Get Played - Gaming in the Modern World with Ben Brock Johnson and Roman Mars

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Heather and Matt sit down with Ben Brock Johnson (WBUR’s Endless Thread) and Roman Mars (99% Invisible) to discuss gaming’s impact on the modern world and their new limited series Hidden Levels available on all podcast platforms October 7th. 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 Elfen Lied 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.

This is a headgum podcast. All right, Ranch, it's just going to be me and Heather, but we're just waiting on Heather to get here. And so hopefully she arrives in a minute now. How are you doing? You okay? I'm okay. Okay. I just ate a bunch of spaghetti.

Oh, that's good. That's good. That sounds really good. Yeah, it was good. Can you guys see me? Heather, Jesus Christ, what the fuck's the matter with you? Wait, wait, wait, wait, can you see me? Heather.

Can you see me? Heather, yes, we can see me. Can you see you? Oh my God. You're nude. Oh, my God, you can see me? You're nude and covered in the family. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Why are you like that? Oh, no, no, no, you can see me for real? Are you doing a bit? No, I can see you. Oh, my God. Oh, no. I mean, I'm averting my gaze because I'm polite. Oh, no.

I thought, I thought, I thought. thought we were invisible today. I didn't read the email. I didn't read the email clearly and I had to get her fast. I thought we were invisible. Oh my God. Even if we were just 99% invisible. Oh no. That would be better than this. I walked here. I walked here. No, I mean, I'm sure the people of Los Angeles took it in stride. But it's like, yeah, nobody was looking at me. No. Oh, fuck. Oh my God. I can't believe I came to work naked. And you know what's actually more upsetting? What? Wait, wait, wait, what? That was Ranch's leftovers, and you did that to Ranch's left over. Ranch's going to eat that later for dinner.

Now Ranch got no dinner. Okay, well, hold on. Let me explain. I know I'm covered in spaghetti sauce, but I thought nobody could see me, so I thought nobody would know that I ate her leftovers. And I got it all over me. And I'm like, there's no point in cleaning up because I'm invisible. Let me ask you.

Can I ask you an honest question? Oh, my God. I'm humiliated. Can you see the poop on my legs? Oh, my God. I wasn't looking at the poop. God, oh no. I was just so confused by all of it.

I thought nobody could see the poop on my legs. So I was like, it's fine. I'll just get that later. Oh, my God. Heather? Oh, no. Heather, I'm just going to do you a kindness. Oh, no.

You got to go home and take a shower. We'll never speak of this again. Oh, my God. I'll do you this kindness. This will never come up again. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Thank God. Nobody notices that I'm naked.

and covered in Fettuccini Alfredo. 9-1-1. We talk about gaming in the modern world and interview Roman Mars and Ben Brock Johnson from their podcast Hidden Levels this week on Get Played. Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Mattapadaka.

Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast where this week we have guests. That's right, guests, but they're not here yet. They're not here yet. They're going to come later. They're coming in later. They're coming in hot. They're becoming in hot.

They're going to come in spicy. Yeah. We're short one, Tiger Weiger. He's out for the episode, but we're going to do our best to do a real adults interview of these people the way that Matt and I have very rarely been put to the test. That's right. I kind of wish I had worn, I don't know, like a turtleneck or something. We're both an oasis shirt here. We're both wearing Oasis shirts, which I think really sold the vibe, but it really sells the vibe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, these guys are approachable. Yeah. They're both wearing oasis. They're just a couple of lads. Yeah, they're just, they're here for it. They're mad. They're mad for it.

Do I detect that they're mad for it? We're mad for it. We're mad for it. Man, can you, what is, I wonder if there's a phrase that Americans say that in the UK, they make fun of us, but also lovingly try to emulate the phrase. Like, it could be something like, I don't. of the blue. All the ones I can think of are a big bummer. Yeah.

I did say American. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. I mean, gosh, I feel like T-minus, like, always like two minutes before something like this, like, comes up in my brain nowadays.

But when I was in Italy, I was sitting across at a restaurant from this English couple who then we befriended because our server kept bringing us limoncello shots and he got us fucked up and we just hung out with this English couple

for four hours. Love it. It was really, really lovely. But it got to a point where the guy in the couple was like, all right, I got to ask you, what the fuck's wrong with your guys' country?

And I was like, it's interesting that you're asking me this of all people. I was like, yours is not so great either, but I was like, I don't have a satisfying answer for you. It is weird to be both in a country that is constantly shouting

about how it's the best in the world and anywhere else you go in the world people are like wow what like and I also think

it's very telling that nobody else in the world is creating their own version of TikTok no I mean sure

China has a different a different social media app but like France isn't like uh oh TikTok we had

we have to create we have to create our own version of TikTok because the algorithm is poisoning the minds.

There's would be too fancy. It would be. It'd be too fancy. It'd be too fancy. You know what? We're going to do first TikTok. Every video is that same guy. It's just one guy.

What's the deal with? He's just doing like all people stuff? Wait, no. No, I was just doing like random TikTok startup. I see, I see. I was not citing that awful, awful. We're doing a good job on the show today. We are?

We're going to do a great job. Is that that you're setting the bar? I'm setting an intention. Okay. We're doing a great job on the show. Everyone's going to be happy. Because I think, look, I know that like Nick's sort of like, what's going on outside? You feel that?

Is that a tank rolling down the fucking street? It's a car with heavy bass. Okay, I see. But it does, it is so heavy that it is through several layers of sound. roofing in an audio recording facility, and it is still vibrating the windows. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was like, I'm glad that you said something because I thought I was going to suffer in silence.

Wait, no, you said something. I think maybe it activated me. I've lost one second of memory. Something about a car with really loud bass feels nostalgic. It feels like now everything is of such. a different caliber and tension level than when you hear somebody just rolling down the street with like big bass, you're like, oh, yeah, okay. Yeah.

That's nice. Do you think it's the Doof Warrior? What's that? From Mad Max Fury Road. Is that his name? The guy that plays the Doof Warrior. I didn't know you had a name. The Doof Warrior.

Doof Warrior. I didn't know. It could have been him. It could have been him on his rig. It could have been him on his rig. Now, that's a movie. Can you imagine if aliens invaded and, they sounded like party base

that most people wouldn't even come out of their houses to like see what's happening Yeah, yeah Must be Red Fu and Sky Blue outside Having a blast from LMFAO Okay

Nick and I know are the ones that know that Yeah, there's a lot I'm struggling here because there's a lot Should I say more stuff that Nick knows? Yeah, say it And we can stare at his empty chair It's been a long day without you, my friend,

but I'll tell you all about it when I see you again. Why are you telling me about the podcast, Matt? Hey, buddy, why are you telling me that? Look, I'm excited to talk to these guys, but we have other stuff we got to do. We do. And one of the things we do on the show

is we ask a question. It's an important question. We talk about video games and we ask questions. This is a video game podcast. First and foremost, Mere video game podcast. There's other ones. There are other great ones that I really like.

Oh, yeah, for sure. I could shout them out if I wanted to. You could. I'm going to keep it to myself. Okay. Because look. We're trying our best. We're trying our best and we're coming for you, actually.

Yeah. So you better watch your ass. Yeah. And I don't want to hear nothing about. What? You guys trying to stop us. Okay. You understand me?

Listen here and listen good. Just know that if you've got a video game podcast. So do we. And we're doing ours. Who is this guy? Is this you or is that a guy? It's actually just me. Okay. Me trying to be like a tough guy. Okay. It was good. I was nervous. Ranch is back, by the way. Yes, ranch is back. Ranch is back.

Ranch is back. Did you have fun wherever you were? You don't have to say where you were what you're doing. No, I did. I was in the bay to see family and then I went to Napa. Oh. Did you eat any crab? No crab. Did you stop by any grapes? No. I was too scared to get hurt. No grapes, no crab. Sounds like a great trip, Rand. Bring you in just to cheat.

Great, thanks, ranch. Love the story. Could you tell it again? So, such a jerk thing to do to like. So unnecessary. So also ask about one food and no follow-up questions. Yeah, so you didn't do the one thing I thought you did? That sounds like a nice time.

It looked like you were with a fun group. Yeah, it is very nice. That's great. Shout out to the two people I know in the group. They know who they are. I saw one of your friends at a party. Oh, really? Oh, Alexis.

That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's come up on this show as well in the past for her Animal Crossing Island. Oh, yeah. Yeah, had a really nice time chatting with Alexis. But look, we're not here to make veiled threats to the other video game podcast. We're not here to harass

ranch. Harass ranch about what she did and did not do on her trip. I guess for me if I'm thinking about it if I was doing the trip

I would have done things a little bit differently. That's it. Yeah, for sure. I would have eaten crabbed and stomped grapes. Every grape in the tri-state area would be fucking flat.

Crabs running. Graves stomped. They would be out of grapes when I was in I'd be like fucking Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Bonanza these fucking grapes Gently setting the lobsters free Eating crab

The lobsters, I got no beef with you Yep The crab meets kind of where it's at though, right? Yeah, yeah The crab, like lobster's good But it's like sort of fake It's fake good It's fake good, crab is better

Crab is good Do you agree? I agree Yeah, crab is good lobster Kind of not good Fuck a lobster you say Buck a lobster That's right We don't have time to talk about seafood either

Even though I could, I love it. I spent a lot of my life not eating it. Didn't know I liked it. Oh. So now every time I can make up for lost time, I get like the craziest seafood thing I can get. Okay. Like big pasta with clams or something. Oh, yeah.

