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Al and Kev talk about the Sakuna anime Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:01:38: What Have We Been Up To 00:16:25: Game News 00:31:01: New Games 00:35:10: Sakuna Anime 01:18:00: Outro Links Winds of Anthos DLC Delay Wanderstop Delay Amber Isle Switch Delay Everholm Release Steamworld Build “Steam Fright” Update Disney Dreamlight Valley “Jungle Getaway” Update Hawthorn 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, and (0:00:36) Kev: My name is Kevin. (0:00:38) Al: we are here today to talk about Cottagecore games! Wooooo! Well, both, like we do have (0:00:40) Kev: No, we’re here to talk about ‘an-a-me’! (0:00:46) Kev: Heh heh, oh. (0:00:46) Al: the news section, you know, which will probably be most of the episode. Kevin is of course (0:00:51) Kev: I guess so? (0:00:55) Al: referring to the fact that we are going to talk about the Sakana of rice and (0:01:00) Al: ruin anime that came out recently we tried to do this two weeks in a row one (0:01:09) Al: week the last episode hadn’t come out in the UK so I needed to wait for that one (0:01:15) Al: and then last weekend I was six so that did not work but here we are we’re gonna (0:01:18) Kev: sick (0:01:21) Al: we’re gonna we’re gonna actually do it this time we’re recording (0:01:22) Kev: finally, we made it (0:01:26) Kev: um, yeah, alright, but we’ll get to that (0:01:28) Al: We will get to that. (0:01:30) Kev: i- I have a lot to say, I like sakuna (0:01:30) Al: I look forward to discussing it with you. (0:01:33) Kev: did you know that? (0:01:36) Al: Before that, we have a bunch of game news. (0:01:39) Al: But first of all, Kevin, what have you been up to? (0:01:42) Kev: All right, um, not too much of note a lot of the same as always Marvel snap continues to be good (0:01:50) Kev: I’m sure you’re playing it still. Are you are you playing it? I’m assuming you’re (0:01:50) Al: Hmm (0:01:52) Al: I haven’t I haven’t played much this season yet (0:01:57) Al: Just because I was trying to put some of that time into (0:02:01) Al: Pokemon pocket instead, but I’ve realized I (0:02:02) Kev: Mm-hmm (0:02:06) Al: Not enjoying the battles in that so I’m not going to (0:02:08) Kev: Wait, is that already out ah (0:02:11) Al: Okay, so no it is not (0:02:15) Kev: Are you a New Zealand transplant (0:02:15) Al: It’s I’m I am in New Zealand just now (0:02:20) Al: I (0:02:22) Kev: Amazing you got your whole set up because identical set up real quick and you see (0:02:29) Al: Just happened to live in New Zealand, um, yeah, eh, I mean I guess for tax purposes. I’m not actually in New Zealand (0:02:38) Al: Just in case anyone’s listening (0:02:39) Kev: Hey (0:02:42) Al: Yeah, so I I don’t find the battling fun in that so (0:02:46) Kev: Okay, well (0:02:46) Al: Um, I’m probably going to go back to, uh, back to snap and. (0:02:50) Kev: Sick, um, I’m sure you can. Oh, it’s yeah (0:02:50) Al: Uh, see if I can get the season done in the, in the next two weeks. (0:02:55) Al: I’m sure I probably can. (0:02:57) Al: I actually, I quite like leaving gaps where I’m not playing because then you (0:03:00) Al: have loads of tasks to do in the, in the season, um, rather than like every, (0:03:02) Kev: Yeah (0:03:04) Kev: Sure. Yeah, you can (0:03:06) Al: every two days you get another two tasks. (0:03:07) Kev: Yeah, just the drip feed (0:03:08) Al: You’re like, great. (0:03:09) Kev: Yeah, that makes sense (0:03:12) Kev: Okay, well, you know what I was talking about like how does pocket play like (0:03:18) Al: Yeah, fundamentally, it’s not really different from the Pokémon Trading Card game. There’s (0:03:22) Kev: Uh-huh sure you attach energies your pokemons (0:03:25) Al: like a couple… Yeah, exactly, exactly. The cards are basically the same. Sure, they have (0:03:30) Al: some different cards, but fundamentally, they’re the same thing. The trainer cards are fundamentally (0:03:37) Al: exactly the same. The energy is different in so much as you don’t have them in your (0:03:43) Al: deck it’s like a separate thing and it randomly gives you (0:03:48) Al: energy each turn based on the energies that your Pokemon have. I do think I (0:03:49) Kev: Oh, that’s, okay, that’s an interesting way to approach it. (0:03:56) Al: prefer that and I think if I were to like play the game physically I would (0:04:02) Al: probably prefer to do it this way right like you take all your trainer cards (0:04:04) Al: and shuffle them into a second deck and you draw one of those each turn I quite (0:04:08) Al: like that but yeah it’s it’s not fundamentally different right like if (0:04:14) Al: if you don’t particularly enjoy playing the game. (0:04:18) Al: I think, I guess the reason I enjoy playing Marvel Snap is because one, it’s like super (0:04:24) Al: fast, right? (0:04:26) Kev: They are. It’s a limited pool, but every card does something different. It’s really interesting how they’ve managed to keep it dynamic and interesting with every week a new card. (0:04:27) Al: And two, the card effects are really fun. (0:04:44) Al: yeah exactly exactly whereas the pokemon is still just like you have your pokemon (0:04:49) Al: it has a move and the move deals damage maybe the move has a status effect that’s it right (0:04:51) Kev: - Yeah, yep. (0:04:55) Al: like there’s nothing fundamentally changed there and so I don’t find that particularly interesting (0:04:57) Kev: Yeah. (0:04:57) Kev: Yeah. (0:05:01) Al: uh you’re only using one pokemon to battle each time as you as you were previously um like (0:05:07) Al: fundamentally it’s the same it’s just kind of changed up a few things and I i think the reason (0:05:14) Al: way is so that they can like it’s compatible with the physical card game so if you wanted (0:05:20) Kev: Mm-hmm. Okay. Sure. All right. That’s that’s cool. I guess yeah (0:05:20) Al: to play the game this way you could absolutely play it this way so and I understand why they (0:05:27) Al: did that I i get that because if they want to like add it as like a second way of playing the card (0:05:31) Al: game and in tournaments wherever they can do that and that that might be fun um but that’s not what (0:05:38) Al: i’m looking for I was looking for something kind of fundamentally different I think part of the (0:05:42) Al: the problem is the expectations. (0:05:44) Al: People were comparing it to Snap with no real information, just going, “Oh, it’s (0:05:52) Al: going to be like Snap because they’re trying to make it more mobile and Snap worked really (0:05:56) Al: well. (0:05:57) Al: It was a good card game.” (0:05:58) Al: But it’s not. (0:06:00) Al: Fundamentally it’s not Marvel Snap. (0:06:03) Al: It’s not in any way. (0:06:06) Al: I guess you could argue the only thing it takes from Marvel Snap is the idea of quicker battles. (0:06:12) Al: It’s not fundamentally different. (0:06:14) Al: And the other issue I think is because it’s like there are 160 cards or something like that so far in the game. (0:06:25) Al: So to actually be able to get a decent deck that you can take people on with takes a lot of work. (0:06:32) Al: Whereas because there’s a lot fewer cards in Snap and there are so many different ways to get the cards without paying, (0:06:40) Kev: Yeah, yeah, it’s also what a well far deck in Snat, so yeah, that’s probably the biggest one. (0:06:40) Al: You you can get a decent deck pretty quickly (0:06:44) Al: It is yeah, so it’s 20. I think it’s it’s 20 cards in in pocket (0:06:52) Kev: Okay, all right. (0:06:54) Al: Because you don’t have the energy but yeah, it’s still I’m gonna keep using it and like opening and collecting (0:07:00) Al: But I think that’s what I’m gonna like unless they fundamentally change something about the battles (0:07:04) Al: I’m not gonna put any time into that and so yeah, I’ll do my five minutes a day of open the packets (0:07:11) Al: Do a wonder pick (0:07:13) Al: Check my collection (0:07:14) Al: And then close the app because I like collecting things, you know (0:07:18) Kev: There you go. Hit your dopamine hit. (0:07:20) Al: Exactly exactly and hopefully spend no money on it (0:07:26) Al: So, yeah, i’ll get back into snap this week probably try and get through as much as possible and see if it’s (0:07:30) Kev: All right, well, it’s it is still good. (0:07:34) Kev: The season’s been fine. (0:07:36) Al: Yeah, i’m excited (0:07:37) Al: I might I might try and go back to a destroy deck and try and add in some of the the new symbiotes (0:07:40) Kev: Yeah. Yep. (0:07:44) Al: Could integrate into any of my other decks. Um, they look they look quite fun (0:07:49) Al: They’ve been rolling them out slowly. Haven’t they? I think they’ve been doing one a week of those (0:07:52) Kev: Yeah, yeah, there’s there stay there. That’s what they do standard. Yeah, I want a weekend (0:07:57) Kev: Well, we’ve got like two or three left one the one I’m excited for I think is next week (0:08:02) Kev: Maybe we can I don’t know but the one the one wants not out yet. But um, they’ve been fine. Nothing earth-shattering. Nothing (0:08:09) Kev: Disrupting the game. I think the (0:08:12) Al: It keeps the good decks being good, and it doesn’t make anything else better. (0:08:12) Kev: It’s in a good place (0:08:15) Kev: Yeah, yeah (0:08:18) Kev: Yeah, pretty much pretty much they never (0:08:19) Al: Yeah, so we’ll see if I can get up to infinite again, and if I do it with the same deck or (0:08:22) Kev: white widow though. I’m sad (0:08:26) Kev: Hey (0:08:27) Al: a different deck or whatever. (0:08:28) Kev: Yeah, well, hey, you’re gonna start off at 70 right? So the (0:08:31) Al: Yeah. (0:08:32) Kev: Fights gonna be easier on you. There. Yep. There you go. All right (0:08:32) Al: 73. (0:08:33) Al: Come on, I know my deal. (0:08:36) Kev: Shhh, um, heh heh heh heh. (0:08:39) Al: The moment I hit infinite, I was like, oh, right. (0:08:42) Al: I need what I go down to, it’s like, because my worry was I don’t want to like battle (0:08:45) Kev: Okay (0:08:46) Al: and then drop out of infinite, but you don’t do that. (0:08:49) Al: Once you’re in infinite, that’s it. (0:08:50) Kev: Yeah, nope, you’re good which is so nice (0:08:51) Al: Which I really like. (0:08:53) Al: Yep. (0:08:54) Kev: huge (0:08:55) Kev: sigh of relief (0:08:57) Kev: But yeah snap aside (0:09:00) Kev: a lot of the usual zenless on zero I’ve talked about that so (0:09:05) Kev: There’s an arcade in zenless zone zero where you can play mini games or side games because some of them are not so mini (0:09:12) Kev: I’ve been spending a lot of time in the cause (0:09:16) Kev: Bizarre brigade that’s the name of the minigame. It’s their little version of bullet-heaven games vampire survivor type games (0:09:24) Kev: And so you’re just going through ways of enemies buying upgrades and partners and stuff like that (0:09:32) Kev: It’s it’s just addictive and it’s no danger of spending any money. It’s totally separate from west the gate (0:09:41) Kev: But other than that, I’ve picked up Sonic Frontier. (0:09:45) Kev: It is good. It’s still good. I like it. (0:09:50) Kev: I don’t know what else to say. It’s open-world Sonic work, somehow. (0:09:57) Kev: It’s fine. Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair. (0:09:58) Al: I’ve still, I’ve still, I’ve still never got into it. I played it for a couple of hours (0:10:02) Al: and we’re just, I don’t know what it was, but just like every, I think it’s just every, (0:10:08) Al: it’s the same as every 3D Sonic to me. This is something that doesn’t really jive with (0:10:13) Al: me in 3D Sonic. Except the 3D levels and generations, they worked. (0:10:15) Kev: It’s not. Well, hey, I mean, hey, that’s coming again. (0:10:19) Al: Yeah. Well, exactly. Exactly. Soon. Two weeks. (0:10:20) Kev: So get hyped. Yeah. Yeah. (0:10:26) Kev: That’s excited for that. But yeah, I think. Oh, and I’ve been playing the Luigi Mansion 2 on my 3DS. (0:10:36) Kev: Hey, well, you find me on a Mario Party podcast and it’s October. So guess what? That’s our spooky game of the year. (0:10:43) Al: We just got a spoiler as to which one of you is playing. (0:10:46) Kev: But yeah, there you go. What about you? What’s been going on? (0:10:52) Al: I have been playing Zelda Echoes of Wisdom and it is super fun! (0:10:59) Kev: Oh yeah, you look so fun, so many dank memes and just, ugh, all of games are just tools to do nonsense, I love it so much. (0:11:08) Al: I do there’s a couple of things I’m not a huge fan about it in so much as like it has (0:11:14) Al: a bunch of okay has two has two as far as I know I don’t think there’s gonna be any (0:11:19) Al: more based on what’s happened in the story but I’ve encountered two stealth levels and (0:11:27) Al: I do not like stealth levels I don’t like them at all I’ve never liked them I don’t (0:11:32) Al: like them in spider-man I don’t like them in this game I don’t like them in any game (0:11:38) Al: definitely not fun because well first of all it’s a different way of playing than the (0:11:42) Al: rest of the game and suddenly they’re like oh hey you got to do this thing that you haven’t (0:11:46) Al: bothered doing the rest of the time completely switch up how you think about the game and (0:11:51) Al: I also don’t like how they go like the step stealth is like oh you just throw you back (0:11:56) Al: to the beginning of the level and that’s that you know I don’t I don’t like that because (0:12:01) Al: it’s just then you’re just repeating the thing that you keep failing at which yeah okay sounds (0:12:06) Al: just like any game with levels. (0:12:08) Al: But there’s something about it that’s really– (0:12:11) Al: you get right to the end of a stealth level (0:12:13) Al: and you muck up one thing and you’re back to the beginning. (0:12:15) Kev: Yeah, yeah, well, that’s, that’s odd that they put it because I don’t know. (0:12:15) Al: I don’t know why that annoys me more than, say, (0:12:18) Al: a Mario platformer. (0:12:20) Al: I don’t know, but it’s really frustrating. (0:12:29) Al: It makes sense in the story, is what I would say, but I don’t want to spoil the picture. (0:12:29) Kev: It doesn’t, okay, sure. (0:12:34) Kev: Um, the question I have is, do you still have tools, right? (0:12:40) Al: Yeah, you do. (0:12:40) Kev: because there’s, there are some stealth levels where, or gameplay, where you. (0:12:45) Kev: Just, it’s just totally dodge all the, the lasers and spotlights or whatever, right? (0:12:50) Kev: Stay invisible. (0:12:52) Kev: And then some like Spider-Man, where you still have your tools and you can use them, doing (0:12:57) Kev: your stealth thing or whatever, right? (0:13:00) Kev: You can take out foes before you get detected. (0:13:02) Al: Well, I think Spider-Man’s a bad example of that. Spider-Man’s a bad example of that, (0:13:06) Al: because most of the stealth levels in the newer Spider-Mans, you’re actually playing as Mary Jane, (0:13:13) Al: not a Spider-Man. I know the ones you mean. I think there are some stuff, and actually, (0:13:14) Kev: Oh, oh my gosh, I forgot about Mary Jane. I was thinking about like when you know, you have a room of encounters. Yes (0:13:21) Al: those are fun, yeah, because that’s more of like a puzzle, whereas the Mary Jane levels are just like (0:13:23) Kev: Yes (0:13:26) Kev: Yeah, yeah (0:13:29) Kev: Yeah, just of you know, avoid the spotlights, you know (0:13:29) Al: hide behind this thing, wait for them to- (0:13:32) Al: not look at you, it’s just not fun. (0:13:35) Kev: Well, well (0:13:35) Al: They tried to make it more fun in Spider-Man 2 because they gave her a teaser, which did (0:13:40) Kev: Uh-huh (0:13:40) Al: improve it but was still not- I still didn’t enjoy it. (0:13:44) Kev: » Sure, sure that, okay. (0:13:45) Al: Because you’ve got this game about I’m, you know, spinning around the world, I’m like, (0:13:50) Al: you know, whip-lying, whatever, and then suddenly I’m just a person. (0:13:53) Kev: » But don’t you wanna play? (0:13:55) Al: Not fun. (0:13:56) Al: Yeah, no one’s buying the Mary Jane game, let’s be honest, right? (0:14:01) Kev: My gosh, but yeah, but no, that’s exactly my point. (0:14:04) Kev: That’s how far the spectrum goes, right? (0:14:06) Kev: Like there’s the good self and the bad self, but anyway, so (0:14:10) Al: So what I would say is you do have all those tools, (0:14:13) Al: so you can do everything that you could. (0:14:16) Al: But I found that when I was trying to do stuff like that, (0:14:20) Al: clever stuff like that, to like– (0:14:22) Al: they would somehow see me in the weirdest places. (0:14:25) Al: And I’d lose the level. (0:14:28) Al: And actually, it was easier just to hide, which is not great, (0:14:28) Kev: They can’t see you at the top of a tower of veg, you know. (0:14:33) Al: really. (0:14:34) Al: But yeah, I don’t– (0:14:40) Al: exactly. (0:14:41) Al: I will say the one good thing about these (0:14:42) Al: compared to other stealth levels is if you get seen, (0:14:46) Al: they chase after you. (0:14:47) Al: But if they don’t catch you, you don’t (0:14:49) Kev: Oh, that’s always nice, not an autofail, that’s… (0:14:49) Al: get put to the back at the start. (0:14:51) Al: So yeah, so I’ve seen people speed running them (0:14:57) Al: with throwing tables behind them to block the people running (0:15:01) Al: after them. (0:15:02) Al: And that, I think, is a good thing. (0:15:05) Al: But I didn’t see that until after I’d done them. (0:15:08) Al: I didn’t, I didn’t consider speedro- (0:15:10) Al: I was running it. Um, but yeah, I did try like, you know, I’m going to build beds over this area so I can, but they still saw me and I’m like, Oh, it’s not. So anyway, so been playing that. I’ve also played a bit of Bellattro now that it’s on, uh, mobile. (0:15:24) Kev: Oh mobile, I gotta get I gotta get it. I will (0:15:27) Al: This game, I get why everybody likes it and I don’t dislike it is what I will say. I don’t know how much I want to talk about this because people are just going to mock me for buying a rogue light again. (0:15:33) Kev: Okay (0:15:39) Kev: I mean, that’s the hope on this show. I think (0:15:41) Al: Actually, no. This isn’t even a roguelite. This is a roguelike. (0:15:44) Al: Everything resets between runs in there. There’s nothing that carries over. (0:15:46) Kev: Yeah, oh, yeah (0:15:49) Al: I knew it was a roguelite going in. I did. But I somehow thought the roguelike part of it was (0:15:55) Al: going to be different than it was. I think that’s all I’m going to say. It doesn’t mean I’m not (0:15:59) Kev: Okay, well… (0:16:00) Al: going to continue playing it until I beat it. I might. The actual gameplay of it is fun enough (0:16:06) Al: that it might, might override that. (0:16:08) Kev: Yeah. (0:16:09) Kev: Yeah, well, I’m excited. I’ll update you when I get it too. (0:16:14) Al: look forward to it. I just, I like how it’s nice and cheap, it’s like 10 quid. (0:16:14) Kev: Because I know when I get it, it’s over for me. Goodbye, world. (0:16:18) Kev: And Galacto only. (0:16:24) Kev: That is great. (0:16:25) Al: All right, well that’s what we’ve been up to. Let’s talk about some game news. First up, (0:16:33) Al: surprise surprise, the Harvest Moon Winds of Anthos great outdoors update has been delayed again. (0:16:44) Al: Last week’s episode when you talked about this, but my first thought when I saw this news was (0:16:49) Al: they’re delaying it by a week. A week is a very short amount of time to be delaying it. (0:16:55) Al: That seems weird and suspicious, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it get delayed again. (0:17:00) Al: It got delayed again. (0:17:00) Kev: I didn’t think about that but you’re super right like what is the difference gonna gonna make in game dev I don’t actually don’t know what we could do. (0:17:10) Al: The one thing I would think is they’d realized one game-breaking bug, and they knew the fix (0:17:19) Al: to it so they could do it, and the week was just to like get it through their testing and their (0:17:23) Kev: Mmm, sure. (0:17:25) Al: processes to get it actually into the stores. But that didn’t work. So either that’s wrong, (0:17:30) Kev: Sure, sure, yeah (0:17:34) Al: and they were just completely overly optimistic about what they were doing, right? Like who two (0:17:38) Al: weeks away from release, who goes. (0:17:40) Al: We’re not going to be able to get this done in time, but I know we’ll get it (0:17:52) Al: fine in an extra week. (0:17:54) Al: That’s a really weird decision to make, right? (0:17:58) Al: Which they’ve clearly decided because they haven’t put a new date on it. (0:18:01) Al: They’ve just said it’s delayed. (0:18:02) Kev: I said one week later, but not which week, huh? (0:18:10) Al: no so yeah if you’re waiting for that update i’m very sorry yeah and I guess we’ll see we’ll see (0:18:16) Kev: Wait longer (0:18:20) Al: when it eventually comes out uh speaking of delays because we are still in the season of delays (0:18:26) Al: because it is october uh wonder stop um have delayed they are going to be releasing next year (0:18:32) Al: this is the game that’s from the the creators of stanley parable uh (0:18:36) Kev: Okay, I’m looking let me see (0:18:40) Al: it’s the it’s about making tea (0:18:43) Kev: That that you know that is such a weird (0:18:47) Kev: Cell right it’s a T game, but it’s the Stanley Parable guy so (0:18:52) Al: No, I think that’s honestly I think that that like makes me more interested. So I like the (0:18:54) Kev: Unless it’s gonna give (0:19:00) Al: tea making aspect, right? Because I like the idea of a more focused game. That’s also a (0:19:08) Al: farming game, also a cottagecore type game is more focused. And it’s not I don’t, I don’t (0:19:10) Kev: Yeah, no, no, I mean like the tea game (0:19:15) Al: necessarily expect it to be like the Stanley Parable. I think it’s more just like the Stanley (0:19:19) Al: parable people understand. (0:19:22) Kev: okay tour yeah all right when you put like that yeah I that makes sense right (0:19:27) Kev: but you know just when you hear Stanley Parable your ex a lot of people was (0:19:33) Kev: thinking oh is there gonna be some weird meta narrative component to it how’s (0:19:38) Kev: it’s gonna break the fourth wall but like yeah no looking at the trailer (0:19:39) Al: Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I don’t think we’re going I don’t think it’s going to be that I think the Stanley Parable was them just breaking down games and showing because that’s all it is. Right. It’s just it’s it’s it’s basically a massive comedy essay about games, interactive comedy essay, right? (0:19:48) Kev: yeah (0:19:52) Kev: Yeah, yep, yeah. (0:19:56) Al: Like it does a thing that no other medium could do. Right. Like you can’t you can’t break down films in the same way that you consume films. (0:20:06) Al: you can’t break down reading a book in the say in reading a book you (0:20:07) Kev: well I don’t know I saw that mass unbearable weight of massive talent (0:20:09) Al: could you that has to be in the creation (0:20:16) Al: I mean that was excellent but that’s still about the creation of something not about the consuming (0:20:18) Kev: and that one they lit oh yeah oh true true (0:20:22) Al: of it whereas the whole point of the stanley parable it if you don’t have the user input (0:20:28) Kev: yeah yeah that’s true (0:20:28) Al: it it doesn’t mean anything it’s pointless it’s useless whereas a film even if nobody watches it (0:20:33) Al: it still has its value like its narrative is the same from beginning to end no matter who watches (0:20:35) Kev: Sure. (0:20:39) Al: it whereas games that’s not how it works and that’s what I really like about the stanley parable (0:20:40) Kev: No, it’s true. (0:20:44) Kev: Yeah, okay, but yeah, I mean, I looked at the trailer and it looks like a well made (0:20:49) Kev: competent game or whatever is this. Yeah, like, I don’t know, it takes a second to wrap my head. (0:20:55) Kev: Like, that’s why they’d be a good fit for it. But yeah, all right, I’m down for it. (0:21:00) Al: I understand that, but we’ll see what happens. (0:21:01) Kev: Do we have an ETA now? Okay, so. (0:21:04) Al: Early 2025 is all they’ve said. (0:21:07) Kev: Question marks, basically. (0:21:09) Al: Yeah, so May, May of next year. (0:21:15) Al: That’s what I’m saying. (0:21:16) Kev: So look forward to the next delay announcement in February 2020. (0:21:16) Al: We’ll see if I’m right. (0:21:22) Al: Speaking of delays, we also have Amber Isle. (0:21:25) Al: I’m sorry, Kevin. (0:21:27) Al: The Switch version is delayed. (0:21:27) Kev: NOOO! (0:21:30) Al: We have a date of 21st of October, not in October, November, November, sorry. (0:21:31) Kev: We have a date. (0:21:36) Kev: You know what? (0:21:37) Kev: I can live with that. That’s still this year. (0:21:39) Al: So, slightly over a month, slightly over a month. (0:21:39) Kev: I can live with that. (0:21:41) Kev: I- I- Wait, it’s a- (0:21:41) Al: It’s interesting because, yeah, so the Steam versions out now (0:21:47) Al: came out a couple days ago as we’re recording. (0:21:50) Al: The interesting thing about this is it’s slightly over a month delay to this. (0:21:56) Al: But they say it’s console specific performance issues. (0:22:00) Al: I feel similar to this, I feel about the delay to the wins of Anthos DLC. (0:22:08) Al: That’s a very specific date for performance issues. (0:22:12) Kev: Mm-hmm. Well, I think mmm-hmm (0:22:13) Al: Like performance issues can mean so many different things and (0:22:18) Al: can come from so many different places that there’s not gonna be one easy fix. (0:22:21) Kev: Through (0:22:25) Al: And it’s not like they’re gonna spend a month working on it, right? (0:22:26) Kev: So (0:22:30) Al: And we all know Nintendo are slow at getting these things through their store. (0:22:36) Kev: Heh, heh, heh, heh, yeah. (0:22:36) Al: So maybe they have two weeks extra to work on it, maybe. (0:22:41) Kev: Yeah, well, you know, I’m assuming, based off the way they phrase it, it’s not a game-breaking thing, right? (0:22:48) Kev: It just probably runs a little poorly on the switch. It’s, you know, it’s not uncommon. So… (0:22:55) Kev: They probably set themselves a date. We need one in out by this for the holidays or whatever, and… (0:23:00) Kev: So let’s just do what we can in this time. Um, that would be my guess. (0:23:05) Al: I yeah I don’t look I’ll be yeah I’ll be surprised if they don’t if people still don’t (0:23:12) Al: aren’t disappointed by the performance of this when it comes out right and and I guess (0:23:16) Kev: Well, [LAUGHS] (0:23:16) Al: the thing is like I guess I’m confused as to why they would be unhappy with it now but (0:23:23) Al: they’ll be happy with it in a moment like that just feels unrealistic (0:23:24) Kev: Hmm (0:23:26) Kev: that (0:23:28) Kev: Yeah, all right. You know what? That’s a good point. Yeah. I mmm. I don’t know. That’s a good point (0:23:35) Al: But we’ll see. We’ll see. Because Kevin’s gonna buy in day one. (0:23:40) Kev: No, gosh, I’m, I’m over here agonizing we’re going to do an episode. (0:23:46) Kev: Am I going to have to get down steam? (0:23:48) Kev: I don’t know, but boy, it’s going to be day one. (0:23:51) Al: Get it for what you want to play it on. (0:23:53) Al: The episode can wait. (0:23:54) Al: Next we have Ever Home. (0:23:56) Al: Ever Home, is it Home? (0:23:58) Al: Or is it Home, Home? (0:24:00) Kev: I do I think it’s whole either way. It’s basically the same thing is what I think (0:24:05) Al: Yeah, I think it’s Home. (0:24:07) Al: ‘Cause I think it’s kind of like a pun. (0:24:09) Kev: Yeah, yeah, yep, I think so (0:24:09) Al: Like it sounds like Home, H-O-M-E. (0:24:14) Al: But also a Home, H-O-L-M, Home. (0:24:19) Al: I clicked the pronunciation guide on Google (0:24:22) Al: and it said it in an English accent. (0:24:23) Al: So of course I parroted it in an English accent. (0:24:26) Al: Home or Home, as apparently that said, (0:24:32) Al: also means an islet, (0:24:34) Al: especially in a river or near a mainland. (0:24:36) Al: So is this based on an island? (0:24:38) Al: I haven’t seen anything. (0:24:40) Kev: I… I don’t know. (0:24:42) Kev: It probably is. (0:24:45) Al: Anyway, I should probably say what the news is shouldn’t I because I haven’t as I said that there they’ve announced their release date is the (0:24:51) Al: 11th of November this year. So there you go. If you’ve been looking forward to that (0:24:56) Kev: It’s a very pretty-looking game. (0:24:59) Kev: Isometric, I don’t feel like that’s one we see very often in our– (0:25:06) Kev: at least not in a 2D pixel one, so maybe a 3D one. (0:25:09) Kev: But I don’t know. (0:25:09) Al: Yeah, I think you’re right. I think you’re right (0:25:11) Kev: It looks– it just visually looks polished. (0:25:18) Kev: I think maybe there’s a narrative aspect that (0:25:21) Kev: looks interesting that might set it apart. (0:25:24) Al: I’m intrigued as to how the farming will feel when you’re doing it because of the isometric (0:25:24) Kev: But yeah, it died. (0:25:34) Al: view. I think it might be harder to hit the exact square you want. (0:25:38) Kev: that’s true but I like I saw they there’s a moment in the trailer when you (0:25:45) Kev: harvest pumpkins and like they’re all harvested at once so I wonder if they’re (0:25:50) Kev: designed around that (0:25:52) Al: Possibly, possibly. However, you might notice the watering, it did do it on a square by (0:26:00) Al: square basis. And actually I had a look, so when she does the pumpkins, it’s not all at (0:26:06) Al: once, it’s like six of them at once, and then the other three. So yeah, I just, it could (0:26:09) Kev: Okay. Uh… (0:26:12) Al: just be, yeah, that these things are done on a much more lackadaisical way, shall we (0:26:19) Al: right like oh, you kind of vaguely hit it (0:26:21) Kev: right. Yeah. (0:26:22) Al: we’ll just count it sort of thing. (0:26:25) Al: I don’t know, but we’ll see. (0:26:28) Al: That’s my only concern about this is how that will feel. (0:26:32) Al: But we will see because it’s coming out soon. (0:26:35) Al: There is a demo so I could play it if I cared. Find it. (0:26:39) Al: Next, we have Steam World Steam World (0:26:41) Al: Build, their final seasonal update is coming out or is out now is out now. (0:26:50) Al: and this is the Steam Fright Update. (0:26:52) Al: So obviously, Halloween based. (0:26:54) Al: There’s lots of glowing things. (0:26:57) Al: Glowing green lights. (0:26:57) Kev: As is, that’s what one does on Halloween. (0:27:01) Al: Yeah, the train is like radioactive looking. (0:27:05) Kev: As trains do in the real world during Halloween. (0:27:11) Al: Yeah, it looks like if you enjoy this game, that will be a fun game. (0:27:16) Kev: it does look like it’s doing the spooky thing well i’ll say that it looks very halloweeny (0:27:22) Kev: - Oh. - Oh. (laughs) (0:27:22) Al: Next we have another update for Disney Dreamlight Valley. They’re just pumping these updates (0:27:31) Al: out. This is the Jungle Getaway update. So, interestingly, one of the major updates in (0:27:39) Al: this is that you can go to the Lion King realm during the day. So, previously, I think the (0:27:45) Kev: Well, you couldn’t already, though, okay? (0:27:49) Al: The deal was that this was, (0:27:51) Al: it was just always night when you went. (0:27:52) Al: to the Lion King realm. (0:27:54) Al: So it wasn’t that you couldn’t go there during the day. (0:27:54) Kev: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that just I’m puzzled by that decision. (0:27:56) Al: It’s just when you went, it was night. (0:28:04) Al: look I suspect it would have made sense narratively if you played it but I haven’t done that bit so (0:28:11) Al: I wouldn’t know for sure um it’s also really funny how like this is like the top voted thing (0:28:17) Al: is like hey daytime (0:28:20) Kev: Also, it steals me, but the Lion King takes place in Fabana, which is not a jungle. (0:28:29) Al: They also Timon and Pumbaa are added so they won’t so they don’t add every single character (0:28:36) Kev: wait they weren’t in art oh my gosh oh my gosh what do you (0:28:40) Al: that’s in every single film when they add the realms so a fair argument also some new (0:28:41) Kev: mine yeah but you know what you know what they should have been in there (0:28:45) Kev: before simba I don’t care (0:28:49) Al: backpacks. There you go. The final piece of standard news is (0:28:51) Kev: all right I like lion king so you know what i’ll give him props for that (0:28:59) Al: an interesting one from Paleo Pines. I don’t know if we want to talk much about this but (0:29:05) Al: I felt like it was something to mention. They’ve basically posted on social media saying that (0:29:11) Al: they’re struggling to find someone to help the future of Paleo Pines. Basically they’re (0:29:19) Al: looking for a production partner so I think this is like, I think it’s basically someone to give (0:29:25) Al: the money. I think that’s it. (0:29:29) Al: They’re struggling. They’re not managing to keep funding the game to get ad updates. (0:29:34) Kev: yeah well you know what that’s that’s hard um to to keep a game going right like honestly (0:29:44) Kev: if I were the paleopine step like they’ve they’ve done the derp feed model of here’s an update here (0:29:50) Kev: and there whatever I have would have just saved for one or two and called it a day like I think (0:29:55) Kev: paleopine’s uh the base level was already pretty solid as a package um so he (0:30:01) Al: Yeah, I agree. And it’s they’ve said that they’re working on other games, so it’s not like they’re only working on this. So yeah, it does feel like not every game needs to constantly have updates. And so maybe, maybe that’s it for Paleo Pines. I don’t know, mostly. (0:30:05) Kev: okay (0:30:16) Kev: yeah but uh but we’ll see um yeah i’m interested like or you know like this might be like I don’t (0:30:25) Kev: know all the obviously ins and outs of this but would a c a sequel at this point be better i (0:30:30) Kev: don’t know um I don’t know if they could get more groundswell for that because you know a new game (0:30:34) Al: Maybe yeah, maybe I’m sure they’re thinking all these things through, right? (0:30:37) Kev: sometimes yeah but uh regardless um you know it’s a good game I uh I do wish to see more of it (0:30:46) Kev: they don’t have all my dinosaurs that I want in there yet anyway so um number one reason to keep going (0:30:52) Al: It’s even possible to have all the dinosaurs. (0:30:57) Kev: no but they can try (0:31:00) Al: Fair enough. (0:31:02) Al: We also have one new game to talk about. (0:31:06) Al: This is a very interesting one. (0:31:08) Al: So this game is called Hawthorne, and I’ll just read their blurb. (0:31:14) Al: Former developers from Bethesda Bioware and Naughty Dog bring you sandbox RPG realm of (0:31:20) Al: anthropomorphic animals and fairies. (0:31:22) Al: play co-op or solo as you build a village of memorable NPCs, farm, craft, explore and celebrate the seasons in an ever-changing world bigger than you. (0:31:32) Kev: Okay, I’m, I have a lot of feelings here because, so this is Everdell, er, I’m sorry, um, what’s the, the book series, um, Redwall, Redwall, that’s not, Everdell’s a board game, it’s another thing, but Redwall, the, the game, basically, you’re all, you’re playing as mice and otters and, and little birds and, and you’re farming and crafting and stuff, um, and, okay, on that pitch alone, I think, (0:32:02) Kev: sounds incredible, um, especially the fact that they are going with, uh, uh, actual size. So the pumpkins are, that you’re farming are bigger than you, right? Um, uh, so that’s, uh, I, I love a lot of this. I mean, they, you know, these are anthropomorphic critters and they’re talking and so on and so forth. There’s birds with wizard hats or witch hats, whatever, um, uh, so it’s great. The only thing is right. Because of that, I guess that Bethesda (0:32:32) Kev: and Naughty Dog and Pyewear, I guess, actually, it’s realistic looking, right? Like Skyrim ish, um, which is, I don’t know, when you describe a game like that to me, I’d expect something cute scenes, stylistic or whatever. And it’s, yeah. (0:32:47) Al: It’s funny because it’s like a combination of weirdness with that, right, because yeah, (0:32:51) Al: it’s realistic looking. (0:32:52) Al: So you’ve got this realistic looking mouse next to a realistic looking pumpkin, but he’s (0:32:59) Al: standing on his hind legs holding an axe cutting down some corn. (0:33:04) Kev: Yep, yep. (0:33:04) Al: It’s like realistic but also really weird. (0:33:09) Kev: And guess what, when you’re dragging that pumpkin or that branch that’s bigger than you, it looks kinda goofy, ‘cause it’s kinda floating behind you, but your arms are kinda healthy. (0:33:18) Kev: Um, I don’t know, it’s… I guess the weirdest thing, like, it doesn’t look bad, but it’s just such a… unexpected art direction to go with for this kinda game. Um, right? (0:33:31) Kev: And, like, it’s very grounded, right? (0:33:35) Kev: I mean, their colors are nice, but they’re not, like, bright or anything like that. (0:33:39) Kev: Just a very nice outdoor setting. (0:33:41) Kev: Um, but, uh, you know, I’m not, like I said, I don’t think it’s bad, just unexpected. (0:33:48) Kev: And I’m still, uh, very enthusiastic about the premise. (0:33:52) Kev: There’s a lot of great things in here. (0:33:54) Kev: You’re dancing with an otter on a table while you’re drinking meat or something. (0:34:00) Kev: Um, you can swim as an otter. (0:34:02) Kev: You can fly on birds. (0:34:04) Kev: Um, I, I, I like a lot about it. (0:34:08) Al: Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see what comes from this. (0:34:09) Kev: There’s a weasel with a top hat. (0:34:11) Kev: I think that’s a weasel. (0:34:13) Kev: It’s Mayor Weasleton. (0:34:13) Al: Heh. (0:34:14) Al: Obviously. (0:34:17) Kev: I like, I like red wall and little rodent people, societies. (0:34:23) Kev: It’s cute. (0:34:24) Kev: Um, I will probably play this. (0:34:26) Kev: Did, is it steam only right now? (0:34:27) Kev: Do we know there’s anything about, uh, (0:34:30) Al: That’s a good question, I think I’ll see at the end of the trailer. (0:34:36) Al: Yeah, I’m just seeing I’m not seeing anything about. (0:34:40) Kev: well um okay well i’ll have to see um nothing else right those names they’re uh there’s probably (0:34:49) Kev: a lot of good talent right and hopefully not a lot of bad uh executive decisions so hopefully (0:34:56) Kev: this game will come out great um yeah oh I think it might be on xbox I don’t know I see on the xbox (0:35:01) Kev: reddit um but I digress um yeah i’ll definitely keep my eye out for it because I love the idea of (0:35:11) Al: Alrighty, so that’s all the news. We’re now going to talk about Sakuna of Rice and Ruin, (0:35:19) Al: the anime. So just to give a bit of background behind this, this is based on a game, Sakuna (0:35:24) Al: of Rice and Ruin, obviously. It was a rice. It is a rice, realistic rice farming game (0:35:28) Kev: get get ready if you thought I was a weeaboo before get ready I want to talk about japanese (0:35:34) Kev: animation um yes so (0:35:41) Al: based on, with a story, a very interesting story, which I’ll need you to confirm to me how much of (0:35:49) Al: the story in the anime is the same as in the game, because as mentioned in the episode… (0:35:52) Kev: I’d say 90 percent 90 to 95 percent it is (0:35:56) Al: Okay, obviously I know the beginning and stuff like that, but as I mentioned on the actual (0:35:59) Kev: Yeah (0:36:00) Al: episode we did with the game, I didn’t enjoy the game, so I didn’t get very far through it. (0:36:04) Kev: Yeah (0:36:06) Kev: Okay, I on the other hand yeah, we did that good good while ago. It’s not gonna has been out for a minute (0:36:13) Kev: Yeah, I did beat the game (0:36:16) Kev: Apparently not all the game though because there was some stuff I didn’t know that is something yet to make because (0:36:22) Kev: That was in side quests. I didn’t end up doing or they didn’t trigger for me or whatnot, but I’ll get to that (0:36:27) Kev: But okay, so the elevator pitch (0:36:28) Al: three years ago. Just sorry, just three years ago is when we did that episode. (0:36:31) Kev: Yeah, okay. Well there you go. Oh man. I’m so oh first of all let me just say I so I adored (0:36:37) Kev: Socken at the the video game on I know it got a novel like sequel it got a think of manga adaptation (0:36:46) Kev: I’m so happy got an anime adaptation because it was indeed perfect for one (0:36:52) Kev: And I mean overall, I think they knocked it out of park. (0:36:56) Kev: It’s a great anime in my opinion. (0:36:59) Kev: What’s your overall opinion on it now? (0:37:01) Al: Yeah, I think it’s super fun. The characters all feel very real. I know that they’re all (0:37:10) Al: pretty much based on the characters in the game, so obviously that helps, but the animation (0:37:13) Kev: - Mm-hmm, yep. (0:37:15) Al: looks great. The pacing of the story felt pretty good. Pretty standard, but pretty good. (0:37:22) Kev: Yeah, I have one or two quips where, uh, uh, yeah, uh, forms that they excuse me, (0:37:28) Kev: forms with it. Um, but in general, yeah, I know it’s pretty solid how they paste it out. (0:37:33) Kev: Um, yeah. Uh, all right. There you go. All right. Until next week, guys. (0:37:34) Al: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. (0:37:36) Al: I thought it was super fun. (0:37:39) Al: I don’t know what else to say about it overall. (0:37:42) Kev: All right. Okay. Uh, so here’s the elevator pitch, um, for both. Again, the, the plot is pretty, (0:37:49) Al: Oh wait, before you do, is this where we go spoiler alert? (0:37:54) Al: We’re probably going to talk about spoilers. We’re probably going to talk about the actual story. (0:37:56) Kev: Okay. Yeah, it it is a 13 episode anime (0:38:01) Kev: It’s not terribly long, right? You can knock it out pretty quick (0:38:05) Kev: And the game’s been out for three years. So yeah, I’m not gonna hold back on spoilers because it’s (0:38:12) Kev: Like there’s nothing tear I don’t think there’s anything super (0:38:16) Kev: One or two things but yeah, here’s your warning. I’m gonna talk about the whole game (0:38:21) Kev: I’m gonna try to go broad and the narrow or whatever but but yeah, I’m saying (0:38:26) Kev: here everything is fair game considering that again the plot is very (0:38:31) Kev: similar to the game so you know that’s been out and well established alright so (0:38:35) Kev: the elevator pitch okay so Sakuna is a the daughter of a war god and a harvest (0:38:42) Kev: goddess at the start so she has inherited powers and such from both and (0:38:50) Kev: at the start of the series she is living in what is referred to as the capital (0:38:54) Kev: work various days. (0:38:56) Kev: and in such live in what’s called the lofty realm, the upper realm where those (0:39:02) Kev: sorts of beings live, and she is a stubborn, spoiled, lazy brat who gets by (0:39:10) Kev: because of her parents, basically, the status she got from them. And so one day, (0:39:18) Kev: a bridge called the… was it the Bridge of Heaven, I think it is, appears and a (0:39:25) Kev: a group of humans. (0:39:26) Kev: Humans appear on said bridge, wandering from what’s referred to as the “lower realm”, (0:39:30) Kev: the world of humans, and they are crossing over to the capital. (0:39:36) Kev: It’s not going to go out to try to deal with it, but she ends up, and so the humans are (0:39:45) Kev: being chased by a bandit named Ishimaru. (0:39:48) Kev: She kicks Ishimaru off the bridge, quite literally kicks him off the bridge, and the humans get (0:39:54) Kev: Bye and call us a little bit. (0:39:56) Kev: It’s because of this, Sakuna is punished and sent to Hinue Island or the Isle of Demons, where her parents once lived, and she is sent there to fend for herself and to figure out what’s going on as there have been reports of demons coming from the island. (0:40:17) Kev: And so that’s how the stage is set. (0:40:24) Kev: Sasakuna is to learn (0:40:26) Kev: how to cultivate rice like her mom did and get along with the the band of humans who have also (0:40:32) Kev: been sent to the Isle of Demons as they try to figure everything out and eventually figure out (0:40:38) Kev: the demon problem. Okay um so with that I guess let’s see here so I guess we’ll just try to go (0:40:50) Kev: in and visit order unless you have other ideas or do you have any comments overall on the overall (0:40:56) Al: Eh, I guess if we’re talking about just like the setup of the story as a whole, you know, (0:41:04) Al: it’s a fun concept. Obviously, we experienced, we both experienced this part in the game, (0:41:10) Al: but I think I cared more about the story at this point, right? Because part of the problem, (0:41:17) Al: and this is a me problem, I understand that. You don’t need to come at me and go, “Ah, (0:41:22) Al: you should care more about the story and games, but generally, I don’t. (0:41:25) Kev: Mm-hmm, okay. (0:41:26) Al: Right? I’m playing games because I enjoy the gameplay. I’m not playing games necessarily for the story. (0:41:32) Al: If the story grabs me, that’s just a bonus. (0:41:36) Al: But the problem is, especially at the beginning of games, I don’t want a lot of story before I start playing. (0:41:42) Al: Right? I’m like, “No, no, just give me the game. I want to see how this plays before I invest lots of time into it. (0:41:44) Kev: Okay, sure sure (0:41:48) Al: Give me the game. Don’t give me the backstory.” (0:41:49) Kev: Okay (0:41:51) Kev: Yeah, you know and that’s fair (0:41:54) Kev: That’s fair (0:41:55) Kev: I think there’s a lot of people like that who want the gameplay before anything else and that’s very fair being the interactive medium it (0:42:02) Kev: is (0:42:03) Kev: and (0:42:04) Kev: Sakuna in particular right like the gameplay of the video game is very it can be tough to (0:42:11) Kev: to get her because there’s it’ll it asks a lot of you. (0:42:14) Kev: Right. There is both the rice farming simulation game and there’s also platforming and combat. (0:42:21) Kev: True to her nature is half harvest. (0:42:24) Kev: God is half war goddess. (0:42:26) Kev: The game reigns into both aspects of that. (0:42:29) Kev: So it’s asking a lot and might not appeal. (0:42:32) Kev: I think I would say it’s hard to appeal to everyone because those are two very different things, I think. (0:42:39) Kev: And in the game, a lot of the story is not so. (0:42:45) Kev: Front loaded. You don’t get into a lot of the meatier stuff until past the halfway point, I would say. (0:42:51) Kev: And of course, that’s, you know, the games given to you in cutscenes and whatnot dialogue. (0:42:57) Kev: But the majority of it, you’re spending farming and, you know, forming and whatnot. (0:43:04) Kev: So it might be hard for a lot of people to get through the whole story. (0:43:08) Kev: But I’m glad that that’s a big reason why I’m glad this exists, because now we can all enjoy the story. (0:43:15) Kev: Maybe a little straightforward, but overall, really nice. Well done. (0:43:20) Kev: And that’s in large part because of the characters. So, you know, let’s let’s talk about them a little bit. (0:43:25) Kev: We, you know, we mentioned Sakuna and she’s the star of the show by far. (0:43:31) Kev: She’s pretty comedic and they get animating like she is in the game, right? (0:43:35) Kev: Because she’s so ridiculous, cartoonishly stubborn and spoiled. Very, very. (0:43:41) Kev: Um, uh, she is always with her faith. (0:43:44) Kev: So companion slash steward, I guess, I don’t know what every servant, uh, his name is Tom. (0:43:50) Kev: He’s a little floating dog. (0:43:51) Kev: Um, he’s a guy kind of got old man voice and energies wise. (0:43:56) Kev: And then tries to keep her in line, but she’s still a handful. (0:44:00) Kev: Right? (0:44:00) Kev: Um, Tom is, well, I’ll get to Tom. (0:44:04) Kev: Tom is one of my favorite characters in the show by far. (0:44:06) Kev: Um, there, and then the human she’s now living with, there is, uh, Howie Mon. (0:44:13) Kev: a samurai who (0:44:15) Kev: stuck to the samurai because he doesn’t like to fight so he (0:44:19) Kev: Became a bandit, but he wasn’t very good at that either. He’s very clumsy (0:44:25) Kev: In fact he kind of messes up everything he does (0:44:28) Kev: Which was why Sakuna ends up having to do most of the farming, but he is at least rather knowledgeable about farming (0:44:34) Kev: Which is again the role he plays in the game. He’s kind of your (0:44:39) Kev: resource for any farming tips or knowledge that you need (0:44:44) Kev: He can help out around the farm in the game. So, you know, that’s I think they captured that to a tee (0:44:51) Kev: There is Mirta. She is a missionary from (0:44:56) Kev: What country did the Sakuna game in anime happen in Gyanatsu, which is not Japan and she’s from not Germany basically (0:45:05) Kev: And and yeah, so she’s a missionary originally (0:45:09) Kev: Just to teach folks about her her (0:45:13) Kev: beliefs and whatnot. (0:45:14) Kev: And to learn about other countries as well. (0:45:18) Kev: She’s sweet, she’s kind, she makes medicine, she cooks. (0:45:21) Kev: Looking is the big thing for her in the game. (0:45:25) Al: I just speaking of her, because I really like there’s a bit where Sakana says “are you going (0:45:27) Kev: Yeah. (0:45:30) Al: to teach the kids about me now?” and she says “no”. Like she does it in a really nice way, (0:45:37) Al: but it’s just really funny. It’s just like “no, I may have met a metagod now, but no, (0:45:38) Kev: Hey. (0:45:39) Kev: Yeah. (0:45:42) Al: I’m not going to teach them about you. I’m going to continue doing my time”. (0:45:42) Kev: Yeah. (0:45:44) Kev: Oh, yeah. (0:45:45) Kev: Oh, that’s good stuff. (0:45:46) Kev: Um, uh, so we have those two, then we have the kids. (0:45:57) Kev: There’s Kinta. (0:45:58) Kev: He’s a kind of a street kid sort of thing going on, right? (0:46:02) Kev: He’s, he’s smart. (0:46:04) Kev: He’s sassy. (0:46:04) Kev: He’s very street wise. (0:46:06) Kev: Um, blunt and to the point, um, he’s good at crafting some stuff and becomes eventually (0:46:10) Kev: a blacksmith making tools for Sakuna just like he does in the game. (0:46:14) Kev: Likewise, we have Yui, a small and sweet girl, very shy, very quiet, follows Kinta around a lot, and she’s more like looming and creating fabrics and equipment of that sort. (0:46:29) Kev: And that’s for Sakuna, which again, she does in the game. And then we have good old Kaimaru, the big baby. He’s basically a baby who walks around and he can’t talk. (0:46:44) Kev: He can’t communicate with animals though, and that’s how he helps out. (0:46:47) Kev: He’s the one who brings a lot of animals to the farm to help out, like Dr. Simutow and (0:46:53) Kev: the Kappa. (0:46:55) Kev: But yeah, that’s the main crew. (0:46:58) Kev: And obviously the first couple of episodes are focused on them, you know, introducing (0:47:03) Kev: them and see how they try to get along on their new island with nothing at all, right? (0:47:10) Kev: There’s a kind of broken down view buildings. (0:47:14) Kev: Where Sak and his parents live, but they have to start working together to kind of fix it up. (0:47:

