Get Played - Lorelei and the Laser Eyes with Siobhan Thompson

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Siobhan Thompson (Dimension 20) joins Heather, Nick and Matt to talk about her new crowdfunded film project The Greatest Treasure in the World and to discuss the 2025 adventure game Lorelei and the Laser Eyes! You can help fund the Greatest Treasure in the world at https://seedandspark.com/fund/treasurefilm?token=0207ab0b909caf0849d33053e7ac15e7530f456a5516fcdfbf1d55241e8718d7#storyCheck out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayedFollow us on social media @getplayedpodMusic by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.comArt by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? and our Premium DLC episodes and our exclusive show Get Anime'd where we're currently watching Serial Experiments Lain go to patreon.com/getplayedJoin us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayedWanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] on Get Played via Gumball.fmAll 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. Hax is back for its fifth and final season, and so is The Hacks podcast. Join the Hacks creators and showrunners, Lucia and Yello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky as they unpack the Emmy-winning comedy series. On each episode, here's stories from the set, what goes on in the writer's room,

and how these beloved characters close out their final season. Watch Hax streaming exclusively on HBO Max and listen to The Hacks podcast, on HBO Max or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, notice anything different about me? Well, you couldn't keep a straight-based delivery of that, so I'm just trying to like suss out what's going on here because it makes me think something's different.

Yeah, it makes me feel you're up to some mischief or something you're going to, it's something stupid. Before you even say it, it's not a haircut. Because I was going to say your hair looks good, but it did, and, you know, Ranch got a haircut. Yeah, it looks great. Ranch got a haircut. But like I, I was like, I, I was like, I got a haircut. Turtle power.

That wasn't it. That's not, that's unrelated. That's just the thing you did. Okay. What's your, what's your news? Yeah, what's the news? Uh, I don't know. Take a look at this.

Holy shit. He shot lasers out your eyes. Fucking hands! My fucking hand! Heather, are you okay? How are you okay? Oh my god. You were supposed to put your hand in front of my eyes.

I got new laser eyes. Well, it's understandable she wanted to see what's going to happen. Well, no, come on, Heather. Wait, no, let me see. Why would you look at the hand? I'm sorry. I was trying to help my friend. Don't look at my hand anymore.

I was just going to play video games without two of her fingers. The wound immediately cauterized over. It's not even bleeding. Matt, you got to be careful with your laser eyes. Oh, I'm some big asshole. Great. I'm a big piece of shit because I burn my friend's fingers off. Also, there's a hole in the drywall. Headgum's not going to be happy about that.

That's a secondary thing, but I'm just saying. I'll wait patiently for somebody to show up and tell me about it. Are you okay? Don't look at me. When did you look at me? I'm sorry, you keep drawing my attention. Well, look at my hand. It's terribly burnt, not literally.

I'm sorry. How do the laser eyes work? Well, I just went to my office. And I was like, give me the laser eyes. Oh, that's like a thing you can do now. Yeah, yeah. Stop looking at me, man. So you, but you can control it.

You can just like unleash it at any time. Apparently, I can't. They're just going to go and all willy-nilly. Oh, Jesus Christ. I didn't realize it was happening randomly because you were like, check this out and the laser blast happened. You're going to, stop me on. I'm sorry, I can't.

It's really happening to Heather. I really can't. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know why you keep looking at me. They gave me a bunch of papers. Here, just look at me. Just a comfort, Heather.

Yeah. Wait, why isn't it not? Why are you not burning? Why aren't you burning? I don't know. Why would you look at Nick? It's not burning, but when you look at me and burn. It's kind of bright, and I guess I feel a little warm, but no, I'm not bursting into flame.

Hang on a second. Did you get the laser-resistant skin? I got the laser-proof skin. I was going to be my thing, but you, you, you, you, you, you, you. came in with a notice anything different about me. So I was like, I guess I'll say that for next week. Why are you stupid? Ow!

Stop looking at me! Why are stupid shenanigans? The source of so much pain for me, you guys, conference on this, laser eyes and laser resistant skin. No, this is a total coincidence. Yeah, and I kind of feel like I've said sorry, and you're kind of being a big asshole about it. Let's get it.

It's a bitch when it's a girl. Okay. I'm going to be a bit. Yeah, bad. That's kind of sexist of you. I'm sorry. I was trying to be not that way. Well, you fucked up.

And I'll be sending a notes apap apology and I'm sorry. Anyway, could you heat up this cassidia? Yeah, here you go, buddy. Mmm, it's good. We explore a deserted hotel and are confused as we discuss indie puzzle game Lorelai in the Laser Eyes

this week on Get Play. 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 photo host, Mr. Games himself, Matt Apodaka. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone.

And welcome back to the premiere video game podcast where this week, oh, my God, somebody has made the mistake of joining us on the show. That's someone returning to the podcast from Dimension 20. Rick and Morty. Shavon Thompson is here. Hi, Shavon. Hello, everybody. What a delight. What a pleasure. What a nice time. I'm really having fun. Yeah. Nintendo fly-around's, get played podcast. Yeah, that's us. We're really different now.

You're different. We're different. Maybe better than the gods. We met a cupa in real life. Wow. Yeah. We're not really the same kind of guys anymore. Oh, shit. Well, I can do that. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's interesting for Matt to bring that up because I also have to say like we're not really the same same podcast anymore. Oh God, are we doing this?

