Get Played - GPR: World Warrior with Dr. Joost Vervoort

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Heather, Nick and Matt talk about the potential SAG-AFTRA video game actor strike and what they are playing lately, Heather interviews video game developer and climate activist Dr. Joost Vervoort about the game he's developing called "All Rise", and we listen to some voicemails from the listeners! This month's We Play, You Play: Shadow of the Colossus! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Check out our premium series Get Anime'd on 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] Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored by Blue Chew. Let's talk about sex. Guys, remember the days when you were always ready to go? Now you can increase your performance and get that extra confidence in bed. Listen up. BlueChew.com. Blue Chew is a unique online service that delivers the same active ingredients as Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra, but in chewable tablets and at a fraction of the cost. You can take them anytime, day or night,

so you can plan ahead or be ready whenever an opportunity arises. The process is simple. Sign up at BlueChew.com, consult with one of their licensed medical providers, and once you're approved, you'll receive your prescription within days. The best part? It's all done online. So no visits to the doctor's office, no awkward conversations, and no waiting in line at the pharmacy. BlueChew's tablets are made in the USA and prepared and shipped direct to your door in a discreet package. Does it work? Don't think you need it? Try it free for a month and see. You could be missing out on the best sex of your life,

and they say there's nothing sexier than confidence, and Blue Chew can help give you confidence where it counts. Blue Chew wants to help you have better sex. Discover your options at bluechew.com. Chew it and do it. And we've got a special deal for our listeners. Try Blue Chew free when you use our promo code GETPLAY to check out. Just pay $5 shipping. That's bluechew.com, promo code GETPLAY to receive your first month free. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring the podcast. Hey, guys, we've got kind of this like NPR style segment today that I that I sort of made up. And I'm wondering if maybe we could do that as sort of the intro, like some kind of NPR, National Public Radio, BBC radio style intro, like something a little bit more.

Oh, right. Yeah. yeah yeah i listen to that stuff all the time i know exactly what you mean awesome matt you got a good zone for us for sure let's let's do that okay cool all right all right great show it you want me to start us off let's do it hey you pieces of shit you're on with get played get played uh did i get played? You sure did. With the Wags, Nick Weiger. Wait. Here with Matt Apodaca. Wait. Okay, hold on a second. I shall call him Mini-Me.

What the fuck is this? What is happening? Guys. I was... What? We're doing NPR. No. What we're doing now is basic NPR soundbite.

None of what you just did, none of what you just did, none of what you just did is anything like National Public Radio or BBC or any of these like, you're like doing Morning Zoo here. These are more like hushed tones and quiet conversation with an interesting guest. Like that kind of thing.

No, I know what you mean. It's like where you're trying to like, hey, I'm going to try to read, you know, Abe Lincoln's four score and seven years ago. I'm trying to read the Gettysburg Address while I'm writing a gas powered Sibian. Wait, what? No.

No. Wait, no, no, guys, guys, again. Get played. You're doing radio. I understand that you're close. You're really close. And I'm not going to let myself get frustrated until I can convey, I can make sure. Matt, this is just one note. Can we have more of these?

I think it's good. I just feel like we need like, I don't want any of this. 500%. have more of these yes i think it's good but i just feel like you need like i don't want any of this 500 okay imagine that you were interviewing like an author got it and it's like and then he farts i can't believe that in perpetuity this is the intro to this episode where i tried i'm donald trump and i approve this message no i don't want any of this i don't want any of this. We talk in hushed tones and fret about the future as Heather interviews climate activist and game developer Dr. Joost Verfort this week on Get Played.

Get Played. Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. Get laid Get laid Get laid 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, Nick Weiger. That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Abadaka. Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premiere Video Game Podcast, where this week I tried to do something different. It's cool what you did. I endorse it. I think it's nice when we mix it up a little bit. Yeah, I'm also a fan of what has happened. Great. It's good. It's very good.

Okay. It sounds like we're defending Heather from allegations. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Everything she did was fine. I approve of it. They did everything right, and I did everything right, and they indicted me. My only advice is never surrender that's it stand down and stand by jesus

uh hey i have something i have something i do want to talk about up top oh okay wait right away oh well i don't know we could fuck around a little bit i just like if we're in the fuck around period we can go through the fuck around period and then get to it. I'm feeling loose, dog. All right, let's keep it loose. Now I got to know what Nick wanted to talk about. Well, I think it's probably something that's on all of our, at the top of all of our minds right now,

which is that as of this recording, SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, which is already on strike against the AMPTP, heading towards the 60-day mark, if they haven't already passed that at this point, and the WGA, I mean, Heather's Union, it continues on, you know, like day 130 or whatever. I'm also in SAG-AFTRA. You're also in SAG-AFTRA. So the, so anyway, SAG-AFTRA has authorized, or I'm sorry, is taking a strike authorization vote.

I want to get the language correct. The, the, the leadership has called for a strike authorization vote against the major video game studios, including Activision, uh, Disney, EA, Epic, uh, Take-Two, and what have you. And just to, to read through, you know, again, if you know again if you're if you're following gaming news at all you've probably heard about some of this uh but the reason they are calling for a yes vote on a strike authorization uh is to give themselves you know more leverage and possibly you know have the possibility possibly have the option to go on strike if the media companies or

i'm sorry if the video game companies are as intransigent as the uh big hollywood studios have been but it's interesting because there's some overlap in the issues but it's not one-to-one but ai obviously a big one we've already seen this in game development we've already seen like you know especially in the mod community people using ai generated voices uh to you know create additional dialogue for real human actors. And it's one thing if a modder does that is like a hobbyist. Modder, do people say modder? Am I a modder?

No, it's mother. Right. Yeah, you're thinking of the German pronunciation, actually. That's what I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of the German pronunciation of mother. And then so that but that's but that's one thing. If like if someone who makes a mod does it as a hobby and distributes it freely and, you know, whatever, people have have their own rights to their likenesses and voices. So I don't want to dismiss that out of hand. But it is on a different level versus, you know, take to saying we're going to take your voice and then make a an AI simulacrum of it and use it indefinitely uh for a one-time fee uh that's that's like a completely different level uh the other thing is that there there's there's there's the use of ai for performance capture which is another thing that

could be like you know it's less of a thing with live action um but certainly in video games we see so much of that. And again, you know, taking someone's performance and then using that to algorithmically generate additional material is another thing that should be regulated. But it's also interesting because the first off and we've talked to this with some voice actors we've had on the on the the the podcast in recent months, which is that it is like an exhausting profession. Yeah, but also like like not just voiceover artists, but also people who are, you know, stunt performers are doing motion capture. That's also exhausting. And this was a thing I learned from this strike authorization vote. There is no mandated rest period for on camera performers in video game production as there is in film and television production.

So they're one of the things they're looking for is a five minute per hour rest period for for on and off camera performers, which is like that seems like just a natural like, yeah, that just makes sense. You don't want to work people to the point of exhaustion, but it's currently not something that's in the agreement. And the other thing is there's no regulations that call for an onset medic, which if you're doing fucking stunt work, you should have a medical professional there in case something goes awry. But currently there's no regulation in place for this sort of hazardous work. So I don't know. It's just interesting.

I try to keep pretty plugged in with these issues, but there's even things that I'm learning about through this. And, you know, we'll see what happens. But certainly hope that everyone who is behind video games on the performance side gets what they're asking for in these negotiations. Have I ever talked to you guys about how I did voiceover for a video game? I think you have, tell refresh your memory yeah um i uh did voiceover for an indie video game uh called sequence back in like i don't know 2010 something like that uh which was a video game that you were supposed to

give voice commands to the characters on screen so you were like a squad a squad leader and you would like tell them what to do i never actually ended up playing the game because i think it was a pc game and i you know until very recently didn't have a pc um but yeah voice recording is it is grueling it's very weird also yeah you know like you you just you just talk and talk and talk and talk and you know i'm not i i feel like i know that like most actors in movies are often in scenes by themselves right because you're like acting beyond the camera and like the other person's not there and there's like a stand-in or something just really emotionally draining to like yell at a person who's not there over and over again yeah 100 i look i get i get exhausted doing doing like fucking podcasting yeah it's not

even really a performance it's just tiring to talk for that long i could do this all day the uh the um the other thing that this uh this strike authorization and like sag's sort of uh sag after his uh pushback against that um that possible use of ai for in perpetuity uh voice recording reminds me of is susan bennett the original voice of Siri, who made recordings for a company called Scansoft in 2005, unaware that Apple would use them as Siri later. And then she never received any compensation. It's fucking insane. That's Nike swoosh level shit of just like, you know, someone getting paid a one time fee or nothing. And then that being, you know, iconic for a brand.

Wait. For a multi-billion dollar corporation. Wait, what happened with the Nike swoosh? The guy who made it, he just he never got anything except the original payment. I believe it was it was a woman they paid for a. Oh, man. Show. I was a misogynist just then.

And you fucking like you. You took me to task. No, no, no, no. I was a misogynist just then. And you fucking like you. You took me to task. No, no, no, no. I loved it. It was they reference it in the movie air. But I but I'd heard this story before. And yeah, it was I'm looking at the Wikipedia for the swoosh right now. Caroline Davidson, who was a student at Portland State University, made the logo. And then they so they paid her like one time to do it and I think they paid her just like um oh they they paid her two dollars an hour for the work she completed so and then they took the Nike swoosh and it's like the you know she got 35 dollars

total for making this design that's the emblem of this massive multi-billion dollar corporation that's that's heinous it's bad it's bad stuff it's really bad but anyway hey solidarity with everyone in sag after everyone who's making video games on that side of things and uh yeah and and and video game workers in general you know it would, seeing more and more people organized and that's great to see and that's encouraging. Heather, what was the name of the game that you voiced? Because I feel like some listeners are going to try to find that.

Sequence. It's called Sequence because I see a game called, I'm looking at the Steam store, I see a game called The Sequence in brackets. Do you know what year this came out? 2011. 2011. Sequence. Is been spelled like the word yes because i see a bunch of sequences on here i see sequence storm no sequence unexpected sequence crystal sequence the sequence to sprite sequence but i don't see an

actual sequence but maybe it's just not on the Steam store. It was called, maybe it was sequenced by, was it Iridium Studios? I don't know. It's, yeah, I found it on, of all places, IMDb. It is just called Sequence. As Iridium's first title, Sequence combines elements from both role-playing and rhythm genres. As a result, traditionally slow RPG combat is fast and frenetic,

while players can enjoy the additional benefits of character customization, inventory management, and deep and engrossing plot. Maybe it's been delisted because the only... It doesn't... If you look at Iridium's homepage, they list a couple of other games, but they don't list that one.

