What Gucci Stanley Tucci, We're back, Episode one hundred and fifteen.

It's fire Escape Cast.

I'm Mike, your host is always here with Dan, who seems upset.

I don't like that.

You got to workshop that.

No, don't even workshop it, just scrap it over something about last time?

And what did you do anything?

I tried rhyming a bunch of actors' names with other greetings and it doesn't work.

Real quick, do you want right now?

Don't think about it?

Go what's happening?

Billy crapping In?

I like that better?

But who is he?

That's our mascots?

He and the Devil Wars product?

Does he have a travel show?

Billy crapping In is their new mascot?

Introduced Mary.

That's Mary Kesh, whose.

Name rhymes Willy crapping In, whose.

Name requires no inch.

Howction that's bad?

Like who is Billy Crappin?

He?

He has tried several times to get into Warhammer forty k painting minifigs, but he doesn't have the space because he lives in a studio apartment and he works at a foster care center for cats.

But a lot of people bring in dogs and lizards and that's his main problem.

He's trying to get people.

He's trying to remind people in his neighborhood that it's only foster center for cats.

But coincidentally, the neighborhood dogs and lizards have all taken to have developed a taste for cat food because so many of them are spending time with this foster care.

So that's one of his problems.

He also has stage sick.

Now I'm not gonna get grim about it.

My goodness.

We're gonna start to go fund me for Billy crappin In.

Yeah, yeahs medical bills, yeah.

Well, direct the money to the appropriate source, don't you an?

The crapping In family will launch the go fund me game of.

The year twenty twenty five, fire Escape will be dedicated to the crappin In family.

It'll be Billy Kravinen fundraiser for his He has unselfish, He's got he's got internal hemorrhoids.

He does ask that all the proceeds go to the cat center, though those lizards and dogs needs homes.

Do you think internal hemorrhoids are worse?

I've had external and they're the worst thing ever.

Do you think internal would be worse.

I think internal hemorrhoids are just tumors.

I feel like it would be the same thing, but it's like the thing when it's on the outside, it can rub against you know, like like cloth and shit like that, and like if it's inside, it's all just like wet butt stuff.

Like I would think that would be like easier, right.

Don't you think it's rubbing against your organs?

Yeah, but that's like wet body stuff instead of like your underpants or like toilet paper.

You know, I don't know.

I imagine it would still mess with your physiology somehow.

I mean, the external ones are absolutely terrible.

They are.

They were way worse than I expected when I got my first one.

Just poking drain baby.

No, that's what my doctor said.

So I got back from New Orleans, New Orleans, where I got my hemorrhoid, and I came back another my butt hurts.

Doc, Wait, why do you do?

What about you?

You know, specifically where you got it?

Yeah, because I remember thinking like cause I was.

It was my dad's fiftieth and we went to New Orleans, and I remember like near the end of the trip thinking like, oh, this is just one of those things where I've been traveling and like, that's why my butt hurts.

And it's like when I wipe, it hurts, and so you know, you travel sometimes and your butt gets weird.

So I was describing it to my father as you do, and he has also had hemorrhoids, and he was like, no, it sounds like you're describing a hemorrhoid.

And I was like, I don't know, I don't know.

He say, yeah, you got to see the doctor when you get back.

So I remember waiting, like I can't wait to get back to Minnesota so I can check all my butt at a doctor.

And he did tell me yeah.

About this, and he's like, you can either like a lancet.

Or the way he put it, I'll never forget.

He's like, oh, you can wait it out.

Within a week it'll be gone.

Or I can take a scalpel.

You know you're gonna bite like a belt thing.

And I'm going to go, oh yeah, yeah.

I think he said it involves me taking a scalpel to your asshole.

And uh, I'm just being like, oh, I'll fucking wait.

And I did the first time.

Doc.

I'm going to pull my pants down again.

Yeah, fourth time this week in front of a strange but attractive man.

I mean, look as a man who had ball surgery when he was eighteen, I kind of don't have any uh any.

I'm fine with that.

Assholes, dicks, whatever I got to show to a doctor.

It's just some you know.

Yeah, sometimes you do and they don't even want to see it.

Yeah.

Sometimes I just go in for my physical and it's just like, yeah, you have a you have a sinus affection, sir.

What about my butthole?

I don't need to see your asshole to know that what it means.

To my butthole when I sneeze?

Is it normal too?

Is it normal?

Just ship every time I sneeze?

Get in there, doc, your I got.

I got no problem with that.

It's just the latest suppositories.

Oh yeah, I have done this suppository stuff during the hemorrhoid times.

Yes.

Oh really wait, it's easy scribespositories for hemorrhoids.

It's like when it's like a cream thing.

No, I'm talking about the big butt pills.

We're like not even ten minutes in, there's just so much anal.

I'm like, you know, a suppository can be like it's like a little candle you put in your buttole.

It don't like a nice little candle.

It is because it's like it's like a cream that like you just put in there and it just like instead of like just rubbing cream all over your asshole, you just put the little candle up there and it just kind of like melts from your butt warmth and then just makes it all, you know, smoother or whatever.

Oh that's news to me.

I thought it was a big pill that you just I think you can.

I think there are I've never done pill pill butt Stuffy Row used to put all of her drugs in her asshole.

Well that's a that's hot.

I'm not saying you can't.

She died, my fact, you can't.

That's not how she died.

She did not.

It might have been I thought she killed herself with pill.

She did, but saying that she specifically killed herself hugging pills.

Or did she overdose on something?

I think it was an overdose.

It was not a suicide, but.

We were they contras.

We don't know it could have been suicide.

But leaving that aside, I don't know that it was the bud.

Only Dan the biggest looking at but doctor an awareness person we know is did Marilyn Monroe kill herself via but injected pills?

It was a barbituate overdose on August fourth, nineteen sixty two.

Barbatuates control f but troll f anus.

Huh.

Yeah, it's not really talking about her.

But I don't think that her a Jewish conist that and I don't think her obituary is going to cover whether or not she consumed the pills orally or bodily.

You have funny New York Times a bit.

I guess it doesn't say that now.

It doesn't mention anything about the butt.

You're just making up history.

And I hope her estate sues you for.

Talking the state of Marilyn Monroe versus record Mary.

How's your ass?

She did not butt chug her pills?

I'm great, My ass is great.

What do you guys want to know?

I haven't seen one doctor recently.

They didn't see my asshole.

What else is going on?

Oh?

I went to packs desperately trying to change subjects.

Sure work.

Yeah, I went to cock Pas it always does.

I went to Packs West.

I had a good time.

We did switch me up.

I met a U fire Escape fan there.

I believe their name was Wizard of Video Games, and they knew all of our catchphrases.

They told me not to kiss it.

Uh, they are all the secrets.

Less talking, more dewey.

Oh yeah sure.

Yeah.

My control f Anus.

That's the shure we got coming out.

Yeah.

Oh what was it?

Uh?

There is?

Uh, let me look it up.

You keep talking.

I'm with control f Anus with an arrow.

Yeah.

Ask me about my control f anus.

Yeah, ask me about my We're gonna have a whole line flip flops.

There's like a tiny fire Escape logo on.

Care for Hamilton and there's a moon in wheel World.

Suck my dick.

Moon in World.

Yeah, that was my spoiler.

Yeah, oh you you're on the moon.

You go to the moon.

Yeah, I go to.

The moon, and you guys were like, that's a spoiler, and then I yelled at you.

Yeah that's right, that's right.

It was fun to be on the receiving end.

Anyway, met some fire Escape fans and gamers alike at the meetup, and then I went to packs for one day and saw the show floor, observed the Resident Evil and new demo, and there was Silk Song on the floor, but I did not play it because it's just a demo and the game comes out for all of our listeners.

The game comes out in less than twelve hours, So there's just no reason for me to play it at packs and wait in that long line when I'm literally going to play it in like a couple of days.

Okay, so you are you're going to do it without playing the first game.

I mean, I guess you don't need the story.

I have to say.

It is weird to say this.

It is really flattering when you recommend something hard to your friend and they actually take you up on it, like I'm glad you're going to try it?

Oh when I tried it?

Or no, she hasn't played, so we recommend it.

I'm gonna play folk Song to Mary and because we love.

We're such big fans, and I'm glad you have.

Charlie, been fucking sucking yourselves off all week waiting for this opportunity to talk to me, like I don't fucking know this game like the back of my ass, you triple a fucking Kojima jerking ship stain.

Do not get to talk to me about fucking hollow Night.

You don't deserve to you style you talk ship about this art style all the time.

You deserve no listeners, no friends, no loved ones, just wet, wet mud.

Righte brings out the best insults I've ever heard from Mary you Kojima.

Jerking ship stain.

That is good, triple a jerking ship stain.

My fucking games this year.

I am not that this is just an inaccurate thing you're throwing me out.

I'm completely reasonable, and it's even more they.

Have to talk to me, says the trip like games.

You saw that.

That's right, we're all.

Probably doing it out.

Yep, yep, the wheelhouse.

Let me see my current top top ten of twenty twenty five.

Here, let's see we got toilet not in order or anything.

Actually loutly okay.

Monster Train two is very good.

Expedition thirty three, Shinobi, Bionic Bay, Pipastrello and the Curse Yo Yo.

I know in love Indies, I bet you didn't finish Pipistrello and the Curse yoyo, you little bitch.

You're right.

I know you didn't.

You're right because I know how hard it is, because I've put like thirty five hours into it, and I bet you're the kind of person that plays an indie game and goes, that was a great eight hours.

And now I will just look at Kojima's picture and touch myself, and I know that you did not even finish Wheel World until I told you, because you thought you did and you didn't finish it.

Right about that.

I finished indie games all the time.

I beat you.

We'll get to it, but I beat you.

Finish time Flies.

That's not I guess not really.

It's made by Sega, but you, stupid bitch, was published by Sega.

No time Flies.

I didn't be time Flies.

Listen some games.

Look, I've been in this game a while, all right, I can look at again.

Andy McNamara and the chief a game informer, used to look over her shoulders when we were playing a game and he's like, I've done this for so long, I'm gonna do my five minute review.

He'd watch it for five minutes and be like, that's gonna get seven point five, and he was usually right.

I have noticed a men of a certain age in the video game industry loved.

Okay, I'm not I'm not lumping you in, but Dan, I mean I am though, no, no, no, there is a certain there is a certain tier, not tier was the word I'm looking for you demographic of men in the industry who love to brag about that being able to see a pitch for a game and then saying the score it's gonna get.

Well, it is just true that at a certain point you do you've seen a lot, and you've seen a lot of things that look like certain things, and you can get a good sense of what a game's offering.

Score.

So, uh, silks on.

Yeah, did you know right away that's song was going to be an iconic classic that, by the way, would like Mary?

I thought, did you think what did you think about Hollow Night when you first played it?

Yeah?

I didn't like it, but I came around because to me.

Damia actually knows good games when he sees them.

Maybe you're just not cut out for.

Breath the While when it came out, So I you know, anybody can can be wrong about stuff.

Maybe you should find a different wild Yeah.

Something I was going to say about Mary was berating me, who loves scenario.

Is so interested in supporting indies?

Your favorite fucking games in all of our top ten game requests are Triple A games.

Mario Zelda Medal year, Yes, those are those are among the best games of all time.

I think that's not a wild thing to say.

You're in the wrong starters.

The starters up.

There, get out of get out of my space.

We have to convince you to play these not really don't start started?

No, No, I started for you.

Probably I did.

I don't think you probably tweeted about it because you want everybody to talk to you about how fucking important you are.

But I definitely played that game.

First.

Why are you playing?

Why are you playing Soak Song yet?

I thought Kickstarter backers got to play it early.

I thought you were a big fan.

They all get to play it at the same time, which is but.

They got it early.

I thought the whole point was that they get it early.

No, you would know that if you were a fan.

You didn't.

You didn't contributed that tier.

I guess I don't need to.

I am the biggest contributor in the world.

In with my heart.

I love that game.

I will be awake tomorrow.

I'm taking the day to play it.

Yeah, who's the mark?

Now?

You haven't played this game?

In your serious.

Praises, I like to consider myself the Andy McNamara of indie games.

And I can tell you very soon that that game is going to be a fucking ten each ship.

You know what, it will get tense.

You're right, it will get tense.

And I do believe that you will give it a ten if if you.

It sounds like sounds like you're you're kind of being a dan Ryker mark here like it can they could do anything they want with Silk Song and you give it a ten.

No, the pictures now of a little bug.

Guy, I think that it could turn anyway.

But I believe in my heart of hearts that this is going to be a banger.

But this is all gonna be like bad Air by the time this air, because the game will already be out right.

But you're that's that's what a safe bed, what a safe bet that it's going to be the sequel to this beloved game is going.

To be here anything ten out of ten.

It's nine fifty Eastern, the night before anybody's playing this game.

Yeah, I'm gonna go out a limit and say it's gonna be fine, and I'll probably be wrong with this episode goes up, But if I'm right, everybody's gonna say, look at Mike was right, He's the Andy McNamara of the Indie games.

Yeah, they will so playing.

You're playing all the time, and Dan must a loser.

But Mike, if I can just address you for a second, I feel like this is a really good bet that you might be right and I might be right.

And Dan was just in the room, probably farting.

Well.

Yeah, I think it's going to be an eight point seventy five.

That's I think I would give the first one an eight point seventy five, and I think this is gonna be about the same.

Same scores residevils six.

I now i've.

Tim Turry bring up more game and former personnelities from twenty eleven.

Yeah, we're through half the staff.

I'm good.

I can't talk about my boss, no, just kidding.

Just in case, Berts, if you're listening, I have nothing.

Birt's knows everything.

I respect you as a man.

He knows a lot about bourbon.

Anyway, I was at Packs and I got invited to the Peak party, which is that game I like?

And I was really excity invited to this, Dan, you haven't heard about.

It, sucking anyone you check the timestamps.

I got the email about Peak and I immediately when the Discordan, I said, we gotta stream this.

This sounds great, stream before anyone before you, Mary.

This is like some bad art.

Yeah, there was like a huge smelly wind.

So I was playing.

I went to the Peak party and it was really smart.

When you walk in, they gave everybody sashes, and then there was different ways to get pins by doing things at the party, like stealing their merch or getting a drink at the bar, and then the bartender would give you a pin that had drink on it to add to your sash, just like they do in the game, which is really cute.

And I think there.

Pins are like a big packs pastime too, right they are.

I mean I think these were like kind of rudimentary pins.

They weren't like those really nice coveted packs pins.

But nonetheless it was like a cute idea.

Oh no, that's what I'm saying.

It seems it's on theme, several theme, and.

They just kind of made an active effort to make it a silly, cheeky thing to experience.

There were eight pins and one of them was, uh to find uh, what's that stupid thing in uh?

Oh bing bong?

Uh to find bingbong in the game.

Now for people who actually played the game and aren't just like trying to pretend that they play the game, Bingbong is this like green little uh fish frog that you can pick up in the very beginning of the game and you can actually carry him with you.

Fun lore for people who actually know indie games is that the devs used to actually talk to players through Bingbong and like listen to them, only if it was a public game.

They weren't like listening to your children.

But like if you were live streaming Peak and you were like hi, bing Bong, bing Bong, as a dev would come back and be like hi, and like actually talk to them, which is very funny and cheeky.

Anyway, the last button was find Bingo Bingbong, and I couldn't find this little thing anywhere.

I looked all over the party, like went to all the different corners of this space.

I couldn't find it.

And then I've been at this party for like an hour, having a couple drinks, getting a little getting little sauce, and the dev comes on the mic to say to everybody, thank you so much for coming to this party.

