Thank you for pressing start on episode 83 of Underplayed, Kzum's indie video game podcasts.

Today we have two secret games, followed by a review of our featured game Moonlighter.

Here on Underplayed, we review indie games of all kinds, the games with small budgets but big hearts, the lesser known experiences with imaginative ideas.

I'm Bo PO, and I'm joined by another.

He got the platinum in going under.

It's one of his numerous claims to fame.

He's the obto your IB in a cooperative game.

He runs like a pony.

He loves pepperoni.

It's the one and only Disco Cola.

What's going on?

You know, Bo PO, I'm not as tired as I should be, but apparently I don't need to sleep to get by.

How are you?

You actually do better when you don't sleep.

I'm doing just fine.

My carnivorous MU tie.

Those are references to our featured game Moonlighter.

I thought of this joke seconds before hitting record, but I just wanted to say Moonlighter.

Hardly know her, for what it's worth.

AO got him.

Since this is our jokey part at the top, yeah, Moonlighter is a game that I think recently celebrated its 7th birthday, and it's got a sequel coming out this year.

I think it's coming out in Early Access first, which is interesting, and I'm looking forward to talking about this game that seems like it's one of the earlier featured games of the season, one that a lot of people have played and one that I've heard about for years and I've never played it before the last few weeks.

Yeah, I remember, I don't know if it was right when it came out or shortly after, but I remember when the the physical was getting a release and I was like, oh buddy, look at this game.

This looks so dope.

And I've been I've been wanting to play it for quite some time, but like, you know, at my feet weren't burning to like get started.

It was like that would be cool to play but I just don't have the time.

I think I kind of felt the same way, like I'm, I'm eager to play it, I'm not itching to play it, but it seemed like a really good time to feature it.

For the show and it dropped in A at a time when I was like, Oh no, I hate rogue lights and I'm I'm no longer that person.

Yeah, yeah.

And this is actually a streak now this season where this is our third game in a row that has rogue light elements at least.

So we didn't really plan that.

It just kind of happens but.

Most of the games are other genres first before that.

Yeah, they're all quite dissimilar on their own, but still an interesting trend this season with our picks.

The featured game next episode will be very different.

It won't have rogue light elements.

It's going to be 1000 times resist.

And I wanted to mention this because we will have a guest for that episode.

It will be Lucy Blundell of game developer Ken Moku.

Lucy is the developer behind One Night Stand and Video Verse, which is a game that I played and reviewed for last season.

And we'll talk to Lucy about her game development journey.

And also we will review 1000 Times Resist alongside Lucy.

So look out for that next episode, which will be episode 84.

We like to give those heads up about the guest appearances.

Disco Cola another thing I wanted to mention.

Let's hear it, Silk.

Song is out.

Yeah, Silk Song is out.

A very interesting string of events happened in about 72 hours, and it began with our previous episode.

Do you want to?

We were talking.

To Kara, she had mentioned that she would love to interview Team Cherry.

So that's the context.

And then I took that as an opportunity to be a big old sour puss about, well, not a sour puss.

I'm not sour about it but like a wet blanket for all the the high hopers.

A little bit of a pessimist.

Yeah, I wanted to bring them down to my level.

Like Silk Song's not coming out and then it it is.

And they didn't shadow drop it either, so I was wrong twice.

And when I learned the news just days later that Silksong was coming out September 4th, it's not like I was feeling like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I told you.

I told you that Silksong's coming out.

I wasn't feeling that way.

Honestly, it just felt like that podcast magic.

Yeah, I think we manifested.

This we.

Manifested this.

Crab DLC.

Yes, Cortana Zero DLC, It just keeps happening.

We mentioned something, we're not sure if it's coming out or even if it if there's a possibility that something like that exists.

And then sometimes a few months later, sometimes a few weeks later, sometimes a few days later.

I think one time the next day it happened.

Yeah, it's wild.

So that's why that's really the reason why we do this podcast.

If this podcast didn't exist, no new games or sequels or DLC would ever be announced.

So that's really the secret mission of this podcast.

As a side note, there's never going to be a Mega Man X9.

Never going to happen.

Not Indies, so it won't actually manifest.

Shut up.

You'll have to start a Mega Man podcast for that to count.

I won't do it.

I won't do it.

What if we talk about that with proto dude?

And then it happens.

A few episodes.

I feel like he would know though.

He would.

He would already know.

That's true.

Maybe, I don't know, they changed the leadership of of like the the Mega Man team.

So maybe, maybe not.

Maybe we would manifest it, proto dude would still learn about it before us, but we're still the reason what's happening.

OK, I'll I'll send him this episode and get him on board.

But anyway, Silk song is out.

What are your feelings on it besides being wrong about it coming out?

This.

I'm happy to be wrong.

First of all, yeah, second of all, I think the timing is bad.

Just personally because I have to play 1000 times resist really quickly.

Yeah, and that's not a short game.

It's not like a super long game, but that's one where you have to pay attention and take your time, I think.

And yeah, I'm excited for Silk Song quite a lot.

I also don't exactly know when I'll play it.

Yeah, I think I'll probably turn it on the night of launch just because you you have to.

To be part of the moment.

Yeah, but like I'll have to put it down pretty much right away.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you on that.

And it's got over I think around 40 bosses.

It's got 200 different enemies.

It's going to probably be comparable at least to the size of the original.

I've heard that it's it's supposed to be shorter is what I've heard actually.

I do welcome that.

I I do welcome that.

Even if it was considerably a bit shorter, like if it was 2030% shorter, I wouldn't mind that honestly.

Yeah, because even like my best run of Hollow Knight, which I've played multiple Times Now, is like 25 hours.

Maybe that's still a long time, and that's after having played it.

I think I spent 50 hours in that game just doing as much as I could.

But yeah, we're excited that will be a featured game at some point.

And yeah, I think that's all for the top of the episode segment.

So we're going to move on to Secret Games.

But before we do, there are a few very easy ways to support Underplayed.

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So we would really appreciate you doing these things for us if you haven't already.

One, give us a follow and a five star rating on podcasts platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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And as always, we love you.

Thank you for listening.

Let's move on to our secret games.

Secret Games.

In Secret Games, we're going to each review an indie game we've been playing secretly since our last episode.

We don't talk about what we're going to pick for this segment, so I don't know what Disco Cola is going to reveal and review today.

He doesn't know what I'm going to do for this segment, so we can choose any indie game as long as we haven't reviewed it on the show before.

Disco Cola, we will start with you.

Let the mystery be no more.

Reveal your secret game for Episode 83 of Underplayed.

My Secret Game This episode is a game that I've streamed, so that shortens the pool quite a bit.

I'm trying to think my mind is racing because I've I've seen a lot of the other games that you've streamed.

It is a rogue light run and gun action platformer and I believe I streamed it on launch day but I don't remember for sure.

Either way, my secret game comes from Night Shift games and it is called Elsie.

Eckies, once a beautiful planet, now in chaos.

For some time, the Guardians protected the people of Eckies, but one day they disappeared.

Mr.

Gray has forged one final chance, and Android Elsie built like none before her.

She will do whatever it takes to save Eckie's and its people.

Join me, Elsie, on this journey.

Find the Guardians, battle robot armies, and save the world.

Oh yes, this released last year.

Yeah, yes, I remember you anticipating this quite a bit and it definitely seemed like a Disco Cola game.

Absolutely.

Yeah, this is definitely a Mega Man.

Like, so hell yeah.

It's pretty straightforward.

So yeah, Elsie follows the titular character, the last remaining and most recent creation of Doctor Grey.

So this is your Doctor Light analog here, but this time a woman instead of an elderly man.

We love that Elsie is meant to confront and pacify the Guardians, other Android creations of Doctor Gray that possess the ability to prevent natural disasters after they have seemingly gone berserk or disappeared.

They're abandoning their post and so civilians of this planet are suffering from these massive natural disasters.

OK, yes, that's definitely influenced by Mega Man games.

I'm.

The The Robot Masters disappeared.

Or they are.

They're going.

Rogue, they turned against us.

Yeah, as Elsie you will run, jump, shoot, wall, climb, wall, slide, air dash, slam, dive, and gain upgrades to defeat hordes of robots on procedurally generated screens to reach the Guardians and other bosses in this rogue light Mega Man.

Like during your run, you will access up to three of five different themed areas.

You will always start with the air themed 1.

So that's always level 1 is the the air themed 1.

You will encounter hordes of smaller robots and these robots may drop currency which you can use when you encounter these vending machine like shops.

These shops will offer a number of upgrades if you've purchased them at home base.

So you first have to find the blueprint in a run and then at home base in between runs you have to by the chance for them to appear in a run and then you can find them at the shop.

It's like what you do in Rogue Legacy, but adding a step where you have to find a blueprint and then you can just buy it before you go in the castle.

But this is like find the blueprint, buy the ability to find it, and then buy it when you find a vending machine.

Maybe with a yeah, with a different currency.

So it's there's, there's like a few systems going on here.