That's good stuff. I can't eat clams in a soup or in a pasta. I can eat them on the side. I can't handle shell in broth or shell in noodle. They do, unfortunately, like, come with trash that you can't do with any. You can't eat it. You can't eat the shell. So you've got to like sort of put your hand in your pot.

pasta kind of and scoop it out and then put the shell on the side. I mean, I would never want a soup that also had bones, just laying in the soup. That to me, though, if I'm ordering like a chicken, like a chicken broth with like chicken in it and I got a little bit of bone in there, to me I'm kind of like, okay, they made this. This is fresh. Sure, but not if every single piece of chicken had bone. No, no, no, no. Well, that's what the deal is with a clam and a soup. Yeah, clam is bones.

Clams and bones. We're not here to talk about that. We're not here to talk about video games and ask an essential question. And that question is, what are you playing? What are you playing? What are you playing? It's me the resident evil merchant. And I'm offended that you guys didn't ask me to sit in for Nick.

Oh, no, I thought we sent you an email. What? At least, uh... Which address? Re4 Merchant at Hotmail.com? No, I don't use that one anymore. You don't use Hotmail anymore? Do you get the other one or any of the other one?

RE4merch at gmail.com? No, I logged out of that one. Illegal activity. Oh, okay. Did you have... God, does Yahoo still exist? Yahoo exists. Okay, so, oh, wait, wait, maybe we sent it to...

Yahoo at jahp. So I didn't send it to that one. That's my email. So you got Yahoo at Yahoo. That's JP. So it's specifically like the Japanese like server? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, like, you know, canonically, that is where I'm from. Aren't you from like some sort of like a Spanish pastiche? I'm in Spain. Yeah. And I work in Spain. I see, I see. But I was technically created. I guess you're right.

In Japan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My mom and my dad. I was hoping you weren't going to go down this way. They work at Camcom And they fucked in the lobby In the lobby

We're all great ideas Are born Walk into a building If you don't have an idea In the lobby walk out Yeah That's what I think And you if you have

If you have an idea It is my understanding That you have to fuck in the lobby To get the idea hurt Fuck in the lobby Like my mom and day Sort of like You're giving

You're giving birth to a concept I feel like The truth is, man, I'm bullying you're like, I'm not from Japan. You, son of a bitch. My parents didn't fucking allow me. Everything you just told me was lies? I was expecting. You was goofing?

I was goofing. No wonder you got Yahoo!jub. Yahoo!J.B. Well, sorry you're not able to fill in for us today, uh, Resident Evil Pilgril. I'm free. No, it's okay. You got a third chair. I think he's going to show up, though.

If he shows up, he shows up. No, I mean, Wiger. I think he's going to, I think he's going to show up. So I feel like Resident Evil Merchant, I feel like you've got to hang back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you got to go. Because imagine how hurt he'd be if he showed up and you were sitting in his chair. And he doesn't like to play musical chairs.

He always sits in the same chair. He always sits in the same chair. He's just not here yet. Okay. All right. I think you hit freeze value. Yeah, you just got to believe us. I do.

Because you're my friends. That's right. We wouldn't lie to you. You would never lie to me. Now, you got to go to sleep, actually, because Santa's supposed to come to the night. Is that true? I think so. He doesn't come if you're awake, though.

You better to go sleep. It's September 25th, it's Christmas. That's right. You got to go to sleep. Light on decorations is you outside. Yeah, I think the people just aren't feeling it because of everything. Yeah. to escape, take the first step and learn the language before you go. Babel makes it easy.

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and more at Comic-Con thecruise.com slash get played. Book a new reservation with promo code Get Played to snag $250 off your cabin. Yarr! I'm glad you asked. Thank you so much, Resident Evil 4 Merchant. I got a couple things to report. First of all, I went to Halloween horror nights at Universal Studios. I love to hear it. And here's something you got to know about me. Obviously, I'm a bit of a coward. I get a little scared, okay? Oh, that's right. When we played our worst games that we could possibly play, yours was a scary game. Mine was scary.

I don't like to get scared too much, but I do like to engage with horror. You know, like I love Alan Wake 2. I love Resident Evil 4, Silent Hill 2. Like that stuff. I like horror movies quite a bit. But I get scared. And so I went with my wife, my sister-in-law,

and two of my brothers. Okay. And it was just a real sweet time. Just a bunch of siblings hanging out. It was really cute. All right. It was a really nice time. Okay.

There were two mazes that I got to talk about. That, because they're based on video game IP. Whoa! Which is unbelievable to me as somebody who's been going to horror nights for many years. Yeah. We got a Fallout maze based on the TV show at Fallout. Right, but a TV show based on a video game. And the Five Nights at Freddy's maze.

Okay. Based on the movie based on the game. Right. Let me talk about the Fallout one first. Okay. The Fallout one was not particularly scary to me. Okay. Because the show is not scary.

Yeah, no. So you're sort of like, how are they going to make, scares in this it's it starts with the uh if you'll remember from the show like the massacre within the vaults where the the ravagers from up above come and they you know start killing people or whatever it's that's like the big set piece of the maze which is really well done the sets look really really great cool and it looks like you're like in the vaults um the jump scares in that are like good guys like killing bad guys so like they kind of like oh surprise like and like then they killed like somebody in front of you or whatever so like you're kind of like what the

this is so crazy and so cool because like it'll be like a guy running at you and then the ghoul or something will like take them out yeah or whatever so like that so it was really well done uh i i liked it it just wasn't like very scary there were there were scarier mazes certainly um but my favorite maze of the night was the first maze we did which was five nights at freddies and if you remember when we talked about the movie none of us liked it very Yeah, it's not a highlight of our year. And I think we talked about the game a little bit. Maybe we talked about the game when we talked about the movie?

I don't remember about it a little bit. I played the game a little bit. Yeah. And I was like, this is fine. Yeah. Maybe we did a whole episode on the game. I can't remember it. The maze was fucking incredible.

Oh, wow. It was so great and, like, had legitimate scares in it. Like, the, because they had some of the characters. Like, I mean, they had all the main sort of the anime. And some of them were, like, they were mostly puppets, I would assume. But some of them looked like they were standalone animatronics. But then they had, like, people in sort of black hallways wearing fully black, like, you know, leotards or whatever. And they were puppeteering the animatronics to make it look like they're coming to get you or whatever.

And so that was really, really awesome. And it's like you're sort of following the story of the movie, I guess. but the thing that I thought they did so well was replicate moments from the game where like you'll turn a corner and you'll have been captured or you know you're face to face with Freddie Fasbear or whatever

and it'll make the like sound like from the games and I was like that's so cool that they were able to like put that spin on it versus the sort of inert like movie and I know there's a second one coming out and I've already made this decision I'm going to see this movie Because like

I didn't care for the first one But what if they get it right And the second one? What if they got it right? They might get it right It was that was Everybody's favorite maze Of the of the night

And it was just crazy That there were two video game mazes in general Yeah for sure I'm also still playing Silk Song With Ranch I want to check in with you About it because we haven't had

A chance to talk about it yet I'm still in act one I'm about 31 hours in I'm still in act one I think I've done as much as I can side stuff wise

where now I have to progress and beat who is known as the last judge the boss that is blocking you from entering the citadel and so far I have not done it yet but I've gotten close ranch where are you at in the game these days

I think I'm at 40 hours and I have beat the last judge. Wow. You dropped this. It's a gamer card, by the way. Ranch is more of a gamer than me. I fucking suck at this game. I'm going to quit. Don't quit. I fucking quit. I fucking quit.

You know what? Being a gamer is not a measure of quality. It's a measure of interest. You can be the worst ever at a game, but you are still a gamer. I basically am. I'm fucking suck at this fucking game. And like, Matt, you're terrible to this game it sounds like you you can't do what the game wants you to do even to get out of act one you're really bad at it but that doesn't mean you're not a gamer don't ever doubt yourself you are a gamer even if you never beat this boss which honestly i'm pretty sure you won't i think i will i just know because i know what i'm doing wrong i'm getting greedy oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and you with this boss this boss has like a chain with like a uh you know what's that called like a mace on it and so Sometimes it'll hit you and it's getting you for two damage. I have six masks and I have a boon that gives me a sort of critical hit.

Oh, yeah, the skull. Yes, I have that. And I'm just getting greedy and I'm going too fast. And I think this boss wants me to slow down and like really take my time. Because there's, all of her attacks are, I think, completely. avoidable. You could probably do it

if you were like really good at it without taking any damage because she has very obvious signals too that she's doing

or like she'll like lean in a certain way and that means she's going to start tossing her damn her mace. Okay.

But if you are standing right by her you're going to get fucking you're going to get hit. You're going to get hit. But so you got to find your windows. I'm going to do it

regardless of anybody sitting to my left belief in me at all I do believe in you I completely believe in you I'm gonna do it I believe in 100% that you're a gamer Believe in that you

What the f Can I tell you how I beat The last judge? Please Don't tell me Mark did it No I don't know It did take me

That was like the longest boss The run back for that I think I did at least a hundred times Okay yeah I got so familiar with the movements. Yeah. I was playing during a Zoom recording. So I had all the audio off.

Yeah. And I beat it during the Zoom recording with no music and no sound. Oh, interesting. Wow. And for some reason, I feel like the no sound really helped me. Yeah. You weren't getting psyched out by her really great. We've talked about that with Eldon Ring before, where it's like you turn off the sound and suddenly the game is easier.

Yeah. Yeah. Because you're just like you're not focusing on how scary, uh, uh, Moog is. Yeah. And then someone else talking. Yeah. I don't know. I just worked. It just worked for me. I'm going to, I'm going to try it tonight. I'm going to, uh, I'll try it while I'm, uh, while my wife's asleep. Oh, also, I don't know if you got in the tax, like the thumbtimes. hacks. No, I haven't gotten those yet. I got to, maybe I'll just look at a guide to see

if I can get those because I have the ones you can put in the air. I've been laying those down. Yeah. And you get to second phase very quickly. You save some for second phase and it does a lot of work. Okay, I'm going to go back and get those then because I did do something that I didn't think I would be doing. I was like farming for resources. Ooh.

