon Valley, distant memories of games we have had in the back our minds for one reason or another and just never got around to. Does this game still hold nostalgia value for you? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re closing out the year with a similarly long lost childhood title, Snowboard Kids 2, and then we’re preparing for the NOCLIP Awards at the end of the year, so we hope you’ll stick with us for that!
Our podcast is finally finished!
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about WarioWare: Get it Together, the first WarioWare game to come out on the Nintendo Switch. Unlike previous entries in the franchise, this is releasing on a console with few major hardware gimmicks that can affect gameplay. Yes it has motion controls and whatever intense IR, HD Rumble Joycon technology they used in 1-2-Switch, but this game doesn’t take advantage of those specifically and the result is maybe the first game in the series that really plays a lot like the original. However, the main difference comes in the form of multiplayer and character selection. This entry features a huge roster of playable characters to choose from (and cycle through in each level) who all have a unique mechanic set and play at least a little differently from one another. This is a cool idea, and some of them really stand out as inspired designs, but it does have one drawback. The games can never be designed around the mechanics of a particular character, which means they have a sort of homogenous air around them. This doesn’t suck all the fun out of the game by any means, but it is a pervasive sense of missed opportunity that follows it throughout its runtime. The multiplayer main story mode does make up for this somewhat, as throwing another person into the mix creates chaos and can provide fun social moments the game doesn’t have solo, which is a good thing, but this also comes with a host of pros and cons. We’re going to be talking about the challenges imposed by having multiple people playing a microgame at the same time, the various factors that you have to consider when choosing who to play, and we celebrate the return of Guy Who Drinks Water Too Fast from Smooth Moves.
Thank you for listening this week, and I hope you didn’t notice we did all Nintendo games this month. We did it as a sort of theme, but as it has spilled into December a bit, now it just seems like we’re being massive fanboys. If you’ve played this title, how do you think it stacks up against other titles in the series? Is the lack of a major control gimmick holding the game back, or did the multiplayer aspect save it for you? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord server! Next time, we’re going to be talking about the puzzle game Gorogoa, which is considerably less chaotic than this game, but does still get a bit weird in its own way, so we hope you’ll check it out with us!
I was able to do this using only a fraction of my ancestors’ podcast.
Welcome back to the podcast! For our annual Zelda title, we’re going to be talking about Twilight Princess, the game that released on both the GameCube and as a launch title for the Wii. We, however, played the HD remake for the Wii U, released ten years later, so do keep that in mind going through. Twilight Princess is a Zelda game in its usual form for the most part, seeing Link swap between exploring an overworld and going through dungeons, with a host of items and equipment to collect and use. The main thing separating it, then, from other titles in the franchise is aesthetic and story and boy does it separate. There is a clear new direction for the look of this game, with characters being rendered in a higher detail than was ever done before (or was really possible before), and between the age of the game right now and the other elements incorporated into its aesthetic, this gives much of the world an eerie uncanny feeling. This could be a positive feature that was gained over time, as the visuals fell from being “top of the line,” but from the design this feels intentional. The game is intentionally much creepier than previous entries, with disproportioned or emaciated humanoid characters and the strange digital creatures that occupy the Twilight realm, and it helps this game form its oddly shaped footprint on the Zelda franchise. As far as the game holds up today, it mostly does, with the dungeon design being on par with previous titles while containing some real standout examples, but it stumbles in a few places, the beginning of the game and wolf Link’s utilization being a few notable ones. We’re going to be talking about gameplay and the expanded combat system, how the game’s aesthetic design actually meshes with the overall series, and we expose the secret inspiration for Dreamwork’s Boss Baby.
Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re love to come back to the Zelda franchise pretty regularly because it’s a series that commands a lot of influence on the industry and inspires a huge amount of argumentation. Is Twilight Princess one of your favorites, or do you hate it with a burning passion? Or more likely, do you think it falls somewhere in the middle for not doing any one thing to an extreme? Let us know over in our Discord or in the comments. Next time, we’re going to be talking about a possibly underappreciated (TBD) childhood game in Space Station Silicon Valley, a puzzle platformer about robot animals. So if that sounds up your alley, we hope you’ll check back for that!
