Podcasts about palia

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about Star Citizen's huge funding milestone, the ending of some online games, a mobile client for Guild Wars, higher subscription costs for LOTRO, Camelot Unchained's early access, and some summer expansion reveals. It's the MassivelyOP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, send 'em in through our tips form. Now, listen to this week's show… Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: LOTRO, SWG, Palia, Eterspire, City of Heroes  Star Citizen makes over a billion in crowdfunding It's the end of the line for Destiny 2 and Closers Online Guild Wars Reforged launches mobile client -- and a tease! LOTRO raises multi-month subs Camelot Unchained goes into early access Upcoming expansions for DDO and Throne and Liberty Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "The First Disciple" from Destiny 2 Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Player FM, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify, or follow our uploads with RSS Follow MassivelyOP on Bluesky, Mastodon, Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook

In Folge 144 spricht Mark zu Beginn sehr ausführlich über das EVE Fanfest, das er am Wochenende besucht hat, und im Anschluss geht es um neue Informationen zu Aion 2 sowie die Quartalsberichte von NCSoft, Pearl Abyss und Nexon. Spannend ist dabei, dass gerade die PC- und Konsolentitel in Korea auftrumpfen. Im Newsflash reden wir dann über einen Rekord von Palia, die neue Erweiterung von Throne and Liberty, Lost Ark, ESO, Aion Remake, Bellatores, Silkroad Online und viele weitere MMORPGs. Teilt gerne wieder euere Meinung zur Folge über Discord oder per E-Mail. Unser Partner Holy bietet euch leckere Getränke, aber mit wenig Zucker und Kalorien. Schaut mal vorbei: https://de.weareholy.com/?ref=MMONEWS&utm_medium=creator&utm_source=creator. Mit dem Code: MMONEWS gibt es 10 % Rabatt. 5 % Rabatt auf euren Traum-PC mit dem Code mmonews. Schlagt doch zu: https://www.hitech-gamer.com Unser Partner und Sponsor ist Instant Gaming. Dort bekommt ihr günstig Game-Keys, Gems für Guild Wars 2, Spielzeit für WoW und vieles mehr. Hier unser Reflink: https://www.instant-gaming.com/?igr=mmonews. Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 2:29 - EVE Fanfest 33:57 - Aion 2, Guild Wars 2 und NCSoft 42:31 - Quartalsberichte von Pearl Abyss und Nexon 52:50 - Newsflash 1:19:49 - Danksagung 1:21:27 - Kommentare und Outro MMO News erscheint jeden Donnerstag. Folgt uns gerne auch auf Twitter: MMO News Alex Mark Wer möchte, kann uns zudem auf Patreon unterstützen oder auf Paypal spenden.

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about EVE Online's latest expansion, EverQuest Legends' beta, Spirit Crossing's housing system, Throne and Liberty's new progression system, and more studio financials. It's the MassivelyOP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, send 'em in through our tips form. Now, listen to this week's show… Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: World of Warcraft, Outbound, Palia, LOTRO, SWG, Guild Wars 2 (Colin's post) EVE Online announces Cradle of War expansion EverQuest Legends' beta is drawing a lot of attention Spirit Crossing gets some serious housing Throne and Liberty adds a Stellar Journey progression system Financials for NCsoft, Pearl Abyss, Square Enix, Nexon Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Red Glowing Dust" from EVE Online Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Player FM, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify, or follow our uploads with RSS Follow MassivelyOP on Bluesky, Mastodon, Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook

Folge 143 bietet euch eigentlich nur zwei große News. Wir sprechen über den neuen Patch für Guild Wars 2 und über den Ersteindruck von Farever nach 3 Spielstunden. Doch dafür erwarten euch im Anschluss viele kleinere Dinge. Hier geht es um Aion 2, das Beta-Feedback zu Scars of Honor, Chrono Odyssey, Palia, EVE, Hollowed Oath, die neue Erweiterung für Throne and Liberty und vieles vieles mehr. Auch euer Feedback wird am Ende wieder besprochen. Teilt gerne wieder euere Meinung zur Folge über Discord oder per E-Mail. Unser Partner Holy bietet euch leckere Getränke, aber mit wenig Zucker und Kalorien. Schaut mal vorbei: https://de.weareholy.com/?ref=MMONEWS&utm_medium=creator&utm_source=creator. Mit dem Code: MMONEWS gibt es 10 % Rabatt. 5 % Rabatt auf euren Traum-PC mit dem Code mmonews. Schlagt doch zu: https://www.hitech-gamer.com Unser Partner und Sponsor ist Instant Gaming. Dort bekommt ihr günstig Game-Keys, Gems für Guild Wars 2, Spielzeit für WoW und vieles mehr. Hier unser Reflink: https://www.instant-gaming.com/?igr=mmonews. Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro MMO News erscheint jeden Donnerstag. Folgt uns gerne auch auf Twitter: MMO News Alex Mark Wer möchte, kann uns zudem auf Patreon unterstützen oder auf Paypal spenden.

On this week's episode of the MassivelyOP Podcast, Bree and Justin catch up on two weeks of MMO news and talk about Final Fantasy XIV's expansion announcement, Guild Wars Reforged's mobile port, Aion 2's release window, a new Nexon MMO, Palia's mount-laden expansion, SWTOR's plans for the rest of the year, LOTRO's Rivendell housing, Conan Exiles Enhanced, and EVE Online's sale back to CCP. It's the MassivelyOP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, send 'em in through our tips form. Now, listen to this week's show… Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: World of Warcraft, LOTRO, GW2, Palia, Farever, Loftia FFXIV announces Evercold expansion for 2027 (and Patch 7.5) Guild Wars Reforged is getting a mobile port (and this month's Guild Wars 2's The Only Way) Aion 2 is coming in 2026 Embers of the Uncrowned is a new MMOARPG from Nexon Palia's getting mounts with its spring expansion SWTOR comes clean on Update 7.9 and 8.0 EVE Online's been sold back to CCP Conan Exiles will received an Enhanced edition Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Ashford Abbey" from Guild Wars Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Player FM, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify, or follow our uploads with RSS Follow MassivelyOP on Bluesky, Mastodon, Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

Al and Kevin talk about Pokopia, again again. Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:02:02: What Have We Been Up To 00:12:43: Pokopia 00:27:28: Game News 00:51:19: New Games 01:06:55: Outro Links Starstruck Vagabond on Consoles The Ranch of Rivershine “1.10.0.0” Update Palia “The Royal Highlands” Update Starsand Island “Shining Star” DLC Pokopia Sableye Event Monster Harvest Typing Farmer Kitaria Fables 2 Silicone Heart Contact Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/

While he is no longer gamedadshow, he now goes by kriscarlsonyt and came on the show to talk about MRGE: Michican Retro Gaming Expo that will be coming up on August 29, 2026. Kris talks all things about this upcoming gaming event taking place in Kalamazoo, MI. Kris also chats about his three games: Diablo II, Palia, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Check out mrgexpo.com for all the details about MRGE and to get your tickets for this huge event.Our hosts' links can be found at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ channel3.gg/rey ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠and⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ channel3.gg/dan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The show is Executive Produced by Channel 3 Founder Joel Willis who can be found at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ channel3.gg/joel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Our theme song is provided by Castor Garden. Find all of their tracks on Bandcamp by simply going to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠c3.gg/castorgardenmusic⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or find all of their links at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠channnel3.gg/castorgarden⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠About Channel3.gg: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠channel3.gg⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is social networking built from the ground up for gamers. Sure you can do all the stuff like on the old social medias like post pictures, videos, comments and the like. Channel 3 is so much more than that though. It takes the social media experience and game-ifies it. Made a great post that someone likes (1-ups) or respawns? You earn XP experience points that level you up. New levels mean chances to win tickets for physical prizes, earn digital flair for your profile, and more. Additionally there are weekly events hosted by Channel 3 that let the community unwind and kick back with a little friendly competition. Sure, you want to win but it's more about hanging out and the vibes. These events are hosted on C3's Twitch Channel and also earn XP for participants. XP can also be earned for completing quests-questions related to games and being a gamer, challenges where you go forth and complete a task in a game, rating & reviewing games and systems, creating specifically themed lists of games and more. You can find Channel 3 in both the Android and Apple App Stores or at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠c3.gg/app⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Die Folge Nummer 141 vom MMO News Podcast ist da! Dieses Mal sprechen Alex und Mark über die Ankündigung zu Final Fantasy XIV Evercold, über die neuen MMORPGs Tera 2 und Embers of the Uncrowned, den Release von Aion 2 im Westen und Alex hat Loftia angespielt und dazu ein kleines Special vorbereitet. Im Newsflash geht es dann noch um den Playtest von Scars of Honor, EVE Online, Palia, EverQuest, Pax Dei, The Quinfall und einige weitere MMORPGs. Gebt uns gerne wieder euer Feedback zur Folge über Discord oder per E-Mail. Unser Partner Holy bietet euch leckere Getränke, aber mit wenig Zucker und Kalorien. Schaut mal vorbei: https://de.weareholy.com/?ref=MMONEWS&utm_medium=creator&utm_source=creator. Mit dem Code: MMONEWS gibt es 10 % Rabatt. 5 % Rabatt auf euren Traum-PC mit dem Code mmonews. Schlagt doch zu: https://www.hitech-gamer.com Unser Partner und Sponsor ist Instant Gaming. Dort bekommt ihr günstig Game-Keys, Gems für Guild Wars 2, Spielzeit für WoW und vieles mehr. Hier unser Reflink: https://www.instant-gaming.com/?igr=mmonews. Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 2:30 - Final Fantasy XIV Evercold 21:45 - Embers of the Uncrowned 37:40 - Tera 2 45:13 - Loftia 1:02:10 - Newsflash mit Aion 2, EverQuest und EVE 1:32:11 - Danksagung 1:33:19 - Kommentare und Outro MMO News erscheint jeden Donnerstag. Folgt uns gerne auch auf Twitter: MMO News Alex Mark Wer möchte, kann uns zudem auf Patreon unterstützen oder auf Paypal spenden.

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about Marvel Heroes' rogue server relaunch, Lost Ark's layoffs, and the end of the EverQuest emulator lawsuit before heading into a eight-topic Daily Grind Blitz where they ask each other questions from our morning discussion topics. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: World of Warcraft, Palia, Marvel Heroes The EverQuest emulator lawsuit is settled Lost Ark lays off devs Daily Grind Blitz! What is the worst MMO you play anyway? Did you switch up your MMO main character this year? What MMO ideas you are completely over? Do you like using the random mount or pet skill? Do you ever judge people for what they spend money on in an MMO? What experimental MMO had a gem of a good idea? Would you show an ID to play an MMO? Which MMORPG has the login music you like the least? Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Spirits of the Forest" from RuneScape Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about Palia's content expansions, SWTOR's new story, Jeff Kaplan's Wild West game, FFXIV and WoW patch previews, and playing Guild Wars 2 on Steam Deck. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: World of Warcraft, LOTRO, Guild Wars 2, Marvel Heroes Palia reveals its Royal Highlands zone, releases Toadstool Tales patch SWTOR gets some new story content Jeff Kaplan returns with a Wild West survival game, The Legend of California FFXIV and WoW preview their spring content drops Playing Guild Wars 2 on handheld consoles Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Saltswept" from FFXIV Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

Cody gives his final verdict on Resident Evil 4 before Tim reviews Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift! Then, Cozy rants about Palia's battle pass and Tim sells Cody on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.Bluesky - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@hardsellshow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email - hardsellshow@gmail.comTwitch - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@hardsellshow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠(00:00:00) Cody's Review of Resident Evil 4(00:24:21) Review: Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift(01:21:47) Middle Segment: Palia's Battle Pass(01:36:28) Pitch: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms(01:49:55) Outro

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about Ashes of Creation and Project Gorgon developments, WoW Midnight's pre-launch info blitz, Star Trek Online's new season, Warframe's Android launch, Palia's spring expansion, and Daybreak financials. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: WoW Classic, LOTRO, Nightingale Ashes of Creation and Project Gorgon news updates World of Warcraft: Midnight gears up for early access and launch Star Trek Online's Corruption releases Warframe launches on Android Daybreak Q4 2025 report -- including a Palia expansion announcement Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "New Exploration 3" from Star Trek Online Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

Kevin talks to Al about Discounty Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:02:06: What Have We Been Up To 00:19:42: Game News 00:29:36: New Games 00:40:22: Discounty 01:04:28: Outro Links Sky Harvest Early Access Heartopia on Steam Palia “Winter’s Wonderland: Snowbound Sanctuary” Update Sakuna Replica Tools Farming Camp Milki Delivery Bel’s Fanfare Contact Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about the rest of the MOP awards, Elder Scrolls Online's roadmap, and a ton of launch information for Project Gorgon, Burning Crusade, Past Fate, and Loftia. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: LOTRO, GW1, GW2, Palia, BitCraft, Eterspire, SWG The rest of the MOP awards Elder Scrolls Online's confusing roadmap Launch dates for Project Gorgon and Burning Crusade Anniversary Past Fate launches into early access Loftia hopes to get here by mid-2026 Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Zenithar's Anvil" from Elder Scrolls Online Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

If you're a leader in game dev who feels stuck, there is a path forward that levels up your leadership and accelerates your team, game, and career. Sign up here to learn more: https://forms.gle/nqRTUvgFrtdYuCbr6 You can't just test quality into a game at the end. You have to build it in from the start. Ignoring your Quality Assurance team's full value is a fast way to lose millions. The state of game development is at a challenging inflection point, characterized by high-risk live service ambitions and a brain drain of senior talent. Host Ben Carcich sits down with Nathan Tiras, former Game Dev veteran (Riot Games, Singularity 6), to dissect this instability and dive deep into the discipline seen as an "entry-level" role: Quality Assurance (QA). Nathan, who worked his way from a QA Analyst at Riot to the Director of QA and Live Service at Singularity 6 (makers of Palia), argues that QA is not just "testing" but a critical quality function that represents the voice of the player. This deep-dive explores how leaders must move beyond the "QA as tester" stereotype to unlock the massive subjective value and risk-prevention only highly skilled, respected QA professionals can provide. What You'll Learn in this Episode: What "quality" really means in 2025, and why the best QA teams shape player experience How bringing QA in at pre-production saves time, money, and your launch day sanity Why bug counts don't define QA's worth The human edge of judgment, creativity, and tribal knowledge that no tool can replicate How great leaders build quality teams that protect business continuity and deliver real returns Learn more about Nathan: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-tiras-he-him-8a45754/ Company: https://www.whatnot.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nathantiras/?hl=en Board Game Geek: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/95100/nathan-tiras Check his other YouTube appearances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2mmERgh19c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyt3bnBgNqk Connect with us:

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about Halloween, New World's Nighthaven launch, Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity, launches for Pax Dei and Necesse, the quest for a Pokémon MMO, and a whole bunch of MMO stuff coming in December. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: LOTRO, WoW, GW2, Palia, Eterspire, City of Heroes News: MMO Halloween highlights News: New World gets a bump from Nighthaven News: Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity launches this week News: Pax Dei and Necesse officially launch Coming in December: Past Fate early access, EverQuest: Shattering of Ro, EverQuest II: Rage of Cthurath, SWTOR Update 7.8 Mailbag: Why isn't there a Pokémon MMO? Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Adventure Begins" from Necesse Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about LOTRO's expansion reveal, Ultima Online's birthday, that weird WoW Classic+ China thing, more EverQuest rogue server drama, MMO load times, and eras of the genre. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: WoW, LOTRO, Palia, SWG, Eterspire News: LOTRO reveals Kingdoms of Harad for December News: Ultima Online turns 28 years old News: What's going on with Blizzard's WoW Classic+ confusion? News: EverQuest Heroes' Journey rogue server closes after court injunction Mailbag: How do we feel about MMO load times? Mailbag: What are the different ages of MMORPGs? Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "The Angle of Mitheithel" from LOTRO Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

In Episode 4 of Season 3, the Slow Burn Cast Pat (NintenTalk), Min (Min's Meadow), and Payton (Payton'sCorner) are joined by special guest MellowTeddy to discuss several topics including recent cozy game news, Palia deep dive, emails + MORE!!Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/slowburncastDiscord: https://discord.gg/QUCFypEJxTGames mentioned:SqueakrossDiscountyFashion DreamerPaliaInfinity NikkiStardew ValleyAnimal CrossingFields of MistriaPowerwash Simulator

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about that crazy Ship of Heroes pricing debacle, Daybreak's legal success against that EverQuest emu, New World's newest zone, Throne and Liberty's housing system, a surprisingly fun skateboarding MMO, and thoughts on a gacha game we've never played. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Listen to the show right now:   Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: WoW, LOTRO, Palia, Eterspire News: Ship of Heroes launches with a pricey tag News: Daybreak gets an injunction against an EverQuest emulator News: New World reveals its upcoming Nighthaven zone News: Throne and Liberty pumped out its massive housing patch News: Skate is a wild skateboarding MMO Mailbag: What do we think about Infinity Nikki? Outro Other info: Download Episode 535 Podcast theme: "Renaissance Center" from Champions Online Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

No typo there, this isn't macheteman's episode. As we oft do, we like to complete the pair so this week we have machetemaam on the episode. She comes on to chat C3 favorites Mario Kart 8 and Mario Golf: Super Rush, Palia, and the Cozy Combo of Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Stardew Valley. You can find machetemaam and her links at channel3.gg/machetemaamOur hosts' links can be found at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ channel3.gg/rey ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠and⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ channel3.gg/dan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The show is Executive Produced by Channel 3 Founder Joel Willis who can be found at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ channel3.gg/joel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Our theme song is provided by Castor Garden. Find all of their tracks on Bandcamp by simply going to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠c3.gg/castorgardenmusic⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or find all of their links at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠channnel3.gg/castorgarden⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠About Channel3.gg: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠channel3.gg⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is social networking built from the ground up for gamers. Sure you can do all the stuff like on the old social medias like post pictures, videos, comments and the like. Channel 3 is so much more than that though. It takes the social media experience and game-ifies it. Made a great post that someone likes (1-ups) or respawns? You earn XP experience points that level you up. New levels mean chances to win tickets for physical prizes, earn digital flair for your profile, and more. Additionally there are weekly events hosted by Channel 3 that let the community unwind and kick back with a little friendly competition. Sure, you want to win but it's more about hanging out and the vibes. These events are hosted on C3's Twitch Channel and also earn XP for participants. XP can also be earned for completing quests-questions related to games and being a gamer, challenges where you go forth and complete a task in a game, rating & reviewing games and systems, creating specifically themed lists of games and more. You can find Channel 3 in both the Android and Apple App Stores or at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠c3.gg/app⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about Tarisland's execution order, Guild Wars 2's beachfront housing, Elder Scrolls Online's tendency to fly under the radar, a possible Neverwinter classic server, and Palia's ranching aspirations. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: WoW, LOTRO, Guild Wars 2, Palia News: Tarisland gets the boot (and Skyforge is officially gone) News: Palia's gonna let you be a rancher, boy howdy News: Check out Guild Wars 2's beach homestead News: Is Elder Scrolls Online overlooked? News: Could Neverwinter get a classic server? Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Fortune's Favor" from Guild Wars 2 Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

If you're neurosparkly yourself, love gaming or have ever wondered how online friendships can be just as real as in-person ones, this episode is for you.More info, resources & ways to connect - https://www.tacosfallapart.com/podcast-live-show/podcast-guests/lise-goblin-keeneyIn this episode, MommaFoxFire sat down with Lise Keeney, also known as Goblin, to talk about neurodivergence, gaming and how online spaces can create genuine friendships. Lise is a brand strategist and PR professional turned founder of Goblins, a voice-based platform that helps people connect through gaming. Her journey into building Goblins grew out of both personal loss and the desire to create spaces where neurodivergent people could feel comfortable being themselves.Lise shared her path from working with startups like Hinge to launching her own project. She joked that she has always had a “goblin answer” to career questions, but what has carried her through is creativity, curiosity, and the drive to help people connect in authentic ways. After her father passed away in 2022, she found herself craving community but not the energy it takes to go out and meet new people in person. That gap inspired the idea behind Goblins: a way to find real connection without leaving your home.A big part of the conversation centered on what it means to be “neurospicy,” Lise's preferred term for her own mix of ADHD and autism traits. She described how those traits show up as both strengths and struggles. On one hand, being neurodivergent often means heightened creativity and out-of-the-box problem solving. On the other hand, it can come with challenges like focus issues, people-pleasing tendencies or sensory overload. By embracing the label of neurospicy, she found both humor and empowerment.The two also talked about how video games serve as more than entertainment. For many neurodivergent folks, games offer structure, space to hyperfocus, and a low-stakes way to socialize. Lise pointed out that some of her gaming friends know her better than people she's known in real life for years. There is something disarming about playing in a shared digital space that makes opening up easier than sitting across a brunch table. MommaFoxFire agreed, sharing her own experiences with friendships formed through gaming and how those bonds can feel just as real and even more consistent than offline relationships.They also explored the kinds of games that foster connection. Competitive or high-intensity games like Call of Duty can make conversation harder, while cozy worlds like Palia or Minecraft let people talk while exploring together. These lighter games allow for parallel play, where people can hang out in voice chat while chopping trees, crafting, or just existing in the same virtual world. The result is an environment where conversation flows naturally.Another theme was safety and community care. Lise explained that Goblins uses voice-first interaction and strong moderation to cut down on harmful behavior. The community of about 2,500 goblins on Discord is quick to welcome newcomers, celebrate glow-ups, and even nudge each other with friendly accountability. From D&D groups to Monster Hunter squads, the connections have already led to lasting friendships, relationships and even in-person meetups.Throughout the episode, both MommaFoxFire and Lise underscored that video games are not a distraction from “real life” but a powerful tool for mental health and connection. Goblins is proving that you can meet friends, find belonging, and even fall in love without forcing yourself into traditional social spaces. Lise's story shows how being unapologetically neurospicy, leaning into gaming, and building inclusive platforms can create kinder, more meaningful communities online.

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about the Guild Wars 2 expansion reveal, more player housing announcements, the closure of Dual Universe, FFXIV's August patch, and whether MMOs can bring back the "controller" archetype. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: LOTRO, Palia, Drakantos, GW2 News: Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity revealed News: BitCraft and Throne and Liberty are getting housing News: Dual Universe closes next month News: FFXIV's Promise of Tomorrow arrives next week Mailbag: Can MMOs bring back the controller archetype? Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Four Sided Circle" from FFXIV Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about Chrono Odyssey's character odyssey, the EverQuest emulator lawsuit, an actual RIFT update, RuneScape's monetization crisis, the end of Hytale, and how our MMO journeys have aged. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: WoW, LOTRO, Monsters & Memories, Palia, Erenshor, City of Heroes News: Chrono Odyssey's hilarious freeform character creation News: The EverQuest emulator lawsuit News: RIFT gets a patch and promises more News: RuneScape's monetization crisis News: Riot's Hytale MMO project is dead Mailbag: How our MMO journeys have changed over time Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Silverwood" from RIFT Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about World of Warcraft's next patch, Bitcraft Online's EA launch, the sale of EVE Online's CCP, more server news for LOTRO and DDO, Palia's upcoming roadmap, Dune Awakening's PvE endgame course correction, and Chrono Odyssey's beta. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: WoW, LOTRO, Palia News: World of Warcraft previews Update 11.2: Ghosts of K'aresh News: Bitcraft Online launches into early access News: CCP and EVE Online are up for sale News: LOTRO and DDO update on server closures (and openings) News: Palia's future roadmap News: Dune Awakening attempts to course-correct News: Chrono Odyssey's beta Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Time Rifts" from World of Warcraft Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

Currently Playing is back with an old friend in the form of Kai, a frequent main show guest who's been busy with her school work but is happy to drop by and talk her recent faves in the cozy games space. She's been playing the farming MMORPG Palia, the fantasy farming sim Fields of Mistria, and the bug catching card battler Kabuto Park. Daniel mistakenly calls these "Animal Crossing-likes" but Kai sets him straight. Later they get into a bit of their thoughts about the Switch 2 before recapping Daniel's thoughts about Sword of Vermilion. Finally, Kai challenges Daniel to finally put in an honest effort at playing Majora's Mask, a game he put down for 17 years.0:00:00 - Welcome to the Show, Kai!0:11:12 - What Are You Playing? - Palia/Fields of Mistria/Kabuto Park0:36:43 - Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 Thoughts0:47:52 - Backlog Recap - Sword of Vermilion0:54:17 - Backlog Challenge - The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask1:01:28 - Wrap Up/PlugsFollow Kai on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ksnightingale.bsky.socialCheck out Kai's book editing and formating service: https://ko-fi.com/Nightingale_booksFollow Daniel on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/douibyorthst.bsky.socialCheck out Daniel's D&D module on the DM's Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/524409/The-Bears-of-Berk?affiliate_id=4159974Pre-save the song "Light World" by Daniel on Spotify: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/sanford3/light-world?utm_campaign=website&utm_medium=Email+&utm_source=SendGridFollow the show on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ttwav.bsky.socialSupport the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/ttwav

This cozy MMO life sim is endlessly relaxing and incredibly hard to put down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree, Chris, and Justin talk about Equinox Homecoming's early access, Dune Awakening's open beta weekend, Neverwinter's new patch, the end of Cryptic MMO forums, Pax Dei's layoffs, SWTOR's update preview, and the emulators we won't discuss about on the site. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: ESO, Palia, Lost Skies, Tower Unites Early thoughts on Equinox Homecoming's early access News: Dune Awakening runs a big open beta test News: Neverwinter delivers Red Harvest module and Ex-Cryptic MMO forums shut down News: Pax Dei lays off a good chunk of staff News: SWTOR talks up Update 7.7 -- but no story yet Mailbag: Why don't we talk about all MMO emulators? Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "How to Build Your Ranch" from Star Stable Your show hosts: Justin, Chris, and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

