NOCLIP Pocket E81 - Strategy of Flailing - Octodad: Dadliest Catch

Why is every podcast fish?

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, and our final episode from Mystery May! Today, we’re talking about Octodad: Dadliest Catch, a game about an octopus doing his best to blend in with human society. The game is straight out of the Goat Simulator era of physics-based games, and owes a lot to all the QWOP-inspired physics hell games that came before it, but what makes Octodad stand out is that it’s just much more playable than most other games in the genre. In Octodad, you control your legs and arm separately, with a wobbly ragdoll character and everything in the environment weighs nothing to allow for it to maximally fly around everywhere when you bump into it. However, the game has a plot and it wants you to finish it, so it never reaches Getting Over It levels of difficulty. In a way, this does make the game weaker, as the crazy physics interactions are less pronounced, but it’s a game you can finish and one that doesn’t overstay its welcome, giving it more of a feeling of real player-friendly design and making it a great jumping off point for getting into the genre. We’re going to be talking about the game’s perceived difficulty, how Octodad cultivates its comedy and makes it work, even at the player’s expense, and give you our top strategy tips for cheating at the arcade.

Thank you for joining us again this week, and for seeing us through Mystery May this year! We’re really happy with how it turned out, so we’ll be dredging the table up again next year as well. Did you play Octodad at any point in the 9 years since it came out? Did you play the original freeware Octodad? How did you feel about Mystery May and are there any games you were really pulling for off our table? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to keep it a little bit unorthodox and are going to be talking about The Bunker, an FMV game about people living in the post-apocalypse, so we hope you’ll keep an eye out for that.

Episode 149 - It's a Slant Rhyme - Child of Light

What is love known by? When it hurts to say “Welcome to NOCLIP.”

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we are doing as the dice instructed per the rules of Mystery May and playing Child of Light. Another game that’s been on our list for a while, Child of Light is an Ubisoft developed RPG that showcases the studio’s “UbiArt Framework” engine that was designed with the intention of being able to develop with artist’s ease of use specifically in mind. As a result, Child of Light is a game that has an obvious focus on delivering it’s storybook-styled visuals over all else, and therefore has a strong and consistent aesthetic throughout. Beyond the visual style itself, the music fits the theme well while not being overly showy, and conversely, the writing is done entirely in rhyme, calling attention to itself massively and just being a big in-your-face element of the game. Playing the game, though, is more traditional RPG fare, with its big distinguishing twist being a combat timer that allows strategies based around slowing or interrupting enemies and choosing attacks based on the length of time they take to cast. It fits together well enough but contains some design pitfalls that makes this a flawed game, but still an interesting one. We’re going to be talking about the abundance of systems and the harm they can do to the player’s experience, the really charming character and visual design and how they fit it together with the narrative and gameplay, and how Ubisoft really changed as a person once they got that sweet-sweet Rabbids money.

Thank you for joining us again today! We’re sad to see Mystery May close out, because it’s been a surprisingly fun time not having to make decisions about what to play. Were you one of the people who played Child of Light when it released, and if so, what made it grab you then? Did you pick it up recently and become confused at the weird DLC elements that just kind of got thrown in? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, with full control back in our hands, we’re going to be talking about Super Mario 64, sort of keeping with the theme of “how did it take them this long to cover this,” so we hope you’ll join us for that!

NOCLIP Pocket E80 - If He Had Wheels - Rascal

Take out the reptile, first of all.

Welcome back to the podcast! For our first Mystery May title for Pocket, we managed to roll a critical miss, forcing us to do an epilogue episode on Rascal, probably the worst game we’ve covered for the podcast. What started as a joke episode based on a history with the game became probably the podcast’s most enduring reference point for things being done badly and given how old the episode is, it probably was high time we took another stab at it. This episode isn’t overly long, and features far fewer hosts, but hopefully this is a good introduction to the game and why we keep talking about it, even after five years. Rascal itself is a 3D platformer for the PS1 that pretty much behaves in every way contrary to how a platformer should. You have tank-esque controls, a camera that will absolutely not do what you want it to do, and a terrible gun that you use to fight infinitely respawning enemies that appear offscreen and kill you. It’s a nightmare, but at least it’s a funny nightmare. The game so confidently thrusts you into its meat grinder of ill conceived challenges that you can’t help but laugh at your own poor fortune. We’re going to be talking about the outdated design philosophy that is expected of games of this era, the baffling design philosophy that makes up the rest of the game and we talk about all the games that were definitely inspired by Rascal’s secret genius.