Hold on a second. Wrench, do you have anything? It's okay if you don't. Mine or mu-m-m-you. Okay, Rensis. Okay, yeah. Yeah, this is sort of like, I think, more correct. The most optimal way to do you do.

Wow, this is pretty cool. It's actually really nice with the lights. Actually, it is nice because these lights are bright as fuck. The lights are bright. Yeah. They're bright and they're hot. I think people maybe can't realize that how uncomfortable the lighting is just for the purposes of producing 90-second clips. A video podcast, yes.

Yeah. Yeah, we have to film the entire thing just in case there is 90 seconds where we are presentable on camera. Yeah, it's tough as a woman to be like, oh, I guess I'll wear makeup now to the podcast recording. I come from work. I get here, I put makeup on in the fucking bathroom, which there's terrible lighting here. It's lighting is so fucking bad. And then I have the makeup on. The only time I wear makeup in my life is in this room.

And then I go home and wash it off. But yeah, it's a bummer. For people who wear makeup, I feel so bad about the shift of video podcasting because I, as someone who doesn't generally wear makeup, I hate it in and of itself. What I liked about audio podcasting is you have to look like shit all the time. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we both still look like shit.

That's the thing. You and I, we just made it our brand. Yeah, yeah. I also look like shit, but it is so much better than the normal shit that I look like because of the makeup. Yes, I definitely thought about what I was wearing today. But that whole experience, It's the still, you haven't been here in a while,

we're still kind of the same old show. Yeah, kind of the same old show. It hasn't changed you. You're still humble, so grounded. The truth is, though, oh, what? Go ahead. Ranch is here, but ranch is also cool. Oh, fuck, yeah.

Ranch is cool, though. Rudge is cool. Matt, speaking of travel to Japan. Are we going to, how long are we going to do this? What? We could. I'll just, we'll play this game of chicken. We'll see who blinks first.

I'm not fucking taking these off. Okay, great. This is the most comfortable I've ever been. I feel great. The only thing that would make me more comfortable is if I had the whole helmet on over the glasses. Get one of those ostrich pillows. I'm totally asleep.

We're now pot committed to if a good, like a genuinely good clip happens later in the podcast, people watching will have no context for why we're wearing sunglasses. Hey, they'll have to just return of the full pod. We cannot guarantee that there will be a good clip later.

I'm telling you there won't be. Hey, there has to be a good clip later. Otherwise, why the fuck am I? You're going to be great. We're going to all be bad. I like Nick's assumption that at any time a clip plays that anybody has any idea what's going on in that clip. They're usually like, what the fuck is this on my timeline? Also that anybody making podcast clips is thinking this one is the one that the people need to see.

Matt, it's interesting that you would bring up that we're different now after our trip to Japan because the truth is I want to start off this episode with a tiny gift. Oh, what? Well, here's the thing. A tiny gift? When we came back from Japan, you know, I had gotten something for ranch, I'd got something for Nick, but I had not yet gotten anything for Matt. And it haunted me. It bothered me a ton, man. You gave me the gift. It bothered me too. I'll just say it. Really?

Yeah. What's Heather got to get into Matt? The fuck. I hung out with Matt so much in Japan that I didn't have time or opportunity to be able to get him a gift. I know. And so once I got here. I was like, you know, Matt had an unfulfilled wish when we went to Japan that we couldn't do. And even though it didn't come inside of the gotcha, I did manage to find a little gift for...

Oh, my God, Heather. For Matt, which is that he was hunting for Weezer, gotch upon when we were in Japan. And I couldn't get him. Look at those. And so I got them for him. This is so nice. Thank you. And my gift?

next time Next time I'm on Next time I'm on That's great This is the okay human album The teal album The White album and Pinkerton And are these key rings

They're kind of like little squares with a photo of the album cover Yeah they're key rings Is wea big in Japan? Well so there I mean I don't know But there was I think Rivers would like to think he is

Sure I think right Yes that seems on game Yeah right before we went They'd announced that there were a gotcha for Weezer albums, and we hunted for them, and we couldn't find them. And I was like, I don't like an unfinished chapter in a book. Thank you so much, Heather. I love this.

You're welcome. I'm glad I'm wearing glasses so nobody could see me get a little teared up. Aw. It's really nice. It's really sweet. Fucking sobbing everybody. Yeah. So sad.

Shabana, are you there any time in Japan? I have never been to Japan. I would love to go. I'd never been previously. Matt had never been previously. Ranch, you've been in the past But when you were younger You were a kid

So it's like a different context for it But like I was just You know I'm not a not well traveled At all In fact I'd never crossed the ocean Prior to this trip But My expectations were like

Oh I've heard it's cool And then I got there I was like this is a fucking wonderland I cannot believe how much better Like I heard this was good And I can't believe it's even better than that I loved it and what a great experience Yeah great experience

I'm excited I really want to go and this is just me being vapid and disgusting. I just want to go for the vintage shopping because there's like really strict laws around frauds and fakes there, which means that if you go vintage shopping, you're probably not going to get a fake, which is a problem.

This was a vintage from a thrift store. It's beautiful. It's such good condition. It's a beautiful bag. Excellent condition. I, if you go, have saved maps for excellent vintage shopping. You absolute goddess. In Japan, specifically in Tokyo, and I have it broken down my neighborhood.

So if you want to do like a Koenji vintage shopping day, I have a Koenji vintage shopping map for you. That is incredible. I wish there was a law against frauds and fakes in Hollywood. How about in the White House? We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Matt, you and I also love the shop. So everyone could see this.