Yeah. All right, well... If anyone can find this piece of dead media uh let us know heather voices jane according to the the credits i think i was i was like a a butch like like a like a lady general you know like a like a listen you you you you you listen to me like that kind of that kind of voice i think which also is rough because um you know i don't i'm not i don't do a lot of voice acting like i don't play any characters on this show that we're doing yeah right yeah that's such a stretch for you it was a real it was hard because you know i don't know how to manage that sort of stress on my vocal cords yeah well i think i think i'm just staring at the ceiling for smiling i'm just like trying to like i was looking up to see if i could

find the words for what I was trying to say. Guys, I'm really excited to talk about what I'm playing. I'm excited to talk about what I'm playing, too. But I want to do a quick shout out of what we will be playing at the end of this month because the polls are closed. The poll is closed. Matt, you have, because what we did is last week we were like, ah ah there's a few different things we could play i don't know what do you want us to play you want to play starfield you want us to play you know see the stars what have you uh and it came down to two games and those games were god hand and killer seven

uh heather's looking at different poll it actually did come down to two heather games uh armored core six uh but the runaway it and and perhaps a perhaps a horse racing analogy is appropriate with this game because the runaway winner was i believe matt shadow of the colossus that's right with a lead of um 150 votes uh ahead of the next closest game uh it is uh shadow the colossus uh the options were armored core 6 see a star shadow the colossus and starfield and shadow the colossus took ran away with it this is our poll on our discord yeah that's right i can't believe that starfield didn't win well i think the thing is that i think i first off i think we have maybe a little bit of a different audience than a general gaming audience for our podcast i think there may be people who are perhaps more attuned to our three

tastes and or and and so and i also think the other thing is like there's so many places i already saw there's a starfield 100 review that came up my is like there's so many places. I already saw there's a Starfield 100% review that came up in my YouTube algorithm. There's so many places you can get Starfield content already. So my thinking is that maybe people wanted us to talk about something we'd be more excited about. And I am excited to talk about this. Team Ico, artful, classic, Shadow of the Colossus. We are going to be playing that that are this month's we play you play that and that will be coming on monday september 25th i can't believe that this

here's why i'm excited about this because apodaca hasn't played this game that's right yes like that is i almost don't know anything about it either like That's a great way to go in. I'm excited. It's not like a Star Wars level blind spot, but it's a huge game in terms of what it ended up affecting in the industry. I don't know that Breath of the Wild can be... There is, I think, a direct lineage from Shadow of the Wild can be like, there is, I think, a direct lineage from Shadow of the Colossus to Breath of the Wild. Yeah, I think that's fair.

Yeah. Sure. I think there's an interesting window of time right now too where this is the only video game Adam Sandler has played and I haven't. Like that's probably not true like across all the other games I've played, but he's got this one on me, and I think that's interesting. Yeah.

Are we going to watch Reign Over Me for the Patreon? It's going to be unanimated. Oh, boy. Adam Sandler's 9-11 movie. If we did, we'd have to be watching it on this episode. That's one of those things where like I honestly probably think that the the production designer of that movie knew what they were doing and was kind of like, oh, that'd be a cool. That would be an interesting thematic video game for this dude who's who's dealing with with grief and loss to be playing. Right. Like that's like it's not just like a random coincidence.

No, no. It's also. And this isn't a spoiler because the game opens this way. Like it's not like the opening of Shadow of the Colossus. Mom, maybe we should save it for when. It's a specific kind of grief that echoes his grief in the film. We got to watch Reign Over Me. That'll be part of the week. Oh my God.

I'll watch it. I've never seen it either. It's a weird Adam Sandler blind spot for me. All right, let's watch it. Yeah, great. So our We Play, You Play is Shadow of the Colossus and Reign Over Me. We're going to be talking about it on Monday, September 25th. So two Mondays from now, final Monday of every month for people who are new to the pod. We do a long play discussion of one game.

So that'll be it. Shout out to Colossus. You know what's tough? Maintaining momentum in your workout routine. How do I keep going? We keep hitting these plateaus in progress. I get bored with the exercises I'm doing. I don't have enough variation. It's important to keep challenging yourself as you improve. Everyone knows working out is full

of positives, sleeping better, looking better, and just feeling better. But as you get stronger, sticking to the same old routine can lead to a plateau in results. Keep your momentum going and your progress positive with Fitbod. The app creates personalized workouts based on your goals, abilities, and gym setup while helping you track and visualize your progress along the way. FitBod creates custom workouts based on your goals, experience, available equipment, and more. Build your fitness habit and stay consistent. FitBod's powerful technology understands your strength training ability, studies your past workouts, and adapts to your available gym equipment. The app intelligently varies your intensity and volume and tracks muscle fatigue and recovery to design a well-balanced

workout plan. Also, the app keeps your gym sessions fresh and fun by mixing up your workouts with new exercises, rep schemes, supersets, and circuits. You know what i like about fit bod the app is well designed it's got a ux and hey it's aware of what i have access to to work out with and it varies up my workouts so that's what keeps you coming back and you know what all these factors together help you push through those i don't feel like it moments which anyone who's been on a fitness plan is well aware of. It's never been easier to get the results you've always wanted. Check out Fitbod. Get 25% off your subscription at fitbod.me slash played. That's F-I-T-B-O-D dot M-E slash played. You know, my New Year's resolution is to cut back on sugar and add more protein to my diet

and stay on track with my fitness goals. And Magic Spoon makes that easier and more delicious than ever. Growing up, cereal is one of the best parts of being a kid. But as I got older, I had to watch out for sugar and empty carbs. And boy, let me tell you, I love cereal. So Magic Spoon has the amazing flavors you love, but high protein and less sugar. I've been drinking protein shakes and powder for years, but finally found a delicious way to get my protein before and after workouts.

With Magic Spoon, you can get a variety pack of four flavors, and they are cocoa, fruity, frosted, and peanut butter. And something I like to do, folks, I like to mix them and match them. So I'm getting cocoa in my peanut butter, I'm getting fruity in my frosted. I'm going crazy over there with the Magic Spoon. And these packs have zero grams of sugar, 13 to 14 grams of protein, and four to five grams of net carbs.

It's only 140 calories per serving, folks. It's high protein, has zero sugar, keto-friendly, gluten-free, grain-free, and soy-free. Like I said before, I love cereal. That combination of chocolate and peanut butter, it's incredible. I highly recommend mixing them up because you're going to have a blast. Go to magicspoon.com slash getplayed to grab a variety pack and try it today.

And be sure to use our promo code getplayed, that's G-E-T-P-L-A-Y-E-D, at checkout to save $5 off your order. And Magic Spoon is so confident in their product, it's backed with a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you don't like it for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. happiness guarantee. So if you don't like it for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember, start the new year off right with a delicious bowl of high-protein cereal at magicspoon.com slash getplayed and use code getplayed to save $5 off. Thank you, Magic Spoon, for sponsoring this episode. I first gave AG1 a try because I was tired of taking so many supplements every day and wanted a single solution that supports my entire body by filling in nutrient gaps daily. I need energy.

I wanted to simplify my morning routine with easy habits. Since drinking AG1, I've felt energized, strong, and nourished. Not only does AG1 deliver my daily dose of vitamins, minerals, pre- and probiotics, and more, but it's a powerful, healthy habit that's also powerfully simple. It's just one scoop mixed in water once a day, every day. I've definitely tried a lot of supplements over the years, but taking multiple supplements and mixing and matching pills and powders every day isn't all that efficient and not always effective. This is why AG1 is a game

changer. Just one daily scoop of AG1 covers my nutrient gaps and supports my mental and physical health in just 60 seconds every morning. I noticed I needed more nutrient support than I used to, especially when I was running out of energy in the middle of the day. But AG1 covers my bases with high quality ingredients in pre and probiotics, adaptogens, antioxidants, and whole food source nutrients. I know with AG1, I'm giving my body high quality nutrition. Every batch of AG1 goes through a rigorous testing process, so you know it's safe. And AG1 ingredients are sourced for absorption, potency, and nutrient density. AG1 is a supplement I trust to provide the support my body needs daily,

and that's why I'm excited to welcome them as a new partner. If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five AG1 travel packs with your first purchase exclusively at drinkag1.com slash getplayed. That's drinkag1.com slash getplayed. Check it out. I cut off, Heather, to say my Adam Sandler thing. You were saying that you can't get to Breath of the Wild without experiencing or without Shadow of the Colossus existing.

Well, I think it just has like an oversized influence on the industry for the size and budget of the game. Yeah, right. It's not, it wasn't like a flagship title for, you know, it's not uncharted. It's not. It's not God of War. It's not like a big fucking huge game. It's not Zelda, Mario.

It's Shadow of the Colossus. But I feel like after it happened, so many games were doing what we're borrowing from this language that the game created so i'm i'm i'm hyped to revisit it and i think i'm going to be playing the remaster uh because it feel i've never played the remaster and i think that that might be nice um then again i might get home uh this weekend and uh boot up that ps2 drop in my original og copy of shadow of the colossus and see see how that feels yeah i thought about doing that and then i was also like man that's gonna it's just it's i remember it feeling like oh boy this is Chunk It at the time. So I wonder how that 15 FPS frame rate would feel in this day and age.

It might be a little tricky, but hey, I salute you if you do it. I also have not played the remaster, which came out in 2018. So that's probably the version that I'm playing. But yeah, if you want to play along with us, the remaster is on PS4. Is it still part of that? It part of the playstation plus collection so if you have playstation plus you can just download it yeah you or you had to have um oh yeah you can do that because they they did have the the playstation collection i think when ps5s were new you can no longer access that if you're um uh a new playstation 5 owner i believe or even a oh they took that off but it's routinely nine dollars like i don't think it's a full price game anymore at this point

um and it's also but it might be in one of the in one of the tiers of uh playstation plus like where you can download uh games now still i know that people get frustrated with us when we play these well first off you guys voted for it so you can't get that frustrated yeah but you had an opportunity to stop the steal and you didn't you too could be going to prison for 18 years yeah um or was it 22 i don't know uh there's i understand being frustrated when we play a game that can only be played on one console but shadow of the colossus is old enough that you can emulate it right like you know not that i want to tell people to emulate a game but like if you're somebody who's got a pc and you can emulate it. Right. Like, you know, not that I want to tell people to emulate a game, but like if you're somebody who's got a PC

and you can't play it any other way, there are options. Yeah, there are options. I'm ethically neutral on emulation and piracy in general. I think like it's, you know, whatever. Yarr! If you can afford something,

pay for it. But if you can't, it's fine. A weird a weird and philosophically inconsistent position for a man who is pro union and residuals. Well, here's the thing. Like, I kind of think that that this is a. First off, we're talking to things like that. We're talking about video games. Residuals don't exist for the people who create them.

That's true it's it's so it's like we're just talking about money going into these in into this the the studios and then also it's like it it fucking they will just take stuff away from you it's like like there is no way to just it's all it's still a problem with film and tv where stuff just is delisted or it's just not available anymore but it's like a it's worse with video games because things are so platform dependent and they make it so that there's just stuff that you just can't play or can't even acquire legally anymore. I mean, we've encountered this.

Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know. Again, I'm just if you can't pay for it and you have the platform, great. But if not, you know, whatever. Do what you got to do. I feel that way about our fucking patreon how about that for consistency if you can't afford it yeah you know do we gotta do all right hey what we gotta do is talk about some video games we're playing right now it's what are you playing what are you playing hey matt why don't i go first because i don't have that long to talk about but i am excited

about what i'm going to talk about go off because i was going to say hey matt why don't you go first but then i was like okay you did uh i do feel sort of tricked uh hey matt listen to this um today as of this record baldur's gate 3 came out for playstation 5 i have meticulously recreated my lady thief criminal rogue criminal and uh have uh ventured forth into the world of ventured forth into the world of Baldur's Gate 3. Wow. Already, the game is so different. Here's some reasons why. One, I swear there's an entire section of the ship that's not there anymore,

from my early release candidate to the current release. Don't know where that part of the ship went. Maybe I just didn't go the same way. That first ship in the ship went. Maybe I just didn't go the same way. Uh, that early, that first ship in like in the intro area. Secondly, I must have missed some stuff because I already have like maybe, uh, 20 minutes to an hour and a half into the game. I already have like a lot more party members sure that i did the first time i played yeah where it was just me like wandering around with

this one girl shadow heart yeah uh for like the huge like i conquered a village with just her you know like yeah i but now i've got like two dudes i've i had never met at seven hours played through of the game the other way you have you have you probably have gail right though yeah gail i never met i never met that dude and then i have asterion is that his name oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i had never met that dude. And then I have Asterion? Is that his name? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah. I had never seen that guy either. I mean, I've seen all his thirst trap pictures on Twitter,

but I haven't seen... He's not even my favorite guy. He's not? I couldn't believe how fast I got up a huge group of people when I played like seven hours with just that lady wandering around. I wonder how much of that is your play style and how much of that was you were playing the early access version. And I just I honestly don't know. I don't know when all those party members got, you know, implemented.

Unknown. I missed Gale because I had to read. I had to go back a little bit when I had first started. And when I did, I was like, I'm just going to walk around. My new thing, I mean, I'll talk about that, but I missed Gale completely. And I was like, oh, here's Gale. And then Gale's been an integral part of my party since. He's a good guy.

Gale's one of the first guys I stumbled upon, but I think that just sort of speaks to the nature of this game. It's just like, know whatever it's it's hard playing as like a a bad person because it's you really do hurt everybody you encounter like so you're playing you're playing bad i'm playing a bad person and it's upsetting sometimes to choose the things where like it's like well could you help me do you think you could help me and i'm like what's in it for me and they're like i'm on i'm on fire please help me and i'm like come on fork over some cash and it's like oh god hurry i'll give you everything i have and then you help them and they have like nothing.

They have like very little and you take it from them and your entire party disapproves. It's like, I don't know, but you gain inspiration points. I don't know. I don't know what the right way to play this game is, but I am reminded of the time that my partner in Disco Elysium yelled at me. Oh, yeah. And it broke my heart.

It's the worst experience in a game I've ever had, emotionally. You maybe played that audio. It's Kim yelling at me. Oh, man. Yeah, it's gnarly. I didn't have that encounter, i i would defend i'm a defend kim at all costs guy so so i'm playing boulders gate 3 as of today i'm still i'm still picking away at god of war ragnarok um boy the combat in that game is floaty you isn't it nice

it would be like it's floaty as fuck Like, you knock somebody into the air and they just are like, they're a beach ball from that point forward. That's it. That's what I'm playing. Wow. Shortlist. You guys. Matt.

You've also been playing some BG3. Yeah, Matt, why don't you listen to Nick? Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah, Nick, why don't you go? I mean, it seemed like a natural segue for Matt to talk about Baldur's Gate 3, but sure. I'll talk about Sea of Stars for a little bit. So I'm about 10 hours into Sea of Stars.

This is the throwback JRPG. I mean, it's just an aesthetically pristine game. I feel like I use that turn of phrase a lot. an aesthetically pristine game. I feel like I use that turn of phrase a lot. But in terms of capturing the best version of a late 16-bit slash early 32-bit pixel art RPG, sprite-based RPG, it's like the ideal of that. It's like the art direction is so good, the sound design and the music are so good,

but also so era-appropriate. It is developed and published by Sabotage Studios. And I'm really enjoying the game. I will say that in non-story spoiler, just to give people a sense for if you're playing along about where I am exactly, I have the fourth party member and the grappling hook. So I have, you know, another way to traverse the environment, which I think is a big part of the fun of this game. It's it's got great just like walking around. Great moving around. Like I mentioned last week, the run cycle is very fast. You can get around the map really quickly.

And then there's all sorts of of chasms to to jump across and little ledges to traverse. It's just got great movement. And then when you get into a battle, it is in that same world. It's kind of Chrono Trigger style. We don't go to a separate sort of random encounter scene. It all happens on the same map. And one thing I like about that is that, first off, it makes the game flow really quickly. one thing I like about that is that first off, it doesn't,

it makes the game flow really quickly. The thing about JRPGs, if you play an era, a JRPG from that era, they kind of feel kind of ponderously paced now. And this one is not that it completely just feels it has, it just kind of keeps moving. But the other thing is that it adds these

tactical considerations in terms of the positioning of characters is huge the positioning of your enemies versus your party if they're in like kind of like a pincer sort of position um you know you have a lot of spells that are affect basically or skills that affect adjacent the enemies and so like if they're kind of scattered all over the map those are a little bit neutered uh and then also turn ordering is a big tactical consideration here in terms of like all right who do i want to which which because when you're and it's your party's turn you can choose uh who you want to go in what order and that can affect in terms of how uh thing how your your battle your combat plays out the other thing and this, and this is a core mechanic in the combat

that I think is really well done, is that when you physically attack someone, when you use a physical basic attack, you get mana back. That's how you regenerate mana. So it kind of incentivizes toggling between using your spells to drain your mana pool and then using physical attacks to increase your mana pool

and since different enemies have different vulnerabilities to different attacks uh again that's another tactical consideration it's just a way to make it to keep the combat from being like you know press attack like hit attack hit attack hit attack uh drink potion or whatever it just it has a lot of variance to it uh and is is super fun uh and speaking of the the combat uh matt i put the battle theme in the chat which you know look this is another thing i think this game does well you hear this over and over again and for me i never get tired of it Nice. This is outstanding. Yeah, great shit.

The composer is Eric W. Brown. But there is some additional music by Yasunori Mitsuda, which I mentioned last week. Legendary video game composer. But yeah, it's a really fun score. However, there is one bit of criticism I want to level at this game. The triple triad of this game is called Wheels. The Gwent of this game, if you will.

It's a little mini game that you can play in taverns, and it is like a board game that involves a spinning sort of slot machine mechanic that brings up to a bunch of random stats that, you know, you have these statuettes, these mini figs, that will attack based off of what you pick from the slot machine. What do you call those things? The little rotaries, the little spinners? The little spinners, I think. The little spinners, right. Thank you, Matt.

Rotaries. So whatever comes up from the rotaries, the little spinners, it'll be like experience or hammers or you know attack or whatever it's so unclear how to play this fucking game it is the most inscrutable one of these i've ever encountered and there's no tutorial instead what there is is there in the pause menu there's just like a little bit a few pages of manual text that include a phrase like just like they they don't really explain things well. They include a phrase that three oak plus, which I was like, what the fuck is three oak plus?

And I ended up searching it on Google and Bing. And the first result was like someone asking in Sea of Stars, what is three oak plus? Because it does not explain what it is. three oak plus because it does not explain what it is it means three of a kind plus which i guess is some like some card shark people like use that acronym but it doesn't explain it to the to the user uh and so i i watched a youtube video of this youtube tutorial of how to play wheels and this guy like spent like 10 minutes explaining how it works and then but he clearly was unclear and then some of the comments were like hey i actually think it think it works this way. And he'd respond like, oh, man, I didn't get that. Like it's like even the people are trying to make content to try to illuminate this to other people are unclear on how it works. So I think that probably the community

will figure this out and write a tutorial. I did sort of get a sense of how it worked exactly. But it is one of those things, totally optional. You don't have to play it at all, but as someone who wanted to explore that side of the game, I was a little bit thrown off by it. But that's my only real negative so far. I think it's paced really well. I think the dungeons are really fun.

I think the art direction is just so gorgeous, and I think the different towns and biomes feel so distinct. And yeah, if you like this style of game, I think this is the a great modern version of it. Sea of Stars on Game Pass. I imagine I imagine some of our listeners are playing along. So let us know what you think. I want to I really want to dip my toes into that game. There's just a lot.

There's a lot going on. Well, that was that was the the thing i was i was really happy that starfield didn't win i was i was kind of pulling for a sea of stars to win but i was happy that starfield didn't win because i'm like i'm already neglecting balder's gate to play sea of stars i gotta get back to balder's gate i don't want to abandon that game entirely if i gotta play fucking starfield i'm just like i just don't have time i don't time for any of this shit i i've seen i've seen some playthrough like some like clips of starfield on twitter that are the funniest fucking thing i've ever seen and that makes me want to play it so badly like a person talking to you and all of a sudden their head explodes because like they got like hit with a grenade from like a random thing or like somebody is like talking or like standing and

talking to somebody else. And you accidentally like knock a thing off a wall that bounces off, off and like just assassinates them. Like it's the more realistic a thing looks and the more video gamey it is, the funnier it is. Yes. And Starfield looks so funny. and the more video gamey it is, the funnier it is. Yes, 100%. And Starfield looks so funny.

I saw a video of somebody put a bunch of potatoes in their room. Yeah, I've seen the potatoes. And the potatoes all have their own individual physics, and that's really funny. Yeah, there's a lot. It's like 20,000 potatoes in a room. Yeah, and they just like spill out of the room when they open the door.

That's user funny. That's like not like on accident from the game. When people get a sandbox like this and the first thing they do are like, oh, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pick up every potato I can find and put it in a room. Yeah, yeah.

I'm going to see if I can shoot my dick off. Yeah, yeah. Matt, what are you playing, Matt? Well, okay. I don't know why you haven't spoken till now. Yeah, what the fuck, man? I've been waiting my turn. I've been dipping my toes quite a bit, honestly.

You know, I've been... I'm not very far into Armored Core 6, but I've been sort of picking up that game in between, like, playing Baldur's Gate for a long period of time. Like, I just want to do something else for a little bit, and I'll do a couple missions in Armored Core 6. And it's, it's so fucking good and cool and awesome. And it's, it's just, it's, it's it's just um it's it's just exactly what a video game should be it's it's i i don't know there's i don't have any sense of what the story is or if there is one i'm just i'm just a hired gun going from base to base shooting targets and

then coming back and collecting my money and that's it and i i made my mech uh i i painted my mech in the uh eva 01 colorway so i so i feel like i'm i i'm shinji but i'm like shinji who means it and is getting it done um So that's been exciting. I did briefly play a little bit of Starfield last night just so I'd have a little bit to say about it so far. And I'm interested in playing it a little bit more. I spent most of my time trying to make me. Because there's a lot of options they had they had a lot of uh options in the character creator and so i i was doing that for most of the time and then i played a little

bit of the of the game so far and i'm i am interested in it it does seem it seems pretty cool i yeah i haven't hit it's early it's still early in the game i haven't hit the thing in the game that's gonna hook me yeah it kind of just seems to me so far to be a um you know one of those one of those exactly and i'm just i'm not so i'm not there yet but i am excited to try it a little more. What I played was fun and interesting, but it hasn't hooked its teeth into me yet. But what has is Baldur's Gate 3, as I've been talking about week after week since playing it. I started playing it on my Steam Deck, right? I started playing it on my Steam Deck, right?