In which we discuss:      PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE LOST CROWN,   News:  Unity tries to mount its redemption arc, Nintendo v. PALWORLD, Majima goes sailing, and Maxis says the quiet part out loud,   Also:   STEAMWORLD: BUILD, CASTLEVANIA ADVANCE COLLECTION,   E-Mail YouTube Patreon Bluesky

Al and Kev talk about Mika and the Witch's Mountain Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:03:22: What Have We Been Up To 00:13:13: Game News 00:30:30: New Games 00:37:25: Mika And The Witch’s Mountain 01:08:10: Outro Links Animal Crossing Pocket Info Melobot: A Last Song Disney Dreamlight Valley “Dapper Delights” Update Steamworld Build “Skull Valley” Update Farming Simulator 25 Info Smushi Come Home Physical Release Herdling Floatopia Mika and the Witch’s Mountain Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from https://www.keymailer.co #MikaandTheWitchsMountain 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 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 Mario- wait no, Cottagecore Games. (0:00:36) Kev: And I’m Kevin. (0:00:42) Kev: I’ll talk about Mario. (0:00:44) Kev: I’m actually obligated to. (0:00:46) Al: I suspect I’ve already made that joke though, haven’t I? (0:00:49) Al: I probably made that joke a year ago. (0:00:51) Kev: Yeah, that’s fine. (0:00:52) Al: Um. (0:00:53) Kev: Oh yes, cottagecore. (0:00:55) Kev: But we’re here to talk about Cozy’s studio Ghibli likes. (0:00:59) Al: Yeah. (0:01:01) Al: Yes. (0:01:01) Al: So we are going to talk this episode about Mika and the Witches Mountain. (0:01:07) Al: This episode is the reason that Dave the Diver Month got delayed, basically. (0:01:07) Kev: finally (0:01:14) Al: We, we managed big news and full disclosure, because we have to say this. (0:01:14) Kev: Yeah (0:01:20) Al: Uh, we got a free code for Mika and the Witches Mountain for review. (0:01:25) Al: Uh, so, um, thank you to Chibi Games for that. (0:01:28) Kev: both of us oh oh okay sorry well ah that’s how you got it okay like (0:01:29) Al: No, just you. (0:01:31) Al: I paid for mine, but you, you got yours free, I paid for mine. (0:01:35) Al: Uh, I mean, to be fair, I paid for it like three years ago in Kickstarter. (0:01:42) Al: Um, so because of that, we then had like a specific time that they (0:01:48) Al: wanted the review to be done by. (0:01:50) Al: So we are doing the episode now, which means that hopefully next episode will (0:01:55) Al: be the final episode of Dave the Diver Month, or maybe not because of new (0:02:01) Al: I’m not going to talk about the Dave the Diver news in this episode, (0:02:02) Kev: I was about to say or maybe not. (0:02:04) Al: because there is Dave the Diver news. (0:02:06) Al: We’re going to talk about that in the next episode, just cause it’s so close. (0:02:09) Al: Um, so there we go. (0:02:12) Al: So yes, uh, we’re going to talk about Mika and the Witches Mountain. (0:02:12) Kev: And we can finally say #sponsored. (0:02:15) Al: Um, the hashtag sponsored hashtag, hashtag ad. (0:02:22) Al: Uh, I think it’s actually hashtag gifted. (0:02:25) Al: It’s not an ad. (0:02:25) Al: It’s not sponsored as gifted as a difference there. (0:02:28) Al: Cause we’re, we’re obviously. (0:02:30) Al: Getting the review code would not change our review. (0:02:33) Al: We would be reviewing it in the same way, whether we were paying for it or not. (0:02:36) Al: Uh, yeah. (0:02:36) Kev: Yup, that’s why Nintendo won’t sponsor Alex. (0:02:43) Al: Yes. (0:02:44) Al: And, um, unlike the developers of that new game that I can’t remember the name of, (0:02:49) Al: uh, we will talk about the politics of China. (0:02:52) Al: Uh, yeah, I think that’s something like that. (0:02:53) Kev: Oh my gosh, Black- Is it Black Wukong? (0:02:58) Al: I can’t remember what the name is, but yeah, it’s something like that. (0:03:01) Al: Very, very awkward. (0:03:03) Al: All that news of them trying to stop people talking about things that people (0:03:07) Al: are obviously going to talk about. (0:03:08) Kev: Yeah, oh good. (0:03:08) Al: Uh, but as far as I know, there’s no, uh, there’s no kind of big political issues (0:03:16) Al: with chibi games, uh, so we’re going to just talk about the game, um, because (0:03:20) Al: there’s no controversies that I know of to talk about before that. (0:03:23) Al: We have some news and first of all, Kevin, what have you been up to? (0:03:26) Kev: Well, a lot of meat primarily, but on the off chance I do get a breather, I look in (0:03:36) Kev: meek at time of course, I played hey guess what, a Mario game, Chalker, particularly (0:03:45) Kev: where was it, Mario World 2 Yoshi’s Island, I forget the swirlder land, but Yoshi’s Island, (0:03:50) Kev: the first Yoshi’s Island for the SNES, yep it’s the one with the bait. (0:03:52) Al: Is that the one with the babies? (0:03:56) Kev: The SNES always surprises me, like how modern it looks compared to the NES or whatever, (0:04:07) Kev: but anyways, I mean it’s a Yoshi game, it’s good, have you played any Yoshi games now? (0:04:12) Al: I have played this one specifically because when I was playing through the Mario games, (0:04:20) Al: the way that I defined it was anything that says “Super Mario” and is a platformer. So (0:04:26) Kev: Okay, sure. (0:04:26) Al: this one being called “Super Mario World 2, Yoshi’s Island” meant that I played this one. (0:04:31) Al: But I also included then the first Wario World as well, because that was a Super Mario World (0:04:37) Al: 2. Was it 4 or 3? I can’t remember. It was one of them anyway. So yeah. (0:04:38) Kev: That was three, wasn’t it, I think. (0:04:40) Kev: Yeah. (0:04:42) Al: Back when they would make a random platformer for another character and just slap Mario’s (0:04:48) Al: name on it. Yeah, yeah. Well, why not? I don’t think I’ve played any of the other ones. I’ve (0:04:50) Kev: It was a good strategy. They go, “I should go back.” (0:04:53) Kev: Um, yeah. (0:04:56) Kev: Mm. (0:04:57) Al: been meaning to play Willy World for a while just because it looks fun. But I don’t think (0:05:00) Kev: Yeah. (0:05:02) Al: I need to have a look at the list of (0:05:04) Kev: Yeah, well, shocker. (0:05:05) Kev: The core of the game, of a Nintendo game, has stayed pretty intact all these years. (0:05:11) Kev: Um, it’s a fun one. I like it. (0:05:14) Kev: Yoshi’s Island, um, (0:05:16) Kev: introduces all the Yoshi mechanics that are just (0:05:20) Kev: Mario stuff right not just the the eggs but the the flutter jump all sorts (0:05:24) Al: Yeah, but I guess the interesting thing about this one was that it was you were (0:05:24) Kev: of the Yoshi cop they’re all sorts of fun things if you want here (0:05:30) Al: controlling Yoshi rather than controlling Mario on you. (0:05:32) Kev: yeah that’s true yeah it’s true no longer your loyal steed slash jump (0:05:37) Kev: assist when you throw him in the pit didn’t make that jump but yeah if you (0:05:45) Kev: want to hear extended thoughts on Mr. Yoshi’s first (0:05:50) Kev: spotlight feature, well that’s not true, he had that Yoshi puzzle game, whatever, (0:05:56) Kev: go listen to Rainbow Road Radio, the show I do with Alex, that’ll be the next (0:06:01) Kev: episode, he’ll be out by the time this is out, so yeah, go check that out. Other than (0:06:07) Kev: that, I’m pretty sure I talked about Battle Cats a long long time ago on this (0:06:12) Kev: podcast, it’s a mobile game, it’s tower defense, you control these goofy cats (0:06:17) Kev: that’s sending your or me (0:06:20) Kev: to get units to go fight the enemy CPU units or whatever (0:06:25) Kev: I go on and off it (0:06:27) Kev: one thing about it, they do collabs with all sorts of different properties (0:06:32) Kev: the most wild ones like they’ve done Evangelion, Street Fighter (0:06:36) Kev: and they happen to do one with Ruruni Kenshin (0:06:39) Kev: which brought me back in hard (0:06:42) Kev: do you know Ruruni Kenshin now? (0:06:44) Al: - I do not, I was just about to ask, what is that? (0:06:45) Kev: Oh, okay, um, it’s a manga/anime, uh, unfortunately. (0:06:50) Kev: Of course, the very problematic creators I will acknowledge. Uh, by problematic, I mean awful. I won’t… yeah, not a great person, but the manga/… yup. Yup, not good things. Yeah, okay, criminal. Okay, let’s… okay, a criminal. A criminal creator. Let’s bump it up a little. (0:06:55) Al: I’m going to Wikipedia and looking at, oh right, okay, yep. (0:07:07) Al: That’s not just problematic, we’re not going to talk about that. (0:07:20) Kev: - But, which is unfortunate, ‘cause the manga slash anime (0:07:22) Kev: was very popular, was from like the ’90s, I believe, (0:07:26) Kev: and very well-liked and whatnot. (0:07:30) Kev: I watched it when I was younger, actually, in Mexico, (0:07:33) Kev: because Mexico had a lot of anime going on back then. (0:07:36) Kev: It still does. (0:07:38) Kev: It’s a, you know, it’s a whole thing. (0:07:40) Kev: It’s about samurais, basically. (0:07:41) Kev: I’m just really cool and really enjoyable. (0:07:44) Kev: And so, yeah, hearing that Colab got my attention, (0:07:48) Kev: so I got into it back in about, (0:07:50) Kev: and that was fun to see. (0:07:52) Kev: And then, Zona Zen Zero, the whole reverse game, (0:07:56) Kev: I continue to play it. (0:07:57) Kev: I’m actually kind of getting finally invested (0:08:00) Kev: into the story a little bit after like a month, (0:08:04) Kev: some time to get through all the gobbledygook (0:08:08) Kev: and nonsense words they use to finally understand (0:08:11) Kev: what’s going on. (0:08:13) Kev: One thing interesting about it is because it’s, you know, (0:08:16) Kev: ongoing engine-type game. (0:08:18) Kev: Like I– (0:08:20) Kev: Kind of hit. I think the end of the available story, right? (0:08:22) Kev: They do chapter drops or whatever and so now I have to wait for the next one. (0:08:27) Kev: Which is just an interesting experience. I don’t think I’ve ever had to really deal with it, at least in a video game, right? (0:08:33) Kev: But yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to. What about you, Al? What’s going on with you? (0:08:38) Al: Well, I have obviously been playing Mika as well, and we’ll talk about that. (0:08:44) Al: I have also, we are recording on the 23rd of August, which is the day the Harvest Moon Home (0:08:50) Al: Sweet Home comes out. So, or came out, or has come out. It’s out. So, I have bought it, and I have (0:08:52) Kev: against all odds with no no work no not a whisper of anything about it but it (0:09:09) Al: a little bit. Obviously not very much, because it’s the first day, and I’ve been working today. (0:09:15) Al: Well, I will obviously have a lot more thoughts about this in the future, but my first (0:09:24) Al: thought is this game has basically no controller support, but it’s not completely not, right? It (0:09:32) Al: has, I’ve found one thing that has controller support for, and that’s conversations. When you’re (0:09:38) Al: you can proceed the conversation with the controller. Nothing else. And it’s so weird. So weird. (0:09:42) Kev: That’s so weird. You have to play on your phone, but when you hit the conversation pick up your controller (0:09:49) Al: It’s so weird. Well, that’s the thing. Because I have an Android phone, and I have an iPad, (0:09:56) Al: I have to decide on which platform I’m going to purchase on, right? Because I’m not going to (0:10:00) Al: purchase on both. Although I will say, interestingly, it’s not that expensive. It’s 18 (0:10:05) Al: £14 on IOS and it’s £14. (0:10:08) Kev: Oh, I’m a darned. (0:10:08) Al: It’s weird that there’s the difference there, but it’s not an insane, you know, it’s not (0:10:14) Al: it’s not a ridiculous amount. (0:10:16) Al: It was pretty good for what it is, but I’m probably still not going to buy it on both. (0:10:23) Al: So I had to decide and I was like, I can’t, I think I decided originally to buy on Android. (0:10:28) Al: So I bought it and downloaded it and opened it and it crashed. (0:10:33) Al: And apparently they’ve had an issue on Android where the game is crashing just now. (0:10:33) Kev: Oh (0:10:36) Kev: Say yes, I have to buy both (0:10:37) Al: And so I was like… (0:10:39) Al: I went on to the Play Store and there was a refund button. (0:10:42) Al: So I was like, “Oh, well, I’ll refund that and I’ll go buy it on iPad then.” (0:10:46) Al: So I’ve been playing it on the iPad. (0:10:48) Al: But the problem with that is obviously I would like to use my controller (0:10:50) Al: because it’s on my iPad, right? (0:10:52) Al: Like I don’t want to be like holding my 13-inch iPads, (0:10:56) Al: trying to play touchscreen controls. (0:11:00) Kev: Back to the Wii U days, baby. (0:11:02) Al: It’s worse than that. (0:11:02) Al: It’s so much bigger than that. (0:11:06) Al: I do have an iPad mini. (0:11:08) Al: So I will try it out on that and see how it feels on that as well. (0:11:11) Al: But this this might not be a good start to it. (0:11:14) Al: Although I will have to see. (0:11:16) Al: I need to check this. (0:11:17) Al: I meant to check this earlier (0:11:20) Al: because Mac OS has a thing now where you can install iPad apps. (0:11:23) Al: So I need to see if I can install that and maybe I can play it on my Mac. (0:11:25) Kev: Ooh. That’d be nice. (0:11:26) Al: We’ll see. (0:11:27) Kev: Is there no blue stacks equivalent on Mac? (0:11:30) Al: What that is, that is that. (0:11:32) Kev: Oh, that is. Okay. Okay. (0:11:34) Al: Yeah, it’s the same thing. (0:11:35) Al: and technically developers can deceive. (0:11:39) Al: So, we’ll see whether they’ve disabled it or not. (0:11:39) Kev: Mmm, let’s see. (0:11:42) Al: I would hope not, but we’ll see. (0:11:42) Kev: Okay. (0:11:44) Kev: Um, okay, about the game, okay, the big question about the game itself, (0:11:49) Kev: is it, you know, a farming game? (0:11:51) Kev: Don’t even know what it’s supposed to be. (0:11:52) Al: Yeah, I would say it’s basically, it’s a Harvest Moon game. Now the question is whether it is a (0:11:56) Kev: Okay, it is a harvest move. (0:11:59) Al: Harvest Moon game, and they’ve definitely thought about it in terms of touch screen first. I would (0:12:04) Al: say touch screen first, or touch screen only, clearly, because they don’t have the controller (0:12:07) Kev: Okay. (0:12:08) Al: support. Which is, I mean, the fact that they’ve thought about it touch screen first is good, (0:12:09) Kev: Yay. (0:12:14) Al: the fact that it doesn’t support controllers is bad. But yeah, it’ll be interesting to see (0:12:16) Kev: Yeah. (0:12:20) Kev: Okay. (0:12:20) Al: how things go. I’ve not put enough into it to- (0:12:23) Al: You know, an opinion on the story or the full mechanics or anything like that. That episode will come. (0:12:24) Kev: Sure. (0:12:27) Kev: Sure. (0:12:30) Al: But yeah, so start off disappointing. We’ll see. We’ll see where it goes from here. (0:12:36) Kev: - Nah. (0:12:41) Al: I think I also- I launched- I bought and started playing (0:12:46) Al: Natsumon? Is that real? Yeah, Natsumon, 20th century summer kid. I haven’t played a lot of that, though. (0:12:52) Al: That’s probably for the future, because there’s a lot happening just now. (0:12:57) Al: That was one of the games that Micah talked about, I think, last year. End of the year. (0:13:00) Kev: Ahh, okay. Oh, I love that art style. (0:13:04) Al: And they only added the English translation at the beginning of this month, so. (0:13:09) Kev: - Okay, cool, cool, cool. (0:13:11) Al: So yeah, that’s what we’ve been playing. So, into the news. Speaking of mobile games, (0:13:17) Kev: Eh? (0:13:17) Al: we have some Animal Crossing news. It’s been a while since we’ve had some Animal Crossing news, Kevin. (0:13:22) Al: And now it’s time to talk about a game, (0:13:23) Kev: It’s good for once. (0:13:25) Al: now it’s time to talk about an Animal Crossing game that neither of us have really played. (0:13:30) Al: I think I have downloaded it and I’ve opened it and got really bored really quickly. (0:13:35) Al: But that is Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. (0:13:38) Al: So the news is that the game is shutting down. (0:13:42) Al: But don’t worry, they’re releasing it again offline. (0:13:47) Al: So this is very interesting and I wanna know what you think. (0:13:50) Al: But my opinion is that this is. (0:13:52) Al: Because I think exactly what we want online games to do is when they shut down, they (0:13:59) Al: release another version that allows you to play the whole game without in-app purchases. (0:14:05) Al: And granted, it’s going to cost money. (0:14:07) Al: And I accept that because it takes work and that’s life. (0:14:13) Al: But it’ll be interesting to see how much it costs. (0:14:15) Al: That will be the killer, I think. (0:14:18) Al: I think overall, although some people we disappointed because they obviously… (0:14:22) Al: It means there’s no new events in the game. I think that overall it’s a good news because it’s not going… (0:14:28) Kev: All right, I heard, I cannot source or confirm, I heard that they will try to do some events (0:14:34) Kev: still for the first, like, while for the offline version, but… (0:14:38) Al: No, I haven’t seen anything about that. What they have said is that they’ll be doing events (0:14:44) Al: and adding some items until the end of the current version, which ends, which is running (0:14:48) Kev: Oh, okay, that’s why it would have hurt, nevermind. (0:14:51) Kev: Um, but still. (0:14:54) Al: until the 28th of November. That is when they’re going to shut it down. So they said there (0:14:59) Al: will be some more events and items before then, but I haven’t seen anything about new (0:15:04) Al: stuff in the in the. (0:15:07) Kev: if uh if i’m employed by that point I will pick this up because i’m much more interested now that (0:15:14) Kev: I can just play it all especially offline um because that’s uh that’s my idea (0:15:21) Al: It’s going to be very interesting to me how much it costs. Will it cost like what Mario (0:15:27) Al: Run cost? Was that like 20 dollars? Something like that? Or whether it ends up going like (0:15:32) Kev: I was about to say, it’s in the new nintendo to pick the latest entry into the animal crossing (0:15:36) Al: a full price switch game. I would be surprised if it did. But you never know, it is Nintendo. (0:15:47) Kev: series, full price animal crossing, locket camp deluxe. (0:15:51) Al: - It turns out the Switch 2 runs Android. (0:15:58) Al: Look, we’ve got a new Animal Crossing game for the new console. (0:16:02) Al: Yeah, the other thing is, they haven’t said for certain that it’s definitely 100% offline. (0:16:09) Al: Let me see if I can find the wording. (0:16:11) Al: It says, “We’re developing a version of Animal Crossing Pocket Camp that users (0:16:15) Al: can continue to play with their save file.” (0:16:17) Al: So that’s a key point your data will carry across. (0:16:20) Kev: Oh, yeah that yeah, can you imagine if it did? (0:16:21) Al: You would think that would be a minimum required thing for this, but just it’s good to have the clarification. (0:16:29) Kev: You know in this day and age yeah, yeah, it’s good to have that clarification (0:16:33) Al: You carry over your saved data by linking your Nintendo account. (0:16:37) Al: It says, but you cannot carry over any remaining leaf tickets. (0:16:40) Al: I think they were the like paid item that unlocked things in the game. (0:16:42) Kev: score. Right. (0:16:44) Al: So obviously it doesn’t make any sense if there aren’t, because it says it’s a paid app without in-app purchases. (0:16:52) Al: The question of course is whether that means everything in the game, all the items will be unlocked for everybody. (0:16:59) Al: And if so, do you have to do something to unlock them? (0:17:03) Al: Like are there going to be challenges or is it just you can access everything like you had paid for it? (0:17:10) Kev: if I were making the decision / this is my guess I’d say you there’s a new fake (0:17:19) Kev: premium currency new leaf tickets what I would call it and you have to do (0:17:24) Kev: challenges to earn that and that’s what so that way they can just leave like (0:17:26) Al: That’s a possible. I wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t the case purely because that (0:17:33) Al: sounds like work and is probably more less work just to have like I can’t I don’t I (0:17:40) Al: don’t think I played long enough to know how these things unlock but I’m presuming it’s (0:17:45) Al: just a shop somewhere and so instead that shop just has a cost of zero for everything (0:17:50) Kev: - Oh, okay. (0:17:52) Kev: Or can they change it to, I don’t know about this games, (0:17:54) Kev: non-premium currency, I don’t know. (0:17:56) Al: Yeah, we’ll find out. The other thing is it says it does not require constant data communication, (0:18:02) Al: but that word constant would imply that maybe there is some internet connectivity to it, (0:18:08) Al: but why would they do that if they’re shutting down the game? So I’m a little bit intrigued (0:18:11) Al: as to what that means and what exactly it’s going to look like. They have said they’re (0:18:16) Al: going to have more details about the new app in October, so I guess we’ll find out. (0:18:21) Kev: - All right, but like I said, I’m looking forward. (0:18:23) Al: Yeah, I will. I will almost certainly purchase. (0:18:26) Al: This will I regret purchasing it? We’ll find out. Stay tuned. (0:18:35) Al: Next, we have a renamed game. What was previously called a last song is now called MeloBot, (0:18:43) Al: a last song. MeloBot, MeloBot is a good name. I’m not a huge fan of like subtitles in games, (0:18:44) Kev: I love Metabots! (0:18:46) Kev: Classic. (0:18:52) Al: but I get why they’re doing this one, right? Because it makes it very clear that it’s a (0:18:58) Kev: yeah yeah i’m actually a fan of subtitles and the reason like because if they want to make you (0:19:08) Kev: know franchise or whatever sequels like having different subtitles I think is better than the (0:19:14) Kev: the numbering thing (0:19:16) Al: I mean, I personally I prefer just numbering because then it makes it very clear the order. (0:19:22) Al: But that aside, I think part of the reason I don’t like subtitles is because it implies (0:19:28) Al: that they are going to make a franchise and it’s like, don’t assume that you’re going (0:19:31) Al: to be successful enough to do a franchise. And often subtitles are really, you know, (0:19:40) Al: stupid and not like, so let’s talk about the art games, for example, right? (0:19:44) Kev: Yeah, yeah the pinnacle of subtitles (0:19:47) Al: A perfect example of bad subtitles. They have their first game was Ark Survival Evolved, (0:19:53) Al: right? Which, OK, sure, fine, you’re making it clear it’s a survival game. That’s fine. (0:19:59) Al: Evolved, maybe that’s talking about the dinosaurs. Who knows? What I find confusing about it, (0:20:07) Al: though, is that when you get to a second game, you then start to go, well, is Evolved the first (0:20:12) Al: or the second game? Because Evolved would imply to me that it’s like an evolution of the previous (0:20:16) Al: game. And then their particular problem is they have a remaster of the original called (0:20:23) Al: Ark Survival Ascendant, which is very not clear what, like, why? Why those two names? (0:20:31) Al: And how you meant to know which is which based on those names? That’s my main problem. And then, (0:20:35) Al: of course, their new game is just called Ark 2. So they just can’t decide what they want to do. (0:20:40) Kev: Beautiful. (0:20:41) Kev: I like that. (0:20:42) Al: But anyway, as subtitles go, this is not a bad subtitle. (0:20:43) Kev: Mm-hmm. (0:20:48) Al: I guess just a reminder to people, this is the game where you play as a robot on an alien planet and you are healing plants with salt. (0:20:58) Kev: Yeah, there is in fact rhythm gameplay in this game. (0:21:04) Kev: I was looking at the trailer. (0:21:06) Kev: That looks nice. (0:21:08) Al: Yeah, so it’s a little world that you walk around in and you find plants and then you (0:21:12) Al: have to use your rhythm to heal them, which is a fun little idea. And, you know, I like (0:21:16) Kev: - Mm-hmm, yeah. (0:21:19) Al: the idea of kind of combining a, I don’t know if it’s open world or what, but like, you (0:21:23) Al: know, a world traversal, also with rhythm. (0:21:28) Kev: And somehow there’s still combat. I don’t know if that’s rhythm based, but there is you (0:21:32) Al: I think it is. I think it is rhythm-based as well, based on the trailer. We’ll see. (0:21:37) Kev: Which is a cool idea, um, it looks nice i’m down for this september 12th. That’s not far off (0:21:42) Al: Yeah, so that’s the other news. It’s coming out on the 12th of September, and they’ve (0:21:44) Kev: plus a month (0:21:54) Al: or three weeks three weeks is that three weeks to go till it comes out next we have the full patch (0:22:00) Al: notes for the new disney dreamlight valley update dapper delights so if you want them they are now (0:22:06) Al: available and (0:22:06) Kev: Did they add hot hot ones to the game the reverse of the collab? (0:22:12) Al: Uhhh… no. I feel like I’m missing a reference. (0:22:16) Kev: No (0:22:18) Kev: Okay, you know what hot ones is right (0:22:19) Al: The, like, wings challenge. Yeah. Yeah. (0:22:22) Kev: Yes, yes, okay. Yes the talk show where people eat spicy food in the meanwhile or whatever, right? (0:22:28) Kev: They’re they’re doing with Donald Doug and animated Donald duck (0:22:30) Al: Um… why? (0:22:35) Kev: It was I think (0:22:36) Kev: 90th anniversary, I guess (0:22:43) Al: Oh no, that sounds (0:22:49) Kev: I mean the animations good. I will say that they’re not limping on it. But um, I (0:22:56) Kev: Gotta love how the host is just gonna be talking (0:23:00) Kev: itself I guess or standing Donald (0:23:03) Al: I really don’t know what to say. I’ve never watched a full episode of Hot Ones, (0:23:03) Kev: Good you got a little bit (0:23:06) Kev: I (0:23:11) Al: I’ve just seen clips on TikTok. Sorry, what now? No. As in, like, the animated character or as in… (0:23:12) Kev: Haven’t either but um, yeah, I’m excited for it. Will this be as good as doofenschwertz on shark tank? I don’t know. Oh (0:23:22) Kev: You didn’t know that dr. Doofenschwertz from a Phineas and Ferb was on shark tank (0:23:30) Kev: That is correct, yes (0:23:31) Al: But… (0:23:33) Al: I don’t know what to say. So no, The Hot Ones is not suddenly in Dreamlight Valley. (0:23:35) Kev: I’ll see you tomorrow. (0:23:36) Kev: Bye! (0:23:46) Al: But no, this update adds Tiana from Princess and the Frog, and she brings a restaurant with her. (0:23:51) Kev: Oh, okay. (0:23:55) Kev: Uh-oh, Rami’s facing competition now. She’s got to pick a side. (0:23:56) Al: I don’t think I’ve seen the Princess and the Frog. Is that a thing she’s known for? (0:24:00) Al: I’ve not seen the Princess and the Frog. (0:24:02) Kev: Oh, that’s her entire thing. Like, (0:24:05) Kev: her ho- she’s- works in a