Every 3 or 4 screens you face a locked room that has multiple waves of enemies.

And then at the end you will get a treasure chest with maybe an upgrade or a key for locked chests or a good amount of two other currencies called scrap or Arclight coins.

In between runs, you can use scrap to permanently upgrade LC or repair shops and bonfires for your runs or open other shops at the home base.

And then Arclight coins are used to build the upgrade items that you find during runs.

So like we said, we you purchase them at home base to add them to a pool of randomized choices.

OK, so there's still there's there's meta progression, but it is really heavily dependent on randomness inside the runs itself and then going back to these locked rooms with waves of enemies.

After finishing those rooms, you will be able to access a bonfire which will either recover some of your health or add maximum energy or add maximum health.

And then you may encounter different shops a little bit more randomly after that.

Some will offer weapons or some will offer just like other upgrades that you would otherwise find in in special rooms.

So yeah, you go through about three or four of these locked rooms per zone and then you will face one of three bosses per zone.

So you may not even face the guardian of the specific zone when you visit it.

It may be one of the other two lesser bosses.

Kind of like the acts in Slay the Spire.

Like you're going to get one of several bosses at the end of like the first section of the map.

Yeah, and then after defeating the boss, you will have your choice of two other zones to visit next.

And these all follow elemental themes.

There's a tundra, there's the forge, the thorny jungle, the electrified city, and then the the air themed starting zone.

And then each run will feature three of those zones.

And at the end of the third, you will either reach a dead end and return home, or if you've defeated and pacified all of the Guardians, you'll enter the final area to confront the final boss.

OK.

Just the idea of like the three zones, That's already a similarity with Moonlighter too, just very specifically.

Sounds like, yeah.

So yeah, I think that covers the gist of most of the systems going on.

Maybe a little too much into the weeds on it, but from there I'd like to talk about stuff that I dig, stuff that I don't.

First and foremost, no surprise, I like the visual identity of this game.

I do kind of wish Elsie Sprite was a little bit bigger, especially considering the game proves later on that it can like zoom out when it's necessary for the scale of a given room.

But generally speaking, all of the Sprite work, especially the backgrounds, is incredibly attractive.

The gameplay itself feels great.

Shooting and dashing are amazing.

There's even this parry mechanic and the margin for error in that parry is pretty wide like which?

And that's great because I'm usually really bad at parrying in games and maybe the jump is a little more floaty than I would usually like, but it, it actually feels right in relation to Elsie's world and the rest of her controls.

So even that jump is a little bit floaty.

I I kind of like it.

Can you parry bullets or just melee?

Oh, OK.

You can.

You can parry any attack what will hurt you.

Nice.

You just have to time it right and then you can even kind of counter attack in a way too.

OK, sweet.

I love that once you collect and unlock them, getting new skills kind of has this snowball effect, and then if you've unlocked enough skills that upgrade the same thing, you can do like crazy damage.

For example, I had a run where I collected a huge number of skills that increased my rate of fire and increased my crit chance.

So I was throwing out like 8 bullets a second and each had 50% chance to crit and so by the end of it I was just like mowing everything down in seconds.

In another run I collected a boatload of skills that produced fireflies and those fireflies are like small homing bugs that will do chip damage.

And so every few seconds my enemies are being hit with like 40 plus pieces of chip damage, or the fireflies are hitting enemies that are like really high above me and not in my line of sight.

So they're doing a lot of work for me.

That sounds like something I would.

Love it's really good if you get the luck to like have a lot of synergistic skills in your runs.

And I'll give that my own note here in the positive section.

I think fireflies are overpowered, but I kind of don't care.

I just, I really love them a lot.

We like feeling overpowered.

Yeah, I'm, I'm into it.

I also really like the variety of bosses.

You do have all 5/7 guardians and they're all pretty different from the other except for the triplets have a shared design aesthetic.

But then you have the other two lesser bosses per zone and they're pretty creative in design.

They're not like these humanoid androids.

You have like 1 and the four, just like this giant eyeball that controls a bunch of conveyor belts that, you know, drop lava on you or something.

Or in the tundra you have this giant walrus man.

Like they're all pretty different.

This game has voice acting and I think it's pretty solid.

I do think that it would annoy you, Bobo.

Not necessarily like the story dialogues, but like Elsie will make comments throughout the run.

She'll say in the rear with the gear or I could really use a drink or you know, and she'll say that a lot.

What is in the rear with the gear mean?

She's just she's getting new gear at the shop and so that'll be one of her randomized things that she'll say I'll.

Be thinking about that for a while.

She's going to get someone else in the rear with.

Gotcha.

Yeah, OK, still a very AOL comment.

No.

Yeah, that kind of thing can drive me a little nuts.

It makes me think of like viewfinder is what the comments you make.

Viewfinder, yeah.

And there are two kinds of it.

One is just when it's so constant that it's kind of obnoxious and you don't really, maybe you don't like the tone of the voice.

But the other thing is when the comments themselves are repeated a lot, like the specific lines of dialogue, there aren't many of them, and so you hear the same ones over and over.

That can really turn me off.

And this one might be a little bit of.

Both SO.

I could see it annoying you, but in general, I think all of the voice acting, especially in the, in the, especially in the story dialogues, I think it's fine.

Sure, narratively there's a a big twist in the game and I kind of like it.

Like, I don't know that it's necessarily like done the best, but the twist itself, I'm like, I'm kind of I'm kind of into it.

OK, cool.

From there though, I'll move on to things I don't love as much.

I just praised the variety of bosses, but this is also one of my least favorite parts of the game if I understand how the game works correctly.

You have to be each of the two lesser bosses in each zone before you even get the chance to face the guardian.

So when you're going through the first level, you have to face Soul, the sun themed robot, and then you have to go back again and beat Luna, the the moon themed robot, and then maybe you'll get a chance to face the guardian of that zone.

OK, so and I and I think randomness takes a back seat if you've defeated one of the lesser bosses and not the other.

If I understand it right, and I didn't test this, each time you revisit that zone you'll face the one you haven't beaten.

So I think it's a little bit considerate with randomness there.

But either way, no matter what, even the most skilled players can't beat Elsie on their first run.

Not only that, the earliest you can beat it, if I understand it correctly, is run number six.

And that kind of bums me out as Mega Man.

Like, I think you should be able to decimate the game if you're unnaturally talented, but this game's leaning more into the rogue light side of things.

And I don't know, it's, it's one of those things that I find antithetical to Mega Man likes.

I, I do think after having tried 20 XX that making man likes and rogue lights can exist in the same package.

But this is just one of those aspects that I if, if you're forcing me to replay it, even if I'm like the best LC player in the world, that's kind of a burn.

And I don't know if 20 XX is this way.

I haven't beaten it.

I imagine you can beat it on the first try if you're skilled enough, from what I understand about it, but I don't know.

Next, I think there's a little bit left to random chance, a little, just a little too much.

I know that's Rogue Lights, but even the shops only give me three options and I I don't feel like that's enough.

I don't really have a lot of control over making a cohesive build.

Oh.

Yeah, you're just taking what the game.

Taking what the game gets you and it it can still can happen pretty easily.

Like you still eventually get kind of what you're looking for but I don't I I think a re roll option could do well for this game.

Whether it's something you buy as like a perma upgrade, you get one re roll per shop, or maybe something you find during your runs like keys I think a re roll would.

Help.

I've been playing lots of roguelikes recently where a re roll is something you can unlock.

Maybe it's not available right at the start but it's something you use currency to use and maybe the more times you re roll the more expensive it gets.

So that's the risk reward.

The more currency you're spending on the re rolls, the less currency you have for other things like permanent purchases or just upgrades for that particular run.

Hell clock had this.

I've been playing Asgard's Fall which came out this year and those kind of use re rolls in a really fun accessible but also like fairway.

Yeah, I think that would be a good way to maybe eliminate this complaint of mine and would probably not be that hard to implement in an update.

Do you get the sense that they're still working on this game, or have they kind of moved on?

I'll get to that in a minute.

OK, Next up, this game has something called guardian trigger, which is like a a special gauge that fills up over time.

But I'm either like not using it to its full extent or I don't understand it because it's it's kind of useful in boss rooms or rooms with a lot of bullets, but not very.

And it just it doesn't it like pauses the entire gameplay when you activate it and and does this like little cutscene across the screen.

But it doesn't really seem worthy of that, you know, if I'm using it correctly.

So there's either something more to it that I don't get or it's just like not as useful as it is dramatic.

And then lastly, but mostly this game lacks a significant amount of Polish, which is a shame because the controls part is like down pat.

There will be like weird text errors.

There will be like spaces in one spot but missing from another identical spot.

More than one example of text and voice acting repeating the same thing twice in a row during story moments.

Voice acting won't match the text in significant ways.

Sometimes rewards for special challenges won't load.

Currency will drop from enemies and appear in the next room instead of that room.

One time I like took damage and fell backward into a locked room.