I've since installed it on my PC over here, and I've been playing on the PC with a controller attached. And I did this the other day, and I don't know what happened. But five hours later, I was still playing Baldur's Gate 3. And I was like, I haven't had this kind of day in a long time. Yeah. Where I was just getting in it. I was just in the shit, you know?

And I'm in Act 2 now. All my characters are level 6. And some encounters, some encounters in this game i just fuck people up they're just fucked nice and it feels so good to not take that much damage right and like just to get out of an encounter and be like okay you're done you're fucking done dead next uh but i'm also playing i feel like i'm playing how i would how i would exist in this world which is i'm trying to please as many people as i can and that of course eventually does lead to you um getting disapproval of some characters because like i'm not i i backed i accidentally i told you guys this i like accidentally flirted too much with one of the characters and i got to the point where i could have relations with this character and i was like

well i have to see what this is like i have to see i haven't had i haven't had this in the game yet and i did it it was interesting i won't spoil it i told some people on the discord who it was and what happened and uh but i spoiled spoiler tagged who it was yeah and then after that i was locked out of the other romance that i was pursuing and the one that i was more interested in oh boy and i was fucking heartbroken oh no i i felt so sad like in real life that i fucked up i was like oh i thought we were all just sort of like you know i didn't think it was that like i thought we were all just sort of like you know i didn't think it was that like i thought we were all just fucking around i didn't think it was like that serious but

you don't want to like talk to me anymore and you don't want to pursue this any further because i went and you know fooled around with this other one and i i save scummed and I went back and undid the sex. Wow. And I was just like, I can't, I can't do it. And so then the option came up again, cause I had to go back to camp at a certain point. And I was like, I'm ignoring, I have to rebuff this, this interaction. I can't, I can't go down this road again i can't lose

i can't lose it well i can't lose what i want and so i feel like the person that i'm pursuing too is like kind of the basic choice but i don't fucking give a shit that's that's that's it but yeah that's fine i also but but but there's also like another person in the camp that i'm trying to pursue too just in case because like oh boy i could go either way with these two but the one that i went down the path with i was like i don't even i'm not even excited about that you know yeah sure i was like no i i get it no no not you not you these other two happy with either one this one i just wanted to see what would happen. And then it was bad.

So I reloaded my save and fixed it. I wish you could convince your party members to sleep with each other. Oh, yeah. Well, I'd probably just never stop playing the game. Yeah, then you're just going to be a matchmaker. That's fun. That's a fun sub game.

There are a couple of pairings that you can have and be in a poly relationship. You can't make them do stuff with each other, but you can be with them separately, and that's fine. But some characters, and i know what you're thinking matt did you google how many relationships can you have in balder's gate three no i didn't do that you're being you sound crazy you can there are certain pairings you can have

that are fine with sharing but there are some that are just hard no yeah and it's like i get that but it's a game baby let me do it with all of them um i'm sure you'll be able to find a mod that'll let you you know have whatever harem you want but uh yeah i think in terms of the the game it's like it's when you say that when you talk about like the feelings of regret because you romanced one character and then the other option is just like forever closed to you or because or because you hooked up with somebody and then it's just like oh now this other person doesn't like me who i was actually interested in an emotional level yeah it's like that's one of those things where it's like oh games can simulate like the bad parts of life it's like, oh, games can simulate like the bad parts of life.

It's like, and they don't have to, but that's a thing that this medium can do in a way that like I think non-interactive mediums can't quite have that sort of intense emotional connection. You know, you can feel like it's a different feeling when it's like a third party, when it's like the hero of a TV show is going through that versus your player characters

experiencing that. In a perfect world, this game would have been like, hey, I heard you fucked so-and-so. That's really cool. We can still fuck. And it's like, okay, fine. But all that to say, I'm still playing and loving the game. It looks great on the PC. It's sort of my preferred way to

play it now. I just don't have a comfortable enough chair to be sitting at my desk for so long. Let's talk off-pod. I'll get you a comfortable enough chair to be sitting at my desk for so long. But let's let's talk off pod. I'll get you a fucking comfy chair. What? Nick wants me to sit on his lap. Oh, but I also I made a point in act two where I could keep going and get to act three pretty quickly, I believe.

get to act three pretty quickly i believe but i did a little reading and somebody was uh like something that i read suggested to leave where i'm at currently and go explore this other area so i'm i'm sort of just in now and i'm in act two walking around mode i did a lot of walking around in act one and still miss stuff so now i'm walking around in Act 2 and seeing what else there is where I'm at. Because I'm not trying to get to Act 3 just yet. It's a big fucking game. It's a big fucking game. I played for 50 hours. It's wild.

And from what I've read and from what I've heard, Matt, I think what you're doing is the right approach. It's like this is very much one. There's no race to the finish. Enjoy the journey. Explore everything. right approach it's like this is very much one like there's no race to the finish enjoy the journey explore everything i i certainly have not regretted in my my more limited time with the game just sort of like walking around and checking stuff out and i just talk to everybody i love it it's just so fun can i ask and and if if this is a if this is spoiler territory you know it's that we don't have to do it but i'll ask the question you can decide if you want to answer it or not you said asterion is not your main guy can you tell us who

your main guy is well well okay i'll i'll say i had it i i entered the my cursed romance with gail okay and it it was it was beautiful it was beautiful. It was great. But I just feel like I've put in so much work with Shadowheart. Okay. And she's sort of like a closed book at certain parts, and she's a little sort of tougher nut to crack. Gale was like, I love you, like, immediately. And I was like, I'll fuck this guy, whatever.

But then, yeah, with Shadowheart, I was I was like, I'll fuck this guy, whatever. But then, yeah, with Shadowheart, I was sort of like, I feel like I betrayed this sort of thing that we're building. Right.

You know? But so my team currently though is Gale, Shadowheart, myself, and a character that I don't think Heather has met.

Okay. But an act one character that you can find. Got it. Well, I intend on romancing the Githyanki. A lot of people do. That's a very Heather character. Apparently, she's the horniest character in the game. Oh, really?

Just like, let's go. Yeah. Well, I want to be like, let's kill something and then fuck. Like, I mean, if you're going to do it, I don't want something sensitive. Yeah, that's basically her dialogue from the game. So I think you're fine. Yeah, yeah. I think there was like a speed run.

Somebody did it before a patch. I think this was a bug. It wasn't supposed to be like this. You could speed run sex with that character in eight minutes oh jesus it's an all-time great it's a fantastic incredible video game i every time i play it i can't believe what i'm seeing and that it works at all. It's fantastic. Yeah. Right.

Despite it's rough. It's one of those things where despite its rough edges, they're still just like, well, it's taken such huge swings. It's like, it's just, it's amazing that that's a great way to put it, Matt. It's amazing that it works at all. And the fact that it's not online, always online. The fact that I could play it offline. I played it on a fucking airplane. I played it in a bar. I could play it offline, I played it on a fucking airplane, I played it in a bar,

you could play it anywhere. You don't have to always be online to be playing it. You have to re-sync your cloud save when you get home, but that's nothing. I wonder if the Mac version has come out yet because, boy oh boy, it would be nice to sync this new save

and spend my 11 hours on a plane playing balder's gate hmm i honestly don't know i mean the psps5 version is out maybe the mac port is out i don't know i don't know either but boy it would be nice there's no way to find out so without booting it up i typed in mac balder's gate 3 on google and the first thing that comes up on reddit from a post a day ago i don't think the mac release is going to be tomorrow uh by the way just i should i should before we close up the balder's gate 3 discussion i should give a quick correction last week matt when i talked about our buddy, our mutual friend Tyler, who saw you in the bar playing Baldur's Gate 3, and you acted like you were caught jacking off on a park

bench, apparently. No, I didn't. Well, you did on the pod. Oh, yeah. But Tyler, I said the, I had his last name wrong. I conflated him with a different Tyler whose podcast I also guested on. So apologies to that, Tyler. Oh, yeah. Tyler Schnupp is who we. Tyler Schnupp. Yeah. I caught that in the wrong. I conflated him with a different Tyler whose podcast I also guested on. So apologies to that Tyler. Oh yeah.

Tyler Schnupp is who we. Tyler Schnupp. Yeah. I caught that in the end I thought. And then I was like oh. It's not his last name but I think that's fine. Yeah you'll just leave it in. Make me look like a shithead.

Which I was. So. Sorry Tyler. Hey everyone. Sorry, Tyler. Never frozen meal is chef crafted, dietician approved, and ready to go in just two minutes. You'll have over 35 different options to choose from every week, including calorie smart, protein plus, and keto. Also, there are more than 60 add-ons to help you stay fueled up and feeling good all day long. Fuel up fast with Factor's restaurant quality meals that are ready to heat and eat wherever you are.

No prep, no mess meals, so there's no prepping, cooking, or cleanup needed. Get as much or as little as you need by choosing your meals every week. Plus, you can pause or reschedule your deliveries anytime. We've done the math. Factor is less expensive than takeout, and every meal is dietitian-approved to be nutritious and delicious. What are you waiting for? Head to factormeals.com slash getplayed50 and use code getplayed50 to get 50% off. That's code getplayed50 at factormeals.com slash getplay played 50 to get 50% off. That's code get played 50 at factor meals.com slash get played 50 to get 50% off.

All right, let's let's. Hey, we get this is this is something special. So this is something that. Yeah. Look, OK. So is something that, yeah. Look, okay. So I did, in the United States, there's a radio show called This American Life where you do like, you hear like this guy,

and I don't listen to it that much, but when you do, you hear this guy be like, well, I wanted to get to the bottom of what a backpack is so I went to Wilmington and learned about it and and I I don't know so I kind of did that I kind of did a this American life for us and it's real earnest and maybe a little bit cringy and a little embarrassing, but I did it. So I made a segment, a full, I did a full interview and I did like an intro and I recorded sounds. I feel like I'm presenting a school project, but I did, I did it for our show. I did it for, for get played.

And I guess we could just just we can just play it because you want to maybe tell people like what it is or do you want them to experience it as it's no it's all it's all there okay okay the whole package is right there you know we've we've got a ongoing segment as i come to the end of my stay here in the Netherlands called the World Warrior. Amsterdam! And I think that it has sort of been developing to this place where I've been like investigating arcades and going to the game museum. Like I had to build up a network before I could make something like this happen.

And were that I were to live in Holland for another year or two or five or life, um, then this thing I think would be a more regular feature, but yeah, to, to round out my, my time here in the Netherlands of the Netherlands that began as a Roman fortification in the year 50 CE. By the 8th century, it was a seat of power for the Catholic Church and became a renowned trade center by the Middle Ages before ultimately helping found the Dutch Republic in 1579 with the signing of the Union of Utrecht. It is a beautiful city with medieval canals and cobblestone streets and is home to the largest

university in the Netherlands. And it was for this reason that I traveled to Utrecht to speak with one of Utrecht University's professors, Dr. Joost Vervoort. The journey from Amsterdam to Utrecht is 43 kilometers, about 26 miles, a relatively fast train ride, or in my case, a very, very, very long bike ride. Very, very long bike ride. Bike paths connect every inch of the Netherlands like a cycle vascular system, and the ride from Amsterdam to Utrecht would be a pleasant two and a half hours. Unfortunately, the temperature dropped to 10 degrees and it began to thunderstorm midway through the city. With farmland in every direction, there was no option but to pedal forward. Forward to Utrecht. I arrived with wet hair and frazzled nerves to speak with Dr. Fafourt about a video

game he's developing. This is Heather Ann Campbell, World Warrior, and today's topic is the climate courthouse game, All Rise. So, hi. Hi. You're, just before I, you're Dr. Joost Trafort? That's right, yeah. Okay, and what do you have a doctorate in? So, I got a PhD in, I'm a biologist originally.