Thank you for listening this week, or at least I hope you listened to make playing this game again worth it. We are actually happy to resurrect this particular meme, though, because we’ve referenced the game already this year, possibly multiple times. This is as close to a signature game as we have on this podcast, so hopefully this can be the last word, unless we roll a critical miss again at some point in the future… But did you play Rascal? Why? Was it out of a call of the void style curiosity because you saw the game lying around? Were you given this game as a gift, either by someone who didn’t know better, or more likely, as a gag? Let us know over on our Discord server or in the comments below! Next time, the dice deigned we talk about Octodad: Dadliest Catch, closing out an extremely weird chapter in NOCLIP Pocket history, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

Also, massive credit to this frankly incredible guide, that we reference multiple times in both this and the original Rascal episode: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/198413-rascal/faqs/37867

Episode 148 - Knower of the Tomes - Braid

All those years ago, Tim had left the podcast behind.

Welcome back to the podcast! For our first episode in Mystery May (but with rolling dice instead of solving mysteries), we’re going to be talking about Braid! Braid, as honestly you’re probably already aware, is a puzzle platformer that received a massive amount of recognition and acclaim when it launched on the Xbox Live Arcade way back in 2008. Far more puzzle than platformer, in Braid you use standard platforming controls and the ability to reverse time to collect puzzle pieces and complete levels, with each new level offering a different gimmick that changes the way the world and sometimes your abilities work. Gameplay-wise, the puzzles are extremely well-built. Never being outright unsolvable for the average person but also deep enough to provide a challenge and featuring some truly unique solutions. To some, this will be the biggest draw of the game. For others, the game’s melancholic tone and vague story will be the thing that hooks them, and it is also well crafted. The writing is eloquent and evocative, calling to mind how we as people handle mistakes and questioning the fantasy of being able to turn back time to correct them. As two different elements of the game, they both really sing, but when experienced together, how well do they mix? We’re going to be talking about our difficulties with the puzzles, our difficulties with piecing the game’s message together from the parts it gives you, and we make listening to the episode without being embarrassed about it a difficulty by telling a yo mama joke at the halfway point.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Braid coming up first on Mystery May is a great example of what we designed the whole system around because it’s been on our list literally since the inception of the podcast and kept getting kicked further down the road. It feels good to have finally played it, but missing the cultural zeitgeist on this game may have done more harm than we realized? Do you think Braid still holds up and its intentions still come across in the modern day? Do you think Braid has had an impact on game development or just indie game popularity generally? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Child of Light, as deigned by the fates, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Mystery May tables: https://noclippodcast.net/mystery-may

NOCLIP Pocket E79 - Marth Tiara - Shadow of the Colossus

Podcasts that are once lost cannot be reclaimed.

Welcome to the very first (kind of) NOCLIP Epilogue! On this series, that we’ll come back to every once in a while, we’re going to be revising some of our earliest episodes to rehash our discussions but with more media literacy and higher quality audio. For our first formal entry in the series (not counting Undertale, which we did as a primer to the Deltarune series, which, you know, we’ll get back to at some point), we’re going to be covering Shadow of the Colossus, which was our second ever episode. Shadow, in case you’re somehow unaware, is the second game from Team Ico, and is loosely set in the same universe and has a similar visual and mood to Ico. There is a dour atmosphere over the whole game, with a plot centering around a character attempting to revive a dead woman, a mysterious masked man and his cadre of knights and a Godlike figure named Dormin who promises to help with the resurrection if we do a task for him. There’s an air of mystery around the entire process, from what you’re doing to the plot itself and even who the characters are, and this lack of certainty cements the atmosphere of the game as well as keeps the player on the hunt for clues, making the whole experience more intellectually stimulating in addition to its mechanical challenges. As for what you actually do, Shadow tasks you with taking down 16 enormous boss creatures by physically climbing all over them and attacking weak points. Your player character controls in what feels like a very fragile and imprecise way, making this task feel difficult and imposing. There’s a lot more to say about how the game mixes its themes and its mechanics, but that should be the gist if you aren’t already a fan, so listen to us unpack the rest of it in today’s episode. We’re going to be talking about the way everything from the world to your horse contributes to the overall themes of the game, we talk about the pacing of the game and its ambitions versus the game we really got, and we speculate on what Mono’s last will and testament probably had in it.