You were close!
Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re finally doing the game we said we were going to do back in September before we got blindsided by the entire month of October. Sneaks up on you sometimes, I know. And that game is New Pokémon Snap! Concluding our now trilogy of episodes on Snap-alikes, New Pokémon Snap is the sequel to Pokémon Snap on the N64, and a game that was pretty heavily speculated on and vocally desired by fans of the original. Nintendo had released numerous consoles that seemed to be begging for a Snap sequel, from the Wii with its pointer controls to the Wii U and 3DS with gyroscope enabled screen devices, but we didn’t get a new entry in the series until the Switch, and that game ends up being very much like the original. Not that the game doesn’t have new content, with hundreds of new Pokémon being created since the original title, there is a huge number of new subjects to take photos of, and the system for grading those photos is improved a lot. In addition, you can store many more shots both in your photodex as well as to an album, which is compatible with the Switch’s system storage, preventing the need for trips to Blockbuster to save your favorite photos. The game also looks very good, which is important for the type of game this is, but also isn’t exactly what the series has been known for recently. However, there is an intangible element of the original game that is noticeably missing from this one that is hard to articulate concisely that we spend a good amount of time talking about in the episode. This is a passionate one, so strap in. We’re going to be talking about level design both on a mechanical and thematic level, how Pokémon lost its edge over time, and we bring justice for the Pester Balls who have had their free speech silenced.
Thank you for joining us again this week! We’ve been trying to get to this game for a while and are happy we finally did. Despite our complaining, this is still a pretty good game that we’d recommend to fans of the original, and if you’re capable of being a bit more objective than us, you may even prefer it. Did you notice the shift in design between the original and this title? Do you know of any other Snap type games you’d like to recommend to us? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord, where we take suggestions for games to play and talk about the episodes! Next time, we’re going to be talking about WarioWare: Get it Together, so we hope you’ll join us then.
When I’m with you, everything is a podcast!
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be palette cleansing after a month of horror titles and talking about Kirby and the Forgotten Land, a game that… takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth after the invasion of an alien species with reality warping powers. Like most Kirby games, this one is an action platformer with a focus on cute designs, ease of play and a mechanic set that revolves around Kirby’s ability to inhale and copy enemies and objects. This time around, the gimmick is mouthful mode, a contextual ability that allows you to inhale large objects and then do prescribed challenges with a modified moveset, and it works pretty well and most of them are fun to use. However, the bigger change for this title is its shift into a fully 3D world. In addition to changing the overall perspective and how the game plays, this allows for it to feature more complex levels, a strong focus on secrets and adds utility to copy abilities that grant movement skills. Not that this is a groundbreaking new perspective for games to have in the last twenty years, but its fun to see Kirby gameplay mapped onto a different style of world and level design. Overall, if you’re looking for something a bit more relaxing, Kirby is going to give you what you expect from a Kirby title while adding enough interesting mechanics to feel reasonably fresh for its fairly short run time, with a lot of content left over if you want to go for a more complete experience. We’re going to be talking about how the game designs around its secrets by making the rewards feel more rewarding, how the endgame content really shows what the game is capable of, and we slightly expand the lore of Thorpo Fantasy, the podcast OC.
Thank you for listening this week! We really took our time with this game, more so than it probably needed, coming out of a busy previous month and it was definitely a good choice for some people who were kind of tired. How do you feel about Kirby as a franchise? Do you wish there was a Kirby game that used its more interesting mechanics to really challenge the player, or are you happy with it as a simpler title? Let us know over in our Discord (where you can suggest games for us to play!) or in the comment section (where you can also suggest games, I guess). Next time, we’ll be diving into a more robust Nintendo title and talking about The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, so I hope you’ll be there for that.
