Get Played - Day/Night Cycles

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Heather, Nick and Matt discuss Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Pokémon Lazarus and Dispatch before digging into games with Day/Night Cycles! Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpod Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? and our Premium DLC episodes and our exclusive show Get Anime'd where we're currently watching Serial Experiments Lain go to patreon.com/getplayed Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fm All of our links can be found at linktree.com/getplayedpodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Now available in Canada too. That's QINCE.com slash get played. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash get played. Oh, man, I am so excited to talk about today's topic. Yeah, I think there's a lot there. There's a lot of meat on the bone for a topic like this. Heather. Heather just fell asleep, it looks like. Heather, what the hell?

Heather. Oh, good morning, guys. Wow, I can't believe we are here to record so early in the morning. Yeah, actually, we were here just a couple of minutes ago, and then you take a quick cat now. You stayed here overnight? That's crazy. No, we Oh no, God, Heather

Heather fell back to sleep Oh, wow, what are you doing in my house? We're not, we're in the studio, where the head go. What the fuck? Why don't fall asleep and get played? Heather, do you, are you wanted in like an advanced day night cycle, like an accelerated day night cycle? Yeah, is that what's happening to you?

Accelerated day night cycle, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, is like one of your... Everybody knows that the time of, like, an hour equals one second and one second equals 12 seconds, so you... Okay. Yeah, so I think what we're learning is that Heather's on a different day, night cycle in us, and hers to accelerate it. Oh, man, I slept like shit last night. Hi, guys. Guys, what are you doing?

What day is it? For us, I guess it's still the day we record. Huh. Okay. Oh, man. So we have a double, double this week, two records and two in, like, what is it, like four days now? Yeah, but it's like kind of not that typical. It's not different.

You guys, I thought we, you know, we normally record two, two episodes of, oh God, she's gonna be really cranky tomorrow when she wakes up because that was the she was up longer. We also didn't even get the episode done. Oh, man. Oh, hey guys, what's going on? Heather, we still got to record the episode. The fuck is this? Oh, we haven't done it yet. Why don't we have to keep fucking recording?

I told you she was going to be cranky. I'm so fucking tired of this. I feel like I've been at the studio all week. Like, I don't even know when I saw my wife the last time. For you, it's probably It seems like it was a week Oh my god Hey you know what

I can't even really be mad Normally I would think it was rude To fall asleep Are you wait Don't talk while I'm sleeping I'm sorry Oh my god Oh my god

I need a cup of coffee I feel like shit What are you guys looking at me While I'm sleeping for I just like don't even know How you would have time To make a cup of coffee It feels like you don't

Like I feel like it would take you Six days and nights For it to even finish brewing. Well, if you hadn't fucking talk to me all through my entire day, maybe I would have had time to make a cup of coffee. How is supposed to do the podcast? I feel like this is just going to be huge roadblock for us for a number of reasons. I think, I think Rantle just like edit around it, I think. Yeah, you think so. Oh, man. Hi, guys. You know what? You're right. I feel really bad. Maybe maybe I've accelerated some of my day-night cycle in an effort to get

better experience points here in my life. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, what's going on. We're all trying to yeah yeah i'm in maxing so i guess we're just going to have to record this episode over several days so i'll let's just edit me together okay great that sounds good great what what i don't know how to sleep it's just spinning i don't know how to do it i just wanted to be cool skeletons and play songs to accelerate time as we discuss day night cycles and games this week on Get Played. bad games and every game in between it's time to get played i'm your host hether ann campbell along with my fellow host tiger wiger that's me tiger wiger along with our third host mr games mad apodaca hello everyone hello everyone and welcome back to the premier video game podcast where this week we are

talking about the existence of the moon yeah for a long time man is speculated as to whether or not the moon exists. We're going to settle it. And I just still where everyone's at. Nick always believed in the moon. Heather. Anti-moon. I'm somewhere.

I could go either way. Right. Depending on the day. We're going to try to win Matt over through the course of a civilized debate. How can the moon exist if it doesn't exist? What we have is we have a table set up in the middle of the room and there's 20 people outside of the room. They all have sort of the same opinion.

And they're going to all run over to me and try to convince me of the moon. It's going to be good. We're talking about this in part because we're doing a rare daytime record. Yeah. We're like, all right, let's talk about, let's talk day night cycles and games. I'm sorry, a what cycle? There is only day. All right, you've gone too far.

Yeah, that's Heather. You have to know. I remember reading this. It was a John Ronson book, actually, and it was talking about a conspiracist. Noted liar. Wait, is he really? I don't know. He was John Ronsonbrook who was talking about conspiracy theorists and he and it was like about 9-11 truthers and it's it's always funny when there's like a like a guy who's there's the fringe, you know, like the 9-11 truthers, but then there's a fringe within that who themselves gets get exiled.

So like there was like the like everyone's like we all know Bush did 9-11. We all know that, you know like whatever jet fuel can't melt still beams. We all know that. This is taken as a given. This is class that, you know, but this guy's crazy because he thinks there were no planes. It was a guy He's a no planer who thinks it was a digital projection Of planes crashing

But that didn't actually happen Yeah, there's like a sect of people That are like, it didn't happen Yeah And it's like, what are you, what? But that's like the people who don't think the moon exists The people go so far as to say night doesn't exist That's like the next level of like

Even the anti-mooners are like, all right, calm down You made this all look bad There are a few of these now I think Popular with like Gen Z because they weren't there And I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to start something. I'm just stating sort of, I think, reported information. They weren't there for night? They weren't. Look. For some of these things, like they, like, some of them don't believe that Helen Keller was real. Yeah, I've, I mean, there was, there was an NBA player. I think it was

Tyler Hero who was talking about how he doesn't, doesn't trust any history before 1950. Just like, I don't know. How would they keep track? Yeah, exactly. How do they know that? But like, I, yeah, I also, it's, it's interesting to. as someone who largely grew up in the 90s to encounter people who just like these things that like really broke through and were like big news stories like I'll mention something that came up

but we're yesterday the John Bonnet Ramsey murder and there were like younger people there who were like who's John Bonet Ramsey or like I've heard that name but I don't know who that is and then I remember that just being like all over the news and we all know that John Bonnet Ramsey was the person who went up against Obama in the 20 was that 2020

It was 2012, yeah, 2012. It was Barack Hussein Obama versus John Bonae Ramsey. Yeah. And they agreed on a lot of positions. It's like, you know, in hindsight, like a really civilized debate versus you see what we've declined to in 2024. I think people, there's a conspiracy that if we just talked about this for the rest of the day, we'd be the biggest podcast. That people think that Katie Perry is John Bonae Ramsey. That's interesting.

I think that's a common thing because I heard somewhat a different like a right wing media figure is John Bonae Ramsey. I think that's just like a common thing. I also heard this because I was where Nick was but I appreciate that he's not bringing the name into the podcast so that it's not in any transcripts

so we don't get attacked. Do you know who John Reney is? Oh yeah. I mean, I was just like a little I mean that was on the news when I was a kid. Yeah. I remember way too much of the news when I was a little kid. Swift boat was a big issue for John Bonae Ramsey.

Yeah. It was, you know. There was a binders full of women. Yeah. That was a big thing. I remember he was talked about like 48% of the country. He doesn't want to work for a living. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No, John Bonae Ramsey's favorite meat, hot dog. Favorite meat's hot dog, yeah. Ranch? Yeah. Do you know who John Bonae Ramsey is? I don't know who John Bonae Ramsey is.

Wow. What a blessing. A really bleak true crime story from the 90s where a, it was a, and this might also be because you didn't grow up in America. But it was a young pageant girl who was murdered and the murder was never solved. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The cops went to the house where she had disappeared and they do a full sweep of the house and they can't find her and they put out an APB.

And then they do another sweep later and they do find her in the house dead in the basement. And it's just like, well, how did you miss? Like, what else? What were you doing? Yeah. So that's part of like the kernel that begins the conspiracy theories is people being bad at their job isn't like something you can conceive of. So you have to start filling the gaps of stupidity with storytelling. Yeah.

And cops have never, ever done a bad job before. So it is crazy that it's a big mistake. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Matt, speaking of people doing a bad job, I went to Del Taco last night. We talked about this in the podcast last week. The first part of this? Yeah.

Absolutely scared me. Matt, speaking of people doing a bad job, me, what have I done? You're fucking firing me. We're all 33.3% partners that you can't fucking fire me. Ranch can fire anyone. We'll say what she has that power. Yeah, ranch is our boss. Yeah.

Here's what I, here's what I would say. We're talking about Del Taco on the podcast last week. Yes. And I went to Del Taco last night. I'm not, I just just say, I'm not blaming the workers. I'm blaming the company at large. You're blaming society. There's been a general decline in quality at my beloved Del Taco.

You're beloved Del Taco as well. It's as a fellow lifelong Southern California. It could possibly be because the economy is being ravaged by 130% inflation since the 2019. That's crazy. I don't think so. The ingredients have had to take a backseat to like less, I don't know, less flavor in general. That's what I think. That's a conspiracy theory I have. Well, we need to dedicate a resources to building data centers full of 5080s, you know, we just need to make sure we. I don't mind that. Let's go. But so you went and it was, was it bad? Yeah, it was, here's the thing. They just like, everything's just like a little

off now you know it's just like I'm getting the bean and cheese burritos I was like this is just made different yeah yeah and then then we got some and and I got I like I got a big order they just brought Nick into the bathroom here you go buddy are you sure like yeah this is obviously a piece of shit wrapped in toilet paper like no that's a tortilla dude pointing at a toilet toilet there's your meal all right don't much care for it, but you got my $16. $16. I spent $16.

I spent $16 at Del Taco. Well, here's a, so I got, I got two, two beaned and cheeseburgers with green sauce. I got myself a, a, a, a, uh, the mini cassidia, because the regular cassidia is now $5, which is absurd. 2019, single cheeseburger at McDonald's, $1. $20.25 single cheeseburger at McDonald's $3.15. Anyway, just on principle, I like, I'm not spending $5 for, for a cheeseburger. cascadie. Well, they don't even have the pepper jack cassidy anymore. They get rid of that one. Not at del taco. Not a del

taco. Then I got, well, yeah, I mean, like, we're talking, if I go to like a proper taqueria, a nice Mexican restaurant or something, that's a different story. I'll give them all the money in my wallet. Yeah, for sure. Hey, hey, you have fresh handmade tortillas? Sure. Hey, why not? Yeah, here. Can I write you a check? A blank check. Carrying a checkbook in 2025?