Thank you for joining us again this week, and for indulging us this nostalgic look back at one of our favorite games we covered. Hopefully the epilogue series continues to do what we intended, as I feel like even this shorter episode gets across what makes the game good better than we were able to do seven, almost eight, years ago. What did you think about this episode format? Do you have suggestions for other games we covered in the long-long ago for us to take another look at? Let us know over in our Discord or in the comments! Next time, we’re doing our first Mystery May pocket episode, which is a different style to previous years, and through a series of events that are unfortunate, we ended up being forced to do an immediate epilogue follow up on the worst game we’ve ever covered (debatably) in Rascal for the Playstation, so if you enjoy when we suffer, please join us then.

Episode 147 - Ghosts in Football - Neon White

Not bad for a dead podcast, huh?

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Neon White, a first person platformer with a little bit of shooting in it. First person platformers aren’t exactly rare, per se, but they’re less common than the majority of other types of games in the genre, and so it’s worth considering the intentionality of its choice when a game comes out that uses the perspective. Neon White is maybe one of the best uses of the genre that I’ve ever seen. Because of its focus on getting fast times on each stage, the first person perspective gives a real sense of speed that you can actually feel, making you physically lean around when you play the game because of the focus it requires. It offers precision in shooting, an element of the game that feels less like eliminating threats and more like doing tricks in a Tony Hawk game; quickly spinning around to pick off some enemies after taking a shortcut or strategically shooting something coming up in the distance to save a weapon card for use later. The whole game gives a sense of continuing improvement and trains you to see the lines each level has and then to look away from them to find a faster route. The game has a less-than-novel, but still very cool narrative which feels like Battle Royale but set in Heaven, and characters that are easy to like despite falling into certain tropes and archetypes. It’s serviceable, and serves as downtime between the frantic action of the main missions. Neon White is a very rad game that does cool stuff in an awesome way. We’re going to be talking about the functionality of the gun/soul card discard system and how it adds to the decision making in gameplay, motivation to do better and whether it comes from the game or from within yourself, and we do some classic shipping of characters.

Thank you for listening today! Neon White was one of those games that seems like it’s going to be intimidating, but then ends up being surprisingly accessible. If you got through the game, did you feel like it could have been harder and offered a more robust challenge, or was what’s there more than enough to keep you entertained? Did you try to push your scores as low as they could go? Let us know over in the Discord, or in the comments below! Next time, we’re entering into Mystery May, but not like the old Mystery May where we did mystery games. Now, we’re taking a bunch of games that have been on our various lists of games to play for years that we never seem to get around to and putting them on a table and letting dice decide our episode. The first one selected for this month is Braid, the classic puzzle platformer, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

NOCLIP Pocket E78 - The Stranger - Perfect Tides

At least I’m not ugly and annoying!

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re talking about Perfect Tides, a point and click adventure game in true throwback fashion. With a pixel art style and several ways to interact with your environment, you explore the island of Perfect Tides solving puzzles and picking up inventory items. Yet, this isn’t really the draw of the game. It can be, if you’re looking for an adventure game that’s like the classics, but more forgiving, but the character work is the real star of the show here. You play as Mara, a 15 year old girl (in the year 2000), as she struggles to find her place in life, participating in the early internet, going to high school and trying to get along with her family. It’s not new ground to cover, for sure, but the depth of characterization given to Mara, as well as many of the supporting characters in the game, is deeply impressive. Most people will be able to relate to at least something Mara is going through, and the game’s perspective helps to provide some self examination on how we all handle our trauma. It’s a rough game at times, both mechanically and as far as content goes, but the end result is a beautiful study of teenage life. We’re going to be talking about the up-and-downsides of styling this game after old school adventure titles and express our mechanical woes, we separate the story from the characters and discuss how much importance is placed on the latter, and we make some medical suggestions, even though we are not doctors.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This game caught at least me off guard with just how frank and relatable it was, but I imagine that must be different for everyone. If you played it, what did you think? Were you in the age range to appreciate the references to the culture of the new millennium, or do you think that doesn’t really matter because we all know Flagpole Sitta or whatever? Let us know down in the comments or on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be introducing a new (kind of) series to the podcast, epilogue episodes, where we go back to games we did early on in the podcast and examine them with fresh eyes and give our updated opinions in a more listenable package. For our first (second, if you count Undertale, which is part of a separate series on Deltarune, which…oops, stay tuned on that one) epilogue, we’re going back to Shadow of the Colossus, which was our second ever episode, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