restaurant, wants to save up to own- open her own restaurant. That’s her dream. (0:24:10) Al: Fair enough? Well, yeah, so the full details on the update are right now. And I did notice (0:24:19) Al: that we do have confirmation now that the Act III of the DLC, which comes out with the update, is (0:24:26) Al: the final in the Rift of Time expansion, which I think confirms that the next thing that they’re (0:24:34) Al: hinting at, the next expansion they’re hinting at is our new expansion, because I looked on Steam, (0:24:38) Al: and when you’re purchasing the (0:24:40) Kev: Mm-hmm (0:24:40) Al: expansion, you are very explicitly purchasing Disney Dreamlight Valley Arift in Time. So (0:24:45) Al: I think that’s Arift in Time is complete and the next thing that they’re hinting that comes (0:24:49) Al: later this year will be another paid. (0:24:52) Kev: Sure, and other things, yeah. I wonder what it’ll be. (0:24:56) Al: Yeah, I don’t think that I don’t think we’ve got any real hints on on that yet. (0:25:00) Al: So we’ll we’ll see. (0:25:02) Al: We’ll see what comes. (0:25:06) Al: Next, we have a new update for Steam World Build. (0:25:10) Al: The Skull Valley update is out now. (0:25:13) Al: So this adds a whole new map (0:25:15) Al: filled with piratey perils and opportunities. (0:25:18) Al: Build your town town. (0:25:21) Al: Build your town amidst palm trees, (0:25:23) Al: canons and the looming shadow of the Kraken. (0:25:25) Al: So there you go. (0:25:26) Kev: Okay, I have not played this one. I’m out of the loop here. (0:25:26) Al: And so this is the, it’s a town builder, a SteamWorld town builder. (0:25:30) Kev: Kraken’s are cool. (0:25:34) Kev: Yeah, I remember that. (0:25:36) Al: So this is just a new map for the town builder with some new stuff in it, which is cool. (0:25:41) Kev: The brand-new map is pretty cool (0:25:45) Kev: Yeah (0:25:46) Kev: Rockin school. Oh, oh there. I’m seeing the picture. It’s it’s cracking like in the desert. Okay. You could do is expecting that (0:25:54) Al: Yeah, I don’t know whether anything will come with that or not, because it does say looming (0:25:59) Al: shadow of the Kraken implies that something might come from that. But it does look very much dried up. (0:26:05) Kev: yeah that that’s actually a fun aesthetic dried up pirate island um and I like that that’s cool (0:26:10) Al: Yeah. (0:26:13) Al: So if you’ve been playing SteamWorld Build, go get the update now. If you haven’t been playing it, (0:26:17) Al: and you’re like, you know what I really want, what will make me buy this game? (0:26:21) Al: Pirates. Well, there you go. Now you can go. (0:26:24) Kev: You know what would make me buy a game, Al? (0:26:25) Al: Nothing you say is gonna be true right now. (0:26:29) Kev: Spinach. (0:26:30) Kev: What if they’re gonna have spinach? (0:26:33) Al: Oh, my word. (0:26:33) Kev: You’re– ooh. (0:26:36) Al: Farming Simulator 25, in our continual coverage (0:26:39) Al: of this game for some reason, we’ve (0:26:43) Al: got some more information on the game, more reveals. (0:26:45) Al: There is a new map and there’s spinach. (0:26:50) Al: So I don’t hate spinach, but it’s (0:26:50) Kev: Do you like spinach, Al? (0:26:55) Al: something I would particularly choose. (0:26:58) Kev: So, I like- (0:26:58) Al: But if I was having a meal that had spinach, (0:26:59) Al: I’d be like, yeah, that’s fine. (0:27:01) Kev: Yeah. (0:27:02) Kev: I like, you know, baby spinach, the green leafy stuff. (0:27:05) Al: Yeah. (0:27:06) Kev: But, when you, like, book it too much and it turns that Popeye mushy stuff, uh, no, I can’t- (0:27:11) Al: Yeah, that’s part of the problem. (0:27:13) Al: You basically can’t cook it. (0:27:15) Al: You just need to mix it into your hot food (0:27:17) Kev: Yup. (0:27:18) Al: and otherwise it’s overcooked. (0:27:19) Kev: There’s… (0:27:20) Kev: …too much dang water in there. (0:27:22) Kev: Um… (0:27:24) Kev: Well, there you go. (0:27:26) Kev: Spinach fans rejoice. It’s incredible. (0:27:29) Al: Oh, you’re gonna love this. So I’ve just been looking through the other previews they’ve (0:27:34) Al: given us. So they are releasing with this game an ignition lock, a physical ignition (0:27:44) Al: that you can buy, and insert the key to turn on your tractor. (0:27:48) Kev: now we’re talking I like that forget controller support where’s my physical (0:27:50) Al: Oh dear. But that’s basically what it is. There you go, there’s a link you can (0:27:56) Kev: key and lock support oh that’s that’s uh (0:27:59) Al: look at, Kevin, this is quite something. So this comes with the collector’s edition (0:28:08) Al: of Farming Simulator 25. (0:28:10) Kev: oh my gosh this is great I love that this is genius always on the cutting edge um little farming (0:28:17) Al: I was on something, though I will say the collector’s edition in the UK is 60 pounds. (0:28:26) Al: So that’s not bad for coming with, you know, the physical ignition key, if that’s what (0:28:33) Al: you want. (0:28:35) Al: It comes with two keys as well, in case you lose one. (0:28:38) Al: There you go. (0:28:38) Kev: I definitely would so I appreciate that they’re thinking. (0:28:42) Al: I feel like my key would just sit in the ignition the whole time. (0:28:45) Al: I mean, it’s not like (0:28:47) Al: someone’s actually going to steal it. Since we wanted to ensure a quality product that’s not (0:28:53) Al: just functional, but also robust and reliable, our specialists sat down, designed and engineered (0:28:59) Al: it directly in-house. It is something, that’s for sure. And the last piece of update news (0:29:01) Kev: You look at that, look at that is expertise and it’s fine. (0:29:13) Al: for games is that Smishy Come Home, I’ve got a limited physical release. (0:29:17) Al: Which includes trading cards. (0:29:20) Kev: that’s interesting five there’s uh three of five there’s only five of them um it’s like one of (0:29:29) Kev: each biome um and then a nice one with art um five that’s okay I guess you know what all I care (0:29:38) Kev: is that that box art is beautiful I might not I won’t be getting right now under my circumstances (0:29:45) Kev: but that is beautiful and smooshie is a lovely um home (0:29:51) Kev: you know what I posey is a foul word but it that is actually cozy and enjoyable and lovely game (0:29:57) Kev: I highly recommend it to pretty much anyone it’s if you want a nice game to actually (0:30:04) Al: My issue is not with the word cosy, it’s with developers or publishers using the name, using the word. (0:30:12) Kev: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yep, you know what, yeah, fair enough, yeah, so yeah, if you want (0:30:13) Al: I think it’s fine for people to describe a game they like as cosy, I don’t think it’s okay for developers to say “this is a cosy game” (0:30:25) Kev: a hug in a video game form, go play smooshy, smooshy, smooshy, smooshy. (0:30:30) Al: So we also have two new games that have been announced. One is called Herdling (0:30:36) Al: and this is the new game being published by Panic who do a bunch of stuff. They (0:30:46) Al: did Untitled Goose Game and Firewatch and they make the the Playdate, the little (0:30:53) Al: controller. They had a little games console with the Crank… yeah. (0:30:56) Kev: Wait all those guys did that it’s a wild array of things (0:31:00) Al: Yeah, it is. They are a wild array of people. Anyway, this game is being (0:31:06) Kev: Yep, I you know hats off to them they are not cowards, but they will go with the good teeth (0:31:13) Al: published by them. They’re not developing it, but obviously they’re not like a (0:31:18) Al: massive publisher, so they must see something in this game which immediately (0:31:22) Al: makes me interested. The blurb for this game is “Guide a Herd of mysterious (0:31:28) Al: creatures on a stirring and beautiful day. (0:31:30) Al: journey into the mountains and beyond, um, yeah, I mean, that’s exactly what it is, (0:31:37) Al: right? (0:31:38) Kev: Yep, I’m watching the trailer, and you are hurting. (0:31:38) Al: Like if you watch the video, you are guiding a herd of majestical creatures, I don’t… (0:31:44) Kev: They kind of look like full cow things, buffalo things. They’re hairies like yaks. (0:31:48) Al: Yeah, different sizes, different sizes and colours and stuff like that. (0:31:50) Kev: Um, it’s a pretty game. Yep. Some of them glow a little, twisty horns. (0:31:57) Al: Yeah. (0:31:58) Kev: It’s a very pretty game, very pretty world. (0:32:00) Al: And it looks like there’s some… puzzles? You do. (0:32:04) Kev: Take ’em on a boat, push things with your… (0:32:08) Kev: It’s a cool thing. (laughs) (0:32:10) Al: Yeah, do they have a name for these creatures? I’m not seeing any- Oh, here we go. (0:32:14) Al: Calicorns. (0:32:16) Kev: Okay, I’m down for. (0:32:21) Al: Yeah, no, this looks cool. They’ve not announced when it’s coming out. (0:32:25) Al: it’s on Steam, but they haven’t said what platforms it’s on. (0:32:33) Kev: It says, “An emotional wordless tale.” (0:32:35) Kev: Oh no, this game’s gonna hit me bad. (0:32:38) Al: They have said it’s coming to console, but they haven’t said what consoles, so. (0:32:38) Kev: It’s gonna do something to hurt me bad. (0:32:40) Kev: I can already see it. (0:32:47) Kev: Tell me to the play date. (0:32:48) Al: More information as it comes. (0:32:49) Al: I highly doubt it will come to the plate. (0:32:53) Kev: It’s exclusive. (0:32:55) Al: It’s a cool little console, but I don’t think it could cope with that game. (0:32:59) Al: And finally, we have Floetopia. (0:33:01) Al: Have you watched this trailer yet, Kevin? (0:33:02) Kev: Oh, no, let me see. Are you ready for my… (0:33:03) Al: Right. (0:33:04) Al: Okay. (0:33:05) Al: that you need to watch this trailer. (0:33:08) Al: Pause the episode, go watch this trailer, it’ll be in the show notes. (0:33:10) Al: Go, honestly, go watch the trailer before we talk about it. (0:33:15) Kev: okay listen with my library action let’s see first reaction there’s an ad so (0:33:22) Kev: give me a second one second almost there okay here we go oh the words ending (0:33:30) Kev: that’s nice (0:33:31) Al: Yeah, not ideal no ideal (0:33:33) Kev: with cute little should be people (0:33:37) Al: Yep, they’re running around trying not to die (0:33:38) Kev: there’s there’s somebody very nonchalant about it (0:33:42) Al: The end means I don’t need to go to work I mean fair (0:33:46) Kev: there I admire the hustle they’re saying the world’s ending so come live to the (0:33:53) Kev: cloud photopia people islands you definitely is yep you go from actual (0:33:56) Al: So, I mean, that’s quite a dramatic shift in tone there, right? (0:34:05) Kev: apocalypse with giant tornado in the background to happy joy music in the (0:34:10) Kev: clouds we’re just gonna ignore all the people who didn’t make it (0:34:14) Al: I think that’s a costume. (0:34:16) Kev: why are all these people animals well not all of them but (0:34:22) Al: I don’t think they’re actually animals. (0:34:23) Kev: they well I know dog person was digging like a dog I don’t know man somebody (0:34:30) Al: I wouldn’t be surprised if the costumes gave you abilities because they do talk about how you get superpowers and different characters can have different superpowers. So I suspect that might be what it’s from. (0:34:44) Kev: Mm-hmm. Okay, they’re sliding on a cloud now on a cloud mobile card (0:34:51) Kev: This is wild (0:34:53) Kev: What a way to start that trailer. I’m looking for more of it. Where’s the apocalypse? (0:34:54) Al: Yeah, like, I’m very intrigued. So, like, is that… My first thought is maybe that (0:35:03) Al: part is actually just the trailer for someone… Like, it doesn’t actually happen anywhere (0:35:06) Kev: Y’all definitely (0:35:10) Al: in game. I’m thinking someone in the game is trying to sell you to come to this place (0:35:15) Al: and they’re like, “Oh, real world is like the apocalypse, come here instead,” sort of (0:35:21) Al: thing or whether it actually happens and then that’s (0:35:22) Kev: It’s yeah, it’s just going to happen in like the opening cinematic and that’s it. (0:35:24) Al: just the setup for the game. (0:35:31) Al: Well, maybe, yeah, but that’s my question is does it actually (0:35:32) Kev: Oh, oh, I think it does happen. Oh, and then at the end, it’s all inside a snow globe. Okay. (0:35:33) Al: happen or does it not actually happen? (0:35:40) Al: Hmm. So there’s the other interesting question. What is (0:35:43) Al: happening here? Is this, what is this? And why are we, why did (0:35:44) Kev: I don’t know what’s happening here. (0:35:46) Al: we fly onto the moon? Why are we in amongst the stars? Like, is (0:35:50) Al: that something you can do that seems to be inside a carton (0:35:54) Al: of the snow globe on your desk? I need, I need to know more (0:36:00) Al: about this game. I will I will 100% be buying this game. (0:36:02) Kev: I need to know why the Gogotown people didn’t survive the-the-the-apocalypse. (0:36:08) Kev: Because it’s-it’s something, um, that feels like just an announcement trailer, right? So, (0:36:17) Kev: it’s all-I don’t think we actually saw any gameplay. Oh no, there’s a little bit there, minder bit. (0:36:22) Al: We can’t wait we saw limited gameplay (0:36:26) Kev: Yeah, because there’s a. (0:36:27) Al: Anyway, I’m very intrigued. I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be just another farming sim (0:36:33) Al: But I’m a little or I guess it would probably be more like an animal crossing like rather than the farming sim (0:36:38) Kev: Yeah, yeah, go, go, Town Vayne, like I said, um, it uh, it, yeah, I wish they… (0:36:43) Al: Yeah, I don’t know cuz like (0:36:45) Al: Yeah, maybe maybe kind of like that (0:36:48) Al: Yeah, I don’t know, well, we’ll see, I’m intrigued, like they’re literally just (0:36:52) Al: announced this at Gamescom, and it’s coming to Steam and Consoles, but we don’t know when yet. (0:37:00) Kev: Who knows, I wish they’d lean into the apocalypse stuff. (0:37:03) Al: Oh, the website just started singing at me. (0:37:08) Kev: - That sounds right. (0:37:09) Al: Oh, no, I don’t know how to stop it. There we go, I’ve muted it. Right, let’s try that again. (0:37:14) Al: What were you saying? (0:37:16) Kev: Just, I wish it leaned to the apocalypse more, that’s all. (0:37:21) Kev: That’d be something. (0:37:22) Al: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll see. (0:37:25) Al: Cool, so I think that’s all the news. (0:37:30) Al: Next we’re going to talk about Mika and the Witch’s Mountain. (0:37:34) Al: Just now that we’re starting this part of the episode, I need to put the disclosure (0:37:39) Al: out there again. (0:37:40) Al: We did receive one review code from GB Games, so that is what it is. (0:37:49) Al: our review of the game will not be affected. (0:37:52) Al: by that but that is something we need to tell you by law so a quick introduction to (0:37:52) Kev: Nope. (0:37:57) Kev: There you go. (0:38:02) Al: the game as Kevin joked early in the episode it is I have forgotten the name of the yeah (0:38:10) Kev: Studio Ghibli. (0:38:12) Al: no the film though yes Kiki’s Delivery Service it’s basically Kiki’s Delivery Service in (0:38:13) Kev: Sticky’s Delivery Service. (0:38:18) Kev: Sticky’s Delivery Service cross Wind Waker, because boy, that is a Wind Waker park style. (0:38:18) Al: in a game, right? (0:38:28) Al: Yeah, yeah very much so. So you are a little witch who has to deliver (0:38:29) Kev: They promised and they delivered. (0:38:35) Al: packages to people to get to the top of a mountain. And you honor a broom. (0:38:39) Kev: Yes, they’re paying you to get them in you can buy the broom that that’s how it works (0:38:44) Kev: It’s not as if they’re guarding their guarding your way to the mountain (0:38:48) Al: Yeah, I guess we’ll expand I guess a bit more on the broom later on. But yeah, that’s kind (0:38:48) Kev: You cannot pass until you deliver this (0:38:52) Kev: Fish to the captain (0:39:00) Al: of the summary of the game. I guess let’s start on quickly talk about the looks and (0:39:08) Al: the sound and stuff like that, because obviously, we’ve both talked about we like how this game (0:39:12) Al: looks before we’ve played it. But now we’ve actually played it. What do you think? (0:39:14) Kev: Still like how it looks! Shocker! (0:39:20) Al: Yeah, I just sometimes like, I mean, I don’t know how it runs on the switch, but it like (0:39:22) Kev: Yep. No. (0:39:24) Al: ran really well on my Steam Deck. I wasn’t seeing any issues. (0:39:26) Kev: Yeah, it was running fine. It was running fine on Switch. I didn’t see any big issues either. (0:39:31) Kev: Oh, I guess for context, Al has completed the game. I made it very far, but did not complete it as of yet. (0:39:38) Kev: But I very much enjoy the game. (0:39:44) Kev: It’s interesting how Chibi will shift art styles between different games set in the same universe or whatever, but it looks quite nice. (0:39:52) Al: Oh and and boy is this set in the universe the same universe they make it very clear (0:39:58) Al: this is set in the same universe. I counted I think four different characters in this game (0:40:04) Kev: I was like, yeah they namedrop Mara, they’ll do well, we’ll get into that in the story I guess, (0:40:13) Kev: but yeah, there’s plenty of familiar faces. Yeah, but no, I love the presentation, like it is very (0:40:21) Kev: much just, you know, imitate Wind Waker, but you know what, I really like the Wind Waker art style, (0:40:26) Kev: so that’s fine by me. They didn’t do a bad job of it, I’ll say that. (0:40:29) Al: Yeah. (0:40:32) Al: Yeah, yeah. (0:40:33) Al: And sound wise, I quite liked the sound design and the music and stuff like that. (0:40:34) Kev: Also, yep, it is, yep, and I agree. Also, I will give it problems for one more thing, so like I’ve (0:40:38) Al: It’s all all very nice as well put together, I think. (0:40:48) Kev: said, expressed before, that a lot of game companies are using Studio Ghibli-like or inspired or (0:40:56) Kev: whatever, it’s a phrase, and a lot of times they don’t quite deliver on that, but I think this one (0:41:01) Kev: actually did. It captured the spirit of Kiki’s delivery service. (0:41:04) Kev: Pretty well so much that the person who sells your books is just like Kiki. (0:41:10) Al: Yeah, that’s fun. I haven’t actually seen it yet, so… (0:41:10) Kev: Um, yeah. Oh, well, that’s the view of Ghibli. It’s charming. Um, yeah. (0:41:15) Al: I only know what people have told me. (0:41:19) Al: I have so far seen one Studio Ghibli film, but I do plan to watch the rest. (0:41:22) Kev: Wait, which one was it? (0:41:24) Al: The Boy and the Heron. (0:41:25) Kev: No, I’m not saying that, but I just looked up. All right. (0:41:28) Al: It’s good. It’s very good. And despite everything, I would highly (0:41:32) Al: recommend watching the dub, because the voice acting in the dub is (0:41:38) Al: Excellent. It’s very good. (0:41:40) Al: It’s not a lot of dubs are pretty half-hearted. This is very excellent. If you’ve ever won. (0:41:44) Kev: yeah the studio Ghibli dubs usually I think are pretty solid they get good (0:41:52) Kev: talent I got Billy crystal for us moving first castle oh really huh yeah oh well (0:41:57) Al: They have Robert Pattinson and the boy in the heron. (0:42:01) Al: He plays the heron. (0:42:04) Al: And he puts everything into that, like he’s not folding it in. (0:42:08) Al: It’s a very good performance. (0:42:11) Kev: He is a good actor, and I’m glad he put effort into it. (0:42:13) Al: Yeah. (0:42:16) Kev: Unfortunately, he was not here to voice the captain, or whatever, but overall, I loved (0:42:28) Kev: the presentation. (0:42:29) Kev: There’s a few things, like the chibigs, the Walmart, or whatever you want to call it, (0:42:37) Kev: of standard of slightly awkward English translations at times. (0:42:40) Al: Yes. (0:42:41) Kev: But in general, I didn’t have any problems with it. (0:42:48) Kev: And you have access to pretty much the whole map at the beginning. (0:42:52) Kev: You can fly around and see the different areas and stuff. (0:42:56) Al: Well, except the bits that you need to get to at the end. But yeah, they’re quite limited to the (0:42:58) Kev: Yeah, yeah, I said mostly. (0:43:00) Kev: Yeah. Yeah. (0:43:03) Al: extra bits. So yeah, it’s mostly you can access most of the game from the very start. And I guess (0:43:12) Al: let’s go into that. So we could talk about the flying and the brooms because you start off with (0:43:18) Al: a broken broom and you have to get it fixed and you have a fixed broom. And then of course, yeah, (0:43:22) Kev: Because, of course. (0:43:24) Al: Yeah, you have to do that. (0:43:26) Al: And then as you do more deliveries and you get more money, then your friend can upgrade your broom for you. (0:43:33) Al: And the broom does different things. (0:43:36) Al: It can act as though there’s like air currents, which your very first broom can’t use. (0:43:44) Al: You just kind of get pushed off to the side, whereas the second broom will let you use them. (0:43:46) Kev: Yeah, you know both horizontal and vertical so you can speed boost or rise yeah (0:43:50) Al: And then the later horizontal and vertical. (0:43:54) Al: Yeah. And then there’s. (0:43:56) Al: One that gives you this like extra air boosts that are hanging in the air that one of the brooms gives you access to. (0:43:59) Kev: Yeah, like the midair jump sort of thing (0:44:04) Al: And then the final broom there’s like a hurricane a tornado type thing not hurricane a tornado. (0:44:10) Al: On one level which you can only use if you have the final broom and that like boost you really high up in the air and that’s how you get to the top level. (0:44:17) Kev: Right. (0:44:19) Kev: Okay. (0:44:22) Al: So that’s obviously fine, it does the job. (0:44:26) Al: I will say, when I first played the game, I got very confused with the flying. (0:44:31) Al: I was expecting flying to be a bit different than it was, and this is probably a me problem. (0:44:37) Al: But I was… I don’t know why I was expecting this. You know, I’ve already talked to Johnny (0:44:43) Al: about this, and he definitely wasn’t expecting this. But I was expecting that you get on a broom (0:44:47) Al: and you can, like, fly up. You can’t fly up, basically. You’re always flying down. You can (0:44:52) Kev: Yeah. (0:44:54) Kev: Yep. (0:44:54) Al: have like if you’re close to ground. (0:44:56) Al: And you get like a little boost so you can like go up a little bit so you are actually (0:44:59) Al: above the ground. (0:45:00) Kev: Right, right, yeah, you don’t want one on the graph. (0:45:00) Al: But basically if you want to go up, you have to use the air streams or follow the land (0:45:04) Kev: Mm-hmm. (0:45:04) Al: and jump off a higher bit of land stuff like that. (0:45:06) Kev: Sure. (0:45:07) Al: And because of that, because of that’s how it works. (0:45:10) Al: Like you know how when you’re flying, you can have like two different control schemes. (0:45:14) Al: You either have like pull back, pulls you up and push forward, makes you go down. (0:45:20) Al: Or the way this was, which is when you can’t like control going up and down. (0:45:26) Al: Just control where you are. (0:45:28) Al: Like forward makes you go forward and back makes you go backwards. (0:45:32) Al: So like I was pulling backwards to go up and I was just turning round. (0:45:34) Kev: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. (0:45:35) Al: So it kept confusing me like that. (0:45:38) Al: And I suspect that’s mostly a me problem, expecting something different. (0:45:42) Al: And probably due to how much I played Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, where when you actually (0:45:46) Al: fly rather than glide, that is what it is, right? (0:45:49) Kev: Say. Yeah, yeah. (0:45:50) Al: You pull up to go up. (0:45:52) Al: So I got used to it, but yeah. (0:45:56) Al: Was a little bit kind of jarring at the (0:45:58) Kev: Sure, I didn’t have that expectation and like, I think the game, the presentation of you have, you know, a really basic broom or whatever like they’re clearly showing you’re going to be building up to it like it made sense to me. (0:46:13) Kev: But, I mean, regardless, regardless of that bit. I think the flying overall feels great. It feels exactly like how I wanted it to feel. (0:46:28) Kev: I had a demo some time ago and I was happy and they didn’t disappoint like everything else that they add to it. It all feels natural. It feels great. You can actually go pretty fast when you get the air currents and whatnot. (0:46:41) Kev: You can go far and it’s almost a sort of platforming at times, right? Because you’re trying to hit air currents or jump on islands and whatnot. (0:46:50) Kev: And I enjoyed it. Yea

Will is building a city in SteamWorld Build, Ian is investigating things in The Operator, and Zak is guiding a princess in Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess. Content Callout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-tQolBwSTchttps://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-roblox-pedophile-problem/https://youtu.be/VscKtjLG9XU?si=IBS1Egs2CrCBR0x9 Join our Community Discord: https://discord.gg/ewruSNk Check out our Merch: https://rdbl.co/3c7D2Gs Subpixel Twitter: https://twitter.com/SubpixelTeam --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/localchat/support

Balex kicks off the show with a flurry of review games and Jerruh gushes on about SteamWorld Build. Then we've got a special interview with the developer of The Fall of Elena Temple! Hosted by Perry Burkum (@PBurkum), Casey Gibson (@case_jets), Alex Culafi (@culafia) Intro and Hellos: (0:00:10) Megaton Musashi: (0:03:37) Anomaly Agent: (0:11:34) Tents and Trees: (0:15:39) ASTLIBRA Revision: (0:17:06) SteamWorld Build: (0:22:10) GrimTalin Interview: (0:32:05) Outro: (0:54:18) Thank you for listening! We can tell that you are a good-looking person. Peep the discord: https://discord.gg/XPByvgvByQ Please write in to the show at TNPmailbag@gmail.com Tweet us @TalkNintendoPod and Instagram us at talknintendopodcast Please consider supporting us on Patreon! For just $1 you can get access to tons of exclusive content! Check us out at www.patreon.com/nwr

With 400 approaching, we have a bit of a lighter episode, but don't you fret! Still plenty of games to talk about including Picross Logiart Grimoire, SteamWorld Build, and more! Hosted by Perry Burkum (@PBurkum), Casey Gibson (@case_jets), Alex Culafi (@culafia) Intro and Hellos: (0:00:10) Picross Logiart Grimoire (0:06:56) SteamWorld Build: (0:19:10) Let's! Revolution!: (0:36:41) Outro: (0:46:52) Thank you for listening! We can tell that you are a good-looking person. Peep the discord: https://discord.gg/XPByvgvByQ Please write in to the show at TNPmailbag@gmail.com Tweet us @TalkNintendoPod and Instagram us at talknintendopodcast Please consider supporting us on Patreon! For just $1 you can get access to tons of exclusive content! Check us out at www.patreon.com/nwr