Fucking freak. Anyway, then I got a I got a, I got a, uh, a del taco, the del taco. And then I got myself the, uh, a, uh, a del taco. chili cheddar fries and I was like this is a big order we'll see how hungry I am I might eat everything but if not I got leftovers and then I now like can have my leftovers or whatever I get to I get to kind of have it both ways where I get to be like I either I mean like hey I got something for you or my fat ass just gets to gorge yeah yeah yeah that's a fun that's a fun hack for all you out there who want to order one of everything on the menu but I hate the breedos

I was right the mini cassidia is like I mean it's just not the same. This is the thing. You get what you pay for. The ratio's a little bit off. I feel like they're a little bit more paltry with the cheese these days, especially with that, you get that mini little case, like tortilla. And then Natalie's eating the fucking fries. She's like, these are like, what happened? She's like, and she's basically like, has Del Taco fallen off? The thing that you and I have already talked about. She's coming to this conclusion separately. And the answer is yes, unfortunately. I think we got to see him in court, I think. Yeah. Let me say that I had the opposite experience at a local Los Angeles restaurant last night of Mexican food, which is that for fun,

I went to El Coyote, one of Los Angeles's oldest restaurants founded in 1931, famously, the restaurant where Sharon Tate has her last meal before she is murdered in the Manson murders. You mean before she is saved by Cliff. Right. By Cliff Booth. Right. Cliff Booth saves your life. a morbid tidbit about a Los Angeles

sort of perennial restaurant even more morbid is that her picture is up on the wall at the restaurant and I was like you don't need to tell people when they come in it's not the restaurant's fault that she went home and got killed that's true so pre-pandemic was the last time I had eaten at El Coyote and I was surprised to find that the food was better than pre-pandemic oh and I have

had a delicious burrito there. I think it was like $18 fucking dollars, but still, it was the size of my torso. So I guess, I mean, like, you know, anyway, it was a, it was a shockingly good time because going in, I was like, I can't wait to eat this mid-Mexican food because I just want the atmosphere, the fun, and it turned out to be a really delicious evening. I'm glad you had a nice night. I was wonderful. Yeah.

Fun fact, El Coyote translates as the Coyote. Now that's interesting And that's all I have on that That is interesting Wait is coyote Hold on though Just for just for my Ignorant fucking ass

Yeah Is coyote A word for something else I mean it can't In slang terms Yes it can be Yeah there's like the type of Like people that assist people

Yeah yeah yeah but like Coyote is Coyote isn't the word dog No Is this coyote a different word? I think it translates to Fool of the Roadrunner. Oh my God.

Never mind. I'm sorry I went down this fucking road. I wish I'd never talked. Famously where Piper Parabo danced. I wish I fell into a well as a baby. Coyote's top speed, 35 to 43 miles per hour. How about that?

I would just say like... That's only when they steal your car. We have a lot of them here in in the city of Los Angeles. See them on my street all the time. I hear you. them constantly, when you hear them going off, that means

that means they got something. Yeah. And they're telling all their friends. Yeah. Me personally, I'd be keeping it a secret. I wouldn't want to be sharing with everybody. Yeah. All my stuff.

That's how I eat food is just yell. I've got food. Everybody at the restaurant, hey, cool. There really aren't any definitions of coyote beyond what we've already, according to a couple of dictionary. Toyota is the coyote. It's not, coyote is a word

that in other languages isn't coyote. No, and it seems to cut The origin is from Mexican Spanish from a I'm not sure how to say this but Nahoto language Okay So yeah

All right I had a Just just a And the delta go back to the deltaco Discussion for one quick Can't let it go No no I just Because I was not sure

I was trying to remember the chronology of this And it is very very recent And this may have something to do with it Jack in the box Own Del Taco They recently sold it to a franchisee called Yadav for $115 million, less than you'd expect for all of Del Taco.

Bleak. Anyway, that was this year. So that honestly explains a lot. But it's like, it's like Blackstone Capital buying Jersey mics. It's just like, okay, well, we're just going to wait for this decline to happen. And sometimes it happens rapidly. The fact that it was doing better under Jack in the Box is insane. Anyway, guys, thank you for listening to Get Do Boys.

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The question for the room is, what are you playing? What are you playing? I ask me to Resident Evil Merchant and I'm out in the daytime. And it hurts. Oh, yeah. You're usually, well, I mean, in Resident Evil 4, there is a bit of day and night.

Yeah. Right, but it gets a little grayer where you're at. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I need that cloud cover. And honestly, I wasn't worried because it's been raining in Los Angeles. It's been raining, yeah. But this guy cleared up, their sun came out, and I got attacked by birds. Attacked by birds. They're all over me when I was trying to come to their studio.

Did we point out, I mean, I think we did. We're recording during the day. Did we make a big deal of that? We did mention that we were recording during the day. Yeah, I think that came. I think we spent a little bit of time on that up top. Okay. I think, Rochelle, we talked about that a little bit.

I was standing over to listen to you guys. Yeah, I saw you sort of like, like sort of gesturing like you were about to enter the conversation. Keep going like, yeah, yeah, yeah, raise my finger. You're kind of trying to pick your spots at every one of these records when really you have a very clear cue. Yeah. Which is just what are you, when I say, what do you play? What are you play? You're like in full sprinting position.

like ready to start running and like you don't need to do that wait why don't no what do you say to the time I'm not prepared you always it's always well here's a thing it could be 15 minutes or an hour in it could it's a few times a few times I'm trying to use my mic before you guys cue me it doesn't seem to break up my voice well sometimes you know I think that's uh that's by design we gave you this sort of like this mic that's not plugged in so if you wanted to while you're not on the show, you could talk into it and sort of feel like

you were doing something. Can you imagine if you met a guy whose name was Mike and it was short for microphone? That'd be interesting. Yeah, I wonder if there's anyone with a given name microphone.

That really got my ass. Residential, poor merchant, you're a fool. I don't want to over stay my welcome, so... You got any more jokes like that. Yeah, that was pretty good But I also

Maybe go out on a high now I guess yeah I don't want to You don't have to come up with One of you know Who's there Mike? Mike who?

Mike Riveau Fuck Two or two This is good Callback already That's those two jokes alone Funnier than any special I've watched this year

Oh yeah Oh do you think I could get it Like a 45 minute deal At Netflix Yeah probably Hulu Probably put you under The Hularious Banner

Yeah I think you absolutely have enough starboard how do they not know who's wait they don't know what do you mean who who's in their shows oh no it's okay we actually don't have time for this yeah we kind of feel like the microphone

how could you set up in the studio and I don't even know who's coming that's met up a decade metropone mm-hmm what are you playing I guess the

rule of threes doesn't work I'll tell you what I've been playing I'm back in on Ghost of Yote of course having an absolute blast did the did the the Kitsune line of quests

Nice something that I've that in the in games like this that is maybe immersion breaking is when you're off kind of just doing your own kind of stuff

and you're sort of like just doing a bunch of of side quests and you've been like it's been 20 hours let me go check back in on this quest and you go back into it and everybody's like as mad as they were after you had finished the last thing but you've kind of just been doing your own thing so you're just kind of like what the fuck like Jesus but I'm still just like really really enjoying the game I I love finding or getting map fragments and then adding them to the map and just because that's just more reason to not do like the main story.

I'm like, oh, cool, more stuff. I get to do, I get to find more stuff. Matt Mapadaka? Hmm. Map Apodaca? Map Apodaca. I mean, take your pick. They're both good.

Matt Mapadaka or map apadaka? Yeah. I'm going to choose neither. Okay. Fair. I don't want either. I prefer my name and not it to, I don't want to be map. Yeah, sure.

But thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. And you're right, they are, it is good. I'm still doing that, but I started something else this week. Oh, another one. Because, you know, I have, what? A disease. A sickness.

There's a new ROM hack that I actually prepped some notes. There's a new Pokemon ROM hack that just came out. That just got out like a bag from Wendy's that he'd written on. all over? Yeah. Don't read the back. My manifesto's on the back. Okay.

Let me just find it actually. God damn it. That's crinkling the bag. He's just eating fries. God damn it. Okay. Baconator in there? You know, this is for a completely different show.

If you want, cut this out, put it in the other one. What other one? The other show. I only ever get the chicken. sandwich from Wendy's. I never really get the burger. Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's, look, Wendy's has fallen off, too. This is a whole thing. Fast food is supposed to be the thing that is good. The last six years have been hell. Everything is, everything is declining. Everything is getting in shitified, obviously.

Turns out, you can't just give money. You have to, you have to do, you can't, we fucked up. I saw, I was at a bookstore the other day, local bookstore over here. They had a book in the window. I can't remember exactly what it was called. But it was, it was basically. like the inshittification of everything. And I was like, I'm not reading this. I know everything sucks. You gotta tell me? This book probably sucks.

The book probably fucking sucks. Also, to be clear, the giving of money isn't the problem. It's the way that companies respond to the giving of money by raising prices because now they know that people have disposable income. Inflation is a creation of companies. I think I, I wish I saw this. I mean, I saw this TikTok that was like chronicling the minimum wage. over time and how it has barely increased

versus the cost of, like, rent, the average, like, rent, and it's, like, that has, like, tripled in price over the last, like, you know, 10 minutes. 10 minutes. Anyway, I brought, I didn't have enough information to bring it up, but I was like, you do the spicy chicken sandwich in Wendy's? I do spicy chicken, yeah. Okay, yeah, because that's my go-to, too, obviously.

I think that's their strongest overall menu item. I think, here's the thing, I mentioned the Baconator. I just do a Dave's double. First, I mean, I'm not eating, I try not to eat pork in general, but like also I just think it's a better composition. But their burgers are just not. I feel like the produce is what's declined. And that was another thing Natalie was pointing out at the del tacos, it's like, these

tomatoes are fucking bad. The tomatoes on the del taco. Same thing that the lettuce and tomatoes, I should just maybe just say, don't put them on the burger anymore at a lot of these places. And it's so low quality. And get the, your, your farmer's market veggies. Exactly. Put him on there and be like, now this is good.

Just have them cook a burger for you. Can you just put it in a loose bag for me? So this Pokemon ROM hack just came out. It's called Pokemon Lazarus. Ooh, I've seen this. And it just came out like, well, it came out as of November 14th as a 1.0 release. And it's built off the Pokemon Emerald Engine. That's the third in Ruby and Sapphire.

Then there was Emerald. It was created by Nemo 622, and it's got all these great features. It has Sprite graphics, first fall. It has sprites of Pokemon that were not in the Sprite generation. That's awesome. Which is really, really crazy to me. There's 400 Pokemon in the game from all nine generations. There's a day-night system, of course, which we'll talk about later.

There's Pokemon in the overworld that you can encounter and battle, which has never, they don't do that really. And they started doing them in these Switch games. There's like side quests. You mean like you'll see them on the map screen? On the map screen. They're not just random encounters. Exactly. There are random encounters too.

Yeah. But you can see like, you know, like per one area of grass, like one guy walking around. Sure. And you're like, hey, I'll catch that. I'll specifically go after that guy. And it's a whole new area that's based on Greece. Wow. That's fun.