Like I found like a rose, like a little patch of area near the, what's it called, like the halfway house or something? Oh, yeah, with all the. Yeah, there's a bunch of little guys that drop. You get, like, maybe, like, 60 rosaries or run or whatever, which is not a ton. But I was just, like, I'll just, like, devote some time, you know, to getting this. And then I bought a bunch of stuff because, like, some of the stuff's not cheap. Like, you want, like, a new mask shard or whatever.

It's, like, 500 rosaries or whatever. The rosaries are, you lose them quite a bit. So I cleared out a couple stores, but I got to get, I got to get these tax. Because I've heard about the tax, and everyone's, like, talking about the tax. I haven't gotten them. You've got to get the tax. I've got to get the tax. I'm also playing Super Mario 3D land on my recently modded new Nintendo 3Ds.

Which I have here in my backpack. I want to show you, actually. Because I bought a... Okay. Yeah. Like a snap-on case for it because mine had a little bit of cosmetic damage, but otherwise the screen is really nice. Look at this. It's gorgeous.

Yeah, that's really great. And it doesn't add much heft to it. Oh, it's like metal. Yeah, it's like metal. It's a metal case. Yeah. It's really nice. Holy shit.

Can I turn it on? Yeah, you can turn it on. My background is the Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater 3DS port. It's going to take a million years to turn on because it's so modded. Because it's modded. But I was messing around with the Virtual Boy emulator. That's some good stuff. It is.

It's really, really great. It's so good. Yeah, I was really loving it. But yeah, it's a nice little device. And I think, perhaps, switch to notwithstanding, I think that the new Nintendo 3DS XL is the most premium device Nintendo has ever made. I think your screen is better than mine.

You think so? Yeah, I do. I do. I have an IPS. I don't think mine's, I don't know if mine's IPS. I have an IPS screen, and I think it's, I think this is a better screen. You think the default, look, I understand that the blacks are blacker and all that. in the IPS, but the 3D effect, which is very important to me, just looks better on the original

screen. Yeah, I recently got this because I didn't have a... There's so much viewing angle on it. I didn't have one. I only have 2DS Xcel and I don't have the 3D effect, and I missed seeing the 3D. It's so good. And it's really, really great. I've been taking pictures of my cat and my wife with the 3DS camera, and it's very fun.

Yeah, yeah. And I try to then show them to my wife, and she's like, very nice, Matt. That's nice But yeah So I've been dipping in to 3D land quite a bit And I forgot That game's a fucking banger It is

It is so goddamn good And I'll probably try to finish it I've 100%ed The first two areas Already so I'm gonna be flying through it Yeah But that's it for me Quite a few things to report

But that's it That's a lot to report What about you, Heather? You know, other than still celebrating The News that the Virtual Boy is returning which, again, we haven't really covered on the show, but I think that's because the sort of crater left by the announcement was so big in my life.

We're all still trying to put together, like, bits and pieces of, like, just how we're feeling. I cannot believe that I'm going to have another virtual boy on my desk. It's the craziest possible outcome of 2025. Yeah. So that being said, that aside. Matt, did you know that it had been 13 weeks

since I played Fortnite? this is dare I say a fucking bombshell It makes sense Based on what I know Yeah I have not had

I've not had Internet access for 13 weeks And I've only been able To game on the go Or game offline And so I finally have Internet access again And the first thing I do

Is of course boot up Fortnite and say hi to my friends Yeah The game is so fucking good but right now Fortnite is so buggy that it is like they don't have money Did they add the characters from a bug's life?

I wish that that was the case Matt There are so many known bugs The hammer from several seasons ago is back in the game If you equip the hammer and you use the hammer on a console there is a huge chance that you won't be able to run anymore. Huge chance. That's crazy.

In Fortnite. Like a game that is making these guys, what, $10 billion a year, if not more? If you drive a car and you're on console, the buttons are remapped and they're all fucked up. You can't break, you can't lean out the window and shoot your gun because that's a bug.

There are so many bugs that I uninstalled, Fortnite reinstalled Fortnite on a console to try and fix these bugs all the bugs are still there I cannot tell you what it's like to

wait 13 weeks to play Fortnite hop online see my bros yeah we're still having fun but that all of us are like fuck the fucking hammer is fucking broken again like all of us and what are they going to do they got to fix it and they don't care

daft punk is coming to the game next week I did see this and that has me very very excited Daft punk is coming to the game I'm dressed as Saitama and I'm running around as One Punch Man I don't know if you've heard this about the One Punch Man collab because of course I haven't talked about

Fortnite for 13 weeks So there are a ton of characters in the game in Fortnite skins that are representative of godlike or god-near beings Superman, you know, like Thanos, like people who are Thor, I think is in the game

like people who are effectively impervious. Apparently the deal that they made with the creators of One Punch Man would not allow Saitama to be in the game if he was Saitama because he can't get

killed, he can't get injured, he can't take a bullet. Like he's, the whole hook with him is that he's level 100, in a world of 99.99's right if like if you're fucking Superman he still wins if you're Superman and Goku and like if you're everybody he still wins because that's the joke yeah so he flickers like he's uh television uh like he's uh got static interesting because sitama is playing the game but isn't in the game

Superman is in the game Superman is Superman yeah Hatsuni Miku is Hatsunimiku. Yes. She has a gun and is running around. Maleficent. Ariana Grande. Ariana Grande. Captain Hook.

All there. All on the island. I think they're going to do Elfaba and Glinda? I wish they would, but they probably won't because you can't. I can't imagine the creators of that musical being like, what this needs is that we see these characters holding a fucking shotgun. The emo would be so good. Oh, whoa. There are, it would be awesome.

It would be so good. To win and then drop that emote would be so good. Just as good as I did it. Still think the most disrespectful emote is Jake Sully's emote. It is so fucking funny to win a game and then curiously look at a flower. It is so fucking funny. Very disrespectful. But so there are a lot of complaints because when Saitama dropped, people were like,

why the fuck is he flickering? Like he's got like digital artifacts and sometimes he's a little transparent. And it's because he's canonically not. in the game he's playing the game and I love it so much I love it so much I couldn't love a decision by a company more a company

than that Saitama isn't in Fortnite he's playing Fortnite yes that's to me like how when they added Sora to Super Smash Brothers that the fact that there's a canonical reason for him being there is very very funny It's good

Yeah They wouldn't want to be like Yeah He's just in it Yeah There's like No there's a lore reason now

Yeah They had to think about it Yeah They almost didn't allow People People are like But Goku's in the fuck Yeah

Goku can get knocked He gets fucking Those gets fucked up He gets fucked up Yeah Superman has died In the comics Yeah

Batman dies all the time It'd be such a bummer though Like one of the times Superman dies He gets shot with a gun That's really funny To me

That's really funny to me That's And he's not in it. That is great. Because everybody else is in it except him. He's playing. You know, I was playing it a little bit when it launched on Switch 2. And I was like, this is a perfectly fine way to play.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just, I go through phases with it. I'm not, like, as dedicated to it as you are. But when I get in there, I'm always having a good time. It's a good game. Yeah. So I was playing that for the first time in forever, the Power Rangers or the collab. You can get into the Megazord.

If you do it with a full squad, all of you do the poses as like the transformation and then you're in the megazord and you each control a limb, which is rad. That's awesome. Because like that's how it would work in theory. It's like if you're not red, then you're working a leg. When I was a kid, Power Rangers was like the most important thing to me in the world. And I thought it was going to be important to me forever. And I still like my memory of it, but I haven't checked in on it. Yeah. Well, it's still good IP.

It's great. Their masks are great. They have lips. That way they can kiss. So that's a good collab. That's super fun. Megazort's fun to play as Rita repulses in the game. And it's her voice. Yeah. She's like, she's also bribing everyone to attack the power rain. Like if the, when the megazort shows up, she'll be like, use my boons and I kill the megasor. And you're like, yeah! One of the great characters of all time. Yeah. Just an incredible, incredible character.

Really great character. So I've been playing Fortnite again, which is nice to be back on the horse. Sorry, listener, for such a lengthy break. I know you all love it when I talk about it every fucking week. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. The other game I've been playing is Persona 5. It is so good. Yeah.

It is so smooth. And I think I'd mentioned that I am not stressed this time because the thing about persona games that I've never been able to get on board is why have all of this choice anxiety in a fiction world when I already experience it in the regular world? Yes. I'm not playing it that way. Every time it says, take your time, come up in the corner, like the loading screen says take your time. I ingest that. I allow that. And I'm walking around and looking at all my options. and I make a decision not based on the stats that it will give me, but rather on my interest in doing it. And I am having such a peaceful playthrough as a result. Yeah. This might take me through the end of the year.

I don't know. Chances are I will get immediately addicted to Ghost of Yotoy and drop persona 5 again. I can't wait to play it. Me too. I'm so pumped. Me too. It looks so fucking awesome.

Yeah, it looks fucking great. And I just have been thinking recently about how much I loved the first one. I think it's going to scratch the itch that shadows didn't. Yeah, yeah. I think so. Yeah, I think so too. The gameplay is just a little bit better.

We all bounced off shadows. I wish I didn't because I did like it. But it was just like you get to that point where you're kind of not feeling like it's just not doing it for you anymore. Whereas like I didn't feel that for a second in Ghost of Tsushima. I was just like, this story is just like really propelling me forward

and compelling narrative. Yep. That one I was kind of... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, great. Another base? I got to do this. Yeah.

