Get Played - High on Life 2 with Alec Robbins and Julian Shine

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Narrative Director and Writer of High on Life 2 Alec Robbins and Julian Shine join Heather, Nick and Matt to talk about their new game! High on Life 2 is available now! Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpod Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For our exclusive show Get Played DLC, ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? episodes go to patreon.com/getplayed Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fm All of our links can be found at linktree.com/getplayedpodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Hey, Nick. Yeah. I don't want to freak you out or anything like that. As a, I look, it's pretty high bar to freak me out. Okay. Well, it's just not very like me. You know what I mean?

Sure. But, um, I recently made a purchase. Uh, I bought a, I bought a gun. Okay. Okay. But it's not normal. It's not like a normal gun. Honestly, more worrying.

It's like a, well I'll just show you it's like a talking gun it's like a sort of like almost fish like like gun basically yeah no that's that's that's that has a face in a mouth and it appears to be sentient yeah yeah it talks it'll say it'll say hi to you

but it functions a firearm hi Nick hi hi hi Matt oh my god hi hi hi hi guys I've no hi hello hi wow it's amazing it's like a parrot it's like a little thing well it's more than a parrot it like it has its own thoughts and memories and stuff like that but the thing of that I got it for is that you know I say this from time to time sometimes it's good to be bad yeah no no no no don't do that don't be bad this thing is going to help us be just a little bit bad no no no no no don't be bad just be nice I just want to just be you got a you got a gun just be careful if you're when you're being bad you're bad with it put me in a drawer put me in a drawer put me in a drawer just put me in a

door and tuck me in under socks. Under socks. Unload the bullets. Be nice, man. Well, it's like, they're not really bullets. Like, sometimes it's like, like, spit or like liquid or something like that. But you just, you did bring a loaded weapon into this workplace. I made you, I think that's probably like, I'm, I'm just a little alarmed. I made you some juice. Oh, see, that sounds nice. You can destroy some juice. I made you a juice from concentrate. Do you want that? What kind of juice we're talking? Orange juice. Oh, yeah. Be the frozen kind. I have such an, I have such a, I have such a, I have such a,

nostalgia for the orange juice from concentrate because that's what my parents used to get. Yeah, it's delicious. It's still good. Why don't you put me in a drawer and drink some juice? If I put you in a drawer, okay, well, how about this? Okay. We drink the juice. Yeah.

You said it came from a frozen can. Yeah. We could put the can up. Okay. This is all I got it for. I want to just shoot at cans and stop. Oh, no. Maybe we could shoot.

Oh, no. Don't do that. If you're going to shoot you something, Matt, I honestly think we should go to a less populated area. We're in a very busy neighborhood. Or maybe you just dig a little. a hole and put me in the ground. Take a little. Hold on. Hold on.

You don't have a death wish, do you? No, no, I don't like that at all. So you're just worried about Matt's... I just want him to be safe. I think like maybe I'm just guessing going to that drawer with some blanket or with some socks that would be blanket size of you. I'm almost thinking you maybe want to get a little shut eye. Yeah, maybe a little.

Turn the brain off. Yeah, you guys have made a casserole. It's in the fridge. Why just put me in a drawer? Yeah, put me in a drawer. took me in in a sock Never shoot a bullet Look I may have got this thing

To shoot it Yeah But it's kind of doing Some other stuff That's pretty good actually Yeah I mean it seems like You kind of have like a personal assistant You weren't expected

I was gonna make a casserole Now I don't have to Yeah Yeah I know it's it's casserole Wednesdays When we're recording We always eat a We each Eat a full casserole before we record

We bring it's like kind of a fun system We each bring a castor and then we randomize who eats which casserole. Yes. Sometimes you get your own. Sometimes they get your own. That's just how randomizers work. Yeah, but it's like I made a tuna casserole last week. It got randomized.

I ended up back with a tuna casserole. And you know what? Here's the thing. The fact that you can get your own is actually systemically a positive because it encourages you to make a casserole that you know you will enjoy. Yes. Because if you don't make a good casserole, you could be punished for it if you end up having to eat it.

I made the enchilada casserole of it. It looks really good. I've got to eat the whole thing. Yeah. What the fuck are you guys talking about? We just like, well, if you're not going to do what we want, we're just going to talk about casseroles. I'll tell you what I want.

I want you to hold me to your head. See, now that's what I'm talking about. We speed on skateboards and talk to our guns as we interview developers of high on life too. This week is going to get played. Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Tiger Weiger. That's me, Nick Tiger Weiger, along with our third host, Mr. Games, Matt Upadaka.

Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the premier video game podcast where this week, people have made the mistake of coming on our show. I say no mistake at all, actually, because... Wow. I look this could be different by the time this is out we're number seven in leisure baby okay what does that mean number seven on the on the podcast in the concept of leisure got in the podcast charts in the genre of leisure so so leisure so like number one jacking off

yeah number two reading a magazine pissing for a long time right right if you're only four below pissing for a long time not pretty good you know how some pisses are relaxing there's something do you have to do for function, but sometimes you're like, this is good. I do know. I'm like, get it over with. You don't want to do it. I'm like, I get things to do. I'm overly hydrated as it is. You do, you do drink a lot of water. I do. But you need a lot of water. Are you a big guy? Yeah.

Well, he pours a lot of water. I don't know how much of it makes it into his mouth. It's interesting that you're so hydrated, it's considering how much you spill. Yeah, there you go. They call me Smolmonger. We're very thrilled to have our guests here. They don't call you that. People have been saying that. I don't know. People have been saying. I'll say it.

If you want me to say it, I'll say it. Please just start saying that. It's the spillmonger. The spillmonger himself. Tiger, Wiger. Don't make it my intro. It's canon, baby. Our guests are narrative director and writer at Squanch Games.

Their new game, High on Life 2 is available now. Alec Robbins, Julian, thank you so much for being here. Our pleasure. Thanks for having us. Welcome. What's up, boys? What's up, boys? That's our first question.

What's up boys? Not much, ma' much, ma'am. Answer the fucking question. What's up? Boys? We put out a game and we're tired. Congrats on that. That's so great.

No, we've all played a bit of high in life too. We've got to preview copies of it. We'll dig into it in depth later in the episode. But I wanted to start more generally. You're both here on the show for the first time. I assume as people who work on video games for a living that you are gamers yourself. That's a good guess. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you have, like, what, look, give us a sense of your general, like gaming taste. Like some games that were influential, some all-time. favorite, so ones that you play a lot. And I would say they don't have to be, like, don't think of them in terms of, like, how they reflect on the game you've made. Just like games that you like in your life. All right, I can

Super Monkey Ball. Oh, hell. I'm going to start with that. That's like my big new, I've been revisiting that. You were at the GameCube version? Yes, that's where I started. And then, I honestly think they've never made one better than that. I think that was the best one and they've never topped it. That's like

Pagel. It's another one who's like, this is such a simple game. How can you not just replicate this. They lost the technology. They even, they remade that first Super Monkey Ball game and I played it

and it doesn't feel right. No, yeah, yeah. It's wrong. They messed up just porting over a game. Anyway, that game. That's my favorite. Mother three.

Yeah, what else we got? I mean, Metal Gear Solid 2. Wow. Picking the bangers. The pod. Yeah. Those are, I'm just trying to be cool.

I play cool games. You guys, those are cool games. You, I agree. From a cool guy? Yeah. Julian, what about you? I like the ones where it's like two pornographic images and you have to find the difference between two or one.

Oh, yeah. Kind of an erotic photo hunt sort of thing. Where'd those go? Like that and like magic eye. I'm like a visual novels guy. Yeah, yeah. I'm a visual gamer. I was playing, you know, kicks?

You know that game where you like, it's like jazz ball almost? Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay. There's... I know Jezbo. You know Jezbo. Slingo.

Slingo. Slingo. Slezball. Gix. But there's a game that was an arcade game and it's so much fun. It's just a more cartoony version of kicks. And like, this game is great. Why have I never heard of it?

And I found out it's mostly a hentai game where you're trying to fill in these lurid images. And it was such a good game they had to make a non-hentai version. Wow. Yeah. It kicks with a cue, right? Yeah, that's right. If memory serves, yeah, you are like kind of, like, creating a path and what that's doing is building some sort of, yes.

It's kind of like pick cross, a little bit more active. You have to make a shape before the bad guys hit you. Right. The one I was playing was called Panic Street or something. It's so good. And the kick cereal used to come with hentai in it. Oh, wow. Bring it back.

Bring it back. When they brought it to the West. Have you played Catherine? I feel like Catherine's a game. Maybe you played it. I love Catherine. Full Body. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because like, what was making me think of that is. that that game is horny and weird, but the puzzle aspect of it is good that I wish that game was in something else? Right, right. You're weak. I am weak, is the thing.

Oh, I wish every game was hornier. That is true. Well, that is fair. I wish more games had a woman's voice commanding me to edge. Which is what she keeps yelling in Catherine. Absolutely. I feel like before we tarry further,

I feel like I must mention. Yes. I know these guys. You know these guys. You know these guys, man. I know these guys. I was out of, I was on a DIPROTE with Julian about 10 years ago. Wow.

We were crushing, by the way. How about that? It's great. And I've met Alex socially at our good friend, Connor McKeys. I would say he's both of our good friend, would you not? Yeah, absolutely. Our good friend, Connor McCabe's house, who's a great friend, and he hosts gaming parties and stuff like that.

We always go and we're playing games sometimes, and that's a lot of fun. You were saying the last time he said it was like a fighting game party. Like, what were you doing there? All sorts of crazy. They'd set up like four TVs with different fighting games. Dukens, you were doing. We were practicing our moves when we weren't up on the screen. What's that called when you do the, you were cancel?

What is that? It's a cancel. Oh, never mind. You can combo, you can cancel a super into another. We don't do cancel culture or anything like that. That's me when I'm playing streetfire. Oh, man, they got to fix this. Alec, I'm familiar with your web comic, Mr. Boop.

Yes. Which is very funny and I don't know how to describe it exactly. I feel like people should just like check out Mr. Boop if they have it. Check it out. It's in the news again because Betty Boop has just entered the public domain. So I've been doing a little bit of press about this comic again. But it was about me being married to Betty Boop. And.

So the Alec in the strip is a self-insert character. It was an autobiographical. Yeah. It's about me and my marriage to Betty Boop in all the silly. things we get up to and all the stuff that would happen if you were married to Betty Boop. It was a fun comic. It's done now. It's been done for a while. You can get a hard cover of it. But yeah. There's a really, there's a really complicated arc that takes place. It goes some places. But it is at its core a wife guy story. Yes. Like the ultimate wife guy who's just

constantly talking about how much he loves his wife, Betty Boop. At the beginning, it's kind of like a newspaper strip parody. It's kind of like blondey or. chickweed lane or whatever. Like everyone's thinking in their head, I love my wife all the time. They're always saying exactly what they're feeling. And that's, that's just,

it's just good writing. It's just good writing. It's efficient. It's very funny. Speaking of, like, a comedy, because like this is the, I think of the challenge of making high in life too. And I think you're,

you both, your team succeeded with it. But it's like, it feels like it's so hard to make a funny game. Yeah. And I, like, and this is the thing we've talked about.

out on the podcast before where a lot of like the comedy in games is sometimes things like, you know, someone falling off a bridge in Dark Souls. It's almost like not the- Well, that's like Looney Tunes. Yeah, like that's the kind of slapstick. I love that. I've said Dark Souls, like, Sense Portress is a comedy game. Like I think about it that way. Like a lot of comedy in video games is environmental. It's slapstick and it's incidental. So if you're setting out to make a game that's supposed to be funny, I feel like the cards are already stacked against you. People have their guard up already. They're like, all right, yeah, make

me laugh, which is the same problem you have with comedy in general sometimes. But like, games especially. People are combative sometimes. Yeah, sure. And yeah, I don't know, we try to treat it like a toy or like a surprise. We're messing with the player. You are our audience.