And I just like, it's just so cool that like in this person in particular has made a Pokemon Emerald Seaglass, another rom hack that people seem to really, really love. So people were like hyped for this like release. So I've been playing it on my analog pocket. And first of all, you have, so I have, we have all these niche devices. Yeah. And I'm, I kind of like, you know, you spend time with it and then you kind of put it down and you go back to something else. I hadn't probably touched my analog pocket in months I don't forget how fucking good that thing is so good

That thing is great I really really like it I have it directly loaded onto the The system I bought like a little dust cover for the card slot Because I'm like well I don't really need the One I don't need dust getting in there Two if I don't have a cartridge in there And I'm just really really enjoying it so far I like I picked there's like nine Pokemon that you could pick from

There's like nine starters that you could pick from at the beginning, I picked Frokey. Nine starters. Yeah. That's a lot of options. Yeah, but too many options. But nice that there's like, that's cool though. They account for so many.

And it's just, it's a lot of fun so far. And I think I'm going to keep playing it. I'm going to be going on a little weekend trip soon. And I think I'm just going to take that with me because it'll be, it's easy enough to put in a carry-on bag. Right. Do you have a, because the, the, the, the, the, ruminous the previous rom-hack you really got into. I was, uh, it was called Pokemon unbound. And I never, I never quite finished it. But, uh, I do,

I was really enjoying that too. But there's like a, there's a bunch of these that people are just like, just, you know, that they really respond to. Cause then they add things that like the main games like aren't doing. And like, just even with this, I don't mind that you don't notice that there's no voice acting in a game when it looks like this. But then when it's like a fully 3D environment and there's like just no voice acting. You're like, this sucks. Like, this is bad. They could put a little more care

into something like this. And I just really, I have been missing the Sprite graphics. And some of them look older than the Game Boy Advance era too. So you kind of like, there's like sort of like a mishmash of assets. And I'm just really, really loving. I think it's just so great.

And like, I'm so far like, I mean, this is definitely hyperbole. But like, I'm like, I sort of like it more than ZA as just like as an idea as a concept because also like I've seen things later on like you get to wear a suit of armor at some point

oh wow that fucking rocks like I don't know what the story is or whatever but I'm enjoying all the little dialogue and stuff and then there's like it encourages you to talk to a bunch of people because then that's how you get side quest there's not like an obvious like side quest like marker or whatever but you can talk to people

and they'll be like can you find this thing for me like this type of Pokemon and bring it back to me and then you do, and then they give you something. I love that this sort of shit exists. I mean, I love, Romax are cool as hell. Yeah. I think the, you know, it's like, it's like fan art.

It's like fanfic. It's like anything that someone's creating just for the passion of making something and sharing it with a community. I just think is like, that's one of the handful of positives as it come out of the existence of the internet, the easy, you know, distribution of that and the easy way for people to find communities and find fans of what they're doing.

Yeah. I just, it's a kind of thing, Nintendo, so famously litigious, hopefully at some point they don't try to shut down all these ROM hacks the way they put down some other fan projects. It also, it sort of exposes a hole in the development world, which is that there is a demand for this kind of game. Yes. And it's weird that there aren't, that this game isn't coming out of the main developer.

Like that you aren't doing your main 3D Pokemon games, but also like portable DMAs. You know, like, why isn't there a switch, like, 2D Pokemon game? It's kind of wild to me. Yeah, it really, it's like, they're leaving money on the table. They're leaving money on the table. You should at least be able to buy the old one. Yeah.

Like, so you can, like, just play those on modern hardware. But, I mean, they must know something. They're making enough money on the Pokemon Pocket, which is now outpacing Pokemon Go in terms of bringing in money. Yeah, they're doing, they're making money on that and suing anyone that they can. Here's what drives me crazy though, because like I feel like so often in capitalism, it'll be, you know, like the question you're asking is like, how much is like, you know, you've seen people try to find all these other new avenues for monetization, all these new ways to make additional money when they already have so much money. And I know that Pokemon is like the most profitable IP like in history or whatever that metric is. but like still typically what you would see from these companies is like well how do we make even more

like that's not we're not content with being number one we want to be uh we're not content with being a billionaire we want to be a trillionaire you know what i mean and so like why why does that not lead them to the conclusion of like yeah we could we should make more a Pokemon of different of different types in this franchise to try to to to extract more revenue it would just like yeah because like they used to i mean they would put out a couple every few years really and like they now they've sort of been, you know, I guess been more intentional, but also not really because the product has suffered. Yeah. It hasn't been as good. So like it's just interesting that like there are people who are like, oh, like, what if it was just like an old one? Because like I guess, you know,

I don't know what it's like to make a game, but it seems like because there are so many of these types of things, I would imagine that if you have any amount of knowledge of how to do something like this, you could just spend the time. I don't know how long this was in production, for example. but um it is like it's just cool that yeah people are making it i did bring up like a screenshot that i wanted to to share just so you guys had an idea of like what it's looking like and stuff uh it's just really cool like the the title screen has like the like has like what do you call it it looks great it looks awesome it just looks really really cool that art is that that art is really really cool just really a lush uh you know a palette there um yeah really good style to it i i'm

Heather, you're making me think of is that what has happened with the Ninja Guidance franchise this year where they had both a 2D game like kind of a retro throwback 2D game and a full like full on 3D character action game Yeah, yeah, let's see more shit like that That's fun.

It happened with Prince of Persia last year too With the Lost Crown Their Metroidvania And then Everyone said it was awesome And that I didn't play and part of the problem And then the studio got shut down It was sort of they were saying

I think I read this That they just needed one more person to play it. Fuck. They just needed one more. That makes me feel like shit. No, don't. They said person.

But then they also had the rogue prince of Persia, which I think you would also really like. I've messed around with a little bit. It's a rogue light and it's great. I just think I know we can talk about how there's too many games. There's too many. There should be more in different kinds, actually. Yeah, it should be more, but there's too many.

There's too many, but there should be more. And that's not a contradiction. No, there should just be more of the ones we like. They can stop making the ones we don't like and care about. But if we like them, then they could go ahead and make more. Yeah. Target your demographic, which is the three of us on Get Played. That's right. Heather, what are you playing?

All right. First off, I want to shout out two games that I'm always playing. One is Pokemon Pocket. New season's up. Ranked is about to start up again. I love the game. It's not getting old. My mom loves the game.

And they've just implemented a new feature where you don't have to trade cards anymore. You can just give them, which is streamling the process. You pull up any of your friends on your friend list. Yeah. And you can see what cards they're missing. And if you have extras, you can just give them to them. And it's like, thank you. I have a pretty robust friends list and thought, oh, I will make the first move here and send a bunch of cards to, like, you know, players that I don't know,

but have befriended me in the past expecting reciprocation nobody sent me shit and I was like what the fuck is this but my closest friends have been sharing it's been really

beneficial to sort of fill out my roster fill out my missing cards and my decks I love it be funny if your mom didn't send you one back yeah she's just like thank you

like won't respond to a text about it either like hey can you send me something who is this I don't have a daughter I only have my Pokemon So that's great As of this record The Simpsons season is coming to a close

In Fortnite There have been a couple of updates Of the Simpsons events Naked Homer has also come out as a skin Itchy and Scratchier are rumored to be around the corner But there's been a huge number of leaks For the next season of Fortnite Which is apparently kind of Hollywood-based

there was apparently a chapter of Kill Bill that was not filmed called GoGo's Revenge, which Quentin Tarantino has implemented as a Fortnite experience. So if you want to see all of Kill Bill now, you have to have played Fortnite. There was a Fortnite premiere at the Vista Theater, which Quentin Tarantito owns, where they had the pussy wagon,

which will also be coming to Fortin. Fortnite, the bride is coming to Fortnite, et cetera. Can they do that? They can do whatever they want. They can put the pussy wagon in Fortnite? Yeah, it's got a picture of a cat. Oh, okay. It's got a cat wagon.

Got it. But everybody knows. Hopefully, Buck's not a skin. Oh boy, Buck's a bad dude. Easily bad. As Fortnite becomes more and more ascendant as the metaverse that everybody has always expected somebody to make. Yeah.

Almost as if, like, being crowned in that position, the DeLorean and Back to the Future is coming to the next season of Fortnite. Wow. Which is like the hallmark of Ready Player One's Metaverse is like, oh, he's got the DeLorean. Yeah. What? But yeah, you'll be able to drive the DeLorean in the next season of Fortnite amongst other unannounced collaborations. But there does seem to be a heavy Warner Brothers presence in the leaks, which is cool. Got to get him in her now before that sale goes through.

But the game that I'm focused on remains Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Wow. I have a newfound respect for what now. Hold on. Our audio listeners will not have picked up on this. Matt just full on did the Antonio Van derris meme in reaction. I like bit my knuckle even. I was so excited.

because like I forgot you were playing it and I like I just am happy that you're doing it well I did do it well so Matt you you didn't underplay how big the game is yeah I am still in the opening area I have spent 12 hours clearing the opening area of all of its side quests it's huge yeah it is enormous and one of the ways they cue you in on how or clue you in

on how enormous the game is is when you look at your saves generally a save will show like your time played or whatever there are three spaces for hundreds of hours built into the save space so it'll be like 12 but there's a zero in front of it like zero 12 instead of just 12 which is you know kind of tipping their hat

like oh you think this is a big game now you're going to get to that third slot you're going to get to 100 hours on this game yeah um i was having a lot of difficulty with the combat when i returned to it uh i was talking to nick about this really um just talking without me yeah because yeah we know kind of kind of sad conversation uh and i was like how can i go from ultra hard difficulty on ghost of yote to being fucking bodied over and over and over again in final fantasy seven rebirth i even ticked my difficulty down from whatever the hardest setting was, because I was like, what the fuck

am I doing wrong? Yeah. Turns out that I had just not done any of the research on how the combat system worked and was missing an entire, like, avenue of combat, like... A completely new menu? Yeah, like I was not pressing one of the buttons. Oh, sure. That brings up another slew of combat options.

Oh, okay, because during our conversation, that was like my suspicion was that there was like some sort of mechanic that I was missing yeah yeah yeah it's true I also had forgotten again because I picked up I didn't restart the game I picked up from where my save was previously which was only a few hours in and post all of the combat tutorials luckily Chadley and his virtual combat simulator has a full tutorial of how the combat system works which also when you engage with unlocks material for you yeah so it's not like you're just doing fucking random battles for no reason you have to sort of do them in order to like fill out your material boster um once i went through that i was like oh okay i i i was

not doing like most of the stuff that i needed to do in order for the combat to work and it is a great combat system so playful so fun um sometimes i mean you'll get to this point you're gonna you're just gonna be like flying around that screen basically i'm already flying around that screen crazy it's so good um it is it's a great game it is so full of detail uh the the acting is insane like all the facial expressions i was talking to nick also about how they did full mocap and two times you talked about yeah separate conversation um there's there's there's full mocap and uh and voice acting on all the NPCs and it is an enormous amount of recording yeah And it's like, you'll talk to people who have no fucking business being fully animated, fully bought, like bodily walking around your party.