You know this is a humble team.

I think this team is literally a Baker's dozen.

It's a very small group and they make multiple games, so only a portion of the team made Peak.

This is a small group of people who made this like monumental, awesome game.

He's like being super thankful, and he's like, I have a treat for you, guys.

My girlfriend handmade the cake and she's gonna bring it out right now, and everyone's like, oh my gosh, that's so cute, and me, with my like drunk gamer brain, I'm like, where's this fucking last thing so I can get my final eighth pin.

And as they walk out with this cake, it's in these like it looks like she cake boxes, right, like really nice rectangular boxes of cake.

There's like four of them, so it's a big ass cake.

And as they walk out, they're all kind of like being careful about opening it, and I just say, at the top of my lungs, oh my god, it's the cake being bong And the good girlfriend looks at me and gives me the shush, and I realized that I had just spoiled her cake, and I.

Felt really bad yelled.

I yelled it like I would have screamed the karaoke song that I wanted to play.

Next, I was out of my gourd and.

Someone doesn't respect Indy developers.

She handled it.

She's not dead, she's a girlfriend, and she was very very nice about it.

But I felt.

Super guilty even about women.

Jesus a nice girlfriend who made this cake and I ruined her moment, and so I felt kind of bad about that.

The cake was.

Bingbong bingbong Gate twenty five, I know, and then I left.

That sounds like someone that doesn't respect Andy devs.

Meanwhile, I have receipts over here on my birthday.

Instead of out celebrating and stuff, I'm working.

June sixteenth, I got an email at twelve pece him from Papa Gendas saying, hey, we're announcing and launching.

Here's peek, here's some codes, and I said sold immediately streaming this going live at the top of the hour, and the publisher says, hope you enjoy.

And I don't know if anyone's told you all this, but dang, you work fast.

That's how fast I am to respect Indy developers.

To do with the fact that.

You'd be one of the first people streaming and guaranteed to pull view it looks like, don't nobody know about this yet?

I was.

I was a trstmaker.

So you don't make money off of your streams.

I mean not directly, really, not exactly, not direct Mary.

You were for the company that allows him to stream.

Oh weirder here.

Yeah, we've all agreed that Mike is the only innocent on this entire show.

I've been replaying a game called Red Dead Redemption two.

Mister Indy.

Law low honor, give me your one.

It's a weird.

We started telling about video games too early.

Mary, What do you do?

She mentioned packs, and there's nothing.

Yeah, I did pas, I did the the nice party I.

Did nineteen ninety seven, Barbarisco from Odero.

No, no, go back and talk to yell at me about games.

Okay, let's look at Dan's chat Twitch history because it's so important to him to support indies.

Uh, Donkey Kong Bonanza, classic indie game, the Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild.

Uh, just chatting, that's just you looking at your own stupid face for like two weeks.

Gears Judgment with Kayla, you.

Bitch, I am looking recently streamed.

Uh is this seat taken?

You skipped over that one weird Huh.

I love that rage Bound Wrestling, Empyer's sunder Folk time flies.

Uh jammer me, I'm all.

Over the place, sunder.

It wouldn't really for me.

Okay, that's the.

Second portion of the show.

We're not there yet.

I didn't start this.

Uh looks good.

Oh yeah, no this I'm just gonna say, why, yeah, why did you play Sunderfolk?

It was a stream Gian bond Oh okay, gotcha.

Yeah yeah, I quit after like five minutes.

I figured, like actively like bailed on the stream.

I do think we talked about this.

We Uh.

I guess this is the second area.

But yeah, I did do some recommendations that Mike recommended, which is cool.

Really save this.

Yeah, I never do your recommendations, and I did.

Oh, I don't ever recommend stuff to you because you are already like you're you're already playing cool stuff, like you know where the diamonds in the rough are?

Dan, I have to like kind of like help them sift through.

Oh my god, consulted.

I'm the veteran here.

You are the oldest.

That's right, I've been, I've done.

Yeah, I saw we talked about weapons.

What else is new State Fair?

When you were here, Mike, the State Fair.

I grew up in the town where the New York State Fair is held, and that's like one of the best.

Minnesota is the biggest, biggest, but not the best.

There's a difference.

See, you would understand indie games don't have to be that big to be the best.

Sorry, how was the State Fair?

That was very good?

Honey, pizza balls.

You ate a lot of shit, didn't you.

I saw your Instagram updates and it was just like fried food on a stick, fried food on a plate, fried food in my hands, fried food in my face.

I mean that was like I've maybe took pictures of like three of the you know, ten things I ate in.

My favorite thing that you took a photo of was all you can drink milk for three dollars.

That's a fucked up thing that's always there.

I've never once done it.

It's just seems insane to me because like most of the State Fair is like in the August, so that's just crazy in August to be drinking any milk, much less all you can drink.

But I've never touched that.

What is the weird Yeah, what's the weird thing?

Minnesota?

Soft served beer, soft served raspberry beer.

Had that was delicious.

It's just actual beer and it's in the form of ice cream and uh it's it's got a cone and everything.

It was fantastic.

It was great.

That sounds great beer.

How come not like a grain alcohol, you know?

I mean it's it's a brewery that makes it and they like it's not even like there's no dairy or anything.

It's just straight up just I don't know how they do the science or anything, but it's it is just beer in cone form that you lick.

There's a there's a bar in Stockholm that does a sour with like soft serve into it or like a slushy into it.

It was one of the most delicious things I've ever had.

Nice.

It was something Witch's hat in in Swedish.

Forget what the actual name was because I don't speak Swedish.

But it was delicious.

But uh yeah, I had a little lot of good wine recently.

I want to a place.

If you're ever in New York and looking for a place, I might have mentioned this when someone was looking for recommendtion.

There's a place called lay Lai in Chinatown.

One of the most unique places in New York.

It's on Doyer Street, which is pedestrian only.

A lot of cool murals everywhere, and there's like two rad cocktail bars.

Speakeasy vibes but not like overwrought speakeasy trendy, but just actual old school New York bars.

But go to Lay it's ty tiny or two table, two four tops in the middle and then like six two tops around the edges.

Really good wine program, but the food's amazing.

It's Chinese style small plates, one of the most like yeah, but like more Chinese like.

They have a they're doing like a beef carpascio kind of thing but with like umami, sesame oil and uh like fresh basil on top.

It's one we got like three extra plates after we did the first one.

They got amazing short ribs.

Their desserts are all incredible.

They're early like pickled dishes to start are phenomenal as well.

Just a really cool place if people are in New York and want to look for their reservations can be tough, but if you put your name in.

There's a cocktail bar called Appa Tech right next door, and then there's another one called The River right up the streets, so there's plenty of place to wait if you get like an hour wait or whatever.

Nice.

That was my weekend last weekend.

Yeah, we were kind of talking before we recorded about a Game of the Year this year, and you know, currently looking at possibly doing it here in Minnesota again and going to do our fancy Friday dinner and we'd love to do Dario again.

But then Saturday morning, hungover after the show, if you guys fly out late enough, finding more awesome burger places around here.

There's this place called Bull's Horn.

I want to take you to.

It's incredible burger.

Yeah, so I.

Think fancy Friday night, then we'll do all our bullshit, the Game of the Year stuff, and then I'll take you out some greasy shit.

It'd be great.

Well, we loved the greasy shit last time when we had the burger with the cheese on the molten lava on the endside.

Juicy lucy and then we had Lions Tap too before we h yeah.

Place, Yeah, that place was good.

I'm becoming like a connoisseur of like the dive burger place around here, Like you know, the Juicy Loose is the famous one, but like I just keep finding new places that have amazing burgers around.

I think mom and pop diners are important.

There's a staple of America.

And when people like actually come and visit me and they're like, I want to see some just like classic Americana culture, I'm like, I'm taking you to Tom's the diner, where half of it is a place where you can get a cheeseburger or breakfast all day long, and the other half is where you can bet on horses.

And that's just the type of place this is.

I like good that like slice of life space, and I think that's like, I don't know, the things that break my heart the most is chain restaurants that have no heart or soul at all.

They have their place too, you know, like I think, but I'm mainly thinking of like you know, fast food places like just garbage, you know, McDonald's and Taco Bell and stuff.

But ultimately, the things I feel fondest of are these little like mom and pop you know, like a lion's tap or bull's horn, these little places that you like when your friends are in town, your family's in towns, Like I got to show you this if you're in town.

But that's important, right, Like I agree like Wendy's has its place, but it's like on a road trip because I need something.

When people come and visit me, I take them to the diner that I always go to that has like the greasiest hash Browns you've ever fucking seen.

Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's right.

I will want the fast food bullshit more than most people, but I would never say that, like, oh, a McDonald's quarter pounder is better than these other places I like going to, you know, but sometimes you just want the obvious and convenient and you know, deliverers and all that stuff, and uh, there's a place for that.

I still have yet to see the Naked Gun.

Oh, I still have yet to see.

Twenty eight years.

Later, I saw nad Gun.

Yeah, I saw Naked Gun in one of those cool theaters where they like serve you dinner and like the seats are basically like really nice reclining leather chairs.

I've never done that before.

Yeah, it's kind of It was even like more insane.

It was like a small theater that only had I'm gonna say sixteen seats, and each seat was different, so some were like reclining leather chairs, some were straight up couches, but they were all very comfy and cozy, and they all had a little table, and the expectation it was not just like a we have dinner.

The expectation is that if you will get a movie there, you are supposed to order dinner.

That sounds like you know, two drink minimum, comedy clubs and stuff like.

That's that's been crazy.

Yeah, And I thought it was the perfect environment for the Naked Gun because like, I got a big ass bucket of popcorn and I got one of their like appetizer platters, so like it had like chicken tendies, fried shrimp, it had jalapeno poppers, it had fries.

It even had like a small plate of nachos in a sampler.

Hello.

And so I'm just like snacking on eight different types of cuisine whilst Liam Nielsen is doing the best singers I've ever seen.

I even text a few to you because I was like, these are such good jokes, so many good.

Ones, and the one you texted me like that movie has so many that the one you texted me, I was like, oh fuck, I forgot about that one.

That one's incredible, And so overall you're high on it.

I think it's great.

I think it's it's very smart for what it's doing.

And I also think around the time where I was like, I feel like they've done these jokes enough.

The movie was over.

Yeah, and it doesn't never say it's welcome.

It's a perfect length.

It should not have been any longer.

I think it would have started irking me, but it new to end and then it was great.

So I think it's actually fantastic because it I mean, you'd.

Get exhausted just the sheer like machine gun pace of the.

Joke per minute is insane.

Yes, yes, there's not like twenty or thirty seconds to go by without something, so like I think to go any past that, like hour thirty, I think you'd be risking that, and they knew how to be economical with it.

I'm also a huge fan of physical comedy that's in the background.

It's not ever addressed, it's not written.

There's just a sign in the background that's funny, or there's a guy that's like slipping.

There's there's so much visual gag that you might not even realize, like you were saying on your first watch through that you'll probably have to watch again a lot of coffee humor that I just thought was very funny throughout.

The Coffee Bitch really really good.

Yeah, very funny, like a lot of uh you know cop tropes is where the jokes that they were.

The body cam stuff was incredible when they're like watching him throughout the days you fast forward a little more.

Like it's constantly getting tirea and we're back to the butt.

Mike, Mike, you will like this movie a lot.

Sending Dan clips where someone edited fart noises into the Michael Keaton Batman the Other Day is good.

Yeah.

My wife walked it.

Like the first thing in the morning, I was watching in the kitchen while I made coffee.

My my wife walked in and he's like, what are you watching?

Like, no, I think you wouldn't like She's like, show me and then it's just Michael Keaton like when they turn their heads like him and icle kidman.

No, she was in forever.

It was a basing her was yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it was a good part to editing.

But I am curious have either of you seen Hard Ticket to Hawaii.

Like three or four times?

You have, most recently like six months ago.

Yeah, it's a low budget action movie but like cult B movie so bad.

It's good, but you might have seen comedy.

Uh it's lightly but like mainly unintentioned, not intentional.

Okay, yeah, okay, it's like a bunch of playmates, uh doing like an action movie in Hawaii.

Clearly like pervy producer guy put this together.

I think it's I think it's like nice when after we've come back from our fancy dinner before, give me your material potential watch with Jake and us.

Incredible theme song, incredible practical effects on the snake.

Yeah, yes, very You might have seen a clip on Instagram or something mary involving a guy on a skateboard with a sex doll and Bazuka as a reaction to that.

Yeah, everybody knows that scene.

Frisbee pop up.

Yeah, it's very good.

What what drew you to this?

Yeah?

Why are we talking about this?

I watched it on A I had seen clips of it and I was trying to sort I had a red eye back from l A and I'm like, I got to watch something that's like just gonna breathe new life into me.

So my friend's like, as a joke, apparently told me to watch Hard Ticket to Hawaii and.

I was it on like the Delta selection.

Download it on my phone okay, and then watched it like on the way back, and then went to sleep on the Red Eye and then woke up and heard Ticket twice.

Somehow felt like I had dreamt it because it's so weird in some spots and surreal, but it's worth watching.

It's on a streamer that you can download.

Like, I feel like that was just like something you'd find on YouTube or something.

No, it was like, uh it was I got it through other avenues.

But yeah, the whole movie is just on YouTube.

Yeah yeah, yeah, that might have actually been it.

But it's worth Maybe we should watch it a game of the year.

It's just's I found it, Uh, I found it amusing.

I do like when we watch movies as a group that someone recommends and feels really strongly about, similarly to like video game recommendations, where it's like listen, even if I don't feel the same as you, it's something awesome that we get to talk about and share together.

But a movie is just like solo stakes.

Do you show me a movie and you're like, I loved this and I think it's a piece of shit.

That's not a problem.

That is like not a big sacrifice for me to spend two hours and be like, let's see this thing that you feel so strongly about.

But when we're all together, I remember last time, it's like our time is so packed when we do Game of the Year that we were like, Jake hasn't seen Face Off.

We got to put Face Off off.

He fell asleep, Yes, didn't the record.

We know, Dan picked your nose for like a minute.

Oh right, that was the nose picking.

Yeah, yeah, but seeing it, Jake hadn't seen it.

How do you fall asleep during a movie that starts with the sniper assassination of a child on a Merry Go Round?

You fly from San Francisco and then drink four bottles of wine with your friends?

Actually I guess yeah, probably.

Who is a dwee mane sorry wee Maine.

It's like I knew that for like a sleeper agent, like tweet Maine.

What does that mean?

Though?

Right?

Just woke you up.

We discovered that you could this is a very very esoteric part of the conversation.

We discovered that you can you can get into the human cannon in the circus stage and shoot yourself at the other person and I killed Dan like that with Dweeb.

Flying Monkey is the best game ever made.

It shot a one Game of the Year every time we've done it.

It almost did.

Uh.

Speaking of do you want to talk about video games?

Sure?

Yeah, are you nodding again?

Yes?

I watched Slither, which is like one of my favorite horror movies the all time, and oh, okay, so sorry, let's keep going.

This is like one of my favorite movies of all time when it comes to horror comedy, which is a genre I feel very strongly about.

And I was okay.

So I was like telling all my friends, you guys have to see Slither, just like right all along this conversation tone, and they were like, fine, let's watch it tonight together, and I was like, ooh, I hope they like it.

And as it played, they were like, who made this anyway?

And I was like, some unknown.

I don't think he made anything else.

I like didn't even think about it.

And so at the very end of the movie, when everyone was like that was great, and James gunn name shows up, they all look at me and they go an unknown anywhere.