Codey talks through all of the recent news, and gives us some insect facts. Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:03:20: What Has Codey Been Up To 00:07:48: News 00:54:14: Outro Links Of Life and Land Early Access Rusty’s Retirement Release Date Botany Manor Release Date Len’s Island “Community” Update Steamworld Build “Mechanized” DLC Disney Dreamlight Valley “Eternity Isle” Moonstone Island Fisholutions Critter Crops Delay Poglings Dev Update 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 (0:00:35) Codey: My name is Cody and I am here today to talk about cottagecore games. Whoo (0:00:42) Codey: I am just doing a solo episode today. We had a scheduling issue and (0:00:49) Codey: Like frantically tried to get a news episode together and I was the only person available (0:00:54) Codey: Which I’m totally fine with al has done this before al has done solo episodes before he said it’s like hard for something (0:01:01) Codey: I don’t know. So we’re gonna find out if it is (0:01:04) Codey: Check back in here. I’m actually gonna add it to the show notes right now (0:01:09) Codey: Check back in is solo (0:01:15) Codey: Uh, I think it’s going to be hard (0:01:19) Codey: But uh I’m just gonna imagine (0:01:23) Codey: Listening to everyone responding to this (0:01:25) Codey: And so that is gonna be great. And honestly if y’all enjoy it, I would (0:01:31) Codey: No to doing this again if absolutely needed (0:01:35) Codey: So today is just gonna be a news podcast but because people have been clamoring for insect facts in (0:01:44) Codey: The slack and just in general in my life people are just really into insects (0:01:49) Codey: In between each news item. I’m going to dive into a fact about an order of insects (0:01:55) Codey: So insecta is a clade and inside of that clade there are many orders (0:02:01) Codey: I don’t know the number off the top of my head So I’m gonna go into it like some quick facts like maybe a minute of facts about each order (0:02:08) Codey: We’re not covering all the orders in this episode (0:02:11) Codey: It’s just like the ones that that jumped out to me or that I thought had some cool facts (0:02:16) Codey: and so for that reason (0:02:20) Codey: Now I will say the transcripts are available in the show notes on the website if you don’t like insects if they freak you out I really tried to make sure that some of the facts aren’t too like scary gruesome or whatever (0:02:30) Codey: Um, but I also am biased and don’t think that insects are scary gruesome at all (0:02:36) Codey: So if you do have an entomophobia or anything like that do check out those transcripts and the show notes (0:02:43) Codey: On the website harvest season club so that you can get your news content (0:02:48) Codey: Without the insect content also if that is the case for you do let us know you can (0:02:54) Codey: If you’re not subscribed you can email us again at harvest season club And then I will avoid doing this type of episode in the future. (0:03:00) Codey: I definitely do not want to push people away, but I have a feeling that people who listen to this podcast and enjoy farming games are going to like the bug content. So we’re going to find out how that goes. (0:03:13) Codey: So bug content news. And first, of course, (0:03:17) Codey: we always talk about what we have been up to. (0:03:21) Codey: So I have been doing a lot of different games. (0:03:26) Codey: My grandma got me back into this phone game, um, called cross-stitch. (0:03:30) Codey: It’s literally like a color by number, but with cross stitches, cross-stitching, um, (0:03:36) Codey: it’s really helped me with my ADHD lately, trying to stay focused on tasks. (0:03:40) Codey: Like if I’m in an environment that’s really distracting or if I’m losing focus on a conversation or something that I’m trying to pay attention to, um, that I, that I genuinely care about, (0:03:51) Codey: I’ll just whip out that game and like color. (0:03:53) Codey: And then I can 100% mean maintain focus on, um, whatever conversation or show or pot or seminar or whatever it is that I’m (0:04:00) Codey: listening to so I highly recommend that for our fellow ADHDers and fellow crafters it’s really it’s really fun I will say I have mentioned it in a while Tetris game I think I think she’s dead y’all I hadn’t played it in a while and I realized that the other day and so I opened her up and yeah they do shifting baselines I am pretty sure because I checked and there are no cruises available right now. I have almost 2 million coins. (0:04:30) Codey: And there are no cruises showing up. What is showing up is I can use like a certain amount of my coins for (0:04:37) Codey: X money off of a cruise or something like that. So (0:04:41) Codey: Yeah, I just have to take the L there y’all (0:04:45) Codey: But I can still use those points for things but they’re all like places or things that I’m not gonna be doing like (0:04:52) Codey: Going to Vegas and spending money at the Luxor or whatever. I’m like, I’m not gonna I’m not gonna do that (0:05:00) Codey: So yeah, rest in peace that game (0:05:03) Codey: More pertinent to to y’all. I’ve been playing a lot of Disney Dreamlight Valley. I finally hit credits (0:05:09) Codey: So I am done on the main story and I am almost done with the realms that are available (0:05:16) Codey: and maximizing the (0:05:20) Codey: Villagers that I have right now So I think the only realm that is currently available that I have not yet unlocked with Dreamlight is Monsters Inc. (0:05:28) Codey: So I just did the Lion King. (0:05:30) Codey: and the Toy Story Realm and I have a lot of my people at max level but for some of them like Olaf I tried to max his level and it was like to do this you need to have Buzz Lightyear in your valley and I was like what the heck. (0:05:44) Codey: So I’m going through and doing that and it’s just it just scratches a good itch when I am not fox crafting because I’m still doing that as well. (0:05:53) Codey: My Minecraft fox has a full tail outlined now. (0:05:59) Codey: The head is complete and we have– (0:06:01) Codey: my bestie Devin and I have begun construction of the fox sanctuary. (0:06:06) Codey: We went and kidnapped some foxes and drug them through the nether (0:06:10) Codey: and put them on top of the fox island and have been building a little fox army with them (0:06:20) Codey: and so I have those available and I’m just like outlining the tail and outlining all and all of that stuff. (0:06:30) Codey: Told up the sides of it, and then we’re continuing to create the sanctuary. (0:06:34) Codey: Very fun. (0:06:35) Codey: I’ve also been playing window garden. (0:06:37) Codey: I don’t talk about that too much right now because of reasons. (0:06:42) Codey: Stay tuned for– (0:06:43) Codey: watch this podcast feed. (0:06:45) Codey: And then I’m also setting up– this is my last field season of my graduate degrees– (0:06:52) Codey: I guess degrees– (0:06:54) Codey: my graduate education, as it were. (0:06:57) Codey: Tomorrow I’m going into the woods with a forester. (0:07:00) Codey: And we’re he’s going to be slingshotting some stuff into the into the trees for me so that I can put ropes up there and pull my traps up and I’m going to do the final set up the rest of the week and then start next week with my last trap effort. (0:07:16) Codey: It’s really bittersweet I cannot believe that I am about to be done with the field work that will culminate in my dissertation. (0:07:24) Codey: I do still have a full year and a half of my research of my doctor at left because I do have a full year to finish writing, finish specimens, all of that stuff and I have so many specimens. (0:07:38) Codey: So, yeah, we will see how that goes I’m very excited though. (0:07:44) Codey: And, yeah, very sad, very exciting. And with that, let’s get into some news. So our first bit of news here is for of life and land of life and land is now out in early access. (0:07:58) Codey: game is 20 is basically 30. (0:08:00) Codey: $30 USD on Steam, but it has a 10% discount currently. (0:08:04) Codey: So you can get it for 27. (0:08:07) Codey: Also available for purchase right now is a supporter pack for $5 or 450. (0:08:12) Codey: Again, it’s 10% off right now. (0:08:14) Codey: Um, and in that supporter pack, you get things like a desktop wallpapers, (0:08:18) Codey: some digital art posters, paper, Fox folding instructions, and some 3d models, (0:08:27) Codey: but paper fox excuse me (0:08:31) Codey: These people (0:08:33) Codey: These people (0:08:36) Codey: They know what I like. So this thing is so hanging cute. It’s basically it looks like (0:08:42) Codey: It’s just something that you would print out (0:08:45) Codey: So you’d print out these instructions you print out the pages that have the bits that you would fold (0:08:51) Codey: On like the colored paper whatever colored paper so probably orange and white But you could also probably honestly do like a purple box. I’d be super cute (0:09:00) Codey: And then you fold it and it makes really cute little fox design and I have personally never wished that I had thirty dollars (0:09:07) Codey: More in my life so that I can get the game and the fox folding. Um (0:09:12) Codey: But I probably will wait on this game until (0:09:16) Codey: 1.0. Um, i’m just (0:09:18) Codey: I Really? I don’t I have limited time for games right now. So I am always going to wait at this point. Um, unless (0:09:25) Codey: asked by by people to cover a game before it is in 1.0. (0:09:32) Codey: Game looks really cute, though. (0:09:33) Codey: It’s like Age of Empires, but cozier, and I played the crap out of Age of Empires when I was a kid. (0:09:37) Codey: So I would love to play this game. (0:09:40) Codey: And yeah, so we’ll see how their, how their early access goes and just keep watching them and maybe find this paper, fox, folding instructions. The developers, is it correct? I think it’s Corozan. (0:10:02) Codey: I believe, Kurzovan. Oh, I was so close. (0:10:04) Codey: Kurzovan developers, if you’re listening right now, I will literally pay $5 just for the paper, fox, folding instructions. (0:10:10) Codey: Actually, I might be able to do that, actually. (0:10:13) Codey: Anyway, like without buying the base game, we’ll find out. (0:10:17) Codey: Anyway, so end of the first news item. (0:10:20) Codey: So here I’m going to talk about an insect order. (0:10:22) Codey: So I picked for the first four insect orders. (0:10:26) Codey: I picked the big four orders which comprise (0:10:31) Codey: of insects that comprise the most biodiversity in insecta and so the one of these is coleoptera which is the beetles it is possibly the most diverse order so approximately one of every four species of life this includes plants animals bacteria and fungi one of every four species is a beetle is wild and (0:11:01) Codey: they’re so underrepresented if you ever see any games or anything like it’s like oh here’s all these mammals and then maybe like one beetle and it’s like really this should flip the script it should be 800 beetles and then one mammal this is crazy so there are currently about 400,000 described species of beetles but that only refers to beetles that we know and have like written down and acknowledged why they’re different and why they are unique species. (0:11:31) Codey: Some scientists think that there’s possibly a million beetles. I’ve seen up to like 30 million. I don’t know. That’s pretty crazy. I would be really sad if there were 30 million beetles and we’ve only described 400,000. Oh my gosh. (0:11:45) Codey: So yeah, probably a million species of beetles, which is wild. I mean, if you think about it, there’s only like 4,000 mammals or something. I’m actually not sure on that species of mammal. 6400. Yeah, 64. (0:12:01) Codey: 400 species of extant mammals. So that’s so little. And that’s what most people think of when they think of animals, but beetles are just crazy. One of my favorite quotes about this is by British evolutionary biologist and geneticist JBS Haldane. He was talking about beetles once and he said that if there were a god or some type of divine being that has created all of the living organisms on the Earth, then that creator must– (0:12:31) Codey: have a quote, “inordinate fondness for beetles.” (0:12:35) Codey: So basically, they must really like beetles because there’s so heck and many of them. (0:12:40) Codey: Oh my gosh, there’s so many of them. (0:12:42) Codey: And I’m trying to learn the families right now. (0:12:45) Codey: Not fun. (0:12:46) Codey: Not– not fun. (0:12:49) Codey: But I need– I need to– (0:12:52) Codey: I do want to learn it. (0:12:53) Codey: It’s just a lot of– it’s just a lot. (0:12:55) Codey: It’s a lot. (0:12:57) Codey: What is not a lot– (0:13:01) Codey: I’m going to be on fire today, y’all. (0:13:03) Codey: Well, it’s not a lot because it’s awesome and is not a lot of work, question mark. (0:13:09) Codey: Is Rusty’s retirement coming out in its 1.0? (0:13:15) Codey: Its release is the 26th of April. (0:13:18) Codey: Oh my gosh. (0:13:19) Codey: The end of this month, then we get Rusty. (0:13:24) Codey: And I’m also not sure if it’s been confirmed in the pod before, but rusty is non-binary. (0:13:31) Codey: Which makes sense. (0:13:32) Codey: Like robots probably don’t have, um, I mean, I guess they could choose to have gender if they want, but, um, the developer just says in this, in this trailer, they say they, um, and that you can help rusty on their quest to (0:13:47) Codey: rebuild a little farm. (0:13:49) Codey: Very cute. (0:13:50) Codey: Um, and they have more information about how you can like build more housing, (0:13:56) Codey: build more, more like buildings for different. (0:14:01) Codey: Things you recruit other robots. (0:14:04) Codey: It’s this game looks so hecking cute. (0:14:06) Codey: I’m so excited for it to come out. (0:14:07) Codey: Yes, I will be playing this game. (0:14:09) Codey: It will be on the bottom of my, of my screen. (0:14:13) Codey: Um, I am trying to figure out if I want to put it on my laptop or not. (0:14:18) Codey: Um, or if I’m going to get too distracted by that, we will find out. (0:14:23) Codey: But I will be playing it. (0:14:25) Codey: Um, one of the things that I love about rusty’s retirement whenever I see the little things is the little beads. (0:14:31) Codey: They have bee hives. I’m not sure if they’re real bees or if they are like little mechanical robot bees. Very excited to find that out. Speaking of bees, (0:14:42) Codey: transition on point, the next insect order, the next order that is within the big four are hymenoptera. So these are, this order includes sawflies, ants, wasps, (0:14:57) Codey: and bees and just cuz I’m never sure (0:15:01) Codey: if people know this bees are just vegetarian wasps about a hundred million years ago when flowers started evolving and diversifying in this great radiation event in flowers occurred some of the wasps were like bet like I see this I see this I see these resources and I want them and they started eating the plant pollen plant pollen and they became the first bees and since then there’s been this evolutionary arms race between bees and flowers as they They continue to evolve and specialize with each other. (0:15:32) Codey: flowers developed nectar to draw bees in closer so that bees would definitely collect pollen. (0:15:39) Codey: Bees then developed branched hairs which allowed them to become more efficient at collecting pollen and they just kept going back and forth and there’s all kinds of really wacky evolutionary stories there about the different evolutionary things that bees or flowers have done for each other. (0:15:56) Codey: But I think my favorite is orchids and orchid bees. (0:16:00) Codey: There are orchids that literally. (0:16:02) Codey: Look like female bees and they, and they put out volatiles and pheromones and scents that smells like female bees of, of this very specific group. (0:16:14) Codey: The, I think it’s the euglossine bees, the orchid bees. (0:16:18) Codey: That’s what they’re called. (0:16:19) Codey: And they mimic female bees. (0:16:21) Codey: So the males come in, they think they see a female, they jump on it and they end up getting stuck and have to like, when they pull themselves out, they take a pollen. (0:16:32) Codey: A polynia, which is like a little bundle of pollen. (0:16:35) Codey: And then when they get tricked by another flower, they end up transferring the pollen from one flower to another. (0:16:42) Codey: Wild, super wild, very cool insects. (0:16:47) Codey: They’ve, they just have, because they’re so short lived, they don’t have these super long lifespans like we do. (0:16:53) Codey: Evolution happens so fast with them. (0:16:55) Codey: So you have this huge radiation of different lifestyles. (0:17:00) Codey: Different life histories is what I meant to say. (0:17:02) Codey: Different life histories, different adaptations. (0:17:04) Codey: Crazy. (0:17:05) Codey: So cool. (0:17:07) Codey: Another thing that’s really cool is botany manor. (0:17:11) Codey: I am super excited for this game. (0:17:13) Codey: I have been since we first talked about it on the pod and it is now going to be releasing by the time you are listening to this podcast. (0:17:21) Codey: It is already out. (0:17:22) Codey: She’s out on Steam for PC. (0:17:27) Codey: Again this is a game where you’re a botanist in 1890 and you are trying to (0:17:32) Codey: It seems like you’re trying to revive flora that have become missing or are misunderstood or just not poorly not not well understood. (0:17:42) Codey: I’m here for it. (0:17:44) Codey: So you’re basically learning about these different flowers evolving these are not I guess you’re evolving the different flowers and kind of doing an artificial selection on the flowers. (0:17:54) Codey: This game is published by white thorn games, which is the same publisher as friend of the pod a backhoe. Love that. (0:18:02) Codey: And yeah, I mean in this trailer that they showed where they talked about their release date, they showed the manner they showed mysteries of the manner Morse code you use Morse code at some point like legitimately you learn Morse code and use Morse code to solve some of the puzzles. (0:18:20) Codey: I mean teaching me to do something like that is useful in the real world say less. (0:18:28) Codey: It also looks like there might be cooking. (0:18:32) Codey: Tending to a plant in what’s clearly a kitchen environment. (0:18:36) Codey: You tend to plants in general. (0:18:37) Codey: So there’s like a compost bin. (0:18:39) Codey: There’s seeds you water things you plant things in different places. (0:18:45) Codey: One thing that caught my eye in this trailer was a moth calendar. (0:18:49) Codey: So it’s it looks like it’s this like spinning wheel calendar. (0:18:54) Codey: That tells you what season different moths come out. (0:18:59) Codey: like you see you you’re like oh may and it’s like (0:19:02) Codey: oh in May these are the moths that you’ll see which I would love that I mean I use iNaturalist which is a an application to basically try and figure out what diversity is popping up around me but like a cute little kind of cute little thing that you can rotate and it tells you you’re just like oh look what kind of stuff is gonna be here in September I think that’s so cute so yeah check out Botany Manner if you haven’t already. (0:19:32) Codey: steam for pc, because i’m recording pre-release, I don’t know the amount. (0:19:39) Codey: i’m not sure of the price of this game, but I would drop down probably like 20 bucks on this game if I had the time to play it. and if it was on mac, because steam, again, I usually don’t use my desktop for anything anymore, unfortunately. speaking of cool moths, the next (0:20:02) Codey: insect order in our big four is Lepidoptera, which i’ve already talked about before on a previous pod. so these are the moths and the butterflies. and although many people know a lot about like the big showy butterflies and moths, like the monarchs of swallowtails, atlas moths, luna moths, (0:20:20) Codey: you see the big caterpillars like the hickory horned devil or the tobacco hornworm, like these (0:20:29) Codey: caterpillars that just have these crazy adornments. (0:20:32) Codey: Some of my favorites are in the family Lycenidae or Lycanidae depends on how you want to pronounce the C in that word and these are the blue butterflies. (0:20:44) Codey: So these are really actually fairly small in my area the eastern tailed blue is probably the most common and it’s when it folds its little wings up it’s probably no bigger than like a quarter. (0:20:55) Codey: It might be a little bit bigger than a quarter. (0:20:59) Codey: I don’t know the size of a Euro. (0:21:00) Codey: I don’t really know. (0:21:02) Codey: Like other audiences and what might explain to them, maybe like a, it’s way smaller than like a bottle cap. (0:21:10) Codey: It’s probably the size of a bottle cap. (0:21:12) Codey: Let’s just say it’s a bottle cap. (0:21:15) Codey: So these caterpillars of the family Lecenidae have a partnership with ants. (0:21:20) Codey: They’re actually called mermechophyllus. (0:21:22) Codey: So mermecho means ant, phylee means love. (0:21:26) Codey: So they’re literally ant-loving butterflies. (0:21:29) Codey: So these caterpillars literally pay the ants. (0:21:33) Codey: They excrete secretions on their backs that provide a sugar-rich nectar source for the ants. (0:21:39) Codey: So they’ll come up to some ants in the wild, you know, wherever their mother laid their egg. (0:21:48) Codey: They’ll find some ants and they’ll just start releasing this nectar, sugar-rich nectar source. (0:21:53) Codey: And ants are like, “This is awesome. This thing just poops out deliciousness.” (0:22:00) Codey: And then they carry the- (0:22:02) Codey: The ants house this caterpillar and protect it while it grows bigger and bigger and bigger, and I think sometimes the caterpillar also like just eats their food. (0:22:17) Codey: Um, and yeah, so it basically gets this defense and this protection from these ant- from this ant colony. (0:22:26) Codey: And then they’ll either, depending on the species, I think they either pupate within the ant colony and then they’ll- (0:22:32) Codey: emerge as an adult butterfly, you know, in the spring or whatever, um, or they might come out of the ant colony, crawl out of the ant colony, find a place to pupate and then pupate and then do the same thing. (0:22:44) Codey: Super crazy though, that they just- because you’ve heard of ants farming fungus before, but what about butterfly larvae farming ants basically, or manipulating ants? Super wild. (0:22:59) Codey: Uh, next bit of news is Len’s island. (0:23:02) Codey: Um, so the community update is out now, this adds Korean, Russian, French, Portuguese, and an update to the update to the Thai translations. (0:23:11) Codey: So I guess the original Thai translations might have been sub par, um, or just had hadn’t been finalized yet. (0:23:18) Codey: Um, so they are, they’ve taken that into consideration and have updated that. (0:23:22) Codey: Love that. (0:23:23) Codey: Um, they’ve also added a lot of things to the game. (0:23:25) Codey: There’s some small changes, um, some bug fixes, some things, some balancing issues. (0:23:32) Codey: There were some things that might’ve been too difficult or too easy or what have you. (0:23:36) Codey: Um, so they’ve changed all of that. (0:23:38) Codey: And every time we talk about this game, I want to jump back into it immediately. (0:23:42) Codey: Like every time I see the word lens Island words, lens Island, I’m like, man, I would love to jump back into that game. (0:23:49) Codey: Like at this very moment, because I really did enjoy it. (0:23:51) Codey: I put many hours, like probably like 20 or 30 hours into this game. (0:23:55) Codey: Um, just like jumping into the mines, trying to explore the dungeon, trying to, I mean, it was. (0:24:02) Codey: It was a pretty big slog in the beginning to level, to like, level up your weaponry and get the things that you needed. (0:24:10) Codey: I would go for like a 10 or 15 minute jaunt around the Island just to get like all the food that I could get before I went in the dungeon. (0:24:18) Codey: And then I would still probably end up running out of food and dying. (0:24:20) Codey: Um, it’s way easier now, but I just really want to jump back into it. (0:24:25) Codey: But I really also want to wait until 1.0 to get the full effect of having not played this game since its first release. (0:24:33) Codey: Um, so I will be on the lookout for that 100% lens Island. (0:24:38) Codey: Don’t you worry. (0:24:40) Codey: No cool transition here. (0:24:41) Codey: Just the final of the big four or back to bugs. (0:24:44) Codey: Uh, the final of the big four is diptura. (0:24:46) Codey: These are the flies. (0:24:47) Codey: Um, diptura literally means two wings and that’s because flies only have two wings. (0:24:52) Codey: Um, most everything else has either four wings or Beatles have, um, hind wings that are super soft. (0:24:59) Codey: often than forewings that have been hardened into… (0:25:02) Codey: elytra but diptra just straight up have two wings they have on the back instead of having a second pair of a pair of hind wings they have what are called hull tiers and there are these organs that kind of help them balance in the air and orient there are all kinds of really cool flies including beef lies just the family bomb a lady they just look like fluffy little clouds I mean if you’re here a Pokemon fan and you think of cutie fly it just looks like that (0:25:33) Codey: Um, uh, hoverflies and flower hoverflies or flower flies. (0:25:38) Codey: Those are two names for the exact same thing. (0:25:40) Codey: They’re flies in the family’s surfady. (0:25:42) Codey: Um, these flies are actually also really efficient pollinators. (0:25:45) Codey: They tend to be fairly hairy. (0:25:47) Codey: Um, and they can look like bees as well, uh, bees or wasps. (0:25:50) Codey: And they do this to fake out predators. (0:25:52) Codey: So they look, they look fuzzy. (0:25:54) Codey: They have the coloration of bees or wasps and then predators see them. (0:25:58) Codey: And they’re like, I’ve eaten a bee before it didn’t go well for me. (0:26:01) Codey: So I’m going to leave this thing alone. (0:26:03) Codey: Super cool, cool form of mimicry, but I think I’m going to go with, uh, for some of my favorite diptarins is going to be dance flies, um, or flies in the family and piddity. (0:26:15) Codey: So the males actually find, um, what they call, what is called a nuptial gift. (0:26:20) Codey: They find something that they want to give to the female. (0:26:23) Codey: It could be some food, could just be something cool that he found or whatever. (0:26:26) Codey: Um, and then he wraps it in a little package of silk and then he flies, um, (0:26:31) Codey: carrying package of like a (0:26:33) Codey: silk on a string and he presents it to a female and then if she likes it she’ll take it she’ll open it she’ll look at it and if she likes it cool you you’ve you’ve successfully won her hand in marriage and if she doesn’t then she just tosses it and you have to go the male has to go find another gift wrap it again in silk and try again next time super cool I have never seen these in the And I’m so sad like of this this thing, but I did have a friend once (0:27:03) Codey: sent me this he’s a friend who’s an ornithologist and he was like Do you know what the heck is going on here? (0:27:08) Codey: And he sent me a picture of a fly with a like in the air flying with this little thing under it And I was like, oh my gosh, that’s a dance fly and I lost my mind and he was like you are exactly right That’s that was really cool (0:27:21) Codey: So yeah catch me in (0:27:24) Codey: Gosh, where is he Kentucky in probably like August trying to find him pitted? (0:27:30) Codey: Okay, next bit of news here is (0:27:33) Codey: steam world build now has a DLC called mechanized out. (0:27:40) Codey: You can go get this, get this DLC now. (0:27:43) Codey: This DLC basically adds a bunch of stuff, (0:27:46) Codey: including an NPC named mech that can help you solve puzzles to help get you off the planet. (0:27:53) Codey: And it also introduces a new big bad called the abomination that tries to thwart you and goes through your area (0:28:02) Codey: and just. (0:28:03) Codey: Destroyes things that you’re doing or impedes your your attempt to leave the planet it looks like a really cool puzzle game I’ve actually never looked at steam world build before (0:28:13) Codey: It’s giving (0:28:15) Codey: Gosh not Forrester or forager or oh my gosh. I can’t believe I’m not thinking of this game right now (0:28:23) Codey: Another game where you’re doing computery things. It’s probably it’s literally on my desktop. Isn’t it factorial? (0:28:29) Codey: I guess I’ve played this with my partner. It’s giving factorial. (0:28:33) Codey: Vibes, but in more of a puzzle-y 3d format. Very cool. (0:28:39) Codey: Um, and for a limited time, (0:28:41) Codey: you can save money when bundling the DLC with the main game on steam. (0:28:46) Codey: So if you’ve been wanting to try out steam world, and you’re like, no, really, (0:28:48) Codey: sure, then, uh, now’s a great time to jump back in. (0:28:52) Codey: Cause you can save money, um, on not only the main game, but also the DLC. (0:28:58) Codey: Um, the next group. So we’ve already covered the big four. (0:29:01) Codey: of the big four being Beatles. (0:29:03) Codey: Um, coleoptera, hymenoptera, diptra and lepidoptera. (0:29:08) Codey: Um, so those are the big four that I just wanted to get out of the way, um, just because they’re the most diverse, but the next, so the other ones that I’m going to talk about are the ones that I think are just really cool and show, uh, I mean, I think they’re all really cool honestly, but these I thought were accessible, um, and just interesting to people. So, uh, the first order is Oda Nada, (0:29:31) Codey: which is the damsel flies in the (0:29:33) Codey: dragonflies. So these are some of the best flyers in the animal kingdom. They have really insane musculature in their thorax and they actually can fly in any direction because of this. Each of their wings has its own musculature and can move independently of the others. So this allows them to move in any direction. They can move forward, backward, up, down, side to side. They can do whatever they want. Whereas most insects, they’re restricted to flying forward and in (0:30:03) Codey: a different direction, they have to like turn their body. So they like use their wings to like turn in a different direction, but they can’t just go backwards. They can’t fly backwards or go up or down or whatever. This makes them really successful predators in the animal kingdom. Most predators have a really low success rate. So think of like the lion on the savanna. Most of the time not going to be successful. Most of the time not getting a wildebeest or or whatever it’s trying to, whatever she’s trying to catch. (0:30:34) Codey: The dragonflies, I think it’s like 75% success, bonkers. (0:30:39) Codey: They also will take, some of them will take like bees, (0:30:43) Codey: other flies. (0:30:44) Codey: I mean, I think that they’re not really that picky. (0:30:45) Codey: Some will take other dragonflies, crazy. (0:30:49) Codey: They also, this is, (laughs) (0:30:51) Codey: nothing I’ve said is a lie so far. (0:30:54) Codey: And I don’t plan on lying, this seems made up. (0:30:59) Codey: They make a really cute heart shape when they mate. (0:31:02) Codey: So when they mate, they connect. (0:31:04) Codey: They’re like the end of their abdomen to the top of the head of the other one, and they end up making a really cute heart shape. (0:31:13) Codey: I highly recommend people look up Dragonfly mating. (0:31:17) Codey: It’s not graphic or anything. It just looks goofy. (0:31:22) Codey: Speaking of goofy, look at me with these transitions. Disney Dreamlight Valley. (0:31:28) Codey: The act two of the paid DLC has been announced to be coming out. (0:31:35) Codey: The paid DLC is a rift in time, and this DLC includes three acts. (0:31:42) Codey: Some people on this tweet, when they mention in the Twitter that the next part of the act of this expansion DLC is going to be coming out. (0:31:57) Codey: Some people were like, “Oh, wait. Do I have to pay more for this? I’ve already paid for a rift in time.” (0:32:02) Codey: And they’re like, no, no, like, this is– (0:32:04) Codey: part of the paid DLC. (0:32:05) Codey: So if you’ve already paid for a Rift in Time, (0:32:09) Codey: which I believe is only like $25 or $20, (0:32:12) Codey: you don’t have to pay again. (0:32:13) Codey: You’re going to get all three of these acts. (0:32:17) Codey: So Act 1 was Eternity Isle. (0:32:19) Codey: This is available now. (0:32:20) Codey: You can do this now. (0:32:21) Codey: If you have paid for it, I will say I have the game on Xbox Live, like Game Pass. (0:32:31) Codey: So I didn’t pay for the game. (0:32:33) Codey: playing it free to play. (0:32:34) Codey: through game pass and if you want to do rift of rift in time you have to pay on top of that and so I haven’t done this. but I’m also like nowhere near done with with the content that is free so I’m not gonna be worried about it. so yeah act one adds eternity isle adds Rapunzel Gaston and Eve as the player goes to what is called Eternity Isle. (0:33:04) Codey: Seems like this place where you can mess with time, you can get a tool. (0:33:09) Codey: It looks like it’s Jafar’s staff and it can allow you to turn back time to see different artifacts. (0:33:16) Codey: Interesting, I guess. (0:33:20) Codey: I don’t really, I really need to rewatch the Aladdin movies. (0:33:24) Codey: I don’t think he can mess with time. (0:33:27) Codey: Maybe he can in like one of the second or third ones, I don’t remember. (0:33:33) Codey: So yeah, that is already out. (0:33:35) Codey: Um, so coming quote unquote spring, which spring’s almost done y’all. (0:33:42) Codey: Isn’t spring like at the end of may mid may, I don’t know when you would end spring, but, uh, the second act is called the spark of imagination. (0:33:53) Codey: And in the spark of imagination, you will quote, explore ancient landing to uncover more of its secrets and befriend a very lucky villager. (0:34:04) Codey: So there are some spec, there’s some speculation about who this villager could be. (0:34:08) Codey: Um, I, I’m trying to think of like what Disney character could be called lucky. (0:34:17) Codey: Um, but what I think this is is probably Atlantis. (0:34:22) Codey: Um, the symbol on this looks a lot like the cave that is on Dazzle beach was it, (0:34:28) Codey: which is the current Disney dream light Valley. (0:34:30) Codey: Um, one of the places in the current game. (0:34:32) Codey: and it gives big Atlantis- (0:34:34) Codey: when you are in that cave there are Atlantean symbols and people have already like decoded them (0:34:41) Codey: because there’s an Atlantean alphabet um and just the thought of like going back in time and thinking about like Atlantis as this land lost to time or whatever i’m thinking i’m thinking it’s milo thatch y’all but it could also be the I don’t remember her name but the princess from atlantis who’s (0:35:04) Codey: awesome human like is she atlantean (0:35:08) Codey: um it could be her too uh who knows but um I think that’s who it is someone else like I saw someone else say something it could be like daf not daffy duck uh donald duck’s brother cousin something I was like I don’t that sounds way way out of left field I don’t think I don’t think that’s true um so yeah the spark of imagination is the second act in um eripton time the third act (0:35:34) Codey: coming out quote unquote summer 2024 is treasures of time. (0:35:40) Codey: So this is the final act of a rift in time. (0:35:43) Codey: And in this you will foil Jafar’s schemes, (0:35:48) Codey: whatever that means. (0:35:50) Codey: So we’ll see how I feel about this. (0:35:51) Codey: I don’t know about y’all. (0:35:53) Codey: If you’ve been playing DTV, as I call it, (0:35:58) Codey: let me know. (0:36:00) Codey: Some of these villains, I wish I could just, (0:36:03) Codey: I mean, honestly, some of the– (0:36:05) Codey: like, old-timers, too. (0:36:06) Codey: Like, sometimes I’m just like, can I just not see Mickey anymore? (0:36:09) Codey: I’m sick of it. (0:36:10) Codey: I’m not a big Mickey Mouse fan. (0:36:12) Codey: I’m not a big Minnie Mouse fan, not a McDonald Duck fan. (0:36:15) Codey: I like, just get these kids out of here. (0:36:17) Codey: I don’t– I don’t care. (0:36:18) Codey: And I feel that way about some of the villains as well. (0:36:20) Codey: Like, one of the villains is Mother Gothel. (0:36:22) Codey: Every time she walks up, she, like, is just so gaslight-y. (0:36:26) Codey: And the way she talks to you is just so disrespectful. (0:36:32) Codey: And so I’m not, at least like Ursula. (0:36:34) Codey: When you talk to her, she seems to like meet, respect you and like meet you at your level. (0:36:41) Codey: And then Scar, I mean, he’s delusional. (0:36:43) Codey: He just thinks that he should be the King. (0:36:45) Codey: So I get it. (0:36:46) Codey: But Jafar has always given me the ick. (0:36:53) Codey: In Aladdin, like the way that he treats Jasmine and like the way that he feels like he needs to like own her or whatever is just very ick. (0:37:02) Codey: So I don’t know. (0:37:04) Codey: I don’t know how I feel about this about, I don’t know how I’m going to feel about Jafar or if they can kind of like, update him to be not as ick as he was, that’d be lovely. (0:37:16) Codey: But I also have not paid for this deal to you yet. I honestly probably will once I complete all of the current free to play content because this game has given me a lot. (0:37:26) Codey: And if you haven’t played it and you have game pass, I highly recommend it. If you have expendable income and nothing to do with your life for the next- (0:37:34) Codey: forever, no, you could probably play this game in like a month. You probably get through everything. (0:37:42) Codey: I do recommend it. I’m getting a lot of enjoyment out of it. (0:37:48) Codey: I just don’t like the ick of some of the villains. And speaking of ick, the next group of insects is the order Phasmata. (0:38:00) Codey: And this is the stick stick (0:38:04) Codey: and leaf insects. (0:38:06) Codey: Um, I as I was looking over like the orders of insects and I saw Phasma that my I just like my heart grew three sizes. (0:38:15) Codey: You will never know greater joy than I did when I was working in the field in 2019 here in Pennsylvania. (0:38:22) Codey: And I found a stick insect in the wild like in the woods because sometimes you’ll find them on like a building like they’ll because they do show up in in rural areas every now and then. (0:38:34) Codey: And it’s like, okay, like that it’s going to stick out. (0:38:38) Codey: Hot stick sticks is a stick insect. (0:38:40) Codey: Like it it you see it when it’s against a building super obvious, (0:38:44) Codey: but when you find one in the wild like I was just like doing a survey. (0:38:49) Codey: I was walking a transect was just literally a line. (0:38:52) Codey: I was walking a line for 30 minutes to look at the bees that were there and I just was like that is a stick insect on that bush. (0:39:02) Codey: and I had to pause my survey because I– (0:39:05) Codey: I played with that thing for like an hour. (0:39:08) Codey: I put it on my face. (0:39:09) Codey: I have pictures that– (0:39:10) Codey: I put so many insects on my face and take pictures, y’all, it’s crazy. (0:39:14) Codey: Took a picture of it, just lost my mind and just had so much joy in watching this thing and just, I set it down. (0:39:22) Codey: I watched it for like 10 minutes as it walked around. (0:39:25) Codey: So cool. (0:39:27) Codey: They’re super hard to find because of their amazing camouflage abilities. (0:39:30) Codey: So their whole evolutionary strategy for all stick and leaf insects like this whole order. (0:39:34) Codey: Is just fake out the predators don’t don’t look like something to eat look like a stick be a stick (0:39:43) Codey: and there are other than that I mean they’re just pretty they can be pretty breakable though there can be some in tropical areas that have will have some pretty gnarly cuticular defenses like they’ll have some spikes or thorny protrusions and they’re pretty um sclerotized so when you touch them like (0:40:05) Codey: hard they’re not squishy and they hurt and so I’ve never really seen these before we we have had some in the insect zoo some um leaf insects that had some of that but um again evolution what are you doing uh moonstone island um they did an april fool’s haha on everyone um on twitter and they basically showed everything evolving into a version of fish bow (0:40:35) Codey: a fish bow? I haven’t played Moonstone Island. This is wild to me. I had to go down the rabbit hole a little bit to know what the heck I was talking about here. But basically, fish bow is like one of the spirits, I believe. And it’s literally a fish bowl that has legs. (0:40:50) Codey: It’s just a fish bow, fish bow. So they tweeted a graphic, kind of like a meme from Pokemon, (0:40:58) Codey: and it showed like a fish bow becoming a fish bow or like something becoming a fish bow. (0:41:06) Codey: All your little guys is evolving. So it’s basically like all your guys, they’re just little guys, (0:41:12) Codey: they’re all evolving right now. And it alludes to the fact that all of your spirits can become fish bowed, as a verb, fish bowed. So it’s like if you have another spirit, it would just become the spirit instead of the fish in the bowl, it’s that spirit in the bowl. (0:41:31) Codey: And this might actually come to the game in the tweet they said that if they’re (0:41:35) Codey: If they get 1,000 likes on the tweet, they’ll do it but they’re clearly excited to do it with or without the likes They already have some pictures of different sprites that they’ve put or spirits that they’ve put in the fishbowl. Very cute (0:41:48) Codey: Let us and the Moonstone Island devs know what spirit you want fish bowed. Maybe they’ll make it happen (0:41:56) Codey: Okay, just a couple more things here. But next up is a another order of insects and here we have a macoptera (0:42:05) Codey: Scorpion flies and I specifically I’m going to be talking about the family of panorpity (0:42:10) Codey: Hilarious name panor. I love saying it. These guys look wild (0:42:17) Codey: So these even though they’re called scorpion flies, they aren’t actually flies just like butterflies aren’t flies they’re they’re something completely different (0:42:25) Codey: So scorpion flies do look like flies (0:42:28) Codey: But they have four wings. They’re not they didn’t evolve They’re not a part of that evolutionary chain and the males (0:42:35) Codey: literally have scorpion like tails. Like their reproductive organ looks like a scorpion tail. Doesn’t sting you can’t hurt you just looks like a scorpion. They also this really like (0:42:51) Codey: goober looking snoot. Very funny. They’re super, super weird. (0:42:56) Codey: And they’re known mostly among entomologists for the fact that they look weird. But they are also thought to have helped in early pollination before the evolution of bees. (0:43:05) Codey: And they are used for forensic entomology currently. (0:43:10) Codey: So for, I just thought this would be a cool moment to like shout out what, (0:43:13) Codey: what forensic entomology is super cool. (0:43:15) Codey: It’s using insects to solve crimes. (0:43:17) Codey: So often it’s used to try and time when, uh, like time of death, like when someone (0:43:26) Codey: died based on what insects have come to the body at that time. (0:43:29) Codey: So scorpion fly larvae can be some of the very first to find a cadaver. (0:43:34) Codey: So if. (0:43:35) Codey: They’re there and if they’re present and how, how much they’ve, um, (0:43:40) Codey: developed can tell you how long the body has been in that area and how long it’s been since, since deceasement, um, new word, uh, forensic entomology is super cool. (0:43:54) Codey: Um, there’s actually a forensic entomologist that I met, um, who’s out in New Jersey, New Jersey, and she kind of, she can tell you like vague stories, (0:44:04) Codey: but she can’t tell you so. (0:44:05) Codey: This is a legitimate thing that people do sometimes, like as a career, so cool, not for me, but cool. (0:44:20) Codey: Other insects that can be used in forensic entomology include flesh flies of the family Sarcophagidae, (0:44:28) Codey: blow flies, family California, rove beetles, which is the family Staphylenidae, and (0:44:35) Codey: carrion beetles, which is the family Sulfagidae. (0:44:39) Codey: Super, super cool. (0:44:42) Codey: Next on news is critter crops, so critter crops has been delayed to quote-unquote later this year. (0:44:49) Codey: So this was meant to release on the 15th of April, and I just think it’s funny. (0:44:54) Codey: I bet that they probably just heard Al say that this looks like a good game to play in October during the last Coral Island episode, and they were like, “That, let’s do it. Let’s delay it.” (0:45:06) Codey: That’s not true, but I do like the idea of that. (0:45:10) Codey: They delayed because testing is taking longer than they expected. (0:45:14) Codey: And in their launch delay note in Steam News, they said that they’re literally playing the game over and over again to test it and make sure that everything works. (0:45:27) Codey: So I’m not super surprised that it’s taking longer than they expected. (0:45:31) Codey: I’m assuming people probably get fatigue if you try and play a game over (0:45:36) Codey: over again. Um, even if, especially if you’re the one that developed it, (0:45:39) Codey: honestly, you know, everything. Um, but yeah, it’s not, (0:45:44) Codey: not surprising. Take your time. Um, totally fine with the delay. (0:45:49) Codey: All of the comments that I saw were also very positive about the delay. (0:45:52) Codey: Like you do you have out it. Um, okay. (0:45:57) Codey: This is, this is it y’all. This is the final order, (0:46:01) Codey: but it’s also kind of a bonus because there are four sub orders. (0:46:06) Codey: that are very important so this order is Hemiptera and this has four sub orders in it and I’m gonna go through these and I am never sure if I’m pronouncing this first one correctly. I think it’s Coleo Rinca, could also be Celio Rinca, they don’t occur in the United States so I don’t know but these are called the moss bugs. Another one is Eucanarenca so this includes cicadas and leafhoppers. Another suborder is (0:46:36) Codey: sternaryncha, which is aphids, white flies, and scalins, and others. But the one that I really wanted to talk about is heteroptera. So this is the suborder within hemiptera. It’s called heteroptera. And these are the true bugs. So while we call things bugs all the time, like, and people will call something a bug, even if it’s not an insect, like they’ll call like a spider a bug or whatever. While we do call all kinds of things bugs all the time this is the. (0:47:06) Codey: This is the suborder that these are the ones that are actually bugs. These are called the true bugs crazy. So the true bugs include families, things like stink bugs, which is Pentatomity, Assassin bugs, Reggi Viti, kissing bugs. I actually don’t remember that bed bugs, submissity, but my favorite family is tingity. (0:47:30) Codey: Or the lace bugs. These things literally look like if you knitted something and (0:47:36) Codey: it grew legs and walked away like you like you made something out of lace a very very small small (0:47:42) Codey: Lacey thing and it grew legs and walked away (0:47:45) Codey: That’s what these things look like and I never I had never seen one before and then I just started going through my samples from last year and I’m finding a (0:47:54) Codey: Good number of them actually like like at least like 10 and I every single time I’m like I have this like child like (0:48:01) Codey: Giddy giggle cuz I’m just like oh, they’re so cute, and they just look like little (0:48:06) Codey: Delicate creations, they look like little art artwork. I mean, they’re not the only things that look like artwork There’s a lot of other things that are brightly colored metallic colored (0:48:17) Codey: What have you but the lace bugs the tinges they’re just they’re so cute (0:48:24) Codey: Okay final bit of news y’all you’re almost done with me hang in there poglings (0:48:36) Codey: So the news is about poglings, but (0:48:39) Codey: I just had to go on a tangent here for a second about pog (0:48:44) Codey: Or pogs so that every time I see this game name I think that it’s about pogs which are the collectible tabs tags that we like (0:48:53) Codey: Collected in the 90s and played with (0:48:56) Codey: which if you are a 2000s, baby look these things up because (0:49:02) Codey: It just we collected I mean I guess people do (0:49:06) Codey: things like this. Now they collect pieces of cardboard and trade them and stuff. But this is basically what we did. It’s this little circle that you collected and you would find cool ones and trade them with your friends or do like a different game super crazy. And I was trying to like look those up and be like, why are happened to those? And I went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. And I’m just going to take you guys with me for a minute here about pogs. This is not about this game at all. I’ll get to that in a second. This is about 1990s in my childhood. So this is straight from Wikipedia, quote, milk caps is a children’s game played with fat flat circular cardboard milk caps. Players make a stack of these caps and take turns to drop a heavier slammer object onto it, causing the caps to be disrupted. Each player keeps any face up caps and is to restock the face down caps, repeating the process until none land face down, at which point the player who collected the most caps wins the game. (0:50:06) Codey: I lost the game. The game is also known as pogs under which name it was sold commercially in the 1990s. So I think like the circular milkboard caps that they says me going off of the quote, the circular milkboard caps. This is just like you buy, I think, a milk and you take that like tab that’s on the inside of it and you play with play it with that. So that was just like that. (0:50:28) Codey: But these pogs that were sold and commercialized, they had so many different pieces of art on them. So some (0:50:36) Codey: were like I’m just like at a loss to even begin to say what’s on me there’s like art like someone drew like a flower on it there’s some that are are like a Tasmanian devil like so there’s some that were like Looney Tunes there’s some that you could have found them in any like (0:50:56) Codey: anything that said that it was okay for POG to put its likeness on them there were just so many many different kinds and they they were pretty good (0:51:07) Codey: as well and I never played because with this because the like milk caps game itself because I didn’t want to if I’d collected it and I wanted it I didn’t want to get it get rid of it and I don’t know where my hogs are and I’m upset the end of the Wikipedia blurb here is that the name originates from POG which is a brand of juice made from passion fruit orange and guava and the use of the juice’s caps to play the game. (0:51:36) Codey: the game’s commercialization which is wild to me because I just went to Hawaii and POG is (0:51:43) Codey: is a Hawaiian beverage and I lost my mind because it’s delicious and when I got it in Hawaii it is so smooth and I got it everywhere like every single place I went to I was like do you have POG and they said yes and I was like that is what I would like to drink please um and I found it on the west coast but you cannot find it on the east coast of the United States and your girl’s about to to drop like 50 bucks. (0:52:06) Codey: I can’t do that. (0:52:07) Codey: But if I could, I would drop 50 bucks to get some of this stuff delivered to me. (0:52:13) Codey: Well, pogs, pog the juice, poglings the game. (0:52:18) Codey: Here we are. (0:52:20) Codey: They just announced on Kickstarter that the development team will be changing. (0:52:24) Codey: So the person who is the creator of poglings, his name is Chad. (0:52:30) Codey: He is just not, he is still going to be staying on. (0:52:34) Codey: but another team that had (0:52:36) Codey: agreed to help him develop poglings is not going to be able to continue on for unknown reasons. Um, and he, the, in the post, it’s very, very clear that it’s, it’s, you know, not, (0:52:48) Codey: not something to have drama over. Like this happens. The game industry is really difficult right now. Developing is really difficult. Some people have been losing their jobs. Like it’s kind of hard to make money in this. So he’s super understanding and he’s looking for, um, (0:53:00) Codey: other development teams to help him finish this project, product, project. Yeah. Both words work. (0:53:06) Codey: Um, so yeah, uh, the reasoning’s pretty generic there. Uh, the development team will be changing and this was obviously going to delay the game. Um, and he just, you know, says this and says, (0:53:17) Codey: you know, I’m sorry for the lack of, um, whatever. Uh, yeah. And, and that the game was going to be delayed. The response is pretty positive. Um, you know, a lot of people saying, (0:53:30) Codey: you know, take your time. We understand gaming is really the game development industry is really (0:53:36) Codey: important and I’ll thank you for your transparency. Um, and yeah, all of, all of those things echoed back. Um, I think that it’s good that they’re being transparent and open about it. And, um, (0:53:48) Codey: I hope they find us a new development team to partner with them and wish them the best so that we can see this game. And if they chab, chab, this is just, just for you. If you put passion for orange and clava juice in this game and you at me or reach out. (0:54:06) Codey: To me in some way and you tell me that you did this, I will buy this game a hundred percent, (0:54:12) Codey: a hundred percent. Well, that is al