We're in control. Sometimes we can prank you. That'll make you laugh. Sometimes it's just character humor. It is a challenge. Yeah. I'm curious just like as gamers yourself, are there any games that you can think of that you, like, you consider particularly funny. I mean, Mother 3, honestly, like, it's pretty funny. Mother 3 is extremely funny.

I've used that as, like, a benchmark for our game before. Portal 2 is one that you just kind of, like, got it. It did it right. It's really tight. The writing is perfect. Like, but yeah, even, I mean, we brought up Dark Souls. Like, Sense Fortress to me is, it's joke structure. They've designed traps that are meant to surprise you and make you laugh.

Like, you walk around the corner. There's a guy who jumps out. You're like, next corner I know, and you look around the corner, no guy, he comes from the ceiling instead. That's joke structure. And I don't know, like that. I'm looking for that too.

When we're putting jokes together for our game, we're also trying to do some stuff like that from time to time. Like, how can we make the design into a joke? You also get a lot of really good, in Dark Souls, a really good clash of context jokes where it's like you have a person who has like, you know, the armor of evil and like it's like, you know, sweating red oil.

as they like had around a corner and then they're just like rolled over by a boulder. Yeah. It's like taking all of the gravity and seriousness and gravitas of like a Lord of the Rings movie and making the guy die constantly. Right.

It's part of what makes it so funny. Yeah, it feels like a Wiley Coyote thing. Yeah, it's so fucking hilarious. I think the other aspect is and I think you were touching on this is and I worked in game development in my 20s, but I never like worked on like a game that had comedy as like its core.

But I imagine part of it is you don't want to, this maybe speaks in terms of the deck being stacked against you, you don't want to seem try hard because that's like such a, that's such a tough thing in comedy if they see you trying, you know. And so, and I feel like some of the games that have been like, like, Duke Nukem 3D are just like so fucking try hard.

Unfying? I mean, that's Julian's favorite game. Duke Nukem is funny. We think he's very funny. funny. The guy is funny. His name is funny. Can we skip the what have you been playing

section? It's just Duke Nukum the whole time. You're embarrassed? I've been playing this really funny game. I've been laughing my ass off doing this only. But I'm like, how did you each get into development?

I had a friend who was working in the industry and he kind of brought me in. I was a fan of Mr. Boop and I'd made some smaller indie games on the side. I made this breakup simulator called Heartbreak High where you start dating every. You're already dating everyone in the high school and you go through one by one and have to break up with each of them before the school day is over. That's fine. I had some stuff like that where I'd already been messing around with it and I've been

doing comics and performing comedy and I just hit all the right sweet spots when squant was looking for someone like that. And I popped in and started working on High on Life One. And then you brought, Jesus. Then you brought me aboard. No hitting. Yeah. I get really excited when I tell this story.

We could have placed right past that. No. You did not have to address that, man. No hitting. But yeah, Julian and I, we worked on stuff. I get stage rage. It's sort of stage bright. And I just start swinging.

For audio listeners, Julian accidentally bumped to the microphone with his hand. Oh, you think it was an accident. Yeah. He went to the plane. He's like, this is going to be so funny. Say one more thing about Duke Nucke. There's going to be a few more mics getting involved in here. Alec hired me.

That's pretty much of the story. He makes me laugh. But you guys have worked together before. Yeah, yeah, quite a bit. Yeah. We do some stuff with HLP TV. Yeah, Hoh-Hump Park TV. Really fun local comedy collective.

When you're doing indie. dev when you're doing like a solo dev before you're working for squanch like what what what uh what tools were using what engines were you working in all of the cheap shit i mean i did uh game maker a lot i did i did flashback in the day um i use something called construct two that i really like where it's it's uh the most sketch like um game dev tool i've ever used where uh i think if you're you're using game maker or any other engine you're doing a lot of coding and you know like a lot of them are trying to do this front end where you can drag and drop stuff. Construct really is almost entirely all drag and drop and there's no code because what they do is they front end it with like just flowcharts.

So you can just do it all. I don't know. It's great. I recommend that if it's still cheap. Right. But yeah, anything, you can make any game in any engine. Twine. Twine.

Yeah. Twine is huge. Twine is like really beginner friendly. It's mostly text-based. So you can just kind of jump right in. If you know how to type, you're. you're good already. I recommend any,

like any tool that speaks to you, if you see a game that you like and you're like, what did they make that in? And that's affordable to you, give it a shot. Because it's not that hard to actually get into it.

Right. It's just daunting if you had never tried it before, I think. But the tools are so much more sophisticated than they were, like when I worked in development and it was just, yeah, things are accessible, yeah.

Exactly, yeah. Like when I was younger, I used to use, like, RPG maker. And you would, like, the way I would, was doing it the way other people were doing it, you'd push it to its limits. People would be like, you could make that in an RPG maker game. And it's like, yeah, really, any engine can be completely broken and reshaped.

There's stuff that people are still making an RPG maker. And I'll look at it like, how the hell is that even in the engine that I was using 10 years ago? It's, it's, anyone can do anything. Undertale was made in Game Maker. So it's Hotline Miami. Yeah, Hyper Light Drifter, too. Like, that's a really good tool. Hotline Miami is a cool game.

I haven't thought about that in a while. It is really cool. Is this a top-down shooter? Yeah. That's pretty good. Do you guys remember smash TV? Yeah. I like that game too.

I played a bunch of smash TV. Those are the good old days. That's it. I got no... They don't make them like they used to. Now it would be smash phone because of all the kids, I don't watch TV anymore. Yeah. It would be smash phone.

Yeah. Hey, hey Matt. Hey, Matt. Hey, Matt. Hey, Matt, do you like to sleep? I love it. Well, then you're going to sleep right now. You're going to sleep.

And I'm going to lay you down gently. Okay. On this Lisa mattress. Oh, nice. Isn't that nice? Oh, it's really nice. That's a pretty good mattress right there. I can't sleep just being on it.

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Go to quince.com slash get played for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. Hey, so that toboggan thing made sense to you. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash get play play. Played, free shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com slash get played. Hey, gamers, if you've been waiting for the perfect time to give your setup the ultimate boost, I've got some great news. Alienware is having their annual tech days event, and that means you can score some pretty

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Just visit alienware.com slash deals and snag yourself some great gear at very upgrade friendly prices. Alienware.com slash deals. One more question for y'all and for the entire panel. The question is, what are you playing? What are you playing? Hi, it's me the Resident Evil Merchant

and I'm here to ask all my new friends, what they're playing. What? Nothing. I just... We're just taking it in. I was just looking at you.

Matt, you gave me a weird look. I was looking at you with my normal face. No. No. What did I look like? Well, your normal face is like a smile. What was I doing before? You looked sick.

You do look sick. I look sick? You look sick. What, like green? Disgusting. Math looked like that for 10 years. Yeah, last time you saw me, I was sick. Beyond year five, you're going to understand.

That's just how he looked. I'm just a sick guy. Are you okay, buddy? I'm okay. All right, well, I guess I'm going to ask you the question. What are you playing? Thank you for asking me. Look, I mentioned this last week.

I was playing the Resident Evil 2 remake. I finished Leon's story. Wow. Wow. That game, very scary, actually. A little too scary for me. I haven't started Claire's story yet, in part because I'm a afraid, actually.

But I'm going to get to it because I do want to finish it so I could, because I don't count it as, I didn't, I didn't finish the game, right? You didn't beat it. I can't say you beat it. Sorry, man. Oh, I didn't say, I didn't say that. All right, just keeping you honest. I didn't say, just making sure you don't.

But you never play it as Luigi. Then you haven't beaten the game. My whole life. You're not a real game. That's true. That's true, and I'm really glad you brought it out. My life is over. This is awful.

but I'm going to get to Claire. I'm playing Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined which is just a nice cozy hang really, really fun time. But last night, in the mail, knock, knock, knock. Who's at the door? But the delivery man. What does he bring to me?

In the night? Not in the night. It was in the afternoon. You want to want the full truth? Wasn't even home for the delivery. Okay. I just got to say, this came to my house. You're just lying to us.

I just lie. You're one of those people who orders Amazon at like 8.30 at 9. I was like, get this here to be like 4 a.m. delivery. I need five pens now. I ordered Mario Tennis Fever because my wife plays tennis and I thought it would be an easy sell to get her to want to play a game with me. And boy, do we have a lot of fun playing Mario Tennis Fever last night? Wow.

How about that? Is that Switch two game? Switch two game. Oh. You're going physical on Switch two. We've said this before. Yes. And I'm doing it well, I'm doing it in the same way that I did in the previous generation, which was just,

at my own whimsy I'll go physical or I'll go if I want it really bad I'll download it But if I want the If it feels nice to have the physical one I tend to go physical

First Party Nintendo That's kind of just how I do it But like I know that the key card thing is confusing That one's on cart The key card one I don't want to get into it actually It's confusing

And I know that I'm about to explain it wrong But So when Nintendo The fanboys have to explain the company's crazy logic. Start to shut down. I just was like, I could just hear. Don't say anything bad. It's on digital key card?

No, it's on, it's physical on the cart. Because I feel like the discourse on the digital key card thing is like, well, the game's not even on there. And I was like, well, yeah. But on discs sometimes the game's not on there either. Don't get the outrage because that's how most disc games are. Yeah, yeah. You're always downloading something anyway.

Yeah. Like the disc or the cartridge is like the license to play the thing that you're down with. Like I don't know, it feels like it's cool that that's an option if you want to like, you know, resell the game later or like let a friend borrow it or something like that. Like you can't do that with the digital game. You can't. I remember when Diablo 3 came out, part of the backlash to its initial launch was the game having to be always online. And it's like is there, can you get a retail game? where like you can play it if your console isn't online.

Like like like out of the box unpacked. That still happens sometimes. There are games that are coming out every once in a while where like you can't play unless you connect to the internet even though it's single player and not online. Yeah, right. I mean, you all remember when Half-Life 2 came out. That was like a huge controversy was he had to have steam. That was, yeah, everyone's cool.

Yeah, but at the time. Crazy to think that there was a time where people were like, what the fuck even is that? Well, steam is such an anomaly because it is like on paper it is bad. Yeah. They just won. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can't forget. They're good.

Yeah, sorry. Let's get that clear. Their billionaire owner just lives on a yacht. Honestly, the best place to get it. Any digital storefront. But as far as digital storefronts go, it's like the most benevolent option is the monopoly. It's like the second game, Newell dies.