Meanwhile, while I'm in this locked room, I can hear all the enemies I was just facing on the other side of the wall.

But none of my skills can kill enemies through walls.

So I had to.

Like, I was stuck.

I had to quit that run.

There was nothing I could do.

So like on their own, all of these different issues are not massive deals, they're pretty small deals, but all together it's pretty impossible to overlook.

And I just I don't, I don't see like why one big patch update can't make this game a ton better because it's just like it's most of the way there.

And like a lot of the reviews on Steam, like on Steam, this has mixed reviews and very few reviews to start, which is a little bit odd.

But a lot of them point to like these small, you know, quality issues.

And they're talking about, most of them are talking about like UI and POS screens which I didn't necessarily have issues with, but it's just more of the same like small quality.

Control.

There's a lot of things that can add up sometimes.

It's not one glaring thing that just suddenly ruins it.

It's just this feeling that, like you said, there's not Polish across the board.

You know, right And I I hope that they work on it more and just give us that big patch update because it's just it's almost there.

The controls feel really good and the pixel art is amazing.

Yeah, those are some like fundamentals you want to have and I think this this trailer that I'm watching for the game, it still looks really stunning and really fun.

Yeah, and even like, even the story, like Mega Man likes don't need sophisticated stories.

And this isn't a sophisticated story, but it's like it's above average for most Make a Man games, I would say.

So I don't know.

Elsie is a really solid entry in the Mega Man like space.

And if you're a massive fan of Mega Man, especially Mega Man X, there's going to be a lot of really fun Easter eggs for you to find and that's a delight when you first encounter them.

Controlling Elsie felt pretty good pretty much all of the time and that made it hard to put down.

I went a couple extra runs most nights then I wanted to.

All that being said, the game is missing some attention to quality control and that's one of the main things holding it back from being a standout Rogue Mega Man Light.

I do still think it's worth a shot if you're a fan of 20 XX or Mega Man X, but if those quality issues are a massive concern of yours, maybe wait until it's on sale.

I did still have a lot of fun and I do still want to keep playing.

I give LC an 8 point O.

Oh wow, that's higher than I expected.

So since this is a rogue light version of the Mega Man action platformer, you're unlocking the ability to purchase things.

For instance, you are getting some meta progression.

It takes some time to set that stuff up and to actually benefit from it.

You're augmenting future runs by finding things.

Do you still have things to find and unlock in this game?

Do you have anything left to do that you still want to do?

So I started from scratch on cancer trophies for this episode.

Yeah, so cancer.

Trophies being Disco Cola's kind of junk profile on PlayStation.

Yes, where I also played Moonlighter just spoiler the the purpose being that I don't want to collect all the trophies.

So I started from scratch and there's a I'm still getting blueprints like really every other room Wow while I'm playing Wow now on the disco cola profile.

I think I played up to the point where I found and purchased everything I can with Arclight coins, but I still am missing some trophies but not a ton.

OK.

So you've almost done full completion.

Yeah, nice.

Yeah.

And I will eventually complete the trophy list.

Very good.

It's just the ones that I have left, if I'm not mistaken, are like random chance based.

Like you have to equip a set of things and I you just have to be able to find all of them in the same run.

I get that.

OK, that'll take some time, but it's not something you can entirely control yourself.

You just have to put in the time, right?

All right, cool.

I don't think I have any other questions.

I'm glad you got to review this full game.

I know you had been looking forward to it, and I'm glad that it was overall positive experience for you.

Where can you play Elsie?

Elsie is available on PC, Switch and PlayStation 5, which is where I played it.

Very nice, It is time for my secret Game.

My secret game actually does have quite a bit in common with our featured game today, Moonlighter.

It's less action focused, but you'll see some similarities.

I don't usually have this much synergy in my secret game, but my secret game is Jamporia.

You know, I have heard of this, but only in the sense that the music is apparently really awesome.

That's all I know about it.

Yeah, it's interesting you say that about the music, because I think the music is probably good, but I don't remember it a time, honestly.

But you'll I think you'll find out why after I start talking about this game.

Jemporium is a 2025 mining simulation game.

It was developed and published by Merge Conflict Studio.

The game synopsis from the Steam storefront reads Quote, Mine, refine, and sell gemstones of various rarities to Eagerly awaiting customers in Jemporium, A mining simulation management game.

Manage your time wisely while purchasing upgrades and growing your shop's reputation day by day.

And quote, I want to thank our friend Kass who gifted me this game.

Actually, this game came out on my birthday and I had seen it in the wholesome directs, which I got to Co stream earlier this year.

And Kass and I both noted this game is looking really appealing and Kass also played it as well.

So Castro 5, thank you so much.

Yes, Kass.

Yes, Kass, can I get a yes in the comments on the episode please?

Thank you very much.

I really appreciate the Gifted game.

So in Jemporium it is a top down perspective where you play as mole who is going to visit his grand mole for the summer and grand mole.

Grand mole surprises you right away.

Grand Mole forgot that you're coming to visit and has plans an entire vacation where she is elsewhere and she's not at home, right?

So you have planned this whole summer of visiting Grand Mole.

She's not there.

You arrive at her Burrow to wait for her to come back.

But keeping you company is Grand Mole's pet rock Pietro, who lets you into her home.

Yes, Pietro is a sentient pet rock who talks to you and all everything.

So at what point is it a pet and not a slave?

You know, it's funny, wears a collar and kind of looks like a slave in a way, but there's no connotation like that.

It's just supposed to be this bizarre sort of tertiary character hanging out and talking to you.

From not to derail the episode too much, but it's just like I'm, I'm thinking back to like night in the woods where like you have a may and then you have cats, stray cats running around.

Right, it's.

You know, it's kind of whenever stuff like that happens, I'm like, there's what's the what's going on?

What are the ethics of this?

What are the rules of this universe?

I am not sure.

No additional information is provided unfortunately on how pet rocks work in Gemporium.

But here's the extra kicker.

Grand Mole has a gemporium that she wants you to run while she's gone, and you're just this kid who has no shop or work experience, and she's asking you to run this business in her stead.

And so you have no choice but to agree to this.

And this game is all about doing this loop that only lasts for a few minutes each day.

So you wake up, you explore the mines beneath Grand Mole's home.

You excavate for gems in mind spots, you bring those gems back to your workbench to refine them, and then you open your shop for the last, I don't know, third of the day or so.

And that's where you can sell your gems to customers.

And you have to be careful when you're mining.

When you're down there, you look at a dig spot and you can Click to start digging with a hammer.

But you can crack gems if you hammer them too much.

So you kind of have to work around them.

You also have a drill that lets you more finely dig them out and after you refine all those gems, you're in that shop where patrons will have preferred gems that they'll pay more money for.

So someone might say like I would love an amethyst, I'll pay you more money for an amethyst, but I don't want a pair of dots.

If you have a pair of dots I will pay you half price.

I will leave.

I will, yeah.

Or.

Burn your building down.

No, but you eventually get to buy upgrades using the money that you earn from the shop.

So you can buy a bigger bag to hold more gems.

You can unlock the ability to haggle with customers to try to sway them to have a different preferred gem that you might be carrying.

You can buy upgrades to sway customers to prefer a certain kind of gem overall.

Throughout the day.

You can also find artifacts in the mines that provide a passive increase to the amount of money you can sell gems for.

And you find out after a little bit of doing this that grandma has one more surprise for you that she didn't tell you about.

Again, this is all while she's on vacation.

I know what you're going to say, I'm I'm building a backlogged list for it right now.

Grandma is in debt to the tune of 1,000,000 glimmer, which is the currency of this game to the loan shark.

And the loan shark shows up demanding payments for the principal of the loan.

And I don't remember a ton about the loan itself and like what it's for.

But basically now this debt, this shop, this daily job that's very strenuous, all falls to little mole, not grand mole.

And the loan shark will show up every Wednesday and Saturday I believe to collect a debt and the amount increases as time goes on.

So your goal is to find gems, run the gemporium shop and pay off this debts.

And then sometimes Grand Mole will call you on the phone to talk about her vacation and check in on you, and you're left to your Mulsum self in this place.

So here's what I liked about Gemporium.

I think this game is super addicting.

It's one of those games where you can play in game day after in game day and you can do so many of them in a short amount of time that doesn't, it doesn't feel like you're spending that much time playing the game.

But then two hours have passed and I had a a night where I wanted to go to bed at a certain time and I just kept playing Gemporium.

It rides this really unexpected line between cozy and stressful.

It's a very wholesome setting these character.

It's like a hand drawn, very cartoony like storybook like aesthetic.

But then you also need to always be going quite fast.

You need to be very efficient with your time to keep the loan shark at arm's length.

You always have a upcoming payment to him, and so you can't just dilly dally.

You have to use your limited time each day to make the most money you can.

And this game is quite challenging at the start.

It's the the debt that he's asking you to pay will increase and you'll think I don't have enough time in the day to get that much.

Like I don't know how he's going to ask me for an amount that I won't be able to pay off.