That's Assassin's Creed. Yeah. And here's the thing. And here's the thing. I know I'll try out another one. Yeah, of course. Of course. They're masterfully made.

And there are eras that I wish they would do because I would love to... Part of why I loved Valhalla so much was I got such a nice light education in some core concepts while also enjoying my favorite time in history. But there are other favorite times in history. Yeah, like the 90s.

Dude, can you imagine if it was Assassin's Creed 90s? It'd be so crazy. And it's like, it's all like, but it's presented the same way that they present the information in these old ones. So it would be like a guy coming up and being like, I don't know if you heard what Bill Clinton the president said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's a new job in Sarajevo.

Barbara Bush calling Bart Simpson like a rude little man. Yeah. Fuck. Okay, I'm sold. Let's do. Yeah, Assassin's Creed 90s is good. It's great. You have to assassinate an executive who's going to pass on the pilot of friends.

The guy's like, the guy's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm here. I can, I can kill Osama bin Laden. I can stop everything. No, no, no, no, no. This guy saying no to Joey. Yeah. How you doing? Snit.

Oh, man. But, yeah. So anyway, super enjoying these games. So happy to be back. online with a full-blown highest wired internet connection that the Los Angeles will allow in my neighborhood. And I'm having, I'm having a blast. I'm happy to hear it. It's, it's good times. But I guess we've got guests. We've got guests. And you know what? I think we should talk to them. Yeah, we should probably say hi to them. Hey, should we be a little professional? Let's be, let's be,

well, first of all, we've got to be on our best behavior. Yeah, let's be on our best behavior. to be our best behavior. We've got to do really, really good. And let's just, like, trick them both into thinking that we're like, both. Well, I'll speak for me. That I'm very smart. This is an absolutely true story. One time I was in Japan and I had my cell phone with me, but I was following somebody around in the city and having a good time. and then they locked me on a roof of a skyscraper because they were a crazy person. That's a true story.

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purchase or go to Saly.com slash get played. That's S-A-I-L-Y-com slash Get Played. I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose. All right, well, Heather, why don't we introduce our guests? Okay, Matt, let's do it. Okay, from the podcast, 99% Invisible and WBUR and their new series, Hidden Levels. Hidden Levels. What could that be about? Well, I'll tell you, it explores the impact of video games on modern culture.

It's Roman Mars and Ben Brock Johnson. What's up, guys? Hi, guys. Hey. Hey. Nice to see y'all. Welcome to the show. Welcome to Get Played the show.

This is like, we're actually doing the show in a very serious way now. We sound so professional. Yeah. And normally none of this tone is present. No, no. Everyone is like, this is false. Yeah. Yeah.

This is not true. This is not. There's an artifice here. Matt and Heather have been replaced with AI. Yeah. They've got like just avatars doing the show. I was just sitting with my fingers like laced. Yeah.

In the hand. A little gendo from Evangelian. Yeah, I was being Gendo from Evangelian. Get in the robot. Yeah. Roman, get in the robot. Thanks for being here, you guys. So you guys have a new podcast series that's coming out.

You said the street date was October 7th. Why don't you tell us a little bit about Hidden Levels? Go for it, Ben. All right. Well, Hidden Levels is something that I started talking to Roman and his team about about a year ago. Wow. And it came out of this thing that I,

was seeing, and look, this is going to be a statement of the obvious for you in your audience, right? Like, video games impact the world beyond video games. And I think it's one of those things that people who are in gaming and who play video games, they know. They see it all the time as they walk through the world. They see things that they recognize as coming from their culture and the world that they inhabit when they play games. But I think a lot of people who don't know video gaming as well or don't play games don't see that stuff and don't recognize it as easily. And, you know, I've always been a huge fan of Roman show. I make a show about the internet called Endless Thread for WBR, this public radio station in Boston, and always been

a huge fan of Roman's show. And Roman show, which Roman will introduce better than me, is all about the, you know, the architecture and design in the world that you don't see, but is hugely important and has an impact beyond its creators. So it just kind of felt like a match maiden in a video game Dungeon and we went from there. It's neat to hear you say that like video games have become sort of like ubiquitously infused into culture because there was a time in certainly our lifetimes when that wasn't the case. And now you will see video game language on like a billboard. You'll see things that say like level up your workout.

And leveling up was once a thing that was in an instruction booklet for Super Mario Brothers. Like you would have to be like, you'd have to learn the vocabulary and then understand it on your television and tell your friends at recess. And now these are just, they're sort of like permafrost on reality now. Yeah. I mean, they're really, they're almost mundane in every day as part of the thing. They're not like notable. And that's sort of what, that's sort of the bailiwick of 99% invisible. It's about, you know, the design that is part of the built world that becomes so.

ordinary doorknobs, sewer covers, you know, like, and all of a sudden, like, looking at them deeply and going, oh, there's a story in that. Like, somebody made that a decision there and they designed something and we're interacting with it every day. And video games are just ripe for this because the way that they've infiltrated, you know, real life and back and forth and they communicate. And it's just, it's huge and it's rich. And we had, you know, we have six stories in this series but there's like hundreds more like we could possibly do yeah i guess so there's it's a it's a six episode mini series right and so six different stories do they all sort of like follow like a similar trajectory do they intersect in any sort of way or like are all these things

kind of like on their own island as far as like impact i would say like it's a little bit of both you know they they i think we found in making the series that they they led into each other really well. You know, um, we have an episode, uh, about a very famous, uh, sports game that I think the sounds of which you will recognize. Um, and, and, you know, the way that story ends, um, with a boom shockalaka, shall we say, um, you know, had us, had us starting to talk about, um, interestingly enough, just joysticks and, and, um, the ways that we control these games. And that leads into a story, for instance, about, uh, about the hardware that we use to control these games and how, that hardware has itself influenced all these other parts of the world that are not specifically or exclusively about gaming.

Is that Roman, would you say that's fair? It's not serialized, but it's... You can listen to each episode on its own, but because the world is so connected, you know, like they kind of talk to each other. And it was becoming clear as we were putting them together, like, oh, this is the right order to speak, you know, to speak about the men. You know, just because it, you know, like it set up those connections kind of nicely. Right. Like, you're talking about controllers. Like, I think before video games, people used to have to fly planes by pulling these different ropes. Yeah.

And then they saw the joysticks. And they were like, you know, this could make flying a lot easier. It's interesting that you pick. Stay tuned. Episode two, you're going to have the full story. Because we trace, Emery, like, traces the whole, like, evolution of a joystick. Part of the plane is involved, you know. Oh, really? War games are involved. Well, I was going to say, it's interesting that airplanes was the thing that you pegged there

because I was just thinking based on using a video game controller and like playing games where you have to fly planes, like, you know, flight simulator or even like, you know, the Rogue Squadron, the Star Wars flying game. I kind of think I could fly a plane. I kind of think I could just do it having never tried it. Matt, have I ever told you the story of me flying a plane? I think you have, but you have to tell you. You have to say it now.

I was in Wisconsin and they have those like, you know, like roadside, like get in an airplane that a farmer owns and he'll take you on a quick I mean, I've never seen that myself but I understand. If you go deep enough into Wisconsin, there's like, you know, the guys who are crop dusters and they're

like, you know, 20 bucks for a ride. And so I got into one of these planes and was like flying around and the guy was like, do you want to you want to fly the plane? And I was like, Yes. And so he let me fly the plane.

And then he was like, hey, you're pretty good at this. Crazy thing to learn while letting somebody else fly a plane. And I was like, yeah, I've played a lot of Microsoft Flight Simulator. And he's like, yeah, it's kind of the same thing. I mean, those Microsoft Flight Simulator, like, folks are for real. Yeah. Yeah. Especially the guys with the full.

Oh, yeah, with like a full rig. Yeah. The full rig. I will say, as much as we like flying planes with sort of like game input, I've heard that game controllers are really bad at submarines. Yeah, I heard something about that too, actually. I can't remember what it was, but I sort of do remember some story, I think, if I'm remembering the details correctly, a submarine was involved.

I'm not sure it was the controller's fault in that situation. It certainly wasn't an airtight vessel with no escape. Yeah. Couldn't have been the reason. There might have been some other science there at all. Yeah. Yeah. But it is fascinating and I love the story that we do about controllers because, and there's a

couple of other stories that we have in the series that talk about this too. And I think Roman said this earlier. These things are talking to each other, right? Like you have this piece of hardware that's really created for an actual massive mechanical machine that people use to traverse the real world. and that inspires then a digital world and then again goes back and inspires the real world and I think that's the thing that's really fascinated us

when working on this series. That's really cool. Was there anything, I mean, I guess without spoiling any sort of particular story? No, I mean, just tell us the top five moments of your upcoming series. Just like, give us all. I mean, Heather, you sound like you already heard the second episode.

So, you know, I don't know. I think somebody leaked it. I don't know. I guess, yeah, was anything in particular, like, particularly revelatory to you? Like, upon learning something, you just, like, never would have you even considered, like, this, like, you know, like a video game being that impactful in the modern sort of world at all? Hmm. Wow. Okay.

Well, there's a lot for me. I mean, I thought that the, I mean, what I loved about the doistic one since we, since we're talking about it is, you know, I cover design a lot. And so I think about the principles of design. And there's a, there's this, there's this concept. of affordance, like what a device, you know, kind of telegraphs what you're supposed to do with it just by looking at it, essentially. And so a joystick has an extremely just grockable affordance. Like, you know that when you want to go up, you push up.