We're all fuck. Oh, Steam got sold to Saudi Arabia. as did his yacht that he lives on. Julian, what are you playing? You know, I'm actually a little starstruck that the merchant is here because I just beat the Resident Evil One remake. Oh, wow. I'm not in that one.

Yeah, I was debating whether or not that was a good thing. But I like that. You're part of the franchise. Yeah, no, I'm grateful that you would call me the part of the franchise. He's the face of the franchise for crying out loud. That's the sweetest. That's nice. That's nice.

I like that. The face of that franchise, Resident Evil Merchant. So the Resident Evil One remake, what did you play it on? I played it on illegally purchased. Well, I should say I own, I have owned a legal copy of it. Yes. And if you, like, if the original owner continues to be the owner. long after it's no longer in the possession.

I've owned this game for 20 years now. Yeah, absolutely. But I did get a ROMSla. Yeah, I did want to like back it up digitally by getting it on ROM on my Steam deck. Hell yeah. Oh, yeah. So you're a Steam Deck guy. I'm a Steam Deck guy.

Hell yeah. It's awesome. Most of the fun of the Steam Deck is just buying a bunch of games and never playing them and then downloading even more ROMs and never playing them. I just like to scroll through the library. That's what I'm playing. I'm scrolling through my Steam Deck live. tinkering with the steam deck because like I do think that is like I will set myself up with my steam deck tunes like you know what I want to play this I want to play this I kind of all and I'll spend the long time it takes to do that because it's not like necessarily the easiest thing to do you got put in some time to do it and then if I ever get to actually do the thing that I set myself up to do it's a miracle I just never end up doing it it's like the twilight zone you're going to drop it when you finally have time yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm going to shatter my soul

screen. Oh, my games. Oh, my rums. Okay, but that would be a really good reboot episode. Oh, good idea. Somebody better do that. You know what it is? Instead of glasses, it's a phone.

Oh, yeah. Drops his phone. People are saying this. Yeah. You say smash glasses. It's going to be smashed TV. Now smash. Now it's going to be smash glasses again with these dang Oakley's.

Oh, I didn't think about that. Glasses is kind of phone now. Glasses is kind of phone. Yeah. Speaking of which, Heather, what are you playing? I've been playing Dragon Quest. And let me tell you, Matt, you're right. It's a cozy experience.

It is a very, very, I'm, I mean, yeah, I still play Fortnite. I'm still in it, in the trenches. But what I've discovered is you play 45 minutes of Dragon Quest before you go to bed and just have sweet dreams. Oh, how about that? You have good dreams. It sounds nice. If I don't, and this is not a joke, if I don't play Dragon Quest before I go to bed, I have nightmares about Jeffrey Epstein.

You should put that on the box. I'll have full-blown nightmares about some nightmare thing I read earlier that day in whatever the drop was that day. But if I play Dragon Quest, I usually dream just of the blue slime or something like really just easy, breezy. You know, the slime was on the island.

Oh, no. Slime was a... You heard that there was a... on the island. Yeah, it's so crazy. Which, there's a, there's a Pocke stop for a Pokemon Go on Epstein's island. That's real.

That's not a joke. That's real. That's real. And they got rid of it. Yeah. The Poked. But what it begs is why can't Nintendo release the information of everybody who ever spun the fucking Pocke stop?

That's a great. That's a great point. It's not Nintendo though, right? It's Neantik and the Pokemon company. Yeah. Like you would have just a guaranteed locked phone. Sure, people dupe their location. And I'm sure that if you were like...

Now you're just giving them an hour. Pam Bondi's going to come out tomorrow and say they're duping the pokey stuff. Well, I think that you could, you could be like, okay, there's like a guy who's physical location has never left France. But he spun the pokey stop twice. Then there are people who, because it's the only... only stop on the island, spun it like 300 fucking times, and you'd be like, well, that person's probably there. Someone's the gym leader.

Yeah. The other layer of that is that you get to find out which famous people played Pokemon Go. Right. Oh, wow. You were former UN ambassador, Bill Richardson was a Pokemon Go freak. Chomsky all the time. Do you think Bill told him? Hillary about it, like, say this.

Hillary, I got something for it. I saw this thing on the island. Nobody ever played it there. Nintendo just put it there in the hopes that someone would play it. We heard there's a cool island. We know the age range of who's going to be on the island. It's probably some Pokemon Go players. It's too dark, I'm sorry.

So, yeah, I've been playing Dragon Quest. It's so good. And every time, the other thing about it is, Every time I go to play it, I'm like, I'm not going to have a good time because it's pretty simple. It's not like, it's not asking anything of you. And every time, like, whatever it is about like just the physics, the speed, the, the, how nice it looks when he, like, smashes a barrel. Yeah. It just makes you happy.

It's a, it's a panacea. Is that the right word? Yeah, girl. It's just a good, crunchy JCP. It's really just sweet. I do kind of like that it's easy. Like, it's like, I don't need to be challenged every time I'm playing a game. Oh, sure, no.

Also, oh, sir, go ahead. I was playing Shimagami Tenai 4 before going to bed. Cool. Who cares? Don't play a fucking, okay, no, no. Don't play a fucking hard RPG before you go to bed. Play a comfortable RPG. That's a morning RPG.

You start your day with Shimagami. Yeah, that's a clocking up at 6 a.m. Play SMT. It's like a coffee of video games. I really, I also really like that the battle speed is adjustable. That's a quality of life for me. Every JRP has been improved with these just small little quality of life. Any way you can skip its core gameplay mechanics.

It's always like you feel like an asshole doing it. You're like, I am kind of just playing less of the game. It does have a like, you could do like an auto battle basically. And I'll be like, I'll just do it this one. And I'm like, it is fun. And I'll do like five in a row. But then I'll get back into it. I was like, all right, that's enough.

now I have to play. Now I have to play. Yeah, you're like, my medicine. I don't do the auto play, but I do like, one of my least favorite parts of a JRP is after I select the thing, what I should happen instantly is the number it did. Yes. I don't need any of the other stuff.

I don't need to see him hop. And comparing. Like, I played a bunch of old stuff on my PS1 recently, and I'm realizing how many of these games weren't designed just to compare stats. Yeah. Or you have to like open up a menu, close it, look at the other item, go back to the other one. Yeah. Just to make sure you're using the right equipment.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just, so those, those quality of life improvements are perfect for me. I press attack and the number pops up on screen as how much damage I did. It's perfect. Yeah. What I wish would change is that I wish that it didn't speed up the animations on the monsters.

Nah. Because they go from like kind of like their like little, their like little dances to like just like a like a stuff. I've played Final Fantasy 11 that way, and that's a 3D game that they let you fast forward. So it's a very drama. That's not like one of the Super Nintendo ones. I could just play this game at double speed. I will say too, every monster design in the game so far is immaculate. They're all so perfect looking and weird.

Like big, like big cat fuckers. They're awesome. It's got the like the 2.5D like the, no, this one is like a full. I guess it kind of is, but it's an isometric thing, but it's like in full 3D. Yeah, you can rotate the camera. It's like Octopat Traveler. No, no, that one's not, yeah, okay, you're right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This one's like rotateable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't know that. You got to check it out. It's smooth. If you're trying to get cozy. This Toriyama, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, did Toriyama do, like, all of the monster designs or obviously wasn't, I don't think it involved in every entry in the franchise, and all of the foundational ones are his. I think he did. I think he did do all of them. And then I think at a certain point, he maybe was doing less for the games. But yeah, like, he designed all the monsters.

Yeah. Some of the monsters at a certain point are like, here's this one, but now this one's green. And he kind of is like, okay, but then you also see, like, concept art of what a slime looked like before he did it. Oh, yeah. And you're like, oh, he's the biggest genius in the world. Yeah. It's the simplest design, and it is the most iconic thing you'll ever see. It makes you so happy just to see it, too.

I think I've been saying that it's just like so many games are dark and, like, you know, Like, you know, like, upsetting, too. And, like, this game is just, like, bright colors and smiling faces. Yeah. It's so nice. That's gentle. Yeah. Alec, what are you playing?

Absalom, most recently. Have you guys played that? Yeah, yeah. Like a beat-em-up rogue-like I've been really into. And before that, I was playing through Final Fantasy Tactics, uh, that remake they just did. Very, very good. That was, like, the perfect port. I love that game.

You played the original, I assume. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I was, uh, I literally replayed it. like a year ago, and then they announced this. I'm like, I'm gonna play it again. I just like my game so much. It's great.

Have you played Final Fantasy Tactics Advance? Yes. That was like the first one I played when I was younger, and I liked it, and then I played the PlayStation one, and I went back to that one. I'm like, this is for toddlers. I don't know what they were like, the gameplay is good. The gameplay is like at the same level,

but the story is like elementary school kids get sucked into Final Fantasy. The other one is a real, like, deep war story, with some stakes. I think what Matt was trying to do is bait out whether or not you beat tactics advance because I have spent my life not beating it. I've never finished it. Thank God.

Thank fucking God. Either way, no matter how it was going to shake out, the data is interesting. It's just interesting information. Matt, I finished it when it came out. Wow. What the fuck? Julian, is that true? It was for toddlers, I guess.

What the fuck? Yeah, no one can beat it. No adults can beat it. If I try to do it now, I probably couldn't. That's... And then I beat Tactics Advance 2. It's like when the Rugrats lose the ability to talk. Yeah.

Tactics Advance 2 is the one, it's like kind of like you circle. Wasn't it on DS? Yeah. Circles. Yeah. Thinking of kicks. What? Circles to Final Fantasy.

No. No, two was also on Game Boy Advance and it was just more of the same, basically. You guys are... You're lying. You're lying. I'm thinking of Revenant. Revenant wings. Final Fantasy.

That's a DS one. Yeah. That's, I think, a 12 sequel, like a spin-off. There isn't an advance to. It was for Game Boy Advance. No, it wasn't. It was for the DSS. Can we get clarity on this?

You got a. I literally was looking this up the other time. The question is, we just want to find out of the platform for Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced 2. I will bet you. I remember it being where he's circle troops with the pen. That's Revenant Wings. You're right. But I thought that was Tactics Advanced 2, colon,

Revenant wings. Grimwar of the Rift is the subtitle of tactics advanced, too, and I'm going to win this. I'm going to win subtitles. 15 gill. All right. The stakes are 18 gill. Final Fantasy Tactics A2, colon, Grimwar of the Rift, Nintendo DS exclusive. That's what I'm saying.

Wow. I kind of will be like a challenge out of me. I don't. I wish none of this had happened. But I never beat the original Final Fantasy Tactics, but I played it like dozens of times. You played the baby one and destroyed the baby one. It was a baby one. I couldn't beat the first one.

It was exclusively from the Nintendo DS. That's so. That's what's up. What was on? The 18-gill jackpot. The first one was on Game Boy Advance. All right. This is a conspiracy.

Nick, what are you playing? Heather, thank you so much for asking. You're welcome. I put some time into Mugenics, which is the new game from Edmund McMillan, as well as Tyler Glale. Edmund Macmillan, best known for Super Meat Boy, which we cover on the podcast. I finally beat when we covered it here, a game that was an ex-win. It's so good.