I forgot.

I forgot that he fucking made this.

He wasn't like a huge thing back then.

You know, that was probably the person.

Who I think it's like his launch and and Mike it is very good.

But anyway, there's this scene in it.

It has a lot of actors like before they really pop off, and one of them is the girl from the office, uh, Jann Fisher, Jenna Fisher, And she also plays a secretary in this one.

And so.

They're calling her on the phone and asking her to call like the CDC or like the you know, the government or like somebody to get help because they're getting overrun.

And she nods and he goes, are you nodding?

And she goes, yeah, I'll get right on it.

And that's like what I just did on this podcast was you guys said you want to talk about video games, and it went I forgot to say yes.

Anyway, you should watch Slither, Mike.

Well, there is fantastic great Yes, Cools h Banker, the guy who's uh, the blue guy in.

Yeah, he's fucked up in that movie.

He's he they do him dirty in that movie.

He is like so gross and they just keep making him gross.

Incredible practical effects and like there is some cg on like the slug things, but those look pretty cool.

It's it's a.

Good movie and it's funny.

Yes, yes, I'm trying to think.

Have I liked anything James Gun has done?

You like, because he's like the one guy who does comic book stuff that I actually like.

Like I like his suicide Squad like he uh and like I don't know, he's d C right, I know he doesn't do like did he do Marvel?

No, he did Guardians of the Galaxy Suicide?

Oh yeah, I saw that first Guardians of the Galaxy, and I every thinking that was actually pretty decent.

So like I do like his stuff.

I think, yeah, yeah, Guardian of the Galaxy, the first one is fine.

I just haven't the.

First one too.

I think the second one's okay as well.

But like, I don't know, I just I.

Just I'm another superhero person of the group.

No, I oh my god, gotta break.

Sorry about who's the most pro indie and anti anti super.

I'm an a superhero stuff games.

Elizabeth Banks not your type.

We have to expose him when we come back on the podcast.

You mean he's so attractive.

Yeah, now, hey, folks, every woman is beautiful.

All allies think that Elizabeth Banks is a smoke show.

I mean, I think you'd have to be pretty wild to say she's not.

And that is what Mike was saying.

Banks was not attractive.

I said, I said, to be clear, I don't think she's unattractive.

So she just reminds me of three of my cousins.

And then Mary made fun of me.

He called her prawn Jason.

So you can see the everybody can see the context.

See what frauds you are disrespectful I.

Was speaking of, actually not speaking of.

That's just what I say when I don't have a segue.

Uh I think I mentioned.

There's a cocktail bar in Paris called Little Red Door, and their household fashion has become quite a cult classic.

It uses sabacha.

I've been making my own.

It's just buckwheat tea.

Basically, it's fucking delicious.

I haven't exactly figured out the perfect proportions because the old fashion is usually two ounces of whiskey, but I've been doing ounce and half whiskey, ounce and half of sabacha, really really good.

If you want to try it out, you have to You probably have to make your own sabacha, though it requires roasting buckwheat groats.

I'm doing that usually for dinner.

So yeah, you might have to just set some aside.

I do have to.

I got to figure out how to infuse turmeric for a cocktail in about a week.

Confusing coconut milk.

I gotta infuse coconut milk with turmeric.

I think I coconut milk fat washing something?

What are you washing something with the coconut milk, like the liquor.

I no, I'm just looking at a cocktail I gotta make, and part of the thing is infusing it with Infusion's easy.

You literally just put in the required measurements and let it sit overnight or two nights.

Wait, I didn't know that was part.

I thought I was put in a pan and do a thing.

I'm sure there are others, but like, if you're infusing a lot of stuff, you just let it.

I've just never had fire play a role in my cocktails before, so I know.

Yeah.

I mean, if you make simple syrup, that's just no.

I just by it.

You get simple, like the easiest one to make.

It's just simple sugar water.

Yeah, what cocktail you're making with it was a cocktail that we had in New Orleans once and uh, it's called the anti oxid or the Anti Inflammatory, and it's this place called Saffron in New Orleans.

And Bonk loved it, loved it, loved it.

But we were like we were we had to like slam it real quick to go to our dinner reservations next to her.

And she's been thinking about it since then.

So I'm going to try to make it for her for a break day next week.

So yeah, nice.

I enjoy the cocktails that like take a lot of prep, like a few days, because then by the time you're done with it feels like you, you know, work towards something.

Yeah.

Anyway, speaking of oh, he's gonna rant about how ugly he thinks, Elizabeth banks Is again said there he goes.

Uh, Mary talk.

You played Tower Dominion.

Yeah, you recommended it, so I downloaded it.

What do you think.

I played it on a stream and I played that for like three hours, and I was like on the fence about it during the stream.

Their boobs are large and round.

But I just think visually it was hard for me to understand because it's hard.

I think that's like the number one takeaway I had from my first three hours, which is like, what is why is this game so freaking hard?

They would start me at a base with six entry points for aliens and give me like twenty bucks for a gun and be like good luck.

And I died most of the time before my sixth round, and so I just kept dying.

But towards the end of my live stream, I did end up once.

I was able to get through that hurdle of those first six rounds and kind of come up with a strategy.

And I think there's luck too.

I just think there's straight up.

Some luck with your sand later difficulties when you have four entrances to sorry, four doors into your base.

Yes, and because that doesn't even include all the different entrances, because sometimes the door will have three entrances, so now one is three on the map.

So brutal on the map.

But I found that I was able to win once on my live stream, and I was like, that's nice.

Maybe I'll play it again.

Maybe I won't.

And that night I went to a bar and I brought my steam decks.

I didn't feel like talking to anybody, and I sat in a bar, I got myself a little drink and I opened this game up, and I fucking played this game for like six hours in a bar while I got like, really total.

It sounds very fun.

I got super into it.

I died a lot, but I did win two more rounds, and each time I won it was like by the hair of my chiny chinchin.

I was like holding my breath on round thirty.

I think it's thirty rounds.

Maybe thirty one is like when they send.

The final difficult did you we got difficulty?

Well, there's three different people, and every time I play it, like, I think the people are very different the way they like the three different areas, like the jungle seemed harder to me than the frozen tundra.

Oh, three different factions with different generals in each one.

Yes, yeah, I play.

In a lot of different generals, all with big round boobs, and I died so often.

When I was able to finally get through thirty rounds, I was sweating, I was breathing heavy.

I was like, this is this is gaming, boys, this is gaming.

I felt truly, and I mean this.

I've played tower defenses most of my life, and I think most of them are made for little babies.

I think they're like spoon feeding the gameplay to use.

You cannot lose unless you're like a complete moron and this game is mean and you are going to die a lot.

Is the hardest and most interesting tower defense game I've ever played.

It's got the Blottro thing where you think you've won the game and then that that one blind is like what the fuck?

Like in Tower Dominion on later difficulties, When you have four doors in your base, the terrain building becomes the most important thing.

So ideally you try to take each of the four doors the base and try to connect some of the pathways them off but all sent one way.

But if you can't and I try not to reset even if I get a shitty beginning fetiles, that can screw me over because you'll think, Okay, I've got everything defended, and then they'll send like a bunch of the shielded huge dinosaur dudes through the pathway you don't have defended, Like well, that was the mean blind from Blotro.

But there's also like HQ upgrades.

I didn't even realize where a thing until my eighth time through, Like those are arguably some of the most important.

The way some of the upgrades work synergistically.

When you're in the mini the sturdy bunkers the little concrete bunkers, it's like, oh, you can either upgrade the rate of fire and the reload speed, but if you have two next to each other, you can give both of them an upgrade that.

It's fifty more damage.

And then if you surround it with four of them, that one in the middle is then pumping out a ton of damage.

If you put it on a platform and it's got height three has way more coverage.

The yellow squares when you are planting them, they.

Don't give you enough money.

Why am I so poor?

I feel like every time I play this, they're like, good job, you made the wave.

You've also made fifty dollars and be done is two hundred dollars.

It is brutal with how little money I have to survive in this game, like just scraping by each wave and hoping that I can live.

Yeah.

The more generals you beat the game with, and there's like similar to Blattro or Vampire Survivors, there's a lot of smaller milestones where it's like, oh, just reroll your tile with Intel twenty five times, you'll unlock this blue PRIs that bolsters your production between waves by one hundred and fifty.

Yeah.

So then there's other generals where it's like the general makes twice the production but cannot gain intel.

Or there's another general where the more you don't want to connect the pathways because the more battle fronts you have, which are just the unique paths toward the base, the more damage all your towers do.

So you're literally trying to keep them separate.

That's when you kind of fan them outward and then go up, but you still don't connect them because you lose the ten percent per battlefront.

It's like it's got that hallmark of a good ROLLCT to me, where a card in Bilotro or a card in Inscription, or a weapon in Hades or an upgrade in Hades.

Like you're playing the first few hours like I don't see how that would ever be useful, Why would I ever use that?

But then like h by our thirty, you're like, oh, holy shit, I can kind of break the game if I use that correctly, and I have a general now I love.

You get three of these flames, which are basically these like inspirational statues, and there's those blueprints where it's like, oh, you get two platforms every time, and for just to explain what platforms are, It's like elevation in the game is a huge deal.

You can go from zero to three platforms, raise it, and then that increases the range of the tower.

And range is a huge thing too, because then you can cover three pathways with one tower.

For instance, by combining those inspirational statues which give fire rate, reload speed, and damage to each tower adjacent to it, you can then make this central thing with the three statues all high elevation, and those six can carry you from most of the game, provided you also But then of course you have to worry about doing damage to enemy shields.

Then you have to worry about anti air, you have to worry about stealth enemies.

Like there's a lot of layers to where I think I'm forty hours in now and I'm still and I'm playing on difficulty four now, so I have four doorways at my base and that gets tricky, and I am restarting now like they are billions.

I try not to, but there's times like I know, by wave fifteen, you know, like billatro, you can tell if you have a bad run and you'll just wipe.

Just get to the point where I'm doing that.

But when I get a good set up at the beginning, and I get good a few first rounds of cards, it's it gets pretty thrilling for a tower defense game.

I started it, and I think it helped me realize a pet peeve of mine where it's like, and I don't know if there's just a me thing because I don't retain information over long periods of time, but if it's teaching me stuff like at the tutorial, like I jump in and hear textbox, Hey, okay, this is how these things work, and this is how you place this.

Okay, cool, got it?

And then I'm like ready to play.

And then it's like okay, well now here's this and this and this and okay, and then I go, oh, here's this and this and this, and it's just like when you're overloading me and you're not giving me time to kind of like learn one thing before moving out of the other, I am just kind of like, ah, man, this is just too much in once I'm gonna remember all this, you need to like base this out more.

So I'm looking at my steam right now and I played four minutes of this, so I would.

Want to say, yeah, if like, if this reassured not I'm not saying if you don't like, you don't have to go back, but I would no.

No, it seemed like everything you said and are saying here like this sounds interesting to me.

It's like my kind of game.

I guess if it helps.

I didn't like, I'm surprised to hear that I don't remember that, Like that's how this is.

Just a dumb thing where I wasn't in the mood to learn something, you know, And we're like, yeah, you probably.

Like saw the art style and the indiness of it, and you were like, the art.

Style does look like the art style we would see on the window of a laser tag place at the mall.

Yeah, the art it's hard to get over.

These boobies are round.

Yeah, just even boobies aside, it's just say the whole deal is not good looking.

Not at all.

But yeah, I mean, Mary, I don't know you might feel differently.

I definitely think like it's very much a learn by playing kind of game.

After that intro, I.

Agree, I don't think there's any like real advice you could There's no like YouTube that's going to solve it.

I think you have to get in there and die.

Like that is the.

Most game I don't think is overbearing with the tutorials past a certain point.

No, I just think you have to be comfortable with losing.

And I think, like this game is, it's mean, But I think we culturally have started gravitating towards games that punch you a little bit and call you names and kick you while you're down.

Like I find that we've been looking for games more like that in our time that remind us of our childhood when it's extremely difficult to beat them.

This is the hardest Tower Defense I have ever played.

I think you're onto something there.

I think it did swing in a certain way, maybe in like the three six era, where it's like once Call of Duty kind of popularized the like hey, just kind of like sit behind a thing for a little and you'll get all your health back, or even Halo did some of that with the Shields, and then we moved away from that.

Once we started going back like Doom twenty sixteen and got past that, it's like, okay, now we're picking up health again.

We want things to harder and the Rise of Soul's likes and stuff like that.

It is like there was a period where things were all like, oh, it's getting easier and more user friendly, and then it's like, Okay, maybe punishing is fun for some people.

You know, Yeah, I think people like it, and I think honestly, like, I play so many tower defenses that I just think they they're handing it to you, They're spoon feeding it to you, make sure that you probably won't fail, and this one is not like that.

You have to just I realized that one you were saying, when you like want these bunkers next to each other, It took me like six lives to like figure that out.

I also like, it took me a long time because you waste money in this game, you're gonna fucking die, Like you can't afford it, Like the money is too scarce for you to waste.

So the first time I like realized a certain gun upgrade was the wrong one, well.

Oh yeah sucks to suck.

Like I'm gone.

I will say there are some annoyances I have with it, like and they're still updating a patch just hit two days ago that now, Mary, this, I don't know if you played after this, but now it's actually kind of a cool They have a graphic along the a vertical graphic along the right side of the screen showing the towers you've built that did the most damage over the round, and it's live updates, so like throughout a round you could see them like shifting and it becomes pretty helpful because you see if you click on the panel, it'll jump the camera right to that tower.

So if you really want to get really analytical, and you don't have to because again you design your map well enough, like there's a few rounds later on by round twenty five where you can kind of sit back and just enjoy how much damage it's doing.

But it'll bring you to that tower and say, oh this this uh war Wolf, which is basically just like the artillery.

They lob stuff and you can really buff them to do area damage like that did a lot of damage.

What am I doing here?

Or I guess that shows me the enemies are coming this way, so you could start upgrading the towers in that area.

It's a really bolster the defense is there.

But there's other stuff where if the round has not if you haven't manually started the wave and you place a tower you can press you can click on it and press cancel and it'll refund you in full because the wave is not started.

However, to your point, if you may accidentally select the wrong upgrade to the tower, there's three upgrades for those who have played it that can fuck you over, because yeah, you're you're spending every dollar pretty preciously in like the mid game, So if I select one, that's like, oh, if this tower has no adjacent buildings, it does an extra ten percent damage.

But if you accidentally click that and it does have an adjacent building, you can't undo it.

So like, I would love for them to undo that cancel because sometimes I'm just going especially on steam Deck.

The steam Deck is you're basically using your right thumb to move towers around.

I use the haptic pad as opposed to the analog stick.

You can accidentally misplace stuff there, and it's nice that you can recall them in between rounds, but the fact that you can't recall upgrades is really frustrating because especially I don't know it just heat of the moment stuff kicks in when you're later into some of those rounds, and.

It's it's nice that you can buy stuff in the middle of the round because like I have on accident also hit start the round when I didn't mean to, but I could quickly place things during the round, which I appreciate.

I will just say that there's steam deck controls not great.

No A is start the round.

Are you fucking kidding me?

That's just like not a good button to use for start.

Enemies coming out my face like they they really should have thought that schematic through And I accidentally started rounds so often?

So are you like placing things and prepping and stuff with other buttons?

And then A is to start No matter what you.

Want to to write triggers to place things and rotate, A is to start the round, I.

Start, should start or just anything but A Basically, I.

Could not agree more.