And they're like an item vendor. And they're just like, cloud! What are you doing here, buddy? It's just like, who the fuck is this? Is this going to be a quest line? No, it's just a guy. Yeah. I'm selling the color red.

You're like, okay. There's my day rate on screen. It is fantastic. I'm so happy to be returning to the game. I'm also really happy that it is coming in a time when I know that, say, GTA isn't on the horizon. Like there's not, for the rest of this year, for me at least, it's a nice chunk of open space for gaming. Not open space in terms of like my personal availability. Yeah.

But my open gaming, you know, chapter headline is going to be Final Fantasy Rebirth for the foreseeable future. I'm sorry I'm not talking about it when it came out and it's in the zeitgeist. But that doesn't make any of these backlog games any worse for the playing. Right. Speaking of which, I did not know there's a letterbox for games. There is? It's called backlog. Yeah, I...

Wait, really? Yeah. There's a couple of these. I've messed around with that one. and then I think there's one called I can remember what the other one's called I can I wish it was more like letterbox how so um

because on a first glance it looked like the same thing it's it's closer maybe it's gotten better now I'll tell you how ill I am ill with these types of like list apps and things like that I basically went through each year I've been a lot

and looked at every single movie that came out and logged it because I was like, or logged the ones that I've seen. Because you're the finisher. I had to like, I truly to be like, I need to know if I've seen this movie. So I just went, I started there. And then movies that I know that I had seen that came out from before I was born, I went more like directly to there. I think probably actually, I know that there's like a for sure date cut off of like

of movies that I've seen and probably just like did the same thing for like you know 60s on until I'm born but anything prior to that good chance I remember if I've seen it I don't have to go through a bunch and see a bunch like that but with games it's harder I think I watched a super old movie the other day

of Farewell to Arms like the original because there's two old ones and it's it's so old I'm just going to keep going It's so old that it's filmed in square, you know, like instead of like the... Yeah, 4x3 aspect ratio. Yeah, 4 by 3 is back, yeah. I was so bored.

I was like, oh, man, I really want to enjoy this, but I can barely, like, I can barely track at it. It's so old. And I felt Gen Z adjacent when they're like, Goonies is so slow. Yeah, I think the problem with Goonies isn't that it's slow. It's that it sucks. but The countdown is on the countdown is on

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go to NordVPN.com slash get played. Our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. The link is in the podcast episode description box. I should do this. Why haven't I taken a advantage of our own offer. I'm so dumb. Tiger, what are you playing? Heather, thank you so much for asking. By the way, I'm looking at backlogged real quick.

This does look similar to Letterbox. I wonder just how toxic it is, because just games tends to be more toxic than cinema. Not that the film bros can be very, very toxic, obviously. Some of the worst gatekeepers out there. But it seems like Letterbox. which I just started account of this year is reasonably like you can at least avoid that stuff. Yes.

So, but backlog looks pretty, I don't know, this looks interesting. It looks like they're making an effort, a pretty sleek U.S. When I imagine you guys having a conversation outside of here, I imagine it's between like prison phone glass. Heather, what I'm playing is dispatch. This is from developer ad hoc. and publisher critical role ad hoc consists of a lot of telltale veterans and this is very much a 2025 version of a telltale game down to character name we'll remember this and let me say this what a fucking video game I gotta get it dispatch fucking rules Matt you would love this game ranch you'd maybe like this game I think you would like this game because of the story and because of the the sense of humor Heather you'd hate this game for sure because it is very much does does not have the, just the aspects of gameplay that are so core to you enjoying an interactive experience. We are a spectrum of players.

Exactly. None of us are right about games. We are all enjoying games as they come to us. It's sort of a Goldilocks situation. Yeah. You're on one side. You're on one side. I'm sort of like somewhere in the middle there.

I think so. Yeah, but this is very much a, a, a way-gar-ass game. The first thing is, so basically what it is, is it's an episodic release. The full game is out now, and it's $30 for the whole package. definitely worth it as far as I'm concerned. The final two episodes were released November 12th, so it's all fully out there now. And I think a lot more people are getting on board because it's just a completed package. And the whole season is, I have not finished it yet, but the whole season from what I've read and what I've heard is really, really satisfying.

And how it concludes, it is a superhero world, like kind of an alternate earth where the player character, very much an alternate L.A., actually, where the player character is Robert Robertson, who's the alter ego of Mecha Man. Mecha Man is basically Iron Man slash the Phantom because, you know, like the phantom's whole thing is that the, it was generationally handed down. So like this Robert Robertson's grandfather and father were previously Mechaman, both of them died in the suit and now Robert is, is carrying on that heritage. But it's also like kind of like a slightly smaller Gundam. It's a bigger scale than a fucking Iron Man suit.

And it's cool as hell. The premise is your Mecca Man suit is destroyed by a supervillain named the Shroud, who's also who killed Robert Robertson's father. So you get recruited to be a dispatcher for pretty much the suicide squad, villains who are given a chance at reform by becoming superheroes. And so you're both a coach mentor, but also a CIA-style kind of main in the chair, which is an interesting approach for a superhero thing, is just like who's the person who's telling the superheroes where to go and what to do. the gameplay consists of these telltale style cut scenes with time decisions for instance like which of these which of these characters is going to be cut from your team of of villains turned superheroes uh quick time events which you can toggle off which are just a lot of times like whatever moving i i'm playing with mouse and keyboard but like like just moving a mouse to a certain location to indicate like a character punching or something like that i i kind of wish i just toggle them off because i just i feel like they're kind of uninteresting and they kind of feel a little bit retrograde, but they're totally fine.

But then the dispatch aspect is a management sim where you were dispatching these heroes to crises on a city map, spinning plate style. It's kind of like the Yakuza Zero hostess mini game, my favorite mini game of all time. So it's kind of like you're just like, hey, this is, there's a, there's a riot happening at the shopping mall. It needs someone who's got brains, but also someone who's got brawn, all of your, and it we'll use various verbs to indicate what various keywords, I should say, to indicate what attributes are most useful, but indirectly, not explicitly saying which of these, which abilities

are going to be most useful. And then your array of characters all have different sort of things that they focus on. And then as you upgrade them, you can decide how you want to specialize them. But like, you know, things like attributes like intellect, charisma, you know, also the like power and then defense, which I think is called Vigor, et cetera. So it's just like tactically dispatching these characters and different combinations to try to fulfill the requirements of all these quests. And then within that, there are also this grid-based hacking mini-game,

which is fine, just something else to do. But it's like I find that whole, I find all these gameplay elements mesh together really well. They're really satisfying. There is a ton of like flavor dialogue that is happening within these, the dispatching sections that like informs the story further and also some of the dispatching sections

are like straight up like story beats they're not just like hey this is this is not just filler to get to the next series of cut scenes this actually has story consequence in and of itself also this game is very much rated to M for mature you're seeing dongs basically immediately what the fuck yeah

there's just a fucking character just hanging hog like within like the first you know within the cold open and that opens not so cold though this guy's showing some stuff there's a lot of crass humor similar to that yeah a lot of it worked on me but but more so than the the comedy which is a part of it but it's like it's it's also just like a really effectively told classic story of like redemption revenge you know what is what is fate is what you

what you make of it um there's there's a love triangle and just just just fucking classic shit but it's really well executed, really compelling, crisp dialogue, zippy pacing. Doesn't feel like it's ever taking, ever wasting your time or just marking time. It's just like a prestige TV series where there's no filler episodes. It's just like kind of keeps going. And Aaron Paul plays the lead and he is phenomenal. It is such a human funny performance, but it also like shows this depth of range that I mean, I think if you're if you're mostly familiar with Aaron Paul as Jesse from Breaking Bad, you

just wouldn't expect him to have this within him. But it's, it's just a really awesome performance. I read an interview with him where he talked about how much he loves video games and how much he wanted to act in games and like he's never had the opportunity to do it before. And also said working with ad hoc in this game was a two year process recording all of this dialogue. Yeah. Which is just crazy. But I mean, you think of how long the development cycle is, how many things are iterated through as you are writing one of these scripts. And then also how many contingencies you have to have because there's player agency in terms of what choices you go and that leads to all these different branching story paths. But that's like he's a highlight of amongst

the cast, which is all which is just very top notch all all throughout. Also has incredible art direction and animation. Just just, you know, like top notch staging and camera blocking. It is so cinematic. As far as my taste goes, this is the best looking game I played this year. And it's just a subjective thing, but it's like whatever you respond to visually. But it really is something of just like seeing what cell shaded what the cell shaded aesthetic has turned into going

from the early days of like jet grind radio and whatever that weird Capcom racing game was and and you know Windwaker which still looks terrific. But like to something like this is just like this just looks like an animated

series. It just it looks in Yeah, I'm looking at screenshots of it now, which I haven't seen previously, and it does. It looks like, it just looks like the thing. And it's gorgeous in motion and it has great scoring too. Matt, as a fellow Southern California native, you will appreciate how centered this game is specifically on the city of Torrance, California. Which is such a, maybe the game's best overall joke is treating Torrance as like a megalopolis. Like, you're just pretty much policing Torrance. That's so funny.

That's great. That's incredible. It's so, so good. And there's a dog named Beef, who's the best boy. Beef. If you haven't played this game yet, I know a lot of our listenership is very much on, you know, the engaged with the new cycle and is playing new stuff as it comes out. But also, I know we have a lot of listeners who are a little bit more casual and maybe

this game has not been as much on their radar. If you like graphic adventure games, if you specifically like telltale games or you just like story forward games in general and you don't need like a ton of combat, which this game doesn't really have, it is a strong recommend. I just, I'm really loving this and I, you know, a few weeks ago, I was like, I'm not sure if I still like video games, but I'm playing this game. I'm like, I'm fucking having a great guy. Games are good. Games are good, baby. Games are fucking awesome. Hell yeah. I love it. Yeah. It's awesome. It's been on my radar. I kind of want to get it and see if my wife would be interested in like playing it with me. It's sort of like making choices together. It could be a kind of fun way to play. That's interesting. It also is a little horny. So this is the thing you should like there is a romance aspect. I will not be showing this to my wife. Cool game.

Let's talk about day night cycles in video games. I'm not sure what y'all's research showed, but there are a number of possibilities for what the first game with the day night cycle actually was. Some of these were, I was just like reading message boards and seeing fan theories because a lot of the early game history is not as well documented as you would hope. Someone theorized that it was 1983's Forbidden Forest for Commodore 64, which is developed by Paul Norman for Cosme.