But then I think this game gets somewhat easier over time because the upgrades really help you out to become exponentially more wealthy.

And upgrades are also super satisfying.

There's an automatic refiner that you can throw unrefined gems into and it will almost like a washing machine, just sort of work on them.

And then they'll it'll they'll all be polished.

And that's less time you have to spend polishing and refining the gems.

That's one of my favorites that you can buy upgrades that let you descend deeper into the mind where you get more valuable gems like opals and diamonds and things.

Let's see what else You can manipulate the market really easily so that you can influence like the you get a television that will forecast like the most valuable gems for that day.

You can manipulate things so that's, you get to determine what the preferred gem is for that day.

And then more customers on average might want rubies or sapphires or emeralds, whatever you determine.

So yeah, I, I really like buying all these.

I also super love haggling.

It just really allows you to manipulate the shop at the end of your days and make the most money possible.

I also really like the Twitch integration in this game.

I did stream this game a little bit and it's really fun and simple.

It allows your chatters to appear as customers in the shop.

And they can.

They can set custom messages to greet you with.

So I was having people coming into my shop and they might be a little worm with a cowboy hat on and they have a custom greeting that you won't see from any of the other NPCS.

So they get to also set what message they say if you sell them a non preferred gem or a preferred gem too.

So that.

Would have had a lot of fun with.

That it was so funny seeing what people came up with, and they were referencing inside jokes from earlier in the stream.

So yeah, just one of those examples of a Twitch integration that doesn't have to be complex.

It doesn't have to completely change the nature of the game.

It's just a cute little way to get people involved.

So I super enjoyed that.

I move on to things that I didn't like as much.

I don't think this is an incredibly deep experience.

You get to day 30 or 40 and the expansiveness of what the game offers really slows down for me.

And also there are some activities in the loop that I got tired of doing.

One of them is when you refine gems, you have to do this short mini game where you match a moving icon on a bar.

There's like a little section of the bar where that's.

Not my favorite mini game.

And you do that hundreds of times that that mini game doesn't really change other than getting faster and harder depending on how rare the gem is.

So I just don't like that as much.

That's why I love the automatic refiner.

The I call it the washing machine.

I just throw my gems in there.

But you can't refine all your stuff using the automatic refiner.

You have to do a lot of it manually.

Now kids, if you're out there, don't throw your gems in your real.

Washing machine?

Yes, all your precious valuable gems that you find under Grand Mole's house.

I'm more worried about the washing machine to be honest.

Yeah, also the game just kind of ends at the end of the game and there's not like a lot of hoopla to the conclusion.

But you can you can keep playing the game to do more day cycles.

You can turn off the the pressure of the time mechanic so that you can just explore at your own pace and then open your shop when you want and just buy the rest of the upgrades.

But I didn't see a strong, like I didn't feel a strong pull to go back into the constant loop after I paid off the debt.

But I did pay off the debt and it was very satisfying to do that.

Yeah, I didn't mention it, but Elsie also kind of just sort of ends.

And that's a part of like the lack of Polish.

You know, the cutscenes will just sort of randomly happen once you meet the trigger.

And it's not not sophisticated.

Yeah, so.

So there wasn't a lot there at the ends to make me feel like, wow, that wrapped up beautifully.

But I really liked the fun mixture of collecting and selling and upgrading that kept me playing.

I played Gemporium for close to 10 hours.

You do run out of upgrades to buy at a certain point, but that's around the time when the game is wrapping up and you can choose to keep doing those runs.

And it was perfectly pleasant while I was playing.

It's just like in the moment while you're playing Jim Porium.

It's super addicting and I can just keep playing and playing and playing.

I'm going to rate it an 8 out of 10.

It's playable on PC and I believe it's only playable on PC, which is obviously the the version I played.

Cool.

I guess could you get a little bit more into the weeds about like haggling?

What does that look like?

Cuz that to me sounds like a stressful part of the game.

Cuz it's like in Moonlighter we set and can change our prices based on reaction, but it's a lot more passive than what I think was probably going on here.

It's very simple.

You buy the ability to haggle and then if a customer comes into your shop and they prefer citrine and you don't have citrine, you could put a sapphire down on the table and you could press the haggle button and there's a chance that that customer will change their minds to sapphire.

But you only get three chances per customer.

If you try haggling 3 times and they don't swap their opinion, they'll just move on and then the next customer will come up.

So you have to put down the gem that you want them to swap their opinion to, but you can upgrade the haggle so that it's more successful on average.

That's really all it is.

It's just clicking a button.

And then there's a mechanic called your shop's reputation.

As you sell more preferred gems to customers, your reputation will go up, which will, I believe, increase the number of customers that come to your shop every day.

It might do something else.

I think it also maybe unlocks more passive upgrades for you to buy if you haggle unsuccessfully.

It says minus reputation so I think your reputation is going down, but I didn't notice a big change when I would do it so I would always spam haggle and when I had it fully upgraded most of the time I could convince any customer to love any kind of gem that I put in.

Front of you're so charismatic.

Yes, yeah, you get a silver tongue, I guess as little mole, quite the quite the seller.

Yeah, I don't.

I don't think I have anything else.

That was the only part that I had question marks about.

And now I've added this to a new backlogged list of games with literal loan sharks, which includes Jamporium and another Crab's Treasure.

Nice.

I'm sure there are more.

I think there are, but I don't know.

There's there's loan sharks in the big con, but they are humans.

OK, yeah, I wouldn't count those.

Yeah, literal loan sharks, people.

Let us know if there are other literal loan sharks in indie games.

We would love to expand that list.

There are also these three bats that stand on each other's heads.

Oh, and a trench coat.

Yeah, I saw them in the trailer.

Yes, and they're who you talk to, to manipulate the market, to try to influence shoppers to prefer a certain gem that you might have a lot of in your inventory.

OK, so it does have the more like shady nature to it like I first thought, yeah.

Yeah, there.

There's something kind of seedy about this game.

Yeah, it's wholesome and cute and charming, but it's also got some some bad actors.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Including grand mole.

Grand Mole's up to some stuff.

Just like the real world.

Right.

Everybody has skeletons.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's another way that I find it super charming.

And I do recommend this to a lot of people.

I think, you know, anyone would appreciate at least playing a day or two in game and then seeing if it hooks you.

So those are our secret games, Elsie and Jamporium.

Let's move on to our review of Moonlighter.

It is our featured game.

Moonlighter is a 2018 action RPG Rogue Lights, developed by Digital Sun and published by 11 Bit Studios.

The game synopsis from the Steam storefront reads quote.

Moonlighter is an action RPG with rogue light elements that demonstrates two sides of the coin, revealing everyday routines of Will, an adventurous shopkeeper that secretly dreams of becoming a hero.

Every hero has a goal, a quest, a final destination.

However, most of us are not just natural born heroes.

We start dreaming when we are kids and when we grow up we tend to focus on making a living.

But some of us keep on dreaming.

Moonlighter is this top down perspective game where you play as will a residence in the village of Rynoka I.

That's how I've been saying it.

I.

Don't see any other way to say it.

OK, and Will runs a shop called the Moonlighter.

Rhinoca is situated near these mysterious gates that I think were uncovered during like an excavation a long time ago.

And these gates lead to other dimensions.

And in them merchants will venture in to gather loot to sell.

Whereas another class of people in this town, heroes, will explore them to kill monsters and be exactly what they sound like, heroic.

There's kind of two factions going on, if you will and Will aspires to be a merchant and a hero kind of all in one.

All but one of the dungeons is sealed, so Will explores the first one and finds information about guardians.

Of all the dungeons, there are these big bosses and slaying them will give you a key necessary to open the 5th and final dungeon, which holds some pretty big secrets inside of it.

So that's what I would say to set up the setting and the light story that's going on in Moonlighter.

How about what we do gameplay wise?

So gameplay wise, I kind of I kind of separated it into two modes.

You have your dungeon mode and your shop mode.

So in dungeon mode, you can attack with some equipped weapon, whether it be sword or gauntlet or a bow or a spear.

You can roll dodge, you can heal if you have potions equipped, you can swap between two different weapons that you can carry with you and you can rearrange your backpack and that's going to play.

That's going to take up a lot of the the game play time in the dungeon.

Apart from fighting monsters, as far as shop mode, you can also arrange your inventory the same way you arrange your backpack.

You just have access to chests as well as spots on the shop shelves to place items.

You can adjust prices, and you can check prices and change those prices based on reactions from previous attempts to sell.

You can raise or lower it in shop mode.

You can also tackle thieves.

You can also upgrade the town, which looks like inviting new types of businesses to set up in.

In Rinoka, you can upgrade your shop, which will include the number of spots where you can place items to sell.

Eventually, you can hire an assistant essentially.

You can also visit the forge or the potion maker to forge and enhance equipment respectively.

Every other character that sets up shop is is essentially like selling you an item or upgrading your shop or giving you money to an extent.

And you're kind of seeing the town flourish as you buy some of these upgrades.