I've accidentally pressed it, and I also pressed it because I was like, there's no way that starts around, and it fucking didow huh.

Yeah.

I stick to the triggers to rotate stuff, and then the haptic and then I move the cursor.

Literally, I literally moved the cursor to start wave on the screen to avoid that.

I've never tried the haptic thing on the steam Deck.

I have not really used that as a mouse before it.

It's pretty good.

Yeah, it's so much more responsive than like it gives you so much more room for error because you can swipe really quick quickly across the screen.

But it's really responsive when you correct as well.

So it does, for me at least, feel pretty natural as opposed to the analog stick, which is can be feel pretty hefty in that kind of game with a cursor.

And if it is like kind of a mouse and keyboard type thing, is it like are you pressing down on it to click or are you doing like R two or something?

R two is a place and then L two rotates the towers.

Okay, okay, L one R.

One do something in that game?

What do they do?

I forget?

So yeah, no, I just stick to the triggers to Mary's point, to avoid the accidental face button presses, which are tied to pretty important functions in that game.

I hope they'll update it with touch controls.

Doesn't have them right now?

Or no, it does it, I'm not actually I don't remember trying.

A game like that would be conducive to iPad or something, right.

I hope they do.

They make a wonderful iPhone game and it looks like it, but noah, it does, I don't think.

Yeah, I will say.

Also, even on Steam Deck in later rounds, I have a release steam Deck model.

It was chugging a bit later on when you have eighty artillery cannons and sixty bunkers and a bunch of machine gun platforms, it starts to sputter.

I forget on the on the original Steam Deck, can you adjust that TDP meter?

Or is that just an O lead feature?

I can't remember that, the one where it's like you're basically saying how much power you wanted to use at the expensive battery so you can like crank it all the way up if it's a demand of game but you're gonna lose battery power, or if it's like a little you know in the game with not you know, much going on graphically, you can crank it down and have eight hours of battery.

Yeah, I'm about seventy five percent sure.

It's just a lead okay, And that is a very handy feature.

Yeah, it sounds great and I gotta get one eventually.

I got to get that in a switch too.

But yeah, no, I'm glad you tried Towered of Minion.

Yeah, definitely not a perfect game, but like it has consumed a lot of my time because like it's just doing really cool things rogue light wise and terrain building wise.

Like it's made really good use of the rogue light structure.

A lot of games just kind of pen the rogue light systems and all of a sudden you're playing three different games at once.

This all feels like a piece and I like it quite a bit.

But yeah, Dan, Dan, if you get bored when I want to need something to try, I will say I do not recall the tutorial whatsoever I've.

Learned totally playing this is just it was just probably the wrong time for me to start that game, and it just wasn't in the mood to learn something, or I was tired or something like.

It sounds like a game I would enjoy a lot.

So yeah, I think there aren't eighteen fucking games I want to play coming out the next like three weeks.

But you should try The Silk Songs tomorrow.

Oh yeah, I am going to play that.

Yeah, mar offline, I don't want to bother Mary.

Mary.

You played Sword of the Sea as well.

That game looks really good.

Kind of like Real World meets Journey meets Tony Hawk.

Uh yeah, I don't.

Know pitch for that game.

This is a giant super base, right, that's what it looked like.

You're skating around a sword.

You're skating on a sword on sand.

It's from a giant squid.

And so if you stop interrupting, I'll tell you that it is from the people who made the artists behind Journey.

And then they also made ab Zoo and they also made Pathless Pathless, which is all where you skate on sand.

So these are kind of like similar.

They have a thing and they know it.

I will say, like, I think this game is beautiful.

Just to start, I will I will say it is stunning to look at.

And they they really cracked it.

Whoever was their graphics lead, Like the people who were doing art tech knocked it out of the park.

This is a game where like as you solve puzzles, the sea comes out of the sand and massive animals, whales, sharks, stingrays, they just start floating in the sky of this desert landscape.

I mean, it is so cool how they make water and sand work together visually, and I find that shockingly well done.

This is all set to a beautiful cinematic soundtrack as you would expect, just like those other games that you'd experience, and you're kind of floating around, skating on your sword with all these animals, and yes, you can ride basically every animal.

You see, a giant whale, shark, you can jump on their back and hang out and take a little spin with them, which I think is so cute.

In the Journey fashion, there's not really any dialogue, and they don't explain the puzzles.

You'll just see a visual puzzle, maybe like a fountain and there's no water coming out of it, and so you're like hanging out.

You'll get prompted to light a bunch of lights.

You can just touch a bunch of lanterns around it.

Touch lanterns and they light up, and then that will open up an area, and then you stab your sword in the area and all of a sudden, the fountain now has water coming out of it, and you have solved one fourth of the puzzle, and you need to do that three times.

There's also time trial areas.

If you go to certain areas, it literally has a time symbol.

It's an area where it wants you to do something within a certain amount of time to get like a little bonus.

It's very visual.

There's like no there's like no audio or video at all.

There's no dialogue.

It's it's all dewey.

Yeah, I mean it's really good with that, like no hud stuff and like just communicating to you, like since everything is sandy at the start, and oh I did some ship and now there's water, and it's so easy to just like look at the land and be like, all right, that's a bunch of sand over there.

I bet I gotta do some shit to make that water.

Like it's pretty elegant with the way it does that.

I do feel that, like I probably played like an hour or two of it, and you know, gorgeous.

You know that all the skating stuff feels really great and everything.

But it is pretty simple with the stuff you're doing in terms of like I'm gonna get around and look at stuff and oh I should probably do that over there.

Like this isn't really a knock on it.

It's just after like an hour or two of playing it, I think I kind of saw well, like I'm sure there's some beautiful vistas and things like that, and some cool animal moments and stuff like that, but like, as far as what the gameplay was, I didn't really see that progressing.

Like you would give your shards to that merchant type guy or whatever, and it's like now you can do these.

Tricks and kickflip with your sword.

But yeah, okay, sure that's cool.

It just seemed I don't mean this to sound as harsh as it might sound, but like a little style over substance, you know, yeah, I.

Think that's fair.

I would say like this game is a stunning feast for the eyes and the ears, Like this is visually inaudibly gorgeous.

In terms of like the actual gameplay, I've kind of felt like I've played this before.

Yes, I have from the studio.

I have skated down these dunes I have I have solved these very similar puzzles before.

This has a short gameplay experience.

I did roll credits on this.

It did not take super long.

I do think I missed some stuff I didn't do all the time trial stuff.

I think I I skirted past some puzzles.

But this is a short visual experience that, while stunning and again just so so so pretty, I have to say, like the original Journey, while it wasn't always like the most stunning game.

And Journey is pretty, but it's it's it's not like it's pretty.

Is this I think this game is prettier.

But what I'm saying is is like Journey didn't need that because what it was doing was so filled with heart and it allowed you to have these incredible experiences with other people in a world that was the crux of the gameplay.

And in none of these other games, as far as I'm aware, correct me if I'm wrong, but like they just haven't really added these elements of finding other people in the world.

There's none of that at all.

This is they're solitary, Yeah.

Solitary experience, and I think it feels like it's missing a little bit in the sense that I would have loved to share that with another individual like I did with Journey.

So I don't know.

It's like you're you're telling me this comes from the makers of Journey.

It feels a lot like Journey.

It looks a lot like Journey, but Journey did something that this came didn't, And it's like Journey's like fifteen years old.

Yeah, And I would actually argue that Journey I do remember thinking it was beautiful, you know, back when it came out on PST.

It was beautiful.

Yeah, I'm not saying the lead with that is.

The thing is like, yes, it was beautiful.

That was a nice bonus for Journy, Like you were saying, Mary, I do think the thing that made Journey one of the best games of all time is just that incredible way that it utilizes the online connection with other people and the way that it limits your communication.

And it's just like, man, me and this person, this random other, actual person playing right now, We're just going up this freezing mountain together, and like we're just in this together and we just met and everybody.

And they might die, but I'm worried about them, and I don't even know who they are.

Like, this game does not evoke that type of feeling in me.

No voise, Was I really worried about anybody?

Yeah?

I mean the post Journey games made by you know, Giant Squid kind of they're beautiful screen savers.

I would say, you know, where's Journey with something unbelievably special.

I hope that this company continues to make stunning games.

I think that there is it is important in our industry to make space for companies like Giant Squid that are making stunning visual spectacles because they are artists.

This game is art.

Yeah, in terms of gameplay, I would like them to challenge themselves a little bit more to invoke an actual emotional response to this game beyond God is this pretty?

Yep, totally agreed, it's a bummer.

I was looking at gameplay.

I thought it might be like wheel World in the sense that you're actually getting rewarded for exploring.

More, not as much as will World, where Walworld is hard.

It feels more open, like you know, these are like open areas like open zone or whatever, where you can go whatever direction you want, but there's just not a lot to do, at least real world.

It was like, Okay, I can kind of pick up this race here, I can go find this thing here.

There's collectibles and merchants and stuff.

It's hidden the people and NPCs everywhere.

This game doesn't have any people at all except for the merchant.

And the animals are cool to look at, but you can't play with them.

Yeah, You're just kind of skating around until you see something you can probably skate near, and then something happens.

You know, it's not deeper than that.

And even writing the animals that I was saying earlier.

The first time I like stood on a whale, I was like, this is the coolest thing ever.

But then I realized that the pathway of the whale doesn't change.

He doesn't do any animation.

He doesn't play with me, you know, he just stays on his little path and I jump on and when I jump, and I jump off and when I jump off.

Now, there is an area of the game that I don't know if you got to yet.

Dan, I'm just gonna say, sharks, No, No, that's pretty cool.

And I think that that is where they took some risks as a team.

And so I will say that there is change ups in the gameplay that I think are smart, and I applaud them for doing those.

I just think I wish there was more of that, but they they do mix it up a little bit.

Okay, game is not long, so I think you can.

You should be able to complete it in like another sitting, like you'd get through it if you wanted to.

I yeah, I respect that.

It is beautiful.

It's just like it was not grabbed me from the video game part of it at all.

Yeah, I understand.

I think that's a really valid criticism.

Yeah, it's a tough one for me.

I really like this.

I really like this company and I root for them.

It's beautiful stuff, playable art.

Mary, you're playing the Rogue Prince of Persia.

No, that's me too.

Uh, this is the new one from Ubisoft.

We loved Prince of Persia when it came out.

You guys remember Metroid a Venia The Rogue Prince of Persia.

I was not sure about it.

In my first hour with it, I was like, I don't know, Like there's wall there's some wall running, but it's really limited and you get like slowed pretty early.

It took me about three hours for me to be like, oh shit, I fucking love this game.

I do actually really like this concept.

This is one of those uh rogue lights where you start every path with a main weapon and a side weapon.

You as you kill, you gain currency money to upgrade your weapons or swap them out.

Why don't you sell style?

Yeah, it's fucking dead cells and they they really did learn good lessons here of like what to do with it.

It is fun to run through all these enemies or not because if you're about to die, I just head to the final door because then I get a full heel.

But you're you're not getting all the upgrades for your weapons, which you're gonna need around Area two or three because it gets so progressively hard.

There's boss fights that are very tricky and you have to learn their attacks to be able to progress.

So I was doing I was like having killer runs where I was like, I'm unstoppable, but if I was coming across the boss, i'd never come across before.

I'm probably gonna die because you got to learn their move sets and then come back to them.

But starting runs over again not a problem.

There's also, as expected, a permanent currency that you are getting every time you do a run.

You can lose it if you do not send it home.

There's only certain shrines where get to send this.

I think it's like a I'm just gonna call it purple currency because it's purple and you have to get to these purple shrines in order to send your currency home, and if you don't, you lose it, which sucks.

But every time I was doing a run, I was probably sending at least forty purples home and over time, I was using that to get more flasks, right, so like that I could heal twice per run.

Oh my god, fucking amazing, or increase my damage or have more health, which is I think the most important thing.

When you start this game.

You're so squishy, you die almost instantly all the time.

If you just keep playing, you upgrade your character, you get better health.

By the end of my times there, I was like getting like easily four hundred health points per run, which was letting me go really far in the game.

It's got an easy to navigate map system so that you can very easily jump to different areas of the map.

Once you're trying to get to different areas, and Mike, you have a face.

What's up that face?

The art style or like the animations when he's diving, it looks almost like there's a comical aspect to it, like a lightheartedness to it, like he's there's some of the stills he's like this full on, uh think of it.

Looks comic Bookie to me.

Oh, lots of traversial dance, traversal Dan that you will love.

This game is all about wall running, jumping on like poles, stix.

Oh, environmental damage out the ass.

The game's constantly like, here's a big ass enemy, but there's spikes behind him, and there's a rock in front of you.

Kick a rock at him, stun him, and then kick that guy right into the spikes.

He's dead.

So it really is pushing you to use the environment to your advantage.

Okay, did this have like a early access thing or something?

I don't know.

I don't play.

I never play early access games.

Say I don't either, and so I'm trying to think, like, because I know Bank was playing this recently, and I remember thinking it was like, oh, didn't that come out?

Like there was like no hype or anything, and then like kind of came out and no one really talked about it, and then all of a sudden Bank was talking about it, like in the last week, Mary, you're bringing it up, And now I'm looking on Steam it said release date was August twentieth.

So my assumption is I probably ignored it because it was early access.

That's a sleeper hit.

But like, I really think that this game is a banger and people should be paying more attention to it.

I'll give you like some other examples, like the weapons sets are really fun.

Oh there's also badges that you can get that can also amplify the weapons that you're choosing.

I'll give you an example.

I ran across to shrine.

It was the kind where you had to like take some of your health in order to get a badge.

So I cut myself.

It literally has an animation for you slit your wrist, which is so sick.

And I got this badge that said that if I attacked a certain amount of enemies in a row, they would all get stun locked at the same time.

And I was like, oh, that's a sweet badge.

So I apply this badge, and then I get a weapon that's like does poison damage.

And then I got another badge that if they get stun locked, they get poisoned.

And so now I'm like double poisoning stunlocking them.

I'm slashing them, stunning them, re poisoning them.

I was the poisoned Queen.

Everybody was pukin.

I was killing it.

I felt really strong when I got a good build in this game, and when I was unlucky and died, I wasn't angry because I was like, these runs are pretty easy.

I can just try again.

This has that rogue light mentality to it, where you can just you just do it again and you're gonna be absolutely fine.

But it adds a lot more maneuverability of like maneuvering around all of these spikes and chains and saws that are coming at you from all directions.

If you can get through those elements, they usually give you extra badges or extra money or extra coins to reward you.

Finally, there's also story elements.

You can run into somebody and they'll be like, i'll help you, but I need this book.

Hopefully you come across it on that run.

But if you die, then hopefully on a future run, you'll come across this book.

And then if you go back and give it to that guy, then he'll be at your home base.

And now you can start cooking up new weapons and new badges and new stuff.

I saved a lady, and now I can change all the colors of my cool outfit.

So you're constantly like saving people, and then they come back to homebase and you can use them for upgrades.

Cool.

I'm super interested in trying this now, and I just downloaded it.

But like I speaks to like, I've never been a fan of the early access stuff, and I'm not a business person.

Well, I guess I am.

I guess I own a company, but I guess I can't say that.

Owner dan right, I guess a business person.

All right, I own a business, but I'm not in the games making business.

I feel like you lose something when it's like, Okay, you're gonna get a little bit of a wave of people talking about something when it comes out in early access, and then by the time it actually comes out, like I did not hear that this game.

I did not know what this game came out in earlier this year, or was early access earlier this.