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

It's Al and Mike this week with lots and lots of Nintendo chat!Shownotes - Episode 237Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus , Exographer ,Turbo Kid , REYNATIS ,Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants , Yuzu',Nitro Deck+,Pokémon Presents February 2024, Pokémon Scarlet | Violet Tera Raid Battle ,Pokémon GO X Pokémon Horizons , Pokémon Sleep,Pokémon Masters EX ,Pokémon Café ReMix ,Pokémon Unite, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, Pokémon Legends: Z-A ,Batman: Arkham Knight, The New Denpa Men RPG Free! ,MLB The Show 24 , Ancient Weapon Holly , BIT.TRIP Presents: Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien,LEGO Fortnite,Fortnite Festival Season 2, Freddi Fish and the Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds,Warhammer 40,000: Dakka Squadron ,Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance ,The Plucky Squire , SteamWorld Build ,Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution ,Stardew Valley Version 1.6 , Brawlhalla ,Irem Collection Volume 2 ,Peacemaker , Mortal Kombat 1,Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection , Midnight Works,Dragon Ball: The Breakers Season 5 , Hi-Fi Rush ,, the next generation Nintendo console Support the show

Featuring: Michael "Boston" Hannon, Paul “Moonpir” Smith, and John “MusiM” Beauchamp Running Time: 40:22 Livestream: YouTube The TVGP Game Club Crew digs a little deeper this month with SteamWorld Build! Join us as we build our sprawling metropolis, dismiss some tutorials, shuffle houses, build a rocket, and so much more! Our next game is A Short Hike!

A relatively short episode this week, we talk about Steamworld Build for the January Gameclub, go on a tangent or two, and mention the February Gameclub. We hope you enjoy the show!   PS. Jared didn't get slammed at work this week and forget to post the episode.   Topics list: Gameclub: Steam World Build Next Gameclub Game: A Bird Story

AKA “Do It Again, But Better,” “How He Seethes,” “Into The Nexus,” Rock and Stone, Etc, Etc…” “A Real Pride Month Humble Bundle Vibe,” “Load Up Your Spikes” — Hosted by Lee Brady (leebrady.bsky.social // truetrophies.com) and Lawrence (vm-lawrence.bsky.social) Music by Lee Brady Sonic CD Japanese soundtrack excerpt by Naofumi Hataya and Masafumi Ogata // SEGA Listen to more episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and all good podcast providers (https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vectormen) — Segments:   (00:00) — Guess That Metacritic Score! (02:25) — Game #1: SteamWorld Build (06:53) — Game #2: The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria (10:16) — Game #3: Calico (15:25) — Game #4: Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion (18:29) — Game #5: Bluey The Videogame (21:55) — Game #6: Persona 5 Tactica (25:16) — Game #7: The Walking Dead Destinies (28:15) — Game #8: Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (31:00) — Game #9: Call of Duty Modern Warfare III (33:50) — Game #10: Teardown (37:00) — Palmtree Panic / Zelda CD-i — Links Bluey the Videogame review by Dave Ozzy https://www.thexboxhub.com/bluey-the-videogame-review/ SteamWorld Build https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUGgYbxycko  The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDehcsJNyl0  Calico https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJJAcrcOcRs  Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUv7BGUJ5gE  Persona 5 Tactica https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqAZqsAQ_UY  The Walking Dead Destinies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TIsWc9f140  Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zmiw3Qxmg0  Call of Duty Modern Warfare III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHDEDDrGYvo  Teardown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdqJEvia4mQ  Link: Faces of Evil ending https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imlyVV0yYKo  — Send us your thoughts!  E-mail: vectormenpodcast@gmail.com Twitch: twitch.com/VectormenLive --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vectormen/message

Graham and Steve return for the 2024 season to spit game on more friendly piracy, puzzles, the games of February 2024, what Steve did in his holidays, and the Super Bowl! That, plus a range of vMix fun and games as well! Show Segments: 00:00 - Intro 3:25 - Graham's Games 36:52 - Steve's Games 1:04:45 - Beginning of the End Games Mentioned: The Talos Principle II Sea of Thieves Remedium: Sentinels Side Scape El Paso, Elsewhere Super Mario RPG Valfaris: Mecha Therion Tevi Stop Dead The Pony Factory Sands of Aura Blood West SteamWorld Build Tekken 8 Turnip Boy Robs a Bank Mario vs. Donkey Kong Episode's YouTube Video: This episode on YouTube SIPTG YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/shouldiplaythisgamequestionmark Music by Kevin MacLeod: https://incompetech.com/music

Those who enjoy building sims will find fun in them thar SteamWorld hills.   Read the Plugged In Review   If you've listened to any of our podcasts, please give us your feedback.

Featuring: Michael "Boston" Hannon, Paul “Moonpir” Smith, and Alexander “TheNimp” Jolly Running Time: 1:50:15 Music by MusiM: Homepage | Bandcamp Livestream Archive: YouTube This week on That Video Game Podcast we chat about Steamworld Build, Thirsty Suitors, Under Leaves, Rush: A Disney-Pixar Adventure, Lethal Company, Remnant: From the Ashes, Remnant 2, Divinity Original Sin 2, Legend of Heroes: Trails Into Reverie, Palworld, PowerWash Simulator, Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Become a patron of TVGP for just a few dollars a month at E1M1's Patreon Page! Get two month early access to Critical Misses, uncensored outtakes, and much more for just $5/month!

Featuring: Michael "Boston" Hannon, Paul “Moonpir” Smith, and John “MusiM” Beauchamp Running Time: 39:57 Livestream: YouTube The TVGP Game Club Crew joins forces this month to play Thirsty Suitors! This month we define genres, try to figure out how many types of games this is, ignore the voice in our heads, skateboard a lot, cook some delicious food, and so much more! Next month's game is Steamworld Build!

Und da ist es passiert: Baldurs Gate 3 verpasst den vierten Gürtel! Denkbar knapp und sensationell ringt RoboCop: Rogue City ringt den Seriensieger aus Belgien nieder und holt sich den wichtigsten Titel der internationalen Gamebranche. Die Frage ist nur: War das ein Zufallssieg? Ein Luckey Punch? Oder schafft es der Kettennutverenger aus Krakau erneut den Bock umzuwerfen? Leicht wird es nicht denn mit SteamWorld Build, Warhammer 40.000: Rogue Trader oder Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora stehen potente Herausforderer im Ring. Setzt Robocop jetzt schon Rost an? Das entscheidet wie immer ihr! Du suchst die Wahlkabinen? Hier entlang! https://community.wasted.de/ Eine Liste der bisherigen Gürtelträger findest Du hier:https://lgs.fandom.com/de/wiki/Titel_und_Triumphe Illustration von Max Fiedler pigsell.com