When you want to go down, you push down. And so there's that sort of thing. And then, you know, in the world of flat screen, touch screen games, you know, a flat screen has no affordance. Like, you can do anything with a screen. And it becomes like less fun to me, you know, like in many ways. And so there's things like that's like the principles of design that we were able to drill down on that even though I've done a show about design for 15 years. Like I've never really had a good example to describe that to an audience, you know. And so when we were talking about it in editing and it was being reported out by Amory, like, you know, like we were able to discuss this and, you know, bring.

So it's like it's just like what was fascinating to me was how fundamental both like, you know, story and thought and theory and design. all is part of all video games. And it should be obvious because, you know, video games, because, I mean, they are completely designed from the ground up. There's no part of it that you're like, there is the earth that I'm going to build on and therefore I have to deal with the earth. The earth is created by somebody's mind. The air is created by somebody's mind.

And so everything is thought of. And because of that, there's so many avenues to explore because everyone made a decision about every pixel inside of a video game. Yeah. And that is really, that was just like lit me up. in sort of every story in so many ways because it just is like there's like super smart people making decisions and thinking about things and you just and what's great about it in this sort of 99% invisible part of video games is you don't necessarily have to feel the author.

You just feel immersed and that means that they're doing a good job in a lot of ways. This is why I particularly enjoy animation over live action is because there's so few accidents in animation. Like so much of it is just curated choices of design and intent. And that's also a lot of video games. Although now there's a lot of emergent play that isn't particularly the designed purpose of the game. Right. And that sort of stuff will like float to the surface.

I had a side question, which is you talking about the looking at an object and knowing what its purpose is. And I think this is probably maybe something you've talked about on your podcast before. But if it isn't, I'm super curious. what is what do you think are like what is the most how do I put this what's an object that you think is very poorly not a touchscreen but that you look at it and you don't know what it's supposed to do and it's supposed to do one thing for example when I look at a carrot peeler I am absolutely not thinking that's so that I can scrape it on a carrot I was going say pickle picker-upper so like I feel like we're in the same headspace somehow you know those

things where you like you got to like it's a tongue yeah it's sort of like it looks like a syringe on the back end and on the front end it looks like one of those claws in the gaming in the actual you know what I actually didn't know that that was what that was today we learned I thought it was for like a turkey I've seen that in a kitchen and I didn't know I also say like scratching her back with it Picking my pickles. I also think, and this is not because our show is for and made by stupid people. Toilets are not, like they don't necessarily say what they are. You wouldn't necessarily know that you have to do that.

Right, because you wouldn't be like, oh, I should go over there and empty into the water. Like you would look at it and you would think, is this a kind of bathing apparatus? Do I put my foot in here to clean it? Or you see water and you would, if you had not, if you would just be, I'm going to drink this. Yeah. I mean, my cat thinks that. My cat thinks that.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, absolutely. Roman is there. And if the toilet has 40 buttons on it, then it gets really dangerous. And you know I'm going to push all of them so I can learn exactly what the buttons do and then and then. Just like the elevator. Yep.

I think the sort of plurality of smart devices have terrible affordance, and you don't know how to use them, and you have to read, you know, like instructions on how to get them. And one of the things that makes things, I mean, like, I would argue not to disagree greatly with the carrot peeler thing. If you had a carrot peeler, I think you'd quickly learn that it peeled, you know, like you would see it and go like, here's what I'm handy. One way or the other. One way or the other. But like I like to think about this is like, you know, you know, when you, you know, I think everyone's had this experience when you've lived in a house for maybe 20 years and you still don't know which knob goes to which burner on your stove. Yes. That's a type of weird, bad design that is like, it's like you shouldn't have to think about it.

Or like if you have a bank of light switches and you have some kind of mnemonic as to which socket it goes to. Like those represent, you know, design fails. And I think a lot of us take those things on. is like, I'm so dumb. I can't remember what light switch goes to which socket. But really, those are bad design decisions. And they don't represent, you know, they don't sort of like exhibit good design that would sort of like you would normally have to set that up. So you wouldn't get confused.

And that's the way to do that. So would you say that in terms of video game design and then real world design that your interests lie in more skeuomorphic design choices? Or are you, do you find that trying to translate like, looking at an icon for a tape recorder on a screen doesn't tell you the story that you are supposed to push that button in order to make the recording start because also you have dissociated so much from what a tape recorder is. Like what, how would you, do you have a way to make game design better? Yeah.

I honestly don't. But I mean, I can't tell you, like, you know, I think these sort of, you know, these these kind of things like skeuomorphisms that sort of lead people because they because you know the real world analog and therefore you know how to do them inside of a digital space you know they have their role especially during the transitional phase of of getting used to a digital space but I think at this point there is like there's no point in putting like an analog you know real to real in front of my kid on icon and and have them have that meek sense to them so like that I think that design language you know just evolve is and change over time, for sure. And maybe this is a different kind of thing when we're talking about design, but one thing that I'm amazed at, you know, I'm, I'm, uh, 45, right?

So like I, the first games that I played were arcade games and Nintendo games. And I remember games that were, they took forever in so long to figure out how to use, how to like move the player, how to move the sprite, whatever. And just like, um, you know, I think of a game like, well, this is a new example,

but like Cuphead, if you know, that game. And like that game, I don't think, I think I've still not made it past the first level of that game. Like, that's a hard, that's a hard game. Yeah. But it's sort of, I feel like it's calling back to some of those games where you, you just really, it didn't sort of push you forward.

The game didn't pull you forward in the way the games do now, where like, you're immediately immersed in the space that you're playing in. And you're just getting these directives one at a time, like, like, press X to pick up the gun. You know what I mean? Like, there's a, there's a, there's a, way in which the game is communicating with you as a player that is I feel much better now than it used to be where they used to be kind of like esoteric and hard to get into you in some ways and now it's

like it's kind of dummy proof some of the way that the games communicate with you as you like move into the environment if that makes sense you sorry I was going to say so much literacy for video games in general comes from your like predetermined knowledge of video you have to like I don't think somebody could pick up like the last of us two for example having never played a video game before and be like this is easy to me because there's so many things you sort of do have to know like that the left joystick moves your person and then the right joystick moves your field of vision and that's like you're sort of learning to sort of pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time kind of with some of these things totally yeah but like if you know how to play a video

game, chances are you're going to know how to play a different video game pretty easily. Yeah. Yeah. There's also a lot of vestigal stuff that has just become the vocabulary of games. Like, for example, there's ammo in barrels. Yeah. And it used to be. Yeah.

But I like, if you look at like that. Which is not real life, by the way. That's not how that works in real life. Well, well, well, there's on the barrels. But it comes from a time when you're playing these side-scrolling fighting games and there isn't a lot of information. on screen and perhaps you're walking through a city and there are trash cans rendered in pixels on the on the screen and so you know oh I can punch those trash cans and when you punch the trash cans sometimes you'll get a food item that will help your character get their life back and so you'll punch a trash can and a turkey will come out and you'll be like oh I can now I can get better yes but all of that legacy has then gone all the way to effectively last of us part two where you're like smashing shit in the environment to try and find ammunition for your

character in a way that you absolutely never would interact with reality. And all of that is sort of an assumed knowledge on part of the developers that is then you know, like you can't like people can watch any movie as their first movie, like generally. Yeah. Sure. Some that probably shouldn't be your first movie. Right. But you can you don't have to like there's not a ton like dogs watch movies now

There's all the TikToks of like people like dogs watching the Lion King and under and following it and I'm like how does it? Are they following it? Yeah, because they're like getting the they're getting Simba's arc. They are definitely getting Simba's art because when when who's like Scar Scar? Scar's on screen. They'll bark at Scar because he's hurt somebody earlier. So the dog is following it and I'm like how does the dog understand what an edit is? how is it like the lion is over there and then the lion's over anyway all this is a digression to say that nine out of ten dogs hate scar that is true that is absolutely true i got lost he scar a cat scar's a cat right yeah they all hate dogs don't like that they hate all the lions they hate him so we talked to i mean so let's let's get into like your just your histories with gaming in general we got a little bit uh of bends there but let's let's get into it just uh a little bit just uh little bit deeper. Where are you guys at with games like today, I guess, is a good jumping off

point. Yeah. What's your rank in Fortnite? Man, barely, barely survives five minutes. I mean, Fortnite, my experience in Fortnite, Fortnite's one of those games where I can, I think it's gotten better at matching, right? Like, I used it when I first started playing Fortnite, and maybe I've gotten better too, hopefully, but when I first started playing, it was like two minutes of me screaming and then starting over. Do you know what I mean? Like, I was just like running and hiding and then starting over. I will say that I put, you know, really my, my gaming is, is these days about connection. I really like talking to my good friends across the country who I, who I don't see anymore.