I 100%ed it multiple times. Wow. Wow. I love a tough platformer. It was kind of a, I do too. I really like those precision platformers. I was, I just like never finished it back in the day. And so when we covered it again, I was like, I'm finally going to finish this some bitch.

You know what? It's very satisfying to do that. You can do that with a game. You know, I never finished this game. They don't go away. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. You can pick it up years later and finally, well, like, get that monkey off. No, no, when you get older, it's hard to try.

It's not possible. I've tried so many times. I'm still playing the same save. That's maybe your problem. Well, yeah, because every time I started up again, I'm like, what the fuck is happening? This is a binding of Isaac as well, and they previously, the two of them, to collaborate on end is nigh. The development cycle on this game was pretty endless, which they talk about on an episode of,

of triple click. And when they had Ed McMillan on the podcast, but it was something like 14 years from when this was announced to when it came out in its final form. I guess development kind of its current iteration was something like 2018 when this began. But it's worth the way.

This game rips. I'm having so much fun. It's a roguelike. You dungeon crawl. There's turn-based tactical combat and you maintain an upgrade a hub world in like this kind of life-semi sort of way. And Matt, all your party members are cats.

It's a cat game. You could not be more of a cat game. I'm going to have to get this. I got to get it. Just for the cats alone. You think I'm going to like playing it, though? How are you with like a turn-based sort of tactical thing? What do you think when you see a grid?

I get scared. You get scared of a grid. It's just like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I know, but I've sort of decided I'm going to leave childish things behind. No, I think I, you know, I liked that Mario Rabbids one. That was sort of like an intro to tap. tactics thing for me because I never really played tactics games before. I think I could, I think I could fuck around and find out.

And that game was pretty scary. That game is so scary, actually. If you guys saw a screen across the room like E3 or something, and on screen is your ideal video game, what is the image you see that brings you across the hall to engage with that game? I know there's hentai. I start there. Naked girl getting fucked.

Nick get anybody. And it's got to be like a good game. If it's a good game, I'm going to be interested. It is interesting that sometimes they're like, yeah, this is part of it, but the game's actually just kind of good. Yeah, yeah. Like Sanran. Yeah, yeah, we played San Rancagara on the show recently. It's good.

It's like a beat-em-off brand. It's like the Honey Pop franchise. I put a lot of hours in those games because they're good match three puzzle games. I can't believe this was the answer to the question, but it seems like that's the answer for all. It is fantastic. It's universal.

So anyway, really, really am enjoying this game. You know, gameplay-wise, kind of a hybrid of Into the Breach, which is a game I love in Colton the Lamb, which was a game I really enjoyed. The amount of mechanics in this game absolutely overwhelming. We've not scratched the surface number of possible status effects.

It seems like there are like just dozens of fucking things that you could be inflicted with and inflict others with. And also the UX is like, feels like it's intentionally trying to give you sensory overload because it's all, it's such a busy screen. But the art is all this, this hand drawn with a marker sort of aesthetic

that you're probably familiar with if you know his other games. Also, if you're familiar with his other games, you know there's like a lot of gross out and edge lord humor, which was for me, I was never the fan of it in like binding of Isaac or whatever, but none of it like fucks up the experience for me. It's just like how much can you, if you have a low tolerance level for the,

that sort of thing. There is a lot of it. There is a very dusty, speaking of Duke Nukem, chew bubblegum and kick ass reference in this game. That's wild. But here's one thing that I did start making the game 14 years ago. Yeah. It's true. The game's intro cinematic is like the Simpsons Couchaggag.

It changes every time. Wow. That's kind of remarkable. I love its ambition, love its playability, super duper fun. So that's what I've been playing as well as, Dragon Quest 7, which we should, yeah, which I've started, which I think we're maybe you're going to do an episode on. Yeah, we have to do it.

Okay, we'll talk about it later this month. Yeah. But the other gaming related thing is I wanted to share is something I saw today via my buddy Mark Carlson of Podcast the Ride. This is Tori Wilson's finisher from a WWE video game. Ranch, if we can bring this up here. I think Ranch has pulled up her actual finisher. Yeah, that's right.

No, I sent you the link earlier. Oh. Did you get the tactics advanced to information from Wikipedia for chance? I just want to make sure. I feel like people not trusting Wikipedia anymore is like it's kind of, that's done, right? I'm bringing it back. As of now. You got to live with this, man.

You messed up. I really did. I apologize. I accept it. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I'll give you grace. Thank you.

Don't do that. Oh, you know what? Don't give him grace. What are you doing, man? If you give him a little grace. You can't give Julian Grace. I give him grace. My buddy Mike Carlson of the great podcast, The Ride, sent over this link today that we all should just watch.

I don't need to give it too much setup. The caption on the tweet is, Tori Wilson might have the funniest finisher in WWE game history. So we're watching what appears to be, I don't know which game this is, but like a PS3-era wrestling game. Let's take a look. So Torrey Wilson, who is a buxom blonde, appears to turn around and wiggle her ass at, I think that's John Cena with such force that he is put on his back and then she can get the pin. Yeah, it like propels him backward. It's like he gets so horny that he has to fall over.

Because it almost reads like it could be like a, like you could have that, it'd be the animation for like a warrior like fart move, but it's certainly not a fart. Maybe we just don't smell it. Maybe it's just. She's getting SPD. Well, what she's doing is she's spiking his cortisol right now. To dangerous levels. They should give this move to Rio.

I like that Sina's head goes back and forth also. Like, he's being hit by invisible hands. It is good. A lot of fun. And I like that at the end to when he's pinned, he's like he can't believe it kind of. He's like, are you kidding me? Yeah, it's not fair. That was cheating.

That's not allowed. The signs in the background are. great too. Tori is hot. The chair gang is here. What's the one right behind her? I think it says word. Hard life?

Ward life. Word life. Yeah. Word life. Matt, I am sick and tired of not winning a Fing Award for ad reads. So I want you to listen to me

real goddamn carefully. Okay. Okay. Listen to this, Matt. Every group has someone who insists on doing things the hard way. Matt, are you listening? That friend's still paying for a subscription. They forgot they had that one refusing to update their phone because it still works.

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Right now, get up to 55% off your Babel subscription. By my count, that's more than half off. At babble.com forward slash played. Get up to 55% off babble.com forward slash played. Spelled B-A-B-B-B-E-L-com forward slash played. Rules and restrictions may apply. Let's talk about high on life too. Yeah, that's a great idea.

Look, 40 minutes into this podcast with two developers and I like to. We should talk about this game a little bit. Probably talk about it a little bit. I, uh, yeah, like, uh, like we mentioned earlier, I got to spend some time with this game. It's, it's very funny. It's very fun.

I did not play high on life one and just found, did find it very approachable as a player new to this franchise. My favorite thing about the game off the top is I love any time live action footage is used to, In a game that, yeah. That is not, like, it's not a night trap game, but you can walk up to video screens or you'll get, like, the pop-up on how to use the skateboard. Yes. And it's just a video.

And it, like, that of the jokes is, like, the hardest laugh from me. The skateboard tutorial video is very, very funny. That's one of my favorite thing. That's our friend John Milstein, who is a real skater. Oh, yeah, he's the best. He's a great comedian. And we had that idea kind of just, like, wouldn't it be funny if it was a live action tutorial? And I called up John and we went to a parking lot by the LA Zoo.

He filmed that that day. And at the end of the day, it was implemented in the game. It's so surreal because so many of my earliest gaming memories, I had an older brother. And we had a PC and like playing the seventh guest. And like the, I want to say the 25th hour, but that's a Spike Lee movie. Maybe just watch the movie. The 25th hour video game adaptation. But there's like FMV point and click games.

Like Fantasmigoria. Right, right. Zork, the return. Yes, yeah. It's very, the use of, in search of live action. That's like, that might be the most reference thing. Yeah. Anytime you hear somebody in our games, they want some, something, of course you do.

That's a reference to that. Who's like us? Yeah, but the use of live action footage in like such a vibrant animated world. It's very wally. Like, it's like, especially it being kind of science fiction. It kind of evokes that. But it's also cool because, like, obviously you guys are talking earlier about, you know, working on things at, like, Highland Park TV and just, like, doing comedy things in general.

So it's cool that you got to implement, like, you got to use all the skills you've acquired over the years of, like, doing this and putting it into a product that people are going to see and play. It's like crazy. We know how to do it. So it's like, I don't think another studio has exactly that setup and know how. we have our own very specific proclivities.

Yeah, we both came from video production to you worked in TV production. I have videotaped depositions. That comes through. I noticed the angles. They were really good. Yeah, they were some of the funniest.

You were the Rodney's cases. I have confirmed how many hours are in the video game that is a a semi-sequel to the seventh guest. Oh, wow. Do we want to guess over or under 25, which was your original? How many hours are in the title?

It is the blank hour. And the 25th hour was wrong. I remember it now. You remember it now. I'm going to go with 13th. 13th? I'm going to say, because some numbers don't sound good as the word before hour.

You don't mean? Like 31st hour doesn't. sound good. No, they pick something juicy. Yeah, yeah. The third hour is not super exciting. I'm going to say... Unless you're watching Lord of the Rings. Yeah.

So the seventh guest, blank hour, I'm going to say the 25th hour. That's what it was. That's the only one we know it's done. Without going over. I'm going to go say...

With absolute confidence. He guesses the only thing we know is not true. You know that on Bryce is right is just copy the person next to his number. Look, I'm humiliated, okay? I'm going to say the 17th hour. 17th hour.

Al, you had a guess? I think it was on the Nintendo DS. Yeah. My God. I can't take another L. No, I go, I go 46. 46 hour. Whoa.

Why is that on the brain? Can I say what I think is? Yeah, go for. Is it the 11th hour? Oh. 70 years after the seventh guest's events. The year is 1995. The player character is Carlin.

Denning, it is the 11th hour. That's a classic hour. One of the more famous hours. They should have done, because it's 70 years, it should have been like the 3,000th hour or whatever. Or just a multiple of seven. Seventh guest, 70 years. We're not going to go with like 49 or like 21 or something. It remains a huge.

14th hour. It's right there. They should have to apologize publicly. Why not just call it the seventh hour? seventh, yes, seventh hour. Heather. That would probably would have made a little bit more or less of a commercial disappointment, which I'll tell you what. Released it is the sixth seventh hour.

Kids will be playing this game. Yeah. I don't know. On their phones. The sixth, okay. The sixth seventh phone. Wait, no, Julian's right? It's right.

It's pretty sure that if you did, the meme would end upon release. Yeah. The action. Yeah. The action of release and the mean. You could heal the nation. Yeah. So, I mean, like, as I mentioned, I did not play high on life one.

Did you both work on high on life one? Yeah. And so, you know, sequels are so often a, I worked on a sequel when I worked in Game Dev. It's so often like a reaction to the previous entry in the series, the things you wanted to do but didn't have the time or the budget to do. and or based on the reaction. We're going to emphasize or deemphasize this element. I assume, from what I've read it, it seems like the skateboard was one of those things. That's huge.