Al, Kevin, and Micah go through the games of the year and crown their winner for 2023. Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:01:42: What Have We Been Up To 00:27:56: 2023 Releases 00:34:54: Previous Winners 00:36:30: Our Nominations 01:53:00: GOTY Debate 02:08:06: Decision 02:15:50: Outro Games Mentioned Games released this year Above Snakes Before the green moon Everdream valley Fae Farm Farming Simulator 23 Flutter Away Garden Buddies Garden In Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos Hello Kitty: Island Adventure Homestead Arcana Innchanted Lego Fortnite Loddlenaut Mineko's Night Market Moonstone Island My Time at SAndrock Paleo Pines Roots of Pacha Rune Factory 3 Special Season: A Letter to the Future Silent Hope Smushi Come Home Spells and Secrets Spirittea Sprout Valley Steamworld Build Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life Sun Down Tchia Terra Nil Wildmender EA released in a previous year, 1.0 this year Ikonei Island Moondrop Sun Haven Coral island DDV EA released this year Cornucopia Fabledom Moonlight in Garland One Lonely Outpost Research Factory Song of the Prairie Snacko Previous Winners 2019: Doraemon SoS 2020: Summer in Mara 2021: Spiritfarer 2022: Ooblets 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. (0:00:39) Micah: I’m waiting, I’m waiting for you. (0:00:41) Kevin: Oh, I was waiting for you, too. I’m Micah. (0:00:44) Al: And we are here today to confuse you a lot. (0:00:46) Micah: And I’m Kev. (0:00:48) Kevin: There we go. (0:00:52) Al: It says, “We’re to talk about cottage core games.” (0:00:52) Kevin: Well, I mean, that goes without saying. (0:00:56) Al: Whoo! (0:00:57) Kevin: Whoo-hoo! (0:00:57) Al: Just, just in case people don’t know who they are, the names were the wrong way around there. (0:01:03) Al: So you know, they’re good luck. (0:01:06) Al: This is the fun episode of the year where I get two people on and we argue about which (0:01:14) Al: is the best game. (0:01:16) Al: And most of the time we come to a conclusion where we’re all accepting that that is our combined game of the year. (0:01:22) Kevin: Not this year. I refuse already. (0:01:26) Al: We will see where this year goes. (0:01:29) Al: But oh boy, oh boy, do I have some opinions. (0:01:34) Al: We’ll get to that when we get to that. (0:01:37) Al: Obviously transcripts are available for the episode and the show in general in the show notes and on the website. (0:01:44) Al: The game of the year stuff, Micah, what have you been up to? (0:01:46) Micah: I have been playing Dragon Quest Monsters 3 and I have also been playing Starfield quite a bit. (0:01:48) Al: Shock, shock harder. (0:01:52) Kevin: Good stuff. How many slimes are on your teeth? (0:01:59) Al: Interesting. What do you think? (0:02:01) Micah: I… (0:02:03) Micah: Okay. (0:02:04) Kevin: This, this is the response I hear every time I ask about it. (0:02:08) Micah: I very much understand two things. (0:02:14) Micah: I am a fan. (0:02:17) Micah: I am a fan of Bethesda game design and have been for many years. (0:02:22) Micah: So there is a level of comfort that comes with it. (0:02:27) Micah: I also understand that it is kind of dated game design. (0:02:33) Micah: And it all sort of feels the same as far as Bethesda goes. (0:02:40) Micah: But because I like that, I appreciate it. (0:02:44) Kevin: Yeah, no, that makes sense. I’m a Tetris fan, and Tetris hasn’t changed once in the 40 years it’s been out. (0:02:52) Al: That’s not true! That’s not true, Kevin. (0:02:54) Kevin: Yeah, I know that’s not true. (0:02:56) Al: We know, you know, you know that Tetris has changed. (0:02:58) Al: It has improved. It has moved with the times. (0:02:59) Kevin: Yeah, it is. (0:03:01) Micah: Tetris Effect is one of the greatest Tetris games of all time. Tetris 99. I would say, (0:03:04) Al: Exactly. Exactly. (0:03:06) Micah: I would actually argue that Tetris has done more changing than most franchises do. It’s kind of impressive. I don’t know, it’s kids. It can be cozy, right? Tetris can be a cozy (0:03:14) Kevin: You’re right, especially one we’re a fan of in particular. (0:03:19) Al: You don’t come, we don’t come for Tetris here, Kevin. (0:03:22) Kevin: I mean, we could. (0:03:28) Kevin: We could argue which one’s the best shaped piece. (0:03:31) Al: They also have their scam game that Cody’s playing. (0:03:31) Micah: Their scam game? No. (0:03:34) Kevin: Ah, well. (0:03:35) Al: Oh, have you not heard this, Micah? She’s playing a game that, like, you get points and then apparently once you hit a million or two million points you can win a free cruise, (0:03:45) Al: and I’m convinced it’s a scam. I’m waiting for the day that she gets to the right number of points and then, like, we never hear from her again because she’s, like, shipped off to have our organs harvested or something. (0:03:45) Micah: What? That does sound kinda scary. (0:03:49) Kevin: It does. (0:03:57) Micah: Dear God, all because of Tetris. (0:04:03) Kevin: Well, at least she had fun getting there. (0:04:05) Al: Anyway, so Starfield. (0:04:06) Kevin: That sounds like the game of the year to me. (0:04:10) Al: So what you’re saying is, if you like Starfield, you’ll like Starfield. (0:04:13) Al: That’s what you’re saying. (0:04:14) Micah: Yeah, if you like Bethesda games, Bethesda RPGs, (0:04:20) Micah: then you’ll probably like Starfield. (0:04:22) Micah: I think that there’s a lot of really neat things that they do with the. (0:04:27) Micah: Like space travel portions of it, there’s there’s a lot of really cool the like ship combat, space combat and stuff like that is very, very interesting. (0:04:37) Micah: It’s fun and the more that you kind of get comfortable with the how things function in the world, the you know, the more comfy of a game it is to. (0:04:49) Kevin: Okay, serious question. Have you played No Man’s Sky? (0:04:52) Micah: I have. (0:04:53) Kevin: to that (0:04:55) Micah: It is like if no man’s sky. (0:04:57) Micah: I had way more polished and was much more fleshed out and had much more like story elements to it. (0:05:09) Micah: I think that like primarily my enjoyment of Bethesda games comes from their writing. (0:05:17) Micah: And because there are just as an example, there’s a quest that I stumbled on by… (0:05:27) Micah: killing a space pirate and when I looked in his inventory there was a note and when I read the note that it unlocked this huge side quest that was like hours long. (0:05:40) Micah: Which is like I could have very easily missed that. (0:05:44) Micah: And I love that there’s such depth to like how stories play, like side stories even play out in Bethesda games like that. (0:05:57) Micah: So many times in Elder Scrolls games and things, you know, I’ll just stumble onto a cave and there’s a really deep story that’s written into this group that moved into this cave or whatever and it’s something that you could very easily miss. (0:06:16) Micah: It really makes me appreciate how much effort they put into writing things that people could never play in their, you know… (0:06:27) Micah: They’ll play through the game but there’s plenty of that in Starfield. (0:06:36) Al: Yeah, I think that’s fair. I’ve have enjoyed seeing a lot of the stuff online about all the kind of like side stuff, which has been for me, probably more fun than actually playing the game would be. So like, I totally get if you enjoy the game, then it makes it so much more fun, right? Because you’re finding all these things and just kind of stumble across this. But yeah, for me, it’s like, yeah, I enjoy watching someone post about it online or post a video or something like that. I think I know the side story you’re talking about, because that’s that’s the one that most people tend to go to. (0:06:42) Micah: Mm hmm. Yeah. (0:06:48) Kevin: Yeah. (0:07:12) Micah: Yeah, it’s a pretty important one because it, especially early on it, it gives you access to things that you would not have otherwise, that are pretty important. (0:07:22) Al: Yeah, you just confirmed it’s the one I’m thinking of. (0:07:28) Al: OK, well, I’m glad you’re enjoying it. That’s the important thing. That’s what we play games for. (0:07:30) Kevin: Yeah, well, we, we actually could do greenhouse. (0:07:32) Micah: And you know, I could talk about Dragon Quest monsters endlessly, but I’ll save everybody’s. (0:07:37) Micah: I’ll save everyone’s ears for… (0:07:40) Kevin: I didn’t all gladly listen to Dragon Quest talk for. (0:07:42) Al: Let’s discuss that later. (0:07:44) Micah: Yeah, I think that’s probably what I’m gonna be hanging on to that for is the the later (0:07:52) Al: Awesome. Kevin, what have you been up to? (0:07:55) Kevin: So it’s been a hot mince I’ve been on I think and the biggest life update for people who haven’t heard I have kittens now (0:08:05) Micah: kittens? No. When you okay, when you say kittens, obviously plural, how many are we talking here? (0:08:06) Kevin: Have I not showing you the mic oh I will text you a picture right now (0:08:11) Kevin: Yes (0:08:15) Kevin: We’re talking too so We started off with one (0:08:20) Kevin: So we’re looking for a new place to move into and at one of the places we’ve kittens they were giving (0:08:25) Kevin: away and so we took one home and then after some discussions we said you know what I bet this kitten could use a companion so we went back and got one got one of her brothers and so we now went from no kittens to two kittens pretty much out of the blue their names are teddy and daisy (0:08:52) Kevin: They are about seven, eight weeks. (0:08:55) Kevin: They are about eight weeks old. (0:08:57) Kevin: This is my first time owning cats. I’ve had a dog before, but never cats. (0:09:02) Kevin: It’s been enjoyable there. (0:09:04) Kevin: Fun, energetic, Daisy in particular is a little gremlin who loves to run around. (0:09:08) Kevin: Teddy, the brother, he’s a lot more chill. (0:09:11) Kevin: He is, yeah, I’m loving them so far. I love animals, right? (0:09:15) Kevin: And they were so little when we got them. (0:09:17) Kevin: They were only like four weeks old when we got them. (0:09:20) Kevin: So they were really little. They were like tripled in size. (0:09:23) Kevin: I took them to the vet for the first time. (0:09:25) Kevin: Yesterday, and aren’t they precious I I will have to find of us an alpix so he can post it with the show (0:09:26) Micah: Oh my god. (0:09:33) Micah: Who who’s the which one is the white and gray one? (0:09:37) Kevin: That’s Daisy (0:09:38) Micah: That’s Daisy. (0:09:39) Kevin: Mm-hmm and then (0:09:40) Micah: Daisy looks very much like my brother’s cat, zero, who is 18 years old. (0:09:43) Kevin: Oh really, huh Wow Wow, that’s strong (0:09:48) Micah: But the like identical like pattern and facial structure and. (0:09:51) Kevin: Yeah, yeah, Teddy’s really cute. He’s got a tuxedo (0:09:55) Kevin: pattern. He’s got gray fur, but like little white paws and, um, and Daisy’s black or black gray spots. Yeah, they’re adorable. Um, so yeah, they can be a handful at times as I’m sure cat owners know they can get all over the place. (0:10:10) Kevin: But, um, but I’ve been enjoying. Um, so, uh, yeah, that’s the big thing really. But, uh, (0:10:16) Kevin: other than that, probably the biggest things I’ve been playing lately. Um, I’ve really been getting through Tears of the Kingdom finally. I’ve pretty much (0:10:25) Kevin: at the finish line I’ve done all the big quests I’m just kind of going around hitting up all the shrines and filling out the map and so on and so forth but I could go take on Ganon anytime. That game is phenomenal it’s great I mean I don’t have to go in-depth about it I’m sure everyone knows how good it is right right but yeah very good game I yeah not much I probably could add and then the The other one is a… (0:10:42) Al: Speaking of games that have secrets. (0:10:55) Kevin: Street Fighter 6 (0:10:58) Kevin: So I am a fighting game fan. I am bad at them, but I love them (0:11:03) Micah: Hey, me too. (0:11:04) Kevin: I picked it up. Yeah, yeah, you got right. I’ve only played two weeks (0:11:07) Micah: On both fronts. (0:11:10) Kevin: Have you picked up Street Fighter 6? (0:11:11) Micah: I have not. (0:11:12) Kevin: Micah, okay (0:11:12) Micah: I have some friends that I have watched play. (0:11:14) Kevin: Okay (0:11:18) Micah: And I have some friends that are extremely good at Street Fighter. (0:11:23) Kevin: Yeah, yeah good. Oh man, hats off to them. (0:11:24) Micah: So I’ve seen some, you know, stuff that I’ve seen gameplay that I don’t fully understand because it’s too… (0:11:33) Micah: high level for my small brain to comprehend, but… (0:11:40) Kevin: That’s fine, I’m playing it and it happens to me. (0:11:45) Kevin: So yeah, the two big things, I mean Street Fighter, right? (0:11:47) Kevin: It’s the iconic series, (0:11:48) Kevin: so I’m sure people know what it’s all about, it’s fighting. (0:11:51) Kevin: But the two big things that it brings, (0:11:54) Kevin: the first is called modern controls. (0:11:57) Kevin: They have a new control scheme (0:12:02) Kevin: that simplifies basically playing the game. (0:12:05) Kevin: So traditionally you’d have to do a motion on your control stick and a button and all sorts of crazy combinations to get moves out. (0:12:15) Kevin: But they simplified it, (0:12:16) Kevin: where you can get moves out with just the press of a button. (0:12:20) Kevin: It’s very beginner friendly. (0:12:23) Kevin: Because of the convenience of that, (0:12:25) Kevin: they balanced it by reducing the strength of the moves and things like that. (0:12:32) Kevin: I think it’s great. (0:12:33) Kevin: I don’t play it much myself, I like the classic stuff, (0:12:36) Kevin: but it’s fun to see people use it and be able to play, (0:12:41) Kevin: get in without having to worry about not being able to do the moves. (0:12:44) Kevin: I say that as someone who is not always able to do the moves. (0:12:50) Kevin: And the second big thing that they have is called world tour mode. (0:12:53) Kevin: Have you guys heard of this at all? (0:12:56) Kevin: Yeah, oh man. (0:12:58) Kevin: So World Tour Mode is their single player campaign. (0:13:02) Kevin: The real kicker is that it’s a create a character mode. (0:13:08) Kevin: So you create your own fighter, but they’re sliders to your physical attributes. (0:13:16) Kevin: So you can be as tall, skinny, short, whatever you want. (0:13:19) Kevin: You can make monstrosity looking characters and it will affect your gameplay. (0:13:24) Kevin: If you have long arms, you will be able to punch farther or whatever. (0:13:29) Kevin: It’s pretty fun making your own character. (0:13:32) Kevin: I love it. You can hang out with the cast, which are filled with fun dumb moments. (0:13:46) Kevin: You can text all the street fighters. It’s really funny. (0:13:48) Micah: I am a big fan of a really ridiculous character. (0:13:48) Kevin: It’s so good. It’s probably the most ridiculous one. Just today I saw somebody look like a spaghetti with arms. (0:14:02) Kevin: It’s so good. There’s an online mode where you can bring your creative characters. You can have your freak matches. It’s great. (0:14:10) Kevin: Everything about that game is fantastic. The presentation, the music, the online play works great. I rarely have any bad connections for matches. (0:14:22) Kevin: I’m the character I picked up. Her name is Manon. She is a French supermodel. (0:14:32) Kevin: She is also a judo wrestler. She throws all of that in her move. She does struts, she does pirouettes, and she’ll grow you around. (0:14:40) Kevin: She’s very fun to play. That’s what I’ve been up to. (0:14:44) Kevin: Alright, Senor Al, what about you? (0:14:48) Al: Not a huge amount. It’s been a weird week, but I’ve been playing a bit of a Highland song. So for Micah, probably, who isn’t aware, it’s a platforming game based in the Scottish Highlands, and part of it is rhythm based. And it’s absolutely gorgeous. It has great music. The story is really good, and I don’t play games with the sound on, but I… (0:15:18) Al: can’t play this game with the sound off. Like, it’s just even outside of the rhythm, but it’s just so good. Yeah. Like, a Highland song. And it’s fantastic. So, okay, yeah, (0:15:30) Kevin: Okay, what are the rhythm portions like, because I know it was the Scottish game, but I don’t know what it’s like. (0:15:36) Al: okay. That’s a fair question. That’s a fair question. So, to preamble to that, the idea is that you’ve got all these mountains, and you’re climbing over them, and you’re trying (0:15:48) Al: to get to specific points. And there are places in the game where, as you are walking, (0:15:54) Al: it will tell you to press B to run. And then as you’re running across a terrain, there are things in the way, and the rhythm bit is you have to press it in time to the music to keep going and jump over the rhythm. (0:16:08) Kevin: Okay, that’s fascinating. Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rhythm platformer in the (0:16:19) Micah: This is beautiful. (0:16:20) Al: Right. Right. And the best thing is, so when you’re standing on, when you’re standing on a hill in the game and you can see all of the hills around you, all of those hills are hills you can go to in the game. (0:16:32) Kevin: Oh wow, that’s nice. (0:16:34) Micah: Wow. Yeah, this is a really pretty game. I’ve never heard of this. (0:16:38) Al: Yeah, it’s really I’m loving it. It’s great. Yeah, yeah, I came out a couple weeks ago. (0:16:39) Micah: Is it new? (0:16:44) Al: But it’s fantastic. And all the Scottish accents are legitimate. So no terrible Shrek voices. (0:16:50) Kevin: But, I mean, come on, don’t you want at least one Shrek in there? (0:16:52) Al: No, no, no. Definitely not. Never, never, never. Shrek is fine in Shrek. Not outside. (0:16:56) Micah: No, that was a very immediate no. (0:17:00) Micah: No, no, no, no, no, no. (0:17:00) Kevin: Ah, fair enough. (0:17:06) Al: We have enough fake Scottish. (0:17:08) Al: Voices in the world, there are very few things where we actually get proper Scottish voices. (0:17:13) Al: So it’s nice to actually hear some. (0:17:14) Kevin: Fair enough. (0:17:15) Kevin: Is David Tennant in it? (0:17:17) Al: I don’t think so, no. (0:17:18) Kevin: the- I’m sorry. That’s a missed (0:17:21) Al: His voice, there was something, I can’t remember what it was I was watching the other day and I was like, “Oh, that’s David Tennant.” Like I always, anytime I hear him doing his normal voice, (0:17:29) Al: it’s like such a distinctive voice for me that I’m like, “Oh.” It’s like, (0:17:33) Al: Every so often, somebody learns that David Tennant is Scrooge McDuck. (0:17:38) Al: And they’re like, “What? How’s David Tennant?” I’m like, “How could you not tell? His voice is just so distinctly his voice.” (0:17:39) Kevin: Yeah, yeah. (0:17:40) Kevin: - That’s… (0:17:47) Kevin: I, I didn’t know, I mean, I, I watched, I’m a big fan of the reboot of DuckTales, but I didn’t know it was David Tennant till a little bit in. (0:17:48) Al: Maybe that’s a Scottish thing, I don’t know. (0:17:57) Kevin: Um, and I didn’t realize he was Scottish. (0:17:59) Kevin: That’s, it’s really funny. (0:18:00) Al: Yeah, he’s not putting on a voice. He’s slightly emphasizing it, but that’s basically just his voice. (0:18:04) Kevin: Yeah, sure. (0:18:06) Al: Yeah, don’t do that again, Kevin. (0:18:06) Kevin: I like how he says “Gad-age” in the first episode. (0:18:09) Kevin: I always remember that one. (0:18:13) Kevin: That’s how he says it. (0:18:17) Al: So yeah, I’ve mostly been playing that and also been playing Pokemon because of the Flubbebe outbreaks, as I said, in the show notes. (0:18:27) Micah: Oh, that’s right (0:18:30) Al: baby baby. (0:18:31) Micah: Forgot that was going on. I forget it’s uh, well baby now and then (0:18:39) Kevin: Milsory in the (0:18:42) Al: So it’s current Flababy in Poldea. It is… no, it is not. It is Litwick in Kitakami. (0:18:48) Kevin: 3 in Kitikami. (0:18:52) Micah: Mmm. Yeah, because milsry is not in the game. (0:18:53) Al: Milcery isn’t in the game yet. Milcery will be in the Blueberry Academy when it comes out. So that’s why it’s not Milcery yet. It’s because it’s in the new region in the DLC. I think it’s just called the Blueberry Academy. Yeah. (0:19:01) Kevin: I haven’t gotten the DLC yet. (0:19:05) Micah: So just the new region, do we know what the new region is called? (0:19:07) Micah: Other than just, it’s the Blueberry Academy, is it just Blueberry Academy? (0:19:10) Kevin: That’s it. (0:19:11) Kevin: Yeah, it’s like an- it’s a- yeah, it’s part of- it’s Unovan territory, I guess, I know, (0:19:16) Kevin: but it’s like an artificial island sort of thing. (0:19:20) Al: Yeah, they call it like the. (0:19:21) Kevin: Terrarium. (0:19:24) Kevin: Yeah. (0:19:26) Micah: means I almost fear honest I mean it’s the like vibe that I got from it when I yeah we’ll see it’s always we’ll see (0:19:26) Kevin: Yeah. (0:19:28) Al: Yeah, it is pretty much, hopefully less evil, but we’ll see. (0:19:29) Kevin: now. (0:19:31) Kevin: Yeah, [LAUGH] I might get the DLC finally, the trit look. (0:19:40) Al: Oh, they are calling it the ceranium. (0:19:42) Al: They are calling it. (0:19:44) Micah: I was just recently finishing up my Pokedex, my like living decks in Violet in preparation for the DLC, but (0:19:57) Micah: there’s a lot of just figuring out how to who I knew who had the other Sinnoh starters, because you only get the like one egg. (0:20:11) Micah: And it’s dependent on, I guess, dependent on what starter you picked for. (0:20:15) Micah: For scarlet or violet. (0:20:16) Al: I think it was, or maybe it was random, I can’t- (0:20:20) Micah: I feel like it was, yeah, it seemed like from trying to track down where I would find a Piplup, it was, it was through like deduction power, the power of deduction (0:20:34) Micah: through who had what starter from the, from Paldea. (0:20:38) Micah: So I don’t know if that’s actually the case or not, but that’s, that’s how I managed to figure out who had. (0:20:44) Al: Yeah, I could probably find out if I cared enough. (0:20:52) Al: I mean, I still like, I don’t, I’m still enjoying it and I’m really looking forward to the new DLC, but Kevin, you don’t need to play it. (0:21:00) Al: You can just not. (0:21:02) Micah: It’s true. It’s true. I will say that I felt. (0:21:02) Kevin: Look, I’m– (0:21:09) Micah: I think we talked about this the last time I was on, actually. (0:21:10) Al: We did. (0:21:12) Al: We had a whole greenhouse episode about it. (0:21:14) Micah: I finally finished the DLC, the first DLC, because that was the right. (0:21:18) Al: Oh, yes. (0:21:19) Al: Yes. (0:21:19) Al: Cause you hadn’t finished it when we did the greenhouse. (0:21:21) Micah: And that is like rare for me, because I I go (0:21:25) Micah: pretty hard into Pokemon stuff when it launches for the first time. (0:21:28) Micah: So to not do that is kind of a new. (0:21:32) Micah: New and weird thing for me, but I finally finished it and I did enjoy it, but I did feel that it was a very, I don’t know, I just, I’ve, I’m still feeling like I’ve kind of become disillusioned with modern Pokemon to some degree, but. (0:21:49) Kevin: I mean and okay like to not I’m you know, I (0:21:54) Kevin: Notoriously nag on the game, but to pull the veil down a little to be you the more genuine here. I (0:22:00) Kevin: Do think the trailer for the upcoming one part looks good. I’m a bit excited for what I see (0:22:07) Kevin: the only part that (0:22:08) Al: Careful. (0:22:10) Kevin: Yeah, I know the only part that really irritates me is the flying thing how it’s locked behind the DLC because (0:22:18) Al: Yeah, I agree (0:22:19) Kevin: It’s just with knowing how the development cycle works and the timing of everything. It feels very intentional. They put bad flying (0:22:28) Al: Well, here’s the thing, I don’t care if it’s like, “Oh, we couldn’t get it done in time for release,” right? (0:22:34) Al: You still don’t have to lock it behind the DLC. (0:22:34) Kevin: Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Okay. But. (0:22:36) Al: They have updates. (0:22:37) Al: Every game has updates when there’s DLCs. (0:22:40) Al: So you absolutely don’t need to. (0:22:41) Al: It’s absolutely a very specific choice to lock that quality of life feature behind a purchase and that is bad and we should absolutely call that out. (0:22:49) Al: It’s not going to stop me buying the game though. (0:22:52) Micah: Yeah, I’m kind of in the same position. (0:22:56) Micah: I think there’s a lot of stuff that could just generally as far as the development cycle goes could have been changed for the better. (0:23:10) Micah: I had mentioned a little bit the like one time I’ve been on Twitter in the last like month after they talked about the they released. (0:23:22) Micah: It’s the new trailer this last week, I think. (0:23:24) Al: Yeah. (0:23:25) Micah: And they showed off the the like Pokemon control mode. (0:23:30) Micah: I forgot what they call it, but you can control the sync mode where you can control the Pokemon and run around as the Pokemon. (0:23:32) Al: Oh, yes, yeah, synchronize. Yeah. (0:23:32) Kevin: The sync mode thing. (0:23:40) Micah: And it seemingly has not much of a like use case other than you can battle Pokemon, but you just run around as a Pokemon. (0:23:50) Micah: And that to me, it. (0:23:52) Micah: Immediately, like I’d think back to when the games first came out and how much like disgruntledness there was with certain elements of the design that the games design, like how you couldn’t go into any of the houses. (0:24:09) Micah: But then they, you know, when they clipped out of bounds, then they found that there were like half designed internal locations like you could have gone into. (0:24:20) Micah: but it was very clear that they ran. (0:24:22) Micah: Out of time in the development cycle, just couldn’t, uh, so there are things like that where like I, it makes me feel like sync mode. (0:24:29) Micah: It was something that they just ran out of time on. (0:24:32) Al: So that’s possible, but I also think it could be along the lines of, like, let’s go Pikachu and Eevee to Legends, where we saw a clear direction they were moving. (0:24:43) Al: And it’s not necessarily, like, I don’t think anyone would say that the catching in Let’s Go was the way it was because they didn’t have enough time to do what they ended up doing in Legends, but it was more like a kind of moving in that kind of direction. (0:24:57) Al: And we see this with a lot of things in Pokémon where they do that, where it’s like, it’s It’s just a, it’s a. (0:25:02) Al: You’re prerequisite and the kind of like the game, it’s not like here’s a game, let’s build a game. Here’s another game. Let’s build another game, right? Like they’re constantly doing all these different things in these different games and having these different ideas. And that’s true. (0:25:04) Kevin: Yeah, baby steps. (0:25:16) Kevin: These I don’t think these are mutually exclusive either like (0:25:16) Micah: I think that I think that that I agree with that that makes sense. (0:25:22) Micah: But I do feel like there is a level of like (0:25:26) Micah: half baked development process for some of these things. (0:25:30) Micah: And I I am willing to, you know, give (0:25:30) Kevin: Oh, oh, they’re deaf at least. (0:25:34) Micah: well, for like like you said, for let’s go. (0:25:37) Micah: I think the the catch feature for let’s go was meant to more mimic Pokemon. (0:25:41) Micah: Go like it was very clearly there, like (0:25:46) Micah: the motion point between the main games and Pokemon go so that. (0:25:51) Micah: You know, catching style was intended to feel like I mean, it does feel like especially the motion control portion feels like Pokemon go. (0:25:52) Al: I mean, kind of, kind of, but I also like, with then we got only a few years later, legends, (0:26:05) Al: like it feels like it was what they kind of wanted to move towards and they were trying different things and this is what they ended up with. I don’t think it was just like, oh, (0:26:15) Al: let’s just make Pokemon go in a main series game. Like, I think it was, you know, they (0:26:22) Al: had a game which was legends where you were actually running around and literally just throwing Pokeballs at Pokemon, right? But, look, it’s not, yeah, I mean, it does show a flaw in how they developed their games and that these were almost certainly developed in parallel and therefore you can’t know what’s going to be popular and what’s going to end up working really well before you do it the next one. Yeah, I don’t disagree with you. (0:26:30) Kevin: And then they said, “Let’s go backwards at the next game.” (0:26:52) Al: I want that again. But anyway, we don’t need to keep talking about Pokemon. Let’s move on, shall we? This happens every couple of months we end up on another Scarlet and Violet delve. It did, it did. It did, but, you know, I need to save some of my Pokemon talk for a different podcast. Anyway, it’s, wow. Wow. (0:27:03) Kevin: But the trailer just came out. It was… it was gonna- (0:27:16) Kevin: We’re doing a worst games of the year pocket. (0:27:22) Al: Anyway, that’s what we’ve been up to. And I’m glad that we got a good half an hour out of that because there is no news because this is recorded out of time. Because I don’t know about you guys, but I did not want to record this on, you know, Hogman A. So we’re recording it a few weeks early. (0:27:46) Kevin: Where’s your dedication out? (0:27:49) Micah: What do you have things to do geez [laughs] (0:27:52) Al: So yes, yes, I do. So we are here to discuss our favourite games of the year and hopefully come to a conclusion on what the podcast’s game of the year is. So begins the part of the podcast where I read a bunch of words. So I am going to go down all of the games that were released this year. And at what point does this become ridiculous? I don’t know is this the most (0:28:22) Al: games we’ve had released in a year since we started the podcast? (0:28:24) Al: Yes, it absolutely is. (0:28:24) Kevin: Probably. (0:28:26) Al: Absolutely insane. (0:28:27) Al: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, nine. (0:28:29) Kevin: More than three, I’ll tell you that. (0:28:31) Kevin: I didn’t know Homestead Arcana- (0:28:32) Al: So 30, 30, 30 games, (0:28:36) Al: 31, 30, 35 games, and then one, two, three, four, five, six, seven released (0:28:42) Al: into Early Access. So was that 42, 42 games in this list? (0:28:47) Al: So this is the first list is the list of (0:28:50) Al: that were released. (0:28:52) Al: Not into early access and they previously weren’t in early access. (0:28:56) Al: This is brand new games this year. (0:28:58) Al: Brand new games not early access. (0:29:00) Al: I don’t know why I overcomplicated this, but here this is what we’re doing. (0:29:04) Al: So this is Above Snakes, Before the Green Moon, Everdream Valley, Fae Farm, Farming Simulator 23, Flutter Away, Garden Buddies, Garden Inn, Harvest Moon, The Winds of Anthos, Homestead Arcana, Enchanted, Loddle Knot, (0:29:20) Al: Maneko’s Night Market. (0:29:22) Al: And this is me just double-taking. (0:29:48) Micah: Now if you thought that was it. (0:29:52) Kevin: I’m gonna feel bad when one of the real games of the year is in here and the ones that I didn’t play. (0:29:52) Al: Well, this is part of the problem. (0:30:00) Al: So next we have five games that were released in 1.0 this year and early access a previous year. (0:30:07) Al: OK, so they were already out, but they came to their 1.0. (0:30:11) Al: They left early access this year. (0:30:13) Al: That’s a better way of describing it. (0:30:14) Al: These games left early access this year. (0:30:16) Al: And we have Icone Island, Mindrop, Sunhaven, Coral– (0:30:22) Al: Island, and Disney Dreamlight Valley. (0:30:24) Al: And then we have the list of seven games that came into early access this year. (0:30:28) Al: And that is Cornucopia, Fabledom, Moonlight in Garland, One Lonely Outpost, (0:30:35) Al: Research Story, Song of the Prairie, and Snacko. (0:30:39) Al: Hey, Micah, is this the first time you’re learning that Snacko’s in early access? (0:30:42) Al: Or did you know that already? (0:30:43) Micah: Uh, no, yesterday when I opened Notion was the first time I learned this neck wasn’t really (0:30:50) Al: Well, surprise! (0:30:52) Al: in early access now. (0:30:55) Micah: I have I’ve played the betas or the alphas, sorry. (0:31:01) Micah: And I have decided that I don’t want to do much more with the game until it (0:31:10) Micah: they get a full release because I love it. (0:31:13) Micah: love it so far and I don’t want to overdo it. (0:31:16) Kevin: Yep, don’t burn yourself out on it. I know somebody who was a big fan of Hades, but they only played in the Early Access and they burned themselves out. (0:31:23) Micah: I don’t think I could burn myself out on it really as much as it’s just that like, I don’t want to miss out like because I backed it. And I want to, I don’t know, experience the full experience I’ve experienced so much of it at this point. (0:31:38) Al: I think that’s fair. I got to the same point with Coral Island last year where I was like, (0:31:43) Al: “And now I’m going to put it down into 1.0.” But I mean, that was like 40 hours or 50 hours or something like that. It was more than I play a lot of games, you know? And I didn’t feel like playing that much ruined the experience for me when I came to the final version, because I’ve put in more than… I’m up to 100 hours now in that game. So I think it depends on the game. (0:31:55) Micah: Mm-hmm. (0:32:07) Al: Uhh. (0:32:07) Al: Ah. (0:32:08) Al: But that is a fair point. (0:32:11) Al: I have not decided what I’m going to do with Snacko. (0:32:14) Al: I’ve not decided yet. (0:32:16) Kevin: Why did nobody tell me homestead arcana came out? I would have played it, I missed that. (0:32:21) Al: Kevin! (0:32:23) Kevin: I’ve been here. (0:32:24) Micah: Have I got news for you. (0:32:29) Al: Kevin, you literally, we literally have a shared list of all of these games and when they coming out, you can look at it all the time and I’m constantly updating it just to let you know that is a thing. (0:32:31) Kevin: Well, hey. (0:32:42) Kevin: You assume I read these even when we’re recording. (0:32:43) Al: Nope, I don’t assume that at all, but I will complain about it. (0:32:49) Al: So any thoughts before we get into listing our favorite games, any thoughts on the list as a whole? (0:32:56) Al: Here we go. (0:32:56) Kevin: Umm… (0:32:57) Kevin: Ugh… (0:32:58) Micah: It’s a good list (0:32:59) Kevin: It’s a very good list. It’s too good. (0:33:01) Micah: It’s a strong list that I (0:33:06) Micah: when I opened this this document and looked at it I was a (0:33:11) Micah: Surprised that so many games had come out this year and be a little bit (0:33:17) Micah: Concerned about how few of these games I actually played (0:33:20) Kevin: Exactly! (0:33:22) Kevin: Alright, time to strike out all the ones none of us have played. (0:33:26) Al: Yeah, no, that’s fair. And I think it is interesting, right? Because like, I’ve now been tracking these games. I think I have all of the farming games that have released ever now in my list. (0:33:36) Al: And so that’s 47 this year. Last year, there were 24. In 2021, there were 15. In 2020, (0:33:46) Al: there were nine. In 2019, there were 13. And then we’ve got like, between 2016 and 2018, (0:33:54) Al: were 16. (0:33:56) Al: So that’s like a three-year span, and they were the same number as they were in 2021. (0:34:03) Al: And then 2010 to 2015, there were 12 of them, half of which were just farming simulator, (0:34:10) Kevin: Yeah. (0:34:10) Al: and the other half were just harvest moon. (0:34:13) Al: That’s not true. (0:34:16) Al: There were three harvest moons, two rune factories in one story of seasons, and an animal crossing. (0:34:21) Al: So the rest were farming simulator. (0:34:23) Al: And then the five years before that, there were 17. (0:34:26) Al: It is wild that Stardew Valley is eight years old in February, just saying. (0:34:36) Kevin: Yup, thanks Stardew Valley. (0:34:43) Kevin: You changed the whole landscape of the genre of gaming, thanks. (0:34:50) Kevin: I thought it was older, to be honest. (0:34:53) Al: No, 2016. (0:34:56) Al: Right. (0:34:56) Al: Well, I mean, shall we get right into it then? (0:34:59) Al: Let’s go for one each around, what should we do around the table? (0:35:04) Al: One each. (0:35:04) Kevin: All right. (0:35:05) Al: And we can tell, say what the game is and tell me why you’ve got it in the list. (0:35:12) Al: And we’re not doing, no, it’s a terrible game. (0:35:15) Al: So Micah, would you like to go with your first one? (0:35:18) Micah: Uhhh… Can I go with my wildcard first? (0:35:20) Al: You can, you can go in whatever order you want. (0:35:22) Al: If you want to leave your strongest for last, go for it. (0:35:25) Al: if you want to start with your strong. (0:35:26) Al: Go for it if you want to do your crazy one first, do what you want. (0:35:29) Micah: I’m going to get my wild card out of the way because I know that it’s not going to go very far so. (0:35:31) Al: Let’s go for it. (0:35:34) Al: Never assume these things, you have no idea what’s going to happen. (0:35:37) Micah: OK, that’s true. You’re right. My my. (0:35:37) Kevin: I, I, yep, I. (0:35:39) Al: Oh wait, before we get into that, let me just quickly. (0:35:45) Al: I want to go through what we have had as our games of the year in the past. (0:35:51) Al: Last year, Ooblets won. (0:35:54) Al: 2022, Ooblets won. (0:35:57) Al: But it did. (0:35:58) Al: 2021 was Spiritfarer. (0:36:01) Al: 2020 was Summer in Mara. (0:36:04) Al: And 2019 was the Raymon Story of Seasons. (0:36:07) Kevin: Wildflower was robbed. (0:36:09) Micah: What year was Wildflowers? (0:36:11) Kevin: I don’t I (0:36:11) Micah: Oh. I mean. (0:36:11) Al: Yeah, Wildflowers last year. (0:36:13) Micah: Ooblitz though. (0:36:16) Al: None of the three of us had played it. (0:36:18) Al: And Kevin, you hadn’t played it by that point either. (0:36:20) Al: So… (0:36:21) Micah: Also- Also Ooblitz is- (0:36:21) Kevin: That is correct. (0:36:26) Al: Ooblets was the only… (0:36:27) Al: Well, you hadn’t played Ooblets, but me and Bev had. (0:36:30) Micah: Yes. (0:36:31) Al: And you had a wild card last year as well. (0:36:33) Al: So what’s your wild card this year? (0:36:35) Micah: What was my wildcard last year? (0:36:37) Al: Shinshan Summer Vacation. (0:36:38) Micah: Oh, I mean, that is actually I still stand by that. (0:36:44) Al: Look, I’m not saying it’s a bat, I’m just saying. (0:36:46) Al: Like it was a little bit out of life field, (0:36:47) Al: neither of us had heard of that game before you brought it up. (0:36:50) Micah: Well, let me tell you about my wildcard for this year, which I guarantee you have heard of. (0:36:55) Micah: There is absolutely no scenario where you have not heard of this game. (0:37:00) Micah: Are you ready? (0:37:02) Kevin: Is it the princess game? (0:37:03) Micah: It is Fortnite. (0:37:07) Al: OK, why? (0:37:08) Al: OK, so you– wait, no, no, right. (0:37:10) Al: OK, so, Micah, you’re telling me that over the past three days, (0:37:12) Micah: Uh-huh. Yeah. (0:37:16) Micah: Yes. (0:37:17) Al: you have played this game enough to consider it one of your favourite games of the year? (0:37:20) Micah: I would say that there’s a reason that it’s a wild card. (0:37:27) Micah: And I would say that it is probably the reason that it’s in my list is not because I would (0:37:33) Micah: personally consider it one of my favorite games of the year. (0:37:36) Micah: But I think that it is a very important bridge (0:37:42) Micah: for the wider Fortnite audience, which is massive, into the world of farming sims. (0:37:50) Al: Well, we will have talked about it in a previous episode, so. (0:37:50) Kevin: And hey, if we let them win… (0:37:52) Micah: For anybody that is confused by this and doesn’t understand why Fortnite is part of this conversation, (0:37:59) Micah: they just released… (0:38:02) Micah: Yes, the Fortnite, the LEGO Fortnite mode has been released as of three days ago. So… (0:38:10) Al: And for some reason, it’s basically Minecraft, but with more farming. It’s wild! (0:38:10) Kevin: Minecraft for tonight. (0:38:12) Micah: Yes, and also as Legos, and it’s in Fortnite. (0:38:15) Kevin: Yeah. (0:38:18) Micah: I don’t really know if there’s aside from skins and characters, there’s not. (0:38:21) Kevin: Wait, is it actually Lego brand? Lego? What? Holy moly. (0:38:24) Al: It is, it is. (0:38:25) Micah: Yes, it’s actually Lego brand. (0:38:28) Micah: And it’s you are just building Lego, (0:38:30) Micah: like a Lego like homestead basically of a village in the wild. (0:38:36) Kevin: That’s… (0:38:37) Micah: It’s essentially a survival, it’s more of a survival game than it is like (0:38:42) Kevin: Mm-hmm. (0:38:42) Micah: a farming sim. (0:38:43) Micah: So it’s more like you gotta eat and you gotta, there is, (0:38:44) Kevin: It’s all Minecraft. (0:38:44) Al: Yeah, but there does seem to be a decent amount of farming in it. (0:38:49) Micah: there is a decent amount of farming in it. (0:38:51) Micah: And I’ll say that I have played quite a bit of it because the team that I work with has been very into it. (0:38:59) Micah: So, and prior to that coming out, we had all been playing Ark, (0:39:06) Al: » Okay. Yeah. (0:39:06) Micah: the dinosaur survival game. (0:39:09) Micah: So we had a server that we were playing that on. (0:39:11) Micah: So when a new survive. (0:39:12) Micah: Survival type game released and it’s Fortnite and it’s free and it’s Lego then we were like, okay, well, let’s play this instead so we have been playing quite a bit of it and it’s I was a little bit shocked at how good of an experience it is because it’s it it’s just odd because it’s got other than the skins and the characters there’s and I guess the the game that it that you access it from there’s nothing related to Fortnite really it’s super obvious. (0:39:19) Al: suck (0:39:44) Al: No. Well, I think your character is in the beginning based on the main, the base Fortnite playable character, right? Yeah. It’s not Fortnite. It’s not Fortnite at all. So a couple of things I found interesting about this. So first of all, it made me realize that Fortnite is not just Fortnite anymore, right? Like Fortnite was just a battle royale, but that is just one of eight different game modes, right? Absolutely wild to me. (0:39:52) Micah: Yes. Yeah. So aside from the characters, I mean, it’s it’s really there’s not a lot of no, it’s not a (0:40:06) Kevin: Oh, it hasn’t been for a while. (0:40:08) Micah: Yeah. Right. (0:40:14) Al: That’s the point now. And second of all, not only is this, it’s like, it’s not just Fortnite, but Lego. It’s Fortnite, but Lego, if they made it Minecraft, but with more farming. (0:40:30) Al: And I am just, it’s just so fascinating. So I haven’t played a huge amount of it. I’ve downloaded it and I’ve started playing it and I’ve kind of done the first couple of things. And it’s not really grabbing me. I don’t think I’m going to spend a huge amount of time on it, but I think (0:40:44) Al: so. Minecraft, when we covered Minecraft on the podcast, it was, it was a bit of a stretch, (0:40:48) Al: right? There is farming, but it’s very limited. It’s like, it was four crops or something. There might be more now. Minecraft has done a lot since then, but it felt like a bit of a stretch. (0:40:58) Micah: Yeah, there is a significant differences between, you know, yeah, there’s quite a bit to do in Fortnite now, or in Minecraft, I mean. (0:41:05) Al: Yeah, but this feels like a legit farming game, but it’s not cottagecore. It’s survival farming game. (0:41:06) Kevin: Minecraft has not stopped growing, they do annual updates. (0:41:16) Micah: Mm hmm. (0:41:19) Micah: Yeah, so I guess it kind of it also is a little bit of like how you play it. (0:41:24) Micah: So like, granted, there is a survival aspect that needs to be taken care of. (0:41:29) Micah: But depending on who you’re playing with or the the you know, (0:41:32) Micah: there is a like peaceful mode that you can do similar to what Minecraft had, (0:41:36) Al: That’s a good point. (0:41:36) Micah: where it’s not really you don’t have to play the survival mode. (0:41:40) Micah: You can play it just for the sake of like, you know, (0:41:43) Micah: the kind of like sandbox aspect of it. (0:41:46) Micah: Where you’re building stuff and doing whatever you want. (0:41:46) Kevin: farming and whatnot. (0:41:48) Micah: Yeah. (0:41:49) Micah: But, you know, like with my group, I’m not as big into the survival aspects of it. (0:41:54) Micah: Like I don’t particularly care about, you know, min maxing food and water and so on and so forth. (0:42:01) Micah: I’m more into the like building and designing and, you know, farming and that stuff. (0:42:07) Micah: So I kind of take on that role while everybody else takes on the survival portion of it. (0:42:14) Micah: So there are different ways. (0:42:16) Micah: Is to be able to play it that make it a little bit more of like a comfortable experience. (0:42:22) Micah: I mean, I literally built a cottage, so I don’t know, you know. (0:42:25) Al: Yeah, that’s, I think that’s totally fair. I guess my point of what I was saying was, (0:42:26) Kevin: Nice. Well, there you go. (0:42:31) Al: was like, I think this is much more legitimate as a farming game than Minecraft was when, (0:42:38) Al: when we covered it. So I think it’s, it’s totally fair to count this as a farming game. (0:42:39) Micah: Right. (0:42:40) Kevin: Yeah. (0:42:42) Al: So maybe I should add it into the list as Lego Fortnite. Um, but here’s a question for you. Does this make Fortnite the most downloaded farming game ever? (0:42:44) Kevin: Oh, there you go. (0:42:54) Micah: That’s why I I’ve included it because I think it is important touchstone in the history of farming games where it (0:42:54) Kevin: Absolutely. (0:43:05) Micah: There’s a possibility I can see a world in which people who play this (0:43:10) Micah: Enjoy it enjoy the like farming aspects of it want more of that and branch out into other farming type games (0:43:17) Micah: because there is such a broad audience for fortnight that (0:43:21) Micah: You know and it’s there’s such a broad (0:43:24) Micah: Audience for Lego - that there is a good (0:43:30) Micah: Possibility that it creates more farming game fans, which I’m all for (0:43:35) Al: I’ve added it into the list and also I need to add one more that I forgot, which was Hello Kitty Island Adventure. (0:43:42) Kevin: Oh, yeah, well (0:43:42) Micah: I did see that that was missing from the list and I didn’t know if that was intentional or not so it just… (0:43:46) Al: Oh, you should have brought it up. Come on. (0:43:46) Kevin: Glaring a bit omission this entire show is a sham (0:43:51) Al: Look, look, we’re now up to 49 games, right? I’m sorry, I can’t keep track of the ball. (0:43:56) Kevin: It’s quick Somebody find one more quick Um one well, you know though what we have to do is we have to let fortnite win (0:44:03) Kevin: So we can get that sponsorship money. Welcome to the harvest season of fortnite podcast (0:44:06) Micah: - It’s true. (0:44:09) Micah: Of Fortnite, but I never, I just did not ever foresee (0:44:15) Micah: there being a scenario where in the farming game of the year discussion or just in general on a harvest season episode that I would be bringing up Fortnite in a like semi-serious way. (0:44:26) Kevin: Yeah, one thing I will I haven’t played Fortnite ever, but from what I understand, every time they bring in these new distinct modes or gameplay elements, it’s always very polished and good quality. (0:44:44) Kevin: Like they brought in Spider-Man swinging and Attack on Titan, so I’m not surprised that this is high quality and that’s a lot of money being thrown at this Lego money, Fortnite money. (0:44:57) Al: Alright, well, you’re probably right, it’s probably not going to win, but it’s there, (0:45:02) Al: it’s in the list, not many games get into the list. So, there we go. No, into the list of the two, there’s only nine. It’s only nine. Alright, Kevin, what’s your first? (0:45:06) Kevin: Nope just 48 others. Oh (0:45:10) Kevin: Our list, okay (0:45:15) Kevin: My first one I’m going to go with (0:45:19) Kevin: Manekos night market a shocker to everyone the game I’ve been pining for for how many years now. Oh (0:45:27) Kevin: gosh (0:45:28) Al: Like five, like maybe six. (0:45:31) Kevin: Yeah, I don’t know something like (0:45:32) Al: I think it was six years ago it was first. (0:45:33) Kevin: well (0:45:36) Kevin: Yeah, I think it’s I’ve the fact that I waited that long and still was happy with what came out I think is a testament to how good the game is (0:45:48) Kevin: Obviously, I haven’t played all these other games and it probably not even the ones on your guys list but I (0:45:54) Kevin: Out of the ones I see here. I probably I would argue it has the most personality and charm (0:46:02) Kevin: the art, the sort of craft book art. (0:46:06) Kevin: It has gone very, very enjoyable. (0:46:10) Kevin: I haven’t beaten it myself, right? (0:46:12) Kevin: It loses some points because it came out with a handful of bugs and rough edges. (0:46:18) Kevin: But it’s still a game that makes me smile every time. (0:46:24) Kevin: So yeah, I gotta give a shout out to Maneko because I think it actually did deliver. (0:46:30) Kevin: Um, obviously, you know, it’s not the scale of tears that– (0:46:36) Kevin: Kingdom waiting six years for that or whatever, but for the get what it set out to be from all the trailers and whatnot, I think it delivered. It’s very cute, which I appreciate now. I have cats myself. Yeah. (0:46:48) Al: Yeah, totally fair, and it is still the wallpaper on my phone and has been for like seven months, (0:46:57) Kevin: Yeah, there you go. Also actually one thing I (0:47:01) Kevin: Yeah, that’s the good stuff (0:47:04) Kevin: one thing I do want to add (0:47:06) Kevin: Go on as we talked about in the episode. We talked about it. Um, the (0:47:11) Kevin: titular night market part of it is very fun (0:47:15) Kevin: Auctioning going into little bid war with customers to sell who and make profits and whatnot (0:47:20) Kevin: I don’t think a lot of these other games are focused on that like making money (0:47:26) Kevin: So that was (0:47:27) Kevin: a refreshing angle approaching the whole cottagecore thing. (0:47:32) Kevin: And again, just very fun points for that. (0:47:36) Al: Awesome. (0:47:36) Micah: Uh, I, are, are we just for the sake of the structure? (0:47:43) Micah: Are we just going through our picks and then discussing them or are we? (0:47:48) Al: If you have more to talk about that game just now, then feel free. (0:47:53) Al: We don’t need to discuss whether it’s the winner yet or not. (0:47:55) Micah: Sure, uh, oh (0:47:55) Al: And don’t say whether it’s on your list yet or not. (0:47:56) Kevin: Yeah. (0:47:58) Al: We’ll get to that. (0:47:59) Micah: Okay, I (0:48:00) Kevin: Alright. (0:48:03) Kevin: Michael, what’s next on your list? (0:48:03) Al: Right, we don’t want to look, Micah, we have a collapsed list for the suspense. (0:48:05) Micah: Didn’t didn’t say one way or another (0:48:05) Kevin: I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Ow, ow. (0:48:11) Al: We’re keeping the suspense, even if it might really be obvious now. (0:48:12) Micah: Okay, you’re right you’re right you’re right (0:48:14) Kevin: Alright. (0:48:16) Micah: It’s not though cuz I’m changing it at the moment I’m typing no, I’m just kidding [laughing] (0:48:18) Al: All right. I’ll go with my wild card. No, no, come on. I’m going with my wild card, (0:48:24) Kevin: Alright, ow. (0:48:26) Kevin

The Boyz are in the festive mood for some singing, drinking, and celebrating the holiday season! And also talking about Wrestling Movies. And also giving gifts. And that's pretty much it.   Intro - 03:24 "Who's in Your Mouth?" - 04:46 Blitzkrieg News - 09:39 RudeBoyz CatchUp (Candy Cane Lane, Godzilla movies, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, Chronicles of Narnia, Metroid Prime Remastered, Hi-Fi Rush, Dredge the Pale Reach, Dave the Diver, SteamWorld Build, Thirsty Suitors, Invincible season 2, Gen V, John Wick Chapter 4) - 54:53 Topic: Wrestling Movies!!  - 01:41:35 The Giving of the Gifts - 02:15:30 Outro - 02:23:56   For all things RudeBoyz, head to: linktr.ee/rudeboyz   Find us on Podbean, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn!   Thanks for listening, leave a comment & join the RudeNation!