Episode 146 - Red House Studios - God of War: Ragnarok

Close your heart to it.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today we’re going to be talking about God of War: Ragnarok, Santa Monica Studios follow up to 2018’s God of War. And honestly, you in all likelihood know what this game is all about, so let’s just jump into it. Ragnarok is a direct continuation of the events in the previous game, and more than that, it almost feels like a direct continuation of the development of that game. It builds entirely off the systems that existed in the first game but adds some more variety in the form of more unique bosses, different companions and, eventually, a new weapon to play around with which does expand your options in combat. Does this variety actually change enough, though? Yes and no. While the combat feels more varied, and not fighting thirty more trolls is a welcome change, it still has some issues, some of which feel even more pronounced here in the sequel, and the basic systems aren’t really altered enough to ever really feel like you’re playing something different than 2018’s game. As a narrative continuation of the previous game though, this one does make strides in fleshing out its characters further, giving several of them proper arcs they didn’t have previously and completely revitalizing some characters into something more than archetypes. It’s a mixed bag of a game and one whose successes and failures are actually pretty complicated and a good indication of how huge games are being made, so we hope this episode can unravel at least some of it. We’re going to be talking about the sequel-y-ness of this game, both in how it’s built off its predecessor and how it sets up for a probable third game, the combat and its accompanying gear system, and what sort of hairdo they could give Kratos to most set off the vocal internet video game fans.

Thank you for listening again this week! This episode sort of exemplifies why it can be so complicated to talk about the big new releases when they come out. For one, we’re like six months late to this particular party because of our scheduling, and for two, we aren’t really “God of War fans” in the traditional sense, so we aren’t coming at this from a place of excitement or anticipation for the sequel. If you are, what did you think of the game? Do you think our criticisms were well placed? Let us know in the comments or over on the Discord. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Neon White, a fast-paced FPS platforming game that somehow jammed a deck building element into it, so we hope you’ll join us for untangling that.

NOCLIP Pocket E77 - Poisoned With Golf - Jazzpunk

If you need me, I’ll be in the podcast cellar.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket this week! Today we’re talking about Jazzpunk, an unorthodox adventure game from 2014. When I say unorthodox, what you do in the game from a base mechanical level is pretty normal, moving around and interacting with objects and your inventory to solve puzzles and progress, but the logic of the game and the scenarios you play through are all pretty surreal and feel designed around the question “why not.” The game isn’t too hard to wrap your head around though; the scenes themselves are bizarre, not the puzzles’ requirements. The result is a game that is genuinely funny at times, with lots of one off interactable gags and minigames that you can get through pretty smoothly, with enough content you will probably miss to make each playthrough a little bit different. We’re going to be talking about why it is that jokes landed sometimes and not others, the aesthetics and world design that feels so varied from level to level, and the number of Wilhelm screams one is allotted in any particular work.

Thank you for listening to NOCLIP Pocket again this week! If you hadn’t surmised, yesterday’s fast food centric episode was an April Fools gag, but honestly this game could have fared fine as an April Fools Day episode itself. It was a weird little experience to play through, and one I wish I had actually played closer to when it came out. Comedy ages in weird ways sometimes, and something felt a bit dated about some of these jokes, though the overall vibe is still pretty good. What did you think? Did Jazzpunk hit the right notes for you or is it a bit too aggressively strange? Let us know over in the Discord or in the comments below! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Perfect Tides, which is a point and click game, so we hope you’ll join us for something very much in our usual wheelhouse.

Episode 145 - Spaghetti and Towels - Shadows Over Loathing

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.

NOCLIP Pocket E76 - Attacked by a Chair - Vampire Survivors

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.

Episode 144 - Intimacy with the Sword - Gunfire Reborn

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!

NOCLIP Pocket E75 - Check for Lice - Cursed to Golf

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!

Episode 143 - A Hole Named James - Sacrifice

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!

NOCLIP Pocket E74 - Fart March - Strange Horticulture

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!

NOCLIP Pocket E73 - Soft Ear Sacs - Hidden Folks

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!

The NOCLIP Awards 2022 - Glory to Video Games

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!

Episode 142 - Grip It and Rip It (For Jesus) - Snowboard Kids 2

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.

NOCLIP Pocket E72 - Poisoned My Brain - Gorogoa

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.