A biologist? A biologist, yeah, ecologist. And sort of an ecologist and a sustainability science person. But my PhD is really in, and that's a long time ago, but it's really in how to get different people in society to think about what's happening and what's going on with the future and with sustainability from their different perspectives. So rather than communicating at people about what you think is going on, to have people come together and share different perspectives on the future. And when I was working on that PhD, one of the things to really look at was sort of future scenario approaches.

But I also got involved in games and thinking about games as a way to do this, especially sort of multiplayer games, tabletop games, all this kind of stuff back then. Yeah, so that's the PhD. Have you been a gamer before this interest? Like, did your interest in video gaming precede your doctorate? Or was it something that flowed from your interest in ecology and how to expand that messaging? No, I've always been a gamer. Oh, nice.

Or player of games, I suppose. always been a gamer or player games i suppose uh and and the thing that really i think put me on this path towards all this future stuff and all the sort of interactive working with people thing is uh was um playing role-playing games in high school especially vampire masquerade oh who is your clan uh so my clan well i worked i did a lot of giovanni stories actually because they're so interesting they're like these you know vampire bankers with sort of necromancy and so lots of and lots of crossover with Wraith the Oblivion you know so that was a lot of the stories were Giovanni stories nice I used to be a Nosferatu or a Malkavian oh very nice yes both very challenging they were like I'm gonna just take the most difficult clans yeah yeah super nice yeah so so Vamp vampire masquerade you know i this sort of urban gothic stories uh i was really blown away

by that as a kid i was like it's possible to just sit around a table with a few friends and a beer and just have this super elaborate stories and you know it's action it's politics and it's drama and this can just happen and you know these things can just emerge out of a group of people talking together. I was really amazed by that. And I think that was maybe, in a way, the most important thing that happened to me. And that sort of set me on the path through my studies in biology and going into sustainability of having that interest of using the collective imagination as a way to sort of engage with the future and with a change in the world.

Cool. And now you're a professor at Utrecht University. correct yeah yeah that's right so i'm a i'm an associate professor in a sustainability research part of utrecht university and a teacher and my focus is on transformative imagination that's my that's my title now made it up myself very happy with it That's my title now. Made it up myself. Very happy with it. And yeah, and so there I focus on,

well, I do a lot with game design because I see games as one of the most powerful ways of engaging people at so many different levels with imaginative experiences and expression. I do a lot of other stuff as well. I worked all around the world with governments working on climate change policies, using future scenarios to help break them out of their sort of like previous thinking and the more limited ideas about what's possible.

Really using those methodologies as a sort of shared sense making about what the future could be like and how it could be different because we're living in a time in which we're all in this crisis of the imagination and we don't really know how things could be better for obvious reasons. Do you think, would you say that your visions of the future are skewing dystopian or are you more hopeful that through messaging and through these new ways of imagining the future is that you'll be able to sort of steer society? Yeah, I think I'm hopeful, sad and angry at the same time. Yeah, I think, I mean, as someone who specializes in multiple scenarios,

I feel like I'm constantly living and lots of people around me as well in these multiple scenarios. So the hopeful scenarios are there. They're possible, but the really horrible ones as well. And so I definitely don't want to say, oh, I'm just hopeful. Oh, it's going to be, I'm just optimistic. Not at all. Like, I think that there are some real nightmare futures that could be ahead of us.

I think there's just a lot of uncertainty around it. And I think there's a lot more agency that we have as humans than we are maybe telling ourselves. I think, and I have a background in complex system science and sort of complexity, but I feel like a lot of the talk about, oh, it's all so complex, it's so difficult to change anything, can also hide the fact that sometimes things are also quite simple, right? When you go down to the level of what we want as a future society, sort of human values, you know, you can hide behind that complexity

when things could be improved collectively in many ways. Cool. You just got back from Gamescom. That's right. Which is, for our American listeners, was in Cologne, Germany this last week. You want to talk a little bit about, were you there for networking

or were you there specifically for the game that you're developing called All Rise? Yeah, so we were there to pitch this game all rise which i could tell it maybe a bit about yes please make sense so so all rise is a game in uh that was born out of um uh involvement with real climate activism and it's a game that is about taking uh fossil fuel industry giants to court, essentially. That was the core idea. You described it as Phoenix Wright meets... It's Phoenix Wright meets Disco Elysium.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, basically. So it started really as this sort of like Phoenix Wright, but about climate court cases. That was the original idea. But then as we started to develop the game, so a lot of people or a bunch of really wonderful people became involved. So we have a producer called Niels Monshauer, who before this game worked on Horizon Forbidden West at Guerrilla in Amsterdam.

And then Magna Giant, who is a narrative designer and writer who worked on a bunch of wonderful games like Sable, 80 Days, also on Horizon Zero Dawn and other things. And as people came together and our artists got involved and we have a research team that got involved, we decided that it would be much more interesting for the game to have a world to explore as well. So the court case, the court sort of system would be a little bit limited

to explore this sort of like the reality of climate activism. So now, if I would explain the game now, it would be, this is a game about resonant leadership and empathetic leadership, about what it's like to be a climate activist that does stuff that works. And we're really drawing this game from the realities of real climate activists from all around the world. So we're speaking a lot to these people, a lot of sort of social research is going into the game. We have a research team that's as big as the development team, which is really cool. Wow. Yeah. So the game is set up in a bunch of different chapters.

And the first chapter is set in sort of sideways speculation of Southern India. And this is really prompting a lot of imaginative work. So Magna's writing is incredible. And we have Hugo Biele on the team as our programmer. And Marocha Arredondo, who's our UI artist and working on this. And we have a background artist, Nora Mertier, who worked on League of Legends. And our character artist is Curran Gregory,

who is responsible for the art in Paradise Killer, the character art, which is really iconic. And so these people all coming together, it's this really creative work that's really bringing this world to life. So it's a bit, it's sort of a sideways speculation. It's closer to our reality than, say, a disco Elysium. But it's different enough where you sort of start wondering, you know, what's going on exactly here? How do I make sense of this world? But the game is really about, yeah, it's about a woman named Kuhili, who is a climate activist and a lawyer, coming actually from sort of more mainstream law work, legal work, but coming into climate activism.

And she's a really powerful leader, very fun, kind of smart, playful. You know, she looks at the world a little bit like it's a game. So she sees opportunities everywhere. And you step into her shoes. But you're not a leader in the sense where you just tell people what to do and you sort of lead the charge in that way. It's all about sort of motivating people and supporting them in creating a movement as well as building a court case.

The court case is about a river that's been polluted completely to hell, like in many different ways. So finding out how this river has been murdered, which is the focus. The murder of a river is sort of the subtitle of this first chapter. There's not one murderer in essence. Yeah. And so that's where it gets its inspiration from. Disco Elysium is sort of the solving of the crime of the river. Yeah. The Disco Elysium part of it the solving of the crime of the river?

Yeah, the Disco Elysium part of it is also in the world building a little bit. You know, the world building in Disco Elysium is very rich and it includes these wonderful layers of sort of personal psychology, social interactions, the sociological and political layers. And then there's this sort of like analogy to climate change in Disco Elysium. In our case, it's more closely related to our world. But definitely that sort of detective work, in this coliseum in our case it's more more closely related to our world but um definitely that sort of detective work uh the sort of role-playing adventure interacting with characters in the world side of it is um is has that sort of influence there's also citizen sleeper which

i don't know if you've played that game but but uh that is also an influence for this game as well does the main character of your game, this woman, does she become an alcoholic after dealing with it? That's not a path that's in the game yet. But you know, there's potential there. And so this is, I think, where the game is quite different from something like this Coliseum, which is very beholden to its noir detective dismal tone. And what's interesting to me is that,

and to all of us in the team actually, is that sort of a lot of these games that are resonant and sort of are meaningful to people in a way they do tend to sort of stick with this sort of darkness a lot, which is wonderful and beautiful, right? But is it possible to make games that are not entirely utopian, that are not entirely utopian,

that are not entirely utopian, but also not just sort of like, I mean, at Disco Elysium, there is hope in this game, but it's mostly interpersonal, right? The sort of structural change, it's not so much there, right? And in our game, we try to focus more on this because we want to speak directly to people's senses of powerlessness and hopelessness that exists around climate change. You feel hopeless, you feel powerless, so let's talk about this. The sort of underlying ideas behind the game have a lot to do with

sort of sociological theory that talks about how if you give people space to talk about their difficult emotions around these issues, they feel safe, they feel seen, they feel like there's's and then a space for sort of collective critical consciousness emerges that then mobilizes people into action yeah yeah i feel like i'm often caught in sort of a doom spiral when i read something on reddit or on x formerly twitter oh yes x and it's like i feel hopeless and powerless and I'm sort of flooded with anxiety. And it seems like what you're speaking to is a way to not let those feelings coagulate, but rather that you can talk about them almost in a therapeutic sense. And that allows you to feel more active in the future. Is that right?

That's right. And this is really what's shown to be sort of the basis of many social movements is that you find a community where you can speak about the things that you think are maybe, you know, you feel hopeless, anxious, et cetera, about this, but you're just carrying this yourself. In a modern society, you're supposed to sort of just carry this yourself. But when you can sort of break through that sort of loneliness

and the sort of separateness of those emotions and sort of recognize this together, the space starts to develop for action, right? And this is what people really find in activist movements as well. So as Kuyuli in this game, you are doing some important sort of investigative work yourself, but you also have a team to manage. And it's really about sort of giving the space

for these people to be themselves, to be with their worries and their pain and their anger. Anger is a great motivator for action. But of course, if it's just anger, sadness, and anxiety, people burn out, right? Activist burnout is real. So yeah, so that's there. There's all playfulness and fun

and weird absurdity in the game as well. I think that's really important. And really, you know, these things don't have to bite each other in fact they can strengthen each other going really serious and really deep and being playful as hell and a really great example for me of this in modern games is the new wolfenstein games actually oh i haven't played the new wolfenstein oh yeah you should really play them they're so interesting in the way they walk the line sort of like dealing with really difficult topics uh you know, fascism. And Wolfenstein, The New Colossus, especially, talks about, it's about the Germans bombing New York and taking over the U.S., but it's about how fascism is really sort of a fertile ground in the

U.S. already before the Germans came in this story. And so it talks about these really deep themes, but it also has you going to Venus to go to Hitler's secret Venus base to play as yourself in a movie he's shooting about you as a character. It's ridiculous, you know? But it's wonderful. It's just really that sort of absurdity and deep sort of attention to what's really going on.