The old god stirs. Click to reveal its podcast.
Welcome back to the podcast and happy Halloween! For our final horror game this year, we’re going to be talking about World of Horror. As a disclaimer, this game is technically still in early access, and we end up discussing it as though it’s a full release, so consider that some of the things we’re talking about may end up changing by the time a version 1.0 comes out. World of Horror is a throwback CRPG reimagined as a Roguelike game, with short replay times and a huge number of random elements. In the game, you are tasked with solving five mysteries to enter a lighthouse and prevent the return of a Lovecraftian old god. “Solving mysteries” in this case meaning surviving a number of random encounters while the story of your mystery solving is told to you by text. Not having to actively solve the case doesn’t mean the game doesn’t take brainpower to get through though. In addition to making some choices that will affect the outcome of the mystery and determine what ending you get for each one, you need to manage resources and make smart decisions (or at least, be ready to remember what decisions led to what outcomes) to survive through the session. While the game mechanically is a callback, the art style also, while rendered in the 1-bit style of old PC games, references manga artist Junji Ito, who proves to be a significant inspiration for both the look and themes of the game, with “cosmic” and “body” being the horrors du jour. All in all it’s a fascinating game to play that may fall just a bit short in the content department at the time, but it embraces community made content and still has some updates ahead that could really elevate it. We’re going to be talking about the slow drip of unlocks that make the game feel a little stale on multiple playthroughs, how the obfuscation of mechanics and the old style aesthetic lend themselves to the mystery inherent to cosmic horror stories, and we discuss the ins and outs of the Clap Bow system.
Thank you for joining us this week and this year for our annual month of scary games. This was, to my mind, a really solid selection for the season with a lot of variation on style and type of horror, proving that things can be frightening in a ton of different ways, and this genre of game is one that I wouldn’t consider at the top of my list for horror. And yet, it ended up being very good anyway. What do you think? Were you drawn in by the Ito-inspired art style to this very strange title? Do you think the game contains enough things to keep you interested for long periods, or better yet, have you delved into the community made content? Let us know in the Discord or down in the comment section! Next time, we’re fulfilling a promise we made last month and actually talking about New Pokémon Snap, and rounding out our discussion of Snap-likes. We hope you’ll join us for that and thanks for listening!
I just heard a riveting podcast with my father. Which would be great, except he’s dead.
Welcome back to the most terrifying podcast around! Today, we’re going to be talking about Realms of the Haunting, a 90s FMV adventure game with some FPS mechanics thrown in for good measure. This game falls well into the campier side of old FMV games, and if I was trying to sell you on the game it’s what I’d be focusing on. It is both laugh-out-loud funny and also impressive in almost equal measure between the absurd cutscenes and the level of detail they and other parts of the game contain. The lighting effects in the game are surprisingly good for the time, the voiceover is not terrible and is incredibly expansive, with dialog describing most of the objects in the environment and all your inventory items and things you interact with. That said, it is still an old adventure game and there are going to be some hurdles to overcome to enjoying the game. The level design, while pretty cool aesthetically, can lead to players getting lost and has a bit of an overreliance on that maze-style design of early FPS games (not to mention having several literal mazes in it as well). Where to go next isn’t always clear and using weapons and items isn’t as straightforward we would like, causing some hiccups in the moment to moment gameplay. However, if you can get past all that, or are just used to it because you play a lot of older PC games, this is a strange and interesting one worth checking out. We’re going to be talking about the missed opportunity to emphasize the survival horror elements of this title with meaningful resource management, how the silliness of the story and cutscenes really elevate the experience of playing, and we reveal what is the most metal of outerwear.