This is a game where you're an archer shooting monsters, one of the first games to show animated blood, also had a parallax scrolling, but also had a day-night cycle. And it was very simple. It was just like part of the game would take place during the day, part of it would take place during the night. As I was reading about this, I remembered,

because my dad had a Commodore 64. I played this game at some point. Whoa. I played this game on 5 and a quarter inch floppy disk, probably with a joystick and kind of like have a fuzzy memory of it, but it's like, oh yeah, I remember like shooting spiders with a bow and arrow. when I was a really little, little kid.

On 1983, there's a game called Enduro for Atari 2,600, which was developed by Larry Miller for Activision. That was a racing game where the time would change from day to night, and also there were weather effects. And in 1984, there's a game called NightLore for the Spectrum ZX, developed by the Stamper Brothers, later of Rare, where the player character had 40 days to cure his werewolf curse. Cool, cool premise.

That is cool. And then daytime, nighttime was indicated within the game world and on the HUD. But it really seemed to come to mainstream in the late 80s with chiefly with JRPGs. I saw an earlier example in Seawolf 2, which is 1978, which was an arcade shooter that just had a day-night cycle and all it was was changing the palette. And that was it.

Like it wasn't like additive to the game play element or anything. It was just like, oh, now it's day, now it's night. Now it's day. Now it's day. Now it's night. I think it also might be interesting to reference. a Japanese PC game called Reviver from 1987, which used the PC's internal clock

to affect the game time of the game. So that's its own thing, is that using the real world clock to influence the game's clock. Yeah, that seems like its own innovation and certainly a thing we've seen with other games like World of Warcraft, which we'll get into. It seemed to really come into the mainstream,

like I was talking about, with JRPGs, Dragon Quest 3, Fantasy Star, Heidelide 2 were all kind of like cited as like Yeah, these had day night cycles The only one of those I played is Dragon Quest 3 Which I have a kind of a fuzzy memory of And but also a game we covered on the podcast

Friday the 13th for NES Yeah, I was remembering that cycle Yeah, I remember being blown away by that for some reason It was like the coolest thing about that game Yeah A game that doesn't really work but a game that has some real ambition behind it Yeah You also have Castlevania 2

Simon's Quest Oh sure Where the, when you were playing at night, the enemies would become stronger. So it was like a gameplay mechanic was night time is worse. Yeah. And then Ultima 5 was a game where the day-night cycles also affected NPCs for the first time. So the shopkeepers would have their own schedules and be available internally in the game, depending on what time of day it was.

If you're a vampire, the day cycle, probably your least favorite cycle, I would have. to imagine. Probably want to stick with a night cycle. Yeah. Can't be doing any of that. I also want to

shout out a game that I never hear anybody talk about, which was Blade Runner for the PC, which had such a strict day-night cycle that if you missed

talking to somebody, that was it. Wow. Like you couldn't do that part of the fucking detective work because they were home or they had left.

And that game sucked as a result, even though it was beautiful. What is the first game everyone remembers really encountering it. I mean, I did play Castlevania 2, Simon's Quest. I had forgotten that aspect of it.

But yeah, I guess it was that. But honestly, like, for me, I was like, the one that feels most concrete to me is Occurine of Time. You know what I mean? Like, that was where it was really like, oh, like a day and night are such clearly different things. I know this has happened in other games. This has happened in earlier generations.

This didn't start with the Nintendo 64. But, like, that's the first one I remember really being concrete for me. I think for me, the very first game that had this in it was Pokemon Gold. Oh, right, of course, yes. Because I guess maybe the, I mean, it had to have been the first one, because I sort of remember being like, no way. Because you have to input the, you know, the time. And it's a different time scale, of course, within it's not like one-to-one in that game.

But those cartridges had batteries in it because of it, because they do sort of use, like, a real-time clock for it. But by gold cartridge, the battery is dead, so it can't save. So, like, it always now, if I wanted to boot that cartridge up, it's like, it's a brand new cartridge basically every time unless I swap the battery. Whereas by red cartridge that doesn't have that battery in it is fine. It has, like, level 100, like, Pokemon in it still from when I was a kid. But I remember loving the day night cycle in gold, specifically because it was like an interesting challenge to figure out, you know, my dumbass, as a kid being like, okay, there's certain ones that, there's certain Pokemon that were only available in the day or at night. Some were in both. But it was fun to be like, I have to wait till nighttime so I could catch, you know, a hoot hoot.

No, I, you know, we, I didn't have a Game Boy as a kid, and I didn't grow up with Pokemon, but we did play gold silver on the podcast, and yeah, it is like, oh, it is really cool in that game. It's done really well, but I always also associate, and I don't think about this in my life, really, but for some reason in video games, I associate the nighttime with danger. It's true. because like it's just a little bit scarier it's a little in particular in games it can become quite scary at night has there been a game perhaps a dracula game to your point where that subverted that where it's like night is it's safer and then daytime it's like like be careful out there it's it's it's like a pitch black sort of scenario i don't know but oh man maybe in the chronicles of riddick game actually i don't remember the chronicles of riddick escape from butcher bay

i don't remember i just remember watching my uncle play that game and be like this actually looks fucking awesome. It was pretty cool. It was a shockingly good license game back when license games weren't, were oftentimes pretty bad. Yeah. I mean, there are earlier examples, certainly in the games that I played where there was a day night cycle.

Heck, even I think Street Fighter 2 had a day version of reuse stage and a night version of Ryu stage, right? But the game that solidified in me a terror of, oh, no, it is night, is Final Fantasy Online. And I think a lot of these online games have really. really sort of prestigious day night cycles because it is another way to add content for the player. But in Final Fantasy Online, or Final Fantasy 11, rather, the game was designed so that you had to play in a group. Like it was very, very, like there was a lot of an enormous amount of pressure to get partied up and to have everything on your solo experience be very, very, very, very hard.

It was an unusual gameplay system. But I often would be playing because I was living in Europe. And so I was playing an American copy of the game in a region that didn't have Final Fantasy online yet. So I was off sync with everybody else in the servers and would often be playing solo because it was hard to get a party going. And the danger level of playing solo was already increased. And when it would start turning night in that fucking game and I was not where I was supposed to be, I was like, fuck. Because also the punishment for dying in that game was really, really, really steep. And there were places where it was like, okay, you can only catch certain fish in order to craft certain things at certain times in certain areas.

And yet if you just stand around in those areas in the dark, you will be driven. drawing enemies to you like automatic agro and it sucked and it was like I was so hyper fixated on the day night cycle of Final Fantasy Online that they had a and I've talked about this on the show before they had a clock like an official square enix day night clock that was synchronized to the time inside the game so even when you weren't playing you could see what time it was in Van Adil the game and make choices about whether or not to log on. based on where your character was and whether or not it was day or night which was crazy was intense you were smiling like you ate a goldfish I what no I wasn't I sure I was like what is he gonna say you mean a cracker or a real one

I think a real one like he's a cat I was just listening I'm sorry I wasn't trying to I didn't have it didn't even sort of rye remark he had a rye remark now you're thinking I'm gonna like I'm hiding something that was gonna tee up but I swear I was not okay all right You know, it got extra specific somehow. Sounds like you thought I was going to say something that I was going to tee up,

but I simply wasn't planning such a thing. Grand Theft Auto Games have fantastic day, night cycles. Red Dead Redemption has a fantastic day, night cycle. Okay, so Redemption in particular, for some reason, I think in open world games in general like this, but in particular in Red Dead, I do think that the nighttime in those games, for some reason, is way scarier than the day.

Because, like, for some, like, you know, you can kind of see, like, a cat. Also, the West is just scary to me. Like, the Old West is scary. Yeah, the West is scary. You know, in space, nobody can hear you scream in old. Everyone's screaming all the time, and you can hear it. But I feel like there's, like, the, you know, you can happen upon the clan in Red Dead Redemption, too, and then serve them swift justice, of course.

But, like, I feel like then you're like, you could be walking around in a game like that and somebody will be like, oh, stranger, oh, it's been days since I've eaten. Do you have anything food to spare or something like that? And then they're like, I'm just kidding. I'll fucking kill you. It gets scary out there. Well, the best way to handle that is anybody who talks to you in Red Dead Red Dead Redemption, you should just execute. Yeah, I guess you just never know if they were going to cause you any harm or otherwise. I also like this as a move in games with the day and night cycle. You talked about in Blade Runner. uh having being able to miss out on quest i like when quests are like hey come talk to me at

this bar at night yeah and then you go and you're like okay but if you miss it you just go the next night yeah you get another chance and that what that makes me what that brings me to is is the legend of Zelda majora's mask which has a lot of that a lot of and i i mentioned ocaria of time already but major's mask you know and i think this is an ocaria of time i like major's mask more One of my favorite Zelda's, I think it's just such a unique experience and was such a cool way to take what was established an o'curean of time. You like when Link's like, somebody stop me? Yeah, I like it when he puts on, you know, because he's got a bunch of different masks he can wear in that, but be masks specifically. And he's smoking.

P-A-R-T-Y, because I got a. That's a lot of fun. so he has but there are like specific NPCs specific quest lines one of which which is which is such a huge pain in the ass and you can fail it on the third day but one of which takes all three days of game time before the the world is destroyed and the clock resets because of the groundhog day nature of this uh the cycle but it is like like it it is really cool because it's not just like a day, a night. It's like, oh, I'm one time period closer to the end of this limited stretch of time I have before we go back to square one before, you know, the time loop resets. And it's, yeah, I mean, it's just one that really stands out to me. You guys, you guys remember Shenmu, don't you? Of course. Oh, yeah. Shenmu had a day-night cycle where like stores would be closed

because they wanted to make just the first realistic game and so you would like walk around town and then stores would be closed and be like oh I can't do this right now I do remember that because that would be of course when I want to participate in a gotcha machine like closed

stores make me specifically think of Stardue Valley where like Marnie will just be like oh I'm just not in today and it's like oh that's fucking sucks yeah oh because it's Wednesday you make your own fucking rules I guess you You hate making money on Wednesday? Exactly.

Yeah. So that, like, but I, but I do, I do like that, except when it's a pain in the ass. Like, I'm just like, I don't know. And I don't know how you kind of strike that balance. I guess maybe it being something of a pain in the ass, it being a limited thing that you only have certain periods of time. I mean, that maybe that enhances the overall experience. You know, like I'm trying to sell this butter.

Another fucking thing that was paired with day-night cycles, certainly in Final Fantasy online, was weather. systems. Sure. Like once these guys started being like, oh, it could be day night, but it calls it it would be cloudy, rainy, like. Yeah, they started to... What a nightmare.

They decided to start playing God in that way, you know what thing? Of course, I feel like it must be mentioned. The day night cycle in Animal Crossing, which is real time. Yeah. And incredible to me. It's unbelievable. The music for every hour of the game. What a time.