I guess I was not wearing them wins then. We also love to shop. We all love to shop here. And like said, like, I will see the vintage shopping is outstanding. I was like, I was like, this is incredible. I can't believe how I could spend all day here. But I got other stuff to do. Yep.

Yeah. Great place. Yeah. And it's great. Isn't it so great to have type A friends? Like so many of my fucking friends because I work in Hollywood and everybody has ADHD and I have ADHD. all of my friends are type B and very lucy goosey and sometimes I just want a plan and I want to execute it on time. Hmm.

Is that a type B? I don't know what it means. Yeah. Just like organized. It really just means like on top of your shit. It's I think rude to type A people and too polite to type B people. Because type B people is just like flying by the seat of their pants not making any plans. Yeah, you're looking at them.

Letting things happen when they happen, rolling in 45 minutes late with an ice coffee. We had, Heather, I will say, because we were all together for pretty much all the trip. Heather had a pretty tight calendar in terms of the way the way things were scheduled out. Like you had a lot of prescribed activities at prescribed hours that we generally hit. It was awesome. I loved it. That was great. It got to experience so much of the two cities in a very compressed amount of time when we had a

bunch of work obligations as well. But we did have a moment, Matt, where you and I were like, you were like, Heather, you retired and we were just kind of like, we could just hang out. You're kind of like, oh yeah, we could just hang out. It was revelatory. Yeah, it was, yeah. Heather's nickname the trip was clutch because it was just, like, it was good to have somebody that knew what was going on.

Because if I, look, if you weren't there, I would have been all like, I guess I just, I guess I'd just go home. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I would have gone to Disney Sea like an idiot. I would have got a Disney Sea like an idiot too. And I ran into some New Zealand tourists who were like Disney Sea was a nightmare because it was so crowded. We were there during spring break. Yeah.

And I was like, hey, maybe if there's like a day, if there's like time to do it, we could go to a theme park. I was thinking the same thing. I was like Disney Sea. That's top of list, right, gang? Yeah. Disney Sea and McDonald's. So those are the things we got to hit out. And we did do McDonald's.

You travel across the ocean for the first time of your life and you want to go to Disney and McDonald's. That's right. I like spending money stupid I'm mad I want to buy European vintage goods in Japan and that's what makes me better than you I do think about a thing we talked about Adobe which was when McDonald's opened in the UK

and then people were just throwing gherkins into the street there was just a pile of because people they hate what we call pickles here on their burgers and it's a standard McDonald's feature what an image what a striking image I want McDonald's for dinner they've got the huntryx meal

right now. I fucked up. I haven't had it. I still haven't had it yet. Yeah. We can get it for dinner, right? Yeah. All right, let's get it for dinner tonight. What? Ruin my day. Chauvin, you are crowdfunding a movie. The greatest treasure in the world. Yes. I am making a movie with my good friends Izzy Rowland and Alex Fernie. Izzy is co-writing it with me. Alex Fernie is directing. And then me and Izzy are acting in it alongside a great ensemble of people, Mick McAilis, Paul of Tompkins. Just so many Look it up It's just a real series of ring

is Julie Bristers in it So many great people And it's about A guy called Rufus Wayne Wright Bobbins Jr. The third Who is the richest guy In Salteen California

Which is a central California town That nobody lives in It's like two stop signs Three Game Stops Kind of a town And instead of leaving a will like normal when he dies, he instead leaves a treasure hunt in his house for all of the people in the town who are closest to him. That's pretty great. Love that. So it's been really,

really fun. We shot for a couple of days of like test footage just to make sure that we could do it. It's a movie that is devised, but mostly improvised in the way that like Christopher Gast or Mike Lee or Robert Altman do their movies. All of the actors, we did character to creation for all of the actors, sort of like D&D, without the stats, but just, you know, told all of the actors the premise of the movie and they came in with ideas and we, some people came in like, here are five ideas. Do you like one? And then some people came in of like, I sort of want to do this kind of thing.

And then we helped them flesh it out. And then built the story around these characters that everybody created for themselves. I love that you use Mike Lee as a reference because I do love Mike Lee. you're also making me think of, thinking of going and seeing a movie called The Greatest Treasure in the World, starring you and directed by Fernie. That's like a taught family drama. Abolition for everyone. That's so cool. Yeah, I mean, that sounds awesome.

And, you know, speaking of things that you have that you're a part of, Dimension 20. I mean, I think, more so many people know you from, an actual play show. Now podcast fans are notoriously intense But actual play fans seem rabid Like that seems like like like like And I don't necessarily mean the good or bad way Yeah But just like

Some people are too intense But I feel like that's true everywhere You know And I would rather have people be too intense In the way that actual play People are too intense Than Other sort of fandoms

Because generally they're like Too intense because they're excited and not too intense because I'm a girl and I'm doing it wrong, which is a lot of the time in other things that I've been a part of. Right. That's nice. That's great. You know, I haven't experienced that at all in gaming.

I think it's probably fine. I don't you have an opinion. No, it's fine. Everything's normal here. Yeah. Does anything stand out as like this moment in this campaign or this thing, you know, my character did or something that happened to my character in one particular campaign? got a particularly strong reaction that stands with you?

I don't know. Like, I think that the biggest surprise is probably in the first season that we ever did because we just didn't know what the response would be. So even people responding to it as much as they did was surprising because we simply had no idea whether it would hit or not. We were making a bunch of different content. And this was fucking content. Oh, I think that word.