Codey talks to Al about Bug and Seek Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:02:00: What Have We Been Up To 00:06:21: Game News 00:27:44: Bug And Seek 01:05:05: Outro Links Len’s Island 1.0 Release To Pixelia Release Of Life and Land 1.0 Release Palia on PS5 and Xbox Palia Elderwood Expansion Everafter Falls 2.0 Update Lou’s Lagoon Kickstarter Autonomica Kickstarter Contact Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:30) Al: Hello, farmers, and welcome to another episode of The Harvest Season. My name is Al, (0:00:36) Codey: my name is Cody that’s a new thing I’m just gonna keep doing that forever now (0:00:38) Al: and we’re here today to talk about Cottagecore games. (0:00:49) Al: I’m gonna start not referencing it, and then maybe it’ll stop. I don’t know, we’ll see. (0:00:52) Codey: no it’s on my mind every time ah and it matches I have a new tattoo that has (0:00:55) Al: You’re like a dog with a bone. (0:01:00) Al: Yes. (0:01:02) Codey: six wolves. So it’s classic. Yep. (0:01:06) Codey: Bug game, bug game. Mm hmm. Yep. (0:01:07) Al: All right, Coneys here, because we’re going to talk about Bug and Seek. (0:01:13) Al: The first of multiple bug games, undecided as to how many. We have two currently scheduled. (0:01:20) Codey: Well, and then we decided that a third, a third one that is scheduled tentatively is bug adjacent. (0:01:21) Al: We’ll see. (0:01:30) Codey: So two. Yeah, stay tuned. (0:01:32) Al: Yeah, sure. Maybe. We’ll see. We’re going to talk about Bug and Seek. Oh, well, I say (0:01:36) Codey: Yeah. Yeah, you didn’t. Yeah, you didn’t play it. (0:01:42) Al: we. Cody’s going to talk about Bug and Seek. I’ve not played the game. Although for a rare (0:01:48) Codey: Wow. (0:01:49) Al: occasion, I also don’t own it. So yay me. I managed to not buy a game. So before that, (0:01:58) Al: We’ve got a bunch of news. (0:01:59) Al: It’s been a busy week, lots of news. (0:02:02) Al: But first of all, Cody, what have you been up to? (0:02:04) Codey: I have been playing bug and seek clearly, um, but I know, um, but I also am still playing (0:02:13) Codey: Fortnite. So my new roommate, um, asked if I had Fortnite on my Xbox and I was like, (0:02:19) Codey: Nope, we can get it. And then we just play it pretty regularly. Now I play probably like (0:02:24) Codey: four or five games a day, but it’s, it’s like fast because it loads in fast. And then I just (0:02:29) Codey: die a couple of times and then I’m like, okay, I’m done. So it’s probably only like 40 minutes of (0:02:30) Al: It’s fast because you’re bad at it, that’s what you just said. (0:02:32) Codey: of Fortnite a day. (0:02:35) Codey: Uh, sometimes sometimes I get up to like, I’ve only gotten one Vic Roy, which for the kids is a victory royal, um, where you win, but I am frequently in the top 10. (0:02:53) Codey: So, I think I just get really nervous when I’m in the top 10, so I’m playing that. Uh, and then I also had a big meeting with my advisors where I basically met with them and was like, hey. (0:03:04) Codey: Here’s what I have so far. Here’s what I still have to do. May I please graduate in the fall? And they said, yes. So I am on track to graduate. (0:03:16) Codey: So I’m also working on a lot of specimens and going to be hiring a tech here soon. Very exciting. (0:03:22) Al: Cool. (0:03:23) Codey: What about you? What have you been up to? (0:03:26) Al: What have I been up to? (0:03:27) Al: I have been playing around with my new recording app on my desktop. (0:03:32) Al: No, that’s what I was doing right now when I was definitely listening to you. (0:03:34) Codey: Oh wow. (0:03:37) Al: I have been playing Tiny Garden. (0:03:41) Codey: Okay. (0:03:42) Codey: This is the Polly pocket game. (0:03:42) Al: This is this is the Polly Pocket farming game. (0:03:45) Codey: Okay. (0:03:45) Al: Yeah, so I have been I have been playing that. (0:03:49) Al: And maybe I’ll talk about that in the future. (0:03:52) Al: This is a game. (0:03:55) Al: I always find the balance hard because it’s like, do I do I talk about the game (0:04:00) Al: just now or do I wait until because obviously I’m doing an episode on this. (0:04:03) Al: Right. I’ve played a game. (0:04:04) Codey: Right. Right. Yeah. (0:04:04) Al: I’m doing an episode on it. It’s free content. (0:04:08) Al: So, yeah, I don’t I I think it’s interesting. (0:04:10) Codey: No, it’s a game. (0:04:12) Codey: Okay. (0:04:13) Al: I will have things to say about it. (0:04:14) Codey: Oh. (0:04:15) Al: That is probably a good way to put it. (0:04:17) Al: I will have things to say about it. (0:04:21) Al: I’ve also kind of been. (0:04:22) Al: playing more cassette beasts but I’m still struggling to get into it so I (0:04:29) Al: don’t know I’ve kind of taken a break and gone to Tiny Garden and maybe I’ll (0:04:33) Al: maybe I’ll go back maybe I won’t I don’t know there’s just there’s something I (0:04:37) Al: don’t I really struggle with the like the UX of it I struggle to care about it (0:04:40) Codey: Mm-hmm (0:04:44) Codey: Yep (0:04:44) Al: and I struggle to yeah it’s just that it’s really not grabbing me it’s really (0:04:49) Codey: Yeah, I (0:04:50) Codey: Mean, I’m right there with you when I tried to play it on Xbox for a bit (0:04:54) Codey: I may be played for like an hour and I was just like yeah, I don’t I don’t have to do this (0:05:00) Codey: And it just doesn’t it doesn’t do it for me. So I put it down and then (0:05:08) Codey: Um, I don’t think I’m in a big bag. (0:05:10) Codey: Um, unfortunately, though I do, I do have an update. (0:05:12) Al: Yeah, yeah (0:05:15) Codey: Uh, I don’t know if you’re done yet. (0:05:17) Al: Yeah, yeah (0:05:18) Codey: Okay. (0:05:18) Codey: Uh, I have an update on, cause I always complained about Disney (0:05:22) Codey: Dreamlight Valley’s lag time and how it takes forever to load. (0:05:26) Codey: And, um, so my partner moved in recently and he has a Xbox series X. (0:05:33) Codey: So he has, I was playing on an Xbox one, which is ancient at this point. (0:05:38) Codey: Um, and that’s why it was lagging. (0:05:40) Codey: The update is it loads way faster on the Series X, um, and doesn’t have as, as many as much like issues it seems. (0:05:50) Codey: But I also, I played it, I logged on. (0:05:52) Codey: I was like, Oh wow, this is a lot faster. (0:05:54) Codey: And then I was like, and I’m bored. (0:05:55) Codey: So, um, but yeah, I mean, so if you update your stuff and you, um, are thinking about like wondering if that would be worth it, I think it is to take a, take a crack at that game. (0:06:10) Codey: If you haven’t played it for a while, I think my issue is I played it like a month ago, maybe. (0:06:13) Codey: So it’s still, there’s still not enough new to grab me. (0:06:19) Codey: So, yeah. (0:06:20) Al: Fair enough. All right well let’s talk about some news. First up we have Lens Island have (0:06:27) Al: finally announced their 1.0 is releasing on the 19th of June. (0:06:33) Codey: whoo, super excited about this. (0:06:37) Al: This game Cody has been in early access since November 2021. (0:06:38) Codey: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. (0:06:42) Codey: And I’ve had it and I played it and I really enjoyed it. (0:06:45) Codey: But I was like, you know what? (0:06:47) Codey: I’m going to wait to dedicate all of my time to this game for when it’s in 1.0. (0:06:51) Codey: So I am about ready to slam some more time into this game, (0:06:57) Codey: especially because it was it is something I can play on my Mac. (0:07:00) Codey: So, rest in pepperonis. (0:07:00) Al: That’s good. (0:07:03) Al: That’s good. (0:07:03) Codey: I am productivity. (0:07:06) Al: I also own it because I have a problem with Kickstarter. (0:07:12) Al: I haven’t played it because I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but I enjoy telling (0:07:16) Al: it. (0:07:16) Codey: OK. (0:07:17) Al: It didn’t have any controller support when I first launched it on my Steam deck and I (0:07:18) Codey: Yep. (0:07:20) Al: was like, hmm, no, I’m not going to do that. (0:07:24) Codey: I like the– (0:07:24) Al: There are some games I will play like a game that I’ll be talking about in the future. (0:07:30) Al: It does make it less fun to play and with a game like Lens Island, I feel like it would (0:07:37) Al: be just murder to try and play that game without controller support on a Steam deck. (0:07:41) Codey: Yeah, I could see that for sure (0:07:45) Al: I hope to play this when it comes out, when did I say June, 19th of June? (0:07:51) Codey: Yep (0:07:52) Al: That’s a bad time for it to come out because that is two weeks after the Switch 2 comes (0:07:55) Codey: Yeah, ooh won’t want (0:07:58) Al: out. (0:08:00) Al: The question is, will I be over Mario Kart World by then or not? (0:08:06) Codey: Mm hmm. (0:08:07) Al: We’ll see. (0:08:08) Al: It is before Donkey Kong Bonanza, so that’s good, but Bonanza, yeah, Bonanza. (0:08:13) Codey: Yeah, is it really been banana banana, but oh my gosh, okay, that’s cute. (0:08:19) Al: Have you not paid attention to any of that? (0:08:21) Codey: Um, you know, I did. (0:08:24) Codey: Uh, I just care so little that it just back vacated my brain matter pretty fast. (0:08:25) Al: Yeah, fair. (0:08:31) Codey: So I only just started playing my own switch again because of bugging. (0:08:36) Codey: And seek, but then also, um, now that my partner lives here, we want to try (0:08:41) Codey: and beat the Zelda games because we both have the issue of ADHD slash just (0:08:48) Codey: like disinterest after playing a game for a certain amount of time. (0:08:51) Al: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Interesting. Maybe, maybe. (0:08:51) Codey: But if it is an activity that we are doing together, perhaps we can make it through. (0:08:59) Codey: So we will see if that, if that is the success, that is the blueprint we’ll find out. (0:09:05) Al: That’s very interesting. Well, we look forward to hearing about that in the future. (0:09:10) Al: Next, we have 2Pixellia have announced that they’re releasing on the first of May. (0:09:14) Codey: Okay. That’s all I have for that. (0:09:17) Al: Alrighty. (0:09:19) Al: This is this is the the life sim, (0:09:24) Al: which like includes crime. (0:09:28) Codey: Yeah, it had a lot of, I remember the trailers and stuff like having so many, (0:09:32) Codey: it’s so detailed in the different things that you can do in the game, (0:09:34) Al: Yeah. (0:09:36) Codey: which is great. Love that for people who aren’t me. (0:09:39) Al: Yeah, that is my I think that’s my worry is that it ends up being too much. (0:09:44) Al: I did kickstart this one, so I will have this when it launches. (0:09:49) Al: As I say, I have an issue, but (0:09:51) Codey: But maybe maybe it’s not an issue. Maybe maybe we find out. Yeah (0:09:54) Al: I don’t know. We’ll see. (0:09:55) Al: We’ll see. We’ll see. (0:09:57) Al: Because I guess the thing about the thing about Stardew is that I like how it has (0:10:02) Al: options but I also like how it doesn’t have options. (0:10:04) Al: And that’s so contradictory, but you understand what I mean there, right? (0:10:10) Al: Like, yeah, you can focus on farming or you can focus on ranching or you can (0:10:13) Al: focus on mining or you can focus on… (0:10:16) Al: That’s it. (0:10:19) Al: Well, there’s other things like focusing on relationships and stuff like that. (0:10:22) Al: But realistically, if you don’t really know what to do, you farm. (0:10:25) Codey: I think that’s where my issue would be as well. (0:10:26) Al: Whereas here it’s like, what do you do if you don’t know what to do? (0:10:29) Al: And I don’t know. (0:10:30) Al: I worry I’m going to end up in decision. (0:10:34) Al: We’ll find out, not for Cody, Cody’s not even going to try it, big assumption there. (0:10:46) Codey: No, I will listen to the podcast episode though and be like, oh, that’s very interesting I (0:10:52) Al: May is busy, no, no, I meant big assumption that there’s going to be a podcast episode (0:10:52) Codey: Listen I listen to most episodes. Oh (0:10:57) Al: on it, no promises, I promise nothing. (0:10:58) Codey: Yeah, yeah for sure (0:11:02) Al: And Cody can’t promise this one. (0:11:04) Al: Because they are not playing the game. (0:11:06) Al: You don’t get to promise when you’re not playing. (0:11:06) Codey: - Nope, you’re right. (0:11:09) Al: Next, we have of life and land who have announced that their 1.0 is (0:11:13) Al: releasing on the 8th, 16th of May. (0:11:16) Codey: Okay, yep. This is the game that I want to play, but it’s Windows only, which makes (0:11:22) Al: Yes. Sad. (0:11:24) Codey: me sad. Though now that I have… do I want? No. Redacted. I do not want to put my desktop (0:11:34) Codey: in my office where I work all the time because then it will become a multi-use space and (0:11:39) Codey: I don’t want that. Nope. Still didn’t get the Steam Deck. (0:11:41) Al: Still not still not got the steam deck then. (0:11:46) Codey: And I don’t think I will because I’ve made it clear that I have other things I need to (0:11:50) Codey: pay off before I get a Steam Deck. I just didn’t know. I didn’t know at the time if my (0:11:59) Codey: partner was going to get a Steam Deck because he seemed like he was also interested in it. (0:12:02) Codey: But yeah. No Steam Deck yet. Yep. And he just sent me a photo of more wood. (0:12:04) Al: Instead he spent that money on wood. (0:12:10) Al: More wood! I look forward to finding out if that wood ever turns into a table or (0:12:15) Al: whether it just ends up living in a pile. (0:12:18) Codey: No, I think it’s going to be a table. He’s also thinking about because he just got some really (0:12:23) Codey: nice walnut and cherry, which is really pretty spendy wood. And he was talking about going and (0:12:29) Codey: buying pine from Home Depot and making a mock up of the table so that he could practice. (0:12:34) Al: Because yeah, because this this definitely doesn’t sound like a hyper focus that will be gone in two weeks (0:12:40) Al: Definitely not (0:12:41) Codey: Yeah, this is his special flavor of ADHD. (0:12:48) Codey: Um, well, it, yeah, I’m not gonna, no, you’re just, you are setting reasonable expectations (0:12:52) Al: Look, I’m not saying it’s going to go wrong. (0:12:53) Al: I’m not saying that. (0:12:54) Al: I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t. (0:13:00) Codey: and I appreciate it, but he’s, he’s spent a lot of money. So (0:13:04) Al: Palia have announced two things. (0:13:09) Al: They have announced that they’re releasing on the PS5 and the Xbox Series X and S, (0:13:16) Al: and they’re announcing that they’re at the same time, on the same day, the 13th of May, (0:13:22) Al: announcing an expansion called Elderwood. (0:13:26) Codey: And it looks awesome. I really like the colors of that the new expansion has. It’s very like (0:13:33) Codey: mystical, wood elf-y, like purple, purples and pinks. Very enjoyable. And just like the different (0:13:44) Codey: materials and like decor and stuff that are in that one looks good too. Seems like it’s a good (0:13:50) Codey: time to jump back in to Palia. And if I remember correctly, this is free to play, right? (0:13:55) Al: Yeah, it is. (0:13:56) Codey: Yeah. So maybe I will put it on because it is. It was fun. And Johnny and I had a whale of a time (0:13:59) Al: It’s a good looking game. (0:14:00) Al: It looks really nice. (0:14:06) Codey: shooting deer. So in hunting together, there’s also a pretty fun bug hunting mechanic. (0:14:14) Codey: So there’s a lot that can be done for sure. I’m trying to mentally decide. Yeah, I’m trying to (0:14:21) Codey: decide if I I guess it’s not a question of am I going to play this? It’s a question of am I going (0:14:26) Codey: continue playing it on my switch or do I just want to scrub and like make a whole new? (0:14:33) Codey: Oh, that’s another thing I could investigate. It could, it might. I’ll have to look at that. (0:14:39) Al: Yes. (0:14:40) Al: It looks like it does have cross-save. (0:14:42) Codey: But now I have to remember my password. That’s not likely. (0:14:47) Al: Just make sure. (0:14:48) Al: Yeah. (0:14:49) Al: Well, I mean, that’s a problem. (0:14:50) Codey: That is a me problem. Well, and it’s because I was using the same. (0:14:53) Al: You don’t have a password manager. (0:14:54) Codey: I do, but it’s like. (0:14:56) Codey: On other things, and I might not have done it on that. (0:15:02) Al: Okay, that’s definitely a you problem then. (0:15:03) Codey: I might not have. (0:15:05) Codey: Yeah, exactly. (0:15:07) Al: Oh dear. (0:15:08) Codey: Yep. (0:15:09) Codey: This is why I used to use the same password for everything so that I would (0:15:12) Codey: never forget, but then I was told that that’s a bad thing to do. (0:15:16) Codey: So I stopped doing that. (0:15:19) Al: I don’t know what to say. (0:15:23) Al: All right. (0:15:25) Al: Yes, that’s the 13th of me. (0:15:26) Codey: Mm hmm. (0:15:28) Al: Maybe you should play on your Xbox. (0:15:30) Codey: I think that’s what I’m thinking of is just, just restarting a whole new (0:15:33) Codey: thing on my Xbox, if it’s not fast, if it’s, if it’s, if it takes more than (0:15:38) Codey: five minutes to figure out my, my login, I’m probably just going to (0:15:42) Codey: create a whole new thing. (0:15:43) Codey: I wasn’t super far into it and it’s honestly been so far since I’ve (0:15:48) Codey: played it that I could, I could use a refresher. (0:15:50) Al: That is a fair point. Sometimes jumping into an existing save can be a problem. (0:15:56) Codey: Yes, when I don’t remember and I need all the tool tips again. (0:15:59) Al: Yes. Next, we have Ever After Falls have announced their 2.0 release. (0:16:04) Al: It is out now. It includes new items, new quests, new decorations, and a bunch of quality of life. (0:16:12) Codey: And I think the coolest new item is a fishbowl, and it specifically says small fishbowl that (0:16:19) Codey: displays a single fish. No matter the marital status of the fish. (0:16:22) Al: A single fish, no matter the size, obviously. (0:16:29) Al: Oh, I didn’t even think about that. Does it mean one individual fish, or does it mean… (0:16:35) Codey: A non-married fish. What if the fish is, what if you put a married fish into the fishbowl? (0:16:40) Al: They get as a divorce (0:16:40) Codey: Does that en- know? (0:16:42) Codey: An- annulment, nullify, divorced, annul, marriage annulled, rip. (0:16:50) Al: You can also do a Shroom terrarium, produces Shroom. (0:16:53) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:16:55) Codey: I think that was cool. (0:16:56) Codey: Like I know people who have those like life, um, vivariums. (0:17:02) Codey: So it’s, it doesn’t, they don’t have like anything in it except for plants. (0:17:06) Codey: And it just is growing plants and it seems nice. (0:17:12) Codey: I don’t have any of those though, that I would for- (0:17:13) Al: It seems like a small update for 2- (0:17:17) Codey: Yeah, I agreed. (0:17:18) Codey: Um, that’s why the thing that I pulled out was just that there’s a fishbowl. (0:17:22) Al: I mean, I mean, do what you want. (0:17:26) Codey: Everything else was- (0:17:28) Al: Do what you want with your updates with that. (0:17:31) Al: I’m not angry at that one like I am with some version numbers. (0:17:36) Al: I just feel like, you know, if we look at the the 1.2 version update, (0:17:44) Al: it feels kind of similar sized and then it’s a jump to 2.0. (0:17:46) Codey: Yeah, what’s the logic behind this being a full number? (0:17:48) Al: like what’s different here is very small. (0:17:52) Al: Just expectation-wise, I think that people would expect more for that. (0:17:58) Codey: I don’t know. (0:18:05) Al: Next we have two kickstarters have launched. (0:18:08) Al: The first is Lou’s Lagoon. (0:18:11) Al: This has hit its goal of 10,000 euros with 28 days to go, so I think they’re fine. (0:18:21) Al: This is the game where (0:18:23) Al: I think it’s a delivery game. (0:18:26) Al: You’ve got a seaplane that you use for delivery. (0:18:26) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:18:31) Al: It looks like it could be fun. (0:18:35) Al: I’m not champing at the bit to kickstart it to be like, (0:18:39) Al: “I must play this game.” (0:18:40) Al: When it comes out, maybe I’ll be interested in it. (0:18:44) Codey: And they haven’t showed, so they’re stretch goals that they have, it’s like they show you the next stretch goal, but then they don’t show you the one after that. (0:18:54) Codey: It’s like a big old mystery. So they basically have, well, it looks like it looks like something’s there, but it is, it is vague enough, I agree. (0:18:56) Al: - Mm-hmm. That just means they haven’t decided. (0:19:02) Al: Yes. Yes, it does. (0:19:07) Codey: But yeah, the first stretch goal is, the first goal was 10,000 euros and the next one’s 50. (0:19:14) Codey: And that adds photo mode, which I’m assuming photo mode just means you can take photos. (0:19:22) Al: Yeah, yeah, it’ll be one of those like, oh, you can take selfies and put stickers on it. (0:19:25) Codey: Yeah, it would be nice to be able to see the other stretch goals, because if it was just this stretch goal, I personally wouldn’t, that wouldn’t inspire me to help them get further in the, in their goals. (0:19:40) Al: Yeah, I’m never convinced that stretch goals actually do much like I don’t I don’t do you (0:19:41) Codey: As though the dog… (0:19:47) Al: ever look at a kickstart and go I don’t think I’m going to kickstart it and then you look (0:19:50) Al: at the stretch goals and go no I’m definitely going to back it now like I think the only (0:19:54) Codey: Well– well, what if one of the next one’s is platforms? (0:19:54) Al: one really that changes people’s mind is platforms. (0:19:59) Al: Well sure yeah yeah yeah that’s what that’s fair but I also don’t think you should do (0:20:04) Codey: And I just can’t– you can’t see it. (0:20:06) Codey: You can’t– oh, true. (0:20:08) Al: stretch goals as a platform, as a stretch goal. (0:20:10) Al: I think that is something that can get people to back it, but I also think that that is going (0:20:16) Al: to bite you. You know, it’s going to be a problem. I think that you should not promise these things, (0:20:18) Codey: Mm hmm. That’s fair. (0:20:21) Al: but that is just what I’ve seen from so many Kickstarters, is that is where problems come, (0:20:27) Al: is when you promise a platform as a stretch goal. You’ve never tried it. I think I can’t remember (0:20:34) Al: who it was. There was some some Kickstarter I was looking at this week where they said that they (0:20:38) Al: weren’t promising switch to because (0:20:40) Al: they didn’t have a dev kit and they couldn’t promise that. (0:20:42) Al: And I’m like, that’s the right way to do these things. (0:20:44) Codey: Mm-hmm (0:20:44) Al: If you’ve never used it before, don’t promise it. (0:20:47) Al: And hopefully it’ll come at some point. (0:20:49) Al: You can say later on, you can switch to this platform. (0:20:53) Al: If you want, you can switch your key to that one. (0:20:54) Al: That’d be fine. (0:20:55) Al: Like that works quite well. (0:20:57) Al: Although the problem with switching from Steam to Switch is that Nintendo charge (0:21:02) Al: for keys, whereas Steam, you can just create as many keys as you want. (0:21:07) Al: It’s like something like $7 per key that Nintendo charge (0:21:10) Al: for people. So it’s actually more expensive for them to sell you Switch with a key than (0:21:18) Al: the other way, than with Steam. Whereas if they just buy it, sell it through the store, (0:21:21) Al: it’s I believe the same percentage cut. Fun fact. (0:21:29) Codey: some insider baseballs. (0:21:34) Al: uh yeah so yeah I think as part of my trying to kick start fewer games I don’t think i’m going to (0:21:39) Al: kick start this one um maybe i’ll play it when it comes out we’ll see I cannot (0:21:42) Codey: Can you hear the dogs squeaking? (0:21:46) Codey: Okay, good. You’ll hear it if you end up using the recording. You will. Let me go yell a dog really quick before we do the last one. (0:21:56) Codey: Okay. (0:21:59) Al: And finally, we have Autonomica, which is the game that was farm folks that was then taken over (0:22:08) Al: by a different team when the original team couldn’t fulfill the game. And then they decided to make a (0:22:13) Al: different game and had the same name on it. And then they changed the name and now they’ve (0:22:17) Al: launched another Kickstarter for this game because the team that took over the project never got like (0:22:23) Al: they’ve said they didn’t get any of the money from the original Kickstarter. However, one good thing (0:22:29) Al: I’ve said that anyone who backed the original Kickstarter will get a key for the new game. So (0:22:33) Al: they’re honoring that even though they didn’t get that money, which is good, which is nice. (0:22:39) Al: Anyway, that’s that game. I think some people who backed the original game aren’t happy because (0:22:42) Al: it’s a very different game now. If you look at like the videos of farm folks and it’s very much (0:22:44) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:22:49) Al: cozy cam farming life sim, whereas this is like very in your face automated automation game. (0:22:57) Al: Also, there are ghosts that you have. (0:22:59) Al: go and fight. So it feels very different, but you can’t get them, you can’t hold them (0:23:07) Al: to the promises of a different team, right? Like that’s not how these things work. So I think it’s (0:23:13) Al: interesting that they ever decided to publicly be like we are taking over this project and rather (0:23:20) Al: they’d just be like here’s our new game, but maybe there’s an advantage to that in terms of you get (0:23:27) Al: the the name credit from the (0:23:29) Al: previous game that people had backed. I don’t know. Anyway, (0:23:32) Al: it’s out now it has hit its goal. It had a huge goal. They (0:23:36) Codey: Yeah. (0:23:36) Al: had $170,000 goal and they have absolutely smashed that they’re (0:23:41) Codey: Yep. (0:23:42) Codey: And they show their stretch goals or they they show you can at least tell what the next next step is. (0:23:50) Codey: So at three hundred thousand, which they’re going to hit probably in maybe half hour, depending on how fast this goes. (0:23:56) Al: Yes, they might be before we finish recording because they’re 297,000 just now. (0:24:01) Codey: Yeah. (0:24:02) Codey: Yeah. (0:24:04) Codey: is aquaponic farming. (0:24:06) Codey: just super cool and the next thing you can’t really see i’m assuming it’s going to say (0:24:09) Codey: construction drones but it does say drones and it’s it’s like cton drones um I mean and then if (0:24:11) Al: It does look like that, yeah (0:24:19) Codey: you keep looking it it looks very that would make sense because it looks very factorial to me (0:24:24) Al: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I mean, it’s like somebody went, I’ll like automation and farming (0:24:32) Al: games. Let’s add all of the possible automation into this farming game. And I also just like (0:24:35) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:24:36) Al: one of the things I love about this is like the characters have ragdoll physics. So if (0:24:39) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:24:40) Al: you’ve run in, run into, you know, one of your lines that you’ve set up, you fall over (0:24:45) Al: and it just I like, I like how ridiculous it is. And also how I want to create this massive (0:24:51) Al: farming empire. (0:24:54) Al: It’s taking that sort of thing to the, you know, one of the most weird end states you (0:25:04) Al: could logical end points here, right? (0:25:07) Al: Because you’ve got the cosy end of the farming genre, and then you’ve got whatever this is. (0:25:14) Codey: Yeah, this game looks amazing. (0:25:18) Codey: I’m still scrolling through their game highlights and stuff. (0:25:22) Codey: And it’s all– (0:25:23) Codey: this is an intense game. (0:25:25) Codey: There’s a lot going on here. (0:25:26) Al: Look at how big you can build the buildings. (0:25:29) Codey: Yeah, they basically have Avril Lavigne in here as someone. (0:25:32) Al: I don’t get it. (0:25:33) Codey: You don’t know Avril Lavigne? (0:25:35) Al: No, I know Avril Lavigne. I don’t get the reference. (0:25:38) Codey: There’s relationships and NPCs. (0:25:41) Codey: Everyone has a blah, blah, blah. (0:25:43) Codey: one of the NPCs is named. (0:25:44) Codey: Avril, and she’s definitely a punk woman. (0:25:49) Al: Oh, I see. OK, yeah, I guess so. I mean, she doesn’t really look like Avril Lavigne though. (0:25:54) Codey: But she is a punk woman named Avril. (0:25:58) Codey: That’s all that is needed. (0:25:58) Al: Yeah, OK, sure. I’m not saying she’s not inspired by that, (0:26:01) Al: but I wouldn’t look at that and go, “That’s Avril Lavigne,” if she wasn’t called Avril. (0:26:02) Codey: Ooh. (0:26:06) Codey: Oh, but there’s, if you scroll down a little bit more, there’s a long haired, (0:26:10) Codey: tattooed guitarist guy that is going to. (0:26:14) Codey: Be who I try and date 100%. (0:26:17) Codey: Okay. (0:26:18) Codey: I’m going to stop this. (0:26:19) Codey: I am going to play this game when it comes out, but I am not in the place to back it. (0:26:24) Codey: Al, have you backed it? (0:26:25) Al: Well, as you know, I am trying to reduce the number of games that I back on Kickstarter, (0:26:31) Al: and I announced this on the harvest season slack that I was going to be doing this. (0:26:37) Al: I was going to stop backing farming games, and then this came out two days later, and yeah. (0:26:39) Codey: Yeah, yep. Yeah, you backed it. Okay, but this like, this game is specifically like this isn’t you this game is for you. It’s like if it’s like if I promised that and then a bug game came out. I’m like, well, dang it, you know. (0:26:46) Al: Look, OK, right. I’m gonna… (0:26:51) Al: Exactly, exactly. (0:26:56) Al: Exactly. (0:26:59) Al: Come on, we just gotta, you know, give me some slack. (0:27:04) Codey: Yep, I’m, I’m right there with you, dude. Like I, I get it. I understand. (0:27:10) Codey: Well, I, I look forward to playing it. Yeah, I look forward to playing it with you. (0:27:10) Al: Uh, yeah, I’m excited for this game. (0:27:15) Al: Looks like they’re planning for this to come out next year, October 2020. (0:27:20) Codey: Love that because I will have money at that point or we won’t have an economy anymore and the world will be in shambles (0:27:28) Codey: so (0:27:28) Al: Yeah, oh, that’s the news. (0:27:29) Codey: Either I will be able to afford this game or no one will be playing this game (0:27:37) Codey: Yay the world (0:27:42) Codey: Oh (0:27:45) Al: We are now going to talk about bug and seek, which is the first of our bug series of indeterminate (0:27:53) Al: length. (0:27:54) Al: It’s probably two, two is probably the length. (0:27:57) Al: So I have not played. (0:27:59) Al: So Corey, tell me about bug and C. (0:28:02) Codey: bug and seek. So this game we I like found it in an Instagram post and I was like wait why haven’t (0:28:08) Codey: we be talking about this game? Wait this game’s already out. Why haven’t we been talking about (0:28:11) Codey: this game? Um so please it was fine um so it is $15 on Steam um it is available as for both Mac (0:28:12) Al: Yes, I remember that because you were like, here’s a game and you’re like, it’s already (0:28:15) Al: out. (0:28:16) Al: And I’m like, wow, sorry for not knowing all of the games. (0:28:28) Codey: and windows. I am playing it on Switch so (0:28:32) Codey: it’s definitely at least on Switch. I know that’s also a mobile option. There are two DLCs. One is (0:28:37) Codey: isopods, which like think of like roly polies or pill bugs, sow bugs. What do you call these things? (0:28:46) Al: Oh, yes. We call them, um, uh, what are they, a Woodlice. That’s what we call them. (0:28:52) Codey: Oh, Woodlouse, yeah. (0:28:53) Codey: Well, that is technically what they are, so. (0:28:56) Al: Oh, is that their, that their, well, obviously their official name is probably something in Latin, (0:29:01) Al: but I guess that would be their most official English term. Interesting. (0:29:02) Codey: Right, but the category is like, (0:29:05) Codey: Woodlouse is basically their thing, yeah. (0:29:08) Codey: But everyone, and then isopods is just because they are (0:29:11) Codey: in the class isopoda, I don’t know. (0:29:15) Codey: They’re in a group of organisms that is, (0:29:17) Codey: the group is collectively known as isopoda. (0:29:22) Codey: So yeah, depending on where you’re from, (0:29:23) Codey: there are all kinds of different names. (0:29:25) Codey: So there was one that added a whole new thing, (0:29:27) Codey: like a whole bunch of those, which is awesome (0:29:29) Codey: because they are fast becoming some of, (0:29:32) Codey: some really big pets options here. (0:29:36) Codey: ‘Cause you can, there are different species (0:29:38) Codey: that have different colors. (0:29:41) Codey: So there’s like zebra isopods, (0:29:42) Codey: which are a little black and white striped. (0:29:46) Codey: There’s rubber ducky isopods, (0:29:47) Codey: which are all like this darker color, (0:29:50) Codey: but then just the front part of their. (0:29:52) Codey: Exoskeleton has this almost like a orange color, so it’s like a bill. (0:29:59) Codey: Yeah, so that’s makes sense that they had that and then weevils there’s a weevils DLC and that makes sense because weevils are some of our not some of they are the most diverse animal on the entire planet so. (0:30:12) Al: And that’s not the Pokemon Weaver. (0:30:15) Codey: Not the Pokemon we vial these are I call them snoot beetles so. (0:30:23) Codey: So they are Beatles in the family curcullion today and they have super long rostra or rostrums. (0:30:34) Codey: Which is just their their snout basically they’re like an anteater but a bug they just got this really long snoot. (0:30:43) Codey: And they usually have their antenna either at the end of the snoot or like buried in their snoot there’s like a little concavity that they kind of like tuck it into it’s really cute. (0:30:52) Codey: And they come in all kinds of sizes all kinds of cute colors so makes sense that they would be in this game as a DLC. (0:31:01) Codey: I bought this on I bought the bundle that included the DLC and the main game on my switch because I wanted to be able to play in bed and then the first quality of life update has been pushed to mobile and PC but has not yet been pushed on switch and it adds just some basic quality of life stuff. (0:31:19) Codey: that would be beneficial to have and I am excited. (0:31:22) Codey: For them to put it on switch whenever, whenever I’m assuming it’s (0:31:25) Codey: Nintendo’s fault because Nintendo was very particular about these things. (0:31:29) Codey: Um, yeah, so the story of this game is quote in bug and seek. (0:31:35) Codey: You’ve just bought an abandoned insectarium or bug zoo in bug Berg. (0:31:42) Codey: Once the lifeblood of the town and its economy, someone stole all of (0:31:46) Codey: the bugs in the dead of night. (0:31:48) Codey: Now it’s up to you to catch and sell bugs that make jokes. (0:31:52) Codey: Fulfill requests from the local shops and reestablish the (0:31:56) Codey: insectarium as a town icon. (0:31:58) Codey: Become a master bug hunter as you level up your bug catching skills and relax. (0:32:03) Codey: There are no wrong choices, no energy levels to worry about and plenty of (0:32:07) Codey: time to complete the quests and the jobs. (0:32:09) Al: I have a question. I don’t think you will. “How does someone steal all the bugs?” (0:32:10) Codey: I have an answer. (0:32:17) Codey: So I do have an answer. (0:32:19) Al: Oh no! (0:32:19) Codey: Um, so it’s basically like (0:32:22) Codey: so this is a live insect zoo base. It’s not like a dead museum. Um, so someone just coming, (0:32:30) Codey: imagine if someone broke into a zoo and stole all of the animals. It’s kind of very similar, (0:32:34) Codey: but it’s a lot easier because they’re so small. Um, it’s easier to grab them and steal them. Um, (0:32:41) Codey: so yeah, someone did that. I think they also stole a bunch of the tanks as well. Um, I mean, (0:32:48) Codey: So I run an insect zoo in real life for my university. (0:32:52) Codey: And I think it would probably take one person with a dolly, maybe 15 minutes to steal the mall. (0:33:00) Al: Right, OK, yeah, sure, but like stealing, OK, fine, stealing them for OK, so it’s just (0:33:05) Al: stealing them from a zoo. (0:33:07) Al: I understand. (0:33:08) Al: I thought it was stealing all of the bugs from the whole town and I’m like, that doesn’t (0:33:08) Codey: Yeah. (0:33:11) Al: feel like it’s possible. (0:33:12) Codey: Oh, no, it’s from the museum or the insect zoo. Yeah. (0:33:13) Al: OK, that makes that makes more sense. (0:33:18) Codey: And this, this kind of stuff actually happens not even just with (0:33:22) Codey: living in sex but also with specimens there in I want to say Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, there was a huge heist that someone stole a bunch of specimens and it was like up to 50, no way more than $50,000, it was a lot of money, a lot of monies worth of specimens, and they’ve never found them. (0:33:43) Codey: So, this is something that can happen, especially if you have like really old stuff, collectors will want to buy it. (0:33:52) Codey: of the case here, like they say that the previous, uh, insectarium owner had a lot of really rare (0:33:59) Codey: things there. Um, and so maybe the person wanted to make money off of selling them. Uh, I mean, (0:34:07) Codey: in my, in our insect zoo that we have, we have tarantulas and a couple of them are like 13 years (0:34:13) Codey: old and they’re pretty, they’re pretty big. And they, I mean, they live to be 30, so she’s still (0:34:17) Codey: got a lot of life in her. Um, but to buy one that size after having it, (0:34:23) Codey: growing and stuff is probably like 500 bucks. Yeah. So. (0:34:26) Al: ethical questions as to whether or not you should be able to own living things, but that’s a whole (0:34:36) Codey: - Yeah. (0:34:37) Al: different debate. We are not a morality podcast. We have opinions on morals. Trans rights matter, (0:34:39) Codey: - Correct. (0:34:43) Codey: - We do, but we do not debate them. (0:34:45) Al: and I’m very annoyed about the situation in the UK just now, but you know. (0:34:52) Codey: Yeah, I don’t think I can point to a single place and be happy about its (0:34:56) Codey: situation, maybe New Zealand, but I, that’s also just because I’m probably (0:34:56) Al: Yeah, they have some issues currently with that. Well, they’ve had issues for a long time (0:35:00) Codey: ignorant of what might be happening there. (0:35:09) Al: with indigenous people and, you know. Sorry, a little bit of a detour there. So yes, (0:35:12) Codey: - Yeah, yep. (0:35:18) Codey: Nope. (0:35:20) Al: we have opinions about things, but we’re not a morality podcast in and of itself. (0:35:23) Codey: But as I am an entomologist, (0:35:26) Codey: I have opinions on the realism of bugs in games. (0:35:30) Al: Tell me, tell me how realistic is this creature collector based on bugs? (0:35:36) Codey: I love it it’s so good there have been so when you initially when you’re coming up to catch a (0:35:41) Codey: bug you like shake a tree or whatever and then a little bug outline like flies around and the (0:35:47) Codey: outlines are spectacular it’s not like oh there’s an outline for a butterfly and it’s going to be (0:35:53) Codey: the same generic outline for a butterfly no matter what um like think of like animal crossing or (0:35:57) Codey: whatever where it’s just kind of a shadow and you don’t it has like different sizes but other than (0:36:04) Codey: that you don’t really know what’s going on no each (0:36:06) Codey: of these bugs has their own outline. (0:36:09) Codey: Um, and before I even catch something I can, as an entomologist, (0:36:14) Codey: I can tell what it is pretty much. (0:36:16) Codey: Um, so for example, the first time I caught it to banded, which they don’t say (0:36:21) Codey: that they say house fly or sorry, horse fly, cause it is a horse fly. (0:36:24) Codey: I was like, oh my gosh, this is definitely a to banded. (0:36:27) Codey: Um, and then I caught it and yeah, it’s a horse fly. (0:36:30) Codey: Um, so the outlines are great. (0:36:32) Codey: the graphics are great, the (0:36:36) Codey: little quips that the bugs have, like they all have their (0:36:39) Codey: own little like jokes and then little blurbs under them once (0:36:43) Codey: you start filling out the journal, I don’t think it has a (0:36:47) Codey: real like a specific name, but there’s like a journal that you (0:36:49) Codey: start filling out those it’s all true, factual knowledge. And (0:36:57) Codey: I’m, I’m in love with it. The the little blurbs have made me (0:37:00) Codey: cackle and I actually have six that I wrote down that were my (0:37:03) Codey: favorite out of 220 bugs. (0:37:06) Codey: Okay, there there are but here are the six here my top six (0:37:10) Codey: little blurbs. So far, I haven’t caught everything. The blue (0:37:14) Codey: banded B said, I’m blue and from Australia, but no one gave me a (0:37:21) Codey: cartoon. (0:37:22) Al: Australia. I’m not sure who that’s meant to be referencing. (0:37:27) Codey: Bluey. (0:37:28) Al: Oh, blue. Oh my word, I’m just… Oh, goodness. (0:37:34) Codey: So it’s a blue-banded piece, I blew in for my- (0:37:34) Al: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, I can’t think of anything that has (0:37:36) Codey: Australia. I just- I giggled. But bluey. Black garden ants. So (0:37:40) Al: a cartoon that’s blue and it’s from Australia. I can only think of Sonic and he’s not Australian. (0:37:45) Al: Yeah, blue, of course. Classic. (0:37:51) Codey: this is not as pop culture reference. This is- this is just (0:37:54) Codey: real. The black garden ant says I have my own pet, an aphid. And (0:38:00) Codey: it’s because they farm aphids. And it’s so cool that they (0:38:04) Codey: I’m not included though. (0:38:06) Codey: Basically these ants will like farm aphids and they’ll protect them and they’ll feed them (0:38:11) Codey: like little bits of food that they want and then the aphid will like spit out little honeydew (0:38:17) Codey: just like this sugary snack out of it’s not like it’s out of its back so like the top of its back (0:38:19) Al: Mm-hmm. (0:38:25) Codey: there’s just these little things it like secretes this stuff and then the it’s like sweat yeah and (0:38:28) Al: Oh no, like sweat. (0:38:32) Codey: And then the ants drink it, and they love it. (0:38:34) Codey: And so they just keep– (0:38:34) Al: Oh, I don’t like that. (0:38:36) Codey: This is cute that the Black Garden Ant’s little blurb is about its relationship with an aphid. (0:38:42) Codey: The blueberry bee says, “Eat a blueberry, thank a bee,” which is true. (0:38:46) Codey: If you have eaten a blueberry, you have a bee to thank for. (0:38:50) Codey: They are, thank for it. (0:38:52) Codey: They are the pollinators. (0:38:55) Codey: The brown Argus, which is a butterfly, said, “Be a good chap and fetch my ant butler for me.” (0:39:03) Codey: And this made me laugh because they… (0:39:06) Codey: So this is a butterfly, but as a caterpillar, they secrete something that makes the ants want to take them into their nest and then take care of them. (0:39:18) Codey: And then they basically live in the ant colony and just make the ants do their bidding and then they grow. (0:39:27) Codey: And it’s just, it’s hilarious that butterflies do this. (0:39:32) Codey: Carpenter Ant, call me a termite and I’ll blow this place down. (0:39:36) Codey: This is so aggressive because it’s not a termite, it’s a Carpenter Ant, but people call them termites all the time. (0:39:44) Codey: And then the last one, have you seen Breaking Bad now? (0:39:48) Al: I have not, but I’m aware of it and some, I would understand some reference. (0:39:52) Codey: Some of the references. (0:39:54) Codey: Okay, so this is the tarantula hawk wasp and the blurb is I am the wasp who knocks. (0:40:02) Codey: And I’m sure I’m sure people who have watched Breaking Bad are laughing (0:40:02) Al: Yeah, I don’t get that (0:40:06) Al: Probably I’m sure they are (0:40:06) Codey: their ass off right now. So the Tarantula Hawk wasp is the (0:40:12) Codey: state insect of New Mexico. New Mexico is where Breaking Bad was (0:40:18) Codey: wrong. And in one of the episodes, because about this (0:40:23) Codey: chemistry teacher who becomes a meth dealer. And he just becomes (0:40:28) Codey: this like he goes from being a pretty much the dad for Malcolm (0:40:31) Codey: in the middle because that’s who that it was the same actor, just (0:40:34) Codey: like an irregular dad. (0:40:36) Codey: to becoming this, like, hardened drug overlord guy. (0:40:40) Codey: And at one point, someone close to him finds out that this is, (0:40:44) Codey: and they’re just so worried that someone’s going to come knocking in the night and come and kill them. (0:40:51) Codey: And he’s just like, “No one’s going to come. I am the one that go places and make people scared. I am the one who knocks.” (0:41:01) Codey: And it’s just like, whoa, this moment when like someone close to him who (0:41:06) Codey: has continued to see him as this, like dad down the street guy, uh, finds (0:41:11) Codey: out how horrifying he is. (0:41:13) Codey: Um, so yeah, tarantula hospital, Hawk wasp. (0:41:16) Codey: I am the wasp who knocks. (0:41:18) Codey: It’s also a scary wasp. (0:41:20) Codey: They will not, um, really go for people, but they literally (0:41:26) Codey: kill and eat tarantulas. (0:41:29) Codey: So yeah, they are pretty scary. (0:41:30) Al: Oh, OK. Hence the name. (0:41:33) Codey: So the bug realism and the little blurbs, 10 out of 10. (0:41:36) Codey: Um, I’m still enjoying them. (0:41:37) Codey: Every time I read a new one, uh, I love that they are either attached to the (0:41:44) Codey: biology of the animal or its name, or they add it to like pop culture or something. (0:41:49) Codey: Like it’s not just a random thing that they say. (0:41:53) Codey: I remember some of the animal crossing ones, me being like, ha, that (0:41:57) Codey: doesn’t make any sense at all, but not the case here. (0:42:00) Al: That’s high praise. (0:42:01) Codey: So 10 out of 10. (0:42:04) Codey: Bye, praise. (0:42:07) Codey: The graphics and the music of this game are pretty simple but they’re good. (0:42:12) Codey: I turned the music off because I always do but I did play it with it on for a while. (0:42:18) Codey: You don’t really need the sound for anything like accessibility wise. (0:42:22) Codey: It’s pretty much just pleasant music in the background. (0:42:26) Codey: And the graphics, I mean it’s the kind of Stardew-esque animation. (0:42:32) Al: Yeah, pretty standard kind of pixel arty, I mean it looks nice from screenshots obviously (0:42:37) Codey: Yeah, it feels the same. (0:42:41) Al: I’ve not played it, how does that feel when you’re playing it? It’s I guess it’s lower (0:42:47) Al: fidelity than Stardew, I think it’s much more kind of I guess snes maybe level sort of graphics. (0:42:53) Codey: Yeah, yeah, which I mean, when it’s too cluttered, I don’t always like that. (0:43:00) Codey: So I really like how simplistic these things are. (0:43:05) Codey: But I mean, things change over the time period. (0:43:09) Codey: So like, you start in summer, but then in the fall, a bunch of the leaves are suddenly (0:43:15) Codey: on the ground. (0:43:16) Codey: So there’s leaf piles for you to rummage through. (0:43:19) Codey: I just hit winter so I haven’t figured out if there’s anything else but to leave (0:43:23) Codey: piles are still there there are still insects in the winter. There’s also like different areas (0:43:28) Codey: that I’ll talk about later like the desert for example is still going to have things so (0:43:35) Codey: things will change like as the time goes on physically in the game but I mean they just (0:43:43) Codey: highlight what needs to be highlighted which is the the bugs so I’m here for it. (0:43:46) Al: Yeah it’s interesting because I guess that’s the the quite dramatic thing is you notice (0:43:53) Al: like everything is pretty low fidelity except the images of the insects and they’re still very (0:44:00) Al: clearly pixel art right like you can see the individual pixels but they are much more detailed (0:44:05) Al: than anything else you can see on this game other than I guess the text and a few of the buttons and (0:44:07) Codey: Yep (0:44:12) Al: and stuff like that. But like the people, the houses, the trees, the bushes, the leaf (0:44:16) Al: tools, they’re all very low fidelity, which is nice, but they’re very detailed bug images. (0:44:24) Codey: Mm-hmm. Yup. And I appreciate that. (0:44:30) Codey: Um, so the mechanics of the game, it’s a pretty simple gameplay loop. It’s all right. (0:44:34) Codey: I feel like there could be a little bit more complexity to it, but I am not. (0:44:40) Codey: Uh, I can’t honestly point out how it could be more difficult, um, or how it could be different. (0:44:46) Codey: I think the biggest thing is you pretty much just fall into this catch bugs, cell bugs, um, loop. (0:44:54) Codey: It doesn’t really change much. Um, I think it might be nice to have like, maybe some traps you could set and you could place them in different areas. (0:45:06) Codey: Maybe that would change some things, um, and keep it a little, a little different. But for the most part, I just am doing a circuit every day. (0:45:16) Codey: Um, and changing it up because sometimes there are things, um, in different spots. So I’ll get to that. So catch bugs is the first part. (0:45:26) Codey: There’s 220 insects that are based on real insects, which is great. Um, they range from common to legendary and they’re found in, um, the areas and the seasons where they would be in the real world. (0:45:38) Codey: So, um, if it’s something that is attracted to man-made structures, it will be in the like picnic tables and the trash cans and whatever. (0:45:46) Codey: If it is, um, something that would be with flowers, it will be on flowers, you know, that kind of thing instead of just finding them. (0:45:56) Codey: Um, you can find them in trees, flowers, grass, logs, under rocks, on man-made objects. There’s also a cave. Um, and you can look under there, but they’re never just kind of like in the overworld. They’re always like, you always have to. (0:46:08) Al: Hmm, they’re not like flying around like you would see in Animal Crossing. (0:46:12) Codey: Yeah, no, you, you have to encounter an object and like interact with the object, um, to be able to see them. And each object, you can interact with them. (0:46:26) Codey: Um, and so, you know, if you are trying to find something that, you know, comes out at night and is in trees, maybe wait to touch your trees all the nighttime. (0:46:38) Codey: Um, yeah, but that’s pretty simple. I mean, you just walk around and you can, you have two net well, two buttons that correspond to nets. (0:46:48) Codey: It’s like right bumper makes you swipe your net to net to the right and left bumper is swipes your net to the. (0:46:56) Codey: So there’s no up or down, it’s just left and right. Um, (0:46:56) Al: Mm hmm. Okay. So is it quite easy, then, if you if you press the one in the right direction, you’ve got (0:47:04) Codey: yeah, there isn’t, they don’t get diff more difficult to catch. It’s just that as you increase your expertise and become a master bug catcher, you are just able to encounter more rare things, but they are always the same speed. (0:47:24) Codey: The same whatever, um, which I also kind of like, honestly. (0:47:29) Al: It’s good to know having to like chase after something like you do an animal crossing or the annoying thing where you’re like you don’t quite hit it in the right angle and therefore you miss it sort of. (0:47:34) Codey: Yeah, no. (0:47:40) Codey: Yeah, no, none of that. It’s always in the left, right? Like, um, orientation and you just have to make sure. And even then, if you like swipe, but then you move a little bit. (0:47:50) Codey: If you’ve like, if you swipe and you see that you missed you, sometimes you have a little bit of time. (0:47:54) Codey: to like move down a smidge for it to catch the thing after you&rs