You know who hears that music every night? You do. Right, because the Alarmo plays it as my sleepy sounds. I forgot you have an Alarmo. Don't forget. I listen to it. And you know what? Not only do I listen to it.

My wife asks me to start the sleepy sounds over again because she likes the sleepy sounds so much. Wow, that's pretty good. Alarmo has turned bedtime into a nice time. Nintendo headquarters. Someone mentioned Alarmo on a podcast. We better fucking sue them

But just the I mean Obviously there's certain things You can do during the day And night In Animal Crossing But to I mean

They could have just been like This is the music of the game There's like five songs There's a song for every hour Of the game And I think that's incredible I mean It's a

Rad amount of detail To implement Yeah unnecessary detail like like heather was talking about with all the bespoke animations that exist within final fantasy seven rebirth but that's the sort of thing that just makes it yeah it it feel like such a such a more such a richer experience yeah i mean like i i do really like the day night cycle in animal crossing i'm torn sometimes on it being tied to the real world i do think it in the the actual you know time frame because a lot of that

I'm thinking of my experience when I was playing World of Warcraft and working full-time in the video game industry where I was just only ever playing at night. Yeah. Because it was just like, this is fine, but also like this isn't the only, I don't want to just be reminded of what time it is all the time. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I also, I mean, it's cool to implement. And I think wow was one of the first mainstream, one of the biggest popularizers of that approach, I should say. but I do think it works

in Animal Crossing for me for whatever reason Yeah there was like a time where I was like I guess I'm just like missing the whole day In Animal Crossing and like I can't you know I can't go to the little store And buy things with my bells Or I can't trade You know turnips for bells or anything like that

It's all bells related of course So then you hit but like that's the great thing about that game though is that you could just be like You know what? It's going to just be, it'll just be tomorrow. I'll just do it tomorrow and that's fine. Yeah, I guess probably part of that association with Animal Crossing for me is because we were all playing during the pandemic.

And I was one of the people who was working from home. So, like, I was playing during the day. So I didn't get experience. Yeah, yeah. When you didn't have any work to do, right, Nick? Uh, yeah. Work, recording two podcasts. Ranch is going to fire you.

I had forgotten that Disco Elysium has something of a day-night cycle. Obviously, a game that appears on all of our favorite games of all-time list. I was like, oh, yeah, right. That's one of those where what time of day it is does affect quite a bit. And it certainly also affects the scoring. Yeah, one of the best parts of Disco Elysium's day-night cycle is the different versions of Whirling in Rags theme, which, like, it's a kind of that game is. It's so good. It's really good.

What a once-in-a-lifetime event. It's so fucking good. Yep. The Kolkama-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-creatcha. You remember that? Huh? You're talking about one of the cryptids? One of the cryptids.

Yeah. I didn't remember the name of it. Kolkama-dakwa. I remember because it kind of sounds like my name. Kul-Kapadaka? Yeah, kind of. My-apadaka? Yeah.

Pretty good. Why your name is Map? It's not map. what do we think of the because i also like the approach where there are discrete blocks of time this is like something you'll see in the the atlas RPGs i think people think of most commonly like you know persona five and metaphor refantazio but it's like it's time is only passing when you choose to advance it but also you have limited blocks of time when you can do things so it's like what am i going to oh i'm gonna i'll read a book for this period you know

I'll make curry for this period. I'll go hang with this character that I'm romancing for this period. You know, like, like, or I'll go explore a dungeon. You're kind of just choosing what you're going to do with various chunks of time. I do like that except when suddenly they're like, oh, you just got to go straight to bed. I was like, what the fight? I was going to do something with his night. What happened to me?

This cinematic led me right to go into bed. I skip a whole block of time here. Nick hates bedtime. No, I don't want to go to bed. I love bedtime in my life, but like in a game when all of a sudden I'm just like, oh, I thought I was going to have some extra time to work on improving one of my skills or something like this or working on one of these quest lines with one of these NPCs, and then all of a sudden, no, I've just got to get to the next story day.

It'd be nice if you could do in games like that where you often are then sent to bed or whatever. What if you could just stay up late and still do stuff, but then maybe, you know, a negative boon is that then you're tired during the day when you're trying to do other stuff. Yeah, you get a little debuff the next day. Yeah, yeah, that'd be kind of

little groggy. Yeah, a little groggy. Sorry, I didn't sleep that much. You could be saying stuff like that. Do games ever have like a hangover effect? That's the thing I feel like, some game must have implemented that, maybe even a game I've played

that I've forgotten about. But I'm just like... I think Disco Elysium does, right? Well, Disco Elysium has the effects you can take from all the drugs. Yeah. But I don't remember if you have, if you get, like, drink a bunch

and then you go to bed, I don't think you wake up with a hangover that lingers. Man, being hungover, I think for me, personally, one of the worst feelings on earth. It sucks, and it's one of those things where, like, the older you get,

the worse it is, and also the less it takes for you to be hungover. So it's just like, oh, okay, so that's just like an avenue of fun that just is gone now. I fucking miss it.

I miss it so much. I had, like, three beers the other night, which was, I'll say, rare, days not really doing it like that and that was me being like I'm being crazy uh whereas when I was younger it would be like more yeah the whole next day I wasn't like hung over hungover but I was like I don't feel right three three rings sold I'll give me a hangover for sure it was tough fucking sucks horrible remember when I used to man fucking cool I know used to be a little party

yeah um there but there aren't there they're like crazy alcoholics who are older and just are like drinking a bunch just like you just have to drink a lot to get your tolerance up I guess right We can't go down the path of being jealous of those types of people. No. Kiefer Sutherland's making it work. I'm fucking jealous. That I do. There was nothing like waking up feeling like shit and knowing why.

Yeah. Whereas now I wake up and I feel like shit and it is a mystery. I'm like, what did I do this time? Why would I feel like this? I stayed up 10 minutes later than normal. Sleepy sound. You don't put me to sleep The sounds are too good

You're like dancing Oh good sounds I mean we haven't mentioned Minecraft yet A good example of Nighttime becoming scary Nighttime is scary And also standardized

Survival games It's just like Oh yeah that's just always a thing You have to find shelter for the night And night is when the fucking skeletons Will come out or whatever the fuck I don't like those guys Those creepers

Yeah I don't love them For me they're a little too scary actually and I know that they that game is for babies kids shouldn't be playing that that's actually a little too scary I think

it's uh it's for everyone and and I will say that I do like that about Minecraft that there is a real sense of danger at night yeah it's like you can't fuck around like you I really do need to shelter in place or make sure like I'm adequately because they're just coming for me I'm gonna get God

Lego Fortnite which steals almost everything from Minecraft is the same way. I also like that about Lego Fortnite. Yeah. Which is the most

Fortnite I played. I looked up what the longest day night cycles are in games, and I thought the answers were interesting. Technical answer for

longest day night cycle is Animal Crossing because it's real time, but also Microsoft Flight Simulator, which sinks the daytime of where you're flying to

the real world circumstances. So you're flying from New York City to Zurich. Yeah. You'll go through different time

sentence. Yeah, yeah. The longest single player experience for day night cycle is a game that I've never heard of called the longing. Oh. Which has a real-time 400-day day-night cycle. I remember reading about this game. It's really, it's an interesting premise. And then the longest standard first-person survival game day-night cycle, you've got worm online, which has a day-night cycle of three hours. Death Stranding up there with three to four hours for a day night cycle. Kingdom come deliverance with 96 minutes and Red Dead Redemption 2 slash GTA 5 for 48 minutes for the for the day night cycle. I think for me like bringing up death stranding is interesting because BTs during the day, whatever. They're just boys. I can just I can do it. That's fine. Yeah,

they're just boys. B.T. at night. This thing's going to try to fucking kill me. Red eyes. I don't like it. I don't like that at all. You know what? I'm going to play The Longing, because I remember reading about this game, and I'm looking at it on Steam now. It is, I'll just read the description here. Play is a lonely shade, the last servant of a king who once ruled an underground kingdom. The king's powers have faded and he falls asleep for 400 days to regain his might. It is your duty to stay in the earth and palace until he awakens. As soon as you start, the game inevitably counts down the 400 days, even when you stop playing and exit the game. It is now up to you to decide what to do with your solitary existence beneath the the soil. Don't stress yourself. You have plenty of time. So you can either choose to start the game and then come back after 400 days of real time to see how it ends. So play it like fully as an idle game or you can like you can keep playing and uh, you know, walk around. I guess the game has like a really, really slow walking speed. Um, but you just are like, you can just sort of like explore the caves and collect shit as well to kind of maybe give, I give you different endings. But

um, what? a cool premise. The day night cycle and blueprints is actually not too bad because it's linked to your steps, right? So like, you only have a certain number of steps that you can do unless you get more steps as you go, which I love. I do like getting more steps. I love getting more steps. There's things about that game that I like. Honestly, it's an impressive design. I do think there are more things I like about it that I dislike, but the things I dislike about it outweigh the things that I Like if I made a list I think the like list would be longer

When we were predicting our games of the year A few episodes ago Blueprints was my underdog for a game of the year Didn't even get nominated for the game awards As one of the possibilities It did get nominated for indie game in the year But I was shocked, stunned even

Because despite my also Almost identical experience of Blueprints Where I'm like, holy shit Look at this game, but also I hate it. When you read the news, your teeth started chattering and your skeleton came out, right? What? Apparently with blueprints, this is what I was reading some analysis of, you got so scared that you're like skeleton. Scared of what?

You're just so shocked from reading the news. That my teeth started, what are you referencing? Like cartoons or something? I think like the cartoon joke of your skeleton jumping out of your own skin. I don't understand what we're doing. I don't either, but I think that's where you were going with this. You were saying that in a cartoon, you were so shocked by it that your skeleton jumped out of your skin. Somebody goes, whoa, wah, and there's skeleton jumps out of their body?

Yeah. That's a thing? Yeah, I've seen that. I've never seen that. I don't have a clip or something, but like, you just got to believe it. I don't believe it. The, the, I was reading some speculation as to why blueprints got snubbed for the game of the game awards. And apparently it wasn't localized beyond English.

And so a lot of the global audience was excluded from the experience. And so that would maybe make sense with the composition of the voting body. Yeah. Because a lot of the, like, it's not just that there's the in-game text. There's a lot of like art within the game, a lot of like in-game books and documents and whatever that would all need to be localized and re-rendered. So it's a bit of a task. All right.

Okay. But yes, what I was shocked didn't get nominated for best indie game, Indiana Jones in the Great Circle You really did this with me? Yeah, I know, but Heather didn't hear it. I wish I hadn't. Um, I can't believe we've gone this long without mentioning the day night cycle in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

Oh, sure. Where, talk about getting scary. It's not always happening. But sometimes the blood moon rises once again. And all the guys that had been, you know, killed along the way, they return to the surface and they're scary. Hate that part. Blood moon pisses me off.