Yeah. We had some skateboard ideas in the first one, and there was some concept art of an alien skateboard and all these ideas that we just never got around to. And our design director and some other people on the team prototyped this first-person skateboard mechanic. and it was immediately the most fun thing in the world. Like we were playing like blockout levels before there was anything even built, just rolling around on the skateboard. We're like, okay, we got to build the whole game around this.

Yeah, I was admittedly skeptical when that skateboard comes out. But and then it's super fun. It took us some iteration. Like at a certain point, someone had the idea to replace the sprint with skateboard, so it just becomes your sprint. And I think that's when it really all clicked together. Yeah. That feels great.

It feels like the speed that I want. a first person shooter to move at. And as the person on the podcast, who's always like, they move too slow in the game, I'm so happy. And I also really like the way that the grapple grind, like works in concert with one another. Yeah, you can latch right onto a rail. Yeah, that you can grapple and then grind on any rail that you can see.

All that was, it's really smooth and fun. Another thing that is, that just feels very satisfying is like when you crest the top of a ramp and then you can just ascend to the next level. Yeah. Yeah. Originally you could crash the skateboard, which was... Oh, yeah.

I mean, thank God. They got rid of that. Yeah. At one point, I swear to God, it was like, you would have to get more skateboards. Like, you would lose your skateboard. That's funny. If you fell off, you'd have to, like,

go to a vending machine and get another skateboard or something. I love it. Because, like, I'm a big Tony Hawk fan. And I love those games. And, like, doing it in first person, you're sort of like, how is this going to work? And it just does. Which is really awesome.

I also, in playing this game, I was like trying to suss out what the vibe was immediately. And like, for me, it feels like... It's a goofy game. Well, here's the thing. It's a little bit goofy. It's a little silly. It's a little silly.

It kind of feels like structurally or like just even just how it looks, it kind of feels like cyberpunk and ratchet and clank, which are two games I really, really love. There's our art director, Mikey and creative director, It has the scale that he developed for the first game, which is like, on one side is the Muppets, on the other side is Blade Runner. Hell yeah.

And he's placed our art direction right in the middle. It's just like whatever that hybridization is. Yeah. There was one specific joke that I want to get to, but I don't want to spoil what it is. I say spoil it. Okay, well. The game's already out.

It's out. It's the last joke in the game. It's the best one. No, it's like early on. and you get this like, you know, well, the story of the game is like, well, you first, like, play a montage, which is extremely satisfying and funny. Thank you. Sort of just like what's been going on. And then you get caught up to the present.

And it's a fantastic way of telling people who didn't play the first game, the story. Yeah. And it's also a nice tone set because it's like, oh, I beat somebody. I'm famous now. I'm having, my life is falling apart. Yes. Like, we want to do establish, like, kind of the status quo. And if you didn't play the first game, like you said, you'd be able to catch.

up and Eric and I had played this game 30 flights of loving years ago which used some like French new wave like jump cuts which I'd never seen in a video game before and some other games have done something similar but we're like we have to do our version of that so the beginning yeah you're just jumping from scene to scene in that French new wave style well like yeah so like the onboarding is really great and then like just even like the tutorial like the or the like not the tutorial but like the yeah I guess the tutorials placed throughout the game where you're like learning new like systems and things like that. You know, we weed it in.

It's, it's, there's, there's tutorials in between some of the exposition. They're also done in like a funny way. Like, I feel like there was like something in the hub in like your, it's like an arcade or something like that. And there's like a, there's like an aquarium or something. And like the guy's telling you like, yeah, maybe there's like like something, maybe some system that, but he's like laughing kind of too. Oh yeah, that's me.

That's me. I play the little digital clipy. Okay. Because you had one point you're like actually I don't give a shit about what the mechanic is. Here's the story with that is I don't write a lot of the lines for that character because I'm in a place

where I know what we need for that character for any line in the game really so I'll just go in the booth and improvise and for that I was getting so annoyed because I didn't understand the fishing mechanics nobody had explained them to me and it felt like there were infinite lines about fishing and I'm like how many more lines do I need to do

and so yeah like that one I'm just I am making fun of the That is really funny, but then also there's a, there was something in the game that I was like, can they do this actually? It was like, it's the crane machine. Okay, yeah, though this is my favorite joke. Okay, so there's a gacha machine.

This is a bit of a spoiler, but in your sort of hub, like, you can get, there's an arcade there. And there are also real games in the game that you can play. I think Bible Adventures is one of the games, one of the games, it's just fully in the game.

Yep. But there's a claw machine. It's called the crane machine. And I'm looking at this. I was like, okay, that looks like Kelsey Grammer. Like, it's like an artistic rendering of him for the game. I interacted that it says, hi, I'm the Frazier crane machine. I was like, okay, so they are just doing this.

And then the prizes in it are Frazier-related prizes. And it feels like this shouldn't be allowed. It's so funny. John Daly to do the his Frasier impression I think the line he says is like I'm Fraser Crane Machine and I'm listening

I'm listening yes I was like oh so they're just doing all of it but speaking of John Daley you obviously do a voice too we should mention Betsy Siddaro is our friend and is one of the gun we love Betsy Betsy's the best the coolest

but it is a thing yeah very early on you're hearing Betsy talk to you as a gun I didn't know this yeah Oh, okay, yeah. And so I, you know, I'm playing the game early. I start playing it.

I immediately text us, I was like, guys, Betsy's a gun. This is amazing. And then, you know, you have J.B. smooth. And then you also have, I have gotten to the point where I have Travis, Ken Marino. Camerino, one of our new additions, he's like the funniest guy in the minute. He's hilarious. Camarino is a genius. He did such a good job for us on this.

Like, the whole cast did, but we worked him to the bone. He's in the game a lot. He has a difficult task of, looks like, I mean, I mean, I don't know the backstories of Betsy or J.B.'s character, but you get the benefit of meeting Travis at a point. Travis is brand new and he's kind of going through some marital troubles by the time you find him. And he's just like, it's a perfect Ken Marino character. It's so, so far. I was so happy.

That's like one of the best comedy performances in a game. I mean, it's got to be like fire. Yeah. And most of them are in the top. Simpsons hit and run. But even if there were more. More than five. Yeah.

It would still be one of the best. He's great. He's so, so funny. We got Tim Robinson in there. Yeah. Who else? J.B. Smooth we mentioned. Ralph Einson, who, uh, he's, uh, from Game of Thrones, the voice of Galactus.

Yeah. That's how you say his name. Yeah, so I had to figure that out. We were briefed on that. Yeah, because I, I had been saying innocent for a long time. I think I said it to his face. Wow. Um, but now I know.

Einstein. Einstein. Einstein. Einstein. I'm never going to meet him, so I'm never going to meet him. so I'm never going to have to. You might. You never know what?

That's nice. Yeah. It's fun to know how to pronounce people's names. Why did you hold up your hand for that? I wasn't like, no, I wasn't doing the school way. It felt like you were like, it was just a gesture. I think it's fun too. Excuse me.

That's fun. Christ, find I'll hold perfectly still. That's what I mean. You're also like wanted criminal in this game, which is a fun dynamic, I feel like. because it's, I mean, look, it's fun to be bad. It's fun to be bad. It's fun to be a little bit bad. But you're good, but you're also good.

Yeah, my, like, my agenda, if I had one for this game, was that, you know, like, in the first game, you're a bounty hunter, and I felt like I wanted to feel a little more dangerous. Like, I love the idea of you being on the other side of the law, and, like, the world is following the rules, and the rules are terrible. Yes. And so by being an outlaw, you're actually doing the, virtuous thing. That's a little more interesting

to me. I love that aspect of it, but also like you'll be on your way to go do something and then there are like other bounty hunters being like, hey, it's that fucking guy. People recognize you though too. And I just, that's just a funny idea to be recognized in a video game. Is interesting. Did you see the part where did you design your face at the beginning of the game? Okay, yes. So I did do this. There's a moment where you can design your, you're like signing an autograph

for somebody and you can, they're like draw a picture of your own face. I spent so much time because I was like, I know this is going to come back. And I don't know when it's going to happen, but when it does, I want to be surprised at the drawing. I did a bad job. And now I just, as soon as I handed it over, I sort of, I had the thought too late.

But I was like, oh, that's probably going to come back. And like, at that point, like, had to just keep going. And then when it does come back, I was just like, I wish I drew a better face. We're like stuck with it the whole game. Yeah, it's like, that's just all what it is. It's like, I wish I had taken a screen. out of it though because it's like I thought it was kind of like doing it for me kind of I was like

oh I'm just kind of like I thought the nose looked kind of good I was like for a drawing on a controller I was like this is pretty good actually but then it's all just like it's just all a little bit wrong and it was extremely funny I made mine look really sad yeah that's good that's the right energy I was playing I mean I'm playing on PC so I had the you know I'm using a mouse and I like cheating. I'm very bad at FPS. I do I like I'm playing this

like I make my little fucking face or whatever the fuck I make my guy totally expressionless. The thing that I'm impressed by is I like Heather took way too much time on this given him my haircut and my eyes which is usually when I'm creating a character in a video game I just click on the default and I'm good to go. So like I spend way too much time but there's so many quips that are being thrown at you.

Like how many quips are there in there, do you know? That's a part where we knew people would take a while so we did more than we normally would. Because like it's framed that you can see the destruction in the background. You're supposed to be saving the city from this monster but like you're drawing. So the longer you take hopefully the funnier the image gets where you're like, oh man, I really am just spending too much time. But yeah, for bits like that,

we will write as much as we feel we can get away within a record session because there is like a limit. There's only, like it's literally just the finite amount of lines we write and record. And it's a constant battle of like, how much is too much?

How much is too much? Yeah. How much am I going to regret later? And sometimes we go a little too much, but I don't know. Well, that was like a funny thing to experience in the, just to go back a little bit

to the opening montage is that like there's a part where you're doing a lot of, like bounties and killing and stuff. And, you know, you can really hang on those scenes a little bit. Yeah, some players are just going to mash through and they'll hear like a second of each line, but you can listen

to each person. I was doing that. Wait, did you get to see how I played? Is that? We get that data. They send that to us. I was doing that at first, but then I for some reason, like, let one go.

And he just kind of like kept saying, like, I'm this type of bad guy and I'm going to keep doing this. You bet it you might as well kill me. I'm just going to keep being bad. We call it. in comedy, I guess, is the phrase we've been using. We're essentially, if you like a joke, you can keep listening to it. If it's not hitting for you, just skip it and move on.

The game will let you. We don't care if you skip it. My favorite joke early in the game is when you try and kill people, you're not allowed to kill, and the gun says, you really want to kill this. Yeah, we require a lot of those because you just want to do that. There are some characters you can shoot. Like I would say early on, there's a lot of those. character you're supposed to save and as a little hint maybe try to do the opposite of that. Oh wow.

I encountered, see what we've done. So, like, I played a little bit, like, further than this and, like, not too too far, but I'm on the cruise ship, right? Oh, yeah, okay. And so there's, like, um, or there's like an entry point to the cruise ship or something like that and there's like guys that like sort of recognize you. And I just sort of noticed the, you know, like the, what it's not called, like the, dialogue choice.