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about Dune Awakening's delay, Palia's big zone announcement, what's going on with Classic MapleStory, the messy Defiance relaunch, LOTRO compensation, and the future evolution of MMOs. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: LOTRO, WoW, WoW Classic, Guild Wars News: Defiance gets a relaunch -- but it's rough one so far News: Dune Awakening pushes its launch back to June News: Palia announces Elderwood zone expansion News: Classic MapleStory is coming later this year Mailbag: What does the future of MMO evolution hold in store? Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Aqua Road East Sea" from MapleStory Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

Welcome to episode 59 of Shack Together! Today's show features our inaugural "Blue Switch" segment, where we test our knowledge of Nintendo Switch Metacritic scores, comparing titles like Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild against surprising high-scorers like [redacted - you'll have to listen!]. The latest news from Nintendo's Mario Kart World Direct dominate our news coverage, with exciting revelations about character skin unlocks through Yoshi's restaurant, free-roam fast travel features, and new items including Coin Shells and Hammers. We also discuss the Nintendo Switch 2's camera technology, capable of recognizing and tracking up to four faces simultaneously. In Story Time, we explore new previews of Capcom Fighting Collection 2 and Palia's expansion to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, while covering reviews of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage and the Lunar Remastered Collection. Industry news brings significant developments with Google's advertising technology monopoly ruling and OpenAI's reported social network plans. And that's all for today's show! Thanks as always for listening and enjoy!   Timestamps 00:01:25 Food Poisoning 00:04:58 It's Shack Together! 00:05:27 Donovan's Game: MLB The Show '25 00:12:18 David's Games: Animal Crossing New Horizons, WWE 2K25 00:17:27 Joe's Games: Blue Prince, Joe's PC 00:30:24 Asif's Games: Schedule I, F-Zero 99 00:43:43 Blue Switch 01:08:53 Story Time 01:08:57 Previews: Capcom Fighting Collection 2, Palia 01:11:41 Reviews: Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, Lunar Remastered Collection, Rusty Rabbit 01:16:14 News: Nintendo Switch 2 Camera, Mario Kart World Direct, RTX 5060, Star Wars Zero Company 01:39:31 Industry: Google's Advertising Monopoly, NLRB Whistleblower, OpenAI Social Network 01:49:57 Community Notes   Articles mentioned in this episode Capcom Fighting Collection 2 preview Palia Elderwood PS5 & Xbox Series X/S impressions Lost Records: Bloom & Rage review Lunar Remastered Collection review Nintendo Switch 2 camera face tracking Mario Kart World skin unlocks Mario Kart World free roam fast travel Star Wars Zero Company reveal Google ad market monopoly lawsuit OpenAI social media network

The Chaos Crew returns, but have they changed? In this more orderly than you'd expect episode, Bob, John, Chris, and Steve do a wellness check-in, discuss what it means to be in a serial killer state of mind, enter a Great British Bump-Off, contemplate the state of the Power Rangers, and reimagine Home Alone for a new generation.Books: Amazing Spider-Man #1, Power Rangers Prime #1, The Moon is Following Us #8, Doll Parts: A Lovesick Tale #3-4, Plastic: Death & Dolls #1-5, I Was a Fashion School Serial Killer #1, Concert of Champions #1, Great British Bump-Off: Kill of Be Quilt #1, Fantastic Four #245, Little Hollow Cafe (Webtoon), Fantasy High (Webtoon), Eldritch Detectives (Webtoon)Other Stuff: Palia (video game), Murderbot (trailer)The Comic Book Podcast is brought to you by Talking Comics (www.talkingcomicbooks.com). The podcast is hosted by Steve Seigh, Bob Reyer, Joey Braccino, Aaron Amos, Chris Ceary, and John Burkle, who weekly dissect everything comics-related, from breaking news to new releases. Our Instagram handle is @TalkingComicsPodcas,t and you can email us at podcast@talkingcomicbooks.com.

Little Kitty Big City is an open world adventure game where you play as a small house cat who has fallen off of their cozy window perch and finds themselves on the streets of the big city. You have to get home, but the climb back up to your perch seems so daunting! But thankfully there are unexpected friends awaiting you in the urban sprawl. With the help of Crow, Tanuki, and a cast of other cute and quirky creatures, can you make it back home? In Episode 35 of No Small Games, OlivesCrossing joins Kate and Emily to talk about Little Kitty Big City. The three share their favorite characters to befriend and talk about what their cat personality was in the game. Most importantly, you'll hear about their favorite hats! We hope you love this cute and cozy chat. Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:36 - Weekly Boss Battles 00:11:00 - Meet Our Guest - OlivesCrossing 00:20:55 - Little Kitty Big City Discussion 01:13:00 - Game Ratings 01:17:15 - One Small Thing 01:25:45 - Next Episode's Game Announcement Meet our Guest Olive (she/her) @OlivesCrossing Olive is a cozy, community-focused content creator. She streams Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Sims 4, Palia and the occasional other cozy game title. She first streamed in 2020 and has built a lovely and welcoming community across her Twitch and Discord spaces. She's also a big fan of Twilight, Gordon Ramsey, and her cat, named Kitty. Follow Olive on the following platforms: Twitch YouTube Twitter TikTok Keep in touch with us on social media: Kate's Twitter ✦ https://twitter.com/katerblossom Emily's Twitter ✦ https://twitter.com/aSpecificEgg No Small Games Twitter ✦ https://twitter.com/NoSmallGames  No Small Games Instagram ✦ https://www.instagram.com/nosmallgames  Want to learn more and weigh in on what games we should play in future episodes? Check us out and leave a game suggestion at nosmallgames.com

Welcome! Jenna and Rachel discuss tabletop games we have been playing, games we are excited to play, and other nerdy news!Games RadarRaising RobotsCalicoGames ForecastShipwreck ArcanaRats of WistarOther Nerdy NewsLorcanaPaliaPlease reach out to us at friendlylgpmail@gmail.com, we would love to hear from you!

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about Raph Koster's Stars Reach reveal, Dawntrail's launch, Palia's surprising new home, Guild Wars 2's housing system tour, and the true shocking story behind Ralph Lobster. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro News: Raph Koster reveals Stars Reach News: FFXIV launches its latest expansion, Dawntrail News: Daybreak picks up Palia and Singularity Six News: Nexon launches The First Descendant News: Guild Wars 2 previews its housing system Mailbag: How did the "Ralph Lobster" running joke begin? Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Dawntrail Battle Theme" from FFXIV Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

We review the latest updates from Palia! From a totally revamped resource economy to cute new decor, the Singularity 6 team is putting their best foot forward. Check out what we loved and learned in Palia this week!P.S. you already know we logged in right after recording and learned EXACTLY how to do all the things we mentioned wanted to do in this episode...Texting a podcast? You know it! Send us a message about the pod with a text!Support the Show.Join our discord server for updates, feedback, comments, or just to tell us how to be better at games: https://discord.gg/NMSgXNbzCgCheck us out on all the socials:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/comfyclubpod/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@comfyclubpodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ComfyClubPod/

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about Mists of Pandaria remix, Cataclysm Classic's prepatch, Blizzard's return to China, FFXIV's expansion benchmark, Sky Children of Light's PC launch, EverQuest progression servers, Palia's layoffs, and a fan-led games preservation movement. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: LOTRO News: World of Warcraft's Mists of Pandaria remix News: EverQuest and EverQuest II ready progression servers News: Cataclysm Classic pre-patch details News: Blizzard returns to China, hires for a mystery game News: FFXIV: Dawntrail's benchmark arrives News: Sky Children of the Light launches on PC News: Palia studio lays off a chunk of staff News: Games preservation movement Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Monk Windwalker" from World of Warcraft Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about that Guild Wars 3 thing, DCUO's 2024 roadmap, Monsters & Memories' plans, a sequel to Hellgate London, and why we're so mean to Palia. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: ESO, SWTOR, Valheim News: Guild Wars 3 is happening, according to NCsoft News: DCUO's unexpected 2024 roadmap News: Monsters and Memories aims for 2026 early access, is self-funding News: Hellgate London... is getting a sequel? Mailbag: Why are we so mean to Palia? Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Main Theme" from Hellgate London Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