We're making a bunch of different television programs. This is the one that hit. But I play, you know, it's called Fantasy High. It's a bunch of high school students who is like Breakfast Club with Magic. And I played a character with an anxiety disorder because I just thought that that would be interesting. And we built a mechanic around, you know, having panic attacks. Just because like as a writer, you're looking at like, okay, it's the breakfast club. What is a trope that exists that I haven't seen in a breakfast clubby type thing that feels like it's missing?

And that's sort of where... Yeah. Not that I've never had a fucking panic attack because obviously I have. But like that, you know, it comes from a sort of writerly place of like where are the tropes that exist but haven't been written yet. And people responded to that in a way that I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by, but I was because again, we just, it was just our first season. had no idea. And you're making it, you know, in a vacuum sort of, so you don't really know what the response is until it's out.

Right, exactly. And it was nice because it feels antithetical in something like D&D to be like, I want a character with a disadvantage. But I think that also in storytelling, it's really useful to have a character, have a disadvantage. Yeah. And that's not something that's built really into D&D. like there are flaws if you want them

but they tend to be like personal flaws, psychological flaws. There's no mechanic behind flaws. And I sort of love to have that mechanic played out because it helped story. You know, D&D is, it is a game, sort of. But it's not a game that you can win really except by having a good time with your friends.

Yeah. It's really much more of like a structure that you can use to improvise. a story and the dice are just a randomization factor and like I don't know I think giving yourself a disadvantage is an advantage as a storyteller that's part of what's so compelling about design wise and and from a narrative standpoint about like a disco elicium is that the protagonist is so flawed and or like and there's three different ways you can play it exactly right so you know yeah you can you can replay which I have not but I will eventually yeah I'm sure I will

as a homophobic communist. Sure. It's an interesting type of guy. And you pick those stats, right? You're like, hates gay people, but as long as they're not workers. Sleep is so important to me, and I did not realize how much a mattress

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So my two cats were Hurley and Sawyer, my old boys, all four of these cats are long past. Yes, R.I.P. But Hurley and Sawyer, and then her cats were Beauty and Metallico. Oh, man. Beauty I never met, but Metallico was an angel. Metallica was really great, aka Mr. Boy. Shout out to Mr. Boy. Metallico that she named when she was like, I think, eight or nine years old.

Just the actual funniest name I've ever heard of an animal. Beauty was really great. So maybe you did I was my question was going to be was where did you ever go over and see all for those cats? But if you never met beauty, there's a good chance no. Because beauty was basically like a dead cat when I met her. The oldest animal I've ever seen. Yeah, but was a tiny baby just born yesterday. Yes, yes.

But was I think Izzy's first pet. So there was like a, you know, like a like it's hard to say goodbye. It's hard to know when to say goodbye. I remember meeting beauty and just being like, this cat is like a cobweb. Yes. Just like coughing up dust. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Learning English so it can ask to die. Loved me and loved to piss on my bed. Are real sweet. Those cats are great. Her new cats are also great. Oh, yes. Digit and. Metallico, too.

Tom thumb, I think, is the second one. That's right. Yeah. So you and Heather have played Fortnite together in the past. We have. I think our play styles are different because I view it as a fun hang with my friends where we fuck around. And Heather is like, this is my job. I'm trying to defend the island.

Yes. I think the last time we played together, I logged on and said, hey, just so you know, I just took an edible. And Heather went, why would you play like that? Like responding as if it were like drinking and driving. Yes, truly. I'll see what I can do. I got your six.

I'll do my best to take care of you, man. We'll get through this. John's just trying to have fun and you're doing it like you're trying to win a playoff. Yeah, the way that I play is like mostly I play with our friend Anne Lane. And we do things like, okay, when there were chickens in the game, we were like, let's both pick up a chicken. And the first person who drops the chicken loses. And it's not really about winning the game. It's just a game for us.

Or there was something that we were doing for a while, which was so horrible, which is squatting up with people, finding one person in another squad, knocking them down, carrying them to a tiny little secret room that we found and then playing music at them as they were jazz. They couldn't get out because we'd close the door and you can't do that when you're down. So that's sort of how I play Fortnite. It's nice when you win, but it's not important to me. There's a new, first off, it was so much fun to play with you guys. So if I gave the impression that I was serious, it's because I am, but I also have that time.

Anytime you want to play, I will play. And I do feel like they've taken out a lot of the fun stuff. It is becoming a more serious game in general. There aren't chickens. There aren't warthogs. Yeah, I miss the boats. Yeah, there's not. Like the witch's brooms.

It's less silly than it used to be. But also currently, there is a mechanic in the game that allows you to resurrect yourself if you get downed. Yes. And the only way to prevent somebody from toggling that is that you have to carry them. Otherwise, they can hit the button and begin to raise themselves. And that's also, if you want them to have to suffer through. like a music performance. You have to have

one of your squad members pick them up and then everybody else does music. He's playing a mashup of Green Day and Charlie XXX. I've been playing as Rick Prime is the newest Rick and Morty

skins. I'm playing as Rick for the first time and so we'll pick up whoever we've downed and I'll just sing Rick and Morty songs at them and I'm like this is taking. a fan away from the show. This person likes the show.