Year, And if it had not been for Bonk playing it in the last week and you bring it up here, I would not have thought to look this up and be like, oh shit, I guess that game is done now.

Yeah, Like, I just feel like you lose something by like kind of spreading the attention of the launch.

You know.

I'm curious what Mike thinks about this, but I feel like most of the time early access is a way for a game company to genuinely gauge and fix their game.

They need to like buy a little bit more time, and this is a way to be like it's on early access, you can like buy it now, but we still needed another six months to cook it.

So that's what I think they.

Use it for.

Yeah, I mean for every game that you don't realize release.

You also have Balder's Gate three or Haiti's games that used early access.

Well one of those was good.

Palder's Gate three is the biggest early access success story that's ever existing.

I know you're, yes, you're being a heel, but yeah, no, I mean there's value to not everybody uses it the same way.

There's definitely studios that are working really closely with their dedicated players, And I think something like Balder's Gate three worked because you can replay that first act so many times that even the people who were really dedicated to it are the people who had dipped into it and then dipped out, were like, well, now I could just play with a new character or make different choices.

Haiti's same thing was a Rogue Light, where it's like now they were able to like fine tune so many small things out each weapon because what people were telling them.

And in a way, you're getting QA testers to pay you to play the game and not the other way.

Around, so yeah, but.

I'm sure there are Like, I'm sure there are dozens of reasons that it does make a lot of sense business wise and dev wise.

But I'm just saying in terms of like release hype, it would you know, like or just a knowledge of it coming out or being done or whatever.

I think it does kind of hurt there, But maybe the other stuff that weighs it.

I don't know.

It depends on the kind of game.

I mean, there are plenty of games that are fucking blowing up now that technically have never left early access.

Like it was Deeprocylactic had more players during early access than it did after quote unquote one point zero and one point oh g secondary pubg.

Was a phenomenon before it came out.

Yeah, it depends in the kind of game.

Like I think Hades two is a unique case for me, where same with Darkest Dungeon two.

It's like, I know what the final game will sort of be like structurally, and I want to just wait and see what it's going to be like, Whereas something like Deeprocylactic, for instance, was like, all right, well, this is a small loop played out over however many times I want to play it as a live service game, so I'm going to play a lot now and then I'll come back to see what they tweak later.

It's not like Hades, where you're playing the entire loop with only certain tools unlocked, which feels incomplete, more and complete to me than if I was just repeating the same loop and then kind I don't know if that makes sense.

Yeah, no, no it does, because that's how I was with like Rogue Legacy too.

Like I have played Rogue Legacy, the original one on like three different consoles to completion because I loved that game so much, and I was so excited about two.

And then like it launched an early access and I was like, man, I'm such a fan.

I got I got to play to the early access, and like I got in.

I was excited.

I played that first area a couple of times.

Then you see like a text thing being like we can't wait to keep making this game.

I'm like, uh okay, and then by the time it's like actually out, I'm like, yeah, I kind of played that.

I don't know, I'm done, you know, Like it's I That's why I'm not touching Haites too.

Like I loaded up for like very short amount of time, and I was like, I'm not going to do this.

I waited.

Hades was an early access success story, like a big one, and like, I waited until one point oh yeah, and I'm glad I did because I fucking loved Hades and it wasn't like oh I kind of played it a bunch of times before it actually came out, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's it's a per game thing.

Like Darkest Dungeon two.

I tried and I just straight up did not like it, even though the first game is one of my favorites in the last decade fifteen years, and they've changed it fairly drastically.

They've released a DLC that's more like the first game, and I have not tried it yet, but yeah, there's like risk of Rain two.

I remember it was another out outlier where I played a lot of it in early excess and I played straight through one point oh without even realizing that it was one point oh.

It's just I guess that one point oh release day.

It can be so nebulous whether it's going to be important for that particular dev or that game, whereas Haites like I feel like they're going to build up to it really well with two, just because One was one of those games where it's like a lot of people were playing it and saying it was good, but then all of a sudden it blew up on switch and like now I feel like two is in that unique position where people are I think that release day will be huge because I.

Mean, it was a different anomaly that Hades is so fucked big that, like, you know, during Game of the Year last year, I heard people of Giant Bomb talking about a bunch of stuff it does that that was already implemented, and it's like, shit, that sounds awesome.

And by the time it comes out and that's all implemented, Hades is big enough to where it will absolutely get Did it win the Game.

Award that year.

For or that it takes twenty twenty might have been it takes two years.

No, no, no, no, it takes two years.

I think was Reternal year, so it's the year before twenty twenty.

I can't remember if it won, but anyway, it was.

It's Hades is undeniably a huge fucking game to where it's like, look when that comes out, that's gonna be a big hit no matter what.

But other ones I think you kind of mute the release by doing it this way.

Oh wait, twenty twenty was the last of US Part two?

Is that the same year?

Yeah?

Yeah, I don't I might be mixing up some uh you back at twenty twenty.

That sounds right, That sounds right?

Yeah, but yeah, no, I I It just depends on the game for sure, because it does.

Yeah, I don't want touch Hades two and I don't want to go back to Dark and Unde two until they potentially fix some of my gripes.

But what's the game I'm playing?

This's early access.

I don't know, Towered de Mendion.

They're still working out a lot of it, but I'm still playing that because the loops feels so solid to me.

Now oh they are Billions was technically like the early access Forever and I played that so much because I didn't give a shit about the single player campaign.

I just want to keep doing the endless survival mode.

But yeah, glad to hear.

I want to try a Rogue prints of Perga as well, because it.

So I just been a note for myself like that.

That sounds cool, speaking of maybe a similar game, shinoby Dan, how's that going.

Oh fuck, I beat it a couple of days ago.

I have never played a Shnoby game before this, so keep in mind anything I say about it has no basis in nostologia at all.

Somehow, despite being kind of a Genesis kid, I never came across this game, and then my friends ever had it.

I just never played this game.

Holy shit, every single thing you would want a game like this to do, Like you know, two D style ish ninja.

Game, Like it is kneeling like it's awesome, it's.

Fucking the art style incredible, Like the first area you're running through is just so beautiful, and it's just one after another of that, and the combat is any talk about Prince of Persia, it reminds me of Lost Crown, where it's like, boy, it's kind of just nailing everything.

Although Prince Persia didn't quite nail the art style or the story, it was doing all these like combat and platforming and boss fight stuff, so well, this is very much that way.

Like immediately, you know, you start with the double jump, and you've got the kind of roll on the ground that's the dash in the air, and it's it's not it's not like fully Metroid Vanya and that.

Like, when I think of a traditional Metroid venia, it's like you're probably playing for four or five hours before you get that double jump or the air dash or something like that.

This one it's just like, no, you got all that shit right away, and you are collecting stuff as you go.

You're getting all this like ninpoh magic abilities and things like that, and really fucking cool traversal stuff like the Ninja hook, which is this grappling hook that feels great, or these claws that like certain walls you can climb up and it resets your air dash and double jump and all that stuff.

Animations are so crisp.

Oh my god, it looks incredible.

It feels incredible.

The boss fights are so get's my favorite type of boss fight where the first time you fight every one of them, they just whoop your ass and then you kind of like, okay, I get this, I get this.

Oh here's how I dodge this.

Okay, And by the time you're three, four or five times in, you're like, yeah, I can do this.

I know the pattern and you do and the way even the style when you kill a boss fight and it does this like just a bunch of symbols show up on the screen.

It goes, you know, kind of monochromatic and everything, and it's just like I was like cheering, like some boss fights, I would get that last killing.

Yeah, Like it's a little symbol pops up over enemies heads when you can do an execution move, which is the old LB and you hit RB and so like you can do that with standard enemies too.

So let's say there's like three ninjas on the screen.

You can kind of get them all down low enough to where they've got the execution thing and if three of them have it and you hit the thing, you just kill all of them, blood gold coming out of them.

It just feels so fucking cool every time it is.

You unlock a lot of different combat abilities and it never feels overwhelming and that like, oh I forget how to do this or whatever, Like you feel in control.

So I feel like I'm going to dash into here, I'm gonna knock this guy up in the air, jump up, boom, boom boom, do a little air combo, and then I'm going to do a dive kick down ont of these guys on the ground and then if I hold why after the dive kick, I do this spinning thing that chops them all up, and then I'll do my ninpo.

It's just it you feel like neo like in the Matrix, like just like I am just nailing everything.

I'm kicking everyone's ass.

It is so great.

There's a shielded guy, so I know I'm going to do the thing where I jump and I bring my sword down on him that breaks shields, and then I'll equip this ninpo and do the air thing like it's it is tremendous and it is heavy on combat.

It being like this kind of like really kind of Ninja Melee focus game, so like every time you get to like it's not really an arena, but like there are these like elite combat challenges where it's waves of enemies.

I fucking love that.

And then once you're done with it, it opens up a lot of these areas into Metroidvania.

So it's like it's not a full, big, sprawling Metroidvania, Matt.

A lot of these stages are just like it starts, which is like a big path where it's kind of linear combat challenges, and then a larger area that is a Metroidvania, but it's very easy to kind of warp between all these different checkpoints and everything warp between the different stages, lots of fun collectibles and shit to get lots of you know, things you can buy at the stores for like new abilities, and it is, oh my god.

I I went in just being like, I guess I'll try this, you know, assuming that I Ninja Guiden rage Bound, which came out like a few weeks prior, that that would be more of my thing, because that's also very good.

And I've also played like every Ninja Guiden game and I love Ninja Guiden rage Bound is very very good.

Shanobi, I think definitely the better game, but it's so fucking cool.

These two kind of throwback Ninja games came out very close proximity.

They both kick ass.

But like this, this is my pick.

This will be pretty high up on my game of the year.

I think, how do you upgrade your skills?

And do you get like choice like will my character be different than yours or are you basically just upgrading things through time Linearly you could make.

Choice on like certain like amulets, like there's a passive amulet you can equip, and so it's like okay, so I want this to be okay, healing is more effective, or you can turn on this amulet that's like a vampire where it's like enemies won't drop health, but as you attack enemies, you will siphon their health.

And then there are like a combo amulet where it's like, okay, after fifteen hits, all of my attacks do more damage, or after this many hits, this ninpo has this added ability and things like that, so you can equip certain things to fit your play style certainly.

And then like you'll unlock like eight different ninpo like magic abilities, and you can choose which face button to map it to, because it's like hold LB and press a face button to activate the ninpo and you can choose which ones you want.

So like, you know, you'll go into a fight with certain shielded enemies and it's like we'll all equip these two an inpos that are better for breaking armor.

This one builds my rage meter faster, so I could do my super attack more.

So there are different things you can equip to make it more you know, fitting of your play style for sure, but it's not it's not full on, just like I'm creating a character and you're a stealth build and I'm a whatever build.

It's not quite that level, but there is customization there.

It's it's tremendous.

I went in just to be like, I'll try it so I can talk about it on I'm sure you.

Win, do you it?

I beat it?

Yeah?

How long was the experience?

I got to probably like ninety five percent completion in about twelve hours.

And but in keep in mind, I was trying to like kind of get everything.

I was gone one hundred percent, but there were like certain like there were these like different rift challenges in every level that are like really hard platforming challenges, and all.

Hard platforming challenges.

Is this for me?

Mary, you gotta try this and it is a tremendous sho we swip swap.

Why don't you play Rogue Prints of Persia and I'll play Schanovy.

I already want to play Rogue Prince of Persia.

That sounds both about Mary.

You got to try Silk Song and yeah, we'll talk next time.

I really like indie games.

Prince of Persian isn't really an indie game, so I'm kind of leaning toward Dance, which is actually or now neither of you accomplished, but it's developed by I'm.

Going to get into Warhammer and then teach how to play.

So you recommended a same game, you recommend a Ubi Soft game.

I don't know.

I guess I'll stick to Tower Dominion because that's indie the indies.

Yeah, I would love to hear what you think.

Yeah, because this this type of like super heavy action reflex type game is not really like Bonxporte.

But she's been trying out because I've just been raving about it and like bonks like ship Okay, Like she's really liking it too.

What did you say bank was playing Rogue Prince of Persia?

What did they think about that?

I think she's uh.

I think she kind of got sidetracked.

I don't want to speak for her, but like she was talking about that for a bit and then she started Shnobi and then she got pretty into that and then well and then actually that goes into the next thing that I want to talk about is I've been watching her play hell as Us because that is so I went to that preview event in Montreal where I played like three hours a bit and I left very intrigued with what it was doing and it's the type of game.

I don't know if it's necessarily my type of game in terms of like enjoying it, but I've been watching Bank play it, and it's, uh I have a lot of respect for this.

Like, do you guys know anything about like the approach this game.

You talked about it the preview on those oh after the preview event, Yeah, where it's like no objective markers, no anything like that.

It's just like there's no question blog.

Yeah.

And so it's like, again, my brain sucks, and so like I would unless I was taking like elaborate notes on everything, I probably would not be able to do it.

But Bonk has a great brain, and uh so I've just been watching her play and it's just so cool because you'll run into all these things where it's like, why is this woman in a cave?

I hear woman's voice crying.

She's obviously like in a terrible spot, like in this cave.

I need to find this woman, and like you can't figure out how to get to her, and so like you have to keep that in the back of your head, like, Okay, if I can find a way to get to this woman in the cave, I gotta go back and save this woman.

And then you're meeting these groups and villages and stuff and trying to find out where your dad is, and people are giving you hand drawn maps and stuff because there's no map you can go to, so it's just like you have to pull up from your inventory, like here's a scrap of a map of this village with arrows drawn and like sharpie basically, And it really goes out of its way to not explain these things or hold your hand in any way, like a lot of games say that where it's like, oh, we don'tant to hold your hand and all this stuff.

None of them have committed to it in the way that this has.

And you can see the inspirations of Annihilation, the movie that I think we all love.

It's tonally it is so dark, so creepy, so the music is incredible.

The look of the enemy is just like super otherworldly faceless husks with these like geometry coming out of their chests that you have to attack and everything.

It's got this oppressive tone that is really cool.

But also I don't think it's a gimmick what they're doing with the like no handholding stuff.

I think it is like a core part of what makes this game special.

And it has just been so cool watching her play this.

So yeah, it's hard to describe.

It's not like you could look at it and be like, oh, this this looks like a Soul's like type thing.

But it's like the developers have said, like, now, we're not not really what we're looking for with the combat here.

It's not really a Souls like type thing.

It's like it is the no handholding, you find your own way through it, which is the big hook here.

Hmm, it looks rad I want to very The preview event sounded kind of up my alley.

I could see you liking it.

Yeah, definitely.

I don't know.

I like games that are like that, Like unfortunately these days, I don't have as much time for those kind of games.

But I whatever they're doing to your point, and it's like I respect the hell out of it and kind of want to try them out.

Yeah, it's some funny.

It's like the most like oppressively dark game.

And I've been sitting on the couch next to the bank with my switch to playing Chibi Robo like checking and be like, hey, are these are these sound effects of this cutesy robot game for GameCube?

Is this a hurting the atmosphere of hell is us?

Doesn't bother?

How is cheety robo?

I'll just say this, and I said it on the BombCast.

But you know, we we sometimes hear these things of like, oh, what's the game that you like everything it's doing, but just like one little thing makes it that you can't enjoy it.

Yeah, this is maybe the most stark example I've ever seen where it's the text speed of anybody talking to you is glacial would be too generous.

It is just a we're where where where where?

And you can jam on every fucking button you want.

It is not going to go any fucking faster, and you can accidentally start conversations, and you got to fucking sit through this whole thing.