Al and Jonnie talk about their first impressions on the 1.6 update for Stardew Valley. Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:01:19: What Have We Been Up To 00:10:59: News 00:39:12: Stardew 1.6 01:43:26: Output Links Fae Farm “Spring” Update Ikonei Island “Blooming Beginnings” Update Steamworld Build “Mechanicsl Meadows” Update Palia 0.178 Update Travelers Rest “Fishing” Update Tales of the Shire Teaser Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin Anime Contact Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:30) Al: Hello farmers, and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. (0:00:34) Al: My name is Al, and we’re here today to talk about cottagecore games. (0:00:36) Jonnie: and my name is Johnny! (0:00:42) Al: Today, well first of all transcripts are available on the show notes and on the website, as usual. (0:00:50) Al: Today we’re going back to our roots. (0:00:53) Al: Today we are going to talk about Stardew Valley 1.6, it’s finally here, and we have lots of thoughts. (0:01:00) Al: And I have 30 hours of stard you played this week. (0:01:10) Al: So we were going to talk about that. (0:01:13) Al: We’ll leave all that for the main section. (0:01:17) Al: Before that, we’ve got a bunch of news to talk about. (0:01:19) Al: First of all, Johnny, have you been playing anything other than stard you? (0:01:23) Al: » Okay. » Ooh. (0:01:24) Jonnie: Uh, I kind of have been so alongside alongside statue I’ve been slowly getting back into old-school landscape (0:01:32) Jonnie: Uh, I have a few friends who are playing (0:01:35) Jonnie: and (0:01:37) Jonnie: I don’t know what to tell you for a game. It’s terrible. It’s pretty fun terrible game and (0:01:44) Jonnie: I’ve been having a bit of fun playing that with with some with some friends and (0:01:48) Jonnie: Joking about it like it has farming in it, but it’s never a game that we would cover on the show (0:01:52) Jonnie: Uh, I I think the summary is (0:01:54) Jonnie: farming in that game pretty bad but you know pretty much everything in that game is pretty bad so yeah but I did do a quest last night that was all about frogs kind of taking over to humanity and you murder a frog unintentionally it’s it’s pretty great (0:02:16) Al: I accept our new frog overlords. They probably will do a better job than humans. (0:02:24) Jonnie: I don’t know, these frogs seemed pretty terrible. (0:02:28) Jonnie: I would be much more in favour of the penguins rolling over us. (0:02:32) Jonnie: Which is an entirely different story. (0:02:36) Al: Uh, dear. Cool. Uh, well, I mean, I don’t, yeah, I’ve, I don’t think I’ve (0:02:40) Jonnie: But that’s it, that’s it. What if you’ve been up to well? (0:02:46) Al: had any time for anything other than Stardew with my 30 hours this week. Uh, that’s almost a full-time job. Um, I am tired, but I did want to talk about my Animal Crossing Lego again. Um, do you have anything to say, Johnny? Which ones did you get? (0:03:02) Jonnie: yeah I have I have two of the animal crossing lego things um I i got the um tom nook and (0:03:12) Jonnie: blue cat I don’t know what the name of the cat is um (0:03:15) Al: Do you not have the box in front of you to look at? (0:03:18) Jonnie: uh I do not have the box in front of me the box in the other room (0:03:22) Jonnie: I got that one and I got the island camping um set and they are pretty great (0:03:31) Al: the island camping, what is that? The Bunnies Outdoor Adventures one. (0:03:36) Al: What I really like about, so I’ve done that one, I’ve built that one. I’ve not built the Tom Nook one. I’ve built the Bunnies Outdoor Adventure, the birthday party one, and (0:03:49) Al: the farming one. I’ve built those three. I haven’t built the Tom Nook one or Captain’s (0:04:01) Al: Boat one, but what I will say is, so Bunnies Outdoor Adventure, I love how, so they’ve got the little river bit, and Bunnie has a stick that goes into a bit that can then (0:04:15) Al: act like your, you know how early game you use the stick to get across the rivers? (0:04:20) Al: It’s like, it’s built into it. So yeah, so it’s built into it. So there’s a bit behind the river where you put the stick in and then they can literally vault over the river. It’s really (0:04:20) Jonnie: Yeah, it’s like the pole vault. (0:04:31) Al: really nicely done. I think it’s very close. (0:04:34) Jonnie: Yeah, I think that set is really well put together and as far as LEGO sets go it’s like pretty, uh, pretty affordable. (0:04:46) Al: Okay. Okay, I mean, I guess that’s one way of putting it, right? They are cheaper than other sets, but they’re also smaller than other sets. So I guess they’ve erred on the side of making them more affordable rather than making them bigger, and that’s fair. (0:04:49) Jonnie: Like, like a lot of LEGO sets are like into the hundreds of dollars and this one is not in the hundreds of dollars. (0:05:02) Jonnie: Yeah, I think when I say affordable, I think that it’s not very complicated to put together, (0:05:15) Jonnie: but it’s a cool set to have, and there’s a lot of modularity within the set. I think for (0:05:23) Jonnie: what you pay for a set of this size, I was relatively impressed. (0:05:32) Al: Yeah, I’ve also built the Isabelle one as well, I’ve been joining them all together as I build them, because they all have the same connections to put together, because they’re built on those, if you’ve had any of the Mario sets, you’ll know the same sort of things, it’s like the same small base plates that it’s all made up of, so you can, as you say, they’re modular, you can put them together how you want. So yeah, as I finish one I just connect it together. So I’ve just got this (0:06:02) Al: mess of an island growing beside my desk. It’s quite fun. I also I meant to mention this on the last podcast, but I completely forgot. I also went to the the Animal Crossing Lego Make and Take event at the Lego store because they were doing them and they did them and well, they did it in Edinburgh, but I was I didn’t go to the Edinburgh one. I actually went to the Glasgow one in Scotland and it was good fun. (0:06:08) Jonnie: Great. I love that. (0:06:32) Al: A little, it’s like a really maybe like a five to one scale version of the building that you get in the Isabelle one. So it’s because it looks it looks almost identical just tiny and it’s fun to have the two versions together like it’s a it’s a really small one like the base plate is eight eight by eight whereas the the fill size one is like. (0:07:02) Al: It’s probably about the same size as Nook’s Cranny that you’ve got in that set. It’s kind of like decent sized, but it’s fun to have the two of them together. But it was fun because it was my first Make and Take event that I’d been to at a Lego store and it was quite fun because you go up and obviously because it’s Animal Crossing it was really popular so really busy. A lot of not children there I will say probably not surprisingly and you stood in a queue for about half an hour. (0:07:32) Al: And then you got in and they had like all the different pots with all the different pieces and then you followed the instructions to put them together. (0:07:39) Al: They did say that if you wanted to, you could just grab a bag and put all the pieces in it and take it all home rather than building it there. (0:07:44) Al: But I was like, well, I’m here with my kid. (0:07:47) Al: Let’s do it while we’re here. (0:07:48) Al: Why not? (0:07:49) Al: And it was good fun to do that. (0:07:52) Jonnie: Nice, and do your kids get involved in helping you build the LEGO sets, or do they not even know they exist and you do them in secret? (0:07:57) Al: No, so Craig does… I mean Nathan doesn’t really care about Lego, right? He doesn’t have. It is just a care. Craig really likes Lego, but me and him do not build Lego together because I am not good at sharing that. And so much as like I just get really frustrated with how he does things. So thankfully Rona is a lot better than that at me, so she builds with him and then. (0:08:27) Al: I have my sets that I build on my own, so it’s fun to see him build it Lego and he’s like really creative with it as well, with not obviously not the sets like you build the sets like you build the sets and he’s quite good at following the instructions and I think with this one because it was such a small set it was it worked well kind of going right here’s the piece Craig where does this piece go and he would look at the instructions put it on (0:08:53) Al: but when it’s like a bigger set it just drives me insane trying to do it I would be the same with (0:08:57) Al: right it’s it’s not about him it’s just about the fact that I’m a control freak right so I need to do it myself but yeah so Rona quite often buy like will buy sets that are like the Lego city and stuff like that that they build together which is basically his sets and when he’s a little bit older he’d probably just build them by himself but he enjoys building (0:09:14) Jonnie: Nice. Yeah, I did the… (0:09:20) Jonnie: Awesome, I did the Animal Crossing sets with my niece, who’s five, and (0:09:25) Jonnie: we had a lot of fun, but it was very much the like “I’m trying to follow the instructions” and she’s like “Let’s put this piece here because it looks cool” and it’s just… so it was a lot of chaos and then when she went home, I immediately took apart everything she’d done because it’s not how it’s supposed to be. (0:09:30) Al: I suspect I’ll let him play with these once I’m finished because I think he’ll have fun putting them together and making a story out of it. He has that creative aspect of things. (0:09:50) Al: But yeah, not while I’m building them. He enjoys playing like I did a bunch of Mario builds like the Bowser’s Airship was particularly fun. (0:10:00) Al: And he loves to play with that. (0:10:01) Al: So I’m totally fine with him playing with these things. (0:10:03) Al: It’s just like when I’m building it, I like to build it. (0:10:06) Al: And it’s like involving anybody in that process takes all the fun out of it for me, you know? (0:10:15) Jonnie: Yeah (0:10:17) Al: But the small make and take event was fun enough to do it. (0:10:21) Al: Because I went into it knowing, this is a me and Craig event. (0:10:24) Al: This is what we’re going to do. (0:10:27) Al: It’s small enough. (0:10:28) Al: It was like 25 pieces or something. (0:10:30) Al: Like that. So it’s small enough that you’re not kind of getting overly stressed about anything. (0:10:36) Al: The biggest stress was trying to find the pieces because you had 10 people crowded around a table with 25 different boxes of different pieces. It was, it was. I can understand why some people would just take the pieces and leave because it’s, yeah. But I was like, no, I want to get it done here. I think it’s fun and we’re here. Why not? So, yeah, it was good fun. (0:10:44) Jonnie: Yeah, in many ways that sounds like a nightmare. (0:11:00) Al: Should we talk about some news? We have, this is going to be the episode of updates because there are so many updates. I don’t know why this week has suddenly been the (0:11:11) Al: let’s post an update. But the first of the updates is Fae Farm. They have their spring update, (0:11:16) Al: which is out now. It looks like they have kind of three main things, which is stuff on stuff, (0:11:22) Al: where you can put like things on, you can put items on tables and other things, presumably. (0:11:31) Al: Yeah, it looks like you put things on tables, barrels, crates, desks, display stands, carts, (0:11:42) Al: and a stack of books. Or does that mean you can put a stack of books on a stack of books? (0:11:47) Al: Need to see how tall a stack of books you can make. (0:11:52) Al: They also have a bunch of new cosmetics. Yes. (0:11:52) Jonnie: A question for you, Al. (0:11:55) Jonnie: Are you like this is a sort of update that’s like some people get really excited about but I’m like (0:12:02) Jonnie: If I don’t get into that phase of the designing phase of a game it within my first playthrough It’s highly unlikely that I’m ever gonna get there and I don’t know that this is the sort of thing It’s gonna bring in where are you at in terms of like designing farms cuz I don’t know if it’s anything that we’ve really discussed that much (0:12:17) Al: Yeah, I think I’m not very good at designing things. I will, like if we think about the stardew run I’ve been doing just now, I have been laying out my farm in a very specific way, (0:12:32) Al: but it’s very much like as many straight lines as possible. So it’s like I want to be able to go (0:12:40) Al: from the entrance to my greenhouse in a straight line sort of thing. So I will build paths. (0:12:48) Al: And fences in a way that makes it easy for that to do. I’m not really the sort of person that’ll be like, “Oh yeah, here’s our five by five bit and then I’ll put some bushes between this five by five crop section and the next five by five.” I’m like, “No, I don’t really care about that.” (0:13:10) Al: I’m very much a do the things, not necessarily make it look nice. (0:13:18) Al: So yeah, I mean, the fact that you can now put things on a table is definitely not going to encourage me to come back to this game, nor the extra cosmetics and stuff like that. (0:13:28) Al: I mean, they do have a bunch of extra things in the character creator, which is obviously good. (0:13:32) Al: But I tell you, there’s one thing that could possibly bring me back, (0:13:37) Al: which is the double day length setting that they’ve added into the game. (0:13:42) Al: So the standard setting for Faith Arm is an 18 minute day. The double day gives you… (0:13:48) Al: 36 minutes. (0:13:50) Al: However, having said that, I always feel like days are too long at the beginning (0:13:55) Al: of a game and too short at the end of a game. Do I really want a 36 minute day (0:14:03) Al: when I have almost no stamina? (0:14:06) Jonnie: - Yeah, I don’t know, like, to be honest, in general, (0:14:09) Jonnie: I’m kind of like, I know this is becoming a standard feature. (0:14:14) Jonnie: I think this is a feature that actually does a disservice to a lot of these games. (0:14:20) Jonnie: Like I understand why people think they want a longer day, (0:14:26) Jonnie: but one of the big limitations I think in these sorts of games is that people don’t often get all the way through, you know, a year. (0:14:36) Jonnie: Yeah, I think you and Bev talked about in the last episode, like people don’t necessarily always get to year two, right? (0:14:42) Jonnie: It’s lucky, you know, people are like excited that they hit winter in these sorts of games. (0:14:48) Jonnie: And doubling the day length, I think, means that there’s a large portion of the games that people will miss out on. (0:14:53) Jonnie: Coral Island has this feature and it’s not something that I think is a great choice to put in. (0:15:06) Jonnie: Once you get into the flow of one of these games, about a, you know, that 15 to 20 minute day length is about the right length. (0:15:12) Jonnie: I just, yeah, I don’t, we played FIFA and never felt like I wanted a longer day but I (0:15:22) Al: yeah I mean I didn’t want a longer day in fey farm but that’s probably because I didn’t really want to be playing it like I think as we discussed at the time I think the biggest thing that i enjoyed about fey farm was the traversal which I still stand on I still think that more games need to do that better but that was I mean nothing else about that game made me go this is amazing I need to keep playing this in general so yeah I didn’t want the day to be longer for that - Yeah. (0:15:52) Al: And I’m the same person that, you know, (0:15:54) Al: in the last episode I talked about how I speed run the game at the beginning anyway, because there’s not enough energy (0:16:03) Al: to do what you want to do. (0:16:04) Al: So just get through it and you get to the next day and that’s fine, you can do it then. (0:16:12) Al: Oh, it’s Friday, I need to go to the traveling cart. (0:16:14) Al: Sorry, I’m not playing the game. (0:16:19) Al: Yeah, I think it’s interesting. (0:16:23) Al: Also, I think I am more leaning towards trying out new things like Sugar Jew, (0:16:31) Al: what is that game called? (0:16:32) Al: Sugar Jew Island? (0:16:35) Al: Goodness me, get a better name. (0:16:38) Al: And it’s lack of a specific amount of day anyway, (0:16:45) Al: like it’s just you play the day and then you finish the day when you want to finish the day sort of thing. (0:16:52) Al: So being something like that would probably be more interesting to me than just, oh, it’s a longer day. (0:16:58) Jonnie: Yeah, I think that makes sense. (0:17:00) Jonnie: I think I’m with you, and it’s something Cody and I talked about on the “Palea” episode there. (0:17:07) Jonnie: I think I’m kind of just a bit over the regular day/night cycle. (0:17:13) Jonnie: And I’m more interested in games that are trying something different or just more tied to real time and getting rid of stamina mechanics. (0:17:21) Jonnie: My favorite thing about “Palea” is still the fact that they– (0:17:24) Jonnie: instead of stamina being this limiting thing, (0:17:26) Jonnie: They have a similar mechanic. (0:17:28) Jonnie: But it gets you more rewards for having high stamina and you just eat food to replenish it. (0:17:34) Jonnie: To me, that’s one of the best stamina variations that exist. (0:17:40) Al: Yeah, definitely try new things, let’s see what you can do. (0:17:45) Al: It does look like this setting is something you can change as you’re playing, so it’s the sort of thing I could definitely see myself going, oh, just having the normal day length, (0:17:53) Al: but then if I’m getting close to a point in the minds that I want to, just making the day longer at that point, I could see myself doing something like that. (0:18:02) Jonnie: Yeah, but even then the mines like the they’re not (0:18:08) Jonnie: The time is not a real limiting factor for them right because it’s because you can teleport to every floor (0:18:10) Al: I think it depends. I think, sure, okay, but wait, okay. More thinking, Skull Cavern. Like if you’re trying to go get Iridium, which is the thing that becomes a real limiting thing in these games at some point, is you need to go to Skull Cavern. And if you are, (0:18:35) Al: you know, 70 levels down, you’re getting really close to the area where there’s lots of stuff (0:18:40) Al: you’ve probably brought a bunch of food to keep your stamina up. There’s no way for you to extend the time that you can be down there for. And there’s a whole bunch of other stuff as well, (0:18:53) Al: but there’s stuff around characters and relationships. I’m sure they’ve not (0:18:58) Jonnie: I agree, look, I think where I’m at at Fae farmers, like we played it for the show, I thought there was a lot of potential there, but ultimately the game fell flat and there’s just so much else coming out, I can’t say that. (0:19:11) Al: Yeah, I still have, I bought the game physically and I still have it in my pile here and every time I go to sell some games, I’m like, I don’t think I’m going to play it, but I feel like I want to keep it just in case, but then I keep not playing it. So I think I need to set a deadline on myself. If I’ve not played it by me, then I get rid of it. I couldn’t, (0:19:38) Al: I, oh, no, I. (0:19:41) Al: I need to double check what there was a video and they said the name of the game and it was different. Ikone. It said, yes, so the it’s Ikone. That is what the video said Ikone. (0:19:48) Jonnie: I would guess, which is always a safe thing to do with pronunciation, econy? (0:19:58) Al: Ikone Island. So there you go. Finally learned I’ve been saying this name wrong the whole time. (0:20:06) Al: Ikone Island have released their Blooming Beginnings update. (0:20:11) Al: This marks the time where they are also out on PlayStation and Xbox. (0:20:16) Al: It looks like there’s lots of small things. The only kind of big thing that I can see is they have completely redone their UI. So if you have played this game, (0:20:27) Al: get ready to be annoyed by it changing. That’s my experience with with the The UI is changing and games is just being frustrated with it, even if it’s better. (0:20:40) Jonnie: Correct because you get used to whatever terrible things have been done and then it changes and your brain has to reset (0:20:47) Jonnie: It’s why it’s why UI is one of the most difficult things to get right in games (0:20:50) Al: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s kind of all I really want to talk about there. The patch notes are in the show notes. If you have played it and you want to go look at it. (0:21:03) Jonnie: I think it’s cool that it’s out on PlayStation Xbox, this is kind of one that was like on the back burner of my mind (0:21:09) Jonnie: Just because I think I prefer playing these games on on a console and so now that it’s on a console It’s something I’m like thinking about a little bit more (0:21:18) Al: Yes, and hopefully them releasing it at the same time as an update means that they’re going to then continue with updates coming to both at the same time. That’s always, I mean, that’s the advantage of bigger teams. (0:21:31) Jonnie: - Yeah, that would be… (0:21:35) Al: Steam World Build also have an update. Mechanical Meadows, they have a lovely little (0:21:44) Al: six bullet points of the things that they’ve added. They’ve added 11 player placeable decors, (0:21:50) Al: five environment decors, 10 mine decors, three agent decors, one tumbleweed, (0:21:58) Al: and one custom light and post. There you go, lots of things to decorate. (0:22:06) Al: Oh, that should be decor then, isn’t it? (0:22:08) Al: That’s why, that’s what that word is. (0:22:11) Al: That’s just the start of decorate, isn’t it? (0:22:13) Al: Decor, decorate. (0:22:14) Jonnie: I said your pronunciation, it was funny because your pronunciation was like just marginally off not but not enough that I was like not enough to mention it until we’ve now mentioned it (0:22:22) Al: I think I… I think I said “decor”, didn’t I? But it’s… If it’s short for “decoration”, (0:22:28) Jonnie: uh yeah yeah I was like ah whatever it’s (0:22:32) Al: I don’t say “decoration”, so it would be “decoration decor”. Anyway, if you want to decorate your town, I guess it’s a town? In Steam World Build? That’s out now. Speaking of updates, (0:22:42) Jonnie: I don’t know. Yeah, it must be town. (0:22:48) Al: Cali also have an update. They’re 0.17 (0:22:52) Al: update is out now. I mean at this point just call it update 178. I don’t know why it’s 0 point, right? People are so obsessed with 1.0 I don’t think it means anything. Just give us the number. It’s just update 178. (0:23:07) Al: Do you think you’re suddenly at 1 point going to go to 1.0? You’re not gonna do that when you’re at 0.178. (0:23:16) Jonnie: They will but they’re just gonna go at that after like, you know update 197 or something (0:23:20) Al: The theme of this patch is all about spring. They have added the temple of the roots, which is a new temple. Is temples a big thing in Palia? I still haven’t played it. (0:23:35) Jonnie: Yeah, so so temples are temples are kind of the big thing and it was missing one (0:23:42) Jonnie: They could always add more but the the setup was (0:23:43) Al: Well, well, yes, it says it says it won’t be the last temple, but they’re not going to say anything else about that now. (0:23:45) Jonnie: was for (0:23:49) Jonnie: Yeah (0:23:51) Al: That’s what it says in the in the thing. (0:23:52) Al: So. (0:23:53) Jonnie: No, that’s that’s not a surprise they’re kind of like the so they’re that they’re effectively like the big dungeons that a lot of the story (0:24:01) Jonnie: hangs off of in in Palia (0:24:05) Jonnie: They are interesting because it’s interesting to see the implementation of dungeons in a game with no combat (0:24:11) Jonnie: And some of them I think are really good (0:24:12) Al: Oh, there’s no combat in this. (0:24:17) Jonnie: Yeah, oh, I guess there technically is if you want to think of hunting (0:24:22) Jonnie: Animals and you know one-sided murder as combat, but there is nothing that attacks you back I guess (0:24:25) Al: One-sided murder. (0:24:32) Jonnie: Yeah (0:24:33) Al: I think that’s just called murder. (0:24:35) Jonnie: I Mean I guess but but you could always like you could try to move to someone and they can fight back right like this (0:24:37) Al: Yes, that’s not two-sided murder. (0:24:44) Al: That’s just not murder. (0:24:46) Al: That’s called attacking someone. (0:24:48) Al: It’s not murder. (0:24:50) Al: Oh dear. (0:24:50) Jonnie: Yeah okay, that’s fair. Look, it’s very early, and I’m saying things that barely make sense, so… (0:24:55) Al: [LAUGH] Fair enough. (0:25:03) Jonnie: But yeah, there is nothing that can attack you in the game, is probably the point. So I’m interested to see another dungeon of roots kind of make sense in the theming that all of the dungeons have been and what we got so far. I think there’s like a wind one. (0:25:20) Jonnie: There’s a lava one. There’s the first one that is kind of quite short and basic, and I don’t really remember if it had a theme or if the theme was “Hey, it’s a dungeon”. Yeah, a little bit, (0:25:30) Al: Was… yeah, was the theme tutorial. (0:25:36) Jonnie: if I remember rightly. So I haven’t really jumped back into Pahlia since we did the episode, (0:25:45) Jonnie: because it kind of felt like there was features missing, and I was waiting. (0:25:51) Jonnie: And this is getting me pretty close to thinking like “Okay, there’s probably enough stuff that’s been added that it might be a good time to jump back in and see what’s different in Pahlia.” (0:26:00) Al: That’s always the problem with these lots of little updates, right? Like with Stardew, (0:26:05) Al: it’s been like two and a half years since the last update. And so, you know, if you want to jump in, (0:26:11) Al: now’s the time to jump in with all these like little updates every month or two. You’re like, (0:26:18) Al: “Well, what point do I do this?” And I understand why they do it, right? Because if you’re, (0:26:23) Al: well, first of all, it’s obviously a game that they want to encourage people to be constantly playing, right? Like, that’s just how they’re doing things. (0:26:31) Al: But equally, they just want people to have stuff if they want to continue playing the game all the time, right? (0:26:37) Al: Like, there’s always new stuff for people. (0:26:41) Jonnie: Yeah, I think that’s a good point. I do consider there to be a bit of a difference though, like Stardew can afford to do that because it has such great brand recognition that a big update will cut through a lot of things and people are likely to jump back in. (0:26:59) Jonnie: I don’t know that that’s as true for a game like Palia. Like I don’t know if there’s as much benefit for them to have a big update versus a bunch of little updates and hope that people pick up like, (0:27:11) Jonnie: but I see Palia pop up from time to time. It seems like they’re doing a lot in that game, so maybe it’s worth checking out. (0:27:18) Jonnie: I wonder if there’s sort of two different approaches that can both work based on the size and cut through. (0:27:23) Al: That’s fair, but it doesn’t need to be, you know, either you do it every two and a half years or you do it every two months, right? You can have a… you can do it every six months and have bigger updates that way, right? Like, and I don’t think that would… I don’t think suddenly people are going to forget that your game exists if you take six months (0:27:44) Jonnie: Yeah, I think with weird games like Palia or Ato, I would rather have, particularly if I’m playing that game, I would rather just have consistent updates, because there’s still, you know, there’s still enough phase where there’s lots of little quality of life things and I wouldn’t like them to sit on that for six months to wait for a new temple to be done, right? (0:28:01) Jonnie: I would rather just have some of those stuffs built. (0:28:04) Al: Yeah, that’s fair. I mean, I guess you know being an online game. It’s it’s always gonna be slightly different anyway (0:28:11) Jonnie: - Yeah, and I guess to your point though, (0:28:13) Jonnie: I have been kind of ignoring a lot of their small updates because it’s just quality of life, (0:28:18) Jonnie: waiting to see something like this. (0:28:20) Jonnie: And I’m like, oh, okay, now they’ve got a new temple out. (0:28:23) Jonnie: This is the time that I personally want to jump back in (0:28:28) Al: Yeah. Yeah, I don’t think there’s an easy answer to these things. I just think it’s interesting. (0:28:36) Al: They also have climbing updates. I don’t know what that means. It doesn’t really describe (0:28:42) Jonnie: Yeah, I’m… (0:28:44) Al: just an improvement to climbing and traversal in the game. (0:28:49) Jonnie: Climbing was pretty… (0:28:54) Jonnie: I wonder if it’s just making it a little bit easier to understand, ‘cause you can climb up a lot of surfaces, (0:28:59) Jonnie: if I remember rightly. (0:29:01) Jonnie: It felt a little bit janky, but I don’t remember it feeling bad, maybe a bit slow, but it also wasn’t something… (0:29:05) Al: Yeah, I literally no idea what they’re talking about here because they just say we’ll be adding in the first of several changes behind the scenes that ultimately will result in an improvement to climbing. It doesn’t describe what is this. (0:29:20) Jonnie: Yeah, so I would guess that’s probably just more about the way like climbing was a little bit janky when you’re trying to get in and out of this, like just a little bit of like running into walls and stuff like that. (0:29:30) Jonnie: So hopefully it just feels a little bit more seamless. (0:29:32) Jonnie: But to be honest, climbing was one of those things that existed in the game, but you don’t really need it that much from a traversal perspective. (0:29:39) Jonnie: So it’s not like it’s huge, and maybe some of that’s because it felt janky, but I think I think this would just be one of those things that’s like, (0:29:48) Jonnie: if they didn’t say it, you would just be like, (0:29:50) Jonnie: this feels slightly better, but you wouldn’t actually notice when, right? (0:29:54) Al: yeah. And they have also - I just lost my tab - added in some placeable flowers and trees and more decor and outfits. (0:29:55) Jonnie: So, that’s cool. (0:30:12) Jonnie: Cool. (0:30:14) Al: So again, probably something you don’t care about based on our previous conversation. (0:30:14) Jonnie: Um, Hank? (0:30:18) Al: You’re not going to jump in and do a bunch of stuff with that, but good for the people who do care about, making their own. (0:30:26) Jonnie: Yeah, I am curious with the new outfits. So a lot of the outfits early in the game were (0:30:39) Jonnie: microtransactions, right? So you paid a premium currency for them, which to be clear is not a criticism. It was an effective way of monetizing the game, right? You can spend money if you’re really into this and have your character model look a bit different, but it doesn’t actually impact anything else in the game. (0:30:56) Jonnie: So when they say new outfits, I’m curious if they mean a wider range of outfits that you don’t have to pay for, or we’ve put in new things for you to buy. (0:31:05) Al: Yeah, good question. They don’t specify. So I guess we’ll need to see. (0:31:10) Jonnie: Yeah, but I will say I’m very excited for this update, and I might be jumping back into some more palettes soon. (0:31:18) Al: Speaking of updates. This is our last update, I promise. So many updates. Oh my word, everybody’s updating. (0:31:22) Jonnie: Just every transition, just speaking of updates. (0:31:27) Jonnie: Look, we could even use this transition in the main topic. (0:31:31) Al: Travellers Rest have their fishing update out now as well. I do need to clarify something I said wrong in the last episode. I said that… I’m pretty sure I said that fishing is an update to the fishing not the not that the fishing is new turns out that’s wrong fishing is new so there wasn’t fishing before this update now there is fishing before this update so yet another question of what was even in this game and so there we go fishing now in travel (0:32:08) Jonnie: Yeah, look, the “What is this game?” question is mostly just… (0:32:14) Jonnie: Every time I see an update, I’m very confused as to what this game had in it when it launched. (0:32:18) Jonnie: Because from what I can gather, it was nothing. You had a character model, and that was it. (0:32:24) Al: Yeah, because it didn’t have fishing, it didn’t have farming, it didn’t have your bar, which is the whole point of it. It’s an inn, you’re running an inn, and the inn didn’t serve drinks. (0:32:36) Al: So yeah, I really don’t know what the game had, but. Oh, I don’t even. (0:32:38) Jonnie: Maybe just maybe just hit romance [cries] (0:32:46) Al: Sugardew Island, please don’t add romance, I beg of you. I’m going to say this every episode now, please don’t do it. (0:32:54) Al: I know. Yeah, and there’s a trailer for the fishing update. So (0:33:01) Al: go have a look at that. That will be in the show notes. (0:33:05) Al: And the last piece of game news before the last piece of news is very much not news, (0:33:15) Al: but we’re talking about it anyway, because I mean, let’s be honest, especially on an episode with me and you Johnny, we’re going to take any opportunity to talk about this game is that we (0:33:24) Al: have a new, would you call this a trailer? A new, very small, well even it’s a video with sound and it shows, I don’t know, it’s not even, it doesn’t even feel like it’s long enough to count as a teaser. Yeah, it’s an animated picture, that’s what it is, but with a little bit of sound in the background. This is Tales of the Shire. (0:33:28) Jonnie: No. (0:33:42) Jonnie: It’s basically one step removed from just being a picture. (0:33:54) Al: I realised I hadn’t said the name of the game, so Tales of the Shire, which I feel like - so now underneath says “A Lord of the Rings game”. I feel like it didn’t say that in the previous stuff, but I might just not be remembering that. (0:34:06) Jonnie: I do not recall, but hopefully, you know, that’s obvious, but… (0:34:09) Al: It did. It did, because I was just talking nonsense. So yeah. There’s nothing new. They’ve just decided to remind us that the game is coming. And the replies are full of people (0:34:24) Al: give us a game please. So it’s meant to be coming this year. Still literally no information about the game, no screenshots, no nothing. Just it’s coming. (0:34:34) Jonnie: Yep, look, I’m very rapidly getting to the point of like, I will believe this game is coming when we actually, you know, get a release date, like, and, you know, some, some information I just, I just don’t want to become like those Silksong fans right who are like, it’s coming. (0:34:52) Jonnie: It’s coming. Trust me, it’s coming. We’re so excited. It’s coming and like, that game doesn’t exist. (0:34:58) Al: To be fair, I think we have more about this game than we do about Silksong, to be fair. (0:34:58) Jonnie: And that’s, that’s, that is entirely… (0:35:04) Jonnie: I just don’t want to get too excited until until we actually see some details, right, we have something to dig in. So, I mean, it’s good news that they’re posting and, you know, posting a thing because it does mean that the game still exists. (0:35:18) Jonnie: So, yeah, but, but there’s nothing to talk about. (0:35:18) Al: It’s been six months. It’s been six months since they announced the game and this is their first thing since that right six months ago They said hey, this is a game and we went collectively ah (0:35:30) Al: This is a game and now six months later. We’re getting the same information (0:35:36) Al: This is a game with I guess a slightly more detailed image, but it’s still not a screenshot or anything (0:35:44) Jonnie: No. (0:35:46) Jonnie: Definitely not. (0:35:46) Jonnie: Do you want to spend half an hour, like, analyzing every aspect of the image, or show you? (0:35:52) Al: Well, I see people in the comments speculating on characters in the game, (0:36:00) Al: but that would require us knowing the time in which this game is happening. (0:36:06) Jonnie: Yeah, I feel like, you know, pretty much any of this requires like a knowledge of, you know, anything related to this game, and we have none of that, so… (0:36:14) Al: So I do think this game will have fishing, cause I see someone fishing, so sorry about that. (0:36:20) Jonnie: I feel like that is so I am anti-fishing because I just don’t think it’s necessary in a lot of games I (0:36:28) Jonnie: think for a lot of the rings game it would be kind of silly to not have fishing given that like (0:36:35) Jonnie: It’s part of some of their (0:36:38) Jonnie: their law to an extent right like when (0:36:44) Jonnie: Smeagol found the ring they were in a boat, and I’m pretty sure they were fishing Um… (0:36:50) Jonnie: You know, so it’s it’s established that hobbits fish so I think I think (0:36:56) Al: I also see a chicken and a sheep, so presumably you will have ranching in the game. (0:37:03) Al: I also see what is either presumably a duck with a helmet on. (0:37:10) Al: And I’m very interested as to what that is about. (0:37:10) Jonnie: Maybe it just wants to feel… (0:37:13) Al: Why does a duck need armour? (0:37:19) Al: I mean, in the Shire, the safest place ever. (0:37:23) Al: I’m intrigued by that. (0:37:26) Al: There’s a bunch of different foods, cooked foods. (0:37:29) Al: So presumably they will be cooking in this game as well. (0:37:31) Jonnie: Oh my god, sorry, I just looked up there, that duck is super cute. (0:37:36) Jonnie: I’m a big fan of him wearing a helmet, like I don’t know. (0:37:38) Jonnie: I don’t understand what your problem is now. (0:37:39) Jonnie: Why, why are you so anti this? (0:37:42) Al: I’m not, not against the duck. (0:37:45) Al: I see a horse in the background. (0:37:48) Al: Yeah, OK, I’m done. (0:37:51) Al: There’s only so much we can talk about this game. (0:37:54) Al: Let’s overanalyze about something. (0:37:57) Al: Just before we talk about Stardew, we’re going to get there very soon, I promise. (0:38:02) Al: I know that’s why you’re all here this episode. (0:38:05) Al: But before that, we need to talk about the fact that Sakuna of Rice and Run is getting an anime. (0:38:14) Al: And I don’t know what to think about this. (0:38:14) Jonnie: I… I don’t know what any of this means. (0:38:19) Al: So Sakuna of Rice and Run, the game which was the (0:38:23) Al: ridiculously unnecessarily realistic. (0:38:26) Al: Rice growing game where you are, I mean Sakuna is basically like a god, I think, (0:38:35) Al: who was stripped of her powers and sent down to earth. I know, I know, it’s classic. (0:38:40) Al: And then you have to farm rice. I’m not sure why I really, really didn’t play that game very much. I apparently they’re making anime for it, so maybe I will watch that and finally understand the story, rather than having to play the game again. You’ve literally nothing to say. All right, let’s get into trouble talking about something else, which is Stardew Valley 1.6. It’s finally here, it is now out on PC, Mac, Linux, Steam. (0:39:00) Jonnie: Cool I have like I have literally I I know nothing about any of this I have nothing to say and I if I say anything I’m just gonna get myself into trouble (0:39:26) Al: GOG, all of the non-console places you can get it, which I mean is basically just Steam. Okay, yeah, not on console or mobile. Yeah, tablet, etc. I have been playing it on my Steam deck. What have you been playing it on, Johnny? (0:39:35) Jonnie: Also not on. (0:39:54) Jonnie: Ah, just on my laptop. (0:39:56) Al: Fair enough. We will have a link to the patch notes in the show notes if you want to go and have a look at them. There will obviously be spoilers in that. And if you want to play this game without having any information about the game, maybe stop listening to this episode now and come back when you’ve played it. Because we’re going to talk about a lot of things that we found, some things that are very obvious and some things that are maybe not as obvious. (0:40:23) Al: There’s not many, like, story-related things. (0:40:26) Al: But I know a lot of people are finding it fun to kind of go and find all the new stuff without knowing that it’s there. (0:40:36) Al: So if you’re that kind of person, you’re probably already turned off. (0:40:40) Al: So I think we need to start off, Johnny, by talking about the new farm layout. (0:40:46) Al: I obviously chose that. (0:40:46) Jonnie: I did. (0:40:47) Al: I think you chose the new farm layout as well, didn’t you? (0:40:51) Al: So you start out by getting your new farm late. (0:40:56) Al: It’s got a lot of water. (0:41:00) Al: It’s got like a big river that goes through it and a couple of small ponds. (0:41:04) Al: And there’s a lot of grass on it to start with and a lot of trees. (0:41:08) Al: But you also start up with a coop and two chickens. (0:41:11) Al: And (0:41:13) Al: this shouldn’t be surprising, but I was a little bit surprised when you wake up and you open up the package in your house and there aren’t parsnip seeds. (0:41:19) Al: There’s hay there instead. (0:41:21) Al: And it makes sense based on the farm, but I wasn’t expecting that. (0:41:24) Al: It was quite a fun. (0:41:26) Al: difference to be like, oh, this is not the same as what I’ve played before. (0:41:30) Jonnie: Yeah, I really liked it like it was just a nice indication of oh, this is actually different right and it was just one of those really clever little things of like (0:41:41) Jonnie: You know just just change that little brain itch to be like, hey, this is this is subtly (0:41:46) Jonnie: Not quite what you what you’re used to (0:41:50) Al: And your first quest, instead of growing parsnips, is get an egg from your chicken, which, yeah, (0:41:56) Al: is good fun. (0:41:59) Al: I also noticed there’s a lot of hardwood in this farm, and there’s the two different kinds of stumps. (0:42:05) Al: You have both of the two stumps. (0:42:07) Al: So you can get hardwood really quickly because you’ve got the big logs that you can only get with, I think, the golden axe, which, you know, there’s one (0:42:20) Al: of them to get into the other wood, the other forest that you can get the other stumps from. (0:42:27) Al: But the smaller, the stumps, rather than the log, you can get with an iron axe. (0:42:37) Al: But in normal games, you can’t actually access those ones because you have to have the gold one to get into the area that has those stumps. (0:42:45) Al: So it was quite fun. (0:42:46) Al: farm, you’ve got both of those so you can get hardwood as soon (0:42:50) Al: as you’ve got your second level of axe. (0:42:54) Jonnie: Yeah, it’s a nice little upgrade to to the farm and to the progression within a within a new server (0:43:04) Al: So, I think this is quite an animal-focused farm, obviously. There’s still a decent amount of area you can use for farming crops, but I think the idea of this one is you’re generally meant to be using animals, which I quite like because I’ve always been kind of like get animals as quickly as possible because they’re a steady thing. Without having to put much money into them, you can get regular money, right? You can very quickly get like several Programmed a day without… (0:43:34) Al: Putting any money into it (0:43:37) Al: After the initial cast obviously [clears throat] (0:43:40) Jonnie: Yeah, I I really like this as a set up I think a lot of these games I’m like I would I always go in with the intent of like I would like to do a (0:43:51) Jonnie: An animal based farm But by the time you get all of the set up to get the money to get the animals (0:43:57) Jonnie: You have a pretty decent regular farming setup And at that point transitioning to animals feels like it’s gonna waste a lot of well not not waste money (0:44:06) Jonnie: but you’re kind of like (0:44:10) Jonnie: Back in terms of progress a lot so you kind of just keep going with the farming and animals always kind of feel like this thing off to the side And putting them front and center is (0:44:20) Al: Yeah, agreed. I think it’s also, it’s made me more money focused. And this is where I admit on the podcast that I have gone the Joja route this time. So let me explain. Let me explain. Let me explain. Don’t worry. Right. Okay. Well, okay. How about before I explain myself, let me, let me tell you that I feel really bad about what I’ve done, especially (0:44:30) Jonnie: What? (0:44:33) Jonnie: Ow. Ow. (0:44:35) Jonnie: No, no, I’m just gonna sit here and judge you and talk over the start of your sentences. (0:44:50) Al: what, so I’ve, I’ve completed the Joja warehouse version of the community center. Right. I’ve got all of those upgrades. And let me tell you the cut scene where you’ve, when you’ve done that and you walk into the area and you go up to the Joja warehouse and all of the staff are out applauding you and you get told what a wonderful person you are for doing all this, it felt so bad. I was like, Oh no. (0:45:20) Al: What have I done? This is terrible. Um, was not a fan of that. Uh, but the reason why I did this is because I wanted to focus on money as any good capitalist does. And I wanted not to have to think about the bundles for once. And I thought it would be fun. I feel like as a professional. (0:45:50) Al: I’m a farming game podcaster. I need to understand all aspects of this game, and that includes doing the Jojo route. (0:46:00) Al: So that is my defense of myself. (0:46:01) Jonnie: So look this is where I’m gonna say I did not follow the Jojo route and that is so far is my biggest criticism of the 1.6 update is the bundles do not really work for the new farm (0:46:18) Jonnie: because you have the second set of bundles, the crop bundles, and all of a sudden you’re kind of reminded of, oh, I still have to actually engage. (0:46:31) Jonnie: With the farming piece, and look, I think, you know, getting a pass nip, a cauliflower, whatever is fine, but having five of the gold ones for that bundle, it was a huge disappointment that that hadn’t been changed to, uh, like five high quality animal products, right? (0:46:50) Jonnie: Like five gold lard jigs or something like that, um, because I got to like day, you know, 10 or 11 or whatever it was when I started to like, think about the community center. (0:47:01) Jonnie: And I get some of those things unlocked and I was like, oh, well, I’m probably not gonna hit the, the five gold pass nips, you know, this, this month. (0:47:12) Jonnie: And I don’t really want to try the five gold balance and it was a bit disappointing and I kind of wish that. (0:47:18) Al: Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting. I wonder, have you ever looked at the remixed bundles (0:47:28) Al: for the community centre? Because I know there is an option to do the remixed ones, but I don’t know. (0:47:34) Al: Ah, no, you’re still required. The quality crops bundle still exists. But it looks like there’s multiple different possible ones you can have, but you still have to have some gold crops. (0:47:47) Al: So, yeah. (0:47:48) Al: Yeah, I think it could be could have been fun to have done stuff like that. (0:47:53) Al: But this is where you have the option just to go the Georgia route. (0:47:56) Al: You can do it. (0:47:57) Al: It’s a thing you can do, you know. (0:48:00) Jonnie: Yeah, look, I think it’s the right thing to do. (0:48:01) Al: And you’re. (0:48:08) Al: Yes, I agree. (0:48:11) Al: It’s a good thing to do. (0:48:12) Al: Go the Georgia route. (0:48:14) Al: You definitely won’t feel bad and you definitely won’t have your friends saying, (0:48:17) Al: What have you done when the achievement comes? (0:48:19) Al: Which happened to me today? (0:48:24) Al: Kelly noticed that I got the achievement yesterday, and they were very disappointed in me. (0:48:32) Al: show. (0:48:34) Jonnie: I mean, look, they were right to be disappointed, but what’s the point in friends if you don’t have money? (0:48:40) Al: Exactly, exactly. So I think it’s been quite fun doing that, it makes you think about the game differently. (0:48:50) Al: And I do think that if you’re playing your first stardew through, the bundles is a really good way to be like, (0:48:58) Al: here are all the different things you can do in the game, do them all please. I think that’s really fun. (0:49:04) Al: But also as someone who’s played this game, hundreds and hundreds of hours, just going. (0:49:10) Al: I’m going to do as much as I can to make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, and unlock as much of it as possible. (0:49:18) Al: I’m currently in winter of year one, I’ve not even finished the first year yet, and I have completed all of that. (0:49:26) Al: All five of the things to unlock with the community centre of Georgia, which is fun. (0:49:36) Al: like being at that point. It’s really hard to do that in… (0:49:40) Al: In fact, it’s impossible in year one unless you have the setting to make it possible in year one. (0:49:45) Al: So you have to wait till the second year. (0:49:48) Al: And even if you do have that setting on, it’s still really hard because you have to go really hard on the crops. (0:49:54) Al: Gold crops aren’t very easy to get. (0:49:59) Al: So yeah, that’s fun. It’ll be interesting to see. I know that the… (0:50:03) Al: I know that Ginger Island has some Georgia stuff in it as well if you go that route. (0:50:07) Al: it will be interesting to see that, although I’ve still never been to Georgia Island. (0:50:10) Al: I’m currently grinding to get the bars to unlock the boat to get to Georgia, to get to Ginger Island. (0:50:24) Al: As usual, I’ve hit my wall is I’m at Skull Cavern and trying to get as much of the ore as possible to actually get what I want. (0:50:34) Al: That’s always my frustration with this game, is I love everything about this game. (0:50:37) Al: I hate skull cavern. (0:50:38) Al: I hate trying to get. (0:50:41) Al: Why have I forgotten the name of this? (0:50:43) Al: What’s it called again? (0:50:44) Al: The purple stuff. (0:50:45) Al: Iridium. (0:50:45) Al: Yeah. (0:50:46) Al: I, I hate getting Iridium. (0:50:48) Al: It is the thing I, I just cannot stand with this game. (0:50:52) Al: So maybe I’ll just try and focus on doing year two as quickly as possible while getting enough to, to pass granddad’s test and then get the, the (0:51:14) Jonnie: Yeah, that sounds like a good plan, and I’m right there with you. I’m not a fan of Skull Kid, and I think the combat’s just not good enough in a game like this to really support what they’re trying to do. (0:51:27) Al: Yeah I think at this point you just you have to just save up as much stone as you can to get (0:51:35) Al: stairs to go down as quickly as you can find as much ore. Yeah it’s not the best and especially having played Coral Island like Coral Island I feel like has the balance better in terms of the minds and getting to know them. (0:51:57) Al: I’m getting the max of the, I can’t remember what they call their, they have another name for their above gold one, something like that. (0:52:08) Jonnie: Uhm, Oricallium. (0:52:12) Jonnie: Uhm, yeah, because I just recently completed the, uh, the mines in, uhm, in Coral Island and I think that was just significantly better, the accessibility of the, the fourth tier, uhm, or was, it was just way more plentiful, right? (0:52:28) Jonnie: And it was just like, cool, this is nice, like it’s just the next version of it, it’s the next level of progression and it doesn’t feel horrendous, like, yeah. (0:52:36) Al: Yeah and it doesn’t need to be easy, I think it just needs to be not horrifically difficult and (0:52:43) Al: certainly nothing in this update has made it any easier and I think it’s the thing that frustrates me most about this game that I would really like slightly changed. Obviously there is the thing you can get from your grandad when you’ve got a certain amount of stuff after year two but (0:52:59) Al: that only gives you a few per day which is obviously better than nothing but yeah it’s It’s just, it’s so slow to get. (0:53:06) Al: And to get to Ginger Island, you need 5 bars, which is 25 iridium ore. (0:53:12) Al: And obviously that then implies you haven’t used it for anything else. (0:53:16) Al: And you need, yeah, ugh, iridium. (0:53:20) Al: Need iridium. (0:53:22) Al: So, we’ll see. (0:53:26) Al: Um, okay, farm, anything else to say about the new farm? (0:53:30) Al: I think, oh yes, I had one small thing. (0:53:32) Al: very niche, but the layout of it is much easier. (0:53:36) Al: To line things up for paths and crops. (0:53:38) Al: One thing that really frustrates me about the, about Stardew is how (0:53:44) Al: things don’t overlap in the way that they should, right? (0:53:47) Al: So for example, in the greenhouse, it’s not a perfect number of (0:53:52) Al: the biggest sprinkler, right? (0:53:56) Al: It’s like 2.5 sprinklers wide and tall. (0:54:01) Al: And that, and the farm, if you have a path (0:54:06) Al: going from the entrance to the farm left, you’ll not line up nicely with things. (0:54:12) Al: And if you want to come down from the top to the bottom, (0:54:16) Al: you can’t just have one path that goes all the way down from the entrance. (0:54:20) Al: Like these things are really niche and probably don’t annoy many people, (0:54:24) Al: but they annoys me and I find the layout of this one is much easier to make it (0:54:30) Jonnie: I agree. I really like the layo