Thank you for joining us again this week! We only discovered this game fairly recently and knew almost instantly it was something we wanted to talk about and bring other people’s attention to. I give this game a lot of credit for what it was able to do for the time and for fans of the adventure genre or just campy old horror stuff it hits a sort of sweet spot between being engaging and silly. What did you think? It isn’t the most hidden, but had you heard of this game before today? Do you think the navigation and puzzles are just too obtuse to be fun? Let us know in the comments or over on our DIscord server! We still have one pocket episode to do before the end of Halloween season (and that one will be coming out pretty damn close to the holiday itself), but that’s all she wrote for the main episodes this month. Next time, we’re lightening things up a lot (or a little, depending on how much you buy into the “dark lore” part of the franchise) and are talking about Kirby and the Forgotten Land, so we hope you’ll stop by for that!
If you make it out, don't ever return, because the podcast will find you.
Welcome back to the podcast! We’re trucking through Halloween, and today we’re talking about Bendy and the Ink Machine. Bendy is a horror adventure game that was released episodically, and it’s one of those titles that just isn’t satisfied with walking simulator mechanics. This game includes more typical object interaction and puzzle solving as well as combat, boss fights and even a few minigames thrown in. Does all this extra interaction add to the game? At times, it can, but overall the game lacks focus. It has some good things going for it, though. The game has a stellar concept, with the “Ink Machine,” probably the most overshadowed part of a title ever, being a real physical thing in the game, the implications of which are both bizarre and very cool. The art style and theme reflecting generations old cartoons also shows promise, especially in the context of a horror game, corrupting something of childhood innocence, though this concept has been done before. Still, the actual act of playing the game teeters between tedious and disappointingly unfrightening, which holds back a lot of the good ideas this title has. We’re going to be talking about how adding an abundance of mechanics can harm a game holistically, the importance of designing levels and quests in a way that hides their mundane nature from the player, and we have a senior moment and call back to a YouTube channel that hasn’t been relevant in years.
Thank you for joining us again this week! This was a game we had on our minds for a while, probably due to some level of internet word-of-mouth that made it seem like a cool one, but it ultimately let us down a bit. Did you try taking this on for a Halloween present or past, and did you end up feeling similarly? Were you able to dive into the backstory and extract something more valuable than what’s on display in the base game? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, for the final episode of the Halloween season, we’re going to be talking about World of Horror, a manga-inspired throwback game wrapped into a rougelike, which is scary on at least a few levels, so we hope you’ll join us for that.
I’m going to stab the podcast out of you!
Welcome back to spooky Halloween! Today, we’re going to be talking about the Evil Within 2, a survival horror title from Tango Gameworks. The Evil Within 2 focuses more on larger areas than the game it’s a sequel to, with a pseudo-open world design, but gives the player an expanded action set to handle this larger space. There is a focus on stealth, and the bigger areas means that running away to hide somewhere else is more feasible than it would be in a more corridor-focused game. That being said, this isn’t really an open world game, with few options for returning to previous areas or completing quests out of sequence, which ends up working well with the survival horror mechanics. A truly huge area risks overwhelming the player and leaving them without any way to defend themselves once their meager supply of ammunition runs out, or alternatively, providing far too many resources for the game to maintain its bite. Sticking with the Big Rooms Game™ approach mitigates these issues, keeping it grounded in the genre, though the design can still be somewhat problematic for players trying to fully complete the game. We’re going to be talking about resource management (on the player side as well as from a design perspective) in a game that features semi regular boss fights, how the sci-fi elements of the plot can get in the way of the splatter horror theme of the overall aesthetic, and we point out several places in the game that could have just been doors.
Thank you for joining us for the first full episode of Halloween this year! We actually played the original Evil Within back before we were even doing the podcast, and a bounced off of it pretty quickly, so playing the sequel after several years mostly comes down to word of mouth about it being more accessible and maybe even a little better in some aspects. We found this to be pretty true, but what did you think? Were we just being baby gamers, unable to handle the masterpiece of the first game? Did you enjoy the more open design of the sequel? Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be dipping back pretty far to take on the shooter/point and click adventure game “Realms of the Haunting” so we hope you’ll enjoy whatever it is that ends up being.