You know, they have their own lives. I have my own life. They, you know, their parents, I'm a parent. So one of the ways that I connect with them is we play games together and we learn the lore together. you know, we spend a couple hours every week doing that. And that's really wonderful. And and it's really, it's really less about the grind and more about talking to each other. And, you know, we've basically had group therapy sessions, you know, talking to each other as we've gone through life challenges. And, and a lot of what we do these days is a sort of second screen activity or you're doing a couple things at the same time. And, and I don't know if that's bad or good, but I just know that like my buddies and I, we talk every week. And that's, that's meaningful.

to me. And so I play Hell Diverers. I play. We just started playing Diablo 4. We played like every sniper elite because one of my buddies is just obsessed with sniping and that's what he loves to do. I played Generation Z. I liked that game a lot because of the crafting and just like moving through that sort of post-apocalyptic fighting robots world, which is, you know, that's a classic trope and it works but mostly I just do it for fun I mean we've tried to play weirder odder games but

we have a kind of split half of the group is like I just want to shoot guns and half of the group is like no let's do something weird and interesting with games and so sometimes we fight about that but generally it's for me it's just a place to connect and a way to connect and blow off steam yeah and Roman in my correct you're

you're bit of a lapsed gamer would you say yeah I don't know if I was ever really a gamer as such. I mean, I, I kind of, I don't do much gaming today. I kind of do passive, like, tower defense type games when I'm listed. I have to listen to a lot of, of, of audio for my job. Yeah. And so I need something that doesn't really require good timing, you know, that is something I can do while I'm doing something else. And so I love tower defense games. And I play some fitness games, like on an Oculus, because I like to box and stuff like this. And I, I injured my back

boxing for real when I punch stuff like solid things and so trash can were you trying to find a turkey in a trash can or you know I wish

but there are no turkeys anywhere I've tried just wait a couple months there's going to be turkeys everywhere that's true that's true so I love like supernatural

I love like doing stuff like that it's pretty fun for me but my history is strange I was involved in the development of some of the first voice chat in gaming in the 90s. Wow. And so I had a friend who I went to college with, and he developed this app called

Roger Wilco. It was a standalone application that was behind your Baldur's Gate or your doom or your tribes. And it ran on a 28-8 modem. It was super clean and beautifully done. And I was the first QA tester for the company. And so I played a lot of early multiplayer games like that. And in fact, selling that, it was funny, it was like selling that company is what paid for my three-year internship in public radio that led me into being a podcast. Wow. Wow. Talk about learning the lore.

Cool. So, yeah. So early, so I used to test games. So I played games like hours and hours with Roger Wilco running underneath it just to see if it works and if, you know, all the tech. analogy works and that's so that's what I did for you know like mid late 90s yeah do you from that time do you remember a game that you were like this I like it didn't feel like work kind of that you're like I'm actually enjoying this one yeah it's tribes I was I was a sniper in the renegade mod of tribes and I could come on to a server and I could clear it because I just killed I just I would just annihilate and people would just leave as soon as they saw my name show up and I began to have to like come in with different names so that they would play longer. But yeah, if anyone knows tribes, that was like, that was, that was totally my game. I would get into that one beyond.

I love your handle. Mendel, I was a genetics PhD student, so I went by Mendel. If you're, if you're this good at sniping and you don't come on as Mendel, I love the moment on a server when people are like, oh shit, Raspberry Ghost is Mendel. Press Recocious Mendel! Yeah, totally. I used to frustrate a lot. Everyone, excuse me, of cheating and stuff like this, it was really like...

I'm just good. I'm just afraid at this, guys. You could be Mendel. I want to, because I also, I love to box. I'm also a boxer. What is your VR boxing app of choice? I do Supernatural. I like that one because I like the,

I like the music. It's basically, it's not, and I've done, what is the fight for, I don't know. There's another one that's actually a video game game, like that when you have an opponent. I've played that one too, and it wears me out. That's great. And they're mainly like fitness games. They're not so much like, or fitness apps. They're not so much just like a boxing game so much.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. But they're probably gamified, right? Which is another example of how the world changes or the video game world changes the other, the rest of the world. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, no, it really helps.

It really is motivating for sure and, you know, teaches you know, patterns and stuff like that. And it's good. It mainly just sort of gets me moving. I don't quite have the constitution to sit and play a game anymore. I kind of, I just like, that's just not how I'm wired anymore. Yeah. When I watch TV, I walk on a treadmill most of the time. And so fitness gaming is sort of my version of just, like, moving and playing games at the same time.

To the tower defense aspect of your gaming, though, I don't play a lot of those games, though, But, like, I could see, like, a game like that being a good second thing you're doing while, like, you know, listening to, you know, I have edited my own voice for a long time, too. So, like, to whatever is getting me focused on not hearing my own voice and, you know, how horrible I sound when I speak, I'll enjoy another activity as well. But I get distracted because the games that I pick are going to be like like Hollow Knight's Silk Song or like Eldon Ring or something where I have to be so focused on the actions of what's going on. But like a tower defense thing, it's like a set it and forget it type of thing. What's the appeal for you there? Yeah. I mean, it's basically that.

It's like you can, there's a little bit of timing involved usually as it gets to the upper levels or whatever. But like your precise sort of, you know, Metroid style timing. is not required, you know? And so it's just sort of like you have to kind of be a present. And I just find that it actually kind of helps me focus because I can drift listening. I have to listen to hours and hours of people talking, like in terms of like raw tape of people talking. I listen to a ton of podcasts and I listen to a lot of books on tape, in quotes, for my job to prepare for interviews. And I used to do this when I worked at WBUR. I worked at WBUR. I worked at WBZ in Chicago. and I used to sit at my desk and one of my jobs was listening to audio documentaries all day long

and I sit at my desk play Solitaire and people would walk by and like I actually had like a manager sort of make fun of me like complain that I was playing a game all day instead of doing my job and it was like I need this to do my job like I am listening to this stuff and if I was just listening I would doze off I would not I would lose focus and I so I started using games then to sort of like to to keep my ears open, actually. I've only ever been able to play video games at one job. I guess if you don't count this one, but we don't play video games when we're

doing this. We could. We should. It'd be more interesting for us, probably. People are constantly asking us to do the thing that you're saying right now, which is why don't you guys live stream your games? And it's, for me, it's that speaking while gaming is almost impossible.

Like, I can't play a guitar and talk. And just another avenue of perception too, I just don't need it. Terrible. But I worked at a restaurant in their office, taking reservations. And so it was a nice Michelin Star restaurant in town.

I'll say it where it was afterward. And I was at Burger King. It was at Burger King. And I had just, yeah, it was at, yeah, I was with, the chef's name, I think, is Peter Pickle or something. but I would bring my switch to work and like I was like I'm really testing the limits of what I'm allowed to do here I think because this I'm very obviously playing a video game but my job is to answer the phone and put in a reservation on a computer if somebody calls to make the reservation right and then I'm calling people confirming reservations but apart from that I'm sitting at a desk for hours, there's not another facet to that job. So I was like, I have

to do something, or I'm just never going to come back here. It's just, then you're just trapped, not doing anything. And so I started to bring my switch to work. And also, I'm working at night, right? The restaurant closes at 11. So from like 9 to like 11 o'clock, nobody's

calling to make a dinner reservation, I'm just chilling and getting paid and playing breath of the wild. It was like, actually, I think about that time a lot. and how I had less going for me. You had it good. But that was good. That was really,

really nice. Isn't it funny how memories like that can just, of playing games can just be so powerful and, and sort of like remind you of a time in your life? I feel like that's, I don't know. I just, like,

when you were describing that, I know exactly what you mean, where you were like, maybe it wasn't the best job or the best situation, but like 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., man, you were free to, you know, do your thing. I was just hanging out, but I couldn't leave in case somebody called, right? They couldn't call me off because what if somebody does call?

Did want to call or something. They couldn't, they can't have somebody else doing that. Yeah, because that's your job. They're doing something more important. If you were VR boxing, maybe that would not fly, but I feel like switch. Switch should. Yeah. Yeah, if I had brought my dance, dance revolution rig to the office, probably not.

Probably not a good idea. Are you familiar with the VR game Super Hot? Yeah, yeah. It's a game where you're like John Wick basically like dodging, like, or, you know, I guess Neo more like in that. You're like Keanu Reeves type character in this game and you're like dodging bullets and like throwing knives and stuff. That would not be great for space.

That's a very fun game. I played that one for sure. It rules. It is so, so fun. Ben, we do have to talk about this. your name on the on the chat right now is battle toads band battle hoods band and we did talk about this a little bit I did ask you who your favorite battle toad is

and you did say Zit and that's the only correct answer I think Wart's tough what's the other one I don't remember what I remember Wart Hempel right what's that isn't Wart rash rash Rash I was about to say one of them was Piss and it's not Piss If it was Piss you'd buy it

You'd sort of like I guess one of them is Piss You would not buy it because you were the child. They're all skin conditions. And your parents definitely wouldn't buy you a game where it's like Zit and rash and Piss. Yeah, Battletoads much more. Yeah. This is a free idea to anybody making a video game then. As soon as you name your character Piss, I'm buying the game.

It doesn't matter what kind of game it is. I'm there. But I was so excited when I was, you know, I've recently discovered the show and have become a listener. so I love what you all do and the joy with which you do it but you have like a deep you got a deep catalog and I discovered that you have a Battletoads episode

I think or the show has a Battletoads episode Yeah I'll send it to you I think it's behind the paywall But I'll get that over to you Oh my God I would love to listen to it Because that was one of those games That again like there was a period of and I should say I tell a lot of people

I've told a lot of people I think I've said this to Roman, when I was growing up, my parents wouldn't let me have a Nintendo. They wouldn't let me play video games until I was, you know, maybe 12, 14 years old. So I was always, I was the kid who would come over to your house and you'd be like, hey, let's play outside. And I'd be like, hey, man, take me to the basement. Show me the Nintendo. And like, if you have snacks, that's cool. And if you want to leave me there, that's also cool.

I just need, please, I got to have it. Your hands gripping tighter and tighter around his neck. show me where it is man please um but like but battle toads was one of those early games that i played and and i recently i i guess i was like poking around about this and realized it's it's also like connected to double dragon right like there was a combo version of the game i think there was battletodes versus double dragon where they all teamed up or battletodes x double dragon yes you're you're not incorrect this is a game fair and and and and and and And so, like, but what I remember of Battletoads was it was a super hard game.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I was, you know, I was maybe nine. But, like, it was such a hard game. And it was, again, one of those games where you, you, I never progressed past, there was like a, there's a level where you're, you're like on a surfboard or maybe it's more like, it's like you're, you're, you're jumping over the, the, the walls. And the walls flash for like a half second before they arrive on screen. Yes. And I just, that's one of those games that has like a sense memory for me where I just, I can, I can, I can remember the, you know, the Doritos dust on my fingertips and the sweat of like trying to get past that level. And I don't know if I ever did, but I loved that game.