That's just really powerful, I think. Yeah. So you have this whole team assembled. Yeah. How far along the... Where are you in the process of the development of the game? Are you still in the fundraising section of the game or are you actually putting down code or what's going on? Yeah. Maybe one thing to say about the fundraising is that we, that's really important to mention about this game is this game is meant to raise funds. Part of the funds raised with the game, with the sales of the game, are going to go to real climate court cases. So we want you as a player to feel like I'm buying this game and, you know, a significant part of the

money goes to real cases. So that's maybe good to mention. We got some funding from the Dutch Creative Industries Fund to get us started. And now we have a little tech demo. Let me take a step back because for American listeners, what you just said is going to sound the craziest thing so far. So you got money from the Dutch government to help make your game. Yes. What is that like to have the support of a government? Oh, it just feels normal.

I'm just like, oh yes, of course. You know, we, know we we can also go to the to the european commission for instance and they'd be interested in these kinds of things as well um no it's i'm yeah it's it's interesting that you'd be shocked by that but that feels kind of like yep you know that's just that um you know there's much wrong with the dutch government but uh but they they do support these things yeah i'm also on a research project funded by the dutch government as well for my games research so they're fully behind this stuff cool so you receive that grant uh and and you're in the go ahead i didn't mean yeah oh no no i mean i did mean no i'd interrupt you but i you know what i mean yes yes for sure so so uh yeah we

have a small tech demo and we're still working on so we brought that to gamescom to show it to funders and publishers and got some really useful feedback uh and so we're going to be tweaking it a bit to sort of like just incorporate the feedback we got uh at gamescom so we'll have a slightly more developed tech demo and then in the next couple of months we'll really build building towards a vertical slice which means a fully playable section of the game. It's just like a vertical cut through, right? And this is a common thing. Yeah, we're looking for funds. Originally, actually, when I sort of came up with this idea, while I was involved with a real climate lawsuit, I thought of raising the money through Kickstarter or something and then having part of the Kickstarter immediately go to Climate Court Cases. So my idea was we're going to sort of like

have an impact with a game that doesn't even exist yet. But then we were like, OK, maybe we should actually build an actual game that's going to just work much better. And we can we can always fund new chapters by Kickstarter or whatever. Right. But just have of the funding and just build it. That will be more sort of solid approach. yeah so we're looking for funding uh speaking to the publishers last week was really interesting people are really interested in this idea i think it's

not something that i've ever heard about before i don't think there are any especially in the commercial game space any climate activism games that are about the emotions of climate change and sort of the struggle and the politics of that uh out there at all so well i feel like games like disco elysium are showing publishers that the more sincere your game is and the more um the the voice of the author of the game can come through the more resonant it is with the players. Like, I feel like there's a, and I don't think I'm just speaking from personal experience, but I do think that there is a little bit of fatigue in the industry of just always playing the exact same game over and over again. And when these games, when something new is done or when there's a different sort of environment, that it encourages more people to play.

Yeah. Because it's not like, if you see 50 first-person shooters, you choose one of them and you're like, do I really need to play the other 49? But when you hear about a game like Disco Elysium, it's like, oh, this is like maybe two other games that have ever happened. And so, yeah, I feel like that's really encouraging

for the future of the industry too. I really agree. And still with this game, we are still, and this is a point that Magna has made sort of several times as a person who has lots of experience writing for games, that we still also, even then, don't just want to look at Disco Elysium

or Ace Attorney or something like that. Because of course, these games also trap new ground, right? So we also want to sort of like, for instance, that sort of like management of the team's emotions in our game and having that empathetic leadership as a thing to learn. I mean, that's in neither of these games, really, right?

So we are also trying to do more things. But it's true. Like, to me, Disco Elysium feels like a utopian opening of the game world, right? Who could have thought that a game about a failed communist revolution in a strange, semi-fictional fantasy, you know, modern setting that's just about everything, that has these really complex interpersonal interpersonal psychology stuff going on uh would be that successful yeah and it's just this you know um

the it's just this sort of like really personal expressive thing it's really amazing so yeah yeah same thing goes for citizen sleeper and a bunch of these other games as well so yeah what are your next steps with the game like specifically, is it just another round of fundraising or is it like once you have that vertical slice, what platforms are you targeting? Are you looking specifically only at PC or Mac or is this going to be a mobile game? This is going to be all platforms.

Mobile will probably come last because it's better to be established as an actual sort of game, as a full game that's been understood to be a game rather than a little mobile game, which just has a different vibe to it. And then when it goes to mobile, it's a different story. So all platforms, we really want to make something that's quite accessible.

A part of the audience that we're interested in is sort of people who are interested in games, might not play very much. and i think that that would be but who you know come at this from the side of maybe sustainability or being interested in climate change or having some worries about this and wanting to sort of feel supported and empowered and the game is really about empowering people and in a way you know mobilizing people towards action uh yeah um and basically we are hoping that this game will get finished by the end of next year great so that we so that uh maybe at gamescom next year we'll be there with the stand among all the indie games uh rather than only speaking to the publishers

uh yeah so that's the plan basically and then the game will be several chapters so there will be a chapter in Southern India, but also other parts of the world, including the Netherlands and most likely Nigeria and the Dominican Republic. And the stories will sort of loop into each other. So Kuyili won't necessarily be the main character in all these stories, but she'll be involved

as an advisor in the other cases as well. So you're targeting early 2025 for a release or late 2024? Late 2024. So that'll give people maybe two years to play the game before the world ends? Yeah. Yeah. So just enough time. So obviously this is, I mean, this is part of why I was interested originally in that model of bringing the idea of this game up and getting people to kickstart it so that they could fund it and that the money could already go to climate court cases. But we'll just work very hard and get it done. Yeah, it's a horrible time to be.

I mean, this is one of the things I worry about a lot. I used to work a lot on policy and all this stuff, but I feel, you know, policy around climate change, but I feel like policy is so beholden to politics that there's the sort of operating space so small in policy circles when the politics are the way they are. So that's prompted me to move to sort of media and culture because there are things, the conversations are happening at a larger scale, et cetera, et cetera. But of course it's slow, right? You're influencing or opening up or asking questions in the public space. Yeah, but more direct action is also necessary.

So I'm also working on lots of research on direct action actually, and involved in it. But when you are, cause it sounds like the emotional space that you occupy is one that I'm terrified to stay in for very long, like really, really dwelling on climate change. When you want to blow off steam, do you game or what do you do for fun?

Do you like go get drunk here in Utrecht? Yeah, right. It's an interesting question. So my relationship with games as a way to sort of blow off steam is a little complicated. I noticed that I will play games when I feel when I'm playing the most games, it's when I'm doing the best psychologically. Otherwise, I just feel like there's too much to do, which is which is interesting. It's a bit different if they're really high quality games. Like I was playing Death Stranding recently, and that is a very strange game.

And I think really interesting because it's just, so it's Hideo Kojima's baby and it's just completely insane. And it's a massive budget. Like it's a huge AAA game. And it's just like, everything is just really nuts about it. And that gives me hope for the world because I'm like, wow, this doesn't make any sense. It's completely, and it's got a very positive message. It's all about connection and reconnecting with people.

And that kind of experience, I feel like it's got a very positive message it's all about connection and reconnecting with people and um and that kind of experience i feel like it's valuable you know whatever i feel like i could play that and just be like amazed and confused by it and that gives me it gives me some openness i suppose well i'm in a metal band so i sing in a i sing in a black metal band called impossible to to pronounce if you look at it on paper but whatever it's uh we're doing quite well with that and that's just sort of a raging volcano of all these emotions but it's cathartic you know it's very and I'm just when when we play the show uh when we play a show with the band I'm just on the ground in a puddle of sweat and just dying but it's a release you know so that's that's good. That's going on.

Yeah. I mean, lots of lots of other things, but I feel like. Yeah, the best way to combat this anxiety and well, let me put it like this. I was recently talking to some young people who are sort of part of the young arm of a sort of moderate political party, moderate leftist political party in Nellens, and they all struggle with climate depression and powerlessness. And I told them, I'm going to try to give you a new problem, which is the anxiety of there's so much I could do and I can't choose and don't know where to start. I think that's a better problem to have, right? Where you're like, okay, my agency

is actually quite significant and there's so many things I could do. I have a lot of power, actually quite significant and there's so many things i could do i have a lot of power um dutch middle class kids you know like uh but where so now i have to choose what to do and i think that's yeah that's that can be anxiety inducing as well but it's better than hopelessness and despair yeah yeah all right so if our listeners want to hear your metal band yeah where do they find it okay find it on spotify and apple music yeah it's on spotify so So the first word is T-E-R-Z-I-J. And that's that spell is or that's pronounced as Terzay. But our American fans, you know, if they don't know how to say it, it'll be like Terzay or something because IJ doesn't make any sense.

So we're being very obscure, but that's our genre. Okay. And then if anybody wanted to follow you online, do you have any social media presence or? Yeah'm on i'm on x for the time being i'm trying i'm trying not to be but it's like ah you know it's still like i've made so many wonderful friends and things you know we're all like that right so it's at fervort and it's my last name for fort underscore yoast and then i'm on blue sky as well you can find me there uh i'm on macedon and instagram yeah where i post my artwork or whatever yeah so well thank you so much for

talking to get played um as our first field correspondent piece uh this was a really Thanks so much for having me. Really wonderful. Wow, Heather. I have a pitch for that segment, a name for it. I mean, okay, it's never going to happen again, but okay, what is it? But when you do it again, this recurring segment, I have a name for it it's i mean you okay it's never gonna happen again but okay what is it but when you do it again okay this recurring segment oh my god are you just gonna after all of that like earnestness you you're a meat your first instinct i can see from your grin you might as well be eating shit you're no you've got a shit eating grin and you're about to like go ahead what is it look let me put down this this spoon in this bowl of shit real quick um this american life how about

this game american life i think that's the name of a book is it really i think there is a game, this gamer life, this Amerigame life. I don't know. I feel like there's a, this game-merican, game,

game-merican life. That sounds like, This game-merican life. I don't see anything. That sounds like you're just calling me a gay American. This gay-merican life. That's sort of, how you identify first and foremost, right?

Like when you're on TV and there's a chyron it says Heather Ann Campbell, gay American. Oh, God. Yeah, I don't know what the title of it would be. I like World Warrior. You know, I like that sort of as the headline for it, but I don't know what the title of it would be. I like World Warrior. You know, I like I've liked that sort of as the headline for it. But it is. I don't know.

So yeah, World Warrior is good. You know, that guy in this game American life. But, you know, I don't want gay American. I don't want gay. I didn't say gay American. It's game American. I'm articulating both. You can't add a syllable in between two M's.

Game American. I just did. You can't add a syllable in between two M's. Game-merican. I just did. That was awesome. Heather, it's awesome that you did that. Thank you for going to all that trouble. He had such an incredible pitch. It was so incredible to talk to him. And the thunderstorm and the journey was completely worth it.

I should say that at the end of that, we did not, because Mary came with me and we did not bike all the way back to Amsterdam. We got our bikes onto a train and took a train home. Yeah, that sounds like it was for the best. Because otherwise it would have been one of the hardest days of my life. As it is, my legs were shaking so badly when I opened the door to do that interview. Yeah, a real fun time. And, you know, hopefully next summer,

maybe I'll get an opportunity to come back to Europe and do more interviews like that. But if you've heard, if you heard that interview and you're like, oh, I want to do something like this, I'd love to talk to get played. Then reach out to us. And one of the and one of these boys can. Bicycle for two and a half hours.