Rick and Morty fans are so toxic. And they hate Rick and Morty driving away even further. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I haven't played as much Fortnite, although I've enjoyed the amount that I played. And I will also say your experience playing with others, mirrors Maya and Matt experience with Heather,

which is that she's immediately sick of our shit. Which is also how we interact. in real life. So it's fine. I'm a conditioned. What it reminds me of is, and I never really played competitive smash, like at a tournament level or whatever, but like I like watching it, but I don't like playing it as much because you remove all the chaos in fun of it because there's no items.

It's like items off. And like I get that. I understand that we're removing that element of randomness, but that randomness is what distinguishes it from other fighters, that it has this like, you know, you can just end up with a beam sword or a pokey ball and it completely shifts the balance of power. I never played Smash really. I never played it as a kid. And then every social situation at which it is being played,

it's always suggested by somebody who played it just religiously as a child and is so good. And I'm like, who am I? What am I doing? I'm dead. And what am I? Oh, I'm dead. And I just, I have not been given the capacity to learn it. And also, frankly, I don't think you can learn it as an adult because there's not really that much to hang your hat on.

It's a kind of thing that would frustrate me. Because it can play as a party game. But then you'd end up with guys who are like really, I'm saying guys, pointily, who are really competitive about it. And then you're like you're playing with some friends, some of whom have like maybe played a little bit, but haven't played since like melee or ball or whatever.

And then some of the people maybe haven't played at all. And you're still, you're picking your main and you're like trying to win as hard as possible. Like, I don't know. Just turn items on. play a random character you don't usually play and just sort of mess around a little bit. It's the semi-pro at the Dodge Bowl tournament.

Yeah, yeah. Calm the fuck down. Yes. There's a guy, well, I'll be careful. But there's like a guy in, I play in a baseball league and a guy on one of the other teams played college baseball. Yes, I know who this is.

I'm like, you can't do that. It feels unfair. You're actually just good. I'm sure he's nice. I don't know him. Yeah, sure. But I'm like, you can't, he's throwing heat and scaring people on my team.

Yes. Yeah. A person could physically injure somebody. Yeah. One of my teammates did take a ball to the ribs, and we got the GoPro from the ump. And I saw it happen in real life, seeing the video somehow scarier than,

it was so scary. Jesus. He just takes, like, because you like, like, you know, like, some wind out of him for a second. Yeah. Really scary stuff. Do you, just as a gamer, just in terms of taste, do you gravitate more towards,

like a multiplayer or single player? A little from Colom A, a little from Colombe. Yeah, I'm more of a single player person or like maybe like a two person. The thing that I like about Fortnite is you're not interacting with strangers vocally. I think especially as a fucking girl gamer.

I don't want to have a 14 year old yelling slurs at me. I have no interest in that whatsoever. So you didn't dabble in, I think it was called DeLulu. which was proximity chat on the island? Absolutely not. Fucking nightmare. Yeah, I would imagine. Yeah.

You could hear and speak to everybody. Yeah, absolutely not. You're saying Dululu proximity chat on the island just like activated my brain somehow. Those are insane words. It was one of those things where like, you know, again, it's like, it's like how bad social media is now when we saw all of this happening on like Facebook and Twitter like 15 to 20 years ago. Yeah. It's like the signs existed back in the early days of Xbox Live. Like once like you could you get attached like a camera to Uno,

it's like the first thing people were doing was showing pictures of, we're like sharing pictures of their dicks. It's like we knew this sort of thing existed and there's still, it feels like the screening tools are still so archaic, so minimal, you know? Yeah. Uno reverse. Here's my dick. Oh, you show me in yours?

I'll say, what? Stack 50. Dick. They ought to be unique angles. Do you, do you, I'm curious as someone who, you know,

as part of Dimit 20 and you're like, you're doing this kind of role playing so frequently, like, did you, did you at all engaged with Balders Gate 3? Because that's like, yeah, I loved Boulder's Gate 3.

And that I, I want to do a group, like multiplayer play through of that. It felt, just different enough from D&D for me that I knew what all of the spells were already so I didn't have to really look anything up

but it didn't feel like playing D&D. Larian put did like it's a homebrewd rule set. It's like a little and they've done more with subsequent patches in terms of just like adding new subclasses. Here's one thing that I loved that I think that should be in D&D is that you can cast two spells in a round which pisses me off about D&D because let me do my spell.

management. If I want to spend all my big spells in one round, fucking let me motherfuckers. Like, don't tell me what to do. We have to be really careful. We don't know who's going to get mad from his own people like that. So, like, you can't, you can't say stuff like that. If I have two fifth level spells and I want to use them both in one round and one is a bonus action and one is a fucking regular action, let me do it. And then I've spent my fifth level spells and then I don't have any fifth level spells. That's on me. I'm so scared. Leave me alone. It is kind of awesome when you have like, you know, you've just played your turns perfectly, you got your positioning, right, and then you like, I've got, I've got Gail, my husband,

in a turn and I can just like a barrage of fireballs. I could just unleash a few of them and just like clear the board. It's like, oh, I feel I like that I'm not restrained by the rule set. Yeah, I also did not play it well the first time around in a way that like, like I exited the shadow realm or whatever the fuck it's called the underground the under dark

under dark thank you and had a cut scene of like oh well we didn't fix this place on at the next and I went oh I could have fixed it I know at least one person you played it better then

what happened what happened I know everybody else's head but I haven't heard Let me hear it. She basically became the one known terrorist in the world. And like every place she went, everyone was mad at her. She was the person who gets the interaction when you go to Minthara and she tells you her devious plans.