If you want to experience a sleepy sounds that is a little unsettling, you can set it to Zelda and it'll be the sound of Zelda, breath of the wild nighttime cycle. Wow. I've got to be honest. Not comforting. what if it was her little speech that she does the blood moon rises once again

okay yeah like stop could you stop I'm trying to sleep back to me Was San Andreas the first Grand Theft Auto with the day night cycle I'm trying to remember I don't remember if it was in three or by city I kind of feel like you can walk around at night in in Grand Theft Auto 3 maybe

Maybe it was three that started it Because you're going out to the club and stuff I love Grant that thought of three Cool game I think there's like a There's not a day night cycle In Resident Evil 4 is there No I don't think so

No I think there's just sections of it that are at night Yeah But yeah I mean it's a common You talked about it with Breath of the Wild I mean it's just like it's becoming a standard thing With Zelda games And then also I think just open world games in general And then it's been a thing in RPGs

a long time. I mean, it's just... Is there an element? Yeah. Because as day night cycles were introduced to games and you were like, oh, wow, this is compelling because it reminds me of the real world. And with that came weather systems, NPCs coming and going, items on sale at certain times in certain stores. Is there an element of the real world experience that you haven't seen in a game that you wish was incorporated or that you're worried shouldn't be incorporated. For example, I don't think in most games you have to get a license before you can drive

one of the cars. Sure. And it would suck if you had to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That might be kind of cool, though. I could see that mechanically being something of like you can choose to drive without a license. Yeah. You know, you can get pulled over.

The consequences are really bad. That's what's taking Grand Theft Auto 6. So long is they're simulating the DMV? Yeah. Yeah. And the playtesters are just like they're waiting. They're just like at that part of the game But they haven't got called yet

Well you know it would actually I think would not work well in a game I could be wrong Maybe there's a game that implements this effectively If you had to sleep as much as you do In the real world And then that took actual game time Yeah

If it was like hey it's night time My character needs to sleep It's not like Stardue Valley Where I'm going to bed And then it will just move Jump forward to the next day It is I need eight hours of in game time To elapse for my character sleeping

In order for them to be adequate revitalized for the next day's action. So you're saying that there's no time jump. You have to, like, experience eight real-time hours of sleep in order to continue progress in the game. You have to keep the game on. By that measure, is sleep the worst mechanic of reality? I think it's one of the better ones, actually.

It's good because you have, like, you get, you feel better. You get to not be alive for a little bit. You sometimes get to have a fun dream. Yeah, I think dreams are cool. Yeah. For me, dreams are cool. Nightmares could take relief. Yeah, not a big Nightmares fan.

I love nightmares. So crazy. I love all of it. I love all of it. Nightmares, though, generally, you can remember better. Yeah. And there was a little more interesting. And I love coming back from another existence and being like, what the fuck?

Because also, my brain is creating what is effectively extremely high-end CG. Yes. You know, like if I'm in a burning building, my brain is making those graphics. And then you get to unpack, like, why was the rock chasing me trying to kill me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why did I have a butt where my boobs should be while my mommy was saying, who's the little girl? My problem is my, my problem is a lot of my nightmares are disgusting.

Oh, no. I'm just like, like, I don't want to remember. This is fucking gross. I don't want to think about this. fucking clogged toilet or whatever. Your nightmares just take place in the other world in Silent Hill, too. I have a lot of dreams where I'm just like, I'm in like a restroom. I'm in like a public bathroom.

Wow. With like 16 stalls, none of them have doors. All the toilets are clogged. Holy shit. I was just like, this is fucking gross. I don't we think about this. Yeah. You'd rather it be the best bathroom we've ever seen.

Yeah, give me a good bath. I have a bathroom in a Nordstrom in a hotel lobby. Since my childhood, I've had the same recurring nightmare about atomic bombing. And when I was a kid, I went to a therapist for it because I was having the nightmare so aggressively, so all the time. Now when I have the nightmare, I'm just kind of like, oh, it's this one again. Not in the dream, but when I wake up, I'm like, wow, what a different take on the same exact dream. So like they couldn't fix it? No, they can't do shit.

That's crazy. They can just tell you when you're a kid, it's not real. I'd be like, well, it's going to happen. And they'd be like, no, it's not. Wow. Yeah. Do you ever have nightmares where you've killed somebody? Yes.

I have that, because that's a thing I'm just like, like, why did I murder this guy? I'm like, oh, my God, I shouldn't have done this. Like, I know if you did it, like, oh, great. I fucking killed someone. Nick, can I ask if you have that dream? So I have that dream a lot, but it's always post murder. Do you murder the person in the dream? No, I've already killed them.

Yeah, same dream. A lot of times, and it's never, it's never someone I know. I don't think. I think it's maybe somebody has been someone I know, but not someone I'm, like, close with. But a lot of times it's like a stranger. It's like an invented person. Yeah. It's like, I killed this shopkeeper.

And even like, I effectively covered up his murder, but I knew, I know that I did it. Okay. So the problem we've just unveiled about Nick is that he referred to him as a shopkeeper. But then there's also this thing, too, right? Like, is it? And I don't know if this is true or not. not but like you can't your brain can't like invent a face so like that face is probably somebody you've seen or interacted with at some point in your life so it's like they're like an actual

person somewhere out there but I don't know no I feel like I'm getting I see invented faces making some crazy ones people always say you can't read in dreams either it's like I'm reading all the time yeah in those shitty bathrooms I had a recurring dream for a while that has always stuck with me where I was I'd met a girl in the dream right and I was having these recurring dreams where this girl and I were going on multiple dates and I would journal about it and I'd be like this is the strangest sequence I've ever had in my experience of dreaming

that I'm having new dates with this same invented girl in my dreams and in my dreams one time I said because she was like you know I really want to be with you or whatever for a long time and I was like well the problem is you're in my dreams you're not real and she got so upset that she broke

up with me and then she never appeared in a dream again. Wow. Which haunts me. Brains are so crazy. Brains are unbelievable. You had the dream visitor from Baldersgate 3. It was so fucking weird. Fucking crazy. Was it a mind flayer?

I have a mind flare myself. Okay. This I think is a good mechanic if your game is going to have a day-night cycle and quests or things that are sort of locked behind the day or time, the ability to pass the time. Yeah, I know, this is the thing. Like, I can play a little song and pass the time.

Great. I get to sit at a campfire, pass the night. Look, like, maybe I'm in Eldon Ring, and I got to fight this one specific boss who is only, you know, on his mount at night or wherever. And I'll sit at the campfire for a little bit. I'll go kick his ass. I'll take his weapon.

Yeah. Like, I, like, that I love. I think that's really satisfying. What, one of the, in, to bring up Disco Elysium again, one of the coolest parts about the sleep to pass time mechanic in that game is that unveils parts of the story real dreams. Like, dreaming as a mechanic is also pretty neat.

Which is a Baldurge Gate 3 thing. Yep. In Pokemon Legends, ZA, you can only... There are things you have to do to get your rank up in the game and that is get these like points that you can only get in battle zones and the battle zones are only at night.

So often, I am just finding a bench because that's how you can pass the time. you have to sit on a bench for hours, I guess, is the in-game thing that's happening. And I give you an option. It's like, do you want to pass some time? Yes, till when. Morning, you know, afternoon night.

I'm always picking night. And then the screen just goes blank and then the sun goes down and the, you know, the moon comes up. And then you can find a what? Okay, I forgot. Got about that. This other guy shows up.

And then you can go in the battle zones But I kind of wish that I wish the battle zones were not locked to nighttime Yeah And weren't just in one place one time I wish it was just like the entire city Was sort of like purge rules That's you know different different complaint for a different day

It sounds like you have a lot of complaints about ZA I kind of do Yeah But you know what I think more complaints that I have About blueprints actually Wow I overall do kind of find day night cycles because it's so it's such an expectation of these types of games

you know what I mean that I there's there's times where I'm kind of like all right you know I mean it's like it's like it's like kind of almost encountering another fishing mini game it's like yeah I guess this is an open world game never enough never enough I love a fishing mini game there are times I'm just kind of like I guess this yeah fucking this game has fishing too yeah this game has a day night cycle too you know it's like just standard convention that I'm almost like when a game doesn't have it, I find it

a little bit refreshing or when it has just like a different approach. Like I was talking about like the Atlas RPGs. Remember when you could fish with Big the Cat in Sonic Frontiers? Jesus Christ. Don't remind me. Fucking Totero looking motherfucker. Remember when I returned to that

game? Something I didn't know you could do in the year 2025. They just took it back fully. You can return games. So you, your overall take is you don't like day night? I just am like it's it's it's it's like skill treats you know what I mean? It's like this is such a standard feature of this type of game right that I'm like it to me it's not even necessarily additive.

It's just like okay well this is just a thing that's here. And so I'm almost like what are you going to do with this that's all that is it all new or are you going to justify its existence beyond just being like well we're an open world game. We're with RPG elements so we have to have a day night cycle because that's just what these kind of games do, you know what I mean? Like, is there anything new you're going to add to the formula? And to that, I answer Buktai.

Bacti takes the day-night cycle of the real world and forces you to implement it in the game. It's a game we've played here on the podcast before a Hideo Kojima game for the Game Boy Advance that featured a solar sensor on the cartridge itself, which you would only charge up with the actual sun or UV lights, and then you would have more power. weapon in the game. I mean, there are things that are still available to us to do in day night cycles.

It's just you need people to come up with that shit. I played Boktai. We played Boktai when we did it on the podcast, and it's one of those things where it's cool in theory. It was a fucking pain in the ass. The only part of it that sucked

is that you can't see the Game Boy in the daytime. Yeah, it's a pretty big obstacle sitting in direct sunlight, getting a sunburn. I played it on an emulator, and that was less fun. That was, like, not fun. Okay, I got to charge the thing or whatever, and you know, press whatever button was, uh...

The sunlight button? Yeah, sunlight button. Press S to sun. I do like in games when they don't necessarily have a daylight, a day night cycle, but like, you know, part of the story will be taking place in the day. Yes, right. And then bring you to like a cut scene. And now you're like, okay, now we're actually, now this section of the game is at night. And that's kind of just different.

I agree. A lot of times that, that to me is just more interesting. Yeah. Or a more linear just structure in general where it's just like, yeah, parts of this are a day and then like, yeah, we got to wait until later, you know. But, but whatever. I mean, like, that's probably just my general fatigue with open world games with character action games. I'm shocked that, to my experience so far in the game, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth does not have a day, night cycle. I've played 12 hours of that game.

It has been night, you know, in part of the story. But when you're wandering around the overworld for the first time, there's no day night cycle. It is always beautiful, gorgeous, perfect day. Strange. Yeah. But I don't know, like, but yeah, because the expectation is that that would be there. But like, yeah, I don't know if it would be additive. I think it's kind of cool that it's not.