Al and Codey talk about their hopes and dreams for the future of Coral Island Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:03:23: What Have We Been Up To 00:09:10: News 00:09:23: Game Releases 00:16:41: Game Updates 00:37:51: Other News 00:58:51: Coral Island Hopes And Dreams 01:41:49: Outro Links Chill Town Early Access Of Life and Land Early Access Critter Crops Release A Tiny Sticker Tale on iOS and Android Paleo Pines 1.3 Update Travellers Rest “Fishing” Update One Lonely Outpost Apology Stardew 1.6 Update Sugardew Island Kickstarter Pixelshire PS5 and Switch Window Garden Contact Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:31) Al: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Harvest Season. My name is Sleepy Al. (0:00:37) Codey: And my name is Hyper Cody. (0:00:39) Al: And we’re here today to talk about Cottagecore games! (0:00:43) Codey: Whoa. (0:00:44) Al: Oh no! Oh yeah, what was that? (0:00:46) Codey: Whoa. (0:00:48) Codey: In a recent, I don’t know, I tried to like do the whole, (0:00:51) Codey: let’s go, like energy. (0:00:53) Codey: And it kind of just came out a little different. (0:00:56) Codey: I don’t know. (0:00:57) Al: I don’t think we need to make the energy differential any higher than it is, like an American and a Scottish person, when the Scottish person is tired and it’s late at night. Yeah. I also suspect you just go hyper when you’re tired. (0:00:57) Codey: Uh… [laughs] (0:01:03) Codey: U.S.A. (0:01:11) Codey: Well, I appreciate you doing this later. (0:01:22) Codey: I do. (0:01:23) Codey: Except for if it’s like really really like I go hyper and then I go like brain can’t word good when it like hit a certain point and so yeah but I am definitely at the hyper (0:01:29) Al: And that’s funny. Yeah. Rona my wife is the opposite. She goes like completely like comatose to start with and then it hits a point and then she goes hyper. And when she goes hyper you’re like, no, no, you should have already gone to bed by now. Yeah. All right, cool. (0:01:39) Codey: Mmm. (0:01:47) Codey: Why are you still conscious? (0:01:51) Codey: Mmm-hmm. (0:01:52) Al: So transcripts for the podcast are available in the show notes and on the website. This episode (0:01:55) Codey: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. (0:01:59) Al: we are going to talk about coral island speculation slash once. I haven’t figured out a good way to word this. Hopes, once, whatever. We’re going to talk about what we want (0:02:10) Codey: I like hopes and dreams. (0:02:10) Al: in coral island. Hopes and dreams. Coral island, hopes and dreams. (0:02:15) Codey: Yes. (0:02:15) Al: I was once in, here’s a fun fact for you, I was in as a child a Christian musical (0:02:24) Al: called hopes and dreams. It was quite something. (0:02:26) Codey: Oh okay. I was in a Christian musical called Children of Eden. (0:02:29) Al: the M. Wow they don’t [laughs] (0:02:34) Codey: Um, yep not. I am a non theist so it’s very very interesting but that’s what when you’re in high school and your director is like this is what we’re doing then you don’t really have a choice. (0:02:47) Al: I’ve got to love that separation of church and state over there. (0:02:52) Codey: Oh, you are very aware that that is non-existent. (0:02:55) Al: Don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re gonna talk about Carl Island, what we want from the game now that it’s hit 1.0 and we have some idea of what’s coming out in the next few updates. What do we want else that they haven’t said? Because there’s a bunch of stuff that they said they’re adding and I don’t think anything in our list is those. (0:02:56) Codey: In… yeah. (0:03:16) Al: So, what else? (0:03:17) Al: Before that, we have quite a lot of news. It’s been a very busy week, but first of all, Cody, what have you been up to? (0:03:27) Codey: Well the reason we had to record later in your evening was because my morning was spent getting a party shiny wurmple tattoo holding a pride flag so that is my most recent thing he’s a he’s just a little guy and he’s on my arm and his hat is glittery I will put him in the discord for what the slack for people (0:03:56) Al: It’s like we have a discard news to me we actually we do but me and you are the only people on it (0:03:58) Codey: I think we do have a disc, we do well I know I’m throwing him in the in the slack right now so that I’ve been doing that I’ve also been still working on fox craft my minecraft fox the head is complete so now I just have to do the body which is like at least twice the size of the head so it’s gonna take a a very long time. (0:04:27) Codey: But most of my time has been spent furiously preparing a bunch of specimens. (0:04:34) Codey: Just from my May sample from last year, I have 7,000 insects that I have prepared and identified. (0:04:41) Codey: And I did that so that I could make a poster for a conference I’m going to this weekend. (0:04:46) Codey: So, woo! Research. It is actually really exciting. I’ve had a lot of, um… (0:04:57) Codey: papers moving along and chapters getting published and stuff like that. (0:05:00) Codey: So, I’m feeling like a scientist. It’s very interesting. (0:05:04) Codey: I’ve also had people like… I know, right? (0:05:06) Codey: I also had people reaching out to me and being like, “You’re a recognized expert in the field of forest pollinators. (0:05:11) Codey: Can you review this paper about forest pollinators?” (0:05:13) Codey: And then another email that was like, “Hey, we’re putting together a journal in special edition about forest pollinators. (0:05:22) Codey: Do you have a paper that you would like to submit?” (0:05:25) Codey: And I was like, “Man, I don’t right now.” (0:05:27) Codey: But like, next year I totally would. (0:05:31) Codey: So pretty much riding the highs of PhD life with, I don’t know if I’ve been medicated yet since I’ve been telling people, but I am medicated for ADHD now. (0:05:43) Al: I don’t believe you. (0:05:44) Codey: It does not dull my shine. (0:05:45) Codey: It hones me. (0:05:47) Codey: I am honed. (0:05:49) Codey: I can, I can focus on things now. (0:05:54) Codey: Wow, rude. (0:05:55) Codey: - About what? (0:05:55) Al: About being able to focus, I mean, not about the shine, what was it, shine, shine, sparkle. (0:06:02) Codey: - It’s dulling my shine, dulling my sparkle. (0:06:06) Al: I do love, I do love how we talk about sparkle and it’s like, what exactly is the sparkle you’re talking about? (0:06:06) Codey: No, I can– (0:06:12) Al: the sparkle of it. (0:06:13) Al: No, I know, I know. I know. (0:06:14) Codey: Well, so some people, when you get some type of medication for that kind of stuff, some people get a little zonked, (0:06:21) Codey: but I’m clearly not zonked. (0:06:25) Codey: Clearly not. (0:06:29) Al: I have been playing uh spells and secrets uh which is not I mean it’s the worst kept secret right because on two episodes ago me and bev said we were going to play it and then talk about it but shh don’t tell anyone um I won’t I won’t give any opinions on the game just now because you know I need to actually say something on the episode that we may or may not be doing (0:06:40) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:06:44) Codey: Okay, I’ll keep it. (0:06:54) Al: so that’s it i’ve been playing it and I will have some opinions (0:06:59) Al: um i’ve also been playing pokemon uh doing all those raids enjoying enjoying those we’re on blast ice now enjoying those blast ice raids getting all the herba mystica (0:07:12) Codey: Mm-hmm. Are you coming to Go Fest in New York City? (0:07:14) Al: yeah (0:07:18) Al: I think you know the answer to that question (0:07:22) Al: no you think I would you think I would be uh doing well no no no (0:07:27) Codey: Come back soon. (0:07:29) Al: you think I would do two uh us you know cross atlantic transatlantic flights in in a year (0:07:36) Codey: yeah I do mm-hmm New York City is a lot easier because then you don’t have to like I mean I’m assuming your flight didn’t go from what would you fly out of Belfast London to like straight to LA right like you probably had something it did that is disgusting I am sorry yeah that is very disgusting um yeah well that never mind with the point I was trying to (0:07:48) Al: London. (0:07:52) Al: It did. Yeah. It was long. It was 11 and a half hours long. (0:07:59) Al: It was. It was not fun. (0:08:06) Codey: but you should still come to New York City so that we can hang out no I’m kidding it is it is it’s expensive it’s long I get it okay (0:08:16) Al: Yeah, not this year. I would like to do it sometime, but not this year. (0:08:21) Codey: per hapith next year cuz it’s I think it’s gonna happen again next year (0:08:25) Al: I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised that people seem to like that place where they did that event. (0:08:32) Al: It was getting a lot of positive stuff, and they have done it for two years in a row. (0:08:36) Codey: Mmm, this will be the second year. (0:08:36) Al: And I don’t think any… I think Chicago is the only other place that’s had two go-fests. (0:08:45) Al: And certainly, I think it’s– (0:08:46) Al: the only one that’s had two in a row, so… (0:08:50) Codey: I think someone said something about how they’ve like booked New York for three years, which would be cool I (0:08:56) Al: That sounds like something that somebody just made up. (0:09:00) Codey: I saw it on the internet and it the internet is correct always (0:09:01) Al: Yeah, cool. Awesome. Wow. Shall we get into this long list of news? (0:09:13) Codey: Mm-hmm (0:09:14) Al: So we have, I’m doing that thing where there’s so much news that I’ve split it up into sections. (0:09:17) Codey: Mm-hmm (0:09:20) Al: So our first section is releases. So we have four releases. (0:09:26) Al: First of all, Chill Town have announced that they’re releasing in early access on the 22nd of March. (0:09:33) Al: So this is one that I have backed on Kickstarter, so I will get that code and I will maybe play the game. (0:09:40) Al: We’ll see. I quite like the look of this one. I think it’s going to be interesting to see whether it does anything unique. (0:09:49) Al: I like its art style. It’s kind of chibiesque. So I guess we’ll see what happens when it actually… (0:09:55) Codey: It’s giving animal crossing, but without animals, (0:09:56) Al: …releases. (0:10:00) Codey: and with a 3D camera, and I guess there’s animals, (0:10:04) Codey: but it’s like your villagers aren’t animals. (0:10:07) Al: - Yes. (0:10:07) Codey: They’re people. (0:10:08) Codey: And like you have a cat that follows you around. (0:10:11) Al: - Yeah. (0:10:13) Codey: But, which is not my cup of tea, (0:10:16) Codey: but excited to hear your thoughts on it, when you, when it, (0:10:21) Codey: are you gonna play the early access then? (0:10:22) Al: No promises. We will see. We’ll see. I mean, let’s, let’s be honest, right? It’s coming out three days after Stardew 1.6, uh, and like a week before I go to the Isle of Man for two weeks. So I’m not promising anything at this point, but, uh, I will play the game at some point, whether I play it in early access or not. I don’t know. Um, I don’t even know like how long the early access will be. So well, uh, as of just now. (0:10:25) Codey: Womp womp. (0:10:26) Codey: Okay. (0:10:31) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:10:35) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:10:44) Codey: Okay. (0:10:48) Codey: And is that just steam? (0:10:53) Al: Um, just windows as well. Uh, not that it matters to me cause I’ll be playing on the steam deck. (0:10:53) Codey: Okay, cool. (0:10:58) Codey: Cool. (0:11:02) Al: Right. Uh, they estimate three months for early access. There’s no way that that’ll be three months in early access. Absolutely. No way. Absolutely. I would bet money on that. (0:11:12) Codey: Like you’re saying it’ll take longer for it to go from early access to 1.0, okay. (0:11:21) Al: three months. (0:11:22) Al: Like what are you even doing in three months? (0:11:25) Al: Three months is nothing. (0:11:28) Al: That’s wild. (0:11:32) Al: That’s wild that they’re suggesting that. (0:11:34) Al: Three months. (0:11:36) Codey: Ambitious. (0:11:36) Al: And it mark my words, right? (0:11:38) Al: Somebody clip this, mark my words. (0:11:40) Al: In a year, it’ll still be in early access. (0:11:42) Codey: Wow. (0:11:43) Al: There’s no way, there’s no way it is going to be not in early access in the next year. (0:11:50) Codey: okay okay not very trusting of something you put your money to right (0:11:56) Al: Well, look, I’m not saying they won’t release a good game. (0:12:00) Al: I’m just saying, if they’re releasing Early Access on the 22nd of March, (0:12:02) Al: that is not coming to one out of Early Access in three months. (0:12:06) Al: It’s just not happening. (0:12:08) Al: Of life and land, they have announced that their Early Access release will be on the 2nd of April. (0:12:18) Al: Woo! (0:12:18) Codey: I hadn’t looked at this, I don’t think, before, so I am very intrigued after I watched the trailer and I kind of looked at it. (0:12:30) Codey: It’s giving like Age of Empires, but Zoo Tycoon at the same time. (0:12:40) Codey: And I love both of those games, so I am curious. (0:12:45) Codey: So we’ll see. (0:12:46) Codey: I didn’t back it or anything, though, and I, again, like… (0:12:48) Codey: I think I also am a little sketched out by early access nowadays, so I probably also want… (0:12:54) Codey: But, like, when it hits 1.0 in a million years, according to you, um… (0:12:54) Al: Well, can I just point out they’re being a lot more realistic. They’re saying it will take a few years. So they are much more, and they’re not even saying like a year or two years, they’re saying a few years. Like that is the absolute right way to do not tell us when it will be out of early access. You don’t, you just don’t know. I think if you know when you’re going to give us a non early access, you probably shouldn’t have done early access. (0:13:10) Codey: Yeah. (0:13:14) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:13:24) Codey: true (0:13:26) Codey: So, yeah, I I will keep my eye on that game slash (0:13:33) Codey: Listen to the podcast and and keep your ear my eye on it (0:13:39) Codey: Listen to when you say (0:13:48) Al: - Yes, this was the one that was called Circle of– (0:13:52) Codey: Well, I still didn’t know what that was, so… (0:13:56) Al: Yeah, I’m just, I’m just saying, I’m just saying. (0:14:01) Al: I don’t think, I don’t think this was, was a Kickstarter. (0:14:08) Codey: think so it’s just (0:14:14) Al: not running out to buy it, but yeah. I want to see it succeed. I like its graphics. I don’t like management games, it’s not my thing, so maybe we need to get Kevin on this one. (0:14:32) Codey: - And Kevin. (0:14:35) Al: Critter Crops is launching, I believe not in Early Access, so they’re just launching 1.0 (0:14:42) Al: on the. (0:14:44) Al: The 15th of April what is with this that’s that’s less than a month we’ve got these three games releasing so it’s gonna be busy. (0:14:54) Codey: yeah this this one I meh I think that the the art style was really cute but um not not hooked (0:15:06) Codey: so listeners tell us how it is when it’s out (0:15:07) Al: you don’t you don’t want to grow magical critters (0:15:16) Codey: Especially like this like April 15th that time is like when I’m gonna be starting my field season. So (0:15:24) Codey: Your girls not gonna have the time (0:15:26) Al: This feels like it might be a fun game to play in October. (0:15:30) Codey: This is like a cozy like cuddle up when it starts getting too cold outside game and then by then they’ll have (0:15:38) Al: if there are any come on a tiny sticker tail is now out on ios and android uh so if you were wanting to play that game but you didn’t want to play it on pc or mac or a switch or steam deck now you can do it on your phone or your tablet (0:16:02) Codey: it does look very cute like using stickers to design landscapes but also like collect little critters and stuff it showed someone like putting a fishing pole sticker on a spot where there was like a black like space like a you know like in games when you’re fishing and there’s like a shadow they put like a fishing pole sticker on it and then when they clipped it (0:16:32) Codey: clicked it again. It was a fish. It was very cute. Um but yeah, not not my bag. (0:16:42) Al: Next we have a bunch of updates for games. So first of all we have Paleo Pines. They have released the (0:16:48) Al: 1.3 update which includes chocolate eggs and new dinosaur colors. They’re like gray scale. (0:16:59) Codey: well so I think what they’re doing is they’re currently grayscale like so that you can’t see it because it’s like supposed to be a mystery but like in the thing it has fake it has like letters (0:17:03) Al: Oh I understand. Yes. (0:17:15) Codey: almost like a hangman style thing and I legit cannot think of like I’m like looking at all of these colors and I’m like what what (0:17:15) Al: it’s like uh yeah that’s what I was thinking like hangman yeah (0:17:29) Codey: like what color has two s’s in the middle of it (0:17:32) Al: So apparently the Stegosaurus is sunflower? (0:17:38) Codey: okay how do you know this (0:17:42) Al: comments the t-rex is tyrant that doesn’t fit these are people saying in the comments but I presume they’re saying they found them so I’m presuming in-game (0:17:46) Codey: look at you having a brain (0:17:51) Codey: like tyrant colors are these confirmed or are these people’s (0:18:01) Codey: Tyrant does fit. (0:18:09) Al: Yeah, but there’s only two spaces after the R. (0:18:12) Al: Oh, no, I’m looking at the wrong one. (0:18:13) Al: T, Y, R, even T. (0:18:14) Codey: Oh yeah yeah. The other T-Rex. (0:18:15) Al: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. (0:18:21) Codey: Is the one with two S’s Nissan? Because I really want it to be Nissan. (0:18:26) Al: I don’t know. (0:18:31) Al: The comments are mixed, shall we say. (0:18:44) Al: So if you want some other coloured dinosaurs, they’re not black and white, apparently, I misunderstood that, and you want chocolate eggs, go update your paleopines now. (0:18:55) Codey: it says that there’s only five chocolate eggs and they basically like max out or make a (0:19:02) Codey: I almost said pokemon make a dinosaur your friends like really easily um so yeah yep (0:19:09) Al: Instantly befriend. Instant befriending. (0:19:15) Codey: I mean anyone that gives me chocolate is instantly my friend too let’s be real so (0:19:21) Al: Travellers Rest have a fishing update. I just feel that I haven’t written with it. (0:19:27) Al: Yes it is out now. So this adds a new fishing system. It’s not just the first fishing system because Travellers Rest keep adding things in that were like I don’t how did you not have (0:19:39) Al: this already but no they did have a fishing system before this is just a new one and also new recipes new decorations a new area and new characters (0:19:40) Codey: they’ve just updated it okay (0:19:53) Codey: yep so the new area was the beach and there are new characters associated with the beach (0:20:01) Codey: eyes again not a game i’m playing or likely to play but I did really like one of the decorations that looked like um it’s like a painting that has a teal border on it um I think it’s part of the decorations are like the beach set decorations looks very good (0:20:17) Al: Yeah, you know, I think I’m starting to think that farming games are not a great early access candidate because like, I mean, if, you know, if I’d played Stardew the first time and you just couldn’t go to the beach, that’d be weird. I’m not sure I’d continue playing. (0:20:34) Codey: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. (0:20:41) Codey: Yeah, well, and then like also you have at least a little bit of understanding of what the mechanics are. (0:20:47) Codey: And so like if you, for example, don’t really like the mechanics, but it’s like say that you later would have played the game and you didn’t like the mechanics, but you really liked the exploration, then you don’t really have that in that early access. (0:21:00) Codey: So it kind of like… (0:21:04) Codey: limits that, I don’t know. (0:21:08) Codey: I do think, I think early farming games are weird to have in early access for sure, because like hitting like a time wall or hitting a, like not having all of the features is just. (0:21:23) Al: or even just story suddenly stopping. (0:21:28) Codey: Hint, hint, perhaps, talk about it later. (0:21:29) Al: Which we may talk about later. (0:21:34) Codey: That was also a little weird, so, but yeah, cool that they’re still. (0:21:40) Al: yes, yes, yes, yes. One Lonely Outpost. Oh boy, do we love a post like this? So they’ve apologized for the silence. They believe in their game and then I’ve put in brackets, (0:21:58) Al: your mileage may vary. Whether you believe in the game or not is up to you. You’ve quoted Did you want you want to or should I? (0:22:00) Codey: Oh, I was wondering what that meant. (0:22:09) Codey: Yeah (0:22:10) Al: I quote this and you can just say what your response was because I think you’re, I think maybe that works best. (0:22:15) Codey: Okay, go for it (0:22:16) Al: So, Corey has quoted some of the article and it’s, “We know many of you have concerns about the amount of content currently in-game and how long it is taken to get where we are today. (0:22:28) Al: It has been a long and bumpy road, but we wholeheartedly believe in the path ahead and are excited to begin sharing upcoming content now that we have handled the majority of bugs and made some highly requested, (0:22:42) Codey: - Okay. (0:22:47) Al: - Yeah, it feels like a weird, like, at this point, right? (0:22:53) Al: Like, if you’re being silent for months and then you’re coming back, (0:22:59) Al: I think that you need to give people something. (0:23:01) Al: And yeah, sure, you’ve got quality of life improvements, (0:23:03) Al: but like, there’s five different updates in this, (0:23:07) Al: but like, it’s added run toggle with left shift or L3. (0:23:13) Codey: Or like you don’t freeze in this certain spot anymore or it’s… yeah. (0:23:13) Al: Like. Yeah, like. (0:23:17) Al: Nothing is particularly, it’s now possible to manually save your game. (0:23:22) Al: Like, nothing is like, wow, this makes this game so different and so exciting. (0:23:22) Codey: » [LAUGH] (0:23:28) Al: Like, I feel like if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna come back with something, (0:23:31) Al: you need to come back with something big. (0:23:33) Al: No, here’s five releases with a few quality of life fixes and a bunch of bug fixes. (0:23:39) Al: And I promise we have more stuff coming. (0:23:43) Codey: Well, and these a lot of these should have just been like small patches that like you there were five like they have (0:23:50) Codey: It’s like patch five six seven eight not and it’s just (0:23:54) Codey: So much in all of those patches and like why didn’t why didn’t each of these patches just have like a small post along with them (0:24:01) Codey: like why did you not (0:24:03) Codey: Like why I can’t I guess I don’t understand if they’re releasing these all now like they just hit like a mass (0:24:09) Codey: release the patches button (0:24:12) Codey: or. (laughs) (0:24:13) Al: No, they have been releasing them over time. I do think they’ve been posting them on Steam. (0:24:15) Codey: But they haven’t been commenting? (0:24:18) Codey: ‘Kay. (0:24:20) Al: So there is that. But yeah, it’s I mean, the last one was in January. The last update, (0:24:30) Al: which they don’t even talk about here. They don’t even talk about that update in this post. And that was nearly two months ago. Their communication really needs to improve. (0:24:43) Codey: And they said that it’s going to, they said that going forward, they’re going to be a lot more transparent and give updates more frequently. (0:24:49) Codey: And that’s great. (0:24:50) Al: Cool, I don’t believe them. (0:24:50) Codey: Do that, um, for people. (0:24:53) Al: I don’t, like, I don’t, if you say, (0:24:53) Codey: Yeah. (0:24:57) Al: if you say that our communication is going to improve, (0:25:00) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:25:01) Al: you need to communicate better in that post. (0:25:04) Codey: Yeah. (0:25:04) Al: They’re not even doing that. (0:25:07) Codey: Yeah, so I mean (0:25:08) Al: The game came into early access on the 28th of June last year. (0:25:13) Al: And as of now, every update has been basically just quality of life. (0:25:20) Al: They haven’t done any new content in, what is that, eight months? (0:25:26) Al: This is why I’m saying that, you know, games aren’t in early access for three months. (0:25:28) Codey: Games shouldn’t be in early access. (0:25:31) Al: and I’m. (0:25:31) Codey: Yeah. (0:25:36) Codey: We’ll believe, well, positively optimistic, (0:25:39) Codey: cautiously optimistic, perhaps. (0:25:42) Al: Okay, if you say so. I mean, this game has been had issues for quite a while, right? (0:25:46) Codey: Just respond, okay. (0:25:53) Al: Because the original development team were essentially pushed out by the publisher, and the publisher put in a new development team, and then they completely changed the art style, (0:26:05) Al: and then they released an early access in June. They basically haven’t updated anything other than some bug fixes and quality of life improvements in 8 months. (0:26:13) Al: They’re now saying that they are going to get better at communicating after months of saying nothing. (0:26:19) Al: They don’t communicate well in the post when they apologize about not communicating well. (0:26:24) Al: And the every single comment on the post is, “Where’s the switch release?” (0:26:32) Al: The switch release, I don’t think, is going to come, like, and if it does come, it’s going to be terrible. (0:26:38) Al: I think this is just the standard now, is terrible switch ports. (0:26:43) Al: You played you played Carl Island on switch, right? (0:26:46) Codey: Yeah, sorry. No, no, no, I’m playing it on game pass. Um, I will say apico good switch port (0:26:46) Al: How was that? (0:26:47) Al: No, you didn’t, right? Okay. (0:26:50) Al: Oh, yes. (0:26:54) Al: Yes. (0:26:56) Codey: Hashtag not all cottagecore games, but um (0:26:59) Codey: But yeah, I you know If you’re struggling to communicate effectively at this level and then you try and add a whole (0:27:06) Codey: Like I know from like el talking about that like porting apico to the consoles was pain in the butt (0:27:14) Codey: So if you’re already (0:27:16) Codey: struggling with basic stuff, like just being a bit more bit ambitious perhaps. (0:27:22) Al: Yeah, okay, Carl Island is… (0:27:28) Codey: Yeah, I’m playing it on game. (0:27:30) Al: Yeah, I don’t know. We’ll see what happens. I think I’m mostly disappointed because I was originally very excited about this game because I think it could be really cool. I do own it. I haven’t played it. I kick-started it. And I haven’t played it because I’m not enthused by it. And it’s in early access and they basically haven’t done anything. So I’m not really sure why I would be enthusiastic about that at all. (0:27:56) Codey: Would you say that you’re not mad? (0:27:59) Al: I would say I’m not mad, I’m just- (0:28:00) Al: Disappointed, yeah, I would I would definitely say that there’s something about the new art style. That’s just weird (0:28:08) Al: It’s like bad paper Mario, it’s like if paper Mario does (0:28:14) Codey: I especially after playing Coral Island, I just don’t think I like the like spritish. (0:28:25) Al: Yep. Fair. Fair. Yeah. I think, I suspect, I think, so pixel art, I think only really exists now for nostalgia, right? Like it’s a thing that people do because it reminds them of the past. I think that probably the only reason you still like Stardew is because of nostalgia, but not nostalgia for pixel art, nostalgia for Stardew specifically. Right? (0:28:30) Codey: Stardew being the exception, I guess. (0:28:47) Codey: Yes, 100%. (0:28:51) Codey: Correct. (0:28:54) Al: Stardew is not the best farming game. (0:28:56) Al: That doesn’t mean it’s bad, right? (0:28:59) Al: It is, absolutely. (0:29:01) Al: It doesn’t mean that Stardew’s bad, and I don’t think it should be drastically different from what it is, but it does mean that it is essentially nostalgia. (0:29:13) Al: And even when we get updates, and I’m absolutely going to play the 1.6 update, and I’m sure I’m going to love it, but a lot of that is because it’s Stardew. (0:29:21) Al: Like if I hadn’t played Stardew and I was coming to Stardew now. (0:29:25) Al: I wouldn’t be playing it. And that’s okay. That’s fine. Like we don’t have to always like the same things. It’s been eight years since Stardew came out. You can’t expect to like something forever. (0:29:38) Al: It’s just a lot of games eight years ago, well probably more like seven years ago when it came out in Switch, decided to make that but X and a lot of them are finding that it’s really hard. (0:30:01) Al: Why is it 100 minus 100 Celsius in this game? (0:30:07) Al: There’s a screenshot I’m looking at on Steam and the guys outside farming and (0:30:11) Codey: Okay, is this one the only outpost still? (0:30:14) Al: yeah, and it says minus 1000 degrees Celsius. (0:30:17) Codey: 1,000, okay. (0:30:18) Al: No, 100, sorry, sorry, 100, 100. (0:30:20) Al: Minus 1000 wouldn’t make any sense. (0:30:22) Al: That’s below absolute freezing. (0:30:23) Al: Minus 100 degrees Celsius. (0:30:24) Codey: isn’t isn’t uh one lonely outpost like on a planet yeah it’s very it’s very cold on (0:30:29) Al: It’s on Mars, yeah, but… (0:30:32) Al: Yeah, but I think it’s the point not that you’re… (0:30:36) Al: …terraforming it. (0:30:38) Al: And he’s out there without a spacesuit. (0:30:42) Al: Is he meant to be in a dome then? Is that the idea? (0:30:44) Codey: If I mean if he’s in a dome and it is still negative 100 Celsius (0:30:48) Al: Well, I’m presuming the -100 is on the… (0:30:51) Al: If you’re in a dome, it’s on the outside of it. (0:30:53) Al: But it doesn’t look like that. (0:30:53) Codey: Yeah (0:30:54) Al: And I’m just very confused as to why it’s saying -100 and he’s just outside. (0:30:58) Codey: I mean, maybe they’ll just wave it hand wave technology. He took the warm potion (0:31:06) Al: Why is it exactly minus 100 as well? That’s weird. Suspicious. Also, there’s running water. (0:31:14) Codey: at minus 100? Are you sure it’s water? Okay. (0:31:16) Al: Yeah. Yeah. He’s watering crops with it, so… (0:31:24) Al: Minus 100. That’s where, like, boiling water freezes immediately, right? (0:31:28) Codey: Yeah. (0:31:32) Al: You’re not watering crops in minus 100. I need to… (0:31:34) Codey: You also shouldn’t be alive in minus 100. (0:31:36) Al: Yeah, that too. Like, if he was in a suit, sure, but still, the watering wouldn’t make any sense. (0:31:41) Al: Right, let’s stop talking about this game. (0:31:42) Codey: Okay, moving on. (0:31:45) Al: Last thing, there’s a romance update coming, right? Because that’s all we need. (0:31:49) Codey: Okay. (0:31:49) Al: It’s absolutely definitely what we need in the space farming game, is romance. (0:31:54) Codey: Can you romance aliens? (0:31:57) Al: Stardew 1.6. We have the date. Stardew 1.6 is coming out on the 19th of March. (0:32:04) Codey: Wow, very close. (0:32:05) Al: That is… (0:32:06) Al: One week after this… Less than one week after this episode comes out. (0:32:12) Al: So I hope you’re all excited. (0:32:15) Al: Interestingly, Concerned David did a interview with Polygon, (0:32:23) Al: and he said, I quote, “There’s a lot more of the update than people think.” (0:32:30) Al: And so I’m very intrigued to this because he’s already told us a lot of things. (0:32:35) Al: So, what’s he been doing? (0:32:40) Codey: Well, so I have you read Brandon Sanderson books (0:32:40) Al: No. (0:32:44) Codey: Okay, there’s an author named Brandon Sanderson and like he went on vacation once for a little bit And when he got back from vacation, he was like, hey, that was very restful I wrote four more books and like I feel like that’s also how concerned ape is is like he’s he’s like You know, I needed to take a break from making games. And so I made these other games (0:33:05) Codey: And I feel like so him saying that I’m like yep (0:33:10) Codey: makes sense like not surprised at all you know people are probably gonna be really excited there’s probably more than what he’s saying or he’s just a content machine he’s just pumping it out I also was really shocked so I thought that he was like a secret of who he was like secret identity type of thing and so I saw the picture in the polygon article the picture of him like at the Manhattan Orchestra concert thing that they had first of all (0:33:28) Al: » [LAUGH] (0:33:36) Al: The concert. Yeah. (0:33:40) Codey: if I had known he was physically gonna go I would have gone second of all not not what I expected a handsome dude yeah I don’t know I was just I was like oh he’s making an appearance and then very very shocked so but man are you excited Are you did have you blocked out like a week? (0:34:09) Codey: week. (0:34:11) Al: A week. Um, some time. Blocked out some time for playing this game and definitely haven’t put a completely unrealistic timeline on myself. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. Totally. It’s all going to be fine. Um, it’s all going to be fine. Sarcasm or just like fear? (0:34:20) Codey: okay (0:34:26) Codey: the sarcasm um (0:34:31) Codey: oh hopefully not fear yike please don’t (0:34:32) Al: Not sure. We’ll see. We’ll see. Love, love to stress myself. Um, too late. Too late! (0:34:40) Al: Bye! (0:34:42) Al: Cool. (0:34:46) Al: Yeah, I really don’t know what to think because like he’s already said that there’s a new major festival, two mini festivals, newly gained content which expands on each of the skill areas, (0:34:57) Al: a whole bunch of new items and crafting recipes, Georgia alternatives to some of the end game quests, a hundred plus lines of dialogue, winter outfits for the visitors, new type of reward for for completing billboard requests, support for 8-player multiplayer. (0:35:11) Al: A new farm type, a new secrets, and he’s still saying that we have no clue how much there is like, “Dude, yeah, I’m really intrigued.” (0:35:18) Codey: Like there’s, but wait, there’s more like overwhelmed. (0:35:25) Al: It was funny, I was thinking the other day, I was thinking I’m going to start a new save for this update because he says that there’s stuff all through the game that he’s added when I really want to kind of experience that stuff as it comes, rather than just getting dumped into all an endgame. (0:35:39) Al: in the end game. (0:35:41) Al: And I was like, oh, maybe I should start the save now, just like get it ready. (0:35:45) Al: And then I was like, no, I need to know what this new farm is before I decide what I’m doing, right? (0:35:47) Codey: Gotta do the new farm, yeah. (0:35:49) Al: Like, not necessarily do the new farm, right? (0:35:51) Al: Because if it was something like the beach one where you can’t use sprinklers, right? (0:35:55) Al: I’m not doing that. (0:35:58) Codey: what if what if it’s a blimp a sky farm I don’t know I have no idea I just like thought of that in my brain and I was like that’d be really funny so if it comes out and it’s a blimp I’m just really smart my subconscious was very excited yeah (0:35:58) Al: But we’ll see. (0:36:03) Al: In the sky, what is this, what is this room factory? (0:36:16) Al: Well, we’ll see. We will see. Yeah, I do. Your point about, like, taking a break from making games to make games is very funny because, yeah, 100% what happened was he had an idea for a new game, so he started working on that. And then as he was doing that, his brain went, (0:36:36) Al: “What about all these other things you could do to your other game?” And so he paused and went into them. (0:36:38) Codey: Yeah. Yeah. Some of these people are so freaking creative and like I bow to them because the ability to just churn out things and things that are enjoyable, like it’s just magical and I am incapable, incapable of doing that. Um, the creation of (0:36:58) Al: Well, I mean, that’s the thing, like you look at Stardew and it’s like everything he adds is good. (0:37:07) Codey: Mm-hmm (0:37:07) Al: You’re just like, I don’t, you know, we’ll see eventually, eventually. (0:37:12) Codey: He can’t miss I mean he probably could miss like there’s probably something that he could do but I (0:37:20) Codey: Feel like he’s gonna you know He’s gonna let it die the hero versus having the game live long enough to see itself become the villain (0:37:29) Codey: I think we’ll be fine (0:37:36) Codey: I will listen to the podcast. I cannot get sucked back into that game. (0:37:41) Codey: I have a field season to plan. (0:37:46) Codey: I know. I’m gonna hear- I’m gonna listen to the podcast and just be like, “Dang it!” (0:37:52) Al: Next, we have Sugar Dew Island. This game, we talked about it a couple of weeks ago. (0:37:59) Codey: and how the name is stupid. (0:37:59) Al: The name is stupid. We don’t need to talk about the name again. I don’t even… Well, (0:38:03) Al: okay. No, we do need to talk about the game again, the name again, because for some reason they address this in the Kickstarter. So, okay. Point of the news… That was words. (0:38:15) Al: Point of the news is that the Kickstarter’s live and it has hit the base goal. (0:38:22) Al: So, the game’s being made. Apparently, it’s coming out in August this year. So, whatever. (0:38:30) Codey: 1.0? (0:38:34) Al: Good question. We’ll find out. It doesn’t say. Well, no, it does actually, because it says, yeah, there’s an early access tier and they say, we expect that you’ll be able to play two to six weeks earlier, which by the way, what a weird time. Two to six weeks. (0:38:52) Al: Like, what? That’s not early access. That’s just paid. (0:38:52) Codey: Yeah. (0:38:56) Codey: Well, so I guess that’s the actual word of early access. (0:39:01) Codey: Instead of it being early access being a trial period, (0:39:05) Codey: it’s more of that you paid for it, (0:39:07) Codey: so you’re getting access to the game earlier than other humans. (0:39:12) Al: OK, right, if I have to put my money on it just now, Early Access is coming out this year, main game is not coming out this year. We’ll see. I mean, it’s not real money, right? (0:39:20) Codey: - You’re putting your money down on a lot of things this episode. (0:39:25) Al: Like I’m not actually betting anything. Yeah, so the name, the name, the name, the name. (0:39:28) Codey: Okay. (0:39:32) Al: They said, I need to quote this because this is just stupid. OK. You know what? You know No, it’s right. Right. Okay. Wait, no, right. (0:39:32) Codey: The name. (0:39:42) Al: Hmm. You know that it’s stupid when they have to have a part of their Kickstarter addressing the name. Right. They say the name sugar dew island and then they have a little picture of your currency in the game and say an arrow that points to it and said this is sugar dew. Okay, great. Fantastic. (0:39:53) Codey: okay (0:40:06) Al: Thank you. As our in-game currency is called Zukertal in German. (0:40:12) Al: Zukertal translates to sugar dew in English and is a central aspect of our game. Yep. That’s how currencies work. It was crucial for us to include it in the game’s name. Given the island setting sugar dew island was a natural choice. Wow. Congratulations. Your imagination knows no bounds. (0:40:37) Al: You have a currency and you’re on an island. Well done. (0:40:42) Codey: just like my favorite my favorite game uh money valley and gold island (0:40:43) Al: It’s just, while we’re aware of similarities to other titles, although it wasn’t intentional, (0:40:58) Al: after much deliberation, we unanimously agreed that sugar dew island best encapsulates the game. (0:40:58) Codey: i’m sure (0:41:04) Codey: What I hear from that is we don’t have an imagination and we don’t want to come up with anything else. (0:41:10) Al: And then they’re like, “We also asked the community in a big survey, and the majority thought the name ‘Sugar-Jew Island’ was more fitting than ‘Sugar-Drop Island’.” (0:41:20) Al: And I’m like, “Oh, okay, like those aren’t the only two possibilities, though. It’s not like it has to be one or the other. Wha- what are you doing? I don’t- like you could have just literally called it like. (0:41:30) Codey: - German, German currency island. (0:41:36) Codey: - Yeah, that’s funny. (0:41:40) Al: The other thing that really amused me about this Kickstarter is in their platforms, they say, “We’re currently planning to release the game on PC slash Steam.” (0:41:42) Codey: - Yeah. (0:41:51) Codey: - Yep. (0:42:06) Al: I don’t know why that’s a slash, but whatever. (0:42:22) Al: They’re, they’re gonna, and they haven’t put up their stretch goals, but it sounds like what they’re saying is a stretch goal will be boating to the switch too. (0:42:32) Al: Don’t do that. Console doesn’t exist yet. Don’t do that. You have no idea what this console is. (0:42:37) Codey: Yeah. (0:42:40) Codey: Don’t even mention it. (0:42:40) Al: You cannot guarantee, you cannot guarantee that you will be on this console when you don’t even know what it is. (0:42:48) Codey: Well, and also doesn’t it depend on like if they actually want it to be on like you have to like, I’m pretty sure you can’t just like throw money at Nintendo and be like, let me put my game on your console like okay. (0:42:59) Al: No, no. But, I mean, basically Nintendo lets anyone on now, right? Like, unless there’s something very specific that they don’t like, they basically like anybody, you know? Like, (0:43:07) Al: which I think is the better way to do things than what they had been doing previously, (0:43:10) Al: which was it was really difficult to get on the 3DS. But yeah, like, you just literally have no idea. You have no idea what this console is going to be. You have no idea if it would even make sense. You don’t know that there ever is going to be another console for certain. (0:43:27) Codey: I was going to say, have they announced another console I was like, did I miss a big okay. (0:43:27) Al: Do not, do not promise. (0:43:30) Al: Do you want this to be on this console? (0:43:33) Al: No. (0:43:36) Al: No, they have not. (0:43:38) Al: No, you did not. (0:43:42) Al: Also, there’s a very big chance, (0:43:44) Al: there’s a very big chance that when the Switch 2 does come out, that it will. (0:43:47) Codey: Is it called the switch too? (0:43:48) Al: No, we don’t know that, of course, we don’t know that. (0:43:49) Codey: Okay. (0:43:50) Codey: Okay. (0:43:50) Al: I’m just that’s just what people are referring to as just now. (0:43:51) Codey: Okay. (0:43:56) Al: I wonder, do you think they called the Wii U, (0:43:59) Al: because somebody said the Wii 2 and they misheard it. (0:44:02) Codey: It’s going to be the switch do. (0:44:08) Codey: Oh, and then they have to be on it. (0:44:09) Al: I switched you switched you island And… (0:44:14) Codey: Switch do island. (0:44:17) Codey: Just double down that it’s going to be on the new switch thing and that they’re going to call it the switch do. (0:44:22) Al: Oh, like at this point just ask an AI for a name, you’d be like it’s a bad name. Right, (0:44:28) Al: whatever. Sugardew Island somehow is getting a lot of traction from people and I really don’t understand why. Yeah, but it doesn’t look like it’s doing… Okay, right. Full disclosure, (0:44:28) Codey: probably will. It, I mean it, it looks cute. It’s not, it’s not… (0:44:40) Al: I have backed this game, of course I’ve backed this game, right? Like you don’t need to get into this. If it weren’t for this podcast, I wouldn’t be backing this game because nothing about this This is exciting! (0:44:50) Codey: that you know. What if it’s on the switch do? (0:44:53) Al: » I just like, I mean, it looks cute. (0:44:58) Al: I will agree with that, but everything else looks pretty standard. (0:45:02) Al: The only different thing is, oh, you can run a shop. (0:45:05) Al: And that has never been done with. (0:45:08) Codey: I liked running the shop in Garden Paws, which is a game that Bev and I covered, but I mean it was just fun because you just throw stuff up in the shop and then there’s a never-ending line of the little characters that come up and just buy all your stuff and then you have to keep putting new stuff out and accepting all their money and stuff. (0:45:15) Al: Yeah, I didn’t try that one, so I guess it could be good in that, but I highly doubt it. (0:45:38) Codey: But like, and it’s really cute, but I wouldn’t say it was like the best. (0:45:46) Al: See, my problem with running a shop is, generally, you’re either very limited in how much you can sell, or you have to haggle and you have to figure out the right way to get enough money, which is just annoying, or it takes time out of your day, which is just without adding any fun gameplay, like, sure, it’s adding some gameplay, but that doesn’t mean that it’s fun gameplay. (0:46:16) Al: Maneko’s Night Market was fine, but only in so much as like that was a thing that happened as part of the week, like it was a process where okay now is when you go to the night market and there were lots of things that happened there and also you went and sold - you chose the things to take with you and you sold them and they did the haggling in such a way that you can make a loo- (0:46:46) Al: lot of money very quickly. (0:46:48) Al: I think that’s what it needs to be. (0:46:50) Al: Not just like, “Oh, you can make 10% more if you know the right thing to do.” (0:46:54) Al: No, it needs to be you can make five times as much if you know what you’re doing. (0:46:57) Codey: Yeah (0:46:58) Al: Like it needs to be worth it. (0:47:01) Codey: Yeah What if it so I could I could foresee like a game that? (0:47:06) Codey: You run a shop with friends. So you have someone that like is the storefront manager and (0:47:14) Codey: Organizes everything and then you have someone who like supplies the store. So you (0:47:22) Codey: Dude I want the shop owner. I would love that. Okay, cool (0:47:27) Codey: » When we get shop owner Villa game, the game. (0:47:36) Al: already a better name than Sugardew, I nearly call this Sugardew Valley, that’s part of the problem, right? (0:47:41) Codey: I will be the, yeah. (0:47:46) Al: Okay, fine. I feel like I’m finishing everything recently with let’s stop talking about this game. (0:47:54) Codey: Let’s just move on before my hope in humanity goes any further. (0:47:57) Al: Yeah, if you if you are interested in this game, go back it. If you’re not, then that’s fine. We’re not going to talk about until there’s something new about it. I’m not going to keep you up to date. (0:48:04) Codey: backed it. You backed on. (0:48:05) Al: I’m not going to keep you up to date on. (0:48:06) Al: Kickstarter every moment of every day. (0:48:10) Al: I did, yes, because I’m giving the people what they want. (0:48:13) Al: Because apparently what the people want is my pain. (0:48:17) Al: Well, I mean, look forward to next week’s episode, if that’s what you want. (0:48:21) Codey: Oh no. (0:48:24) Al: Pixel Shire. Pixel Shire have announced that they’re coming to PS5 and Switch. (0:48:24) Codey: Unfortunate. (0:48:30) Al: So that’s cool. It sounds like they didn’t. (0:48:34) Al: Well, I mean, why, what is good about this is the… (0:48:36) Al: I’m pretty sure the game’s done or almost done, and they wanted to get it all together and all ready before they actually said they were going to do it. (0:48:47) Al: I don’t think they’d ever said anywhere that they were going to be in these two consoles until now. (0:48:52) Al: So it sounds like they’ve done everything the right way. (0:48:54) Al: And it looks like, at least on my shop front, everything’s listed in pounds. (0:48:59) Al: So I don’t know exactly how this is working, but at least here it says the game is set to launch in summer 2024. (0:49:06) Al: Sounds to me like it’s all coming together at the same time, they’re going for, you know, cross platform simultaneous release. (0:49:14) Al: This team says 2024, I suspect in a month or so, a month or two months or something, we’ll get some idea. (0:49:24) Al: We, I mean, we mentioned at the end of last year that they’d said they weren’t going to do early access and just release 1.0 in 2024, so. (0:49:34) Al: Yeah, we’ll see what happens. (0:49:36) Al: But, I mean, I think they’re doing the right thing if they’ve got it all ready and they’re going to release it all at once and they haven’t told us until they know they can definitely do it. (0:49:46) Al: Which is good. (0:49:47) Al: So. (0:49:48) Al: There we go. (0:49:50) Al: Blah, blah, blah. (0:49:53) Al: Forager. (0:49:54) Al: My word. (0:49:55) Al: Never thought I’d be talking about forager again. (0:49:58) Al: So a little bit of history with forager. (0:50:00) Al: Forager came out in 2019, I think the first version was? (0:50:05) Al: Mm-hmm. (0:50:07) Al: I’m going to tell you, yeah, April 2019, the first version of Forager. (0:50:10) Al: Fantastic. (0:50:11) Al: They released three updates to the game with significant content. (0:50:17) Al: And then they were working on a multiplayer (0:50:20) Al: version and a multiplayer update, which in. (0:50:26) Al: Three years ago, 2021, they canceled the multiplayer update. (0:50:32) Al: Then there was a little bit of (0:50:34) Al: I mean, they said they said (0:50:36) Al: around, you know, kind of people who had previously been on the team, not being happy with the main guy and some nothing like significant, nothing like, you know, abuse or anything like that, just more kind of, you know, not being a great person and maybe being offered things that were not great and leaving the team and et cetera, et cetera. And then we got a post nearly two years ago. (0:50:49) Codey: - Right. (0:50:53) Codey: Just grottled, yeah. (0:51:06) Al: That said, don’t worry, Forager is not abandoned, we’ll hopefully have some news for you this year. (0:51:17) Al: So that was 2022. (0:51:18) Al: May of 2022, that was the last day. (0:51:21) Al: And then yesterday as we’re recording, so Wednesday the 6th of March, 2024, we suddenly get a post from Hopfrog the Creator saying, “I hope everyone likes adventure.” (0:51:36) Al: And a screenshot of something with the Forager guy in it. (0:51:42) Al: And another comment that said, “You guys have no idea how much stuff I have to announce.” (0:51:48) Al: So there’s nothing much to say at this point because they haven’t announced anything, except the fact that they have stuff to announce. (0:51:54) Codey: okay but but we were ghosted for two years (0:52:01) Al: They were ghosted for two years, and now suddenly he’s back. (0:52:05) Codey: I don’t know if i’m ready to be heard again I didn’t play this game though you played this game right you enjoyed it yeah (0:52:06) Al: I did, I really liked Forager, I really liked it. (0:52:16) Al: I’m not really sure like the Forager guy is big enough to hold up a franchise, which is what it looks like. (0:52:23) Al: This screenshot that I will post in the show notes if I remember, this isn’t the Forager game, right? (0:52:32) Al: That’s not how the game looks. (0:52:35) Al: So I don’t know what this is. (0:52:36) Al: It’s not forager forager is like a top-down isometric game this is a side on platformer maybe I don’t know what we’re looking at here (0:52:48) Codey: It’s giving platformer rides. (0:52:51) Al: so I don’t know what we’re looking at whether it’s I mean it could I guess be forager it like it could be a specific mode in forager it could be a forager - (0:53:03) Al: It could be something else, I don’t know. (0:53:08) Al: But it’s not what Forager was anyway, but that is the Forager guy. (0:53:16) Al: So yeah, I don’t know. We’ll see. (0:53:21) Codey: Mean as the forage or fan of the pod w