Al and Jonnie talk about Lego Fortnite Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:01:59: What Have We Been Up To 00:15:39: News 00:37:27: Lego Fortnite 00:59:17: Outro Links Above Snakes “Most Wanted” Update Steamworld Build “Jingle Bolts” Update Fae Farm “2.0.0” Update Fae Farm “Coasts of Croakia” DLC" Garden Galaxy Update Travellers Rest “Recipes and Farming” Update A Last Song new trailer Everafter Falls new trailer Tiny Garden Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom 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: Lovely. Perfect. Here we go. (0:00:33) Al: Hello, farmers, and welcome to another episode of the harvest season. (0:00:37) Al: My name is Al, and we’re here today to see how unhinged this podcast can be. (0:00:38) Jonnie: And my name is Johnny. (0:00:44) Al: It’s either going to be unhinged or it’s going to be really low energy after five minutes. (0:00:47) Al: I’m not sure which, because it’s incredibly late for me, and for some reason I’m still doing this. (0:00:51) Al: Here we go. (0:00:53) Jonnie: Here we go, I’m putting down money on both. (0:00:56) Jonnie: It’s gonna be both, it’s gonna be both. (0:00:57) Jonnie: We’re gonna be unhinged and low energy. (0:00:59) Al: Amazing. Perfect. (0:01:00) Al: That’s what we need. So, for some reason, we’re going to talk about Lego Fortnite, (0:01:06) Al: because I’m still confused by it. I’ve played a little bit of it. Johnny has played slightly more of it, and we’re going to talk a bit about that. We’ve got a bunch of news that we’re going to go through. This is your last news of the year, because the next episode has been already recorded already. And, yeah, so, if it’s not mentioned in this episode, it won’t be mentioned (0:01:31) Al: until the second episode of next year, because the first episode of next year is being recorded this week as well. Although, I guess if something comes up between now and then, there isn’t an episode before then that we’ll be recording after then. So, therefore, if we have some news, (0:01:42) Al: we can include it in that, but it would need to happen in the next four days. (0:01:46) Al: And realistically, this is probably going to be a quiet week. (0:01:50) Jonnie: Come on Al, why did you say that? We all know now there’s going to be so much news between now and Friday. (0:01:54) Al: Anyway, so we’re going to talk about the news, but first of all, Chani, what have you been up to other than traveling? (0:02:02) Jonnie: What have you been up to, Al? (0:02:04) Jonnie: Yes, I’ve been traveling, but there’s this really great game that I’ve started playing. It’s called Coral Island. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. (0:02:12) Jonnie: And it’s really good. I think last time I was on the episode, I mentioned that there was a slight bug with the the museum and I was like I’m gonna put it down until that’s fixed and then talking about it on that episode made me think a lot about Coral Island and I went immediately straight back to play more Coral Island. The bug has apparently now been fixed since I’ve been away so I’m excited to go in and donate a whole bunch of stuff to to the museum but that game is so good it’s so so good. (0:02:20) Al: The museum, yep. (0:02:36) Al: Nice. (0:02:39) Al: You’re just driving up with a dump truck and just emptying it in. (0:02:44) Jonnie: Yeah pretty much pretty much I have so much stuff to donate I’m gonna be getting so many rewards. (0:02:50) Jonnie: Um, I’m only at the end of spring, I think, um, but just like the diving is a cool addition. (0:02:57) Jonnie: I like the way they do the mines. All of the characters are like super hot and also super diverse, which is like, I find it interesting that I’ve like managed to just tick so many boxes. (0:03:09) Jonnie: And look, when you were starting to say that this is the new stardew valley, I was like, (0:03:13) Jonnie: come on now, it won’t really be the new stardew valley. This is the new stardew valley. It’s so, (0:03:18) Al: Right? (0:03:20) Al: Hmm. (0:03:21) Al: I do think that I will continue to keep going back to Stardji Valley when he adds updates. (0:03:25) Al: But I feel like this is my new comfort game rather than Stardji. (0:03:29) Jonnie: Yeah, I guess I guess for me, the part that I and this is only because I’m new into it is like, (0:03:35) Jonnie: how possible is it to do different sorts of farms? You know, I still think back to the early days of this show, when you guys did the, was it the animal only? farming, farming episode? (0:03:50) Al: I don’t have to alone. (0:03:50) Jonnie: In Stardew, you like in Stardew, you can do lots of different challenges, right? And they are all feasible. Oh, that’s how you did the mining one. Yeah. (0:03:52) Al: Ahh. (0:03:55) Al: We did a- we did a mining one. (0:04:00) Jonnie: So I’m kind of curious to see how, how easy it will be to push the challenges because the way the game is structured, it feels like you do have to do everything. (0:04:09) Al: So, I don’t think, I think that’s the best way to play this game, but I don’t think anything requires you to do any of them. So, I think, so for example, like you might be thinking about say, the sprinklers, you need to go diving to make sprinklers. But you don’t need sprinklers, you don’t need to make sprinklers, you can still farm without sprinklers. (0:04:32) Jonnie: I definitely need sprinklers. I don’t know. I don’t nobody got time. I (0:04:32) Al: No, but my point is just like, I think if you want to just go and mine. (0:04:39) Al: I think you can probably just go and mine. If you want to just go and dive, I think you can probably just go and dive. I think it would still work. It’s not necessarily the best way to play this game, but I think it is definitely possible to focus on one thing (0:04:52) Jonnie: Yeah, I guess maybe what I’m curious about is the, and I’m not that deep into it, is their version of the community centre, (0:04:58) Jonnie: although there’s kind of like two versions of that, that seem to require at least progressing through the mines and progressing through diving. (0:05:08) Al: That’s true. There is no capitalism equivalent. You can’t just pay your way through the community. (0:05:16) Jonnie: So, yeah, I just think there’s there’s so much going on in the game. (0:05:20) Jonnie: My only real criticism so far is that the start is almost like a one for one match of Stardew Valley. (0:05:26) Jonnie: That if I think if I hadn’t heard from you that this game is like really good, (0:05:31) Jonnie: I may have just bounced off because it felt a little too Stardew Cloney (0:05:37) Jonnie: because introduced like diving in those things a little bit later. (0:05:40) Jonnie: You know, it’s like day eight, right? (0:05:41) Jonnie: Not not that much later, but that’s still on a day-to-day perspective. (0:05:46) Jonnie: About an hour and a half in, so I just wish there was something that happened a little bit earlier to be like no We’re not just our dude. There is more going on here (0:05:54) Al: Yeah, I think that’s totally fair. I don’t think I would ever say this game is perfect, (0:06:00) Al: I think this game could still be improved more. And I hope they’re going to continue to do that, (0:06:05) Al: they do have plans to continue to do that. And I do have some other thoughts about this game that I will bring up in a future episode, so I don’t want to talk about it all just now. But (0:06:14) Al: yeah, I think the point of a replacement for Stardew, if you will, which by that I just mean (0:06:22) Al: what is considered the… (0:06:24) Al: …facto of “this is what a farming game should be” or “this has pushed things forward and not taken any steps back” (0:06:32) Al: which I do think both Stardew and this game did. (0:06:34) Al: Um, I didn’t have an end to that sentence. (0:06:36) Jonnie: Well, I think the key for me is that this is feeling like a game that if people are interested in the genre will replace me (0:06:45) Jonnie: recommending statue just and I think that the visual style of that is a huge reason because I you know A lot of us like the the pixel art style, but I think this works a lot better for more modern (0:07:00) Jonnie: It would just maybe resonate with a wider group of people (0:07:02) Al: Yeah, I hope so. I really hope that this game does really well, because I think there’s so much more potential and, yeah, let’s not continue to talk about that too much. Great. (0:07:12) Al: Fantastic. I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I’m glad that you were convinced by what I said and did not disagree with me on it. And maybe some other people on future podcasts that may have already been listened could listen to this and see that I’m not alone. It’s not just me that talking about it. Thank you very much. (0:07:12) Jonnie: Great. I love yeah (0:07:30) Jonnie: - Absolutely, but that’s all I’ve really had time for. (0:07:32) Jonnie: So, Al, what have you been playing? (0:07:33) Al: » Mm, good question. (0:07:36) Al: What have I been playing? (0:07:37) Al: Pokemon, I think. (0:07:39) Al: It’s probably about it. (0:07:40) Jonnie: Is the new DLC out? (0:07:40) Al: Pokemon came out, yeah, it came out on Wednesday, I think. (0:07:44) Al: Well, Wednesday or Thursday, depending on your time zone. (0:07:47) Al: It’s technically Thursday here. (0:07:49) Al: So that’s basically been my Thursday and Friday and Saturday and now Sunday. (0:07:52) Al: That’s been basically all I’ve been playing. (0:07:55) Al: And before that, I was just playing Pokemon because I was trying to do the Flubaby outbreaks. (0:07:58) Al: So a lot of Pokemon. (0:08:01) Al: I don’t really think I played any. (0:08:02) Al: I still love this game. I think the DLC is great. (0:08:04) Jonnie: I would recommend going to a doctor for your fluvate outbreaks. (0:08:15) Al: And if you want more thoughts about my opinions on the DLC, then tune into It’s Super Effective two days ago when this comes out. (0:08:24) Jonnie: I am looking forward to hearing how people feel about the DLC because I feel like after the first DLC came out everyone who was into it was kind of like well it’s more of the game and it’s not done so now that I guess it’s done I’m curious to hear what people have to say. (0:08:34) Al: Yeah, well this this week’s episode doesn’t have the story in it. We’re just talking about the new mechanic stuff. But next week we’re going to talk about the story stuff. But yeah, (0:08:49) Al: I mean, I really like it. It’s like, there are still fundamental issues with this game. (0:08:54) Al: It doesn’t fix the fundamental issues with this game. But I cannot say that I haven’t had a lot of fun with this generation, even with all those. (0:09:04) Jonnie: Yeah, I think it’s interesting because I feel like this kind of splits the wrong word. (0:09:07) Jonnie: I feel like in the last years, I’ve leaned more into and I don’t know the right word. (0:09:11) Jonnie: So I’m just going to say non-main series game, but like, let’s go and, uh, Legion. (0:09:16) Jonnie: Legends Arceus. (0:09:16) Al: the additional generation no main series games. That’s how I would describe them. I would actually, I think I would agree with you on that. Like I actually, like as much as I’ve enjoyed Scarlet and Violet, I think I did enjoy Legends more and Let’s Go. I also really enjoyed like, I mean, I mean, let’s be honest, I like all of the games they make because Because funnily enough I keep playing these games because I like these games. (0:09:20) Jonnie: Great. (0:09:20) Jonnie: Whatever. (0:09:21) Jonnie: Yeah, those great. (0:09:23) Jonnie: But I really like those games, right? (0:09:24) Jonnie: I just want the more experimental version of Pokemon at this point. (0:09:27) Jonnie: So, um, it’s good that everyone can get different versions, right? (0:09:46) Al: I have always liked these games, and I suspect I always will like these games, you know? (0:09:51) Jonnie: And do you play these games in a way where you try really hard to make it as miserable as possible to experience the game? (0:09:51) Al: Not always, not always. I’ve only done one Professor Oak challenge this year. (0:10:03) Al: Yeah, look, we all enjoy different things, and I enjoy some kinds of challenges like that. (0:10:03) Jonnie: That’s still like one too many. (0:10:14) Al: I do not enjoy the challenges that involve battling. (0:10:16) Al: And I never will, but I do enjoy collection-based challenges. (0:10:21) Al: And I think that Professor Oak challenges give an interesting, (0:10:24) Al: different way of looking at it. (0:10:26) Al: That it just, you think about the game differently, you know? (0:10:30) Jonnie: I think Professor… (0:10:31) Jonnie: Yeah, I think they made sense up until, you know, Scarlet or Violet, where… (0:10:40) Jonnie: How many do you have to get before you can even challenge the first gym? (0:10:43) Al: It was like 600 or something. (0:10:47) Jonnie: See? (0:10:48) Jonnie: It’s just an unreasonable number. (0:10:50) Al: Like it was basically all of them, right? (0:10:52) Al: I think there were maybe 20 Pokémon that you couldn’t get before the first gym, and most of them were post-game. (0:10:58) Al: So it’s like you catch almost all of the Pokémon, and then you do all of the gyms basically. (0:11:05) Al: And then I think there’s maybe, so there’s a couple of them that you have to unlock, (0:11:10) Al: the different traversal options like there’s some that only spawn on a (0:11:13) Al: specific island, but it’s like two. So you’re like, okay, I can catch 600 Pokemon. And then I’ll do three of the, three of the traversal based things. And then I can catch two more Pokemon. And then I do all of the gyms. It was fun. I really liked it. It was obviously very different to other ones. So just because you like, uh, a Professor Oak challenge in one of the more traditional Pokemon games, right, where you’re (0:11:43) Al: like, here’s an area, defeat the gym leader, here’s an area, defeat the gym leader, more linear games. I love how we call that traditional. It’s like the first games weren’t like that. (0:11:54) Al: Even if you just because you like that doesn’t mean you’ll like it this way. But I do think that the kind of person who likes one is going to like the other as well. Right. Like actually, (0:12:04) Al: what I really liked about that was you can, if you get bored training up a Pokemon, you can go catch another one, like go to the other other end of the map and go catch some different (0:12:13) Al: Pokemon. Like you’re not the problem with like traditional Professor Oak challenges. (0:12:18) Al: Like if I did a brilliant diamond one when they came out and oh my word was that horrific to start with because you have to evolve your starter to like you get have to get them to level 36 and you have to get another Pokemon to like level 42 all before the first gym. (0:12:36) Al: That’s dreadful. Right. Whereas at least in this game, you can like go all over the map and try lots of different things. (0:12:43) Al: Most of the time, you’re catching Pokémon. (0:12:46) Al: You don’t have to evolve many Pokémon, because most Pokémon spawn in the wild. (0:12:50) Jonnie: So I don’t want to enable this anymore, but I’m going to. (0:12:56) Jonnie: I feel like this sort of concept, but if it was like a fourth path, so obviously in Skyline Violet you had the three different paths that were tied to the three characters. (0:13:03) Al: Mmm, yes. (0:13:05) Jonnie: I feel like if there was a fourth path that was tied to the number of Pokémon that you have collected and there was some form of progression locked behind it, (0:13:15) Jonnie: that could actually be quite compelling because the thing that you know kind of makes it disjointed for me is (0:13:20) Jonnie: you go around and you’re basically you know the greatest trainer that’s ever lived before you’ve challenged a gym and then you show up to the gym and they’re like “oh hi you’re probably terrible” and you know you steamroll them so I would really like it if that was like a fourth path and doesn’t need to be at the same level but some form of progression locked behind it might be quite cool (0:13:29) Al: Yeah, yeah. (0:13:40) Al: interesting idea because like very rarely in Pokemon games is anything of note locked behind Pokemon collection, which seems a bit odd right? Like in the first games, is there anything that’s locked behind Pokemon progression, like collecting Pokemon? Oh that’s true, that’s true. Yeah, you get like the item finder and the… what’s the other one? (0:13:56) Jonnie: Yes. There’s the research assistants that show up and if you’ve got a certain number they give you… (0:14:10) Jonnie: and a few other things that we will remember as soon as we log off to school. (0:14:11) Al: Yeah, I can’t remember. Anyway, yes, no, you’re right. Absolutely. The XP share was one of them. (0:14:18) Al: Yeah, no, you’re right, you’re right. But I think that’s very little, right? And you don’t need those things. The only one I think you need is you do get flash as one of them. So actually, (0:14:30) Jonnie: Yes, that’s the first one I think, right? (0:14:32) Al: now that I think about it, I don’t think it’s the first one. I think one of the other ones is not important. It doesn’t matter. Let’s not get sidetracked. (0:14:40) Al: It’s late. And there’s probably listeners going, “Please, please do get sidetracked.” (0:14:48) Al: That, I feel like, has really been repeated. Like, it is weird how the first games had that, (0:14:55) Al: right? They had this idea of there are some things locked back, but most of the time it’s like, “Oh, (0:14:59) Al: in Scarlet and Violet, it’s like, oh, you’ve got some rewards, but it’s like, here’s some candy, (0:15:07) Al: And here’s some balls. And, you know, it’s not. (0:15:10) Al: Nothing locked behind it. It’s all just kind of like additional items. (0:15:14) Al: Yeah, anyway, it’s an interesting point for such a collection focused game. (0:15:19) Al: They don’t lock anything really behind the collection of those creatures. (0:15:26) Al: Very interesting. Anyway, we’re not here to talk about Pokemon. (0:15:29) Al: That’s the other podcast I’m on this week. (0:15:33) Al: We’re here to talk about farming games and cottage. (0:15:37) Al: We’re here to talk about other games. (0:15:39) Al: So we’re going to talk about some new. (0:15:40) Al: News. (0:15:44) Al: Above Snakes has a new update coming out. (0:15:47) Al: It’s called the Most Wanted Update and it’s got some new biomes. (0:15:53) Al: It’s got some new missions feature. (0:15:56) Al: It’s got some new items and more. (0:16:00) Al: And that is out now. (0:16:02) Al: I was going to say, if you’re listening to this after it comes out. (0:16:06) Al: But of course you are. (0:16:07) Al: Of course you’re listening to this after it comes out. (0:16:09) Al: Johnny, it’s not out for you yet. (0:16:10) Al: Everybody else is out for you. (0:16:14) Jonnie: Congratulations, everyone else. (0:16:17) Al: Congratulations, people from the future. (0:16:21) Jonnie: Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like Above Snakes kind of came out, and I haven’t really heard much about it. (0:16:26) Jonnie: Like, I’m still interested in playing it, but in the same way I feel like I’m interested in playing a lot of games I never actually get to, so… (0:16:34) Al: It’s certainly not pumping its way up the list. (0:16:39) Jonnie: No, and yeah. And this content patch doesn’t really (0:16:39) Al: This is the problem, right? (0:16:45) Jonnie: seem to add anything that’s like, “Oh, okay, this looks like it’s getting really, really good,” and makes me sort of excited to jump in. (0:16:50) Jonnie: But good to see that they’re still supporting me. (0:16:53) Al: Speaking of games with updates that I haven’t played yet and they haven’t really encouraged me to play it, SteamWorld Build have a new update called the Jingle Bolts update which by the way, great name, love it, perfect. No notes. (0:17:06) Jonnie: I have one note. But it’s mostly that. Look, I’m kind of just over Christmas-like seasonal updates in games. I get why they do them, but haven’t we done them all (0:17:16) Al: Well, this is a winter update. (0:17:20) Al: “The update transforms your mining town from a western wilderness to a snowy winter wonderland with all the festive spirit.” (0:17:28) Al: Intrate. So yeah, I wonder if this is… (0:17:32) Al: So we have two kinds of games with seasons. (0:17:34) Al: We have the games with seasons where they are based on how long you’ve played in the game. (0:17:38) Al: And there are the ones which are based on real life. (0:17:42) Al: and I cannot tell on this what this is like (0:17:46) Al: is it just all the games for this next month are all winter? (0:17:49) Jonnie: I cannot tell either. (0:17:51) Jonnie: I also don’t really know, like, I don’t quite get what Steam mode build is, if I’m being entirely honest. (0:17:56) Al: it’s a city builder that I mean that’s that’s all it that’s I mean that that’s all it is you know you it might be a good one i’m not sure i’ve not played it I don’t really like city builders anymore i’ve come to accept that um they they don’t have any dates on this as to when like not like ublets had a winter event and they’re like oh it’s live between these dates (0:17:57) Jonnie: Yeah. (0:17:58) Jonnie: Great. (0:18:16) Al: I can’t see anything about this being live between particular dates so i’m not sure what the deal is with that or is this like a mode that you turn on I can’t tell they don’t seem to say (0:18:26) Jonnie: Communication seems not, but they are saying, however this one works, they are planning more seasonal updates in 2024. Speaking of more, uh, so 2.0 is out. Al, how does this rate in your, um, (0:18:28) Al: yeah I don’t know (0:18:33) Al: yep so if you like this look forward to more (0:18:38) Al: fae farm (0:18:44) Jonnie: uh, desire for patch number updates to follow some sort of patch? (0:18:50) Al: I think they could drop the third number from it, like I don’t know why it needs to be 2.0.0 because I think they’re proving to this that when they add more content to the game, they’re increasing the main number and therefore they could just have “This is version 2” and then the update that gives bug fixes is 2.1. (0:19:09) Al: I don’t think they need the third number, but they’re doing a lot better than a lot of other developers are. (0:19:15) Al: This is pretty close, thank you for actually increasing the first number because nobody ever seems to do that in- (0:19:20) Al: games. They have it zero for early access, they hit 1.0, and then it’s always one point something forever, and it drives me insane. (0:19:30) Jonnie: And it feels like there’s actually a sizable update here to go with it. So coasts of croquia (0:19:34) Al: Come on, we’re not here to actually talk about the content, we’re here to talk about version numbers! (0:19:41) Jonnie: We don’t want to spend an hour talking about it because I know we could (0:19:47) Jonnie: So yeah coast coasts of croquia I (0:19:52) Jonnie: Don’t really (0:19:54) Jonnie: Know what this means in terms of what has been added. I assume it’s a new (0:20:00) Jonnie: a new location (0:20:02) Al: that it is. It’s a new location that you access by going through a portal inside the mouth of a giant frog. (0:20:09) Jonnie: Great, I mean that that makes as much sense as anything else in TAFE. (0:20:15) Al: It does, it’s perfect. I love it. So yeah, the new area is called Croquier and there’s a bunch of stuff in there. I haven’t looked about features and stuff like that. I suspect it’s mostly focused on story. (0:20:28) Jonnie: Yeah, and a lot of the like, I assume there’s quite a bit of story attached to it and it looks like there’s a lot of sort of quality of life updates that they’re making alongside this, this update. (0:20:40) Jonnie: Unfortunately, the one thing that I don’t really see in this list is much around improving the characters, like there is a section called world as welding characters. (0:20:52) Jonnie: It’s, you know, there is there is one line that all vendors and NPCs now have new and unique dialogue rather than using the same. (0:20:58) Jonnie: And it’s a shared pool of lines. The problem with those original lines is they were so bad that it’s like, well, I’m not I’m not sure that the writing just has felt missing in this game for a long time so I’m not sure it’s enough to kind of lure me there. (0:21:02) Al: Yeah, there’s now you’re going to see more of the same repeated lines that you don’t care about. (0:21:19) Al: Yeah, it doesn’t really feel like the most amazing update that we would be wanting for (0:21:25) Jonnie: Yeah, I think I think given how like because I’ve heard that feedback in a number of places, you know, Cody and I talked about it (0:21:32) Jonnie: from a news article last week And so I feel like given how big of a criticism it has been when it’s actually fixed It’s something that they will put front and center (0:21:42) Al: Yeah, or they might just not. So like part of my thing is, I don’t want to talk about this too much just now because I do talk about it in next week’s episode, but I think they never really wanted to do relationships in this game and they didn’t really care about like the NPCs in the village, but they felt like they needed to add that sort of feature in and therefore that’s what we got. And they like the other aspects of the game and the the other aspects of the game are good. (0:22:12) Al: And they’re just going to continue with that and ignore the one that they never wanted to do in the first place. (0:22:17) Jonnie: That makes quite a bit of sense. (0:22:21) Jonnie: Anything else in the patch notes that stand out to you that sound interesting? (0:22:25) Al: Not particularly. I agree with you about the quality of life improvements sound good. (0:22:30) Al: I haven’t had enough time in the game to be like, “Oh yes, that one in particular is really going to make my gameplay more enjoyable because I’m spending too much time in Carl Island realistically.” (0:22:45) Al: Looks good. Keep at it. Keep more updates. And there are two more currently planned, (0:22:50) Al: two more DLCs that I know of. I wonder whether they’ll add more in the future (0:22:56) Al: but just a reminder, if you have this on Switch, you will have the DLC added on automatically. (0:23:01) Al: If you bought the deluxe version on Steam, you will have this automatically. If you bought the base one on Steam, you’ll have to buy the DLC separate. Garden Galaxy, a new update. (0:23:12) Al: I mean, it just feels like it’s yet another Garden Galaxy update. If the other Garden Galaxy updates haven’t enticed you to play the game, this one’s not going to do either but there’s More items. There you go. (0:23:22) Jonnie: yep and I feel like every time I look at god and galaxy i’m like that’s right I really need to play this game and then I forget about it until next time i’m on the show and they have another update and the cycle resets itself yep I agree (0:23:28) Al: The new items look cool, that’s all. It’s out now, again, comes out today, the day the episode comes out. (0:23:43) Al: So if you like Garden Galaxy, go get that update, go get your more items. (0:23:48) Al: Travellers Rest also have a new update. Everybody’s releasing updates in December. What is this nonsense? (0:23:54) Al: It is out now and it contains a new crop system. (0:23:58) Al: The new crops have specific seasons in which they can be planted. (0:24:03) Al: In addition, they need to be watered every three days for them to grow. (0:24:06) Al: The amount of time each crop takes to grow varies. (0:24:09) Al: Fruit trees no longer need to be planted in tilled soil. (0:24:11) Al: Don’t require watering and they never die, although the only bare fruits. (0:24:15) Al: I mean, none of this seems like fundamentally different from other farming games, (0:24:19) Al: except for you don’t have to water them every day, which is interesting. (0:24:24) Jonnie: I think that’s quite cool, like that’s a mechanic that makes a lot of sense, right? Not every plant needs to be watered the same amount, so that’s a cool little addition, but in general I still feel about Traveller’s Rest that it’s a little bit too much, just like everything else. (0:24:38) Jonnie: And I wish it was worth it. (0:24:38) Al: Yes, and I’m constantly fascinated as to what this game had when it came into early access, (0:24:43) Al: because every time there’s an update I’m like “oh so we didn’t have that either?” (0:24:48) Al: What did this game have when his first version came out? The first version came out three years ago. (0:24:54) Jonnie: Oh my god. (0:24:56) Al: July 2020 apparently. (0:24:59) Jonnie: Well in three more years when 1.0 comes out we probably won’t have time to (0:25:04) Al: Well definitely not, because this was the one that like a few months ago they came out with the (0:25:09) Al: tavern. Like they actually then drinks and staff, that’s what it was, in September they came out with drinks and I’m like “this is a game about a tavern and you didn’t have drinks? What did you have?” (0:25:22) Al: I’m so confused. (0:25:27) Al: So yeah there’s new crops, new weather phenomena, chances of rain, thunderstorms, snow and wind, (0:25:35) Al: which will affect animals and crops. Okay, and new crops and… (0:25:38) Jonnie: Yep, sounds like a content update for the game. (0:25:38) Al: recipes. Yep. Yes, it’s starting to sound like it might have some of the features of starchy phyline. (0:25:48) Jonnie: And if you’ve been playing Traveler’s Rest in Early Access, and you have some thoughts on it, (0:25:52) Jonnie: send them to us, we would love to know a little bit about it, (0:25:54) Jonnie: because as you can tell, we are utterly fascinated every time this game has an update. (0:25:58) Al: What did you do in this game? I wanted to know what people have been doing in this game. (0:26:04) Al: A last song. Is this the underwater one where you’re like trying to make get rid of (0:26:13) Jonnie: corruptiony stuff. You don’t really know what it is. Pollution. (0:26:13) Al: bad stuff? What’s the word I’m looking for? Pollution. Pollution. (0:26:20) Al: I think we’ve talked about this one before. Anyway, they have a new trailer. (0:26:24) Jonnie: It looks cute and I assume there’s going from the looks of the trailer There’s some sort of rhythm element so that immediately eliminates me from being able to play this (0:26:35) Al: Yeah, it’s still coming out next year. Ever After Falls also have a new trailer. Apparently this is a backers only update, apologies. So they have a new trailer and they’ve released a beta, which some Kickstarter backers can get. (0:26:54) Jonnie: Great. So I much prefer beta than early access, right? Like it’s the, you know, much clearer that you’re paying for something or you’re getting access to something that is not finished, so. (0:26:55) Al: Yeah. (0:26:58) Al: Thank you. (0:27:06) Al: I don’t think we need to get into that debate again today. (0:27:09) Jonnie: We do not, but I just like, I feel like I haven’t seen a beta announcement in a long time, so I’m (0:27:15) Al: Yeah, Snacko did that. (0:27:17) Al: They had an alpha and a beta and now they’re in early access. (0:27:21) Jonnie: Okay, I don’t like that. (0:27:25) Al: Yeah, I mean, I also think it’s a pretty polished game as of now. (0:27:30) Al: Anyway, yeah, let’s not get into that. (0:27:32) Al: We’ve got two new games to talk about, and I don’t know whether… (0:27:36) Al: If you’ve got a list of LEGO Fortnite, Hello Kitty Adventure, (0:27:42) Al: Hello Kitty Island Adventure, and these two games that we’re going to talk about on a list, (0:27:49) Al: I don’t know which I would say was the most likely one I would expect, (0:27:53) Al: and which is the least likely one I would expect, and I’m very fascinated as to all of these. (0:27:58) Al: The first one is called Tiny Garden, and the way I’ve described this is, (0:28:01) Al: it’s basically Polly Pocket farming. Did you ever have Polly Pockets when you were younger, Johnny? (0:28:06) Jonnie: So I have a niece who’s five, and she has Polly Pockets right now. (0:28:11) Jonnie: And I have played a lot of Polly Pocket in the last month. (0:28:13) Al: Are these still a thing? I’m so happy they’re still a thing. That’s fantastic. (0:28:15) Jonnie: They are still a thing. (0:28:16) Jonnie: Yep. (0:28:17) Jonnie: They are very much still a thing, and this gives big Polly Pocket vibes. (0:28:21) Al: It’s exactly what it is. You’ve got this little thing that you open up, (0:28:26) Al: and it’s a little world inside this little presumably handheld thing, and it looks really interesting. (0:28:34) Jonnie: I like the idea, so there’s a little crank on the side, and the crank is moving time. (0:28:39) Al: Is that moving time? (0:28:42) Jonnie: Yeah, so that being like the idea that you’ve got a limited space, you plan stuff out, you turn the crank, and stuff happens over time is… (0:28:52) Jonnie: That seems like quite a cool little mechanic, like this just has a really great little look for a kind of idyllish, cozy game. (0:29:02) Al: I need this on the Playdate. (0:29:06) Jonnie: I was thinking that this would be a great Playdate thing, (0:29:08) Jonnie: because the crank seems like a key feature, and… (0:29:12) Al: It would need a fundamental rethink about the graphics, because the graphics are way too complicated for the Playdate. But this could be great on the Playdate. Because they’ve already got the crank, right? Because the problem with the Playdate is figuring out what your mechanic with the crank going to be. And they have an interesting, unique feature, which so many games are just like, “Oh, let me just do this one. Like, let me think up the feature for the crank later, (0:29:38) Al: rather than let me have our- Oh, I like this. (0:29:42) Jonnie: Yeah, and yeah, sorry just to fill in the blanks, so the gameplay looks like on the base of the Polly Pocket is where you’re doing all of your farming and you’re growing vegetables, which in the tweet they say you sell to then add furniture to what would be the upper level, I guess, or the bit that sort of sits vertically, which I think is just a great concept, but this is in prototype, so I didn’t see anything like any, even like a tentative release date. (0:30:11) Al: Yeah, no, there’s absolutely nothing about that or any ideas, it’s just this is a “here’s a first thought” and like “come follow us and we’ll tell you more about it later” sort of thing. (0:30:22) Al: I’m just tweeting at them to tell them to put it on Playdate. (0:30:26) Al: So next we have Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom. (0:30:31) Jonnie: Woo! I’m very excited about this one, Al. (0:30:33) Al: And so, well, so tell me why you’re excited about this one and why it’s different from (0:30:41) Al: Lookitty, other than just “it’s Tamagotchi”, which doesn’t really have characters, I might add. (0:30:47) Jonnie: Yeah, look, I don’t really want like, so brains are stupid, right? (0:30:54) Jonnie: And you’re right, Tamagotchi had zero characters. But you know what Tamagotchi had? (0:30:59) Jonnie: An important place in my life and everyone just referred to Tamagotchi. So when I see Tamagotchi and it’s a farming game, I’m like, yeah, I’m on board. I want all of this, even though there is no connection to anything else that’s happening in the game, other than the word Tamagotchi. (0:31:15) Jonnie: and it looks great. (0:31:17) Jonnie: So I just didn’t grow up with Hello Kitty, so that one I’m just like, “Meh, I don’t really have any connection to this.” (0:31:23) Jonnie: Tamagotchi though, that word triggers a thing in my brain apparently. (0:31:26) Al: So the important question is, are you subscribing to Apple Arcade for this? (0:31:31) Jonnie: Uh, I mean… (0:31:32) Al: You can drive a car! (0:31:33) Jonnie: The- [laughs] (0:31:34) Al: Ah! (0:31:36) Al: Oh, no. (0:31:38) Jonnie: The long answer I want to say is no, but the short answer is yes, I will probably sign up to Apple Arcade to play Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom. (0:31:44) Al: You can, you can drive a car. (0:31:48) Al: What was that? (0:31:49) Al: There’s a little random… (0:31:51) Al: Oh, there’s a squirrel. (0:31:51) Al: It’s a squirrel. (0:31:53) Al: There’s like a what looks like a kind of weird. (0:31:56) Al: Version of the, you know, the, you know, the carriage in what’s the fate of the Disney story with the, the glass slipper, what’s that one? Cinderella. You know, they’re like pumpkin carriage in that. It’s like a pink version of that near the end next to what looks like a big castle. You see that? (0:32:06) Jonnie: Cinderella? (0:32:08) Jonnie: Mm-hmm. (0:32:18) Jonnie: Ah, yeah, so I missed that the first time I watched through but yeah, you’re right. That is very (0:32:24) Jonnie: Yeah, that’s it. That’s a castle. That’s definitely a carriage (0:32:30) Jonnie: So minor thing I love that the (0:32:33) Jonnie: Dates that you’ve got written down here is coming Jan 4th in the trailer. They say (0:32:38) Jonnie: Expected January 4th, which if that doesn’t mean it’s not coming on January 4th. I don’t know what (0:32:40) Al: Yeah, I will say though, the description on YouTube does say “coming” rather than “expected”. (0:32:52) Al: I wonder if it’s meant to be a pun. (0:32:54) Al: I don’t know. (0:32:55) Al: Like, is this a Tamagotchi thing? (0:32:57) Al: When it’s… (0:32:58) Al: Because your Tamagotchi comes in as an egg first, right? (0:33:02) Al: And so when you have like a child, or you’re pregnant, you say you’re expecting. (0:33:08) Al: And so if you have an egg that’s going to hurt. (0:33:10) Al: Which would you say you’re expecting as well? (0:33:11) Al: Is that what they’re doing here? (0:33:12) Jonnie: I don’t know. We’ll need to bring in someone that’s laid an egg and ask them what they… (0:33:18) Al: I’m just saying, like, I think I think it’s a pun rather than a, hey, (0:33:22) Al: we might not release on this date. (0:33:22) Jonnie: Right, well if it is a pun, it’s not a very good one. But everything else in this game looks pretty good. (0:33:27) Al: Because they, well, I agree, I agree. (0:33:29) Al: It’s not a good pun, but my point is this released on the 12th of December, right? (0:33:33) Al: If they don’t know it’s coming out on the 4th of January, it’s not coming out on (0:33:36) Al: of January, because that is like three. (0:33:40) Al: work days before the 4th of January, basically. (0:33:44) Jonnie: Not in America. (0:33:44) Al: Like that is basically no time. (0:33:47) Jonnie: In America, it’s like 100 work days between the two. (0:33:52) Al: You’re assuming that this is worked on by Americans? (0:33:55) Jonnie: Yes. (0:33:55) Al: It was Bandai Namco, they’re a Japanese developer. (0:33:58) Jonnie: Whatever, they’re all the same. (0:34:01) Al: Japan, America, who can tell the difference? (0:34:06) Jonnie: I mean, ultimately this just looks like a game where cute animals run around a thing. (0:34:10) Jonnie: like it to me it sounds or seems. (0:34:12) Jonnie: I watch like the Hello Kitty Island adventure so I don’t actually have high expectations for the game itself but you know Tamagotchi. (0:34:20) Al: I’m going to end up comparing this to Hello Kitty Island Adventure, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m sorry, it’s just going to have to happen. Because it looks like a very similar game, it looks like there’s exploration, the kind of the world looks kind of very, they evoke the same imagery. Why does that pool have a face on it? Go to eight seconds in when he’s like chopping up the wood. You can see why does that have a face on it? Is that (0:34:26) Jonnie: I think you should yeah yeah. (0:34:41) Jonnie: Why would it not have a face on it? (0:34:46) Jonnie: Oh, yeah, it does have a face. (0:34:49) Jonnie: Why would it not have a face? (0:34:51) Jonnie: Yeah, and I think even like in the first two seconds, there’s another pool and maybe it’s the same one that you can also see the face on it. (0:34:57) Jonnie: Maybe all of the pools are alive. (0:34:58) Al: No, that’s a different one. (0:35:00) Jonnie: Yeah, yeah. (0:35:02) Jonnie: So look, the pools are alive. (0:35:03) Jonnie: I have the one in the house also has a face. (0:35:05) Jonnie: All of the pools in this game are alive. (0:35:07) Jonnie: And that makes me even more excited. (0:35:09) Jonnie: I feel like sometime in 2024, we’re gonna– (0:35:11) Jonnie: I need to do the Hello Killy Island adventure versus Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom Ultimate Showdown Smackdown. (0:35:17) Jonnie: You know, many can be on, I can be on, and we can just argue for hours over which of these cute little games is– (0:35:23) Al: Yeah, I just, I guess my worry about this is that it might feel a bit hollow because the characters won’t really exist. Like, unless they do something really well and they go “we’re going to create all these characters out of thin air and you’re going to care about them now” feels unlikely. (0:35:39) Al: Like that’s really hard to do. (0:35:39) Jonnie: See these characters? These characters are super cute though, so it could happen. (0:35:43) Al: Sure. But then it’s just the same thing, it’s just they’re all cute, which doesn’t really work. (0:35:50) Jonnie: I’m going to point you to like every Ooblets episode because that’s all those those little doofuses have going on and you guys Love that stupid game (0:35:56) Al: Well, sure. (0:35:58) Jonnie: Also at one point one of these characters smashes a rock by just bashing his head into it if that’s not amazing (0:36:05) Al: I will say that the Ooblets are not the thing you play Ooblets for. (0:36:08) Al: There’s a lava lamp as well. (0:36:09) Al: Toadstool table. (0:36:12) Jonnie: Honestly, this trailer’s ridiculous. It’s, what, 30 seconds? I’ve probably watched it 20 times now, (0:36:16) Jonnie: and every time I feel like I see something new that makes me more excited to play this game. (0:36:20) Al: going to make me play this game aren’t you? Oh he does just smash his head into it, that’s adorable. (0:36:22) Jonnie: I don’t have to make you at this point. It’s just gonna happen. (0:36:32) Al: Now the question is do I do I sign up to Apple Arcade just now and play the Sonic game until then? Or do I wait and just play this? Tamagotchi Island Adventure, sorry, Adventure Kingdom. (0:36:40) Jonnie: Don’t play the Sonic game, Al. Don’t do that to yourself. (0:36:43) Jonnie: Why do Sonic fans insist on hurting themselves? (0:36:51) Al: I don’t get better names. (0:36:54) Jonnie: No, it’s all just word salad, don’t they just like, I think they do it Madlib style. (0:36:57) Al: I mean it really does feel like you’ve got adventure in there and you’ve got the name of your (0:37:03) Al: franchise and then another random one. Why am I surprised there was a castle? It’s called Adventure Kingdom. It’s like being surprised that Hello Kitty Island Adventure has the sea. (0:37:13) Jonnie: I think because we’re so used to just glossing over the terrible names that we have to deal with in Cottagecore games that it’s just, we don’t assume that they’re not, they don’t need to. (0:37:22) Al: It’s just words. I think this is the first time I’ve parsed the words and what they actually mean. (0:37:28) Al: All right, we’re going to talk about Lego Fortnite. The good thing about doing this episode is it means that I don’t have to think about it again after today. (0:37:35) Jonnie: You and me both. (0:37:36) Al: OK, so Lego Fortnite. We talked about this a little bit in last week’s episode and next week’s episode. Just to confuse you. Spoilers. (0:37:49) Al: But for some reason, LEGO added in a- (0:37:52) Al: No, Fortnite added in a LEGO version of their game into their game, except that it’s not a version of the game. (0:38:00) Al: It’s LEGO Minecraft. It’s Minecraft if LEGO did it. And for some reason, inside Fortnite. (0:38:04) Jonnie: In Fortnite. (0:38:06) Jonnie: Well, I mean, to hit on some reason for just a little bit. (0:38:10) Jonnie: This is about Fortnite becoming a platform and not just a game anymore, right? (0:38:10) Al: Oh, there you go then. (0:38:15) Jonnie: Because they released LEGO Fortnite, some racing game and some rhythm game all at the same time. (0:38:21) Jonnie: That are all in Fortnite, but they’re not Fortnite, so. (0:38:24) Al: Yeah, but why? Why are they not separate games? (0:38:28) Jonnie: Because Fortnite, my assumption is that Fortnite has become such a compelling brand that. (0:38:34) Jonnie: They believe that they can, people will play it if it’s in, or more likely to play it if it is in Fortnite. (0:38:41) Jonnie: So this is kind of proving that you could sell other games in Fortnite. (0:38:46) Jonnie: So you might have, can you imagine? You have like, what’s the original thing that Fortnite was? (0:38:50) Jonnie: Like Fortnite saved the world or whatever? (0:38:52) Jonnie: Imagine if that comes back as a new game in Fortnite that people pay money for. (0:38:57) Jonnie: That’s the future we could see. (0:38:57) Al: But you’re not paying for them either, it’s free. (0:39:02) Jonnie: Well, these are free right but this is this is proving like this proves out the case of whether you want people to buy stuff or it just provides more versions of cosmetics for people to buy in Fortnite. Like it just expands the the number of hours that people would play in a Fortnite owned thing. (0:39:19) Al: But I- (0:39:25) Al: So, okay, sure, but they didn’t need to be the same game to do that. This is what I’m confused- (0:39:30) Jonnie: To me, I think it’s the difference between like, you don’t have to go and actively download a different thing, like, you’re thinking about this, like an adult that’s grew up, grown up on Steam, and, you know, you know, storefronts and used to going and buying games everywhere else, if all you’ve done is play a lot of Fortnite, and then in your Fortnite client, they say, download this new game, LEGO Fortnite, that’s the, that’s the thing, like, that’s your storefront is Fortnite. (0:39:58) Al: This is because of Roblox, isn’t it? Because Roblox is exactly this. It is not necessarily, (0:40:04) Al: well, it’s not exactly this, it’s different because you can add user-generated games to it. (0:40:10) Al: But I feel like this is in response to Roblox because Fortnite was a game, Roblox was a platform, (0:40:17) Al: and now Fortnite is also a platform. Just because it’s not user-generated stuff doesn’t mean it’s not the same thing. (0:40:24) Jonnie: - Yeah, I agree. (0:40:25) Jonnie: And I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re trying to hit down the path of getting user generated stuff in there as well. (0:40:33) Al: Oh, Jai’s. All right, cool. So we’ve gone over the for some reason. Do you want to start? (0:40:41) Al: You’ve been playing it? (0:40:42) Jonnie: Yeah, like I guess I’ll start with I’m not a big survival game person in general, so (0:40:50) Jonnie: Like I wasn’t expecting for me to love it and I found the survival aspects quite difficult I died quite a bit more than I have in like Minecraft or (0:41:02) Jonnie: Or other games like I guess I was expecting this one to be a little bit easier And there’s lots of there’s lots of options right so you could turn stuff off and I think I end up turning off like needing to… (0:41:12) Jonnie: needing to eat food but turning off like the monsters kind of felt like a step too far but I kind of wish I had done that [laughs] (0:41:22) Jonnie: and it is just one of these sort of survival crafting games at its core there’s not too much that it’s doing that’s different I guess other than the building and I think the building is quite good because it uses the… (0:41:42) Jonnie: …they go block mechanic and you can… (0:41:44) Jonnie: …but it starts you off not with having to build everything brick by brick. (0:41:48) Jonnie: You start with some templates. (0:41:50) Jonnie: And so you can build like an actual shed a lot easier than just… (0:41:54) Jonnie: …having to collect the bricks and building your first house in Minecraft. (0:41:58) Jonnie: Which typically takes… (0:42:00) Jonnie: …not that it’s hard to do, but it takes a little bit longer maybe to work out and put everything. (0:42:04) Al: Yeah, I think so. A LEGO Minecraft clone, if you will, makes perfect sense, right? (0:42:12) Al: I think we can probably agree on that. (0:42:15) Al: I used I played Minecraft so much when I was younger. (0:42:21) Al: Like during my like, it’s I mean, it’s wild how how long Minecraft’s been going (0:42:26) Al: for and the fact that it’s still going, I I remember picking it up when I was in (0:42:31) Al: And I would literally play like. (0:42:34) Al: Like through the night, every night, sitting up, playing this stupid game that I loved so much. (0:42:42) Al: I don’t play anymore because obviously I, you know, I’m an adult. (0:42:45) Al: I have a life now. (0:42:47) Al: I can’t just spend all night doing it, but I, I get why they’re doing that. (0:42:55) Al: I get why Lego are doing this. (0:42:58) Al: We can ignore the Fortnite aspect of it because they certainly ignored the Fortnite aspect of it. (0:43:05) Al: I didn’t have a huge amount of fun playing this game. (0:43:07) Al: And I think I don’t know whether that’s because the, the game doesn’t jive with me in some way that Minecraft did or whether, and this is the problem with this kind of game, whether I just don’t have the time and the life for it anymore. (0:43:21) Al: Would I have enjoyed this game more if it had come out when I was a new name rather (0:43:26) Jonnie: I’m going to take a guess and say, I don’t think so. (0:43:30) Jonnie: For me, equally, I was never a big Minecraft person. (0:43:34) Jonnie: But when I have tried Minecraft in the past, I get it. (0:43:39) Jonnie: I see the magic that is in Minecraft. (0:43:43) Jonnie: The first time, you punch a bit of the ground, (0:43:45) Jonnie: and it appears in your inventory. (0:43:47) Jonnie: And then you’re like, what? (0:43:48) Jonnie: And you can kind of just put it down anywhere. (0:43:51) Jonnie: There’s some magic in that. (0:43:53) Jonnie: And that’s what this game misses. (0:43:56) Jonnie: From what I’ve seen, you can build some really impressive stuff, but in the time that I spent with the game, that felt so unachievable and so far away. (0:44:08) Jonnie: Whereas in Minecraft, it’s just you get started, right? And that’s what’s missing. (0:44:08) Al: Yeah. That’s a good point, because the world in Minecraft is made of the things that you build with, whereas this is the world isn’t all, it’s not the same thing, right? Like if you actually had, if it was like Lego, where everything was like visibly made of Lego, (0:44:30) Al: because obviously it is made of Lego, right? But it’s not visibly made of Lego, if that makes sense right like you can’t go or there’s that block like you look at (0:44:38) Al: in Minecraft you go oh I can see that’s a wood block that’s a wood block that’s a wood block that’s a leaves block that’s a leaves block that’s leaves block and then you can look at everything else everything else in the game other than like animals which you can’t make anyway because that wouldn’t make any sense everything else is visibly made of blocks and so you can visibly see what it is and recreate it or build your own things and it’s that visual aspect of things I think that that it’s missing, right? Like you can build things, but it turns into. (0:45:08) Al: It’s not the exact same as if you were literally making this in real life, right? (0:45:14) Jonnie: I think that is exactly it, right? You are going and you are collecting wood or chopping trees and then you’re using the wood to make Lego blocks, to make wooden Lego blocks. (0:45:14) Al: You could make Minecraft blocks in real life and you could build them exactly like you do in the game. (0:45:32) Jonnie: You’re not chopping down, you know, you’re not taking the wooden block that is used to make the Lego tree and repurposing it. (0:45:42) Jonnie: And I think that’s the. (0:45:44) Jonnie: Disconnect that that stops me from from this game being what I think I wanted it to be based on (0:45:50) Jonnie: My initial perception and I get why they’ve done what they’ve done, right? (0:45:53) Jonnie: It’s I think I think the game that we’re talking about is substantially more difficult to make (0:45:59) Al: Yes. (0:46:00) Jonnie: But it is also undeniably way more Lego (0:46:03) Al: Yeah, I guess that’s like it’s interesting that we’re still at the point where Minecraft has made a better LEGO game than LEGO has. (0:46:12) Jonnie: Yep. (0:46:13) Al: You know, some random guy in Sweden made a better LEGO game than the corporation that owns LEGO. (0:46:19) Al: OK, so aesthetics wise, although like that fundamental point aside, it s