And then you're like, I already did it. No, no, look, I've said it on the show before. Here's what happened. I played a thief. Sure. In the first town or whatever the fucking town is with the two factions that are like fighting against each like wood elves and somebody. I don't even know who those people are. And how the teetlings?

Yeah. It's the sort of part of the problem. Okay. Hold on. Maybe I would have known more about the story if everybody hadn't been attacking me. There's a box or two in that town that are secluded and I'm a thief. I'm role playing. I'm like, oh, I got to get in these boxes.

I get in the boxes and some fucking person woke up and they were like, get out of those fucking boxes. and I didn't mean to kill that person. They attacked me. I defended myself. What I didn't realize is that that set off a chain reaction in the town where both Tiefling and druids were attacking me. And I was executing each wave that came at me. And I killed. That's simply so many people.

I killed everybody in the town. And the children as well. That's children as well. Yes. And the kids. And then everybody I came to in any part of the story was just like, it's you. And ran at me. I killed them.

Which then just made, it just was a not like there was a, there's a teetling character who I didn't even know was a. A teetling character. Carlack. Carlac Wait, you didn't even get Carleck as a companion? She killed Carleck. You killed Carleck?

Because Carleck saw me and went, you, and ran at me and I went, oh my God, killed Carleck. Heather, if you want to do a multiplayer playthrough of Baldesgate 3 anytime. I'm going to go ahead and just tell you, you shouldn't do that.

I will casually request you do it better. I there's somebody there's somebody in some mine later who's got like who's like hey I'm going to give you a chest don't look in the chest but I had already killed everybody at the chest and didn't know it was a thing and so when I again because every encounter was immediately coming to kill me so you didn't have any social encounters whatsoever I had nothing no social encounters of any kind and you didn't go Let me go back one safe point. No, because it's not role-playing. And also I was like at some point this is going to stop. Like at some point you will leave the area.

Yeah, the area of effect. And the story of your war crimes won't follow you around. But at that point, I had killed so many people that anybody with a relationship in the game had triggered whoever their other person was. Astonishing. To kill me. And what a game that it lets that happen. Really tough.

bring use to She shouldn't let it happen. Or at least somebody should be like, here's the chance to redeem yourself. But instead, like, you get to that girl in the mine and she's like, hey, there's a chest. I need you to go, like, get this chest for me. Promise not to look in it.

And then immediately after that line of dialogue, she says, wait a minute. Oh, my God, you've already looked in it. And then she attacked me. I was like, how could I have possibly known that this chest I found hours ago was going to upset you? you so much.

Incredible. I have not massacred the teetlings in any of my playthrues. I cannot bring myself to do it. But I did hear from a friend who just wanted to see what would happen that part of that experience is that when you have the cut scene afterwards where you're at camp, Shadow Heart, who's the key NPC in the game, is so traumatized that she gets drunk. Incredible. But I think that that's the only way for you to trigger one of the companions.

Right, yes. I think the only way you can get Minthara and act on this by that. Well, I don't know. There's no, but Gail wasn't a part of my party. Yeah, you killed immediately. You didn't have Gail and you didn't have Carla. I didn't have Carlisleck. I didn't have Gail.

I had Shadowheart. I had the vampire. And I had the big angry lady. Who owes her name? Laiselle. Yeah, those are my, that's all I had. Did you romance any of them? No.

They were up. They were nothing. They did not want to talk to me. You are right. This is the worst anybody's ever talk to escape tree. I will say I like I think it's, I wouldn't even said it was safe scumming,

but I admire you not like going back to save points and just seeing what happens. And I mostly I admire your full commitment to role playing as Heather Ann Campbell. So we're going to be talking about Loreley in the laser eyes in a little bit. But I'm like this game naturally It invites comparisons

I think most Most recently to Blue Prince Yes And I want to be honest That I have not fucking finished Lorela yet I've been trying to finish it this week I have six fucking puzzle boxes left I say this with so much love

And admiration for this game It is so hard I love every second of it I have so many I forgot to bring my stupid notes My phone is filled with pictures Oh yeah Because I was like I can't write this maze picture down but I need to see it and I can't be toggling between these screens.

Let me have it on my phone as I'm wandering around. I also have not finished it. But I do really admire its design. And it reminds me of like blueprints, which I didn't quite connect with. Fun to get two really good big chunky puzzle games in one year. We had a weird experience with blueprints where I don't think any of us really connected with it. We're like, I really admired it to design.

I'm just so impressed by the solo dev put this together. And it's clearly genius and it's going to inspire, you know, like a new subgenre. But I found it to be such a time sync that I went from loving it and being obsessed with it to being exhausted. Yeah, I mean, Blueprints, the struggle with it was, well, I need to get to the garage. I haven't spawned to the garage. Right. So I guess I have to keep playing it until I get to the garage. I don't know what to do.

Yeah, my thing with it was, I think this was mostly all of our thing with it was you get to the, the big thing that it's pointing you to, the secret room, you actually then do do it. Yeah. And then it's like, okay, there's actually more now. It's actually step one. Yeah. Well, no, there's not. And that's sort of why I ended with blue prints is I think I got like two or three of the next levels of keys.

And then when I have a life. Yeah. I can't do this. Yeah. I'm putting job hours into this game. Yeah. But we still gave it our game of the year because it was just like. It was an incredible game.

Yeah. But I think Lorelei beat it for me in times of player enjoyment. Wow. We'll talk about in just one second. But before we get to that game, let's talk about some other video games we're playing right now. It's time for the question we ask each and every week. What are you playing?