Let's dive into the world of Palia where we'll be discussing what the game is, early receptions and community activity, and my thoughts on the game both at the outset and its current state! Get cozy and let's sit around the hearth together! ‧₊˚ Sites mentioned: • Polygon article:  https://www.polygon.com/23833110/palia-cash-shop-microtransactions-cost-outfits-cosmetics • What's with the community being so toxic? https://www.reddit.com/r/Palia/comments/15syezs/whats_with_the_community_being_so_toxic/ ‧₊˚ shoot me an email at gamershearthpodcast@gmail.com ‧₊˚ follow me across all of my social media platforms! • tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@laelindria • twitter - https://twitter.com/laelindria• podcast twitter - https://twitter.com/thegamershearth • instagram - https://www.instagram.com/laelindria/ ‧₊˚  join our cozy and welcoming discord community! - https://discord.gg/Ux9c5dh84V ‧₊˚ support me directly via tips and subscriptions and get a member-only bonus episode each month on ko-fi!  - https://ko-fi.com/laelindria ‧₊˚ come hang out on twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/laelindria

We've been promising to come back to this game for months and we finally did it! Palia has had a load of updates since we first covered it and we want to share how the game is shaping up. From the biggest temple to a brand new villager, we cover the highlights of a game that is truly carving a path for quality cozy MMOs. Support the show

Al and Jonnie talk about Turnip Boy Robs a Bank Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:01:30: What Have We Been Up To 00:06:52: News 00:29:43: Turnip Boy Robs A Bank 01:01:06: Outro Links Botany Manor Release Date Moonstone Island Valentine’s Update Ikonei Island Festival Update Slime Rancher 2 Gadgets My Way Update Potion Permit on iOS and Android Wylde Flowers Beans Plushie Wylde Flowers on Apple Vision Pro Disney Dreamlight Valley Update 9 Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator Story Trailer Contact Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:30) Al: Hello farmers, and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. My name is Al, (0:00:36) Jonnie: And my name is Johnny. (0:00:37) Al: and we’re here today to talk about Gottagecore Games. (0:00:43) Al: Before we get going, just a reminder that transcripts for this podcast are available in the show notes and on the website. Today, we, me and Johnny, are going to talk about Turnip Boy robs a bank, because apparently I didn’t write it in the show notes. (0:01:00) Al: We’re going to talk about Turnip Boy robs a bank, the sequel to Turnip Boy commits tax evasion, (0:01:09) Al: and we’re not going to talk about it now, we’re going to talk about it later. (0:01:15) Al: Before that, just because we could easily fall into a discussion about it right now if we’re not careful. (0:01:20) Jonnie: Yeah, I was already head like in the line of things. (0:01:22) Jonnie: I was like, oh, I should not say this right now. (0:01:26) Al: But before that, we’ve got a bunch of news. (0:01:30) Al: But first of all, Johnny, what have you been up to? (0:01:34) Jonnie: What have I been up to? There is a game called Skull and Bones and apparently it has been in development since 2013 and it is apparently about to come out, but this weekend it is doing a public demo I guess is what it is where anyone can try the game for free, it will be over by the time you’re listening to this, although the game will be like a day or two from coming out. (0:02:02) Jonnie: And look I’m a bit of a slut for pirates like I love pirate games even though they’re just like (0:02:09) Jonnie: Piracy is so hard to do well in games (0:02:14) Jonnie: And I think in many respects Skull and Bones is kind of a (0:02:17) Jonnie: Testament to that like there are things that I really like about the game (0:02:21) Jonnie: But it’s gonna be a pretty hard game to recommend like people (0:02:26) Jonnie: Spend I think it’s assume is gonna be like a $70 game and I’d be very hard to recommend that anyone spend (0:02:33) Jonnie: dollars on a game. (0:02:34) Jonnie: Like this, unless you are super super into pirates. (0:02:37) Al: I’m not, so. I mean, pirates are fine, but I’ve never been like, “Oh yeah, I love pirates.” (0:02:43) Al: I’ve enjoyed some pirate-based media, but there’s a difference between, “Oh yeah, I like that,” (0:02:49) Al: and like, “Oh no, I must consume the pirate-based media.” You know, there’s a big difference there. (0:02:56) Jonnie: Honestly, I think the biggest problem with pirate-based stuff is ship-to-ship combat is really hard to do and to make fun and engaging. (0:03:06) Al: Yeah. (0:03:06) Jonnie: And everyone probably has a slightly different view on what it should be. (0:03:12) Al: Hmm. (0:03:12) Jonnie: And, you know, do they want it to be really fun? (0:03:12) Al: The fun bit, I think, there is key. (0:03:16) Al: It’s probably, you can probably make up a pretty accurate one, but it’s not going to be fun. (0:03:20) Jonnie: Correct, yeah. In many respects I think Skull & Bones has gone down how do we try and make it fun? (0:03:28) Jonnie: And I’m sure a lot of people will find the version fun. For me it’s a little bit too like, (0:03:32) Jonnie: you and your pirate ship mow down hundreds of other pirate ships which feels like… (0:03:39) Jonnie: That’s not what I guess I want from a pirate ship experience. I want to engage in one ship in a sort of long drawn out battle rather than mow down a hundred ships. (0:03:48) Al: Yeah, and I guess the difficulty is like, what are you focusing on? Because when you’ve got a ship, do you focus on the traversal? Do you focus on the combat? Do you try and do both and do both of them badly? There’s a lot to think of there. (0:04:10) Jonnie: Yeah, and I guess for me, the Skull and Bones, you have a character, but realistically in this one, (0:04:16) Jonnie: your character is the ship, right? You are controlling the ship, and that is the majority of the gameplay. And I think that’s one of the things that I’m learning about what I like in games over the sort of past few months is a strong narrative element, and in many respects, (0:04:32) Jonnie: I think that means I need a character that I feel tied to. Because I think my take on Skull and and bones is like I will have fun with it. (0:04:40) Jonnie: But I after this demo will likely have got what I needed to get out of it, which I had the same experience with (0:04:46) Jonnie: PowerWorld It’s like I experienced the thing and it was cool, but without that strong (0:04:53) Jonnie: narrative driven element or hook that I could find I bounce off it pretty quickly (0:04:58) Al: Yeah, yeah, that’s fair. (0:05:01) Jonnie: Yeah, but that’s what I’ve been playing. Al, what have you been up to? (0:05:04) Al: I was racking my brain because I’m like, (0:05:05) Al: have I played anything other than Turnip Boy? (0:05:07) Al: And I don’t think I have. (0:05:10) Al: This week has been quite, (0:05:11) Al: ‘cause I’m going to America next week. (0:05:13) Al: Like, as you listen to this, (0:05:14) Al: I will probably be on my way to America unless you’re listening to it straight away as it comes out. (0:05:20) Al: So yeah, I’ve not really been playing that much. (0:05:24) Jonnie: Are you feeling ready for your America trip? (0:05:26) Al: Are we ever, are we ever truly ready? (0:05:28) Jonnie: Well, if anyone is gonna like be a person that is ready for a trip, it’s probably gonna be (0:05:28) Al: Well, ‘cause the problem is that somebody who like, (0:05:36) Al: am I ready? Probably. (0:05:37) Al: But does that mean I feel ready? (0:05:39) Al: Like, those are two different things. (0:05:40) Al: And like, have I done enough to mean that logically, (0:05:43) Al: I know I will be fine? Yes. (0:05:45) Al: Does that mean that I, in my heart, (0:05:49) Al: feel that I’m going to be fine? (0:05:50) Al: No, of course not. (0:05:52) Al: I am convinced that I’m going to die in a fiery plane crash, right? (0:05:55) Al: So it’s just (0:05:58) Al: I think that the people who feel ready for the trip aren’t ready. (0:06:04) Jonnie: That’s fair, that’s fair. (0:06:05) Jonnie: And you’re going to America to play Pokemon Go, right? (0:06:08) Al: I am going to America to meet with friends, and I will also be playing Pokemon Go when I’m there. (0:06:15) Al: Yeah, my next recording I will be back having been to America, and that will be interesting. (0:06:22) Al: My first transatlantic flight, my first flight longer than two and a half hours, so we’ll see. (0:06:29) Al: Yeah, I honestly don’t think I’ve played anything else. (0:06:30) Al: I played some Just Dance, I guess. (0:06:32) Al: I’ve been doing that. (0:06:32) Jonnie: At home, or are you going to arcades and playing like just dance in an arcade? What are you? (0:06:35) Al: Thank you. (0:06:38) Al: Do they do have Just Dance in arcades? (0:06:41) Jonnie: I’m sure they do right? It’s gotta be. Oh, maybe I think of DDR (0:06:46) Al: Yeah, they had, obviously they had dance mats, but like I don’t think they have just dance in an arcade. (0:06:52) Al: Uh, cool. (0:06:53) Al: Should we talk about some news? (0:06:54) Jonnie: Let’s do it. (0:06:57) Al: Before I fall asleep. (0:06:58) Al: So our first piece of news is Botany Manor. (0:07:01) Al: They have announced that their release date is the 9th of April. (0:07:06) Al: So I don’t think this was out in early access at all. (0:07:08) Al: So this will be its like proper first release date, but it is a, a non-early access release. (0:07:15) Al: Rare. (0:07:16) Al: Rare these days. (0:07:19) Jonnie: It’s kind of novel, which I like. (0:07:22) Al: Ironically, you stick out now by not doing early access, (0:07:26) Al: whereas previously you would stick out by doing early access. (0:07:30) Al: No interest in this game, Johnny? (0:07:32) Jonnie: Not really. It’s hard, right? Because I want to be excited about all Cottagecore games. Because, (0:07:40) Jonnie: you know, you and I remember the time when it was Stardew, and Harvest Moon, and Rune Factory, (0:07:47) Jonnie: and that was it. And so we would be excited about anything new. And now we are in the opposite time, (0:07:54) Jonnie: where there is such an abundance of games that there has to be, I guess there’s specific things (0:08:02) Jonnie: and often I don’t know that I’m looking for it until I see it. And, you know, for me, Botany Manor, (0:08:10) Jonnie: yeah, this is not it. Botany Manor, kind of, just the visual style is not there for me. And it just, (0:08:20) Jonnie: I don’t know, it kind of falls into the natural. I’m trying to not be overly negative about a game I have not played. It’s just not kind of rising through everything else to be like, (0:08:32) Jonnie: that I feel like I’m putting on my list of games I need to do. (0:08:36) Al: I think it’s interesting because you mentioned the the art style. It’s very simple graphics except the plants which I get what they’re doing there because like the focus is the plants but it also feels a little bit weird that the plants are so detailed when everything else is quite simple textures. (0:08:54) Jonnie: Yeah, I think what you just said kind of triggered the thought for me that it feels almost like a game that a student would submit for an assignment sort of thing. (0:09:06) Jonnie: I’m sure there’s way more work that’s gone into this, and building games is very hard, but it’s kind of missing some of that polish that makes it look and feel like a finished product, which in theory it is. (0:09:23) Al: Yeah, I can see how somebody would like this, but yeah, I’m not, I don’t care about the detail of plants quite, I think, so that’s where it falls down for me. It’s like, it’s really focused on the plants, which would be good if you really care about the plants, (0:09:37) Al: but I don’t. Next, we have Moonstone Island, have a content update and a DLC. Let’s talk about the DLC first, because the DLC is very small. All of Moonstone Island’s DLCs are basically cosmetics, so it’s the Valentine’s DLC. (0:09:53) Al: You can get a heart rug, a heart house skin for your, a heart house skin for your house, (0:09:58) Al: that’s a very bad sentence, a heart box of chocolates, a heart archway brackets or heart way, and a heart lamp as well as a love seat. And that is three dollars ninety nine with a twenty percent launch discount. I will not be buying that DLC because I don’t care (0:10:23) Al: about those cosmetics. Yeah, they fit on really nicely with the game in general, and they are hearts, and they are detailed hearts. The heart house is not just a heart shaped house, it’s a heart shaped house with a heart shaped windows and a heart shaped hole on the, not the heart shaped door, that would be silly, and a bow on it as well with a little yellow heart as well. (0:10:25) Jonnie: But if you do care about that style of cosmetic, they are good-looking versions of those. (0:10:53) Al: It’s very heart-shaped, it is what it says on the tin. (0:10:59) Al: But it’s also coming along with the content update, the Valentine’s update, which is, (0:11:05) Al: you may well have guessed, it’s bringing marriage to the game. (0:11:13) Al: So it’s not bringing relationships, relationships already exist in the game, but they were quite limited in what you could do with them. (0:11:20) Al: There was no marriage in that. (0:11:23) Al: Even marriage, the marriage in this game, seems interesting. (0:11:33) Al: There was a thing, I need to double check in the trailer, because there was a thing that seemed like, so they move into your house, and then there was something about somebody sleeping on a couch, but I can’t remember what it was. (0:11:48) Jonnie: seeing this. (0:11:48) Al: Yeah, we’re missing a bunch of the details until it comes. (0:11:53) Al: I don’t think I can see myself spending much time (0:12:05) Jonnie: Yeah, that seems fair that it like it’s so one of my things is this game already has so much going on (0:12:12) Jonnie: Being that you know cosy creature collection, you know (0:12:18) Jonnie: just it feels like (0:12:20) Jonnie: marriage is just another another thing in a game that already has a lot of things (0:12:27) Al: The good the good thing is also comes with other things. So there’s five new spirits, (0:12:31) Al: including one that looks like a toaster with some bread in it and one that’s a robot dog (0:12:37) Al: and one that is a weird fish snake and I have a toxic thing. I don’t know what that is and a kiwi. (0:12:46) Jonnie: Yeah, we all love Kiwis (0:12:49) Al: There’s also a new taming system, but I have not seen any details about that. (0:12:56) Al: So… (0:12:57) Al: I don’t know what to think about that. (0:13:00) Al: And some more stuff, which is probably too detailed. (0:13:02) Jonnie: The Kiwi looks very stressed. (0:13:04) Al: This Kiwi does look very stressed, which is fair enough. Kiwi watch so it’s electric and… (0:13:16) Al: I feel like that’s an extra syllable than it should have been “key what”. (0:13:21) Jonnie: But yeah, that sounds much better. (0:13:21) Al: Hi, I’m Eamon Store Island, I have opinions on your names. (0:13:28) Jonnie: The toaster one’s very cute as well. (0:13:32) Al: Iconii Island have a new update as well, which is out now, the Lunar Union Festival update. (0:13:38) Al: It’s adding a new festival to the game. (0:13:42) Al: We probably don’t need to go into too much details, we’ve not even covered the game on the podcast yet. (0:13:45) Al: So. (0:13:46) Al: Yet that makes it sound like I’m going to. I don’t know whether we will or not. (0:13:49) Al: “Come celebrate the Lunar Union Festival, whether it’s and collect exclusive items. (0:13:53) Al: A lunar spirit will appear in the Hamlet. During the Lunar Union event, it will give a quest that will reward you with ribbits and beautiful rewards.” Reading these things when you’ve not played a game (0:14:04) Jonnie: Yeah. And I don’t really recall much about a Coney Island, like from covering previous stuff on the podcast, but it looks like a cool game. (0:14:14) Jonnie: And I guess more generally, like I’m pretty anti a lot of festivals in games because I think they’re kind of just boring and played out. (0:14:21) Jonnie: But one thing that I really like from like the last sort of, I don’t know, five to ten years is I feel like games have done a good job of amplifying festivals from other cultures. (0:14:30) Jonnie: and that’s been really cool to see and I think that like so these are the (0:14:34) Jonnie: sorts of festivals that I like because they often have much wider interpretations of what they are as opposed to like a Christmas Winter Festival which is kind of just like we’re gonna do something with snow and and presents and that’s that’s it so this looks cool and I’m excited and and happy year of the dragon (0:14:57) Al: Yes, slime Rancher 2 also have a new update out now and this is the gadgets my way update it includes a new gadget system (0:15:07) Al: So if you if you’ve played the game and you know how the gadgets used to work, it’s changed (0:15:13) Jonnie: So, I feel like every time you and I are on a show, there’s some sort of Slime Rancher update, and neither of us care about Slime Rancher, and I really, like, I thought this time, like, I’m really gonna try and care, and I was just like, mmm, like, Slime Rancher people, god bless, you do you, I’m sure you love it, or hate it, or whatever, it’s coming. (0:15:13) Al: There you go I I I I just… (0:15:34) Al: I feel like I need to play the game sometime but not yet maybe when maybe when Slime Rancher 2 is out of early access (0:15:44) Jonnie: Yeah. (0:15:48) Al: potion pyramid is coming to iOS and Android oh no it’s out now it is now on it’s not coming to it has come to it came (0:15:52) Jonnie: This… (0:15:56) Jonnie: Yes. (0:15:58) Jonnie: It did. (0:16:00) Jonnie: And I… (0:16:02) Jonnie: I’m curious. (0:16:04) Jonnie: No, I’m curious, right? (0:16:04) Al: still don’t care oh interesting (0:16:06) Jonnie: I like the idea of what Potion Permit was trying to do. (0:16:10) Jonnie: I was going back through, trying to find the… (0:16:12) Jonnie: I need to go back and find the episode that was done on Potion Permit. (0:16:16) Jonnie: I have the same reservation, you know, (0:16:18) Jonnie: like I think I did. (0:16:20) Jonnie: I have the same reservation, you know, like I– (0:16:22) Jonnie: I had full-star true Valley going on mobile, like how easy is it to play? (0:16:26) Jonnie: But this game has the right visual style for a mobile game, so I am curious. (0:16:35) Jonnie: I’m kind of in a phase where I don’t really mobile game much outside of Marvel Snap, so I don’t know that I’ll stick with it, but I’m at least curious. (0:16:40) Al: It is five dollars translate into five US dollars translate into your local currency. (0:16:51) Jonnie: I feel like that’s a good price point for a, you know, a sizable mobile game. (0:16:54) Al: It’s surprisingly yeah it’s pretty cheap. I’m surprised it’s that cheap because if it’s the full game ported to mobile that’s that seems suspiciously good. (0:17:10) Al: Too many tabs. Wildflowers. Two exciting things. One of which you can actually do anything with. (0:17:21) Al: The other one you probably can’t. So there’s a… they’ve even released what the plushie is. (0:17:28) Al: So it’s a beans plushie. That’s the flying pig. Both Kevin and Cody predicted that. They were both correct. (0:17:35) Al: It is up on make ship just now and it is almost finished. (0:17:40) Al: 50% funded with 16 days to go. So go do that if you want it. (0:17:54) Jonnie: Nah, I feel like if I’m buying a plush, I’m getting a Junimo plush. (0:17:59) Jonnie: Yeah. (0:18:02) Jonnie: And also everything about wildflowers just creeps me out. (0:18:05) Jonnie: I talked about this last week, but I don’t like their visual style at all. It’s so creepy. (0:18:06) Al: Well, I tell you what, we’ll definitely not make you like it more, which is the Apple Vision Pro version of the game. (0:18:19) Al: So this isn’t just the game in a screen. (0:18:24) Al: It is, but it isn’t. (0:18:26) Al: In so much as when you first look at it, it looks like it’s just the game with a weird border around it. (0:18:32) Al: menus and farming and other things like that pop. (0:18:36) Al: So when you’re in a menu, it will pop out to like one of the sides of the screen as a separate window. (0:18:46) Al: So it doesn’t like cover up your gameplay, which is an interesting way of doing things. (0:18:51) Al: And the farming pops up like in front of it, like down below, like an actual 3D farming plot that you can just like go on and grab things and move them and like. (0:19:04) Al: It’s really in, I think… (0:19:06) Al: I really like what they’re doing here. (0:19:09) Al: I think this is an interesting way of… (0:19:12) Al: They’re not just going, “Oh, let’s just put the game on,” right? (0:19:16) Al: They’re actually going, “What can we actually do with the new features of this that makes this different?” (0:19:21) Al: And I really like that. (0:19:23) Al: But… (0:19:25) Al: I suspect Apple gave them a lot of money to do this because there’s… (0:19:31) Al: Is anybody going to buy this and play this? (0:19:33) Al: because you have to have the headset (0:19:36) Al: which you can only buy in the U.S. just now and costs three and a half grand and you have to like the game and be willing to put in the time and effort. (0:19:47) Jonnie: Yeah, I agree. But I think it’s super cool that it’s happening, right? And for me, it’s one of those like, wow, prodigical games are really sort of like in the mainstream, given that this is, (0:20:00) Jonnie: you know, one of the first games realistically to sort of cross into that boundary. And I think some of the things that it looks like they’re doing in the that Apple Vision Pro space, they they make sense and they show the potential for what could be once a day. (0:20:17) Jonnie: We get out of the weird expensive prototype phase of this tech. (0:20:22) Al: Yeah, yeah, I mean this is this is I if I had an Apple Vision Pro I would be I would be playing this game on that right like I would absolutely be doing it to see (0:20:32) Al: At least to see what it’s like and if if not more than that like if I enjoy it doing more than that (0:20:38) Al: But yeah, like I can’t for two reasons (0:20:45) Al: Because of where I live and because of how expensive it is (0:20:50) Al: So yeah, it’s (0:20:53) Al: Yeah, I like what they’re doing. I like that they’re pushing different ideas. I think this is a good example of how (0:21:02) Al: VR gaming doesn’t have to be first person right first of all like I don’t I (0:21:09) Al: Don’t I don’t like most VR gaming because I don’t want to be (0:21:15) Al: First person I don’t want to do that. I don’t like that. I always feel claustrophobic going (0:21:20) Jonnie: Yeah, I get motion sick, so I just can’t do VR at all, and so this sort of gaming is like, (0:21:29) Jonnie: ah, so this is how I could game in an AR-style environment that would work, and it makes sense. (0:21:37) Jonnie: And I think the other important thing is this is a less of a step for game development to take than (0:21:45) Jonnie: into fully realized VR. I think it’s… well, I think… (0:21:51) Jonnie: In general, people underestimate how difficult game development is, and I imagine VR game development is another step on top of that, whereas this feels like a more reasonable step to take. (0:22:02) Al: for sure. For sure. Yeah. I think it’s very clever of Apple to have done this, right? (0:22:10) Al: Because wildflowers have their agreement with Apple, like, “Oh, we pay you money. You’re now on Apple Arcade, and they’ve obviously then gone on top of that. We’ll pay you more money. You will do this.” And I’m guessing they worked together because, like, I think got to have these ideas and… (0:22:32) Al: And then do them. (0:22:34) Al: And I think these ideas are really interesting. (0:22:38) Al: And I’d like that both Apple and Wildflowers were willing to do this and put in the effort and the time, even though this is not going to make its money back at all. (0:22:49) Jonnie: Yeah. One of the things I started thinking about, like looking at how this implementation went, (0:22:54) Jonnie: was games like Palia, and you know, where time continues moving in Palia, even when you are menuing, because it’s a MMO game, right? And the ability in this sort of environment to menu while still being able to fully see the world that, you know, or the screen or however you want it, you you know, that your character is in. (0:23:19) Jonnie: To me it makes a ton of sense, like you can, you’ve got that more seamless transition rather than looking at something different so (0:23:27) Jonnie: I don’t know, like just some cool, like it’s just cool to see this level of innovation and for it to be happening in the cottage core space (0:23:37) Al: I also think the farming is a really interesting thing because in my opinion, most of the things I don’t like in farming games is the farming. And that’s not because the farming isn’t fun, (0:23:48) Al: it’s because of the way that you interact with it. It’s like, oh, you walk a step, you press a button, you walk a step, you press a button. And that’s why I like to automate it as quickly as possible because I don’t enjoy that part of the gameplay. But being able to go like, oh, I am in this environment, here is my plots, and I can just go with my water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water (0:24:07) Al: or what like it’s that feels much more enjoyable to me because you’re like actively doing the thing rather than like push that button push that button push that you know it feels much more fun to me. (0:24:23) Al: Uh an equally big update is Disney Dreamlight Valley. Update number nine is coming soon (0:24:33) Al: And in that, you’ll be able to change your name. (0:24:37) Al: So, let me explain why I am personally excited about this. And this is because of a bug in the game. (0:24:38) Jonnie: It has shocked me how excited people have been for changing your name. (0:24:43) Jonnie: Like… (0:24:50) Al: So, if you start Disney Dreamlight Valley in Game Pass. Game Pass streaming, I think, (0:24:58) Al: specifically, you think you have to be doing the X-play or whatever it is, right? They’re streaming (0:25:04) Al: the game so you’re not downloading it and playing it which is how I play the game initially because I had game pass and I was doing it on my steam deck and the only way you can do that is with X cloud that’s what it’s called X cloud. If you if that’s how you start Disney Dreamlight Valley you cannot set your name it’s a bug in the game I presume it’s fixed by this point but when I started it wasn’t so your your player is called player. So the entire time that I’ve been playing Disney Dreamlight Valley across multiple different platforms now for What is it, a year and a half? (0:25:35) Al: Is it a year and a half? (0:25:37) Al: I don’t care about changing names, once I’ve set my name, I’m fine. (0:25:52) Jonnie: I feel like I didn’t know about that bug, and I don’t think it impacted me, so now this makes way more sense. (0:26:02) Al: But I never set my name, that’s the problem. (0:26:04) Al: I was called player. (0:26:07) Al: Anyway, I’m excited to have my name in the game. (0:26:16) Al: And our final piece of news is for the fantastically named Garden Life, a Cozy Simulator, which we have talked about before. (0:26:24) Al: I don’t really want to get into it too much, but they’ve released a trailer for their story. (0:26:29) Al: Johnny, do you want to complain about the name? (0:26:32) Al: You can complain about the name if you want. (0:26:33) Jonnie: No, I complained about the name on a previous episode, yeah. (0:26:37) Al: Right, fair enough. (0:26:37) Jonnie: Yeah, I did watch the trailer, and there’s some cool stuff. (0:26:46) Jonnie: Or like, so the trailer talks about the fact that it’s a community garden, (0:26:50) Jonnie: and the person that used to look after it passed away early. (0:26:54) Jonnie: Idea of community garden looked after by one person, you know, kind of doesn’t make sense. (0:26:58) Al: Well, you say it doesn’t make sense, I think that’s very likely what happens most of the time. (0:26:59) Jonnie: But you are the… yeah. (0:27:01) Jonnie: Yeah. (0:27:06) Jonnie: I mean, you’re probably right. (0:27:08) Jonnie: And you’re the new person to look after it. (0:27:11) Jonnie: I just, again, coming back to sort of the visual style, (0:27:14) Jonnie: I don’t like it. (0:27:16) Jonnie: This feels like a– (0:27:18) Jonnie: We talked before about VR games. (0:27:19) Jonnie: This game looks like a VR game to me, and… (0:27:22) Jonnie: Yeah. (0:27:22) Al: It does, doesn’t it? It does. It’s the first person. I don’t want to play first-person games. Like, I just, I don’t find it fun. (0:27:30) Jonnie: It makes sense in certain genres and certain gameplay styles, and I do not think this is one. (0:27:38) Al: But this is this is why I don’t play those games because I just don’t I just feel claustrophobic when I’m when I’m it’s a weird feeling but I want to be and normally most games I want to be my camera to be further away than it actually is I will always put the camera out to the furthest point because I want to be able to see as much as possible. (0:28:00) Al: So I was very happy when Pokemon Scarlet and Violet added the third camera zoom option that was great I loved that. (0:28:08) Al: I agree I don’t think I mean the the name aside which is just stupid on multiple levels I yeah it doesn’t look like a game I would want to play it feels like it feels a lot like Botany Manor talking about them so close together they feel like the same game it’s almost like two people had the same idea and instead of working together they both did their own take on it. (0:28:23) Jonnie: It does, yes. (0:28:34) Jonnie: Yeah, I think that’s uh, I think that’s very fair. (0:28:38) Al: And both coming out within two months of each other no I don’t think so not this close (0:28:44) Jonnie: Yeah, that’s like, that’s ages apart now, in, in… (0:28:48) Jonnie: Well, there’s still a chance one of them gets delayed, right? (0:28:52) Jonnie: No? (0:28:56) Jonnie: Right, well, I don’t think we’ll be covering either of these games, so we’ll see. (0:29:02) Al: Unless somebody suddenly gets really excited about them, we’ll see. (0:29:06) Jonnie: Well, if it does happen, I bet that my money’s on Kev, that it hits. (0:29:13) Al: I was gonna say Cody. (0:29:14) Jonnie: » Oh, yeah, that’s fair. (0:29:16) Jonnie: So Kevin Cody covering “Garden Life,” “Acoustic Simulator,” (0:29:19) Jonnie: and– [LAUGHS] (0:29:20) Al: They need to play both of them and compare them on the same podcast. So that’s the news. (0:29:25) Jonnie: Oh, yes, yes, there we go. (0:29:30) Jonnie: » Whoo. (0:29:32) Al: I can’t even remember when the wooing started. Why do we woo so much? I’m not a woo person. (0:29:37) Jonnie: » Because it gets over the awkwardness of not knowing how to do good transitions. (0:29:43) Al: Thank you. We’re going to talk about Turnip Boy Rob’s a bank. So just before. (0:29:50) Al: Before we get into it, I want to start out with a couple of things. So first of all, (0:29:55) Al: this is a sequel to Turnip Boy commits tax evasion officially. The first game was not cottage core. We covered it because you grow a plant at the beginning and then there’s no more farming and it is definitely not cottage core. But that’s why we covered it. Whatever. (0:30:17) Al: We can get past that. (0:30:18) Al: This game is even less. (0:30:20) Al: Less Cottagecore, and so I’m just going to put that out there. (0:30:24) Al: If you don’t want to listen to a game that is not Cottagecore at all, then feel free. (0:30:30) Al: We’re covering this because it’s a sequel to a game that both me and Johnny liked, and we were both going to play it anyway because we wanted to, and we’re covering it. (0:30:45) Al: So it turns out this game’s a rogue light. (0:30:50) Al: Johnny, I’m not crazy, right? (0:30:54) Al: That seemed to come out of left field, right? (0:30:56) Jonnie: it definitely did. So here’s the thing. You and I both really like Turnip Boy Commits Tax evasion. (0:31:06) Jonnie: Very clearly the weakest part of that game was the combat. (0:31:06) Al: Loved it. Fantastic game. (0:31:14) Jonnie: And in many respects they took the worst part of their game and said “Let’s make that the game.” (0:31:23) Al: Yes. Yeah, I think… Yes, you are correct. That is what they did. So listeners wonder why I do not generally like roguelites. (0:31:24) Jonnie: Which was a choice. (0:31:44) Al: Um, Johnny, I liked this game. So I was… (0:31:48) Jonnie: Ow! (0:31:53) Al: fully, fully expecting, right? I didn’t play this game until like two days ago, and I was fully expecting not to like it, right? I was like, I’m going to just play this for like two hours, and I’m going to hate it, and I’m going to be really disappointed, and I’m going to put it away. And I was mostly like that until I defeated the first boss. And then I realized that this game does things to solve the problems that I have with roguelites. (0:32:23) Al: And the reason why roguelites is that even though you like build up resources and you build up more skills and blah, blah, blah, every time you run through, it’s a clean slate, (0:32:33) Al: and you have to start from the beginning. In this game, once you defeat one of the bosses, (0:32:40) Al: they’re defeated. You don’t have to defeat them again, technically until the end. I’ll get to that. (0:32:48) Al: And that one thing for me made me like this game. (0:32:53) Al: If you had to defeat every boss in every run, I would have absolutely hated it, (0:32:59) Al: and I never would have got close to finishing it. I have been very close to finishing this game. (0:33:06) Al: I’ve been like one mistake away from finishing it six times now. The same mistake. It’s really frustrating. The last bit really frustrating. Basically, when you get to a point where you’ve you’ve defeated all the bosses and then you have to do one run where you defeat (0:33:23) Al: four bosses in one go. That wasn’t too hard. What was hard then is there’s like a special fifth thing at the end where like you’re having to run around doing certain things while being chased by another boss and that boss is so powerful that he can like kill you in like two hits. So that’s the frustrating thing. But I agree that the combat is not great in this game, but there’s still something about it that I’m finding very (0:33:53) Al: fun and I finding it difficult to explain. (0:33:58) Jonnie: you’re probably finding it difficult because I feel like you’re just on some crazy tools. (0:34:05) Jonnie: To be fair, I think your point about not having to beat the bosses again is a good one. I was kind of surprised, but it makes sense given the boss fights are significantly bigger than (0:34:23) Jonnie: the other aspects of the game, and ambiguous kind of the wrong word, but on a run in this game. (0:34:28) Jonnie: You’ve got a timer, and that time is only a couple of minutes. When you’re in a boss fight, (0:34:33) Jonnie: that timer pauses, but that boss fight itself takes like a couple of minutes to get through. (0:34:39) Jonnie: They are not fast fights relative to the length of your run, and not having to do those every single run I think was a really good choice, because that became one of the blockers for me with Hades. I really like Hades. I’m not very good at roguelite combat. (0:34:58) Jonnie: That being said, the combat in this game is so bad. The movement is terrible, (0:35:24) Jonnie: The range of the weapons is confusing. (0:35:28) Jonnie: Particularly the melee ones, where the range is significantly bigger than they look on the screen. (0:35:34) Jonnie: And so you’re consistently getting hit by these melee weapons when the enemy is not even close to you. (0:35:41) Jonnie: I just struggle to understand how anyone can like the combat in this game. (0:35:45) Jonnie: And that’s all this game is, is just the combat. (0:35:50) Al: So at some point you unlock a chainsaw and that makes every. (0:35:55) Jonnie: Right, I did not get to the chainsaw, so for reference, I beat the first boss, and I fought the second boss once, and I was like, “That cannot be bolted with this game anymore.” (0:36:06) Jonnie: That was as far as I got. (0:36:09) Al: That’s fair. I totally get it. And I totally get why you’re not a huge fan of it. But there’s something about it that just kept me going. I’m so frustrated that I didn’t manage to finish the game because literally like I’ve played, I’ve done that last level three times today and I’ve gotten so close to finishing it each time. And it’s so frustrating. But I know it’s going to be great when I do finish it. I think… (0:36:40) Jonnie: So, how do you feel about the humour in this game? Because obviously the humour was a huge part of Turnip Boy commits tax evasion. (0:36:49) Al: Yeah, I think in some ways, in some places, I think it has made me feel the same way as the first game did, but some of it has felt a little bit flat and I’m not quite sure why. (0:37:07) Al: Like it’s just it’s simple things like I there’s a point where where you come across a specific thing from a previous game, right? And it’s like, it’s one of these things that you tore up. (0:37:20) Al: Which is like, one of the main things in the last game is you’re tearing up random things. (0:37:24) Al: And some things it’s like, oh yeah, because you’re tearing up this tax letter and you’re tearing up this, you’re tearing up that. And there’s some random pointless thing that’s like, why did you tear that up? You know, it’s just stupid, it’s pointless, but it’s funny. And you come across one of the things that you tore up in the previous game, but the funny, it just, it then says, oh, (0:37:42) Al: but it’s laminated. And then the next thing is, they’re learning. It’s just that one comment. (0:37:49) Al: Like is funnier than most games, right? But then a lot of, especially the early game humor feels a little bit weird to me. And I’m not sure why it didn’t hit in the same way. (0:38:02) Jonnie: I have the same feeling, right? Like the game definitely still has those moments where it is (0:38:08) Jonnie: very funny. I think a big part of the reason it doesn’t hit is because it’s now (0:38:14) Jonnie: expected, right? And the construct of Rob’s a bank, right? Like if you’ve played (0:38:22) Jonnie: commits tax evasion, you have a good sense of the developers’ feelings on capitalism in general, (0:38:29) Jonnie: and a lot of it’s expected so so you now you come across (0:38:32) Jonnie: things and you kind of get where a lot of it is is going where I think and part of it is that the first one had that sort of joy of discovery of what’s the next documents that I’m going to find and rip up and some of them are very funny because not that they’re fully unexpected but they go in different directions right which I think is is one of the the bits of charm of that game that’s kind of lost it and I think early on they try and do a job. (0:39:02) Jonnie: They do a lot of callbacks to some of the humor from the first game or to significant bits from the first game but it doesn’t land on it. I think one of the downsides is one of the first characters you come across is the the streamer and they kind of just run back the exposure bucks joke and it’s it’s you know it’s just like yeah it’s fine and like they delve into new things like there’s some jokes about NFTs and all of the fun stuff that’s that’s developed in the (0:39:32) Jonnie: you know con people out of money and they have jokes about it it just is like yeah those are the jokes that I now expect from them and I think this game would have benefited by potentially pushing into a different commentary on society because that’s definitely an element of the game and I just don’t think a lot of them work. (0:39:57) Jonnie: Oh yeah. (0:39:58) Al: That’s fair. I think the humor that… kind of. Right, let me… I’m having lots of thoughts. (0:40:06) Al: So I think that actually there’s two things of the funniest bits in this game. One of them is (0:40:14) Al: some of the callbacks are very funny. Some of them are not, but some of them are very funny. (0:40:19) Al: So I don’t think it’s just like, if you don’t do the callbacks, I think you’re missing something. (0:40:25) Al: I think that’s fun. I think they might- (0:40:28) Al: I don’t lean into it a bit too much. I think there are too many characters in the game that were in the previous one. Almost every single character is in the game again, except the one you kill. That’s not to say there aren’t new characters, there are new characters, (0:40:46) Al: but it seems weird to have- it feels contrived why everybody else is in the game. But I also think that some of the funniest bits. (0:40:50) Jonnie: Mmm. Yes. (0:40:58) Al: So they start out quite simple, right? We’re going to spoil basically everything in this game listeners, right? So jump out now. If you’ve not if you played the first game and you think you might like this, you can get over the roguelite stuff. Stop now, go play it. You can get it done in a day or two. It’s not a very long game. (0:41:07) Jonnie: Uh, only a little bit. (0:41:26) Al: and (0:41:28) Al: depending on how good you are at the combat. So the lifts start out quite simple. It’s like, oh, here’s a part of the bank and you have to go through and you like jump over the lasers and you destroy the laser box and then you go back and you blah, blah, blah. (0:41:43) Al: Right. But as you as you defeat bosses and you progress in the game, they become more and more ridiculous. There’s, have you come across the cult? There’s a cult in the bank. (0:41:58) Al: And you come to the bank and once you’ve once you’ve figured out how to enter the cult, (0:42:03) Al: you can then enter the cult and then the cult members give you different things for defeating a certain number of enemies. And the stuff in the cult is really funny. And just the concept of having this random room in the bank that happens to have a cult in it is very funny. And there’s another one which is like a portal. There’s a portal to hell in this bank. (0:42:27) Jonnie: No! See, that’s the thing, I feel like I’ve played a decent chunk of the game and I haven’t come across anything that absurdist, which is one of the misses, right? (0:42:28) Al: Did you know that? (0:42:30) Al: Did you know there’s a portal to hell? (0:42:31) Al: I… (0:42:38) Al: Yeah. So I think part of the problem is those are the lent into the rogue light stuff of that. (0:42:45) Al: Those are randomized. So as you unlock, the lift can do more and more things, (0:42:52) Al: and you’re not guaranteed to see any of them in any run. And I think that’s where it (0:42:58) Al: falls down for me. I think if these rooms all existed in fixed places in the bank that you could go to. I think that would be better. (0:43:08) Al: Because then, you know, this is… (0:43:09) Jonnie: yeah or if there was a small a small pool and you kind of like you can still have some element of randomness but not as not as (0:43:20) Al: Yeah, maybe, maybe. I mean, yeah, I think, I think making it, the advantage of having a fixed place is when you look on the map, you see there’s a bunch of rooms and you’re like, “Oh, I need to unlock that room at some point then, and there’s going to be something in that room.” The problem is that all of these, you don’t know when you’ve seen all these areas, because they’re randomized with the lifts. There’s like some random underwater one as well, I think. (0:43:41) Jonnie: Yeah, that’s fair. (0:43:50) Al: And like, yeah, whatever. That absurdist stuff, I think, is very funny still. And yeah, some of the callbacks have been very funny. Some of the callbacks have felt very contrived, and yeah, (0:44:06) Al: it’s an interesting mix of those things. I think the problem is that if it wasn’t funny at all, (0:44:13) Al: I would be like, “Oh, it’s one and done. We’re done with this.” But the problem is, I think, (0:44:18) Al: they can do more of that. (0:44:20) Al: the same humour and still surprise me. And that’s where I’m like, don’t lean too hard onto the same jokes. Do the more stuff because I know you can do it. And if it needs to be a smaller game, then make it a smaller game. I’m okay with that. If there are going to be fewer characters in each room, that’s fine. Like, because the second, the room you unlock after the first boss is where, like, most of the previous game’s characters are. (0:44:50) Al: They’re just there. Why? Because their previous place doesn’t work and it’s like, “OK, you destroyed their previous place by killing Turnip God. OK, fine, sure. That’s mildly amusing.” (0:45:02) Al: Why are they in the bank? That seems contrived to me. That’s not even absurdist humour. That’s just contrived just so you can get these characters there. (0:45:14) Jonnie: Yeah, I think that’s fair in life because they do explain the reason for it and even the reason is like that feels like contrite reasoning. (0:45:26) Al: So, yeah, I think I don’t think any of that would have saved it for you. (0:45:34) Jonnie: No, I don’t think so (0:45:35) Al: I think it would have made me have more fun with it. (0:45:41) Al: But overall, I still enjoyed it. (0:45:42) Al: Would I have enjoyed it more if it wasn’t a roguelite and it was more like the previous game? (0:45:47) Al: Probably. (0:45:50) Al: But they did manage to make a roguelite that I like, (0:45:53) Al: which is a very rare thing. (0:45:56) Jonnie: Yeah, I mean, that’s a… (0:46:00) Jonnie: Honestly, I’m shocked that you like it, because when I started it, it was a rogue life. (0:46:04) Jonnie: And I was like, “Oh, I was expecting just the same as the previous game, but with guns as weapons now.” (0:46:12) Jonnie: I was like, “Well, Al’s gonna hate this, so we’re just gonna come out here and rage about this game for 40 minutes.” (0:46:12) Al: I mean, I do have more complaints. I can bring up more complaints if you want. So there are more weapons in this game than you can actually get in your base, right? So the way it works is like you’ve got your base and you go out to the bank, you do a run, you come back and you’ve got upgrades and, you know, your usual roguelite loop. The problem is… (0:46:21) Jonnie: Oh. (0:46:42) Al: that when you go out into the bank, there are quite a wide variety of different weapons that the guys that are making new weapons back at your base, say, are rudimentary, which a lot of them are. But some of them are better in ways that I find frustrating. The chainsaw is an incredible weapon that you unlock later on. But there’s other ones… there’s very, very few… (0:47:12) Al: I think there’s only… there is only one melee weapon that you can actually get from your base, (0:47:17) Al: which is very frustrating to me because I much prefer melee to guns because I’m not very good at aiming. Yes, yes, it’s very difficult. So I would have liked to have had more melee weapons that you can unlock. Melee, melee, melee! (0:47:26) Jonnie: And aiming in this game is bloody annoying. (0:47:40) Jonnie: Well, hey. (0:47:42) Jonnie: Yeah. (0:47:42) Al: Melee, melee… anyway, whatever you know what I mean. I don’t want to hear about my pronunciation, (0:47:44) Jonnie: Uh… (0:47:46) Jonnie: Ah. (0:47:46) Jonnie: Bye. (0:47:47) Al: please don’t tell me about my pronunciation, thank you listeners. I would have liked more of that because I don’t know whether it’s just something I’ve missed, but there’s almost no (0:47:56) Al: melee weapons that you can unlock, which I found a bit frustrating. (0:48:02) Al: So that’s my big thing. There’s no way to like… when you find something in the bank, there’s no No way to get it, except just picking it up. (0:48:10) Al: And if you die with it, that’s it. (0:48:12) Al: You’ve lost it. (0:48:13) Al: It’d be nice if you could recreate those things, (0:48:16) Al: because some of them are really nice weapons. (0:48:18) Al: I really like them. (0:48:19) Al: And this probably leans into the like, (0:48:21) Al: oh, well, that’s how roguelites work. (0:48:22) Al: OK, sure, fine. (0:48:23) Al: But the bits I like about this game are the non-roguelite bits. (0:48:27) Al: I’ve literally just spent 20 minutes telling you why this game is good, because it doesn’t do roguelite things in the same way that other roguelites do. (0:48:37) Jonnie: Yeah, I just, yeah, I find this game immensely kind of frustrating, and I think that weapon piece is a good example, where it just kind of feels needlessly difficult, why not just let us unlock all of the weapons at some point, you know, that’s kind of one of those things that’s like, there’s nothing wrong with being able to use all of the weapons, so let us use all the weapons. (0:48:56) Al: Yeah, maybe not all. There is one you get at the last boss, which is just a ridiculous weapon. (0:49:11) Al: It’s like four times the size of you. It’s very fun to use. It’s very slow. It actually slows your character down a lot, which is quite interesting. But as lovely video game logic, (0:49:24) Al: it only slows you down when you’re holding it. (0:49:26) Al: If you switch the weapons and it’s in your bag, you can run as fast as you normally do, which I just love, but whatever. (0:49:31) Jonnie: Amazing. (0:49:32) Jonnie: But see, even that would stand out more if it was the only instance of that, right? (0:49:37) Al: Yes, yeah, I agree. I think I would keep that one, especially because you can’t– (0:49:42) Al: although you don’t need to defeat any boss after you’ve defeated them, you can if you want. (0:49:47) Al: So it would give you a reason to go and do that. (0:49:50) Al: I would say maybe the four boss weapons, the weapons that the bosses have, those four specifically, (0:49:56) Al: has a specific weapon, the last one being the most ridiculous. (0:49:59) Al: But I would understand why those four, if you want that weapon, you have to go defeat the boss in this run. (0:50:07) Al: It adds an interesting element to that. (0:50:10) Al: But the problem is that all the other weapons are very random, and it’s hard to know. (0:50:16) Al: One of them, for example, you get by going through one of the weird lifts into the portal from hell, (0:50:24) Al: hell and you get up. (0:50:26) Al: a scythe that you can if you kill somebody with the scythe you can harvest their soul and then those souls are the second currency with which you can use to buy things. (0:50:38) Al: And. (0:50:39) Jonnie: Okay, that sounds amazing. (0:50:41) Al: It is very fun. It is very fun. There’s actually second weapon in this way there as well. (0:50:47) Al: But it’s it’s a gun. It’s a it’s a record like a vinyl record gun. (0:50:54) Al: Mmm. (0:50:58) Al: Which is very funny, but also the way that it works is very different because it’s records and not bullets. (0:51:05) Al: They bounce off walls, which means you can, if it goes through somebody and then hits a wall and then comes back and hits them, (0:51:13) Al: so if they don’t die in the first one, they die in the second one. (0:51:17) Al: I think this is the thing, there’s lots of really fun and creative ideas in the weapons, even if they’re not the best combat system. (0:51:27) Al: But you were never going to see those because you don’t have the enthusiasm for the type of game and so you miss out on that fun, which is disappointing. (0:51:36) Jonnie: Yeah and some of it I think speaks to the onboarding right because like even like fundamentally the premise of the game being that you’re robbing a bank and there’s like a huge cutscene that follows on from you know turn a boy commits tax evasion and where that game ended but ultimately it’s kind of like the but why yeah like there isn’t really a compelling reason for why you are even robbing the bank which I find like it’s just one of the things frustrating I did have a question how do you feel about the timer? (0:52:07) Al: So I don’t hate the timer and that’s because it is not a hard timer. So the way the timer works is once the timer hits the police come, but you it makes it makes everything harder because there’s more enemies, but you can still do everything. So you can infinitely do a run as long as you’re not dying. And I actually really like that way of doing it. (0:52:37) Al: Where they’re trying to force you to be quick about things, but if you’re like ‘oh I can just grab that one last thing’ and it means that the timer is going to run out, you don’t die, you just have to fight your way out. I quite like that. For what they’re doing, (0:52:54) Al: for everything that they’re doing, I think it works thematically and mechanically well with what they wanted to do. Is that fair? (0:53:02) Jonnie: Yeah, I think that’s fair. And for me, it’s another aspect of like, I just don’t like feeling time pressure in games, something that I fundamentally do not enjoy. (0:53:12) Jonnie: And when the combat is bad, and I would prefer a slower approach to it, like, I get why they did it because they’re wanting to put that sort of heist style pressure on. (0:53:26) Jonnie: And it’s kind of one of those ways that they can do to force you to do multiple runs, right, without the timer. (0:53:32) Jonnie: I think the game would be significantly different, and not necessarily better. I just don’t want a timer. (0:53:42) Al: Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. Yeah. Yeah. And I agree with you generally. I don’t like timers in games, but I can’t explain why, but I really like this game. I’m going to finish the game. I’m going to do that. I don’t normally, I don’t often do that with games that we talk about. If I’ve not finished it by the time we podcast and it’s not like (0:5