Not like drastically, but it feels like you were pumping money into the economy of Binoka.

That's sort of a theme here is that the town sort of underwent some tough times after these gates were.

Found yes, it's like steam world dig levels of of brain drain here.

Definitely.

And so you're seeing that sort of evolve.

Yeah, so more and more NPCS will show up the further you get to the game.

Doesn't play a big role really in the end.

But yeah, I between dungeon mode and shop mode, those are most of your like inputs and actions that you can perform.

Yeah.

I mean, it's it a more recent game is Cult of the Lamb that I think was probably influenced by this.

That's not the last time we'll bring up Cult of the Lamb this episode.

Oh interesting.

OK cool, probably in your thoughts then.

And then there are some interesting developments with this game and series, like a DLC expansion called Between Dimensions was released in 2019.

I didn't play this.

It's it's on my title screen when I start my game.

So I have it, you have it.

I don't know what is included in it or if I've participated in any of it.

OK, well if you talk about something that doesn't match my experience, that could maybe explain what's going on.

But also there's a sequel called Moonlighter 2, The Endless Vaults, which is dated for October of this year.

I think it's coming out in Early Access 1st.

And yeah, this is a game that we've heard about for over 7 years already, and that's a long-awaited sequel.

Seven years for a SQL is quite a long time.

I know lots of people were super excited about the sequel when it was announced, and it's a good time to review Moonlighter, so Disco Cola.

Unless there's anything else to set up the game, what were your thoughts on Moonlighter?

Generally overall I had a better time than I expected after learning about all the different rogue light elements and and managing shops, but I'll break it down piece by piece let you know what I'm into.

First of all, I like the variety of monsters in the dungeons, but I also like that there are certain kinds of monsters that are similar across each dungeon, they just change based on the theme or the elements.

You go, oh, this is this dungeon's version of this.

Yeah, yeah.

And so I appreciate that.

So you get a little bit of variety, but you also get, you know, like a set of something like the set of slimes.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm into that.

I think the pixel art in this game is great.

Just as soon as you turn on the game and it's just going through like the developer icon animations, just those alone are super attractive, but it's it's only a preview of what you're going to see later.

Just everything looks really good in this game.

Like Elsie.

I think the controls feel pretty great at almost all times.

I think we're always moving at a fair speed, even when we get slowed down by heavy equipment with speed nerves.

I will note here that I said fair speed.

I do wish that just in general we were a little bit faster even at the baseline.

Yeah, I would take like 10 percent, 15% faster movement.

That'd be great.

But in the context of the game, I think it's a fair speed.

Oh, is this one of those games where you can move faster in general if you keep rolling?

I It seemed like it was to me, yeah, 'cause I feel.

Like I was doing that too.

Yeah, yeah, I was just rolling everywhere and even if it wasn't like I didn't notice it being slower, at least like I experienced in some other game I don't recently.

Yeah, we've had a couple of those over time.

To a point, I do like the guess and check nature of selling items and then also extrapolating prices of newly discovered items based on what are around them on the list.

After a while I kind of got the point.

It was like as you go down the list they get less and less valuable.

And so I was able to like extrapolate based on information I already had.

And by the end of the game I was pretty much guessing perfect prices on the items right away.

So that, wow, that felt pretty good.

You're using prior knowledge and experience to really affect funding the big purchases of the game ultimately.

Yeah.

And that all of that plus a little bit of like this guess is a vibe.

So there's, there's a little bit of vibes going in there too.

I like how our power scales.

I find that it's a pretty linear trend upward and prices of the equipment scale in mostly the same way.

So what this means as a result is that I guess depending on how many tries it took you to finish a dungeon, we only have to do a little bit of grinding after each dungeon, if if any at all.

And it usually only feels like two or three revisits before we have all the equipment and materials and the money that we need to upgrade to the point where we're ready to face the next boss.

Yeah.

So like, I finished the desert and then I went back to the desert like 3 times maybe to get all of the materials I needed for my next set of armor and enough items to sell to buy it.

And then I was ready to face the next boss.

And that was kind of the same.

Yeah.

In between each dungeon.

Yeah, I was finding that just in general, I was maybe spending a roughly the same amount of time per dungeon, like two or three hours to clear a dungeon before I'm ready to move on to the next.

It wasn't like dungeon four had me working at it for like 7 hours.

Exactly.

And so that's what I mean, it's a pretty linear scale upward where it's like every dungeon, even though it is literally tougher, you're spending as much time with it.

Yeah, I think it was.

By the third dungeon I was able to accurately ballpark how many hours I had left and that helped me plan out my play sessions and plan out the the timeline for finishing the game before.

Today, Yeah, yeah.

And that I noticed that same thing as well.

I do love that we get a little bit of creature collection in the game.

Oh yeah, the little buddies, the.

Little buddies, I added this game to the Better Butter Better Butto Bureau list after after I realized I had that.

Oh, good catch.

Yes, I forgot about that list.

But yeah, I love that we get to do that.

I kind of would take a little bit more, but right now I'm only missing 1 Butto.

But once I got my little leaf dude, he stayed with me for the rest of the game.

OK, so here's something that I potentially entirely missed out on.

Can you bring your buttos into the dungeon?

You can.

How do you do that?

There is a sign next to that fence that you can interact with.

I never did that.

You could totally miss it.

I thought it was like a petting zoo here, but you don't even get to pet them or feed them.

You just look at them.

You just look at them.

I thought it was like a like.

A trophy case.

Exactly, I thought it was like an aesthetic, just something that's in Rinoca and you walk by it.

I never touched that sign dude.

Yeah, that's too bad.

I didn't notice it for a long time and I saw that they were like creatures in there and I didn't even know how I got them at first.

I was aware that I was collecting them in the dungeons and, you know, I would see them in the little fence.

I'd go, oh, yeah, I just got that.

But that's the extent that I understood.

And so do the little Buttos fight with you?

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

Do they distract enemies?

I I don't know, no, not really.

The enemies aren't like going aggro after your your butt.

Oh, but like my leaf dude does the same thing that the leaf dudes do in the dungeon.

They just throw a homing ball of air.

Oh, that's cool.

And so I just, I used him for the rest of the time because he's cute and I like leaves and.

Wow, so I made the game unintentionally a little bit harder on.

Myself, I mean, they're not making drastic differences, at least mine wasn't.

Maybe the electric slime is like, you know, carrying the weight on his back.

I don't.

Know like it against a boss it might save you a few hits.

Yeah, absolutely.

Especially like I would say during the desert boss, my leaf dude was like really helping out.

Nice.

So yeah, I love the creature collection and maybe my favorite thing about the game is the like recipe system of armor and weapons.

And it's not like exhausting, it's like just right.

And this was, I found, probably the most enjoyable and motivating factor for me to go back into dungeons.

I'd love to keep playing this game, if only for getting one of each equipment and final weapon, like fully upgraded and fully enhanced.

That sounds really fun to me.

And then the last thing that I want to point out in the section is that vampirism is back.

I found a vampirism amulet and I I never let it go.

I never swapped it out.

Nice, so we saw this trend in Rogue Legacy few episodes ago and now we're back baby.

Yeah, it didn't carry as much weight as it did in Rogue Legacy, but it's still it helped quite a bit.

Very cool.

All right.

And how about things that didn't work so well?

Things that didn't work so well.

This game didn't quite go as far as like blueprints and overstaying its welcome, but it was just a little bit longer than I was prepared for it to be.

PlayStation clocks me in at about 19 hours.

Next, I can see how the puzzle of placing cursed artifacts in your bag can be a fun game.

I imagine that you possibly enjoyed this.

I I actually did, yeah.

I did.

And I, you know, there were a couple times where I enjoyed using it to clear up space when that was an option.

But mostly it feels like a chore.

Like I just cleared this room of all these monsters and maybe I just barely made it out and my reward is more homework.

And then most of the items or stuff I've already picked up elsewhere from like enemy drops and they don't have curses on them.

Yeah, so it creates a new stack that you have to manage.

I So to answer your suspicion about how I felt about this, it really did depend on how much I was getting at once.

Like if I open a chest and I get 2 extra things that I don't have space for.

I didn't mind doing the rearranging and the decision making, but it's when you would sometimes open a chest and have 7 things and it's like, OK, I get what this is doing.

It's making me make decisions and it's breaking up the pacing, but sometimes it can be a little bit too much.

So I I'm kind of like here with it and I'm also against it sometimes.

Yeah.

And like when I would open a chest and even if I did get a lot of items, if they had the, like, curse that destroys another artifact's curse or one that sends one home, like that can be fun.

But when you open up a chest of seven and it's like this can only be in the bottom of the bag and this one can only be in the side of the bag and this one is fragile, this.

Was fragile.

Yep.

You just sometimes it's just better to just throw some of those out unless you really need them back home.

And it's that felt like homework.

It felt like a chore and it was kind of a bummer since most of the time it is the like fragile or only the side of the bag stuff.

So this is a weird one weird complaint.