And you walk into a room and you're just looking forward to exploring and being a cute little robot cleaning up some fucking things with your toothbrush and finding collectibles and stuff like, oh, that'shit's great.

I love everything this game is doing, except for the amount of times I just go into an area and it's like, we're fucking please, I can read faster than this.

This is not adding anything for the game.

It's just making me hate.

You can't skip it.

You can't.

You cannot skip it.

Like I said this on the BombCast and people are like, well, there's like a sixty frames a second mod you can do on Dolphin if you play in emulating.

It was like, no, I want to play this on my switch.

I would look I like emulating, I do Dolphin stuff.

I want to just sit and play.

I was excited about this being on the switch online.

It's it's like unforgivable, how insane like.

And there's this one spot I got to where I just like put it down finally where it's like there's this fucking duck crab thing and a basement and it's like a fortune teller and it's like it's basically just like a little minigame where it's like you can gamble your moolah to see you is my eye going to open or not?

And it's like, all right, I gamble one hundred mulah if you're it's a fifty to fifty gamble.

I swear to god.

It felt like ten minutes.

It's probably not ten minutes.

It's probably like three or four, but just for text to go through a gambling minigame of like to my eye, oh is my eye going to o beIN?

Will your money be?

And so just fucking let me do the thing.

It's it's insane.

It's completely insane.

It's a wonderful game, and every other way it seems unplayable to me because of this fucking text thing.

What's the poor mechanic?

It's awesome.

It's like it's your tiny guy, big world.

It's one of my favorite type of the tropes.

You're a little cute robot.

You're going around and it's just like weird family and the wife hates to husband, and so you're like standing on the table talking to her while she's making her coffee about how she hates her husband.

Then you're talking to the lazy husband about stuff and he's like, oh man, you got to clean up this place.

It takes too No, no, it's not better than no.

It's hanging out with a divorced couple and they're about.

To get divorced.

I think they're about to get divorced, but like, yeah, iving to go around.

I got it.

I' found a toothpressure now I can go clean up all the little dog pop prints on the floor that every day there's like a day night cycle and then like the dog tracks mut in the house, I'm going to clean it up and it makes a cute little jingle and you get happy points when you clean up stuff.

And then you go back to your chiepy house and your happy points.

What's that happy points are separate from Moulah.

Yeah, Moulah's money happy point.

And then you got the recyclotron stuff recycle.

Come on, I just wanted to clarify the super It's I love everything this is doing.

If this just let me hit the molas that.

You can buy the happy points.

Now the happy points, you.

Get the chip blast or you get the Chivy copter.

The secrets of the game is once you've been uh, once you've just evolved into living in a shack near the beach with no Mulah, your happy points sore.

Oh wow.

That's the truth is that you don't need Molah to have happy.

Just finish that show yesterday again.

It's I love everything about this game except for the one stupid thing that makes it unplayable.

You just passed it in to let me hit a to speed through something.

I'm gonna love that game.

That's unfortunate.

It sucks.

Yeah, and the game doesn't suck, but that element is just like unforgive to me.

Uh does the text scroll real slowly in Gears on PS five?

No?

Well, but did they still slow you down?

Yeah?

It does.

That's associated with Gears for sure.

It's not that bad in the first one.

Really, the first game is still fun.

Yeah.

I'm just playing through it with Kaila again.

I know, I've talked about it when me and Kayla went through all of the numbered ones a year or two ago.

Doing it again.

It's on PlayStation, you know, it's basically just the novelty of like, wow, I'm I'm holding the PlayStation controller and playing Gears Award.

That's crazy, isn't it?

Because that's about as much of an Xbox branded things like Halo.

You know, I do think that again, after playing through so much Gears in the last couple of years, I think it's kind of the series from that era that has aged the best.

You know, it was good, it was very good when it came out, but you play it now and like, this is the first Gears and it's not like it's like it's not really any different outside of like, oh, it's like, you know, the frames per second or whatever from the last remake that did a couple of years ago or maybe longer than that now.

But again, it's not like they rebuilt this from the ground up.

It's pretty much the same game it was in two thousand and six, and it's still fucking fun.

Like you're Mary, I know it has a special place in your heart.

It holds up, like you know, I don't even have.

Like I wasn't a huge Gears guy when they came out.

I respected them, I reviewed them highly and stuff like that, but like I wasn't like talking about it a lot, But like I think I appreciate Gears more now that I've played through them all again recently.

Or shit, this holds up.

It's just a good game.

Like I'd rather play through the Gears series now than Halo, and Halo's also a great series, but I don't know, Gears hold up.

Gears was funny.

It was like pretty cheeky, and I think it had like really decided characters, right, Like it had really thoughtful characters that were interacting with each other.

I thought it was like watching a movie.

I just thought it was so fun and interesting Gears obviously, like I am biased.

Gears was like my introduction to games, so like I'll always be obsessed with Gears.

Might be like the George Washington head on the Mount Rushmore of co op games too.

You know, it's just like it was a game that was made for co op.

Obviously it's a good game if you played solo, but like it is meant to play with a friend or later on several friends.

You know that makes sense.

Well, I'm jealous.

I want to play through it with somebody, with somebody maybe on this podcast, maybe whose name rhymes with Dart for Harty Mike.

Mike Mike and Dart Fight.

I think, if you think about it, those rhyme No, no, are we.

Playing Gears for?

I would like to.

I'll play.

I just forgot how to rhyme?

Yeah, me too.

I got Billy crapp and it will help you out next time.

Oh we love Billy crapping in here?

Is your name not Mart?

No?

I think old time?

Is that why you've called me Mart since you're mad man?

I thought that was your intern name.

Oh that's Mart Maharty.

That'd be sick.

I love Mart.

I was supposed to be a donna.

Did I ever told you this?

Yeah?

Yeah, I haven't told you that because I just made it up, so I know, I was just playing a lot.

I was yes andding you.

When's the last time you played?

I don't I don't have time for improv what when's the last time you played?

Uh?

Replayed Halo?

Any of them?

Me and Bank played through Halo one and two in two thousand and seventeen, and uh they were Uh it was very fun.

Again, it's it's a great co op game.

We're sitting on the couch next to each other.

It was great.

I'm curious, like I do want to do that with Kayla once you're done with this, because like Kayla never had Xboxes or anything, so like this has been her first time three years so fresh.

Yeah, it's nice for the first time.

Yeah, So I'm curiously you know, Halo very iconic as well, and I wonder like if they ever do like my ster Chief collection on PlayStation or something, that'd be the great way to get her in because like she hated having to sign up for game Pass and you know, turn on an Xbox to play Gears.

So we'll see if I can get her to do Halo.

I missed that older that that era of Xbox was awesome, Halo, all the fucking one off games that were fun as hell, like what do you?

What are you done?

Phil?

They know you can kind of blame before down for a lot of the people.

Yeah, stuff that had impacts for a long time to go.

Yeah, but yeah, that three sixty is like I don't know, if I'm naming top game consoles of all time, i'd put three sixty maybe right behind PS two by its games or yeah, I mean, but also like I don't know, like it did a lot back then of like XBLA was industry changing.

Where's all of a sudden you're downloading these little games?

This is before Like I'm sure there were maybe examples on Steam of like indie games and stuff like that, but I feel like people like the Geometry, Wars Is of the World and those type of things that that people were getting big on Braid Braid, Yeah, that Summer Arcade type stuff achievements, Like there was just a lot of like Xbox Live, you know, like I know the original Xbox kind of introduced it, but like three sixties were really blew up.

Like three sixty is my first experience really getting into online games.

Also, fucking love that the UI.

It was just like the tab Manila Manila folders that you flipped through.

I ironically loved that.

Yeah, well the blades were azy.

Yeah, they were styled that for Manila folders.

You realize that, right, Like they didn't invent that.

I didn't think about the men folder thing, but that makes sense.

Yeah, but it's folder tabs that they invented in like the twenties.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, that's why.

Yeah, it was cool, Like you know what all these features had in common.

They were centered around the games, and I feel like Xbox kind of lost sight of games for a while, Like, oh, it was the one input for all of your ht my devices.

Yeah yeah, ough, I missed those days.

But yeah, I'd play Gears again, Mary, I like, uh, I like those games quite a bit.

Gears two as a special place my heart with Horde mode over the holidays, my brothers.

I think we'd have a lot of fun.

I think we should.

I think we should consider it deeply and that would be really fun.

Fu Calin I just.

Beat Judgment together and like even that's it's good.

That game is amazing.

I love that game that was rad that the book People Can Fly bullet Storm.

M hm, I love that game.

All right, let's do it Mart.

Do you want to You want to talk about emails?

Prairie?

Okay?

As usually, you can write into fire Escape cast at gmail dot com questions, comments, concerns.

We will read all the good questions on each episode.

Get that inbox filled up.

That's firescape cast at gmail dot com.

Uh, married, do you want to read this?

First?

One?

From Wes, who has written in many times.

Hey, y'all, what is a movie that you love despite it being objectively stupid?

Other than mcgruber, I'm partial to the other guys.

Thanks Wes from Baltimore.

I mean, so, I logged into my letterbox here when I saw that, and I'm like, okay, do I sort by five stars or one.

Star here or something?

And then I realized, that's like a lot of my taste in movies stars, I'm telling you is even.

Like even Rocky four is an objectively stupid movie, but I also un ironically fucking love it.

You know, four is objectively stupid.

I mean have I I always have been a way bigger Rocky fan than you, So I guess.

There we go, yeah, no, it's it's stupid.

I think that's fine to say it's stupid.

It's stupid, it's stupid.

But mcgruber is like a special stupid where it's like it's it's so fucking dumb, it's trying to know how it's trying to be stupid.

Yeah, I think.

It's like stupid, fucking go for it.

We're doing too much cocaine and steroids.

We gotta get it.

We need an outlet for it.

Objectively stupid.

For me, my number one movie is probably What Hot American Summer.

They're they're camp yeah, for sure that The humor is like they're trying to be dumb.

Like some of the jokes are dumb because they come out of nowhere and make absolutely no sense.

Paul Redd will say like fuck you and then be like my butt itch is when he's talking to his girlfriend out of nowhere, and then say I'm kidding, I love you.

I'm gonna fart my way into that snatches.

Oh my God.

His entrance in the prequel series the sequel series when he's riding the bike down through the woods and then he arrives and he doesn't stop it.

He just leaps off the back while it's still careening toward Lake and then just instead of apologizing for being late, he just announces, I'm late the wee hot it's probably mine.

I think we have to pay homage to Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox story.

That's my quotes that all the time, full like it.

It is nailing what it's going for where it's like there is a different camp.

It's like Mike brought up Hard ticket to why that is dumb as fuck?

But it's like, I mean, not that I thought it was making high art or anything, but it wasn't this brilliant stupidity that like you know, Amu Gruber or a walk Hard you know, or like we mentioned face face off earlier, face off is fucking stupid.

We're cutting our faces off and switching them.

But it's played super straight face and everything, and I super love it.

Like I don't know enough about the backstory.

Does John Wu know his movies.

Are John's John Wu?

From everything I've heard about the making that movie was pretty straight faced about it, and like like even just dumb things about like them having each other's voices and be like, oh, yeah, well it's the microchip and they switch microchips and they have each other.

It was like, oh okay, yeah yeah, So like I think there's an earnestness to face off, which makes it so great to me.

Uh, what was the other movie that just came up?

Uh, stupid ones that are like the Starship Troopers the original one was like pretty stupid, but that's actually like that's like that's no, that's almost the reverse, where like it's people.

Think it's stupid, but it's actually pretty smart.

Yeah, Rebo cop, Yes, it is subversive satire.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, symbolisms.

Oh the film students coming out.

Tropic Thunder is like very funny and stupid, probably dangerous by today's standards.

But I was surgical, like it wasn't actual black pop star.

Pop Star is fucking great.

I mean Naked Gun.

Naked Gun is gleefully dumb as hell.

I mean there's no question.

I mean you might as well say Airplane, right, Like those are like stupid movies that are so good at what they're.

Trying to do, and that's things like I think a lot of comedies fall into that.

But I think there there's a certain breed of like like I go back to face off, Like I think that is a movie that is not sold as a comedy.

We're sold as a stupid thing.

It's maybe it's not trying to be sane, yeah, yeah.

But it is stupid as fuck.

It is stupid.

Yeah, because if you had asked me recently or a couple of years ago, I would have said The Warriors.

But rewatching it, I'm actually just convinced that movie is coole as fuck.

Yeah, there's parts of it are stupid, but it's just rad.

But yeah, it's i'd say wet hot.

It's probably MiNet.

Hotshots part due I love game movies that are like playing off of like an entire I know, I know.

You know, Uh, here's a here's a movie, here's a show.

Rather that's not at all trying to be stupid, but it's pretty fucking stupid.

Is Drops of God on Apple TV.

It's about wine.

Uh, this this dude who's like this dude who is like a taste maker in the wine industry, like global tastemaker dies has this like one of the most incredible wine sellers in the world, and also like the rights to this book almanac kind of thing, or that he's trying to encyclopedia that he's like potentially leaving to his daughter, but he also had a protege, this Japanese protege, and it's based on a manga which is really good, but they adapted it into a bunch of like white people and it's a very different story.

Where the father dies and he puts his daughter and his protege up to this test to see whether they can like blind taste this series of wines.

And it's fun if you're a wine geek.

But it's also so fucking stupid that, like that is how he's deciding who gets his fortune.

If you watch the whole show, there's there is some backstory to why he's doing it, but it's still fucking stupid.

But I still love it.

That's probably a better answer than the other ones.

My other ones, the whole Fast and Furious series.

Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, right, Like they're so fucking stupid, but like they play the whole thing like very straight.

They're not stupid.

They're about family, a family.

Sorry, yeah, it's about loyalty.

Oh I guess I'm just gonna quit fire Escape Cast tomorrow and that'll be stupid.

No, okay, I apologize, I'm sorry.

Oh I guess you're just gonna stop being friends of me, and that'll be stupid.

We're can talk about it off the year.

It's fine, maybe we will.

I have I have won more based on the sincere shows that I think are trying to be sincere, that I think are so stupid that I have to bring a new one up that just I think.

This just launched on Netflix, and this might be too weird for you too.

I'm still going to try and sell you on it.

It's called Samurai Gourmet.

Way, how do you already watch it?

No?

Way?

No, I didn't, you got me?

Okay?

It is.

It is a show about a professional chef from the year twenty twenty five who gets sucked back into time to like a very earlier era when they have like showguns and shit like that, and they're like torturing people and killing people, and they capture her and she keeps impressing people with her awesome cooking and every time she makes something, they're like, uh, they're like mind's explode and they're like, how did you do this?

And she's like, oh, it's msg because it.

Hasn't been invented yet, and so people are freaking out over her food and it keeps saving her life because like she's in all these horrible situations where she's probably should be like tortured or killed or worse for women back then, and there's all these like really fucked up scenes where they're like cut off their arms until all these people are like freaking.

Out, and then there they'll almost kill her, and she'll be like, let me cook one dish for you, and then she'll win over the guy and he'll be like, you can live.

And it keeps happening every episode.

The show should not be good, and by many standards it's not good, but.

I can't stop watching it because every time she cooks, she'll be like, they don't know this cooking method for me, but I do.

And she'll like she has like fucking like Gochu Chang in her pocket and she's putting it out and she's making them bibb and bobs.

She's invent she's she's serving them dishes that they've never heard of.

You know you.

I've thought about that time travel stuff a lot, where it's like, oh, if you went back with a adult rifle or you went back with an iPhone or something, they would be like, this is crazy.