Let's try this again with the correct audio this time (: Does cozy gaming have a toxic positivity problem? Or rather, a cozy toxicity problem? We're exploring that topic today by using specific games such as Palia and Disney Dreamlight Valley as case studies. Get cozy and let's sit around the hearth together! ‧₊˚ Sites mentioned: • Toxic Positivity: https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/toxic-positivity •Polygon Article: https://www.polygon.com/23914457/palia-early-access-development-conflict-endgame •For such a cozy, casual game this sub is negative as hell: https://www.reddit.com/r/Palia/comments/15nvahw/for_such_a_casual_cozy_game_this_sub_is_negative/ •Cozy Toxicity and the Palia Gaming Community: https://www.reddit.com/r/Palia/comments/15pvr6n/cozy_toxicity_and_the_palia_gaming_community/ ‧₊˚ shoot me an email at gamershearthpodcast@gmail.com ‧₊˚ follow me across all of my social media platforms! • tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@laelindria • twitter - https://twitter.com/laelindria • podcast twitter - https://twitter.com/thegamershearth • instagram - https://www.instagram.com/laelindria/ ‧₊˚  join our cozy and welcoming discord community! - https://discord.gg/Ux9c5dh84V ‧₊˚ support me directly via tips and subscriptions and get a member-only bonus episode each month on ko-fi!  - https://ko-fi.com/laelindria ‧₊˚ come hang out on twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/laelindria