But the button layout I found to be kind of unintuitive in its natural state.

And I don't I don't mention this every time I do change a button layout, but I did this one and even still I never got it quite right.

And I think this might be more a matter of like 2 separate actions being mapped to the same button for different situations.

So and and the the actions that get mapped to the same button don't necessarily make sense.

Maybe.

Anyways, I changed my combat controls to be closer to something like Call to the Lamb, but that also meant that anytime I was interacting with something, I was interacting with Square, which felt like a weird button to be interacting with things.

I also changed my scheme and when I changed my scheme to something I'm more familiar with, like I moved dash from like L2 to circle, that just made sense to me.

I changed the attack button to square.

I had moments where my game locked up because the prompts to interact with text or pick up items or open chess would kind of get confused and it would lock my game and I at one point could not move on.

I tried every button I had to switch back to default controls because I didn't want to wrestle with that anymore.

So I actually had like a glitch or something in this game that forced me to turn the game off, lose my progress for that dungeon run, and I had to restart the game, switch my settings back to default, and I just resolved to get comfortable with the default weird controls.

I think the default button layout is quite strange.

Wow, so I I changed my button layout pretty drastically because I also forgot that dash roll was on one of the shoulder buttons.

I moved it to to cross to be more like Cult of the Lamb.

OK.

Yeah, smart.

I didn't.

I didn't lock up anywhere, but that's really weird.

Is weird.

Sorry about that.

Yeah.

So.

But for me it was like it was mostly like L1 and R1, like opening my bag and switching weapons.

I would just get those confused all the time.

So that's, that's the one, the main one.

Narratively I don't quite follow where this game goes.

I think inheriting a shop in a town near terrible dungeons is enough honestly.

I don't think.

Just the gymporium approach.

Yeah, I don't.

I don't think we need the ending that the game gives us to explain the why.

And even then there's like texts to read in the dungeon along the way, and I'm not really piercing together those with different texts, let alone matching it up to the ending.

So if this game is like leaving metaphorical bread crumbs to the ultimate conclusion, I'm just stumbling onto the ending accidentally.

The texts, I think, are telling me things that aren't huge surprises.

Like, I think they're sort of giving some lore about the monsters and the dungeons and how the keys work and the interdimensionality of what's going on.

But none of it is like, so revelatory that I'm like, oh, this changes the game.

You all this.

I'm so invested in this.

I think it's just sort of reinforcing my suspicions about what's going on a lot of the time where there's this character called Crazy Pete who's leaving behind all these notes.

And Crazy Pete never like, surprised me in any profound way.

But yeah, I think this game does cram a lot in at the end.

I think it does feel an obligation to have such an unexpected like last dungeon and along with that is just sort of this convoluted exposition dump.

Yeah.

That, yeah, I didn't really click with, but for all I know, maybe that maybe they're really intelligently using that as a jumping off point for Moonlighter 2.

It's just, is that pay off going to be worth it?

I don't.

Know yeah, I didn't I didn't need the ending that we got like it's it's enough for me to just have these weird dungeons you know it's already like such a medieval magical looking kind of space anyway it's like that's just part of it.

Sometimes saying less is just fine, and when the game spends so much time not really throwing a story at us, it's such a mismatch at the end to then just shove it all down our throat and have a sit through like a bunch of dialogue.

It's not something that like majorly annoyed me, it's just something I didn't super care about.

Yeah, I was.

I was not invested in what was happening at all.

The only, the only thing that had me invested narratively was like the old man who maybe he has a name, I don't remember it.

He was like, if I was your grandpa, I would say this and I'm like, oh, we're going to find out.

He's our grandpa.

That was the only thing I was invested in story wise.

Well, how I felt seen by that old man was at the end of the game, when we're getting all that explanation, the old man is standing there with us, like hearing it all.

And I was like, I bet that old man did not even listen to anything.

And then, like the next dialogue moment, he's like, Will, were you listening to any of that?

What does it all mean?

It's like, yeah, that's the audience surrogate in a way.

Yeah.

And then lastly, but maybe leastly most of the time running the shop feels like a means to an end for me.

I'm not always enjoying it but I need the cash for my equipment enhancements.

Additionally, as I upgrade my shop I find it harder to run instead of easier.

Like thieves can show up more frequently, you eventually have to attend to customers with questions.

Birds, birds birds can interrupt the shopping experience.

It it feels like a mild punishments for progression instead of a reward.

Like we, we get the assistant and that feels like a reward, but then everything after that doesn't, you know?

And then, well, even the assistant takes a 30% cut.

Yeah, well, if you if you choose to go to the dungeon and have her run the shop.

I never did that.

And I never did that.

So she's just standing there not doing anything.

Yeah, she'll sometimes stop a thief, which is nice, but she's a lot slower than you are.

That never happened for me.

I always had to stop my thieves and a lot of these things will show up without announcement.

There will be this bird after you've upgraded the shop, a bird will just start flying around in your shop.

This bird never showed up in the lower levels of your shop, and you're just supposed to, like, understand what's going on.

It's like, why are all these people not shopping?

Oh, it's because there's something in the store.

Oh, it's a bird.

OK.

What do I do?

I tackle the bird like I would a thief, I guess.

And then people will will stop and they'll need assistance with items before they buy them.

That wasn't a thing before the last upgrade.

Yeah.

So it's like you just have to kind of be alert about things.

Mechanics in the shop evolving and getting more expansive.

Yeah, and additionally, and I didn't write this down, but I never totally understood when people entered the shop with the little like disguise icon over their head.

I didn't totally understand what that was.

I assumed that it's someone working for the other retailer in town and they're like buying an item from me to put in that shop.

Was the symbol like a mustache?

Yeah.

I think actually what that is is those are like posh customers with lots of money.

So they're more likely to spend more money than the average customer.

So they might.

They might not like your price of something expensive, but they will reluctantly buy.

Rather.

Than just turn it down was my understanding.

That yeah, that tracks.

OK, so it wasn't a disguise icon.

It was then maybe this.

Was that they're fancy.

They're like the Monopoly guy with the mustache in the top hat, you know?

OK, anyways, Moonlighter is an enjoyable experience where I found myself uniquely motivated by small goals in forging and enhancing my equipment.

I think this game is beautiful and I want to play to collect and upgrade everything that I can, but I don't think I would be motivated by the idea of the endless experience of constantly selling objects that I find in the dungeon.

That loop doesn't sound appealing to me in the long term and I don't really get anything out of the story at all.

But I would play this from scratch again for fun and I'm officially excited for Moonlighter 2.

I give this a nine point O out of.

Ten.

Wow, you liked this a lot more than I thought you would.

I liked it a lot more than I thought I would, too.

And, you know, lately I've been arriving on scores based on where I put it in my backlog list.

And I kind of base it on the scores around the the games it's near.

Yeah.

And based on where I put this, at least on vibes today, it's it's in the 9 point O realm, maybe a low 9 point O, but.

Yeah, love it.

I'm so glad you liked it.

Yeah, I had not played this before, so I was going into this for the first time, just like you, and I had a good time.

But I will say maybe like 80% of this entire experience is kind of one giant blur to me.

That's not like a terrible thing.

It's just kind of samey.

It is.

So that's kind of my general thought going into all my points here.

But what I liked, I think this feels really fulfilling to make your way back to town with a backpack full of loot.

You've successfully filled your backpack.

That is inherently really rewarding.

You've protected all this gear.

You know, if you were to go down in a dungeon, you would lose most of the stuff in your backpack.

So just making it back with a full backpack or mostly full backpack feels great because now you have the freedom to sell.

Any curses on your items get removed.

And now it's just stuff that you can put in your shop, right?

And I actually really like the speed and the vibe of opening the shop and putting things up for sale.

I enjoy that process of seeing the customers come in.

They come in quite quickly too.

Like the shoppers move decently fast, which I was a little worried about.

I was worried like how long is this loop going to take and you can sell out a whole inventory in just a few minutes, which is great.

I think that's the perfect amount to add variety to the pacing.

The other thing I really enjoy is the inventory management.

Like you suspected, like I I think this is a really interesting way that the game asks you to make choices about what to keep.

I think that helps to keep things interesting.

Do I wish I could upgrade my backpack size?

Yes.

That would be such a that.

Would be the biggest thing.

Actually later on, if you have other ideas for ways this game could expand or ideas for Moonlighter too, I would love to hear those.

But yeah, generally I just, I, I like managing an inventory and the game gives us ways to sell less expensive things while we're in the dungeon a little bit later on.

So it's not like you're scrapping things.

It's not like you're completely leaving things on the floor and not being allowed to get anything for them.

So the game does reward you still.

I really like the recipe and wish list features where we can go to the blacksmith and we can look at a piece of, we can look at an armor set or a weapon, we can wish list it.

And then those ingredients for those equipment items will have a star next to them in our inventory when we pick them up.

And there is a wish list tab in our journal that we can really quickly reference.

And once I understood how to get there, that was really helpful for just filtering down what I needed.