I don't know that it needs to be there because also it would affect your availability when it comes to like talking to certain NPCs. And I don't want any of that friction in specifically that game. I don't want to go to the chocobo place and have the girl be like, I'm not at the counter. And if she is at the counter at 1 a.m., I'm like, why are you here? It would be funny if the dialogue was just a little bit different. They're like, they are there, but they're just, like, yawning a bunch. Yeah, I'm here. It's getting a little late.

Imagine having to do the mocap for all that shit, too. You know, mocap for your 4 a.m. version of the NPC. Ugh. Shall we do a segment? Let's do a segment. Segment. It's time. For game overtime.

Wow. I have some games here prepped that I did it. I had a little fun making this list. Uh-oh. Matt had some fun. Uh, well, first of all, we all know the game. I'm going to say the game, the name of game. You're going to tell me how long you think it takes to beat the main story.

And this is obviously are all sourced from how long to beat. And these are like self-reported averages of these games, of course. So, so these are, and remind me because there's main story, there's main story plus extras, and then there's completionist, right? So this is the lowest threshold to finish a game. The lowest threshold. As documented on the site. A little bit of fun that I had, all these games have day or night in the title.

Got it. It doesn't, no, that's fun. It doesn't have any weight to the game or whatever. No, that's a little bit of fun. It's just exactly a little bit of fun. A little tiny bit of fun. Just a smidge of fun. Just a little bit.

So for this first game, how long does it take to complete the main story of Days Gone? Okay, I've not played Days Gone. This is an open world motorcycle zombie game. That's right. I'm just going to guess 23 hours Why you're 23 Other guess is 45 hours

Ritch, you want to play? Sorry, what? All right, you don't have to You don't have to, it's okay I just want to say Someone just sent me a link to all of Jeffrey Epstein's emails But someone like made a website

Where you can scroll through Like it's actually your Gmail account Wow. So why would I was. So you've been busy. It's the conspiracy episode of the show and ranches on the case. Ranch Command F. Weiger. I saw a statistic that the reason that like, just as real quick aside, that the reason that the story cycle is fixated on Trump in the Epstein emails that have been released is that,

Linton shows up for something like 20% of the emails. Like he's in it a fucking ton. Like he's in there, right? Trump is mentioned in 72% of the emails. Oh my God. So it's like the reason that the window of focus is on him in these emails is because they're constantly fucking talking about him. Yeah.

Because he's just become president. Crazy. Yeah. Weiger said 23. Yeah. You said 45. 45. I think we have the prices right

This one And so this one goes to Nick 36 and a half hours Okay, I'll take it Nick's on the board with one Fuck God I fucking hate this game Next day

Or next game It's a little Freudian slip Because of the day night's discussion Just having a little bit of fun Just a little bit Day of the Tenticle A game we played on the show Yeah I mean I played day to tentacle

As a kid I finished it a number of times Is that like one of those Maniac Mansion style games? His Maniac Mansion, too. Okay. Okay, well, great. We did cover it on the podcast. Yep, yep.

Was that with, that was with Hayes? With Hayes, yeah, yeah. It also played as a kid. Yep, okay, okay. Main story only. Get through this game pretty briskly. I'm going to say six hours. Four hours.

Heather's on the board. Five hours. Five hours, wow. One hour differential there. Could have gone another way. Love this game. This is my favorite game of all time. Okay, so it's tied up currently.

How about this? Conquers. Bad Fur Day Bad Fur Day of course acronymed as BFD which is another cheeky little joke from the Stamper Brothers What is it with this guy

This Conquer? He's quite He's ribald 7.5 hours 7.5 hours Heather on the board Um Would he like shit and stuff Conquer? No, he's just shitting the whole time

I feel like he like shits coming out There's a there's a there's a The Great Mighty Poo in the game One of the bosses is like shit There's shit, and there's, like, testicles, and there's, like, a lot of gore. What the hell's wrong? Anyway, seven and a half hours. That sounds right.

I'll say four hours. Wow. Undercut. This one goes to Heather. 11 hours. 11 hours, okay, for main story. This is my favorite segment of all time. Could go either way.

Anyone's game still. How about this? My game. Kingdom Hearts, 358 over two days. Which one is that? That is a 3DS one. Okay. Or it's actually the DS one.

The 3DS one is DreamDrop Distance. 12.5 hours. 12.5 from Heather. You play as... What is the name of that character? Roxas? Roxas. Roxas.

Or is it Ventis? Oh, I don't know. Because he's different. The savvy move if I want to go over would be to just go a half hour. Oh, you know, but if it did like a, above that and say 13 hours, but no, but that feels like it's not the spirit

of what we're doing here. Ruined. I'm going to go, because then then you either are just going to guess one above or one each time. Anyway, I'm going to guess 17 hours. What did you say, Heather? 12.5.

This one goes to Nick. 26 and a half hours. Whoa. That is a big game. Big boy. Look what daddy did. All right. Oh, what's that the sun is going down okay and now it's night time wow oh a day night cycle for this very game i'm just having a little bit of us because it's night i'm just having a little bit of fun is all i like it we like it so it's tied up at two two two it could go either way and if he keeps

going this way the whole thing can end in the tie act wow marvel's midnight suns midnight suns i don't even know what this game it is this is a this is a a strategy game with it that that came out that was really well received but was a commercial flop this is I believe I believe Faraxis made this game and it had... It's really good

Yeah it's it's really like people people who played this game says this game is awesome and it's a very strong story but it is like a you know a tactical game where you were deploying superheroes and combat scenarios turn base and you can date Blade I think this game is pretty meaty

I'm gonna guess 37 hour. Shit. 37 from why. I was going to go with 36, but I want to be a jerk. I'll go with... That would 36 would be the worst way to do it. Because then you only get it if you guess it's exactly 36.

I know, but that's what I was going to say is 36 and now I feel like I can't do any of these. Oh, I see what you're saying. I'm going to go with 42 hours. Matt is rubbing his mouth as if to render a verdict here. It's 180 hours. Nobody likes Price's Right Rules, but I feel like it's important in an instant quite like this. Okay. Marvel's Midnight Suns.

Main Story Completion. 40 and a half hours. It has to go to Y. Wow. Wow. No. I mean, it doesn't have to. I fucked myself. I hate this game.

Heather, if we didn't have the Price's Right rules, Heather is technically closer. I never want to play this segment ever again. But I like the Price's Right Rules myself. I'm benefiting for it. Yeah. This next one. Passylvania Symphony of the Night. 31 hours.

Got in there. Got in there. Not a race. I've finished Symphony the Night. I've also, what is it? What a 181% of, Symphony Night, whatever weird percentage you get to in that game.

Whoa. So I played this game a good amount. And I think main story only, I'm gonna say nine hours. Oh my God. I'm worried I maybe even overshot it. Here's a thing. You both went over.

So then in this instance. So then no one gets a point. I guess no one gets a point. Or in an instance like this, we abandon the prices right and then whoever's close it. That doesn't feel fair. It feels like no one should get a point. Okay, nobody gets a point. What was it?

Like seven hours? Eight and a half hours. Oh my God, it was just a half hour over. Yeah, that's right. My dumb ass. So the game, it's still, it's three, two. Widers in the lead. I will say, I was pretty close if it's eight and a half and I said nine.

That's pretty good. It's pretty good, but it's incorrect. I know. I'm not saying you should get a point. I'm just saying I was pretty close. What are you looking for here? I'm just wanting people like, hey, all right. I hate this game.

I can't wait till it ends. It's still three, two. It's just making him feel happy about himself. Hey. Making me feel like shit. Maybe that's why I made the game. Throw me a bone every once in a while. I'm on the fucking Epstein emails.

Sounds like you were doing pretty good. You imagine if in the Epstein emails, he just writes, have you heard doughboys? Be like, fuck! You control F. Weiger and all it just comes up is, man, this guy, Wiger won't stop bothering us. Knights into dreams. Oh.

Okay. How long to beat main story of nights into dreams? Who at first last time? Heather did? Heather. I'll go first this time. Three hours. One hour. Heather gets a point two and a half hours.

Wow. We're forgetting about fractions here. We can do fractions. How did I overshoot it with three hours? Three hours is, you'd think for some reason this is a game that Heather won't stop talking about, that there'd be more to say about it. No, that game rules. It's fast. It is a short game.

It is a short game, very slight. So it's all tied up. This is our tiebreaker. Five nights at Freddy's. How long to beat the main story? No, what this is, I've never actually played. Five Nights at Freddy's. This is an episodic release?

No. Or is this is just like the... There's just a million of them. There's just a bunch of them. Yeah, I don't remember. Heather goes first here, right? Yeah. Five hours, five nights.

That's my answer. An hour for each night you're saying. Yep. We have five on the board. Five hours was the guess. I'll go a little higher. I'll guess seven hours. Wish you wouldn't have done that.

Wow. Because he wanted him to win? Well, no, because nobody gets a point now. That means the game is a tie. Wow. I love it. Five nights at Freddy's, two hours. Oh, wow.

Brief experience. Maybe it's why they can make one every three months. Are you sure you're not looking at the running time of the movie? If the movie was two hours long, good God. Wasn't it two hours long? I think it was longer than we wanted it to be. I like that that ended in a tie. I don't mind, I don't mind us all being.

equal footing as we exit this podcast. That's right. Well thought. Hey, that's this week's get played. Our producer is Rochelle Chen. Ranch. Yard underscore underscore Sard. Ranch, what you got going on right now?

I'm back on streaming. I was gone for a month, actually. Wow. And actually, by now, should be done with Silent Hill. Awesome. Twitch. TV slash yard underscore underscard. Speaking of Silent Hill, we didn't mention that Silent Hill trailer

that came out. I didn't watch it. You didn't? No. You don't have to. I'm looking forward to it. Our music is by Ben Pronti. Ben Pronti.

Ben Pronti Music.com. Our artist by Duck Brigade Design, duck brigade. That's insane. Get played. Merch is available at kinshipgoods.com. And check out Get Animated, our sister show over on Patreon. Matt, what's this week? We're watching Serial Experiments Lane.

And I guess the way you're experiencing this show, we're kind of in the wired right now, aren't we? Yes, very much so. Nice. Yeah, we're kind of in, this experience, you're tapping into the wire, wired as the listener, and you're hearing the show. There's nothing better than HBO's the Wired. Patreon.com slash get played. If the show was about a little girl who's just trapped in HBO's The Wire.

It's like my friend is Bubbles. If funny or die still existed, that, this is on pitching. I'm pitching serial experiments laying except she's in the wired. I just, I mean, I'm getting news that it's back now because of that pitch. Wow. So we got to make it. Wait, HBO's the wire. The wire.

You know what I'm saying. Yeah, it doesn't fucking matter. Fuck! You got to play. That was a hate gum podcast.