This is awesome, but like food wise, like I don't know if I brought back a thing of like super chunk peanut butter, yeah, they'd be like, this is fucking crazy.

It's insane.

He's not how does he How did he make this?

Yes?

And she like keeps doing it.

She like, uh, she keeps using French cooking methods, which obviously they're not familiar with.

They don't even know what that is.

And they're like their minds keep getting blown by the things that she's inventing.

But it's also like poorly done in the sense that like this is almost silly.

They're trying to put a romance in there.

It is a joke.

The first episode is hard to get through, and I know people who like watch this will be like, how did Mary watch this?

And I'm telling you, I actually skipped some of the first episode and got to the part where she actually starts cooking, and that shit is so good.

People freak out when they taste her cooking.

What this is an interesting concept.

It's like, what do you think if you went back because like.

Yeah, I don't know what it was the dream of a child.

Yeah, medieval times.

They're probably just like I don't know, eating the leg of a cow.

And I don't know, I hate they had fire or whatever how they hated it up or whatever.

But like imagine if you brought a no that fire.

I know, I just the cooking situation.

I don't know.

But like, let's say with all the chemicals.

Yeah, we have like insane like chemicals and shit, and like our palettes are so you know whatever.

Now I bring you beer, like in like a cacity from Taco Bell.

What year are we talking about?

Let me say fifteen hundreds?

What are Castle Times?

Beer was invunded in like two thousand BC.

I hate to tell you.

Oh, let's just go to Castle Times and we bring them a case from Taco Bell.

I'm not surprised for McDonald's.

Do their heads explode?

Yeah?

I think so.

That's Nick Swartzon's joke.

He's like, we've gotten so jaded with movies.

We see the first Transformers, We're like fucking sucked.

He's like, can you imagine if you showed the Transformers in a nineteen fifties theater, he'd be like, ah, start stabbing each other.

Or the first people who saw a movie with the trains coming at them.

Chris Funming has that joke.

He's like, he's like, there's a reason Timothy Shellman has to play Willy Wonka now, because the fucking Gene Wilder and four K would be like the first train coming at people in that movie Theater.

That's a separate thing.

There's a movie from the show from the nineties, late nineties, early two thousands that was short lived, I believe, called Doover.

It was basically about a kid or sorry, a suburban dad who gets sucked back into his high school years with but like with the mind of his feet yourself.

So he's got a talent show coming up that apparently he biffed when he was young, so he decides to play good Ridden's Time of Your Life by Green Day and everybody's like, oh, this is the best thing ever.

And then it comes time for the actual show and he does the moral thing and does the song that he wrote and he loses it, but he did the right thing.

Like there's that video game coming out where it's like, what if like six dudes had assault rifles that helm's deep or something.

Oh, oh yeah, the one where we have the car and you're running over all the like nights.

Like could you win the Battle of Hayese things with like a sniper rifle.

I exactly, No, I'm not asking you.

I'm just saying like, yeah, you could scare them, but I would I feel as if it's gotta be some like advanced cooking technique that would really blow people's mind, like a case of DIA.

I don't think people in the middle of the people in the Middle Ages would not know what like a flat top grill is.

No, I'm just saying that they just bit into it, like we're just the flavor of it, just being so insane with the chemicals and everything.

The buck is this would even be good.

They've literally not been invented yet.

Yeah, candy would be so cool as well.

And this is like the kind of thing where you're skirting the rules a little bit where I could like take back a giant bag of gumballs and I would like hide them so that no one would know where I got them.

But I would sell people these gumballs and they'd be like, how the fuck did you make this?

And I'd be like, I'm not telling you, but you can have these gumballs for ten dollars.

And I would just like rob these people because they would have no idea.

It's so funny too.

Whenever I have this fantasy, which I have a lot of, like you know, gumballs or wine, I never think to like bring back medicine and say people's lives.

I'm always like, man, I bring back fucking whiskey and skittles.

Gumballs.

Dude, if you lived in Castle Times and someone gave you whiskey and skittles, they would be your new god.

You would be queen of the manner.

I could have brought back it would cure smallpox.

But anyway, here's how you make beer skittles.

Oh, get some wildberry skittles and some Jack Daniels.

Hell yeah, Mary could go back to the very dock where the first rats with bubonic plague stepped ashore, and she could know and see them scurrying into the city, and instead of telling them kill those rats, she'd say, I have gumball.

Would Castle people like gumballs.

Ten bucks apiece?

I don't know, like, would they want.

To be are we skipping too many like evolutions of food or would somebody bite into like a Dorito's in the Castle Times and would they just be like what the fuck?

Like affected to the point where it wouldn't even make sense as food.

Yeah, it's just like this doesn't Yeah, Gerald just eating like fucking celery and cows or whatever.

You know.

I have to make an important correction.

I got the name of the Netflix show wrong.

What is it?

It's called Bone Appetite, Your Majesty.

Much better.

I looked up Samurai Gourmet.

I was like, this looks different.

Listen.

I googled Lady Goes Back in Time Samurai Food and I did the first response, and it was Samurai Gourmet.

It is not right.

It is Bone Appetite, Your Majesty.

How did you find this in the first place.

I don't Alien Earth AutoPlay after an episode.

I thought it was Alien Earth episode five.

Yeah, actually sounds kind of serious and good.

I don't think that that is what I recommended at all.

I'm recommending Bone Appetite, Your Majesty, a very stupid show about a girl who gets sucked back into time, but because she is like a world renowned chef, she keeps pleasing all of these evil tyrants with her cooking to save her life.

Now that doesn't make me think like if tonight I got a little too drunk and I woke up in Castle Times.

What would my play be?

Because like, I'm not a I'm not a gourmet chef, So.

Like, what is the thing ability to like platform don't give a.

Shit about my thoughts on fucking shinobi?

Can I do to keep people from killing me?

They would put your head on a spike with four minutes.

There's gotta be something I could show them.

I gotta skip a rock across a lake or something that that's a good.

No, have they figured that out?

I can sometimes do.

Yeah, they didn't have that tech yet.

Is I don't know if the zoom is picking that mic is blowing into.

His finger, brushing your teeth, they probably didn't know how to do that very well.

I can't look Let's say I show up terminator style and I'm just naked, all right, and I can't just like I don't have tooth paste with me, So like, what can I show them with my knowledge from twenty twenty five?

If I just show up naked?

They have no concept of mental health.

You could be a psychiatrist.

No, I think meditation goes back like you have.

Repeat you're the first person to meditate.

I don't think so meditation Castle Time here.

That you can do.

Pop them a few of your uh, you're well bututrin, and then in three weeks they're going to feel amazing and they're no.

No pop up your viance once a day, and then in three they're gonna be no germinator style.

I'm asked, naked, I got happen with me naked?

What What do I have to offer to castle people?

What can I possibly teach them?

You don't.

I don't know why whying us to solve your existential crisis?

You've got nothing?

Can I teach them something about eclipses?

Can I teach them something about a phenomenon they don't understand that I can like.

Be like, oh, we know this about eclipses right now.

That every once in a while, based on the axis and the rotation of the Earth around the Sun, that sometimes things get dark because this moon's in between the Sun and the earth.

Burned like a witch, you're gonna be spell really good and they're gonna hang you outside the walls.

I need provable ship.

I can't just explain an eclipse with my late person's knowledge, Like what can I bring to them?

Eclipses were first documented in thirty three forty BC in.

When do people start meditating?

Also, that's kind of a hard thing if you go there's a long time ago.

Oh I got one, I got one.

What you know all modern music?

You could just sing all of our modern tunes and people will be like, oh my god, he's such a good bard.

Wait what would Dan be like?

I'm just gonna sing Beatles songs to him to the Paradise City.

Yeah, everyone, I love it, like a monk version of every song he knows.

Everyone gathered around, do you remember it?

Like nobody king?

Yeah, and they're like, this is amazing.

This guy just keeps coming out with bangery hold to night.

I don't let you gold.

I mean that maybe the best option we have so far.

I'm trying to save your ass, and it's all I.

Has to be.

I can't bring back flip your eyelids inside out and then and look at them and blink.

They've killed anything but a demon.

Yeah, that's true.

They think you're even for singing any of the songs we was mentioned too.

Again, it has to be knowledge that you already have.

So like this lady, she has like a really good modern view of cooking, which is really helpful.

Oh, make them my tie.

But they wouldn't have They wouldn't have any shot.

Learn to make it.

They might have almonds.

I'm gonna make or shot.

I don't know how that works.

It his hour.

He doesn't know how to infuse.

Mike, this is yes, I know.

It's almond a Jason.

That's not gonna help his first tomato like two weeks ago.

He's got really in.

Living at twenty twenty five.

I have nothing I could prove to people in the fifteen hundreds that would impress them, even just.

Sleep with a gun.

So if this happens, you have a gun, No.

It's terminator rules.

I'm making your as I'm sucking itears out your ass if your time travel, its terminator rules.

Around popping pills up.

People can't know that terminator did not have anything up his ass.

Beer bongs you can't know.

Oh, you can start boof and drink.

Show how much quicker that is?

Hey, you don't know, Marilyn Monroe.

But let me tell you a thing.

Let mean, let's boof some me.

You could invent somepositories.

Ie, I'm actually trying to think of something right now.

I don't think I happen anything.

YouTube, do you guys have anything you could like because they know how to start fire, starting fire than you.

Uh maybe like modern fashion.

I feel like their fashion is all outdated, and i'd be I don't.

Think they would care, right, They just like you're weird.

I think if we saw a future fashion from eight hundred years.

In the fortune we were, is there anything that like an injury or something that we would know, like, oh, here's how.

You pick that up real quick high like maneuver kying on someone who gets stung by a jellyfish.

Oh yeah, if you're coasting so specific, so they're circling around you, you just time traveled under their field.

They got their fucking pitchforks out and they're like, we're gonna kill this guy.

Like wait, watch this.

You can't just like summon a jellyfision piece.

See let me see, let me see when was Heiml like maneuver inventors.

Well, she doesn't get to do that either.

They she has to be like put me in a kitchen.

What were people doing before the seventies dying?

Do that?

You fucking someone's chewing on some some cow cud and you fucking jam there.

Again, that's such a specific thing, like you can't just manufacture that moment make up.

I would be like, take me to your leader and I'm gonna do the sickest cat eye.

On that pitch.

Good men and women from the Middle Ages, Mary we're talking about.

I'm just saying I think I could win them over with modern makeup techniques.

I bet you they don't know anything about making.

You could puke on command.

I think people back then could do it, like, hey, guys, yeah, go he's come.

You could God, what the fuck?

Wow?

How much cheese you can eat?

I literally just gave three for me.

You were definitely they were jacking off back then for sure.

Oh like in every which way.

Could you imagine going back in time being like, did you guys not know that you could do this and just whip it out and start.

Everyone came to that naturally.

Nobody knew how to do it.

They know how to do it this way.

You invent the Comma Sutra, or you're just like, but they don't know how to do it backwards and you could sex positions.

Yeah stuff, I thought they were doing crazy ship.

Probably they had nothing better to do.

It was dark all the time.

I don't think we have anything to offer it was dark.

I don't really yeah, really, I don't think he's so.

I'm saying, we you don't have anything but marry yours is all like you got to be near a jellyfish and have to pee or something like.

It's not that that's something you can just do in the moment.

That's the argument.

The bonup a teat your majesty.

She's a cook, so she has to get herself in a kitchen, and once she's in the kitchen, she uses all their old, tiny materials and she uses her modern mind to invent new techniques that they haven't heard.

Of, makeup stuff she doesn't like land.

Actually she does land with like a little pocket of GoChi jung.

But like for the rest of the episodes, she's thinking of stuff she can make that they don't know you could do it yet.

But she has to use their kitchen, so i'd be like, you don't know how to do that milk oh invent?

I don't know.

Figure it out if you're the one that is happening.

Do they have vinegar and baking soda?

Can you make a vinegar and baking soda Mountain?

Do they have mentos and diet coke or die Cooke.

I don't think that's my favorite.

Wha wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, Dan, we have not talked about the best instigral.

I do, Mike, You and I have the dumbest back and forth Instagram dms.

Oh ship.

I should have brought what's his name?

The gulf between what you post on Instagram mic and what you send me just it's just nothing but like wine stuff send me.

Ship.

But the stuff I send to you, I'll find it.

Where's the last time I talked to dam?

You can't, I can't.

I cannot believe.

I can't think of I legitimately can't think of something good.

I could teach them to make them think I was like a prophet.

Oh here he is what's his name on Instagram?

Underscore?

Never DM me anything?

Oh sorry, I'll sign it to you right now.

Mike sends me dog memes a lot I do.

Yeah, I get my favorite no no ma underscore and uh he just he sings like it's it's Korean pop songs, while he does like dumb shit with mentos and diet coke and water melons and or.

For the video listeners, Mike is holding up his phone.

Here is a man.

That is Uh, it's really good.

You can tell it's great.

There's always this, he's really good.

I don't know, like if you don't have your phone or anything, I don't know what show them.

Guys are obviously going to die.

Fine, I'd make them some sick medieval cocktails or something.

Thank you so much.

Wes from Baltimore.

Oh yeah, thank you, Wes.

Uh three other times we know this time yeah, hey gang.

The first time I played Ori and the Blind Forest, I thought the spirit shrines were bonus challenges, so I never bothered with them, meaning I never had more than three shard slots.

It took some doing, but I beat the whole game with just those three slots.

When have you brute forced your way through a game playing it?

Quote unquote wrong from Hillary and Virginia PS.

I also never ate a tadpole in Balder's Gate three.

I did that last one.

I never ate a tadpole.

I similar we were talking about in like there Billions, Uh, Tower Dominion I really dis and Civilization six and seven.

I do not.

I try my best not to restart, even if I know the tiles are not going to lead to a win.

The early the starting positions.

That is kind of my way of brute forcing, but that's also kind of my way of like just enjoying the game for what it is and not knowing that the run's not going to be ideal.

Same with Bilatro, I rarely wiped.

I just wanted to see the run through until I died, see what happened, even though I could tell pretty early on that it wasn't gonna be a good one.

I think mine is probably just, you know, just fight how much I love Metal Year and everything, like I just suck as stealth and like I will very quickly abandon it.

And just like through Delta, I was just like shotgunning my way through a lot of it.

You know, I did the wrong way.

I did the complete never alert any person in Dishonored two run, which is one of the hardest things I've done in a game.

I love stealth games like I played when possible, I play stealth, but like Dishonner two, no alerts was very tough, a lot of restarts to be clear.

But I also Rob Hamley and I at GameSpot did the what we call it Gravehoppers Permo Death's Show, which is fun and uh, I forget I went away on some vacation or work trip and then someone subbed for me and ruined my resume before play through.

Forget I forget who it was.

But yeah, anyone for those who don't know, I still think that the idea is really good.

I just wish we had done it more.

But uh, some somebody at GameSpot thought it was a bad idea above us.

But Peter, Peter, yeah, Peter browns like mix this right now, ye yo man, oh yeah, we applied permo death to every single game we're playing.

So we started with I forget what, we start with the last of us, and then as soon on the hardest difficulty and as soon as you die, you switch the next game because it's perman death.

So you could go through six games in one episode, or you could be playing one game like Resume four for eight episodes until someone subs in for you and gets killed by the first chainsaw person.

Peter Brown, Yeah, uh.

This was a very stressful experience for me personally, to jump into somebody else's game midway right when a chainsaw guy appears and they are just like, don't let Mike's character die, And I'm sorry that I couldn't figure it out.