I did not need to collect every single item as an ingredient in this game.

A vast majority of things I could just sell in my shop, and that was kind of a freeing feeling.

I only have a handful of ingredients to look out for to save for the blacksmith and other things.

Otherwise I can just sell, sell, sell.

When I got to right before the last dungeon, I was at the point where all the equipment items I needed had the same ingredients and I had all that I needed.

So all I needed from there was just like money.

And that was just like, I can sell everything else, I don't need anything else.

Yeah, all of this is going to be revenue for me that I'm picking up from this point.

I also really like the art style and the general vibe of Rinoka, actually the the place that's in disrepair that you slowly see develop and flourish in small ways.

I like the shop expansions.

They're very satisfying to witness, and I like that the dungeon loop is really digestible, and every loop is also different enough each run to surprise me.

I didn't get to the point in this game where I thought like, oh, here's this room again.

We just got this room now I'm going to see this room afterward, right?

The game switches up the layout and which enemies are in which rooms enough that it's hard to predict what you'll run into.

You do understand a formula of like when you go into a room with a big pool of water in it, you know the boss room is nearby.

There are things like that.

But most of the time I'm going into these dungeons and I don't really know what direction I should go to find the boss.

I don't know what order things are going to be in.

So that's always really nice.

I also really like the soundtrack in this game.

It's this beautiful folklorish set list.

It's kind of like upbeat, like campfire songs or maybe like songs you'd hear in a Tavern in a fantasy story.

Just very pleasant music going on.

Some things I didn't like as much.

I don't feel a strong sense of purpose in making my way through this game.

The the story isn't grabbing me a ton.

Just like you said, I think there's this loop of collecting and selling that is linear, which is nice and predictable, but it doesn't seem to evolve in super dramatic ways or super profound ways.

And also sometimes the upgrades to equipment don't feel super deep.

It's just giving you maybe a little bit more movement speed or a little bit more armor.

And I also don't appreciate how if you buy a set of armor and you upgrade it, and that set of armor is an ingredient for the next stage of armor, that upgrade is lost.

Yeah, the enhancements don't translate to anything.

You upgrade it.

So that took some trial and error to understand.

And then I realized, oh, I've been wasting some ingredients and money because I could have just waited for this upgrade for the next armor set and then I could upgrade that armor set instead of losing the upgrade for my first armor set.

Yeah, for, for me, I needed those just based on my skill level.

I needed those enhancements in between each big upgrade because I needed the extra defense because I was taking devs and I couldn't progress.

I guess what it does do is it gives you this marginal next step.

If you don't have the ingredients for that next armor set because you're not in the right environment yet, you can still get more defense.

I get that.

It's just that I didn't always want to spend that money if I knew that there was another significant upgrade coming and I would just lose my you.

Have to hold your nose to do it.

Yeah, it's, it's kind of sucks in that way, but another thing I didn't super like is that the trial and error of setting prices wasn't that fun for me and the supply demand system didn't seem to matter at a certain point.

If you find, if you find the price that almost anyone will always accept, I found that that price just locking in that price and then never adjusting it is just fine and you'll make plenty of money.

And I think of it as like time is money in this game.

You could spend your time pettifogging around about prices and supply and demand and adjusting things and being like just super particular with adjusting your prices.

But I would always think I could spend time doing that or I could just spend time that I would spend doing that going into the dungeon farming for more stuff to sell in the shop.

So if I know a good average price that even in low demand situations this item will sell, I should just go back into the dungeon?

So that's what I committed to.

I didn't get sucked into the the setting prices thing and evaluating supply and demand really at all.

Then finally, the combat I found to be chunky and limited in terms of maneuverability.

You can't attack in eight directions like I would expect.

You can only attack upright left down and it just feels like there's this chunky waiting us to it.

You can roll away from things, which feels nice and kinetic sometimes, but I don't know it you couldn't be so precise with your moving around in this game.

And I would sometimes, you know, be using a bow and arrow and it was sometimes hard to line that up.

You're just shooting in these straight lines.

It just doesn't feel very dynamic when it comes to combat.

So overall I think Moonlighter is fun while I'm playing it.

It doesn't offer a life changing experience for me.

The shopkeeping and dungeon crawling contrast really well, but I don't know that this combo is greater than the sum of its parts.

I think it's equal to the sum of its parts.

Whereas in a game like Colts, the Lamb, I think that's an experience where.

All the different elements lift each other.

Up they do, and I I don't know that I'm feeling that in Moonlighter.

I think each part is done adequately.

See, after a while I could be running through all the dungeons and my goal could be to get through all the dungeons.

And if I've spent all the money on upgrades that I feel like I really need, I could just use the mirror to sell all my stuff in the dungeon.

Because at a certain point money be becomes no object.

Right.

Yeah.

So you can just keep going and going.

It's more about like how long you're going, your endurance.

So I did get addicted to making money and funding upgrades.

There were a couple play sessions where I just played for a lot of hours.

So this game did get its hooks in me.

But again, it's kind of all a big blur.

I'm going to give this a 7 out of 10.

That's about what I guessed.

So I did enjoy it.

This is going to be in my big list of like indie games that I've that I've gotten A7 or higher out of 10 from me.

Like it's going to be lower in the list than I thought it might be.

But I'm nonetheless super excited for Moonlighter 2.

I've seen the trailer and it looks cool.

Oh, I think he would really dig the style.

It's a very different aesthetic.

Maybe we can look at that together and react to it.

That might be fun, but actually do you want to end the episode doing that?

That'd be fun before we wrap up.

OK, we'll do that.

You mentioned the inventory management and you know, sometimes it's a little overwhelming.

I want to talk about that a little bit.

I was opening a chest sometimes and to make that decision of what to sell to the mirror, they give you that little shortcut to open up the price book, and I would just use that to figure out what's my least valuable item.

Let's just sell that to the mirror.

Were you doing those things?

Were you like doing that level of evaluation?

Not necessarily.

I mean, yes, sometimes, but it would be between like 3 items maybe that I was like, I don't want to hold on to these ones because I found the act of like looking at the book, the price book, closing the price book, looking at the next item, opening the price book again.

And just like trying to keep all those different numbers in my head at the same time as opening and closing the book wasn't worth the effort for me.

So it was like, OK, what was it that I needed for that upgrade?

And then I'll focus on that.

What did I need for any of these side quests?

I didn't mention side quests.

Sometimes you'll get shop requests and those are kind of fun.

I find those a little bit motivating sometimes.

It'll help me decide between do I want to go to the more powerful dungeon or do I want to grind some more in the less powerful dungeon.

Real quick, there's a, there's a calendar system, very, very light calendar system where people will request a certain number of item that you can only get in one of the dungeons and they'll say, I'll be back in three days.

You better have ten of these things.

And then when they come back, you can make a a decent amount of cash.

Yeah.

So I, I kind of liked those.

I usually didn't need the money that they offered me because when I got to the point where those were a thing, I was making money.

Pretty easily.

A lot, yeah.

But anyways, it's it's usually based more on what don't I need and regardless of unless it was like super valuable, like one of the jottings or one of the journals, I was like, I'll just sell this.

And then you mentioned the price book giving you some clues about a general ballpark for prices.

That's something I appreciated too.

Yeah, if it was like my first item from a dungeon, I was like, I have no idea where to start.

Cuz like even in the journal it'll divide up the list of things from that region and it'll have like a coin amount.

But I don't know if that coin amount is for the stuff above it or the stuff that comes below it.

Yeah, so I found that demarcation kind of confusing.

I would still generally start around there and sometimes I would kinda get close but other times I was like giving stuff away basically cuz I misunderstood it.

Yeah.

So you'll get a reaction based on your prices that clues you into how well you're doing.

And you could sell something that's worth 4000 gold for 10 gold and you'll, you'll get like a giant :) reaction.

But that doesn't tell you what the minimum probably should be for that item.

So yeah, honing in, it's important to look at that price book.

And I did like that for the 1st 2 1/2 dungeons.

And what I ended up doing, the point I got into dungeon three and four especially for is I started looking at the wiki for this game And I they list out all of the very specific prices for if something's in high demand, low demand, neutral demands, how much to set the price for in new game plus versus new game.

And I would just go for the middle of the road average good price.

And I, that saved me a ton of time of just looking at that price because I, I knew how to do that.

I had done it so many times.

I didn't want to put up with it really.

So I that's one way I sort of cheated.

Usually I get, I have like 1 item, one or two items per dungeon where I'm just like sort of guess and check.

And then once I get that set, I can sort of like extrapolate everything else in the list based on what that was.

And that really helped, especially when I got to the end of, I think the desert.

And I was getting like those journals.

It was just like right away, first try, got the right price and I was like heck yeah.

Nice.

Yeah, that's a very good feeling.

Yeah.

It's you get an intuition for a lot of things.

You just go, yeah, this seems like 1000, let's try that.

And yeah, I would sometimes try to push my luck a bit and bump things up by a couple hundred extra gold, and that was decently fine.