Codey and Jonnie talk about Palia. Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:01:12: What Have We Been Up To 00:09:33: Groundhog Day 00:17:59: News 00:39:26: Palia 01:42:20: Outro Links Wylde Flowers Eury’s Salon Update Lightyear Frontier Early Access Ages of Cataria Delay Rusty’s Retirement Public Demp Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge Contact Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:30) Codey: Hello farmers and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. My name is Cody (0:00:36) Jonnie: And, my name is Johnny. (0:00:37) Codey: And we are here today to talk about cottagecore games (0:00:45) Codey: As always transcripts are available in the show notes and on the website (0:00:49) Codey: And today’s podcast is about (0:00:52) Codey: Palia Which is a game that Johnny and I have both played and we actually played it together Wow [laughs] (0:00:59) Jonnie: So cool. (0:01:00) Codey: - Wow, MMOs. (0:01:05) Codey: So, we will be talking about Palia, (0:01:08) Codey: and as always, we have some news, (0:01:10) Codey: but a little lighter on the news this week, (0:01:12) Codey: which is pretty cool. (0:01:13) Codey: But first, Johnny, how are you? (0:01:15) Codey: What have you been up to? (0:01:16) Jonnie: I’m good. There is a game that I’ve been playing and I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. It’s called Palia. (0:01:23) Jonnie: No, it’s not called Palia. I have been playing that one, but I mean you talk about Pal World, (0:01:27) Jonnie: which they both start the same, so you know. (0:01:30) Codey: Oh, you’re on the PAL world train. (0:01:33) Jonnie: Well, I was on the Pal World train and I’m not off the Pal World train, like it’s a it’s a fine game. (0:01:40) Jonnie: I just kind of got what I wanted out of that game relatively quickly. (0:01:47) Jonnie: I hope there’s like zero interest in talking about the controversy around the game. (0:01:53) Jonnie: It is just a survival game with Pokemon who do things in the world and there’s more like, (0:01:59) Jonnie: I guess probably deeper combat as a result of there being Pokemon, which I liked Pokemon Legends Arceus, Arceus. I’ll edit out the one that’s right. I liked that game. (0:02:04) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:02:08) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:02:16) Jonnie: I think this game has a similar-ish gameplay loop. It’s not as fast and fluid as Arceus and (0:02:24) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:02:25) Jonnie: there’s a lot more of that survival base building aspect, which I don’t like survival games. (0:02:27) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:02:30) Jonnie: I kind of just find that base building stuff boring and pointless. So I did like a tower and I did some of the boss battles and I was like, oh okay, I kind of get what this game is, (0:02:35) Codey: Mm-hm. (0:02:42) Jonnie: but there’s not a compelling narrative that makes me feel like, oh I need (0:02:46) Jonnie: to go and do all of that. It’s kind of like, oh I did some of that and that feels like enough. (0:02:53) Jonnie: That’s I guess my mini summary of Palworld. I also think the gun side of things is just a little (0:03:05) Jonnie: 15 year old edgelord vibes. It comes off really cringe and a lot of things in the game kind of do (0:03:08) Codey: Yeah. (0:03:14) Jonnie: That’s where you’re like, killing the bad guys. (0:03:16) Jonnie: And… you can… like the way you release Pokemon is with a Meat Cleaver and then you can eat them and it’s just like, ugh, it’s just all a bit like, stop trying so hard. (0:03:17) Codey: Yeah. (0:03:24) Codey: Yeah. (0:03:28) Codey: Yeah, I, to me, it looked like Fortnite, Pokemon, Arceus, Breath of the Wild, I don’t know. (0:03:37) Codey: And I just, that’s not a compelling enough thing for me. (0:03:43) Codey: Um, so, I was not, I didn’t do it, but, um, yeah. (0:03:51) Codey: I mean that’s… (0:03:52) Jonnie: Yeah, I mean, it is more fun than Pokemon. (0:03:54) Jonnie: Um, you know. (0:03:55) Codey: Whoa! (0:03:56) Codey: Partake. (0:03:58) Jonnie: That is not a hot take. Pokemon has not been fun for a long time. (0:04:01) Codey: Oh no. (0:04:02) Codey: Oh no. (0:04:04) Jonnie: So, you know, how’s that going for it? (0:04:04) Codey: Um… (0:04:05) Codey: Um… (0:04:06) Jonnie: Um, but I think even there, right? (0:04:08) Jonnie: Like, I, even if I don’t enjoy a Pokemon game as much, I am more likely to play through it to the end because I’m so used to the loop and the, you know, beating the Elite Four. (0:04:20) Jonnie: I start the game knowing that beating the elite for- (0:04:22) Jonnie: is the objective, and there was no real hook like that for me in PowerWorld. (0:04:26) Jonnie: It was kind of like, cool, I experienced it. (0:04:28) Jonnie: I’ve been part of the hot topic of the day, and now I’m keen to move on to other things. (0:04:34) Codey: Mm-hmm, that’s fair. (0:04:40) Jonnie: But that’s really all I’ve been doing. What do you mean up to Cody? (0:04:45) Codey: Well, I just submitted a manuscript, so I’m very excited about that. (0:04:55) Codey: Any grad student listening is probably screaming like excitedly for me because it is a huge undertaking to publish a manuscript. (0:05:06) Codey: So it basically like took up a lot of my energy and time the last like month or so of trying like get it all organized and (0:05:15) Codey: getting it like sent to different people and then I’ll like think that something’s really good and then one of my co-authors will be like no like actually fix this and I’m like heck and so like that’s it’s just to finally just have it like be in the hands of the editors or reviewers or whomever is just like so great other than that I also just finally got ADHD medication (0:05:45) Codey: and for some reason my brain was like cool you can now hyper focus pretty effectively on things and shut your brain off why not build a fox shaped island in Minecraft so I’m building an island that is this in the shape of a fox a sleeping fox and I’m going to build a fox sanctuary on top of it and And also I’m. (0:06:15) Codey: Building it large enough that it shows up as a Sleeping Fox on the biggest size map. (0:06:24) Codey: Which ends up being. (0:06:24) Jonnie: I… I have a question. (0:06:26) Codey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. (0:06:27) Jonnie: Why? (0:06:30) Codey: Because my ADHD brain has decided that this is what brings me joy. (0:06:37) Codey: And it genuinely is so amazing. (0:06:44) Codey: I mean, it might also be. (0:06:45) Codey: It’s basically a testament to how much I hate writing, that my brain was like, “What could be more fun than this? Like, maybe this thing?” (0:06:57) Codey: So yeah, it’s basically, oh hello. I have a cat rubbing against my leg right now. Hello, little man. (0:07:03) Codey: It’s basically, I think we calculated it, it’s like probably 30,000 blocks, Minecraft blocks. (0:07:15) Codey: And we’re using orange terrac- so I’m not doing it alone. One of my best friends, Devin, shout out to Devin, I love you, you’re one of my best friends. (0:07:23) Codey: Anytime that either of us are going through anything in our lives, we’ll just like start up a Minecraft server. (0:07:31) Codey: And so, last few months have been pretty stressful, so we started our Minecraft server, and we’ve been doing these like fun little projects like this, and I just decided to do this. (0:07:39) Codey: And he was like, he had a moment where he was like, “Okay, okay, okay, we’re doing this.” (0:07:45) Codey: I guess, okay. And so he’s been mining terracotta for me and dying it white. (0:07:53) Codey: Luckily, like there’s this new biome that has orange terracotta that like naturally spawns, so he doesn’t have to make- to dye the orange ones. (0:08:00) Codey: So he can just like make it, and we can just farm it, and then I use it to build. (0:08:09) Codey: So yeah, I basically- he does that in the mornings, and then I log on in the evenings. (0:08:15) Codey: And construct. It has a snoot so far, and I’m building up the top of the head. (0:08:25) Codey: So listeners, if you’re interested in hearing the updates of Foxcraft, I’ll start posting about it in the Slack because it is- it’s gonna take probably a month to finish it. (0:08:37) Codey: Like we’re not even halfway done with the head. And I have- the head is like- the head is like the- (0:08:40) Jonnie: Great, I’m excited to get more updates on on Fox craft, but also the sound this sounds awfully a lot like a job (0:08:45) Codey: the smallest part. No, no, no, it’s fun. It’s fun. I like. This is a- this is a- oh yeah, we do have shift work going. (0:08:51) Jonnie: Mm-hmm, you’ve got shift work going you know (0:08:56) Codey: This is another like one of those things where sometimes I’m like, “Am I autistic? Like, am I a little autistic? Do I have a touch of the tism? I think I do.” (0:09:06) Codey: Like, if this- if this- this tickles my brain in a good way. (0:09:12) Jonnie: Well, maybe we won’t self-diagnose, but we’ll just say you must really like foxes somewhere in there. (0:09:18) Codey: Oh no, it’s more like my therapist was like, “Perhaps.” (0:09:25) Codey: It’s a little bit past self-diagnosing, but anyway. (0:09:26) Jonnie: Ugh. (0:09:29) Codey: So yeah, but the most important thing really that I’ve been working on, (0:09:33) Codey: I mean, this is sarcasm. The most important thing is Fox Craft, but (0:09:38) Codey: sarcastically, I went to an event that happened today, Americans. This is, today is February 2nd. (0:09:49) Codey: Johnny, what do you know about Groundhog’s Day? (0:09:52) Jonnie: I know there is a terrible Bill Murray movie, which actually now that I think about it, like, do you need to say terrible before Bill Murray movie? I think that’s just implied. (0:10:02) Jonnie: So, and the, like, I don’t know, I assume it’s a groundhog, but like, that’s the weirdest name for what, you know, basically just looks like a… I don’t know. (0:10:16) Jonnie: a slightly larger rat comes out because I’ve been sleeping or whatever I don’t (0:10:20) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:10:22) Jonnie: know why they come out they just do and Americans go crazy because they’re all in some weird cult that’s that’s that’s groundhog’s day right (0:10:30) Codey: Yeah, I mean, you’re not wrong. Okay, so Groundhog’s Day is a tradition observed in the United States and Canada on February 2nd of every year. It derives, this is from the Wikipedia, (0:10:43) Codey: it derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog, a groundhog is also known as a marmot or a woodchuck or my personal favorite, a whistle pig. A groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and sees its shadow. It will retreat to its den and winter will go on for six more weeks. If it does not… (0:11:00) Codey: see its shadow, then spring will arrive early. (0:11:06) Codey: So this sounds… (0:11:09) Codey: That’s like, okay, cool, whatever. (0:11:10) Codey: Like there’s probably a guy that like watches this groundhog come out right over. No, it’s a cult. (0:11:16) Codey: 100%. So the ceremony is held in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, (0:11:22) Codey: which is less than two hours from where I am. (0:11:24) Codey: So I’ve been wanting to go to this every year. (0:11:28) Codey: And it just hasn’t, I just haven’t been able to make it. (0:11:30) Codey: This year, I was able to make it. (0:11:33) Codey: And basically it centers around what is what Wikipedia says is the semi mythical groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil. (0:11:41) Codey: So he, Punxsutawney Phil basically comes out. (0:11:48) Codey: And apparently like looks, I’m trying to find to see if I can find like the ceremony because this is ridiculous. (0:11:56) Codey: He basically comes out and looks at him. (0:12:00) Codey: He looks around and sees his shadow and the wizards who are called wizards, the guys that run Groundhog’s Day in Punxsutawney, (0:12:14) Codey: basically listen to him so Phil comes out, he either does or does not see his shadow, and whispers to the wizard who can understand Groundhog ease. (0:12:30) Codey: Phil tells them whether or not he saw his shadow and if he did, they literally have scripts that they read. (0:12:38) Codey: People who go to this event every year, they know what the script is. (0:12:44) Codey: There’s a certain part in the script where the guy doesn’t even finish saying everything. (0:12:50) Codey: There’s a certain part where he says either “and his shadow fell upon him” or something, or “and a shadow he did not see”. (0:12:58) Codey: And at that point the crowd. (0:13:00) Codey: It goes crazy, but basically like thousands of people mock hawk flock thousands of people flock to this city in Pennsylvania and watch this ceremony and some of them show up at like midnight and the ceremony isn’t until sunrise, which was 730 this morning. (0:13:18) Codey: We left at 430 to get there and we got there and there’s literally thousands of people around this little stage of any with these guys that like are all. (0:13:30) Codey: Wearing like top hats and like black jackets and very like they look very New York investment banker of the 20s or something like that. (0:13:42) Codey: And yeah, he was just it was just so crazy and he did not see a shadow so spring is going to come early to the United States. Praise be to our groundhog meteorologist. (0:13:59) Jonnie: I have so many thoughts. (0:14:02) Codey: Okay, yeah, yeah, that’s fair fair. (0:14:02) Jonnie: First, Whistlepig Day would sound so much better. (0:14:05) Jonnie: That’s just first thought. (0:14:06) Jonnie: That’s just undeniably a better name. (0:14:10) Jonnie: Second thought, the fact that there are wizards surrounding this is like, yeah, you’re right. (0:14:14) Jonnie: This is definitely a cult, and it sounds like a cult I kind of want to be a part of, because any cult that has wizards dressed as 1920s bankers, (0:14:15) Codey: It’s a cold. (0:14:21) Jonnie: that sounds kind of amazing. (0:14:22) Jonnie: I’m into this. (0:14:23) Codey: Yeah. (0:14:24) Jonnie: Third, based on your description, (0:14:27) Jonnie: an alien landed on Earth, and they (0:14:29) Jonnie: would legitimately think that you’re just describing another game. (0:14:31) Jonnie: It is that sort of– (0:14:34) Jonnie: that sort of… (0:14:34) Codey: So, I actually, I was debating mentioning this that like, I kind of want a game about this. (0:14:42) Jonnie: And that was going to be my final point. I think this is this would be a great basis for a cottage core (0:14:48) Jonnie: game like you do the year, you know, it starts on Groundhog’s Day and (0:14:53) Jonnie: Maybe I don’t know what you’re working towards but like that make that your sort of New Year’s event That sounds like a great little thing to do (0:15:00) Codey: Well, so Punxsutawney, here, I’m going to try and find this information, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania has a population of 5,000 humans. (0:15:12) Codey: So during this celebration, their population basically doubles. (0:15:18) Codey: So imagine being in, like, Stardew or Coral Island or something, and one single day of the year, the population doubles, (0:15:30) Codey: like, even though it was Friday and it was really, really early, all the stores were open. (0:15:36) Codey: Like, the bookstore was open and they had free hot chocolate and, like, they had, like, a couple different craft shows that were going on in this. (0:15:44) Codey: So it’s everyone, basically, in this community, basically, like, waits for this, like, this is their big, like, tourism thing every year. (0:15:54) Codey: So I think the goal of a game like that would be to build up your store. (0:16:00) Codey: Make sure you’re not going to run out of stock. Make sure that you have enough food for all of these people, enough, like, infrastructure, that you have enough parking because, like, we had to find parking and we almost had, like, some of the last parking spaces. (0:16:18) Codey: And so, like, there’s all this stuff that you could totally do in a game and have the regular day-to-day thing that you’re doing, like, you know, farming or whatever, just kind of be, like, normal, but you are always building up to that. (0:16:30) Codey: And so, like, you have to go to this huge event, annual event, where it kind of starts becoming, like, city skylines or something, where you have to manage, like, all these people. (0:16:46) Jonnie: Make it happen internet. There we go. We’ve done the hard work. We came up with the idea right? That’s the hard part (0:16:48) Codey: Yeah, make it happen. (0:16:52) Codey: Well, now that we’ve spent probably 15 minutes talking about Groundhog Day, and listeners, let me know if you’ve gone to the place where Punxsutawney Phil is, is called Gobbler’s Knob. Let me know if you’ve gone there. And Gobbler’s Knob. (0:17:04) Jonnie: But, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, it’s called what? (0:17:11) Jonnie: This is definitely like, I call it that is… [Laughing] (0:17:15) Jonnie: How is that a real name for a place? (0:17:18) Codey: Yeah, it is. (0:17:22) Codey: I’ll also post some pictures in the slack of me and my friends there, and also Stella. Stella went, “Oh, and the town has, like, Groundhog Day.” (0:17:30) Codey: Groundhog statues outside of a bunch of the buildings. So, like, outside of the library, they have a Groundhog that’s, like, reading a book. (0:17:38) Codey: And then outside of the bank, they have one that, like, has money. Outside of the fireman’s house, they have one with, like, a fireman’s axe holding a baby. (0:17:46) Codey: So, they have all of these, like, the whole town has leaned into it, 100%. But, yeah, so it’s a cult. (0:18:00) Codey: Okay, well, now that we’ve talked about cults, let’s talk about some news. Speaking of cults, Wildflowers… (0:18:10) Codey: I don’t know if Wildflowers is a cult. I just, the way… Kev… Kev has cult-like devo… devotion for this game. (0:18:12) Jonnie: Look, if it is, Kiv is definitely in that cult. (0:18:22) Codey: So, there’s more details on an update that’s coming up. There is going to be a hair stylist’s salon named Yuri’s Soul. (0:18:30) Codey: I’m just going to add a bunch of hairstyles. There’s a plushie coming. And I did a little bit of internet sleuthing, as someone who has not played Wildflowers. (0:18:42) Codey: I did a little bit of internet sleuthing. The picture of the plushie that they have on Twitter, which you can find on the show notes, is, like, obscured. (0:18:50) Codey: Like, it’s kind of in shadow. So, you can’t really tell what it is. But I think it’s a flying pig. What do you think? (0:18:58) Jonnie: Uh, I’m sure flying pig sounds like a thing that a plushie could be. (0:19:02) Codey: » Okay, okay, okay, yeah, so it definitely looks like the flying pig to me. (0:19:04) Jonnie: I have done zero internet’s locally. (0:19:12) Codey: I just kind of like looked up. (0:19:18) Codey: Oh my gosh, sorry, I scrolled down and it went to discover more and Disney Dreamlight Family tweeted today and said, (0:19:28) Codey: tweeted today and said we might not. (0:19:30) Codey: I have groundhogs in the game, but what do you think a copybara seeing its shadow mean? (0:19:40) Codey: They’re leaning into groundhog’s day. (0:19:43) Codey: Um, so, but yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s flying pig. So flying pig plush coming to wildflowers (0:19:51) Codey: Unconfirmed is that it’s a flying pig, but pretty sure it is. (0:19:54) Codey: Yeah, I mean, have you played wildflowers? Have you? Do you have? (0:19:57) Jonnie: No, the visual… I get that it’s better than it looks, but the visual style I just find very off-putting, and there’s just too much else that I want to play and can’t get to, that even though this game is meant to be really good, it’s just too much of a block of me to invest any time into this one, unfortunately. (0:20:19) Codey: Yep, I am in the exact same boat. (0:20:23) Codey: But I’m sure that we’ll hear all about Yuri’s salon (0:20:27) Codey: Update and all of that from Kev, which would be great. (0:20:32) Codey: Next up is Lightyear Frontier. (0:20:35) Codey: The early access for this game is releasing on March 19th on Steam, Xbox, and Game Pass. (0:20:42) Codey: There is a demo out now on Steam (0:20:46) Codey: And this game will be a part of Steam next. (0:20:49) Codey: Which starts on February 5th to the 12th so I believe by the time this podcast comes out, the next fest will be going on. (0:20:58) Codey: So yeah, if you are interested in seeing some gameplay or anything like that, that would be a really good thing to tune into. (0:21:08) Codey: What are your thoughts on this? (0:21:09) Jonnie: Yeah, and Lightyear Frontier is the farming, but in mechs. That’s their gimmick, I guess. (0:21:18) Codey: in like a, in space, in space for me. (0:21:22) Codey: I saw on there, on this news from Steam, (0:21:26) Codey: like, you know how we say like, hello farmers or whatever. (0:21:30) Codey: They say exo farmers. (0:21:32) Codey: So they said like something like, (0:21:34) Codey: play the demo now exo farmers. (0:21:35) Codey: And I was like, oh my gosh. (0:21:39) Codey: Like that’s just kind of a cute little way of talking about them. (0:21:42) Codey: I don’t know, I don’t know what exo means. (0:21:44) Codey: Now that I said it and then now I’m like, (0:21:46) Codey: what, wait, what am I talking about? (0:21:48) Codey: What does this mean? (0:21:51) Codey: Meaning outside, outer, external. (0:21:57) Codey: Cool. (0:21:57) Jonnie: Like like every farm every farmer is technically an exo farmer (0:22:02) Codey: No, no, no. (0:22:03) Codey: Cause it’s like outside, like outer worlds, like space. (0:22:07) Codey: Like we call them exoplanets. (0:22:09) Codey: Like exoplanets are outside of our solar system. (0:22:15) Jonnie: I don’t know how that applies to farming, but it sounds made up. (0:22:15) Codey: You know? (0:22:18) Codey: It’s exoplanet farmers. (0:22:22) Codey: You’re a farmer on an exoplanet. (0:22:24) Jonnie: But they don’t say exoplanet farmers, they say exopharmers. (0:22:27) Codey: No, they said exo. (0:22:29) Codey: It’s just a little cute little conjugation. (0:22:30) Jonnie: They should change it to remove the “e” and just be like “exo” like “Kisshag farmers”. (0:22:35) Jonnie: That would be a much cuter way to say hello. (0:22:37) Codey: I kind of want to re-record “Hello, Kiss Hug Farmers! Welcome to another episode of the Harvest Season!” (0:22:43) Jonnie: What? (0:22:49) Codey: Oh my gosh, we are off the rails. Um, yeah. (0:22:53) Jonnie: Okay, um, are you going to try this? (0:22:57) Codey: So, I’ve never been a big mech person. Like, growing up, like… (0:23:07) Codey: uh… transformers, like, that kind of stuff. It was never my jam. (0:23:13) Codey: Um, so I don’t… to be determined, um… but prob’s not. What about you? (0:23:20) Jonnie: So I talked about this one a little bit on I think the upcoming Game of the Year show, (0:23:28) Jonnie: where it’s on my list of games that I want to try but there may not be a priority. (0:23:35) Jonnie: But I don’t think I knew at that point that it was coming to Game Pass, which it’s amazing how much Game Pass changes my willingness to try some stuff out, right? (0:23:44) Jonnie: Because I’m way more willing to just jump in for a bit and see if it instantly grabs me or not. (0:23:49) Jonnie: So I think it’s a long time. (0:23:50) Jonnie: A lot more likely than I initially anticipated that I will give this a go, because I like the visual style, it feels distinct, I don’t have a particular affinity or non affinity for mechs, but I am interested to see what it means in terms of how they differentiate, you know, your traditional cottagecore farming game loop with the addition of something like a mech, because you can see a lot, you know, there’s probably more interesting ways to do tools and things like that when you have a mech, (0:24:20) Jonnie: and I am really hoping they take full advantage of, and it’s not just like regular tools, but they’re just, they look like mech attachments, right? I’m hoping there’s something else that distinguishes them, which I guess technically I could find out because the demo is out, so I could probably find out or look into it a bit more, so. (0:24:34) Codey: Yeah. (0:24:38) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:24:41) Codey: But the demos… the demos on Steam… (0:24:44) Jonnie: Yeah, yeah, demos are only on Steam. (0:24:44) Codey: It’s not… not Game Pass. (0:24:49) Codey: Yeah, I agree with you about the Game Pass thing. (0:24:52) Codey: Like, it’s really opened up what I’m able to play. (0:24:57) Codey: And I really like that. (0:24:58) Codey: But I don’t think that your frontier will be that. (0:25:01) Codey: Because again, like, we have so many other things. (0:25:04) Codey: I want to play, so many other things I’m doing in my life. (0:25:07) Codey: And something… if it’s a game that’s going to like pull me in like that, (0:25:10) Codey: like Coral Island or something, it’s really got to grab me. (0:25:13) Codey: So… (0:25:16) Codey: Okay, so… (0:25:17) Codey: Ages of… next… next up on our news list… (0:25:20) Codey: Ages of Kataria… (0:25:22) Codey: was meant to be coming out Q1 2024, so… (0:25:26) Codey: anytime. (0:25:28) Codey: But has been delayed until Q2 2025. (0:25:34) Codey: It personally seemed a little late to be making that announcement, (0:25:36) Codey: but I get it. (0:25:36) Jonnie: Mm-hmm. (0:25:40) Codey: Quote, (0:25:41) Codey: “We have been working hard on Ages of Kataria, (0:25:43) Codey: and our main goal is to find funding to expand the team and work full-time.” (0:25:50) Codey: I’m about to read you a list of things that they’ve been working on. (0:25:52) Codey: See if you can pick out the things that… (0:25:56) Codey: one of these things is not like the other. (0:25:58) Codey: Okay. (0:25:59) Codey: Quote, “In the past few months, we’ve been working on building upgrades, (0:26:03) Codey: customization. (0:26:04) Codey: villager conversations, traits, events and quests, death, (0:26:09) Codey: hunting, cooking, farming, animals, clicking to collect resources, (0:26:14) Codey: villager pooping mechanics, and so much more, which we will be discussing and showing in future updates. (0:26:21) Codey: Uh, Johnny, any of those, any of those jump out to you? (0:26:24) Jonnie: Yeah, I’m really interested in these villager pooping mechanics. (0:26:26) Codey: Save! (0:26:29) Codey: What do you mean? (0:26:31) Codey: I’m like, I’m that meme of, um… (0:26:34) Codey: of, uh… (0:26:35) Codey: Oh my gosh, Katniss Everdeen’s… (0:26:37) Codey: the… the friggin’ actress that plays her. (0:26:40) Codey: Where she’s like, “What do you mean?” (0:26:41) Codey: Like, “What do you mean?” (0:26:43) Codey: On Hot Ones. (0:26:45) Codey: Jennifer Lawrence, I think is her name. (0:26:47) Codey: Um… (0:26:49) Codey: I’m that meme when I read that. (0:26:51) Jonnie: Yeah, I’d like that is wild to me. I mean I assumed the actual answer you were looking for is diff like [laughing] (0:26:58) Codey: No, no, it was originally Villager Pooping Mechanics, but Death, I mean Death was like, (0:27:04) Codey: that’s interesting. (0:27:06) Codey: But that happens in-game, like everything else in this list is something that you would find in a Cottagecore game in some way or another. (0:27:15) Codey: But Villager Pooping Mechanics just like comes out, just stands out so much, and I have questions. (0:27:22) Jonnie: Yeah, and I mean I’ve kind of buried the lead somewhat but this update has (0:27:30) Jonnie: I would say there are some concerning elements to it, right, you know (0:27:35) Jonnie: They’re talking about looking for a publisher and this was a kick-started project (0:27:41) Jonnie: And I guess if you are a kickstarter of it, this is an update that I guess, you know (0:27:46) Jonnie: Would reduce the likelihood that you are actually going to get it and not saying whether it will or won’t happen (0:27:52) Jonnie: There’s now some additional hurdles that they are now flagging up (0:27:57) Jonnie: Which is unfortunate because I think this game looks like it’s got a great visual style to it (0:28:06) Jonnie: So hoping they can find the funding that they need but I would not be putting much stock in that queue to (0:28:12) Jonnie: 2025 date until there was more (0:28:15) Jonnie: More updates on whether or not they they find a publisher or you know are able to sort of clearly state. (0:28:24) Codey: They did have someone jump out on their Kickstarter three days ago, Shell M said you know so is it A that you needed more money and just didn’t tell anyone or B that you mismanaged the finances early on or underestimated how much you needed if B why weren’t we told about this before? (0:28:45) Codey: Just fair. (0:28:46) Codey: They got I’m trying to see $111,000 like like you people gave you money like you should at least let them know what what’s happening with that and it sounds like they you know $110,000 doesn’t really go that far and they had 10 people working on it originally and then when that money ran out some people had to leave and some people stayed to continue to work on the game but that a lot of people had to go back to working part-time and so it’s a lot of people’s time is now split and they’re not able you know if they still had the (0:29:24) Codey: work full-time with the whole team of 10 or team of whomever many are on there now they probably could get it out a lot earlier but I mean I get it I’ve this manuscript that I just submitted was supposed to be done like a year ago so I get it but it does yep mm-hmm (0:29:41) Jonnie: But I mean this is one of the risks around Kickstarter projects, right? You know, $110,000 is a lot of money in the context of an individual. (0:29:50) Jonnie: But in the context of developing a game when you’ve got a team of ten, that’s even just considering salaries. (0:29:54) Codey: Yep. (0:29:58) Jonnie: That’s only a couple of months, if that worth of runway. (0:30:02) Jonnie: And that’s not counting all of the, you know, server costs and all those other fun things that are very expensive. (0:30:08) Jonnie: expensive so $110,000 to develop a game is not. (0:30:11) Jonnie: I’m not sure if this is a game that’s not that much. It’s just the unfortunate reality of Kickstarter I guess. (0:30:18) Jonnie: But hopefully they can find their way out of it because the game looks good (0:30:18) Codey: - Yeah. (0:30:25) Codey: I definitely, I think that the people at Third Pie Studios, (0:30:30) Codey: and I’m assuming it’s Alex McCord, (0:30:31) Codey: who’s the CEO and creative director, (0:30:34) Codey: their post explaining the situation to the concerned people was very like the comment that they have on this. (0:30:41) Codey: It was very thorough and very polite and very good. (0:30:45) Codey: So, it does, it’s difficult, it’s difficult. (0:30:48) Codey: And it’s always sad when you have to like, postpone something, but I think they did a good job of… (0:30:53) Codey: Perhappeth, maybe, uh, let people know a little earlier, but it’s fine. (0:30:59) Codey: Stuff happens. (0:31:02) Codey: Um, stuff that, uh, should happen, might not happen, I don’t know. (0:31:09) Codey: I’m so scared to play this game. (0:31:11) Codey: Rusty’s retirement! (0:31:13) Codey: Has a public demo that is out now. (0:31:17) Codey: Oh, Johnny. (0:31:18) Codey: I want to do this demo so bad, but it seems like it’s like a floodgate, you know? (0:31:26) Codey: Like, once I push that button, am I just a slave to Rusty’s retirement? (0:31:34) Jonnie: Yes, yes is the answer to that question yep . (0:31:35) Codey: And keeping it going? (0:31:39) Codey: But I want to play? (0:31:40) Codey: And I want to help them? (0:31:42) Codey: I want to give them feedback? (0:31:43) Codey: I don’t know. (0:31:44) Codey: I don’t know, what did you think about this? (0:31:48) Jonnie: I mean, I’m in the same category as you, and Rusty’s retirement to serve him remembers as the idle farming game that’s being launched soon, but yeah, going into demo, I am equally concerned about this for all of the same reasons, and I think as… (0:32:10) Jonnie: Yeah, because we first talked about this a few months ago, and since then I think the… (0:32:18) Jonnie: Imagery and the, you know, like they’ve added more, we’re seeing more about how it will look on the screen and everything they add, I’m just like, oh, like it looks like it’s getting better, right? (0:32:24) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:32:28) Jonnie: Like there’s those things that I have, like, you have those mental questions around, oh, how would this aspect work? And I feel like as time has gone on, I’m seeing those things come in in ways that’s like, yeah, that’s how I would want that to look. (0:32:29) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:32:35) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:32:40) Jonnie: So I’m very nervous, you know, the, you know, how we would just reference memes to describe our feelings on this, this is very much the… (0:32:43) Codey: Yeah, and… (0:32:48) Jonnie: Oh, yeah, yep, that’s the one. (0:32:52) Codey: Haha, I’m in danger. (0:32:54) Codey: Yeah. (0:32:56) Codey: Yeah. (0:32:58) Codey: Um. (0:33:00) Codey: So, yeah, I guess I don’t know if I’m trying to see. (0:33:06) Codey: Oh, it is PC and Mac. (0:33:14) Codey: I’ll probably do it. (0:33:16) Codey: Um, so, listeners listen back. (0:33:20) Codey: we’ll give feedback on this in maybe one of the next upcoming episodes. (0:33:24) Codey: I will probably bite the bullet and do this now that I’m not I don’t have a deadline that is of the for like the manuscript that is fast approaching so. (0:33:35) Jonnie: Yeah, and Al was telling me he’s gonna install this on his work PC, so he’s gonna have a very detailed show on it in a few weeks time. (0:33:45) Codey: Sure! (0:33:46) Jonnie: Just throwing Al totally under the bus, I don’t believe he’s not going to do that. (0:33:52) Jonnie: But he could do it. He could do it. He could do it for you listeners. (0:33:58) Codey: he’s probably screaming right now. okay so the last bit of news is for a game called Kamaeru a frog refuge and this has the same vibes as Usagi Shima so my brain was like oh let me figure out what Kamaeru means. in Japanese it means take a stand which is not what I was expecting it to be. I was expecting it to be like frog island or something because Usagi Shima is a bunny island. (0:34:28) Codey: But no. Okay. So Kamaeru frog refuge, quote foster a sanctuary for frogs and restore the biodiversity of the wetlands in Kamaeru, a cozy farming sim where you raise frogs by playing minigames and decorating your habitat. Hop right to it. (0:34:47) Codey: What do you have thoughts about this, Johnny? Are you? I have thoughts. (0:34:49) Jonnie: yeah it looks it looks really cute right like it definitely gives off the same same vibe as usagashima but it looks a lot more detailed just lots of little things about you know so in usagashima like you you kind of placed decorations but that was it’s like I think the the idea of restoring the wetlands looks cool it seems like there’s lots of customization options which is which is pretty cool the frogs look super cute and like it looks like There’s like tons of fun color combinations, so I’m guessing there’s going to be… (0:35:19) Jonnie: …a little bit of a Pokemon creature collection style aspect to this, which I know Usagushima had as well. (0:35:26) Jonnie: And alongside, you know, maybe some some more human characters and some interactions in that way. (0:35:32) Jonnie: This has the potential to be a really, really great game, I think. (0:35:40) Jonnie: Usagushima didn’t really stick with me. I think one, because I didn’t really want a mobile game at that point. (0:35:46) Jonnie: but also it just felt a bit shallow. (0:35:49) Jonnie: And this looks like it kind of has the depth that I’m looking for like this. (0:35:55) Jonnie: This is ticking a lot of boxes and I think for like this one is really interesting things in the cottagecore genre of (0:36:02) Jonnie: really doing something (0:36:04) Jonnie: Unique that doesn’t have to be like the whole thing doesn’t have to be a hundred percent unique, right? (0:36:08) Jonnie: A lot of this seems inspired by Utsagushima. However, well, and it’s probably not, right? (0:36:09) Codey: Right. (0:36:13) Jonnie: It’s probably done independently given how closely they’re sort of coming out. (0:36:16) Jonnie: But frogs is not an area that’s really been (0:36:19) Jonnie: explored or is that common outside of like the only other time I can think of really even seeing frogs is catching them in a farm with their with their critter so yeah that was kind of like a weird brain mush of thoughts because this is the first we’ve heard about this game if I remember rightly (0:36:23) Codey: Mm-hmm (0:36:40) Codey: Um, yeah, so I think this is the game that I saw on Instagram or on Instagram, (0:36:45) Codey: Twitter, and I tagged, uh, Al in it because someone tagged me in it because my friends know that this is the kind of game that I will just eat right up. (0:36:53) Codey: This is the first time we’re covering it on the podcast. (0:36:55) Codey: I just want, I wanted to grab my facts straight before I said anything, but, (0:36:59) Codey: um, the developer of apico L, um, is actually also developing a frog breeding and collecting game called mud born. (0:37:07) Codey: So instead of bloodborne, it’s mud born. (0:37:10) Codey: Um, and it’s very, in the same vein, uh, looks a lot like, uh, apico. (0:37:17) Codey: So it’ll be the same kind of thing, um, of, uh, going and helping a frog, (0:37:25) Codey: uh, deity, um, rediscover her lost children. (0:37:30) Codey: Um, this is in, uh, Elle’s con a message about it in March of last year. (0:37:40) Codey: And the discord quote, um, I’ve always joked about making apico, but frog, but it’s never been much more than that with the game jam theme of pond. (0:37:50) Codey: However, it seems like a good opportunity to make it a reality. (0:37:55) Codey: Um, so he has been working on that, which is great. (0:37:59) Codey: So there, there are other frog games coming out. (0:38:02) Codey: Um, I just wanted to say that, uh, cause I really like it clearly, but this (0:38:10) Codey: is, uh, looks a lot different and looks like it’s own little thing. (0:38:13) Codey: And, um, I really like, like they actually have human characters in this game (0:38:17) Codey: that Usagi Shima did not have. (0:38:19) Codey: So there might be like kind of more of a social aspect. (0:38:24) Codey: And then I also saw kind of a crafting system or like a crafting mini game or something that looked a lot like, um, spirit fairs, mini games, which I was also really interested in. (0:38:36) Jonnie: yeah they looked really good and even little things like they was painting a birdhouse it looked like you know just as a little customization option which I (0:38:36) Codey: So. (0:38:40) Codey: Mm-hm, mm-hm, so yeah, right now it’s just coming 2024, we’re not really sure when. (0:38:51) Codey: But it is also gonna be part of Steam’s next fest. (0:38:56) Codey: So make sure to check in on that. (0:38:59) Codey: And last, I was looking when I looked at their thing earlier. (0:39:02) Codey: No, they’re not doing it anymore. (0:39:04) Codey: Nope, maybe they are, they’re broadcasting. (0:39:10) Codey: The developer is currently playing on Steam, and they are wearing a frog hat and have a bunch of frogs behind them. (0:39:19) Codey: And it’s so heckin’ cute. (0:39:21) Codey: So you could probably watch that stream video of them streaming the game. (0:39:26) Codey: But it looks pretty good. (0:39:27) Codey: Cool, well that was our news, woo. (0:39:31) Codey: So on to the main topic, which is Palia. (0:39:35) Codey: To remind people, Palia is one of the worst. (0:39:40) Codey: The phrase they used was “A cozy world made for you.” (0:39:44) Codey: It’s the free-to-play farming MMORPG game. (0:39:46) Codey: We have been playing it, I played it, probably maybe played like 30 hours, but that might be a little bit much. (0:39:58) Codey: Maybe like 20 hours around? (0:40:02) Codey: What about you, Johnny? (0:40:04) Codey: How are you playing the game? (0:40:06) Codey: thoughts, that non-spoilery. (0:40:10) Codey: kind of vibe thoughts about it to say before we jump in. (0:40:12) Jonnie: Yeah, so I’m playing on the Switch, and it runs really well on Switch, right, like I feel like that’s an important thing to recognize early, because the Switch is very old at this point. (0:40:23) Jonnie: Like it doesn’t run perfectly, I’m sure it runs a lot better if you’re playing via PC, but no real major issues in terms of how it plays. (0:40:32) Jonnie: And I really like what they’re trying to achieve with Palia, however I find it difficult to recommend at this stage until… (0:40:42) Jonnie: …there’s a little bit more from a content perspective in the game. It’s probably my very high level thought, but I really love what this game is trying to achieve from introducing that MMO aspect. (0:40:53) Codey: Yeah, I echo that sentiment. I’m also playing on Switch, and I think it has a lot of potential, (0:41:05) Codey: but that there’s some stuff that isn’t quite, some things that aren’t quite built out yet. (0:41:10) Codey: And after playing MMOs for so long, like World of Warcraft or something, I mean, and that’s probably not a fair comparison. But after playing things like that, like some of the (0:41:23) Codey: personality of the MMO side of it, and the world just seems, like it seems like you play for 10 hours and then you’re like, “Well, yep, I get it.” (0:41:33) Jonnie: Yeah, I do want to come back to the WoW comparison, because I think my initial, like my very very early thoughts when I started playing, was it did feel a little bit like when you first started playing. (0:41:45) Jonnie: Wow, obviously, like the combat is the big difference, but when I guess I think about how the world is constructed, it did feel like World of Warcraft where the world is big and your character feels a lot smaller than it typically does in cottagecore style games, which took a bit of like… (0:42:03) Jonnie: It was a bit of an adjustment, right? When you get the first quest to walk into town and like actually takes a little bit of time and you’re trying to work out where to go, that was a little bit of a brain reset and exploring the map. (0:42:15) Jonnie: Like the maps, so there’s two regions and they’re pretty decent size, and yeah, so there is that good early exploration element that I really like. (0:42:30) Codey: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I will say I haven’t really explored the second area too, too much, but (0:42:38) Codey: I agree that it feels like, like I feel like I’m still playing and exploring and still encountering things that are surprising to me. Or like, “Oh wow, I didn’t know this was here,” or “Oh, I didn’t, (0:42:52) Codey: I’ve never been over here before,” or finding out there’s a whole underground, (0:43:00) Codey: the city was really cool. So yeah, it’s got some, I think it’s got more good than bad, (0:43:10) Codey: but it’s definitely maybe like, “Wait a bit.” But, well, let’s dive into a little bit about the story itself. Do you have a good grasp on the story and want to mention it? (0:43:22) Jonnie: Yeah, so I think there’s two aspects to the story. Well, I think it’s all sort of one connected story. And there are a series of dungeons. There are currently three in the game, but there are at least, there’s at least one more intended. I’ve done all three of the of the dungeons. But it’s very closely tied, I guess, to the nature of people and (0:43:52) Jonnie: the world. So none of the other characters, none of the NPCs in the game are humans. They’re a different race. I can’t recall off the top of my head what exactly they are. Yeah. But you’re basically, you know, every player character in the world is a human that’s effectively being reanimated by some form of of God. And… (0:43:59) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:44:05) Codey: No idea. I don’t know if I have ever known… (0:44:08) Codey: “Pallians.” (0:44:22) Jonnie: That enables, you know, you have a stronger connection into some of the magic and the dungeons are about exploring sort of what happened to humanity. And it seems like in the wider context of the world, magic is kind of one of those things that’s known about, but also heavily suppressed and kind of taboo to engage with. But some of those restrictions don’t apply to humans. And so you’re kind of exploring that at the stage that I’m up to, which is (0:44:52) Jonnie: to finish the story. But I guess a decent way through. There isn’t a… I don’t have a sense of what it’s building towards. I guess that’s that’s probably a big gap for me. (0:45:04) Codey: Mm hmm. That’s, that’s my biggest concern with the story is like, basically you teleport or get reanimated or whatever, but your character just like shows up and someone’s just standing there and they’re like, Oh, wow, another human, like, please follow the chain of humans that are heading to the town. And then you go to the town and then they give you like a plot of land. Um, and then you can build like a house on it and stuff, but. (0:45:34) Codey: Last that you’re just kind of free. I mean, there are like quests, but there’s not, it’s, (0:45:40) Codey: it’s very open world in that way that like you, you could then never do the quest ever again. They’re like the story quests, I guess some of the quests you have to do to be able to improve your, um, your abilities. But a lot of it, like it just seems, it seems secondary to me or just like a non- (0:46:04) Codey: existent almost so I would I would like that to be built up a little bit more and I also would like the characters to be built up a little bit more so there’s all the NPCs are basically pallions that live in this world that have have lived in this world and they have some like personality (0:46:34) Codey: to them and they have relationships between them and stuff but for some reason I just wasn’t really connecting to them I don’t know what your experience was yeah (0:46:41) Jonnie: Yeah I felt the same way. I think a lot of them, so a lot of the NPCs I would say that their role is to introduce various skills to you and there’s more skills than most cottagecore games have and it’s kind of like their whole, like they have one personality trait and that’s it so they’re very two dimensional in that way. (0:47:06) Jonnie: you know, I think about the bug catcher and his whole thing is he’s a kid and he’s part (0:47:11) Jonnie: of the local scout group or whatever their world equivalent is. And so he’s always excited and always kind of hyper and always wanting to catch bugs and that’s it, right? Like I didn’t feel like anything else from that character. (0:47:16) Codey: Yeah. (0:47:22) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:47:28) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:47:30) Codey: Or, like, the bookstore lady, (0:47:32) Codey: which I didn’t know there was a bookstore for the longest time, (0:47:34) Codey: but the bookstore lady, like, you go in there and she’s just, like, (0:47:38) Codey: has the vibe of, like, (0:47:40) Codey: “You hurt my books. I hurt your face.” (0:47:44) Codey: your face. Like she’s just very like protective of her book. (0:47:46) Codey: But then I don’t think I’ve talked to her about any like any time I talk to her. I don’t she’s not mentioned anything else Like I don’t know anything about her (0:47:57) Codey: There’s not like a time when I’ll go back in the bookstore and she’s like, okay I guess you’re you’re nice or whatever like but that could just be me not really understanding how to progress the (0:48:09) Codey: Like Hearts basically, I’m trying to think of how to like the progression of the of your (0:48:16) Codey: With these characters It’s not clear to me how to do that (0:48:21) Codey: After after a certain while you can gift them things but like half of the people I try and gift them something and they’re like No, I don’t want that (0:48:29) Jonnie: Yeah, so there’s this whole relationship side to the game, and it’s probably for me the weakest aspect, so you can talk to NPCs, and you can ask them for a clue about what someone wants each week. (0:48:45) Codey: Mm-hmm. (0:48:45) Jonnie: They want four different gifts, and you can, you know, increase the relationship by talking to them, and some of those sorts of things, but it kind of all feels surface level. (0:48:55) Jonnie: And I have to say, it’s very weird for an MMO. (0:48:59) Jonnie: That’s the part that really doesn’t connect because it’s like, yes, there are 20 of us all trying to make friends with the same character right now. (0:49:07) Jonnie: Like it’s it doesn’t feel particularly genuine and kind of feels at odds with everything else that the game is trying to do. (0:49:14) Jonnie: And potentially one of those features that they put in because this is what console games do. (0:49:15) Codey: Yeah. (0:49:21) Codey: Yeah. (0:49:23) Codey: I don’t really know how, (0:49:24) Codey: like I’m trying to think of like how that could be fixed. (0:49:26) Jonnie: I mean, just don’t have it in the game. I just don’t think it’s necessary. (0:49:28) Codey: And I’m not entirely sure. (0:49:31) Codey: Hmm, okay. (0:49:34) Codey: I guess that’s also true. (0:49:35) Codey: Like that was the other thing is like, (0:49:36) Codey: you don’t really know, so you’re human. (0:49:38) Codey: You don’t really know like why you’re here or if like you have some type of greater purpose (0:49:46) Codey: like you’re gonna ascend or something like, (0:49:49) Codey: or return to the dirt. (0:49:51) Codey: Like there’s no idea, at least in the beginning and at least to the part where I’m in in the story. (0:49:57) Codey: And so having romanceable aliens, basically, (0:50:05) Codey: I was like, what? (0:50:10) Codey: It just seemed a little like maybe not until (0:50:15) Codey: later on in the game. (0:50:16) Codey: What did that be something that I’d be thinking about? (0:50:19) Codey: I don’t know. (0:50:22) Codey: One thing that they just released though, (0:50:24) Codey: which I really like this in just as an aspect of farming games in general, (0:50:29) Codey: is there’s a character named Sabira and she’s like an older character. (0:50:33) Codey: You can now romance her. (0:50:36) Codey: They add it. (0:50:37) Codey: So basically like she’s probably in her like fifties or sixties or something. (0:50:41) Codey: And I think that farming games in general (0:50:45) Codey: is a way to open up that type of like relationship with older humans because as someone who, (0:50:52) Codey: I was married, surprise, like I was married (0:50:56) Codey: and I was in a relationship for nine years without human. (0:50:58) Codey: And then I left that relationship and then I was in my like late twenties and even like now if I were to be single in my thirties, (0:51:06) Codey: like I don’t, when I play farming games or whatever or play these games where you have like romanceable whatever it’s always like. (0:51:15) Codey: Yeah, early 20s are teenagers and it’s just like, but like, circumstances happen and other people need to find love as well. (0:51:26) Codey: And so I just really wish that that diversity was represented in games. (0:51:34) Codey: So yeah, I don’t know. I really liked that. (0:51:36) Jonnie: Yeah, I think diversity is important. (0:51:38) Jonnie: Um, yeah. (0:51:40) Codey: Cool. (0:51:45) Codey: Is there a character that like, stuck out to you that you really enjoyed? (0:51:48) Jonnie: um unfortunately the answer is no like I like now I can think about it and I can recall all of the different characters but I it’s almost in the bad way where I think they’re all sort of a bit tropey actually the one character the one character that I do like is the the fishing robot um the fishing the fishing robot is cool uh I i’m a big fan of him and he like I think I think particularly because his trope is… (0:52:01) Codey: I was literally about to say, “But what about the fishing robot?” (0:52:18) Jonnie: Unexpected, you know, where he’s sort of like looking for or trying to find that zen spot and help other people find I bet they don’t call it the zen spot. I can’t remember what he refers to it as but (0:52:30) Jonnie: I thought that was like a fun little twist on a robot character (0:52:30) Codey: Mm-hmm (0:52:34) Codey: Mm-hmm and his mannerisms are so cute and like (0:52:38) Codey: There are throughout the world Sometimes you’ll find like these shiny pebbles or whatever and someone mentioned that he really likes them I think his name’s like Inar or something Someone mentioned that he really likes them and so every time I find one I go and bring it to him and every single time He’s like over the moon about these shiny pebbles and I’m just like yours honky you Cute! (0:53:00) Codey: So, um, big fan of him for sure. (0:53:08) Codey: Um, well, since we talked about fishing, let’s talk about, um, something they say, (0:53:12) Codey: again, that’s part of this game is living off the land any way that you like. (0:53:17) Codey: Um, so they have, I think it’s eight. (0:53:20) Codey: Yeah. (0:53:20) Codey: Eight different like skills that you can improve. (0:53:26) Codey: Um, and some of them are, you know, fishing, hunting, mining, or fishing, (0:53:31) Codey: bug catching, foraging, those are all things that are in most games, but they also have hunting, um, furniture making, and then, oh, I guess gardening is another, like, uh, like regular one in these types of games. (0:53:42) Codey: Um, so let’s just briefly touch on these and like, talk about the pros and cons of each of them and the way that they do them, and if we really like it or not. (0:53:51) Codey: Um, so what do you think about the fishing? (0:53:53) Jonnie: I think fishing’

On this week's episode of the Massively OP Podcast, Bree and Justin talk about Ethyrial and Fractured Online's woes, Palia's latest patch, the re-emergence of City of Titans, World of Warcraft's three-day headstart snafu, and Guild Wars 2's weapon proliferation beta. It's the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you'd like to send in your question to the show, use this link. Listen to the show right now: Show notes: Intro Adventures in MMOs: LOTRO, Fallout 76, WoW, Project Gorgon News: Ethyrial and Fractured Online suffer horrific hack attacks News: Palia's beta patch adds more story News: Could City of Titans stage a comeback? News: World of Warcraft takes heat for paid expansion headstart News: Guild Wars 2 kicks off weapon proliferation beta Outro Other info: Podcast theme: "Digital Death Dream" from City of Titans Your show hosts: Justin and Bree Listen to Massively OP Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Pocket Casts, Amazon, and Spotify Follow Massively Overpowered: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch If you're having problems seeing or using the web player, please check your flashblock or scriptblock setting.

Video games hosts Paul, Ryan and Josh bringing you the week's hottest video game news like no other gaming podcast can. This week we break down the best video games shown off in the recent THQ showcase, then we lament another re-release with no upgrades before Paul gives the breakdown on his time with Palia's open beta.  Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: Skippy, Kiitaclyzm, Gideon Is Lit, Toro, Scrump, Gaius, Remi, MarbleMadness, Dr. Catatonic, Blackstar (DQ), Glapsuidir, Phelps, Michele B, Redletter, Nevo, Waynerman, TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q  Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week's episode of The Game Informer Show, returning guest Kenneth Shepard (Kotaku, Normandy FM) joins us to discuss why Baldur's Gate 3 is one of the best RPGs of 2023, despite the fact we're still working our way through the massive game. Additionally, Marcus clues the crew in on his time spent solving puzzles in Viewfinder and his preview impressions of Palia, an MMO-like life sim currently in closed beta. Follow us on social media: Alex Van Aken (@itsVanAken), Marcus Stewart (@MarcusStewart7), Charles Harte (@Chuckduck365), Kenneth Shepard (@ShepardCDR) The Game Informer Show is a weekly gaming podcast covering the latest video game news, industry topics, exclusive reveals, and reviews. Join host Alex Van Aken every Thursday to chat about your favorite games – past and present – with Game Informer staff, developers, and special guests from around the industry. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Matt Storm, the freelance audio editor for The Game Informer Show, edited this episode. Matt is an experienced podcast host and producer who's been speaking into a microphone for over a decade. You should listen to Matt's shows like the "Fun" And Games Podcast and Reignite, a BioWare-focused podcast. Jump to the timestamps to get to a particular point of discussion: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:39 - Talent Show Update 00:06:36 - Kenneth Shepard Re-Introduction 00:12:55 - Baldur's Gate III 00:58:32 - Palia 01:11:47 - Viewfinder 01:16:09 - Housekeeping