And yeah, I can and I somehow get to talk to Hideo. What the fuck? What the fuck? Hey, so Heather asked some questions, but you have some questions for us. It's time for the question block. All right, and guess what? Ring, ring, ring, ring.

It's all voicemails, baby. Wow. Oops, all voicemails. Surprise. Surprise. Actually, that is a surprise to me. I didn't know this was happening. Yeah, I didn't know this was going to happen either. It's a real audio forward episode of our podcast. Yeah, that's sort of why I went with it. Why don't I just play one of these fuckers, huh? What do you say? Let's go. Hello, Nick and Matt, and especially Heather. I hope you're feeling bad, Heather. I just wanted to say I traveled from Germany to the Netherlands for the get-together, and I hope you don't feel bad anymore.

I just wanted to say it was totally worth it coming to the Netherlands. Amsterdam is absolutely beautiful. I'm having a ton of fun getting drunk with some Americans on their first trip to Europe and I hope there'll be a get-together soon or maybe a meet-up at Gamescom in Cologne and yeah, just hope you feel better and don't be too sad and I hope you're better soon.

Bye! That was nice. that was extremely sweet I cannot I know that nothing that happened was my fault but I cannot express the extreme guilt that I feel about having to cancel that event and knowing that people traveled in to hang out with us

I promise we're going to do it in the future. And maybe even, because I know Nick won't fucking travel, but I had this fantasy that I could convince Matt to come with. Yeah. No, it would be my greatest joy. First of all, if we all just went on a trip, it'd be the time of my fucking life. I'd love it

i love going on trips with friends uh i'd happily uh let heather show me around the netherlands absolutely also matt to go the national video game museum is the fucking coolest place yeah yeah it's better than it's better the this room is better than any single room i think i was ever in in japan wow like it it's that's cool it's an a staggering room uh so anyway back to that listener um you know uh i i it it the whole i i didn't get to go to gamescom uh in c, even though I was, I was aiming at that. The interview actually that I just, that we just played was that Dr. Josef Vort was just at Gamescom, which is kind of cool. But yeah, hopefully next summer I'll be able to,

because I know for certain that I will be back in the Netherlands next summer. But yeah, that's, I feel so terrible about all that. I wish I could have hung out with you guys and played some video games. Definitely not your fault at all. You got COVID, what are you supposed to do? Yeah. Sorry you were so responsible um and doing the right thing also it's it's what's weirdly frustrating is that i didn't end like mary had covid and you

but i didn't i didn't end up getting it and if there was some way to ensure that that was something i could know in the future yeah so not only was i quarantined for for those couple of weeks but there like it didn't it just it just took everything from me you're built different i'm built different i'm always like you know i've never crossed an ocean um and as someone who's only been in north america i'm always staggered when I look at European geography, cause it's like, you're like, Oh my God,

I went from Germany all the way to the Netherlands for a meetup. And it's like, Oh yeah, it's from like going from LA to San Francisco. It's like, you know, it's, it's,

it's not like this, this unbelievable distance that was diverse, not to trivialize it. It's amazing that someone came out, but it's like, I, I, I'd like for any other,

uh, uh, dipsh fellow, my dipshit americans out there um uh it's just it's interesting to be oriented in here and and understand just like well like it's how much more compact things are see this show is a lot of things we have gay americans we have dipshit americans nick i'm pretty certain that if you ever came to the Netherlands, you would consider it your favorite country on Earth. It is. Well, it is. Yeah, it is so dense with public transport.

I love that. Like you love public transport. You can go anywhere so fast in this country like you can just like or you can go to the you can go to the train station here in amsterdam and you can take a train that's always there to london or you can take a different train to paris and it's no time at all like you could just go to london or paris you know and then i don't know if you're a cyclist but oh yeah but it's fucking crazy how how you can like the the reason i went on bike to utrecht is because you can click on google maps and be like click the bicycle thing and there's a bike

path the entire time there's no that's amazing there's no space where you're like on a road and there are some places where the bike path is the road and if you're a car you have to like get permission to go on the road and you have to go behind cars or behind bikes extremely slowly and that's what it's it's an incredible country it's really fucking it's paradise it's amazing here uh i uh i like yeah you can't get intra city in la on bike without and and stay on a bike path all the time like i feel like you can go like a couple miles in any direction and then i've got to get on the road with cars going 40 miles an hour. Also, they got crazy food. Look, dude, I'm going to pitch you hard for next summer. You've got two podcasts that could have like a real good time

in the Netherlands covering some really good crazy food on one of them and some amazing video game stuff on the other. I mean, I do have an upcoming court date in The Hague, so maybe we can sort of sync that up. I'm very down to go. And, you know, maybe when we're all stateside, maybe we do a get played meetup over here? Something like that?

That would be pretty great. That would be pretty great. Why don't we play another voicemail? Hi. No question here, but enough is enough. Why haven't you played any Bethesda games? Why haven't you played Skyrim? Why haven't you played Fallout?

They are, and I know this is controversial, but amazing games. So much fun. Such deep lore. Why aren't we playing these big-ass AAA Bethesda games? Thank you. Love you guys. You rock. Bye. That's a very nice voicemail. I think the

answer, you answered it in your query there, which is the phrase big-ass. It's like these games are just such a fucking commitment. I think Starfield was a candidate, but it's like hard to like go back and, you know, I have my memories of Skyrim, but I'd feel like if we're going to do an episode about it,

I'd want to play some more Skyrim. And that's like, or, you know, similarly with Fallout 3, it's, these games are big in scope. So I think if we wanted to dedicate an episode to it, yeah, I don't know. Maybe we just do a throwback We Play, You Play, and we cover one of these Bethesda big boys. Maybe we eventually cover Starfield, or maybe we could do a one-off episode where we just kind of talk about these games. I guess this is genre from a company holistically.

But I think there's, I don't know, I do like the Fallout franchise. I do kind of i think there's i don't know i do like the fallout franchise i do like kind of like that series i i don't know i've only messed with fallout 4 a little bit and it didn't it didn't grab me um like right away uh and so i kind of just put i was kind of just overwhelmed by you know like the scope of it right like there's just so much you can do and i've tried sky i played i played elder scrolls oblivion a little bit i played that more than i played um skyrim and i i thought that was kind of cool but I didn't ever finish that game at all. And I started Skyrim. I started Skyrim a lot in my time, and I just can't do it.

I don't know what it is. And I know that it's great, and I know that I'm wrong, but I just, I don't know. I can't do it. I've been in on Elder Scrolls. I've been in on Fallout since Fallout 1, which was Interplay. It was its own developer, so it was a different thing. And it was isometric.

And I've been in on Elder Scrolls since Elder Scrolls Arena and Elder Scrolls 2 Daggerfall, which were both Bethesda, but they were much cruder iterations. So I do have a history with these franchises. But I think that here's the other thing like i i just don't finish these games because they're so big and i'm like you know the kind of the story is that the narrative isn't isn't really the point that's something i feel like like like a larger in scope game that I have finished like the you know the the the Mass Effect games or um or uh you know the the but I mean Baldur's Gate 3 currently I'm uh certainly far from finishing it now but I plan to it's like there's like a compelling mainline narrative to pull you through and yeah I don't know I don't i think we could talk about it maybe maybe starfield

gets us into it at some point maybe we do a starfield episode in a few months i don't fucking i i'm it's a good question i don't love nor hate bethesda games but i have finished i finished skyrim i finished fallout 4 fallout 3 which it? 4 was the most recent one. I don't know which one it was. Fallout 76 is actually the most recent one. I didn't play that one. That's its own thing. But I finished that Fallout game that came out whenever that was.

They're very, very funny, as I said earlier. And they're really funny violence. So, I'm in. So I'm in. I'm fucking in. We'll figure out what to cover.

It is a blind spot of the pod. Big blind spot. Let's play another voicemail. Hi, Heather, Nick, and Matt. My name is Taylor. I'm from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Just wanted to thank you guys for the laughs and for inspiring me to play games like Disco Elysium

and Persona 5, which I am enjoying the hell out of right now. Sometimes I also get burnt out on video games, and your show always hypes me up to play more. So thanks. The other day, we had a rainy 5 degrees Celsius, which is about 41 degrees Fahrenheit day here in Edmonton, and I was stuck at work. It was cold and gray and dreary, and in my opinion, the perfect video game weather. So my

question to you is, what is your perfect video game weather? For me, I like a cold gray midweek when everyone is at, a cold gray day when everyone is at work and I'm enjoying games in the comfort of my home. I use my vacation days sometimes to just play video games, especially when it's like minus 30 degrees Celsius, which is about minus 20 Fahrenheit, I think. And we expect life to continue here when it's that cold, but it's nice to take a day to play games. So again, what is your perfect video game weather?

Thanks so much. Hot dog, more like my dog. See ya. Hell yeah. We should have put that on a shirt. I forgot about that. That's an old... What was that?

I vaguely remember. You were making fun of Nick and I for the quote, style of jokes that we do. Yes, that was your impersonation of the kind of joke we would make. Yeah. And it's good. It is good. It's good because there's a glimmer of truth to it.

And I think that's sort of the main ingredient for any good joke. If you're holding a hot dog i mean the thought enters your head of hot dog more like my dog it does last time i was eating a hot dog i was thinking that the whole time hot is the opposite of my so it is sort of like um my perfect video game weather is the same i like on a day especially okay here in my final week here in amsterdam when it rains in amsterdam because everybody's on a bike you kind of have permission not that i haven't gone out in rain on my bike uh and often it will suddenly shower while you're riding to somewhere and you

didn't even know it was going to rain, but like on a day where it starts raining and ends raining and you're kind of have permission to not leave your house because the only way you can get anywhere is a bike or walking to the tram in the rain. It's fucking great. It is great to, to play a video game on a full rainy day so i'm i second that also rain means overcast and overcast means less glare on your television no matter where it's placed unless you're in a completely dark room so you know bright sunny day harder to play video games unless it's bucktie The sun is in your hand. Sunlight!

For me, I think it's pretty similar. I don't really like... I know I talk about playing a lot of games and finishing a lot of games, but I do that in the time where I'm squeezing that in. Like, in between things. I don't like i don't always allow myself the um the joy of what i experienced this past weekend of playing

balder's gate three for five hours like i don't really have sessions like that anymore but on On occasion, my partner will leave the house and be like, I have to go do a bunch of things or I have to go see a friend. I know that that's not something you want to tag along with. Do whatever you want here. And I'm like, great. I don't have to leave the house. You can go do whatever you want to do and have a nice day and I'll get to stay here. Fantastic. And so that's when I'll really put in my time but if it's raining ain't nothing better than that honestly like

because i don't like to go i if i if it's if my socks get wet my day's over it's done i can't really come back from that uh mentally like yeah it's like it's an instant day ruiner to me if my sock gets wet um so if i'm inside i'm nice and toasty maybe i got a cup of hot chocolate playing some games it's the best so i you know i'm i like mild weather hey that's that's that's not a unique opinion but like i i don't want anything too extreme and Hey, that's that's that's not a unique opinion, but like I do, I don't want anything too extreme. And I think that that is true for when I want to play games. My environment now is that I have this home office that I do podcasting in and any sort of non podcasting work. But also I have my my consoles in here and my gaming PC.

work but also i have my my consoles in here and my gaming pc and i invested in some uh even though it's a rental i invent invested in some blackout shades that are great because i don't have to worry about how sunny it is and you know this room can get completely dark if i need it to be so like that as far as screen glare goes, I don't, that's just like not a concern where I do my gaming. And also, so I guess just like kind of mild weather if I'm gaming at home, because I don't really have to, I don't want to be too hot.