No, the, um, like the site thing. The radical. Yeah, the redicle. I just noticed it turn red. I was like, oh, I can just kill them? I can I kill this guy? Don't even listen to their intro. And then there was like the, is it Gene?

Yeah. Gene then starts telling you like, hey, don't kill these guys. Like, their boss is so bad. And I was like, I like killed them all on it. And I was like, okay. So now we're going to like have these guys on my ass through the rest of the game. So much of the game feels dynamic in that way, which is really like an exciting way to play a game. Because even like in dialogue choices, like you could, you know,

select like an optional conversation to somebody and then just like walk away and they're like oh yeah we just fuck me or whatever like yeah we have for every character we record interrupts and resumes which are basically just a set of lines if you walk away in the middle of through talking they have a natural response to that. It's also funny because it's like so much of like modern video games

is about like choices and consequences and I've been playing The Witcher too recently too and it's like you can tell when a choice is going to have a consequence but you're not being told clearly like this is the good or bad choice. So it's like really funny to just immediately after make your choice, just have a character to be like, that was the wrong.

You're really going to regret that. We also do something, which is probably bad game design in the sense that we don't always tell people when they're making a choice or when there's other options, which like, if you knew you'd be more impressed with us as designers. But we were showing, there's a part in the beginning of the game where you have to get past a security guard. Yeah. And the game, you know, ships tomorrow.

and we had someone at show and tell in the company last week showing all the different permutations of what you could do to get past that security guard. Yeah. And most people on our team were like, oh, I didn't know you could do those four things. And it's not really set up in a way that you would know there were 12 options. Yeah. Well, I think I did two. Oh, yeah. Because I...

Yeah, they're kind of mix and match. Yeah, I froze time to get past him. And then I was past him and I was like, oh, I guess I guess I'd find. And then I like shot him once I was past him. And he begs for a long time And I got on the elevator Listening to him beg And that begging get farther away

Perfect That's a very valid way to do it There's even like a med kit You can catch an old guy for that Yeah You bet we don't want anyone Do it an old man voice We want the authentic old guy

Wait you can give him a med kit Yeah so there's like Well the gag that I'll give away is There is a first aid kit nearby And you can bring it over And then when you do Your guns are like actually we don't know how to administer first aid.

So we're sorry. We'll just leave you with this. What is your, like, what is your workflow? Because I'm curious in modern development, like, you work in the design side and also writing the game. Like, what is your interfacing with other departments? Yeah, we work most closely with design, I would say. There's a lot of back and forth.

like we have a story beat or a gag we want to do, and design has a gameplay mechanic they want to teach the player or use here. Like, you know, certain levels are introducing new guns, so we know design's going to be building the level around the new gun Travis, and we're going to be writing the story around that new character appearing and entering. And, you know, we work in tandem that way. But there's so much push and pull. Like, they will design a puzzle and they'll be like, hey, look,

we need 40 more lines for this because it's just not clear. And we'll oblige. And other times I'll be like, we have a really funny idea. And it's going to make you do like 12 more days of work, but please do this for us. And they will usually oblige us too. But yeah. Are there any when you're writing a game of this scope? Like, is there any stuff that's like hit like secretly like very annoying to do?

Like very tedious and or is there anything that's like surprisingly fun to do? I want to hear your answer, Julian. But I have one which is for the annoying thing. we have I think seven different guns you could be using in the game and for every single line of dialogue that one of the guns says you could have one of these guns equipped but we have to write a line for each of the other guns in case the player has anyone else equipped.

I was noticing some sections like this like oh wow you've got you've got alts for all the different guns. Yeah and everybody who plays will only ever hear one of each of those seven lines for each line. And at the beginning of the game, there's less guns, but the deeper you get, the player could have all of them.

So it becomes really taxing to try to figure out how to write, go that way in six different voices and make them all feel a little unique or something. Some of that's fun, though, because you almost get to write like a little joke for yourself and how the different characters answer the same question.

There's a point in the game that I try to keep vague, but someone is like, you can only get in here if you'd know like a sad, pathetic person. And every gun says Travis, except for Travis, who says, I'm sorry, I guess we're just not getting through. But you wouldn't know that unless you either saw the script or like played the game multiple times and saw that. That's so funny. It never occurred to me that, yeah, that joke really is more.

I know. It didn't occur to me into later on in development that, oh, yeah, people aren't going to see the other options. But it made me laugh. I think tedious can definitely be writing the, and this is probably true for so many video games, is figuring out like 25 different ways for somebody to be like, you're dead. Or, ow, you hit me. Yeah, like, and the actors hate recording them too. It's like we're four hours into a session, like, I need you to say, pick up some ammo one more time, one more time and make it different. There's only so many ways.

It's an interesting challenge, though, as a writing exercise to just sort of like either turn your brain off and do it or try to make a, like, how would this character say, like, pick up armor versus like how would this character? It's easier when we have like our characters and our actors, we know them in mind. We know how Ken Reno might say this. So that helps a lot. But just the volume of writing that you have to do once you add interactivity as an element. Because it's like, you know, like a movie script, it's like 100. you know, around 100 pages roughly. I did the math.

I think this isn't the exact count, but our game, this one has, I think, 10,000 pages of script. Yeah, it's wild. And, you know, some of that is like, you know, one. It made me sick to hear. If we...

This is four Balders Gates and one. And you guys are scratching the surface. If someone told me, hey, you need to write 10,000 pages of script, I would be like, I'm not going to do that. What do you? Yeah.

No. But it happens gradually. Yeah, sure. I mean, we put an extra space after every period. Oh, sure. You have it in like 1.15. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, okay. It's like not that. It's like that that much. I got a job one summer many years ago, which was writing spam emails for a video game. Ooh. And wait, wait. It was like to be in the video game or to advertise it? Because there was like a full UI and they needed like tons and tons and tons of spam.

So I would like turn in like. 30 fake emails a day to them for them to use. And they were supposed to be like packed with jokes. Like, you know, like heightened versions of spam email so that if somebody wanted to go through the entire spam inbox on this game that they could go through and get a different joke or like chains of a story or whatever. And I did that for an entire summer and the game got canceled. Oh my God. And I was like, I don't know psychologically what this has done. me. No other human has done that.

You were the first person. They should have been studying. When you guys are like writing the game and like writing things like for the game, are you thinking about other games? Like are you like thinking like, oh, if we could do something like this other game in this? Can you write to that experience? Or is that like something that like the level designers and stuff like that are? Usually we have a goal.

Usually there, we already know the story we're trying to write to or the mechanics we're writing for. But there are, we're inspired by different. games all the time. I think like I am I'm thinking about what's best for our game specifically and if I'm being inspired at all it's not

it's not in any other way than just like oh man we should try to do like the level of fucking with the player that Metal Gear Solid 2 does or something like I want to I want to strive to be as good as those games yeah plus I mean our game is very much like an interactive

TV show or movie so it's like personally when I'm writing it's a lot of like film references and stuff. Like there's probably dozens of Sopranos references in this game. There was a big extended Pleasantville reference that I think got trimmed down. It's still in the game, but like it used to be a lot more. Yeah.

So it's like, I don't know, it's funny because it's like video games is probably like the third reference, third in the ranking of references. Important though, yeah. Like we do reference video games. There's little nods, but I don't want to be the game that's like, like, do you remember when Guaca melee came out and it was all, memes in the background.

Yeah. There were rage faces in the background and everyone got mad and they got rid of them. That's what I never want to be in danger of that of just doing it for the sake of like, hey,

do you remember this? Right. You remember Mega Man? Right. Here's a Mega Man thing. Yeah. It's really fun to like think of how you can take something from like a movie like,

I think like Twin Peak season three. Oh yeah. Something that I was trying so hard to incorporate into this game. You wrote. And I think. The line... You wrote the last line of Twin Peaks the return into the game somewhere

and I was like, this isn't working. I was like, I hate to tell you this, but we're getting rid of that. Yeah. Yeah, I should have told David that. Yeah. Wait, how long were you, how long was the development cycle overall

and how long were you each on the project? We were on from start to finish. And I would say, about two and a half years, maybe three. We did like the first game, then we did the DLC, then we went right into the sequel. Wow, okay. So it's been your world for some time. Yeah, I'm so happy I'm doing right now.

Like, I just don't want to think about a high on life anymore after this. You were already on the first one, and then I was hired as a writer's assistant, and then I became a writer for the DLC. Yeah. And then this one. So it has been, yeah, it's great. I got my four-year anniversary mug. Wow. The other day.

Wow. What was the first thing you drink out of it? I haven't gotten an anniversary. Yeah, my own piss. The life of a video game developer. Trying to get in the mind of the gamer. No, probably Huel or Factor.

There you go. Depending on who's sponsors. Played gets you 20% off. You use that as a promo code. Honestly, if you have something where you can type in a promo code, just give it a try. Who knows?

Yeah. Just type and get played no matter what. You ever do the, you ever go like, there's like websites that just will give you the coupon codes and they never work. I do that every time I try to buy something. Is it called honey? It's honey.

Every time I buy something, I click it, I wait for 40 seconds and it says, no, sorry. Yeah. I'm like, why doesn't the March 2019 code

work where I'm trying to buy a PlayStation game today? That's me on Grubhub. I'm like, well, I know this is for sure not my first order, but this will probably work. Maybe there's a glitch in the system. Maybe I'm going to get through.

There was a time that I ordered some special edition PlayStation, and it was like a rush where, like, everybody lined up at the same virtual moment and had to click to get it in your car to finish the transaction. And I closed the transaction, and it said whatever the PlayStation was is on its way. And then, like, two days later, they emailed me, and they were like, we're so sorry, you actually didn't get the PlayStation. we're going to refund you and we're going to give you a code

so the next time that you're at the PlayStation store you can spend 20% you get 20% off and I was like I am holding on to that coupon until the launch of the PS5 because to get 20% off of that second console is huge I waited and waited and then I was like oh here we go and I drag my little code in and I dropped it and it had fucking expired

and there was nothing in any of the emailing or anything that said hey make sure to use it in the next month We're going to bring that up with our next meeting with Sony. Fucking angry about it. We're going to let them know. Yeah. First of all, we're very happy with you. Thank you so much, Sonny.

Do that again. Yeah. We're talking about the VO sessions and obviously a lot of great talent in this game that's already been listed off. What is the VO process? Like, how many sessions do you get with like, say, a Betsy Sidaro or a Ken Marino? So Betsy and Ken, like as main character talking about, guns in the game. They have probably 10 sessions, 10, four-hour sessions. It's a lot. And we have to like bring them back when we make little changes. Right. These are spread out over a period of months.