That was a great game. It's, it's funny that talking about your parents not letting you play video games reminds me of a very sort of semi-famous in games. gaming circles far side comic from the 90s or like maybe it was late 80s where it's a kid playing video games and the parents are daydreaming of a career in video games and the joke is that'll never happen because like that's what the far side is saying is oh that'll never happen these guys are all idiots and now you can make so much money yeah playing video games that the comic doesn't make sense yeah you can like it doesn't the joke doesn't work. You can make a lot of money. You can

affect politics in a very particular way. Yeah. Yeah. It's all very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes too interesting. Yeah, it's a little too interesting. Like actually, everybody calmed down. Stop, actually. Yeah. Well, guys, before we get you out of here, I guess I don't know if this is necessarily spoiling or could spoil, but I have, I guess, another question, just about video games and their impact on society at large. Yeah.

Good or bad? One word answer, bye, just going on. No, I think like I, well, what I would say is,

so I have twins who are eight years old. My son is eight years old. He is, he's, he loves Minecraft. Yeah. He loves,

um, he, loves the Harry Potter game. I have mixed feelings about, I don't know, I have a mixed, mixed feelings about the creator of Harry Potter, but my son loves that game. I think that games like Dungeons and Dragons, for instance, which, you know, inspired a lot of video games, they do teach you to, number one, solve problems, and number two, like have a safe space to try to solve problems and fail and try again. And I think that they can lead you, especially

in the case of things like Minecraft, they can lead you to be really creative, right? I also think that they are, you know, I mean, this is going to maybe sound ridiculous to some of your listeners because, you know, whoever bought the latest, you know, PS5 Pro or whatever. But like, they are also like relatively cheap. Like you can, you can access games relatively cheaply and, um, and, and, And I think having an interactive form of entertainment that you can, that is, you know, relatively democratized, both in terms of playing, but also in terms of building now, like the fact that you can build games more easily, that's, that's a good thing. I think where it gets problematic is when we, you know, I think when we allow any sort of tech

company to to not have any kind of consequences for, you know, whatever, like fomenting hate or, you know, and I think, you know, game companies have gotten better at policing this stuff, I guess. And, you know, maybe I shouldn't even use the word policing. I think it's complicated. No, for sure. Yeah. But I think, like, you know, it's, it can be addicting to you. And, like, that's a dangerous zone. And so, you know, limiting your, limiting your time, I think is, for me, that's an important thing. But ultimately, it's like so much of the technology we use. It can be a positive thing. It can be a negative thing. It's just a tool and it's a technology. And we just have to be intentional and careful and thoughtful and caring in the way that we use it.

And in the way that we use it together. Wow. That is the most thoughtful thing ever said on this show. Yeah, truly. Public radio. What are you going to do? I don't know. I didn't think one of the frogs was called Piss, really. Yeah, exactly. And my favorite battle to the Zit.

Thank you. Same show where we're like, toilets look like you should drink them. But I'm curious, like, Roman, what do you think? I feel like, oh, I think good. I don't know. I don't really have. I feel exactly the same as you, but I think the dial is more towards good.

also just think that you can't sort of argue that the world be a better or worse place without video games. You just could argue it's just good. It would be a completely different world without. Yeah. And that's really the sort of the end of it, you know, like it's just like they're a huge part. And I think that in addition to, you know, you mentioning like there actually are, you know, careers in video games as evidenced by like us being on a podcast now is like it kind of trains you to think in ways that, you know, are perfect for the modern world in terms of problems. solving in terms of, you know, just like quick thinking and dexterity and the sort of idea of if then, you know, decisions and complex decisions.

And, you know, I think they're great. I don't know. I have a hard time thinking. I do think that the social aspect of them that can sort of cause issues is the same social aspect that makes social media a problem that makes, you know, tabloids a problem, like everything. It's when you get a bunch of people together, they can get together for nefarious ends as well as, you know, great ends. And so that's just part of it all.

Well, guys, that was, I really enjoyed talking to you guys. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Why don't you guys plug the show again real quick and then we'll get you out of here. Sure. The six-part series is called Hidden Levels. It's about how video games affect the world. And it's a co-production of 99% Invisible, which is my podcast and Endless Thread, which is Ben Brock Johnson's podcast.

And it's going to come out wide on October 7th. Yeah, we hope you'll listen. Let us know how much we got wrong. Just kidding. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. And guys, thanks so much. Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks, y'all. It was great to be with you. I liked talking about guys. I liked it, a lot. I was super, like, genuinely feel like that was a good thing that happened. That was great. It was great to just actually legitimately. hear good insight

like smart people just like going off the dome and I'm like very very interested in checking out their show hidden levels I can't wait to hear that yeah two great guys two fun guests to chat with

wonderful time wonderful time we should do it more often I like the only yeah the only reason we got away with it is because you know Nick wasn't here he he threatens the guests he takes him into the hallway

and like does like a shoulder check I think you're better than me? It's tough. Let me tell you something, buddy. I gave Burger King five forks, all right? We've had guests walk. Yeah. Right before, because Nick comes up and shoulder checks him.

Yeah. And he's like, he'll just whisper in the ear, Chick-fil-A. And they're like, what the fuck was that? Earthworm Jim was going to be here one time. Yeah, Earthworm Jim. And he saw Nick in the hallway. And he goes, oh, hey, how's it going? and he pulled his worm head out of his body

and just exposed his worm body. Yeah. His naked worm body. Leaving behind his sort of humanoid buff suit. And he put him outside in the sun and he got all dried up. Yeah. Yeah. And all he said to him was sweet green.

Yeah. He said sweet green. I kind of didn't get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. Uh, look, we do have time for a segment real quick. Should we do one? Let's do it.

And you know what? I think it's time we go back to the well with Segment. Oh, no. And I think we, let's just cast a banger real quick. Oh, no. I don't know people, man. I think we got this. This, because there's, I think we got this.

Okay, okay. We're going to cast the film adaptation, the fictional film adaptation, though I wish there was a real film of Final Fantasy 7. Shocked that there hasn't been a real film announced. Yeah. Not like the one that we got. Advent Children. Advent Children. Well, no, I mean, like, I'm surprised either a CG or live action, Final Fantasy

7 film has not been. Like, there's been no whispering of it. We're getting a fucking Zelda movie. Yes. I thought Zelda would be so far behind Cloudstripe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. It would make sense.

It would make a great, you know what? It'd make a great limited series. It would. It would. But maybe we have some say on who gets to be in it. Maybe it's because these people are so beautiful. They're like, well, we can never have actual humans in this fucking shit. Nothing could ever measure the actual beauty.

Why don't we start? Okay. Let's just start with Ayrith. Ayrth. Eris, depending on the localization. Ereth. Ayrth. Who would play Ereth in a movie?

I don't know any human actors. I don't know anybody who's famous. I don't remember faces. So who's your thoughts on this immediately? Like who would you think? Well, let's think about the character of Ereth for a second, right? She's sort of, she's like a healer, a magic user. Hunter Schaefer?

Hunter Schaefer, sure. Honestly, yeah. Hunter Schaefer is beautiful, right? Absolutely. Like that, I mean, right? Oh, yeah. No, 100%. If you pull up Hunter Schaefer's Wikipedia,

she's kind of got like a she's got she's got like the look kind of I guess she's a she's a little bit more at least in this photo a little bit more sinister looking let's see if uh she honestly might make a great sephara off no because that's like an eryth face yeah no yeah totally yeah she could that's eryth yeah I could see it yeah with some some brown hair why not okay so there's one there's you got Schaefer as as erath who else who else uh well I mean that's we got that that's good oh that's done i mean well because i'm trying to think of like who else who else could do it right like because like erith is sort of like she's like the bubbly one in in the crew right so like you maybe want somebody who's like i could see it being gosh well

i could see this actor for a different character i have margaret quali stuck in my head but i think i think margaret quali might be a fun tifa okay how about this how about this I know right now she's playing an aggressive character. Uh-huh. But Caitlin Dever as Ayrth. Caitlin Dever as Ayrth could be good. Currently playing Abby, but... Yes.

Look at that. Yeah, playing against type. Yeah. Look at that picture there. Yeah. Yeah. I can see it. That's Ayrth, right?

I could see it. Look at this. That's Ayrth adjacent. Caitlin Dever. Let's put it on. Let's get it on the board. Why not? Yeah.

Um... I mean, that could be, that could be Ereth. Yeah. I think it's got, whatever it is, they just have to have the ability to, like, get stabbed. To get to, oh, God, to convey that they could heal somebody. I think, I think these are some good options so far. Why don't we move on to Tifa? Okay.

Tifa. Now, this is where I think we could get somebody like a Margaret Qualley in here. Yep. Yep. I think that's a great, a great fucking call. Yeah. Margaret, Margaret Quali for Tifa is. is kind of an unbeatable choice.

I don't know anybody who would be better than her for Tifa. Gosh, there's got to be somebody. I mean, because she's great. I think I could just see her getting a little buff, you know. And obviously, this is the American film. It's not like the proper, you know, these actresses aren't Japanese and should be. But we're playing the Hollywood game here. We're not playing the actual game.

I have a pitch here. And I think I had to go back to Tifa or to Ereth for a second. Specifically because of her performance in White Lotus season three, I think we got to put Lisa on the board. I think she's a real cutie. Okay. I think we got something here. Okay.