I can run the AC, but I don't really love like the feeling of being in an AC environment. It's, it's like, like even though it's cooler and more climate controlled, I just like i always feel kind of like stuffy and um confined yeah but so but the way i'll address this is that like i kind of like you know hey i'll i'll tell you i love i love being outside i love going on

long walks and i'll take my switch somewhere if i'm playing something on the on the the switch and so like i kind of want like the idea like not too sunny a little bit overcast a little bit of a breeze but also like i don't have to put a jacket on and i can like sit on a patio somewhere and just sort of play video play it like play switch for a bit like that's like kind of my ideal weather rain i'd snow i don't like any of that stuff i don't want any sort of you just get good like like get that out of the way um because uh yeah i've lived in southern california my whole life i've lived in one county my entire life and and i just like i just like very mild sort of a uh you know beach breeze weather i guess honestly for any scenario like gaming yeah like it's just like gaming just sort

of fits into like i just like it when the weather is nice. Call me crazy, but if I have to be outside, I want it to be exactly how I like it. Yes, exactly. Why don't we just play one more, and then we'll wrap it up. Hi, Nick, Heather, and Matt. This is Chris. I'm calling from Ohio. I first want to say that I'm a big fan, have been listening since episode one, and I always look forward to my commutes on Mondays, because I know there's going to be a new episode to get me to work and back.

My question for you guys is what is your most outrageous hot take? What opinion do you have that you're pretty sure you're right and everyone else is wrong and you will die on this hill? I'd love to hear that from each of you. Otherwise, I just wanted to thank you for all the great episodes and keep up the good work. It's a bright spot every week. Thanks. God bless you, Chris. It's a very, very nice thing to say.

So are we looking for, is this a gaming hot take or is this a hot take in general? I think it could be either or. If you have a gaming one, go off. If you want to just get one out there, think it's i think it's open to interpretation i think society is going to collapse in the next 10 years that's good yeah that's good it's a i don't know how hot of a take that is but it's good but i know i mean like i mean like 10. No, I like 50. Not not like, oh, I think we're going to we're going to hit 1.5 C in the next six to 10 months.

And then we're going to have this rapid cascade that like I'm I'm not even like in climate anxiety. I'm in like a doom phase and i'm honestly thinking about taking survival classes so that i can extend my stay on earth for two to three months extra sure post collapse when society collapses can we still do the podcast yes because i also think that social that society's collapse is going to be very weird i think that people are still going to make tv shows i think that there is still going to be like in the same way that like a hyper normalized collapse of the uh soviet union still had jobs that weren't doing shit i think i think this podcast existing post society's collapse is almost 100 guaranteed sure

um so that's that's my big that's my hot take is we got 10 years left max my other i mean my other hot take is that uh video games are a um video games are a sport for um they're an interactive sport so puzzles don't belong in them it should only be combat because pong is combat there you go your turn nick your turn that's really good that's really good uh gaming one i think that uh i i don't how about this i don't like driving or shooting in games you don't like shooting i don't like guns or cars oh i can play a game that has shooting in it but it's just like and i can play a game that has driving in it but like i don't like these things there are other mechanics i like more i don't like i don't think aiming is fun wow i don't

think that the way that games are designed around every fucking shooter has it's it's so tedious that they all have the same like head shots do more damage mechanic it's just like that's so to me is so boring they do uh and i but but they don't necessarily you don't think it's like getting shot in the head does more damage than getting shot in the hand getting shot in the chest i think i mean like you know i think if you're actually look doing any sort of tactical shooting you want to aim for the chest that's just as likely to be a kill shot but like no game has that as a mechanic like it's just like that to me they have it as like a headshot is more because a head is a smaller target and so like i just don't think like things like sniping

or shooting at things in the distance so you're looking at like hey these things are a few pixels in size and i'm just going to move my cursor over them and hit the button at the right point like to me that just is kind of like tedious so if you're looking for a hot take yeah i think guns are kind of boring in games and i think cars are similarly kind of boring i don't like driving in in games and i don't like as i don't like it in real life uh in terms of uh in terms of of real life in terms of non-gaming hot takes uh i've said this before but here's my thing about gummy gummy ain't yummy i don't like gummy get the fuck out of here i don't like gummy anything that's insane i don't need that texture uh i don't need that kind of that sort of sweetness delivery mechanism so i'm anti-gummy

uh i also think that wait can i ask if licorice is gummy i would say licorice is gummy, I would say licorice is gummy adjacent. And also I don't need it in my life. He doesn't need it in his life. Heather. I also love licorice. I, I, I,

I've never had a salty German or salty Dutch licorice. No, it's fucking King. It's salty, but licorice. I like the idea of something of salty and sweet. I like that combo yeah i'll do like a salty well you'll never taste it because you don't like a gummy yeah i probably won't i

probably won't have it and you know what my life will be the better for it better i also i also think that you know what maybe i'll bring it back for you guys i love maybe i'll bring you back i'll try i'll totally try it some salty drope i'll totally try it. Let's see. Another hot take. I don't think people should have guests in their homes. I think your home should be where you live. And then if you gather, that should be like a separate place, like a public space. But I feel like your home should be like, don't come to my house. Get out of here. I have no idea what that means.

Guests in your home. I think it's pretty clear. what that means guests in your home but that's like from the paleolithic till today that's like a common human behavior and in fact multiple people living within the same shared physical space is common yeah if you're living together i've had roommates but i don't need like some guy coming over get out of here talking about i think it's pretty clear i don't need like some guy coming over get out of here what are you talking about I think it was pretty clear I don't even think this is a take this is like a hot nonsense yeah

like gummy I'm like okay Nick's trying to justify his behavior with these we wanted a hot take well you want to but what but what is the take I've never had a soul over here What? But what is the take? I've never had a soul over here.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't need people in my home. Yeah. Nobody needs people. What does that mean? Exactly. And I got one. I have exactly one.

All right, Matt, your turn. Because I've said this on the show before. I've said. Oh, I know what he's going to say. He's going to say jam belongs on corn on the cob. That's a separate thing. I don't want to get into that. I can't get into that again. I've said on this show that space is better than old.

Yes. And what if I told you that I've changed my mind? I no longer stand by space is better than all. Wow. Wow. I'm taking it back because I think cowboy is the best of all. And cowboy is old. I'd rather see cowboy than space wow you prefer cowboy to space in

video wait is is is the is the equation now cowboy greater than space greater than old or is it that old greater than space because of cowboy well because i don't necessarily want to go back too far, right? Like, I don't know if I want to be, like, a Puritan or something, or, like, or what's even, I don't want to go back to, like, Caveman. Although, Caveman might be interesting. Caveman's kind of fun. Caveman video game hasn't really been explored that much. Fucking Viking video game is so much fun. Yeah, Viking good, cowboy good.

But I'm not trying to like, yeah, I don't want to see a video game about like normal people in 1910 or something. You know what I mean? Give me a little action. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, though. 1920s action game set in Paris would be so fucking cool? Look, I'll try it. I think space,

we've done everything we can. I haven't seen a new space, like a new concept in space in a while. It's always the same kind of thing. And space is done. We did it space is done done with space and that sound like a like the american public in like the 1970s it's like all right

we fucking did it let's move on defund nasa done yeah dust it who gives a next show me the bottom of the ocean the food the food in old is better than the food in space. Yeah, you gotta eat fucking cryobites. But that also wouldn't follow, because I feel like food is one thing that has gotten better over time. I feel like if you want to go to the 17th century, that meal is not going to be nearly as good as it is today. They don't even have Doritos.

Sure, but food in space has a transportation problem so right so it's like if you're gonna eat a really good stew chances are you're eating that in old more than you're eating that in space a fresh a fresh fish not in space only in old well you're not gonna be yeah how would you even eat stew in space? The globules of stew are going to be floating all over the place. It'd be like one of those Japanese protein drinks that would be jelly. It would be like in the in-brand jelly pouch. Ugh, I don't want to eat my stew that way.

Jellied beef stew? Yeah, that sounds kind of weird. Which I've stew that way. A jellied beef stew? Yeah, that sounds kind of weird. Which I've had. I've had jellied beef stew. Ugh. At, um, what's that old-timey restaurant in Los Angeles? The one that's been- What, you mean like the Musso and Frank?

Yeah, Musso and Frank's. Oh, yeah. Musso and Frank's in Los Angeles has a classic menu. And on their classic menu, they have jellied beef stew. And it is cold and gelatin. And it is not my ideal food at all. Yeah, that shouldn't be allowed. It's unsettling.

Jellied consomme, is that what it is yeah okay yeah that sounds interesting i don't know if i i don't know if i'd be hot salad cold soup this guy's crazy all right like a normal temperature salad it's not mixed the canon here it's gonna get confusing for the listenership. It's funny also that this sort of meandering conversation about hot takes and food also happened in the same episode where I did that interview. Yes. It is fascinating that we think about food so much. That's just such a dominant thing in people's lives that lives that like anytime it's like hey you got a hot take on anything I think people's minds naturally go towards food yeah because yeah

we eat like fucking five times a day you know thinking about it constantly I'm thinking about it right now I'm thinking about it too but that was that was the this week's question block voicemail edition thanks for sending those in everybody and if you'd like to send for send more voicemails call us Thanks for sending those in, everybody. And if you'd like to send more voicemails,

call us at our phone number, which is 616-275-2933. And you can leave us a voicemail and we'll play it on a future show. There you go. That's this week's Get Played. Our engineering is by Alex Gonzalez, Dead Air Alex G on Twitter and Instagram.

And also we have Get Animated, our paywalled show. If you want to hop on over to patreon.com slash get played. Heather, what And also we have Get Animated, our paywalled show. If you want to hop on over to patreon.com slash get played. Heather, what are we watching on Get Animated? We are watching early 2000s mega hit FLCL.

It's a six episode series, also known as FLCL, which premiered in 2003 on Adult Swim and came out in the year 2000 in Japan. It's one of those big influential shows that our listeners on Discord encouraged us to watch. So we're watching that. It's a brief respite from longer, larger series. So come join us. It's a good time to hop on at patreon.com slash get played.

That's patreon.com slash get played for. That's patreon.com slash getplayed for all your episodes of Get Animated. Our Discord wanted us to cover Furi Kuri. It wanted us to talk about Shadow of the Colossus. It's got early 2000s on the brain. Perhaps some nostalgia for 20 years ago or so going on right now in the old score. 20 years ago.

It's tough to think about. Time is wild, right? Yeah. Here's a hot take. Time is bad. Oh, shit. You guys want another hot take? Yeah.

You got played. Ah, fuck. Fuck. Heroes