On todays show we are back and it has been a while.  We talk The Game of the Year Awards, who won, who lost, and what was the best and worst parts of this years show.  Then we dive into a tease about a favorite game of Mazurs.  From there we announce OUR game of the year!  Finally we talk about some of the great games we are playing including Steamworld Build!  All of that and a ton more on VGP!

This week, the gang talk The Boy and the Heron, The Finals, Steamworld Build and The Game Awards 2023 Announcements!

Episode 94 of Saves Together is here and you can tune in RIGHT NOW to hear all about our experience playing co-op through Super Mario Bros. Wonder. If you don't feel like listening that's fine (it's not fine) but this quote from Talking Flower pretty much sums everything we say up: "Whoawa-whoa!" Other topics include: Knuckle Sandwich, SteamWorld Build, My Time at Sandrock, Little Goody Two Shoes, Jusant, Alan Wake II, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince, Phantom Dust and more.

A E3. Sem muito barulho, a ESA decretou o fim oficial da feira que, durante muito tempo, era a mais importante quando o assunto são videogames. A gente fala do fim desse evento junto de um catadão de jogos para celular que chamaram a atenção do Teixeira em tempos recentes.Participantes:Caio TeixeiraHeitor De PaolaAssuntos abordados:01:00 - Confeitaria08:00 - Adeus, E342:00 - Catadão de jogos de celular do TeixeiraMighty DoomOtherworld LegendsGunbound RGolf RivalsFlick SolitaireKiller SudokuRonin the Last Samurai1:07:00 - The Last Faith1:22:00 - Um cadinho de SteamWorld Build e Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's time for the Game of the Year draft 2023. This is gonna be rough.   Games discussed: SteamWorld: Build, The Finals, Dave the Diver, The Man Who Erased His Name   Contact tcgs.co Contact form Discord Twitter Instagram Facebook Follow @davidturners @CaptainToss @matmurray @jcafarley Watch Twitch YouTube Listen Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Pocket Casts Overcast acast Stitcher Credits Music by Nick Parton Art by Dave Chong

Jeff and Christian welcome Gita Jackson from Aftermath back to the show this week to discuss the GTA 6 trailer, and Game Awards, and their favorites of the huge number of games shown during the 3 hour ceremony. The Playlist: Alan Wake 2, SteamWorld Build, Fashion Dreamer, Sonic Dream Team, LEGO Fortnite, Rocket Racing, Fortnite Festival, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora VR Talk: Resident Evil 4 VR on PS5 Parting Gifts!

Hello nomads and welcome to our monthly catch-up episode for November of 2023. Pull up a seat, grab a drink, gather around the warm glow of your phone and listen to Brandon, Eric and Dave talk about all of the video games, tv shows, and movies that they have been checking out this month. We hope you enjoy and as always, safe travels Nomads!Here is the full list of the things we talked about this month: SteamWorld BuildAncestors: The Humankind OdysseyThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of TimeLegend of Zelda: Breath of the wildLego City UndercoverPeacemakerGen VThe QuarryHogwarts LegacyDune: Spice WarsMortal Kombat 1NFL PRO ERA (VR)Overland (Mobile)Indiana Jones: Dial of Destiny

Steve and a sickly Graham meet up for talking time about Steamworld Build, how to podcast when you're sick, The Game Awards, the games the boys want to catch up on for GOTY, and some of the new releases of early 2024! And also how bad Disturbed are... Show Segments: 00:00 - Intro 3:03 - Graham's Games 20:23 - Steve's Games 31:12 - Beginning of the End 31:31 - The Video Games Awards 50:08 - Games Trying to Play for 2023 GotY Games Mentioned: The Talos Principle II SteamWorld Build Sea of Stars Remnant II Super Mario Bros. Wonder Gunbrella Episode's YouTube Video: This episode on YouTube SIPTG YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/shouldiplaythisgamequestionmark Music by Kevin MacLeod: https://incompetech.com/music

Brandon and Jacob convene to talk about the games they've been playing and review some gaming news from the past few weeks including the long anticipated GTA6 reveal! (00:00:00-00:02:20) Intro (00:02:21-00:06:13) Listener Feedback! (00:06:14-00:20:18) Super Mario RPG Remake (00:20:19-00:31:42) Persona 5 Tactica (00:31:43-00:47:04) Half-Life 1 25th Anniversary & Black Mesa (00:47:05-00:52:28) Steamworld Build (00:52:29-01:07:05) Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (01:07:06-01:19:42) WoW Classic Season of Discovery (01:19:43-01:38:05) Lethal Company (01:38:06-01:57:48) News & GTA6 Trailer (01:57:49-01:58:37) Outro Check out our other stuff here!!! https://www.youtube.com/@LiLJollyGamerShow/videos https://www.tiktok.com/@liljollygamershow Merch: https://liljollygamershow.myspreadshop.com/ Write to us! liljollygamershow@gmail.com

Ostatni odcinek w tym roku. Szanujcie go, bo na kolejny trochę przyjdzie Wam poczekać. Co w środku? Qbar stoi na straży newsów i The Game Awards, Tartaq stoi na straży zasad pisania maili, a Mike znowu grał w Starfielda. Taki miesiąc, zawsze mogło być gorzej. W co graliśmy Starfield SteamWorld Build Gangs of Sherwood Kingpin: Reloaded Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Forumogadka to podcast poświęcony szeroko pojętej elektronicznej rozrywce w ujęciu odrobinę mniej poważnym i zdecydowanie mniej profesjonalnym. Od graczy dla graczy. Regularnie, bo co dwa tygodnie, w każdą sobotę późnym popołudniem możesz posłuchać nowego odcinka poświęconego nowinkom branżowym, recenzjom gier i wszystkim innym tematom, o które potkniemy się w naszych rozmowach. Więcej Forumogadki na: Stronie WWW: https://forumogadka.pl iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/pl/podcast/forumogadka/id328575115?mt=2 YouTube: https://youtube.com/Forumogadka Facebooku: https://facebook.com/Forumogadka Twitterze: https://twitter.com/forumogadka Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0WJl8GgTBW4PxavSzykiOz?si=_s2hSy9vQ6W6lBhC8nsc8A Discord: https://discord.gg/tmxNSf8BYS RSS: https://forumogadka.pl/rss Pytania, uwagi i groźby należy kierować pod adres: kontakt@forumogadka.pl Sat, 09 Dec 2023 20:34:05 GMT Starfield, Ste

Grand Theft Auto VI, like many of the residents depicted within it, has a trailer, and we've got thoughts. Expressing our thoughts into live microphones is the route we've chosen to go down this week, and we hope you'll join us for it as we also talk about Knuckle Sandwich, Steamworld Build, The Exit 8, Lethal Company and a bunch more of the latest from the world of video games (Earth).Tickets for our upcoming April live shows are now on sale here: https://www.trybooking.com/CNODM

Thank you to Better Help for sponsoring this episode. Go to http://betterhelp.com/KitAndKrysta for 10% off your first month Thank you to Hello Fresh for sponsoring this episode. Go to http://hellofresh.com/KitKrystaFree for FREE breakfast for life *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Hi and welcome to episode 95 of the Kit & Krysta Podcast! This week we're checking in on the 2023 predictions we made WAY back at the beginning of this year. Were we right? Where we wrong? Does this episode completely discredit us? Watch and find out. Also in this episode, we share our reaction to WaPeach and answer a juicy question about times we were thrown under the bus at Nintendo. In games we are playing, we talk about some new games we've been checking out like SteamWorld Build. We wrap it all up with questions from our wonderful Patreon subscribers. All of this is coming right up! 0:00 - Welcome! 10:07 - Checking in on our 2023 predictions 54:19 - Games we are playing (SteamWorld Build, Super Mario RPG, Star Wars Jedi Survivor) 1:14:08 - News news news 1:31:28 - Questions from our Patreon subscribers Thank you Patreon Superstars tier - Aaron Hash, Ben Eichhorn, MaruMayhem, Eigenverse, KissMyFlapjack, Mike Chin, Roy Eschke, Switchingitup_, Sephazon, vgmlife, Link The Hero of Winds, Angela Bycroft, Thomas O'Rourke, Kyle LeBoeuf, Roberto Nieves, Fredrik Ulf Konradsson, Andrew Youhas, Chilly, Brustache, RainTech Follow Us! https://www.patreon.com/kitandkrysta https://twitter.com/kitandkrysta https://www.tiktok.com/@kitandkrysta https://www.instagram.com/kitandkrysta/ http://www.facebook.com/kitandkrysta/ -Kit & Krysta

We've seen the GTA VI trailer and it looks great, but do we really have to wait until 2025 to play it? What We're Playing Cliff: Starfield, Cocoon, Meniko's Night Market, Steamworld Build, From Space Colby: Biomutant, Soma Dylan: Planet Zoo, Steamworld Build, Tropico 6 News GTA6 Has Its First Trailer But It's Probably Not Coming to PC at Launch Bethesda Is Giving Paid Content Another Shot I'd Love to See This Venn Diagram Apparently People Think Achievements Need Work? These Controllers Are Weird and Too Expensive Hey, Don't Forget, Netflix Has Games! Questions Rdeacon: Cliff gets a call... we want to sponsor the podcast!!! What is your dream sponsor... and which one is your nightmare? Primefan13: Thoughts on the two new upcoming Godzilla movies? *monotone screaming* With the game awards in 2 days, what do you think will be game of the year? Also, general thoughts on the other categories? Tr1pletrouble88: What do you think your Spotify Wrapped would look like for your games this year? Top games, genres, developers even? Cheap/Free Games Epic Games: Predecessor GigaBash Xbox Game Pass: Remnant: From the Ashes (Cloud, Console, and PC) Remnant II (Cloud, PC, Xbox Series X|S) Spirit of the North (Cloud, Console, and PC) – December 1 SteamWorld Build (Cloud, Console, and PC) – December 1 Clone Drone in the Danger Zone (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – December 5 Rise of the Tomb Raider (Cloud, Console, and PC) – December 5 While the Iron's Hot (Cloud, Console, and PC) – December 5 World War Z: Aftermath (Cloud, Console, and PC) – December 5 Goat Simulator 3 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – December 7 Against the Storm (PC) – December 8 Tin Hearts (Cloud, Console, and PC) – December 12 Far Cry 6 (Cloud, Console, and PC) – December 14 Coming to Game Pass Core on December 6 Chivalry 2 – December 6 Totally Reliable Delivery Service – December DLC / Game Updates Teamfight Tactics: Remix Rumble – Available Now Fallout 76: Atlantic City – Boardwalk Paradise – December 5 PlayStation Plus Lego 2K Drive (PS5, PS4) Powerwash Simulator (PS5, PS4) Sable (PS5) Humble Bundle Uplifting Adventures Wholesome Games Bundle Fight T1D with JRPGs Prime Gaming December 7th- Deathloop (via Epic Games Store) December 14th- Aground (via Amazon Games app) December 14th- SeaOrama: World of Shipping (via Amazon Games app) December 21st- Kombinera (via Epic Games Store) December 28th- A Tiny Sticker Tale (via Amazon Games app) December 28th- Asteroids: Recharged (via Epic Games Store) Patreon Alan Schulte Joe Cole Jr. Anonymous Rich Deacon Extra Life Donate to Extra Life --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/byte-me-podcast/message

Ah, now I know the immediate reaction is to shy away from the Death tarot, but if you look closely you will s-- wait... no... that's impossible... this is no ordinary Death... Landgraab can not die he-- he is eternal... Oh, my friend I am so sorry... your future... is in real estate.Discussed: Steamworld Build, Malcolm Landgraab, The Comic Wheel Sisterhood, The Sims Multiverse, Goodboy Galaxy, Octopath Traveler 2, Chained Echoes, Baldur's Gate 3, The Game Awards---Music credits:The Sims Bustin' Out! - General Store ThemeThe Sims Bustin' Out! - Create-a-Sim---Find us everywhere: https://intothecast.onlineJoin the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intothecast---Follow on Threads: https://threads.net/@intothecastFollow on Tumblr: https://intothecast.tumblr.com---Follow Stephen Hilger: https://stephenhilgerart.com/Follow Brendon Bigley: https://threads.net/@brendonbigleyProduced by AJ Fillari: https://bsky.app/profile/ajfillari.bsky.social---Season 6 Cover Art by Scout Wilkinson: https://scoutwilkinson.myportfolio.com/Theme song by Will LaPorte: https://instagram.com/ghostdownphoto---Timecodes: (00:00) - Intro (00:23) - YOU are our artist of the year, listener (02:26) - Our "How to Tie a Tie" video of the year (03:07) - Thank you though for real we love you (03:18) - Enough gratitude time for GAMING // Steamworld BUILD (28:35) - This is the General Store theme from The Sim's Bustin' Out on the Gameboy Advance (29:05) - Malcom Landgrab's Big Day (31:45) - This is the Create-a-Sim theme for The Sim's Bustin' Out on the Gameboy Advance (32:00) - Bigley Roulette // The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood (50:11) - The Sims Multiverse (54:20) - The sorbet as the main course // Goodboy Galaxy (01:16:28) - We continue Bustin' Out (01:16:59) - Updates on Into the Aether? No way // Octopath Traveller II (01:41:36) - A pivot! // Chained Echoes (01:57:14) - Act 3 part 2 // Baldur's Gate III (02:10:29) - Game of the Year and The Game Awards (02:21:24) - Wrapping up ---Thanks to all of our amazing patrons including our Eternal Gratitude members: Grok Corey Z Directional Joy Susan H Olivia K Dan S Isaac S Will C Jim W Evan B David H min2 Aaron G V Erik M Redmage77 Joshua J Tony L Danny K Seth M Adam B Justin K Andy H Demo Parker E Maxwell L Spiritofthunder Jason W Jason T Corey T Minnow Eats Whale Caleb W fingerbelly Jesse W Mike T Codes Wesley Erik B mebezac Sergio L ninjadeathdog Rory B A42PoundMoose Andrew Justin M Peter Stellar.Bees Brendan K Scott R wreckx Noah O Michael G Arcturus Chris R hepahe Cory F Chase A LoveDies Nick Q Wes K Chris M RB Michaela W Adam F Scott H Alexander SP Therese K jgprinters Jessica B Murray David P Jason K Bede R Kamrin H Kyle S Philip N ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Brad shares his progress in chipping away at his gaming backlog, providing reviews of Steamworld Build, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, and Unpacking. The hosts then dive into their impressions of the Grand Theft Auto VI teaser and share their experiences with the iconic Grand Theft Auto franchise.In a thought-provoking segment, the podcast explores the news about Sony removing purchased Discovery TV shows from the PlayStation Store and the broader implications of digital ownership. The hosts also engage in a debate about the ethical stances on "acceptable" video game piracy, reflecting on how their opinions have evolved over the years.The discussion includes insights into Xbox's significant investment, with the revelation that Xbox spends over a billion dollars a year on Xbox Game Pass. Additionally, the hosts cover EA's confirmation of layoffs at F1 developer Codemasters, providing context on the challenges faced by gaming industry developers.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5941715/advertisement

Jocelyn has returned! To welcome her back to the show, Ryan shares his latest adventure in the SteamWorld franchise with SteamWorld Build. Jocelyn on the other hand has been enjoying portable gaming with little Olivia, with both Hearthstone and Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Moving into the news, we have our first trailer for the Fallout Amazon Prime series, Phil Spencer says no to Game Pass on Nintendo and PlayStation platforms, and GTA VI receives it's first official trailer.

This week: GTA trailer thoughts (we recorded this before the leak and subsequent early release of the trailer), Xbox spending over a billion dollars a year on Game Pass, Banjo-Kazooie fans are heard, new Sony patents, and that new Sonic game didn't do as well as Sega had hoped. Also: Honourable GOTY mentions, James handling three guests on his own, gaming-related gifts, Could Call of Duty benefit from becoming more like Destiny, and more! Games discussed: Red Dead Redemption 2, Judgment, The Man Who Erased His Name, Super Mario RPG, SteamWorld: Build. Contact tcgs.co Contact form Discord Twitter Instagram Facebook Follow @davidturners @CaptainToss @matmurray @jcafarley Watch Twitch YouTube Listen Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Pocket Casts Overcast acast Stitcher Credits Music by Nick Parton Art by Dave Chong

Aaaaah, vous sentez cet air? Les températures baissent, on se cale sous le plaid avec un bon chocolat chaud, l'ambiance festive s'installe, les décorations commencent à apparaitre et le rire du père Keighley retentis: pas de doute, la saison des trailers de jeux vidéo est là! En attendant le trailer de GTA 6, et bien sûr les Game Awards, Ben & Aza font le point sur l'actu, vous racontent leurs aventures sur Jusant, sur Steamworld Build et sur Under The Waves, bien au chaud au coin du feu. Rejoignez-nous! La Belle et le Gamer existe grâce au soutien de ses formidables fans via Patreon, et pour les rejoindre, ça se passe par ici. Pour rejoindre la communauté de La Belle et le Gamer et nous soutenir, tous les liens utiles se trouvent à l'adresse suivante, y compris l'invitation pour rejoindre notre serveur Discord, et notre chaîne Twitch: https://linktr.ee/LBELG.     

This week we're just two guys digging in to Steamworld Build, and some other stuff as well — but mostly Steamworld Build. We also debate the definition of indie games and studios with the viewpoint of someone working at a studio that was independent but is now owned by a major publisher, plus plenty more! This weeks music:  Allie X - Girl With No Face

It's almost December, so it's time to take stock of the games we're currently catching up on, as well as the ones on our backlogs (with a break to talk about Steamworld Build), plus news of the day like details on Rockstar's long cancelled Agent, Game Awards announcement predictions, Unity's closure of Weta Digital, and some other stuff! Advertise on The Nextlander Podcast at Audioboom, or support us on Patreon! CHAPTERS (00:00:00) NOTE: Some timecodes may be inaccurate for versions other than the ad-free Patreon version due to dynamic ad insertions. Please use caution if skipping around to avoid spoilers. Thanks for listening. (00:00:10) Intro (00:01:03) Huuuu-rah, ooo-rah, hooo-ah? (00:04:18) Are you someone's Hunt: Showdown friend? (00:07:48) The video games (00:08:07) SteamWorld Build [Nintendo Switch, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S] on Dec 01, 2023 (00:25:51) Break (00:30:58) Baldur's Gate 3 [PC (Microsoft Windows)] on Aug 03, 2023 (00:45:38) Alan Wake II [PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S] on Oct 27, 2023 (00:46:17) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom [Nintendo Switch] on May 12, 2023 (00:47:33) Final Fantasy XVI [PlayStation 5] on Jun 22, 2023 (00:50:06) The lists of games we're working through this year (01:10:18) News (01:10:26) Xbox teases announcements during Game Awards (01:29:37) Unity laying off Weta Digital teams (01:32:59) Embracer seems ready to shutter TimeSplitters (01:41:48) Details emerge about Rockstar's canceled game Agent (01:51:06) Beyond Good and Evil is getting a 20th anniversary edition (02:00:55) Emails (02:08:16) Nextlander content updates (02:11:28) Mysterious Benefactor Shoutouts (02:12:51) Wrapping up and thanks (02:14:58) See Ya!

Marc starts things off this week talking about deal getting, (store) relationships ending, and website messings, before getting to what they've been playing with SteamWorld Build, Gangs of Sherwood, Cats and the Other Lives, Train Valley 2 - Community Edition, Stray Souls, and Forest Grove. Anyway and as always, thank you for watching or listening, I hope you enjoy this here episode, and I hope you have a wonderful wonderful rest of your day. (And if you haven't already, or are a listener and not a watcher, please like, subscribe, hit the bell, and all that jazz; it may not seem like much, but it goes a long way in helping support the show and site in general. I would appreciate it greatly.)

Randy heads back to the space mines to do a little civic planning in SteamWorld Build. Meanwhile, D.J. flees from the cops and that classic EA racing dialogue in Need for Speed: Unbound. Also: Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. Episode Timeline (0:00) - Intro/Doing the big work (9:09) - Black Friday (13:11) - Need for Speed: Unbound (37:22) - SteamWorld Build (1:01:38 - Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince (1:12:56) - Outro

Episode 304 - Warhammer 40K: Space Marines 2 DelayedIn this Episode of PS THIS IS AWESOME, hosts Fred Oakman and Jake Peters kick off with their gaming experiences, featuring Fred's adventures in Spider-Man 2 and Jake's in Alan Wake 2. We delve into noteworthy news, including the physical release of "Pacific Drive,", and the intriguing decision by Sony to track PS Portal as a "console." Former Rockstar Games technical director, Obbe Vermeij, faces controversy over his blog discussing old Rockstar titles. Bonnie Jean Mah, former Gears of War Narrative Director, joins Sony Santa Monica Studios. However, the unfortunate delay of Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2 takes center stage, as it is now slated for the second half of 2024.In new game releases, titles like Steamworld Build, Calico, Roots of Pacha, and Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All 2 are discussed, offering listeners a glimpse into the upcoming gaming landscape.We close the episode with the latest on industry moves, as the director of Returnal, Harry Krueger, departs from Housemarque. Stay tuned for more updates in the dynamic world of PlayStation gaming.But that's not all – by joining our Patreon community for ONLY $1.00 per month, you'll also enjoy these exclusive benefits:Early Access: Be the first to listen to our episodes as soon as they're ready. Get ahead of the game and dive into the latest news, reviews, and discussions.Personalized Shoutout: As a token of our gratitude for your support, we'll give you a special shoutout during one of our podcast episodes, acknowledging your contribution and dedication to our show.Custom Die-Cut Vinyl Sticker: Receive an exclusive custom die-cut vinyl sticker featuring our podcast's unique design. Showcase your support with this limited-edition collectible.Your support goes a long way in helping us continue to create the content you love. It's a simple and direct way to show your appreciation for our podcast.To become a patron and unlock these exciting benefits, visit www.patreon.com/psthisisawesome today. Your support keeps us going and ensures that we can keep delivering top-notch PlayStation content.Please, if you enjoyed the content or even if you didn't quite enjoy this one, we encourage you to come back. We try to offer something for everybody. Please share with your friends and help us spread the show as we try to build a bigger community here! As always you can support our show at our Patreon Page. Thanks for listening.http://www.patreon.com/psthisisawesome 0:00 - INTRO10:48 - GAMES WE'RE PLAYING26:01 - LISTENER FEEDBACK29:30 - PACIFIC DRIVE 34:13 - A LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAINS AT ROCKSTAR GAMES42:40 - PLAYSTATION PORTAL IS IT A CONSOLE? 49:30 - UPDATE AT SONY SANTA MONICA STUDIOS51:41 - WARHAMMER 40K: SPACE MARINES 2 DELAYED1:05:50 - TEAM ASOBO WORKING ON A NEW GAME1:07:35 - RETURNAL DIRECTOR LEAVING HOUSEMARQUE1:15:50 - CLOSING Support PS This is Awesome! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A quick, casual city builder above, a dungeon-building miner below. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The SteamWorld Series of games are well known for being exceptionally good - so good, in fact, that one of them is in my top 5 games of all time. So, with the newest entry about to come out, how well does the developer do as they try and tackle the “City-Builder” genre? Listen to find out in this mini-review of the game! You can purchase the game on all major platforms (including Game Pass!). Check it out here: https://steamworldgames.com/ If you have indie recommendations, or just want to reach out, feel free to contact us at LevelWithUsPodcast [at] gmail [dot] com!

It's episode 2 of Indieventure! This week the gang chat about their most-anticipated indies set to release at the end of 2023 and - thanks to October's Steam Next Fest - some upcoming 2024 picks too. This episode features Underground Blossom, Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue, Little Goody Two Shoes, SteamWorld Build, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, 1000xResist, and Another Crab's Treasure. Hyperfixations:  The Odyssey by Lara Williams, Castlevania: Nocturne, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Alice in Borderland.  Music is Cigarette Boat by Marc Torch.

For the first time in PnA history, we are live and in person to record this episode! Join us to hear about the games we are interested in for the rest of 2023. Assassin's Creed: Mirage 10/5 Forza Motorsport 10/10 Sonic Superstars 10/17 Endless Dungeon 10/19 Spider-Man 2 10/20 Super Mario Wonder 10/20 Cities: Skylines 2 10/24 on PC CoD: MWIII 11/10 Super Mario RPG Remake 11/17 Bluey: The Videogame 11/17 Steamworld Build 12/1 Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora 12/7

This week, Jake and Sam invent a new gaming term. “Indie torchbearers” are indie games that carry the torch of beloved older titles. In honor of the upcoming releases of Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (inspired by Jet Set Radio) and Sea of Stars (inspired by Chrono Trigger), the brothers discuss these passion projects, their favorite examples (Shovel Knight, Stardew Valley, and more), why many torchbearers seek crowdfunding, and their dream indie spiritual successor. Timecodes: 00:00:00 - Intro/Housekeeping (Metroid Prime Remastered, Sleep Schedules) | 00:05:21 - News Story #1: $50 Red Dead Redemption Port Coming to Switch and PS4 | 00:12:32 - News Story #2: Baldur's Gate 3 Is a Critical and Commercial Hit | 00:26:36 - News Story #3: Take-Two Hints at GTA 6 Launch During Next Fiscal Year | 00:35:10 - Main Topic: The Thriving Trend of Indie Torchbearers | 1:13:52 - Rotating Segment: Ken Burns Presents (PS2 Licensed Games – Neopets: The Darkest Faerie and Taz: Wanted) | 1:20:56 - Draft Day Starring Kevin Costner (The Plucky Squire, SteamWorld Build) | 1:22:57 - Game, Watch, Listen (VIDEO GAMES: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, MOVIES: Oppenheimer, Talk to Me, Theater Camp, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Knock at the Cabin, Infinity Pool, TV: The Righteous Gemstones, The Bear) | Shoutout to Mizuki Kuroiwa for the incredible podcast artwork and to Thomniverse Remix for the music. Send any questions, comments, or concerns to thesupermosherbrothersshow@gmail.com and follow us @SuperMosherBros on Twitter. Thanks for listening!

Did Brad choose 2023 to get into Subnautica VR? Yes. Did we check out that new SteamWorld Build demo? Yes. Do we have early-ish thoughts on Forspoken? Yes. Did we know what Hi-Fi Rush was when we recorded this? ...No. Can't win 'em all! Advertise on The Nextlander Podcast at Gumball.fm, or support us on Patreon! CHAPTERS (00:00:00) NOTE: Some timecodes may be inaccurate in versions other than the ad-free Patreon version due to dynamic ad insertions. Please use caution if skipping around to avoid spoilers.(00:00:10) Intro(00:01:16) Shove your Access Points down your Pi-Hole(00:05:58) Show Rundown(00:06:12) Forspoken [PlayStation 5, PC (Microsoft Windows)] on Jan 24, 2023(00:29:02) First Break(00:29:09) SteamWorld Build [PC (Microsoft Windows), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S] in 2023(00:38:34) Subnautica VR [Mac, PC (Microsoft Windows), Oculus Rift, SteamVR] on Jan 23, 2018(00:48:37) Signalis [PC (Microsoft Windows), Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S] on Oct 27, 2022(00:50:34) Vampire Survivors [Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One] on Nov 10, 2022(00:53:34) Second Break(00:54:28) Microsoft, 343, and the future of Halo(01:02:22) More games added to PlayStation VR2's launch window(01:12:14) Justin Roiland resigns from Squanch Games(01:18:57) Xbox adds new features to manage energy consumption(01:27:10) Breaking news update. It's happening(01:28:30) Wrapping up and thanks(01:31:12) Mysterious Benefactor Tier Shoutouts(01:33:17) See ya!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.