What are you playing? Hi, it's me to resident name of my check. And I would ask my friends and our guests what they're playing in the video games or any other aspect of their life. It's unlimited. you can say whatever you want. So...

That's new. Yeah. That's a new addendum. Oh, you don't do this normally? I was like, oh, I guess Heather's... Well, no, the Resident Evil Merchant is a fixture of the show. Oh, okay, great. The agenda that the Resident Evil Merchant gave

that you could say whatever you want, that's new information. Yeah, that's new information from you, buddy. It's a different Boldest Gate 3 cut scene. I want everybody to know that, you know, you don't know that pressured. to do video games. You can do anything.

Your life is unlimited. Yeah, I will say, I appreciate the freedom that you're offering. I do think for the sake of the podcast that at least we, the host, should be making an effort to talk about something video game related because so much of our audience is video game enthusiasts.

All right. Well, that's your rule, not mine. I know, but I'm just saying, because it feels like what you are suggesting is that I could talk about a plate of spaghetti. Nick Waker, what do you eat? No, I'm not going to talk about a plate of spaghetti. Oh, I mean, you're playing with it.

I was not playing with my food. No, I don't have time for that anymore. You know. I don't have time for it anymore. I was as a kid, yeah, I'll play with my food. I guess you had all the time in the world. Yeah. Maybe I should play with my food again.

Like a pan moment. I think it is a... But again, I appreciate the freedom that you're offering us. All right. All right, well, you can talk about a video. game, but anybody can talk about anything they want. Okay, great. Nick Weiger, what are you playing?

Wow, thank you so much for asking Resident Evil Merchant. I am going to talk about Sol Cesto. This is a game that was made by a three-person dev team, and version 1.0 was released on April 10th of this year. It rules. I'm playing the shit out of it. It's so, it's so fun. It's like a pure gameplay, almost in slot machine territory sort of design, which I am

just like, because I'm very busy right now with work, it's like, it's more what I kind of need with my gaming time as opposed to something like Lorelei, which as much as I admire Lorelei. No, it takes a lot of brain energy. It really does. It's exhausting. Whereas this one is like, there are some decisions to make. It's definitely like playing a Slay the Spire

or something like that or playing a Balochro, but you can kind of get more into a flow state and be a little bit less precious about each individual move. So pretty much what is, is a tactical roguelight in a grim, in a grim, dark fantasy world. You pick your class for each run. You know,

Heasant, Knight, Wizard, what have you. And that determines your abilities and survivability, as you might expect. But each combat, each combat screen by screen, is a four by four grid as you descend down this dungeon. Some squares have enemies. Some squares have traps. Some squares have treasure. Some squares have, like, other bonuses. All you can select is which row your character goes in, not which square.

So it's like four, so if you've got four squares in one row, you can select that row, and there's a 25% chance you'll land in any individual square. So part of it is figuring out the way everything is a portion of like, if this row has three enemies and one treasure chest and this row below it has two treasure chests, one health item and one enemy, well, it's just better odds for me to get something good if I landed this one as opposed to getting a health penalty by picking the other row. So part of that is just like picking your spots because you would make a certain number of moves

to descend to the next level. but also as you progress, you pick up stat boosts and boons that can alter the odds. And that's a big part of the fun of it. It was like, okay, so I'm getting this boon that's going to increase the odds of me getting a treasure chest,

but also increase the odds of me hitting a monster that has a magic ability as opposed to physical abilities. So that means I have to up my magic stat to counter that. But it's just kind of a push pull that becomes really, really gratifying as you progress.

and also because it's randomized, there's still times when you're like, I feel like I did everything wrong and I lost, but the runs are so, so fast that it never feels all that punishing. I also like, the way the gold, the way the meta progression is,

the currency that you use to upgrade all runs in a roguelite sense, you have gold, but you have to like decide to send some of your gold up to the surface, which means you can't use it at shops in game. And that I kind of like too is like how much I'm going to invest.

in future runs, but also like kind of a sandbag, my current run a little bit based on how deep I am and it depends on how much I'm going to invest. I like being able to make that decision. I love the aesthetic. It's like VGA graphics. Like it's like a 90s PC game as opposed to kind of the 16-bit pixel art like Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Mega Drive. Look, I feel like we often get with these sort of retro games. It feels a little bit distinct from that. It also animates so smoothly. Like, like, like, like, like, like, so more smoothly than the PC game of the 90s would. So we kind of end up in this uncanny valley sort of like, this was like, this is a reference to a thing that never really existed. But I just think it's such an impressive design.

And it's the kind of thing where it's like, like a vampire survivor's, it's not that type of game. It's a completely different type of game. But is the sort of thing of like, oh, I didn't know this could be an approach you could take. And it's, it's connecting with me so strongly. And it's, it's just, it's got really good. boss fights as well that retain the core gameplay but also just change it up just enough where it feels fully distinct. I think it's rad. The other thing I will say is that it's a game that's filled with little like, I don't even want to call them Easter eggs because there are things

that you can use for your run, but there are things that you kind of have to like pay a little bit of close attention to. Like there's a flute that you can craft which has some some songs, which are there's kind of arcane ways that you can discover what those are. But also like when you're at the shop with the merchant, you can tug on the merchant's nose. Don't do that. I'm not saying the Resident Evil merchant. I'm saying the merchant in this particular game, but I would never tug on your nose. Oh, wait, but also, I've got your nose.