But I mostly just stuck to the same values.

I do appreciate that it saves your last price that you set when you quick move an item from your inventory to the shop.

It just like remembers that that price.

When you're good, that's super helpful.

You're not like manually typing things in all the time.

That would be.

I would have quit.

I probably would have quit.

Yeah.

And then it's just like data entry the game now when you're in the dungeon, do you have a specific favorite weapon or kind of armor or combat strategy?

Like what?

What is your dungeoning look like?

So I only tried a few different kinds of weapons.

I think I tried the bow like one time and didn't love it.

You one of the first ones you get is like a sword that also has a shield and that was fine for a minute.

I also have like a heavier sword.

But the thing that I stuck with after I realized I was like vibing with it was the gauntlets.

And just like for the for pretty much after the first dungeon, I was just like, all right, I'm going hard into gauntlets and that's what I'm doing.

Interesting.

I never once tried the gauntlets or the spear or the big sword.

I just stuck with sword and shield.

Yeah, because I just thought, I know this.

I it's kind of what you start with, I think.

And I'm just going to hold on to this.

I think if I'm not mistaken, the gauntlets offer more hits per second, like you can attack quicker than any other weapon.

And so I was like, I do like that.

That's what I'm into.

Yeah.

You have to get close to enemies and that especially in the desert with fire enemies.

Can I just say I hate that cube that shoots the little tiny laser but also shoots like an entire screens worth of lava at its side?

Yeah, that's annoying.

That's too.

Much It's doing too many things.

That's two enemies worth of attacks at least.

Yeah, I don't like that either.

I I think I assumed gauntlets would require you to get up close and personal so I didn't want to invest in that.

There's only a couple enemies where it's like a really big deal.

That's one of them.

The little tiny electric dudes in the final dungeon.

Yeah, can hit you.

Yeah, those are annoying.

Yeah, a lot of rims will have a obstacle or a threat or a trap that you can't interact with.

You have to clear all the enemies and then it goes away.

That was interesting.

And then we also have like hidden rooms that we can drop down into, and some of those I didn't understand the purpose of what was going on.

Like there's a chest in one of them that you can put items into but I didn't understand what it was for.

So that's actually the best one in my opinion.

OK, what does it do?

So you put the items in that chest, and that chest teleports the items back to your shop.

And so you have all those like.

Clear your inventory.

Yeah, and you have like all those little extra chests just like in your room, apart from the big one.

It dumps it into one of.

Those it into one of those.

That's really nice.

Yeah.

I I tried putting one thing in there and I didn't understand what was going on.

So good to know.

I wish I would have done that at the beginning.

That would have saved me.

Maybe like a run or two?

Yeah.

Did you occasionally see like a little gooey room that you could drop into a gooey?

Maybe.

So most of the time it's a little sparkles, right?

You see a little sparkle, right?

Sometimes it looks like a splash of goo.

Did that happen for you?

Oh, I don't think so.

So this might be DLC stuff.

So occasionally there'll be like a little splash of goo for me, Nice.

And I can drop down in there and it's like a just like an interdimensional, like an extra mini floor of a dungeon and you fight monsters mostly from that dungeon, some maybe from another.

And then there's also skeletons.

Yeah, I don't think I've had that.

Something very similar is that when you're top level in a dungeon, you'll sometimes see a manifestation of one of the other dungeons show up.

That's cool that like for one room you get to fight in the desert instead of the forest.

Right, and it's a little bit like that.

It's kind of like that.

And then at the end you'll face one of the mini bosses, but it'll be like specific to the goo dungeon and some I especially in the desert area, I found those to be a lot easier than the hex or whatever the hexas.

And then you'll get like a special weapon at the end of it that disappears as soon as you leave the dungeon.

Sometimes it's better than the weapon you have equipped.

Sometimes it's not interesting.

So that that saved me a couple times.

OK, that's I think that's a very clear example of stuff that's in the DLC that I didn't see because I don't.

I wasn't sure.

Yeah, because I don't have the DLC.

I'm guessing that's what that is.

Then there are tools that we get as upgrades as we go to more and more dungeons.

There's the mirror.

There's the thing that lets you go back to town with your backpack safely, and you can you have to pay gold to be extracted out, if you will.

There's the teleporter, which brings you back to town, but you also get to return to the dungeon where you left off.

This is something later in the game, and that was actually super huge in getting me through the game faster.

Not just because I could resume on level two or three of a dungeon and not have to fight my way back through the early levels, but because when I would return to a dungeon, it would reveal the entire map to me.

Which is nuts.

That is nuts.

And it felt unintentional.

It felt accidental, but I didn't mind.

So like now I can see the path to the boss and I don't have to spend all this time looking around.

So that saved me.

I don't know how much time that saved me, but I mean, that's great that that's what that does.

I never had the the thought to like, OK, now I'm on the beginning of floor 3.

So me just quickly, you know, leave and come back.

Maybe that would have helped me a lot because most of the time I was dying.

I was dying because I was like looking for the boss.

And in most cases I'm going the exact wrong direction every single branching path.

Yeah, because every level gets bigger with how many rooms there are.

So which path to go is is harder to tell.

And once I understood that, it showed the whole map upon returning through the portal, I would get to Level 3 and I would just immediately go to town, sell stuff, then go back.

That's that saved me.

I don't know, maybe an hour or two.

I wish I would have done that.

Yeah.

So I don't know, that would be a tip I'd give to somebody, somebody new.

Is there anything else you want to say about equipment, the town, exploring, selling stuff, anything in any part of the loop of this game?

Not really, I did notice that.

Just going off of the topic of these like special items.

I noticed that if you don't have enough gold to use at least the smaller teleporter, the smaller return to home button, it will automatically like drop stuff from your bag into that mirror to get you to the point where you have enough gold.

Because like, I was like panicking.

I was like almost dead.

And I was like, go home, go home, go home.

And I saw in the corner like my stuff in my bag was starting to like disappear.

That's scary at first, I bet, but that's actually a really considerate feature rather than just saying like, no, you can't go back.

I mean I I'll take just automatically selling stuff.

Over because you can't open your bag while they're enemies active.

No, but you can go back home, which is nice.

Like you can be in the middle of the boss fight and just go back home.

That's really nice.

I use that to save my my backpack of stuff a lot of times.

Yeah.

OK so before looking at the Moonlighter 2 Early Access release date trailer from games.com 2025, is there anything you hope for Moonlighter 2?

I just want to move a little bit faster, I think.

And then one thing that I would love if that would have been a thing in Moonlighter 1 is if sort of go more Cult of the Lamb like and remove hazards from the floor as soon as you clear the room of enemies.

Because I can't tell you how many times I was running back and forth through finished rooms and stepping in lava.

Yeah, I used to have to watch out.

Yeah, that's fair.

Well, I just sent you a trailer for Moonlighter 2 The Endless Vaults.

Let's watch this together and let's do a quick reaction and then call it.

OK.

Does that sound good?

Yeah.

OK, I'm ready to play.

Are you?

Yeah, give me the countdown.

321 go.

It is a different style.

Yes, much more modern looking.

Oh wow, I mean, it's no secret I love the pixel art thing.

Like that's my jam.

OK.

Oh, that solves some of your issues.

And this is definitely more isometric than top down.

Yeah.

A lot of the same colors, shop looks very similar.

Like the the weird alien technology?

Yep, still looks cool.

We've got traps.

We've got floor traps abound.

Laser traps.

OK.

And I I mean, the music sounds like it'll probably also be something I don't get tired of.

Yeah, definitely.

I like how it's a very different style visually.

Like it almost looks.

I mean it kind of looks cel shaded or something.

Yeah, it's very death Store was the first thing that.

I thought yeah, it's looks more modern than Moonlighter one, but the branding of things like the the colors and some of the iconography is definitely synonymous with Moonlighter 1, so it feels.

You still have all this green goo looking stuff everywhere.

Will still has his bright white hair, so all of that's still present.

Yeah.

So that comes out in early Access on October 23rd of this year, and I will be interested in that a lot.

So that is our review of Moonlighter.

You can play it on PC, Mac, Linux, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, Android, and iOS.

Disco Cola rated it a nine.

I rated it A7.

That's the end of this episode of Underplayed.

You can find more of our episodes at kzm.org/underplayed and on podcast platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Our music was composed by Jack Rodenberg.

Our art comes from Oni Mochi.

You can also check out our show notes where you can find and follow us across social media.

Under Plate is on Blue Sky, Instagram and Threads.

You can also find my links down below.

And I am at Disco Cola in most of those places as well.

And hey, if you have a question for our upcoming guests, you can ask them by visiting our Google forum, which you can find on most of our social platforms and ask any questions you might want answered about our guests, about our future games.

So yeah, check it out.

Next time we will have two more secret games to review, a discussion with Lucy Blundell of Kinmoku Games and our featured game will be 1000 times resists A narrative sci-fi adventure developed by Sunset Visitor.

Until then, everyone keep on play.