But I got you.

The video was funny because you're like, oh my god, he's gonna be pissed.

I go, I forgot why what game even jumped to?

But yeah, I'd say that's the most common one.

I like it inserting perman death into games where it technically doesn't exist.

I do that, Jake, and I did that in break Point for a bit on the harder difficulty that was fun.

Never died, something like a Mario or something that'd be fun.

Make it harder.

I accidentally made Tunic very difficult.

That game.

You start with nothing, and I think eventually you get a stick so you can hit certain enemies with and you're just supposed to go to an area where you find a sword.

And for whatever reason, I did not find this sword, and I thought that the game was challenging me to get through the first area with a stick and you're not supposed to.

There is an area where there's grass that you can't I think there's bushes and you can't get through them because you cannot slash a bush with a stick.

You need the sword to get through these bushes.

But what I learned was if enemies, if I get them to charge me and they slash.

They could slash through the bushes, and so I got the enemies to slash the bushes, which got me into an area I should not have gotten to with just a stick, and I did an entire cave section with a boss with a stick.

It took forever.

It was so hard to kill this boss with a stick because it probably did like zero point one damage, and I died all the time, and I had to keep coming back and be like, why do they make this game so fucking hard?

And then after I beat the boss and got back around to it, I saw the sword at the very entry level.

So I did early game, like, you know, maybe a tenth of that game with the wrong fucking weapon, and that.

Combat is not forgiving anyway, you know, even if you have the right weapon.

It was a bad start to that game for Mary, But it was my fault.

I think a common one.

I think Tim Terry's done this.

He was the one who first told me that like that was a fad or people doing it was the plasma cutter only Dead Space runs.

Oh sure that that game is one of the most like enjoyable iconic weapons to use.

So it wasn't like such a cools, like, are the GPS knife ron knife?

That's crazy.

I've watched him do that.

Yeah, that's because you have to do the bosses.

Like I could see doing that against the normal enemies, but the boss nay and all that.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

It's different.

What we're talking about was two different things, though.

I think there's one where you're like, whoops, played the game on hard difficulty, and there's another where you're challenging yourself.

I think we could have a whole other conversation about making the game more difficult because you want it to be.

This one is like, oh shit, I've made this way too hard on accident because I was not paying attention.

Yeah, for sure.

Thank you, Hillary from Virginia, Dan, you want to read this last one?

From Matt from Indiana.

Yes, Dear Fire Escape Cast.

With the release of Snake Eater Delta, I was wondering if you'd explain to me why the song Snake Eater starts up when Snake is climbing the giant ladder.

Why did Kajima decide they should sing a song about Snake's character.

Nobody would break out and song while climbing a ladder in real life.

Why doesn't Snake just say how he's feeling?

It said, it really takes me out of the game, Thanks Matt Media.

This is low tier trolling a tempier.

This is it doesn't even make sense, really, Snake.

Matt is positing that Snake is singing Snake Eater as he's climbing the ladder.

That's not the case.

No, just a song is playing during a scene in a video game.

It's not a diegetic thing where if Big Boss had started singing that while he's climbing the ladder, I would have hated that.

But it's just a song playing as the man.

That's just that's a cinema right there, Like, that's this is if you're gonna ttrol do.

It better, Matt.

Yeah, but why did they play the song though?

Because it was cool?

That happens all the time in movies.

Movies all the time.

Just play a song when it's cool because it just fits the scene or something like that.

Or you can even do it diegetically where it's like, let's say Wayne's World, they're all singing, but he mean Rhapsody in the car.

That's great because in that scene it makes sense they're all in the car.

They're into the song and they're singing along to the song.

They're not singing how they feel.

They're singing lyrics to a song.

It's drunk dudes.

It's drunk dudes in a car singing along to a song they like.

Yes, that makes perfect sense.

Just the sheer act of a song playing or character singing does not make it stupid.

It's characters just singing.

What normal people would say is where it gets stupid.

So Matt, just try harder next time.

Leave the troll aside.

Why do you what impact does that song and the long ladder have and why did they implement it right after the.

Fire at the end of the fight against the end as you go up to.

The the end.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sincerely not strolling you.

It's just some Kagema quirkiness right there.

That's all it is.

If he's such a genius, though this is a separate thing.

I'm asking you, if he's such a genius, why did he make the ladder so long?

Because it's funny that it's bigger than normal ladder.

Yeah, that's your best answer for that.

I like how big the latter is.

Everyone loves the ladder.

Are you going to be smirch the ladder.

No, I like it a lot.

I have ever play on it.

But okay, it's a fantastic scene.

I'm actually asking you to dig deeper for once.

That's not really my forte.

Yeah, but you say it's the best story ever told in any medium, So I'm curious what.

You don't say.

The latter is the lynch pin of the story.

Yeah, but it's part of one of the best stories ever told.

A fun little moment.

Yeah, it's not long.

What if your skill is that when you go back in time you can regale them with the entire snake Eater story.

From being I don't know, Lyndon B.

Johnson, that's pretty important.

Maybe you can just replace it with a different showgun or something.

King Edward or whoever was the guy back then.

Yes, but this is like feudal Japan.

So I don't think.

I don't think they like uh, I don't think they like or care about metal of your stories.

Now.

I think they would just think I was stupid and kill me.

You should just die.

I'm trying to throw you a bone here.

I'm what I'm saying is is like we have modern stories, we have modern music, We probably know some modern art, like I'm sure there's something you can do with that that would save you.

I can't paint, so I can't just like, oh, here's Storry night.

You know what if you could, like, uh, you'd be like listen, I'm gonna tell you, guys, uh, and you just you just literally like explain mcgruber from beginning to end.

That's absolutely not That would mean nothing.

That relies so heavily on knowledge of what it's satirizing and all that stuff, there's no way they would kill me ten seconds into that explanation.

I really agree with Dan, Dan.

I don't think you have any actual skills.

I mean I have skills that can apply in twenty twenty five, Like what, but you go even thirty years back, let's let's say fifty, let's say the seventies.

If the world I'm just useless.

If if the post apocalypse started, you would be fucked.

The video games and just that type of pop.

Culture for a dollar.

If you guys would spell and you.

Had to say, oh, oh, so that's the other way aroun instead of going back further, it's just like, oh, post apocalypse, I got nothing.

I have absolutely nothing, no knowledge, no uses at all.

No, I think it'd be fine for like a few weeks.

I think that's where, you know, when Mary brought up the like meditation stuff, the mental health stuff.

I think I could have some insight there because you know, we'd all be going through a rough time.

I think I could maybe help some people with that.

But I'm not a not a doctor.

I think there'd be enough doctors that could do better help.

But back then, like a lot of the doctors were like use leeches.

Like, I'm sure you have like more modern knowledge that would help you.

I mean, like I can explain meditation and stuff like that, but like.

Take it till you make it.

I'd be a good snake oil guy.

If we go back to like red dead times, I'd be a great snake oil guy.

What would you sell snake oil?

That'd be sick be the og snake oil cells?

Yeah, yeah, you heard about the snake oils.

Check it out.

Cure what ails you go back in time?

Show Kojima this real tall ladder.

I'd be like, do you have no.

Idea this is cinema?

I don't know.

Yeah, I think I would.

I could cook.

I could not as well as this woman.

It sounds like from the show.

But I could I can make a make some sort of medieval cocktail from mead and whip up some simple You two.

Are in better shape than me.

Is there some exercise things some like like oh, here's a better way to do a push up or a dead lift or something.

You could maybe teach them and they'd be impressed by.

I don't know if push ups are gonna save you, because they like, oh, she's onto something here.

They're very fit back then, like they weren't worried about I don't think so.

I think there are.

I think there were.

And where are we talking?

Where we talk?

Are we talking Middle Ages and Europe?

Or like whenever the castles were.

Yeah, so they were.

They would have been they wouldn't have been like shredded.

They would have been like farmer fit.

Yeah, so in shape.

But because they can't they can't binge on food.

But what I'm saying is like they don't need help with like exercise regimens.

They're they're yeah, they're exercising just to survive.

Correct.

The castle people maybe might have been fat, like they might have been.

The castle people, I mean people that lived in castle times, So like that includes the farm.

Workers and stuff.

Uh huh, I don't know, not like the nobility.

You know.

Yeah, there's kind of some good lift you could teach him or something.

I go from flaccid to erect and back in like three seconds.

Did they have obs?

I could teach them some things there.

What would you teach them about obs?

And filters and you know studio mode born.

Oh my god, I thought I thought you were saying ibs.

In my head, I was for irritable bell syndrome.

Oh, I don't know that yet.

I can't think of anything, Dan, like, you're so.

Total it might be dead, but you too, you don't have anything good for you.

You have to make up things.

I have hair and makeup techniques.

I would I would regale them with tales of all of the songs.

That I know.

I've got one, I've got one, I think I've got one.

They were really into court jesters.

They appreciated comedy.

You start rattling off a few like jokes from some renowned comics from our time, like George Cochlin, so much that no, you go back to fucking Middle Ages in Russia and you're rattling off the jokes.

Norm was telling with all these dostereev Skis and fedoriovichitchesibilities would be so different.

I think norms.

Sensibilities are pretty old school when you really dig into them.

I know, but I think he would get killed if he like said things against religion, like that's all they had back then.

God are we just?

But if you, if you sung, shake it off?

Would that not appeal to them?

But without all the instrumentation and the better singers and stuff like that, like that comes singing, shake it off, it's not going to do it right, no.

It now?

Yeah, I just shake it off.

You gotta shake it off, all right, Fellas, don't stab me with their swords.

Shake off that.

You see this naked terminator man with the beard.

I think it's a stretch to call any of us terminator man.

That's just the newdy skinny boy.

I would all the hidden one Upstar and Mario.

I would just kill them all first.

Oh that's okay.

I can't believe that we don't have good answers for this.

I know they're probably I can I can make a discord.

Yeah, people write in tell us how we would survive.

Impress them with event cheese.

I think now they're eating.

Would you be able to produce it.

I can think you can show them, like walk them to a cow and then, like you know, a couple of hours later, have cheese.

I can figure it out.

I think now that I know it's possible, I could figure it out.

Not like Cheddar, though, I would figure it out.

Tell them how many the mebos I have.

Call up your friends at Uda Pills.

Tell them you have a partnership with them.

That's right.

Yeah, come to Minnesota Castle people.

Tell them about all the benefits of Dell Alien Wears, summer gaming events factor now God, give them a giant bomb free subscription for a month.

Yeah, watch us play games.

This is my friend Mike, but not explaining Saturn games now.

Yeah.

Nice fuck.

There's just nothing.

Figure it out.

People right into us, all of us.

I think I'll figure something out.

I'm sure they'd be into wine stuff.

I could recall them there.

I I would invent a new candy.

But you don't know how to make candy.

If I put a gun to your head right now and I said make me some candy, how would you do?

In twenty twenty five?

Sugar water boil that shit.

Add color.

That's just simple syrup with Caramel, I think they had stuff like that.

Well, thank you, Indiana.

That's our show again.

You can ride a fire skip castle.

Email at dot com please if you have any ways for Dan to survive in castle times right in for any of us, I guess right in how each of us would survive in this situation if we just appear naked in a castle in the Middle Ages and we don't have any of our trusty gadgets or the key thing is too.

It has to be based on our actual personal knowledge.

You can't just be knowledge from twenty twenty five.

It has to be like something Mike would know now, something I would know now.

Our interests tell us how each of us would survive, or the stuff each of us are capable of, maybe researching a bit farther to be prepared for when such an event happens.

I think, I think, I think we'll get there.

Well, thank you, Matt.

How to do a cannonball into a lake or something, You're got to hope.

There's a lake nearby.

And also I'm pretty sure that they know how to put themselves into little body.

Balls in John, have you seen a painting of a castle person doing a cannonball outside of actual cannibals.

They've all been The Elder did a lot of cannonball paintings, a couple of housekeeping things.

We have a restock on our stainless steel water bottle on fourth wall dot Com that ran out, So if you're interested in getting that for I don't know, if you want to just like make sure you're hydrated at work and maybe going for some run.

Questions if I said E equals empcy squared and I said energy equals mass times content, use the square, you don't know again with Okay, but if I gave if I just said egles empty squared, would that like cause all the wizards to have an haha momen be like he's a genius.

No, because the theyn't even know what it means.

Yeah, energy equals mass c squared.

I think you that that's your best bet.

Try that.

Yeah, run with that.

Our stayless steel water bottle, the white one, the seventeen ounces back in stock and fourth wall dot Com.

We also, uh, Dan, Mary, I hope you don't mind me.

I don't think this is premature to say.

We do have some new merch on the way.

We will announce it maybe by next episode, next couple episodes.

Uh, got a new fire Escape kind of let's say Fall twenty twenty five design coming out.

We will update people when that is on fourth Wall and live for people to purchase.

So C is the speed of light?

Where's the same play in there?

There's no C?

Is that real?

Sorry?

What the C in E equals mc squared is the speed of light?

I googled it.

I thought the whole equation was the speed of light.

No, mass is the speed of light.

There's no C in that.

He equals energy equals mass speed of light two squared times itself.

I don't know.

You're just not meant to be a philosopher.

Theory of relativity, Okay, sorry?

An object in motion stays in motion.

Unless acted on by an outside motion.

Oh yeah, you get that thing with the balls that bounce.

I'd have to make it.

Yeah, get a bunch of the nights.

I'm assuming they're nights.

This is tough, Like I said.

Merch at fire scat merch fire Escape cast, fire skate merch dot com at fourth Wall, or just go to our Patreon look for the links there.

We will put a post up when the new stuff is up.

But our stainless steel water bottle is good to go if you're interested.

Also, do I have anything else?

Is that it?

We'll start We'll start letting people know about Game of the Year timing.

We're getting sort of to that point where we're gonna start giving hard dates in the next few episodes so people can know we did need to be booked.

Yes, we did mid November last year.

We h it was fun.

We got ahead of everybody, and that was also a convenient time for us.

But right now we're aiming for later, aiming for the December timing.

Well, we'll see what I mean.

I would prefer December or even January if we have but like, we are looking at December stuff.

But obviously I got to know figure out what we're doing Giant Bomb and stuff, So to be determined with some of this stuff.

But we will be doing this in person near the end of the year.

Yes, look it forward to it.

Dan.

What do you have going on in the meantime.

Giant bomb dot Com.

We're killing it over there.

Mike Manatti is playing the new season of Blake Club.

He was playing virtual Hidelight for the Saturn.

It looks like hot horseshit to me.

He actually likes it.

But yeah, check out john bomb dot com.

BombCast boys wont dump truck all this stuff we're doing over there, Mary, what about.

You streaming on Mondays?

Come check me out on my Twitch channel.

I play a lot of the games that we talk about here.

First Cool.

We will be back in a couple of weeks with episode one sixteen.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Until then, have a good time.

We'll see then write in help us survive Castle times.

We'd appreciate it, each, each of us.

We need, we need help to live everyone, Bye bye.

I think you could like show them new words.

What would I have?

They just I don't know what you know what I mean, like, I know, not slang, no, no, not slang stuff.

I'm sure there's more applicable like modern words, but like I don't know.

They would just say, I'm just gibberish.

Yeah.

I think just the way we are talking right now would be gibberish to them that we're not using they and old Winst Yeah, yield.

I feel like you could add riz into Winst.

Marry They're not gonna laugh you from the get go.

Yes, true, I don't say, Oh, mister Elizabeth Banks is ugly.

Yeah, shut the fuck up, Mart.

Are we recording still next episode