Yes. But our record season is like three months and we're one and done. We do a little bit of pickups at the end, but like we have to call our shop. We don't have enough runway developmentally to like keep going back into the booth whenever we've got a couple more months in. So like whatever we get with them is mostly just got to be it. And it happens fast and we're stuffing everybody into these periods. So like they're pretty taxing. I know like for Betsy and Ken especially, they were in their like just daily just throwing lines with us. And they're their workhorses. They're amazing. But like video game voiceover. I don't know if everyone's always prepared for it, especially comedians. We brought in a lot of people who have never done games before. And they're used to doing like a TV show,

a little cartoon where they come in for a four-hour paid session, but they're probably doing like 30 minutes and they get to go home. And we're like, sorry, you got to say, Ouch, 4,000 times. Yeah, we tested and Ouch isn't reading. So you have to say, yeah, we. 14 times. There was a part where, like, Ken made a big choice to,

there's a part where you can go to a stand-up comedy club in the game and actually perform some stand-up. And Ken made this choice, And I thought it was really funny. I'm like, yes, let's do it. Where he played it very hokey is like he's putting on a voice and pretending to be like a really hacky comedian. And we'd like put it in the game. We like, this doesn't work at all.

We got to just release that as like a stand-alone comedy album. That was so funny. And then I had to direct a session right after that. And I was like, so we're going to have to have you tone down the comedian thing. And he was just like, they didn't like that. I can't believe it. It's like so obviously everyone's going to hate it. On the first game, we had J.B. Smooth do like a vampire voice, and then we cut that whole bit.

So there's just hours of it going, I won't do suck your blood that we didn't use. He loved it. He was good at it. Well, that's going to be in the new Dracula. Yeah. Wasn't there a new? There's a new Dracula and it's called Dracula. They made Nuss for Eddie recently, but then there's now just one that's called Dracula.

But I don't know, like, I don't know anything about this. It feels like an invisible movie. Shouldn't Dracula is the first time hearing of it? Because they don't want you to know that J.B. Smooth is the new Dracula. And it's fucking hilarious. If they wanted to sell a ticket, they would tell me that. I would be going if J.B. Smooth was... Yeah.

Well, speaking to the V.O. process, it can also get very stressful when you're working with celebrity talent. That's not necessarily used to the, like, repeat sessions of video games. Because, like, you have somebody like J.B. Smooth who is, like, an international celebrity. Yeah. And you get, and he's amazing to work with, but there's always the stress of like, you say goodbye one day, I'll see you tomorrow. And then he's like, oh, sorry, I got to go to Milan tomorrow. Yeah, there's so many times. And it's like, we don't know when we're going to get them back.

Yeah. Yeah. Depending at like the level of talent, we got amazing people, but a lot of it, we're busy and games move fast. So oftentimes where we're like just squeezing people in at the last second and just flying by the seat of our pants. And it's good. It works, but it is stressful. Yeah. And some of the funniest stuff comes from when you're like.

rushed trying to get a bunch of stuff. Yeah, so rush always always give yourself waste time. Well, it's kind of like what you're talking about of you reach a certain point in any sort of creative enterprise where like you're coming up with 30 different alts for the same thing.

You just get a little silly and sometimes we'll discover something funny. It's the same thing with like recording something. You know, you do enough takes of something. Eventually you're just going to make some completely divergent choice just to mix it up. Exactly. And it might end up being what works the best. I would have to imagine, because like when you're working in like TV or film production on a comedy, by the, by the 10th time you've heard the joke, it's no, you can't even tell if it's funny anymore.

It's like meaningless. Yeah. With the amount of time that you guys have to spend on this game, how do you, like, how often is it that the thing that ends up being in the game is the most recent thing you recorded or a lot of, is that stuff like pretty concrete once it's in? It's it really depends on the bit Like there are so many things we put in And then we play it and it's just not working and we'll retool it But there's a lot of stuff where we we thought it was funny on the page We recorded it it worked and we don't want to touch it

If it's working let's just leave it But yeah I mean that's that's like that's part of it I don't know it's also yeah there's also the stress of like Something is funny on the page something's funny in the booth But you're playing so many iterations of the game where there's like barely any graphics for lack of a better term that just kill the joke.

Yeah. Until you see it like months later and it's like oh now it's funny. There are jokes that I just had to trust that I only saw for the first time like a month ago and they work. But like that's that's just part of the process where I'm kind of praying.

So sometimes with the art department, especially without time consuming animation is you're like maybe not even getting a chance to consult on the, the comedy of the side of it visually. Yeah, sometimes like a line just isn't hooked up yet. And then by the time it's hooked up, we have to move a designer off that level. And so it's just going to sit there not funny for months until someone finally gets back onto it.

So there's some ticket in Jira waiting for someone to adjust the timing. And I'm, I'm persnickety about it. I'm like, it's not going to be funny unless it's three milliseconds earlier. And you have to pick those battles. Because if I were, you know, doing this for a TV show, there's only like 22 minutes. It's a very finite, but this, I literally don't have enough time to fine tune everything like that. So we're trying to pick the moments that we're most worried about and the ones that we feel like that's going to be fine, we just don't touch. Here's a, I always feel like, as a writer, I always find this an annoying question, but it always feels like, it feels almost like an obligatory question.

You have very funny people there. Were there opportunities when you're going through all these alts for like some improv? Yeah. Well, that's like a big thing we try to do with our game because I feel like not a lot of games have. improvisation. It's just a very controlled type of medium. So as much as we can,

we like to let people go off script. It's really a grab bag because some actors don't play video games. So they don't have the language and understanding of exactly how much freedom they have. Like really early on, J.B. kept mentioning his legs. And I had to

keep being like, you're a talking gun. You don't have those. So you can improvise. but don't mention legs. You have arms. You're the only gun with arms. But, you know, if it's someone who does play games, like we bring in Michael Cusack from Smiling Friends

and our friend Joel Haver, who does a lot of really great animations online. They're, like, big gamers and they're great improvisers, and with them, they totally get it. I tell Joel, you're playing a fishing rod, and he knows everything about the limitations of what that role would bring, and we just immediately have, like,

the most open environment for, improvisation. But then there's people like, you know, Richard Kind, who I do not think has ever played a video game. A dream to work with. John Waters is in our game. People like that where I'm like, they can improvise, but

they don't know what games are. So if it's not usable, we just won't tell them. I'm coming out of the television. John Waters kept saying, yeah, so these are things they come to life. It's like the girl from the ring, she comes

out. Congratulations again. It's such a cool game. And we always have the situation when we have developers on the show where it's like you know, you hope

you like the game. But the thing we always say is like if we didn't like the game, we just wouldn't do the episode. What if you get out of this? Never mind. Yeah. Hey guys, sorry, we all have diarrhea.

Which is also fun. for the people who are game developers who we haven't done the episode because if they listen to the show they just think, God fucking damn it. I'm on the Patreon. They hate my game.

They take their get played merch off and just throw it in the trash. Two nights later in the dumpster. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. scraping their factor into the trash. You're done with this. Is there anything, I mean, I guess you don't want to spoil it, but like, was there anything you got into the game that you're like, I can't believe we actually got to do this?

But you mentioned the Fraser Crane mission, that almost got cut multiple times. There is the entire last mission of the game is kind of, it's really hostile. I think it's going to be very divisive. It kind of grinds the entire game to a halt. Yeah. In a good way. In a good way, but also like, it's a bold move. And I don't want to spoil it, but like we did commit to a crazy ending that I saw one reviewer who they were like, I can't decide if I hate this or love it.

And I'm like, that's exactly the reaction I want. There's a secret ending that I honestly can't believe has made it as far. There's a lot of weird secret ending. I mean, I mentioned one earlier. I hinted at one earlier. But yeah, anytime we like, there's something, I'll say there's paperwork you can do in the game. and if you want to literally do paperwork there is an ending associated with it

and it's not worth it you shouldn't do that in fact my original pitch was to make it take 12 hours and our QA team was like hey every hour you can knock off of that is going to make our life so much easier so I think it's four hours now

that was a negotiation But they're like, we would have to test it fully, 12 hours, like 40 times. And we just don't have the time for that. That's so funny. God bless QA. For real, heroes. Thank you for your service. I did work QA.

I'm not trying, but I'm not trying to say it. He's not doing stolen valor. He did do it. It's not stolen valor to say. Thank you for your service. Yeah. But also I did work QA. And yeah, it is a punishing job.

It was honestly the toughest job I had in games. It's the PA gig of the business industry. It's the monkey's paw of childhood dreams. Right, right, right. Because you're like, I want to play video games for a living. And then they're like, here's a broken video game that you have to play every moment you're awake. Right. By the time this game is finally good, you're going to hate it.

Yeah. You're going to play all the worst versions of it. Sounds like podcasting. Yes. Hi on Life 2. It's pretty much on everything. People are going to go. Yeah, it's on everything.

It'll be on Switch 2 in April. Hell yeah. It's on everything else right now. There you go. Well, guys, I have a segment for us, and it's a brand new segment. Wow. Brand new segment. In this segment, well, I'm just going to tell you what it is.

I'm excited about it. I texted earlier. Guys, I came up with a new segment. I think it's good. It took me a long time. Okay. Matt has such a shitting grin right now. Yeah.

I've never said it, because I typed out a word, and I know it's a portmanteau, but I've never said it out loud. So this is the inaugural pronunciation. Okay. It's weperty. Whoa. Webperty. Matt, I love it. That's good.

It's weperty. So the premise is it's just Jeopardy, but all the questions are about weapons, video game weapons. Oh, cool. So I'm going to read answers in Jeopardy style about video game weapons, and then use. guys have to buzz in and give me the question of what the video game weapon is, just like Jeopardy. That's how Jeopardy works, right? That is how Jeopardy works. So you buzz in with a what is blank.

You got it. Great. I think this is going to be a lot of fun. I'm excited. I'm like, I get in my head like, they're going to think I don't know video games. No, no, no, no. Oh, my God. This is a, every time there's a quiz segment on the show, my fucking nightmare.

Yeah. Sometimes your recall is just not working. That's the thing. We know it all, obviously. I already fucked up the Final Fantasy thing earlier. That was a real, that was a special interest moment for me. I don't think I came off. You're fine.

I'm like, actually, you got this game wrong. Well, Matt, I'm a school teacher from Iowa, and I'm really. Those ones where he like would be mean to the people are so funny. They're doing your thing. You made them do this. It rock. The famous clip where it's the woman who's the nerd core rapper. And he's just like, you're a loser.

It almost felt like a slip. And he's like, yeah, whatever. Too late, I meant it. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Oh, shit, that sucks. Okay, here we go. Here's the first answer. A sacred sword

set to seal away darkness. Buzz. Oh, Alex. Master sword. Oh. What is the master sword? Wait for the question The answer.

Heather buzzed. Heather buzzed. What is the master's word? Heather gets the point. Wait, is that it works? You don't get an opportunity to rephrase it? I fucked up.

You'll get to. Wow. That's on Webbredy. No, Heather got that fair at square. So, Weberty is differing from Jeopardy in this. Oh, because I'm a fucking hard ass. Mechanically at Jeopardy, they will give you a second to rephrase. Then I give up my point.

I'll give them my point. We can buzz before the answer is finished. I guess so. See, that was a little rude of me, but I thought, you know. I did kind of have a lot of fun writing the thing. We're saying the question. Usually wielded by a silent hero. Nice.

It was good. Yeah. But also savvy of you to buzz in early because silent hero really gives it. I'm the real gamer. We're not a competing for the prize of who's the real game. We're all real gamers. I designed this game to weed out who is and who isn't a real game. Okay, okay.

Okay. Okay. This alien pistol embeds tracking shards into its target. Buzz. The needler? What is the needler? We can do this every time? I said the needler.