And also now our movie's going to make a billion dollars because she's the most famous person on Earth. We got it. it okay okay cooking with gas here this is good stuff market quality for for tifa i'm trying to think of who else could be a good comp for tifa uh i'm realizing now that yeah they're just like i'm thinking of the same four actresses that are in everything okay and it's just like it's not that's like one of my some fucking suit some fucking stuff shirt no right maybe we'll come up with somebody bit later. Let's move on to

Barrett. I think I have one here. Okay. You got to hear me out on this one. It's going to seem crazy because we know him. I think we've got to get my boy Iffy in here. Iffy Wadiwai as Barrett. He's the buffest man I know. Yeah, no, I have no

I have no And you're not going to tell me he wouldn't crush it. He's a dad. He knows he has the pathos to do it. Yeah, I don't, I can't think of why if he would be bad at this role at all, and he definitely has the physical structure to be Barrett. So I would, yeah, I mean, like, that's a great, that's a great call.

It's got to just be my boy Ify. But you also know that they're going to, that it's Hollywood, right? Yes, they're going to cast a, a major celebrity. They're going to want the Rock. They're going to want the Rock is Barrett. They're going to want, you know, I don't know who. The Rock's kind of, here's a thing. thing, he could do it.

Yeah, he could do it. I just like, they got to, they have to at least, if I'm making the movie, they got to see my friend if he's tape. Well, no, I think if he is the right guy for it. Yeah. Because he's going to bring a little humor to it too. But we're playing, we're doing the thing they do in the studio where they just like put the names up on the thing and then they say a bunch of celebrities and then they think they've

done their job. Yeah. Yeah. Like, for example, I know who Red 13 should be. Who should be Red 13? Let's move on. It should be Benedict Cumberbatch because... Oh, 100% correct. Because that's who they're going to put as Red 13.

Yeah. Okay, if Benedict Cumberbatch is Red 13, I have the, the casting. The casting for Kate Sith. And I think it's the most exciting casting of the whole movie. Okay, okay. Who's Kate Siff? Matt Berry. Is Matt Berry.

And there's no... There's nobody else that can do it. He's going to fucking crush it. It's going to be so great. Or you know what? David Tenet would also be a good Kate Sith, wouldn't he? But I could see, I could hear Matt Berry's voice coming out of it. And I think that's a lot of fun.

Okay. I think it's great. He's just got such a wonderful voice and I want to hear it no matter what he's, no matter who he is. You know who else could be Red 13 would be Gary Oldman? Gary Oldman would be great And, you know, because of the character design He kind of looks like Scar from the Lion King I am thinking of

What's his name? Jeremy Irons I think would also bring a certain But he also, we have to remember that Red 13 is also Canonically a teenager Yeah And he changes his voice differently

So the teenage voice The Well, one of the Sprouse twins or something something? I don't know. It's Cumberbatch. It's Cumberbatch doing both. Yeah.

They just pitch him down. Yeah. That is a handsome picture of Jeremy Iron. Yeah, it definitely is. Looking at a picture of Jeremy Irons and he looks like he is made of irons. Yeah. He looks like a fucking movie star of this guy. The next character on your list is impossible to cast.

It's impossible to cast. I had the Hollywood answer and it's not great, but it's close. The Hollywood answer is Austin. Butler. You get him in a sort of You mean Masters of the Sky? Yeah. Fade Ratha from Dune. Wait. Elvis. Yeah. Masters of the

Sky. Yeah. Yeah. Because he sort of has I guess if I'm putting it poetically, a beauty like no other. He is a beautiful boy. He's definitely a beautiful boy. But what about what about actual Dune? Timothy.

What about Timothy? Timothy he's just a little bit more beautiful too isn't he he's just a little bit more angelic like and you have to have somebody that looks uh I mean I yeah he looks a little too much like a haunted doll in these pictures unfortunately I don't know if it's it yeah oh you I think no I don't think he works I don't think he's not he we ranch has done a very important Google search which is Timothy shallame blonde and it is unfortunately not doing it for yeah it's It's not, it's not Butler. No, it's not Butler. Butler is, uh... Imagine Butler with the hair. Yeah, could be. It could be.

It could be, uh, it could be Butler. You kind of want, like, you wish, this is the conversation they're having in the studio. Yeah. They want, they wish Colin Farrell was 30 years younger. Yeah. Somebody with a sort of angular face who's just like gorgeous. Colin Farrell, 30 years younger. Yeah.

And they, and they got, they got cloud. Yeah. They've got him. But who do we got? I mean, who's like the... It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. It's Austin Butler, who's a little bit, he's a little bit too square. Yeah, yeah.

He looks a little bit like Polygon Cloud, but he definitely gives, he gives sorrow while also giving beauty. Who are those boys from that? Ranch, you watch that, the summer I turn pretty? Oh, none of those guys. None of those boys, they don't got it? I don't know who. I don't know. I know nothing about the show.

I just have heard about it. It's like people like to talk about it. It's about people, it's about these people fucking and stuff. And everyone's being, yeah, no, they don't got it. No, no, no, no. They're a little too, Amber Cromby. I think, I think, I think, Austin Butler is, he's the best we got right now. Is the best we got right now.

Out of curiosity, because I can't really recall his face, what about the guy who plays Lestat in interview with the vampire, the TV show? Oh. Because he's a pretty boy. How pretty is he? Is he pretty enough? I think he's pretty enough to be our next. character oh yeah you're right i think he's got a little too much going on yeah he's got he's a little

too mean looking he's a little too mean i think you put a little uh silver wig on this guy and he's him i think he's sephirot oh okay and what is this what is this gentleman's name i know sam reed hmm i wish he had a more interesting name well i mean he but look at him yeah no that's he there i mean when he's playing with that should he do a lumps and do Cloud and Sephiroth? No. No, he's more, he's more Sephirothy than he is cloud. Yeah.

He looks too, he looks to, there's something wrong with him. Yeah, yeah. Well, who else could be, could be Sephiroth, though? I have a take. I don't have an actor. Jack Black. I don't have an actor in mind, but I just, I have a vibe, a particular vibe I'm going for. It either has to be.

You know what? Actually, no, I do. It's Tilda Swinton. Tilda Swinton It has to be either a beautiful man Or a beautiful like angular Like Yeah

Hold on Hold on I think we got something Wait up though Because you say Tilda And then I thought Cape Blanchette Oh Lydia Tar

What if it's Cape Blanchette As Sephora Cape Lanchette as Sephora Kepinette As Sephora I'd be fucking scared Yeah no That's good

But, hey, sorry, Sam, Marie, we just learned about you. No, it's, it doesn't work at all. It's really funny, but it doesn't work. I think she's got it, though. Like, she could get there. I think it's like, it's not maybe the quite right look, but there's something about how beautiful Sephiroth is that I think it's a beauty that could only be portrayed by either,

be portrayed by the most beautiful man or a woman. Yeah, because it's the Peter Pan rule. Yeah, it's like you have to have somebody who is so, who is so beyond. Who is the most beautiful person alive? That should be Sephiroth. I got another pitch for Tifa. Okay.

Allison Williams. Okay. I don't know who that is, but go for it. I'm just thinking about her and Megan, too. She did punching and stuff. I think she could do it. Great. She's Tifa.

Great. Tifa. That works. Allison Williams? It could work. Oh, you know, I'm also going to say just to say it because it's a horrible thing, but it's true. But Tifa is extremely well endowed. so what about that i gotta pull up a whole different list now no what about that girl that is like

everybody hates right now because of the jeans ad sydney sweeney that girl is she what does she it's the choice they would make i don't know what she looks like yeah i mean it's it doesn't really quite work yeah no she looks too she's getting buff for a she's buffed for a movie where she plays like a wrestler right now but she looks too mean like she's got mean girl eyebrows yeah She can't be Tifa. Yeah, no, she's not Tifa. Oh, man. Sorry.

And it's all because of your jeans, your stupid gene commercial. Nice try. Who is the most beautiful human being alive because that's who plays Safferoth? Who is it? Oh, my God. It's Jillian Anderson? Jillian Anderson. From X-Files?

Yeah. That was your answer to who the most beautiful person alive is? I think I'm right. Look, here's the thing, Matt. I love you and I love the show and I love Jillian Anderson. I don't think she's Sephiroth. I say, I got to see you're in the silver wig. I got to see what she's.

I think Seferoth is, I think Seferoth is like a K-pop star who, you know, who is like, who is already, because he also carries himself like he's the, like he is the greatest gift to man. Yeah, yeah. So you need somebody with so much presence and attitude and beauty that I feel like it's got to be like whoever the K-pop dude is who inspired the K-pop dude from K-pop Demon Hunters. This is a guy. It could be V from BTS, which ranch just pulled up. I mean, yeah, that looks, that guy looks like him. Hell, this guy could be cloud. That guy could be cloud.

Oh, my God. He's beautiful. How is this the first time I've seen this guy? Oh my God, he's cloud. Okay, so that's cloud. So I just Google them with the blonde hair. Okay. He's cloud.

Great. Okay, so that's cloud. And then look, maybe this Sam Reed guy's Sephora. I mean, in that picture of Sam Reed as a stat, he does have all of the Sephiroth energy. Yeah. Now, imagine him with a really long, pointy, sword.

All right, I guess that's our cast. I guess that's the cast. And that's this week's Get Played. Our show is produced and engineered by Rochelle Chen Ranch, Yard underscore underscore Sard on social media and Twitch. Our show's music is by Ben Pronti,

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We really got played. You know what? Something to think about going forward. Let's conduct this show with a little decorum from now on, a little respect for ourselves. What do you say? I wish I hadn't been naked covered in spaghetti sauce for all that. That was a head gum podcast.

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