That is fair. That is fair. The needler? The needler? The needler? Jeffrey's stupid They should just let you say the thing Julian gets a point

It is the needler from Halo I almost buzzed in on that But I realized what I would have said Is the Halo one I probably wouldn't have What is the Halo one? The needleer Which is referenced in your game

That's right Right Description of the Betsy gun Okay here we go How can Julian are on the board Wow Also is a little bit different Than Jeopardy

Because there's usually Three people playing This is different from Jeopardy We have a special Four people. This is Jeopardy. Two ways this is different. Video game weapon related.

Yes. And four people. One third way. I'm a hard ass. I would imagine also that if it's the same set, so I'm just standing off to sign. We didn't find a podium for you. You got like a milk crate. Your name written on it.

I was going to put the three white men on stage. That lady gets dead over there. Okay, here we go. Woke Jeopardy. Oh, man. You just pitched a 2 million view called Tudor video. Cut that out. I got to take that.

We'll mail it to you. Don't worry, it's yours. An oversized blade carried by a beautiful mercer. Wyger. Wyger. What is, oh, wait, the name of the weapon. What is the buster sword? That is correct.

Nice. Thought he was going to whiff it. I was so nervous that you were going to mess it up. I almost said, what is cloud strife? And then you remember what was? I almost both did into the same thing. All right, here we go. So, boy, having a weapon that's the same name as you, that'd be cool.

I wonder? That's a pretty good. Oh, yeah. From a kill bill. What was the answer? It was who. The buster sword. Wielded by a beautiful mercenary.

Oh. You're editorializing. I did sort of add a little, a little flair to it. He is beautiful. He's beautiful. He is beautiful. He should have said a beautiful silent hero earlier. Beautiful Maco Green Eyes.

He's got Miko Green Eyes. Dude, that's yours too. We got to cut that out. That's yours. No one knows what it's like. This is the parody section of the show where we get our little parodies out. Here we go. Here's the next one.

Twin Blades wielded by a warrior seeking revenge. Buzz. Hmm. What are? Just kidding. No, they do that on the show. You don't have the answer in time. That was a really good impression.

That was a really good. I've seen, look, I watched the fucking show. I've seen, but I can't do that. What are the chains of Hades? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What, Weiger? What are the chains of Olympus?

That is also incorrect. Can I do it the way he would do it on the show? Yeah. Nobody has it? Wait, wait, buzz. What are two master swords? Okay, Alex gets the point. We're looking for, or Julian, do you have an answer?

I have nothing. The Blades of Chaos. The Blades of Chaos. From God of War. Those are the chain blades of the blades of chaos? You were both close. But Chains of Olympus is a subtitle. That's what I was thinking.

And the Chains of Hades are a Fortnite weapon. Here we go. This single-shot weapon eliminates opponents instantly. What? Beep, beep. Were you going to buzz in and say Wiger? It's a saying what. I have to say what.

And then I did the beeping noise. I'm all fucked up right now. You're doing great. What is the BFG? That is incorrect. There are multiple. I was also thinking BFG. BFG is correct.

Buzz. What is the golden gun? It is the, I have the golden gun. Okay. You said pistol. Oh, I said single shot weapon. Oh, yeah. But BFG should have gone.

But BFG also caps. Technicality. Heavy sniper in Fortnite also would have been a correct answer. There's a lot of one-hit kill weapons. I feel like if you were right in the Jeopardy Riders' room, maybe a thing you could do is just a little bit of specificity like this glittering weapon or this shiny.

Let's give him notes on his first ever version of this. Or how about this? This single-shot weapon eliminates opponents leaving them shaken and not stirred. Oh, that's pretty good. That's a Jeopardy style. That's perfect. I'm just trying to get a job over there.

You should have seen me. I did this for, like, I mean, admittedly too long. It was a lot of fun. I met some Jeopardy. Your address was the WGA Pickett, which I've talked about before. Absolutely lovely people. The best.

It seems like a fucking awesome job. They all love Jeopardy so much. It's a WGA job. It's like they're going to be on forever. They make so many episodes. It's just like it's about as good as you can get as far as writing for a living. Just consider this. We have other segments that we do a lot that are sort of easily refillable.

I didn't have to do this. I had a blast doing this for that. It was so far. I love it. The Jeopardy has no get paid either. This is like turned into your reel for like Jeopardy. You did an awesome job writing these jokes. Yeah, just talk about how good they are just a little more.

This is a lot of fun. The other thing is like I guess the Jeopardy areas would be like when people find out they read with Jeopardy, there's like an emotional element for a lot of people. It's like, oh my God, I watched that show with my mom. I've seen so many episodes. It's just like it's like this kind of the parisocial side that you wouldn't be expecting. My parents are too dumb for that one. You watch it. What's the robot's name that did the show?

Oh, Watson? Yeah. Do you know, have you met Watson? Did you ever see the Conan bit where Watson fucked Andy's wife? That's really good. That's perfect. That's perfect. Okay, last one.

This weapon can seal and unlock worlds and is wielded by only those who are deemed worthy. This is, of course, something you can see on the body of Matt Apodaca the King. keyblade. It's not really how you're supposed to answer the question, is it? What is the keyblade? Weiger gets it is the keyblade. I believe that sets our game at a tie, but wasn't that fun? That was a blast.

Everyone wins. See, that's what Jeopardy is wrong. Everyone should win. Other big difference, there was no money attached to that. You guys don't get any money for that. Other differences, I didn't have a podium the whole time. That's a change we're keeping. That's this week's get played.

Our producer is Rochelle Chen Ranch. Twitch.tv slash yard underscore underscore Sard. What do you, what do you stream in Ranch? I am indeed playing Silent Hill F. Wow. I just beat that. Wow. Of in January.

Back in January. I was going to say over our winter break. You guys don't. Yeah. We didn't have the same one as you. Yeah, yeah. What is your assessment of Senate and the LF? Have a good time?

I really. I did enjoy it. I don't want to taint any experiences, but I do think that I found out originally it was not supposed to be a Silent Hill game, and they added that on like part of the way into the game. But I did like that it was

like a new take on Silent Hill, because I think after four, it's kind of what they did with Cloverfield. Yeah, yeah, this is kind of fucked up. But I like the game. It's Cloverfield now. There's a lot of fun to be had. And some scares. I was so bummed that the new Silent Hill movie apparently just sucks.

I like the first one. I just watch the first one. I have some allies in the podcast for once. No. Everyone else hates this child. In theaters. And I said as a child, this is great. I can't wait to get home and beat Final Fantasy Tactics.

Wrench, what's your streaming schedule? Or is it just kind of a whenever? It's pretty random. It's usually late. Could you try again. You don't have to keep that in the episode. Um, it's random. Just watch out for the Instagram. Awesome. Check that out. Uh, yard underscore underscore sard.

Music by Ben Pronti, Benpruddy, Benpruddy, music.com, art by Duck Brigade Design, duck brigade. com, merch at kinshipgoods.com. And a bonus episode every Wednesday on our Patreon, get played DLC. Matt, we're doing in this week. This week, we're going back to 1998 and drafting games from 1998. Wow. How fun is that? A good year for gaming. Great year for gaming. Famously not one of the big ones. but a lot of good games in there. It's not one of the big ones? I feel people, we had this debate.

People talk about 1997 is like sort of like the bigger one of those two years. 1997, 2004. Yeah, 2023, honestly. You don't know the good years. Look, I'm not a real gamer, okay? Wait, was, did we, maybe I'm thinking of a different one we recorded. 98 was a good year. No, I think we had this argument and I think you said 98, and then we looked it up, and it was 98 was bigger.

Oh, yes. But on our podcast, we could name more things that we specifically love from 97. Got it. Just for our personal juice. That was the whole episode. We just talked about it. That was a worthwhile tangent. I'm glad we covered that now.

Patreon.com slash get played. It's so fun to talk with you guys. Alec Robbins, Julian Shine. High and Life 2, available now. It's great. It's fun. It's funny. You guys are so funny.

And thank you so much for being here. Please feel free to have us. Oh. Plug. Go plug. Come on. What you got? Plug something.

Looking forward to the NBA playoffs. Who's your squad, Julian? You're not going to like this. Why not? Well, I have two squads because I've come from Indiana. My favorite team is the Indiana Pacers. Fun, fun squad. But then my B team is the Los Angeles Clippers.

Okay, all right. All right. It's fair. I'm a Lakers lifelong. I'm from SoCal. But the Clippers are fine. I've made peace with the clippers being in the same. Now that they're about to be in a ton of trouble,

have all of their draft picks removed. I'm cool with them. And I hope your Pacers are, I get a high, get one of, I mean, like, there's a whole thing you're dealing with now where the Pacers. We could have an whole other podcast. We could. Yeah. But there's a, there's a trade involving the Pacers and Clippers and is contingent on

whether or not the Pacers have a draft pick next year. I watch the draft lottery every year. I'm like an NBA sicko. Yeah. And I look forward to it. It's so much fun. And this year, it's literally like life or death. It's so stressful.

Yeah, there's a trade. Our pick is contingent on where it falls. It's literally like a 50-50 chance. Right. If they get to keep one. If it's in the top four, it goes to Pacers. What are you talking about? Yeah.

It's cool. There's a thing in the, there's a thing ostensibly for balance in the NBA, the draft lottery, where the draft order is randomized every year. And that happens at a thing where there are literal ping pong. balls coming out of a machine. I'm looking this up. I'm looking up more about that draft. I had to text my wife.

My wife texted me that our cat stepped on her grilled teeth. I had to answer that immediately because it was very funny to me. But they put the condition in the trade that if it's if it's picks one through four, it goes to the Indiana Pacers. If it's picks five and, uh, or five through nine, nine, yeah. It goes to the Los Angeles clippers. And those are your two squads. How about that?

I know. I was so delighted on trade day when I was like, my two best. friends are swapping players. You still get to root for Zubotch. Yeah. And boy do I ever.

Alec, any plugs? You can read my comic Mr. Boop if you'd like. I have another comment called Crime Hot that is a little more risque and you can follow me online at Alec Robbins. Wow, there you go.

Thank you both so much for being here. And check out High on Life too. It's a fucking blast. I should mention High on Life. That's a great call. If you haven't bought it already, buy it. If you already bought it, buy it two times. I don't know if you know this,

but we get more money the more you buy it. Thank you both for being here and you got played. You guys got played. Do we say something? Oh, okay. That was a head gum podcast. Hey, I'm Gareth Reynolds, and I have a new podcast on HeadGum called Next We Have. Now, this show is for people with short attention spans, which is everyone.

I mean, you're probably trying to skip this ad right now, but don't, because you now legally have to listen to the show. That's how law works. Next we have is very simple. Each episode has three short segments. For instance, Lisa Gilroy and I write insane revenge, Yelp reviews for callers who had bad experiences with a business. The Doe Boys play a game called Meal or No Meal. And Steph Tolliv and I go head-to-head on a thought-provoke. game called Guess That Sound. The show is as dumb as it sounds, and we probably have more fun than we should.

But it's a great time, and you should listen or watch new episodes of next we have every Thursday on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.