Oh, no. Matt, that's not cool. Maybe I'll give it back. Help! Okay, I'll get it back. I'm sorry. This is the scariest moment in my life. The shopkeeper, we'll call him.

The shopkeeper, you can tug on his nose, and then that can done him so you can like steal one item and you can do that once per run. So deciding tactically like maybe maybe I'm going to do that like very early on when I don't have any money and just to give myself an early boost or maybe I'm going to wait on that to do it later. There's all sorts of shit like that you discover that are that's kind of emergent as you play. That's that just makes it feel deeper for a game that is again such a slot machine design at a fundamental level. I think it's I think it's a rad game. It's maybe my favorite game so far this year. Whoa.

Anyway, that's what I've been playing. Heather, what are you playing? Oh, right. Let me tell you. I've engaged in no combat this week. It was accidental, but also based on the amount of time that I had to play video games. And my primary video game remains Pocopia. I believe I am at the final task of the game. Wow.

Before it opens up and just becomes build and renew the world. I think I'm at the final story task. still loving the game, still dreaming about it every night. When I go to sleep, I'm dreaming in blocks. Fantastic, fantastic game. By far, my game of the year so far is Pocopia. But additionally to that,

I recently, inspired by Matt, the franchise Abadaka, purchased an Einthor, which is a dual-screen Android-based retro game. gaming device, which everybody just loads with emulators and you can play, you know, all the way up to, I guess, PS3 level emulation on it. Yeah. And you can play, it can handle some light steam stuff too, which is cool. You can handle it. You can, like, play Balitro on it. Or you can play, you know, any, you can also play Android games on it. You can play Fortnite on it if you, if you want. So they're an analog stick or a touchpad or something on that some bitch? There's two analog sticks, uh, both with.

With backlit LED glowing, if you want, four face buttons, two triggers on the back, touch screen on both the top and bottom screens. Got it. Really, really lovely device. Yeah. Mine has not arrived. Well, so Matt ordered his strict from the company, and they've had some shipping issues, and his has just gotten a label.

I know this is not what you're trying to do. You look like you're sulking right now. Matt's okay. Mine's just, mine's on here. crying again. This is the second time this episode. You got key chains though. I do have key chains.

Oh, he's happy again. He's happy. There we go. But Matt was like, you know, he's talked this thing up for a while. I've been watching videos of it on TikTok and various social media. And so I looked on eBay and I was like, I'll just get one off fucking eBay. It had a slight markup, but it was also like, you know, no scratches, like new, et cetera. And I was like, sure, why not?

So I get it off eBay. It arrives the next day. It is sealed in box. So it's not even unscratched. It is unplayed. I start setting it up. What a pleasure it is to set up an emulating device. That's more, I would say, more than half the fun.

So, so great. But also, I don't want to docks this website because I'm terrified of anybody ever taking it down. But there is a website that has an enormous library of games. that were never released in America, fan-translated as like functioning ISOs and ROMs. It also has undubs. So like if you wanna play Final Fantasy X with the original voices,

you can play it undubbed but subtitled. That's cool. Which is great because there's a huge number of like early 2000s to 2015 games where the level of voice acting just wasn't what you expect out of the game today. And so was the domestic release of finalized in, I guess I definitely played it in English

the first time at least. But it did not have Japanese voices on the disc. No, it does not. It does not. And the only way you can play it with those Japanese voices is to download an undubbed ROM. So I got that. I got Final Fantasy 12 undubbed.

I got The World Ends with You undubbed. A lot of these are games that I already have that my only wish is that I get to play it in a Japanese language track. However, I also downloaded, and this is the game I'd like to speak lightly about, a game that has been a sort of like a grail off in the distance for a while.

It's a game called Bokuno Natsuyasumi 2. That's my summer vacation. It is a game on the PlayStation 2 that was never released here, a sequel to a game on the PlayStation 1, where the game is, you are a young

boy in 1975 rural Japan. It is your summer vacation, you have 30 days, and that is it. That's the fucking game. So you walk around your town, you play, you talk to people, you create relationships, no goals, no fucking like combat, no ghost hunting you. It is just a vibes experience, as far as I can tell so far in the game, and the vibes are so fucking impeccable, like you start playing it and you feel melancholy.

but also like freedom, you know, like just being, you're in your room and the, I think it's your aunt picks you up from the, from the train station, brings you to your room. She leaves and you're just goalless. There's no list of shit to do. Like I go into the menu screen and one of the options is take off your shirt. And so I like, take off my shirt and I'm in my swim trunks. I'm like, I guess there's a swimming place somewhere. Like you can go like look at the, books on the shelves. It's like it's a life simulator. And it is wonderful. Like a sleep no more. Yeah. Except you just go through the, except it's not Macbeth. It's just a normal day. Yeah, it's just a normal day. And yeah, so far I'm really loving it.

It's living up to my expectations and hopes of it just being a vibes experience. And the, you know, the sort of barricade to me playing this game previously is I always really, really like to play an original hardware. And so I was waiting to get a optical drive emulator for the PlayStation 2, play it on a CRT. And finally, I was like, you know what? I'm never going to fucking play this game if I, if I wait for this long to do it. So I did, it runs perfectly on the Einthor. It's gorgeous. It's, it's wonderful. So that's the game that I am playing. I think you said it, but I missed it. What platform was it on originally? It was on PlayStation 2. Got it. Originally. And it has sort of like resident.

evil style fixed camera angles. So when you're going through the house, like sometimes you're next to the kids, sometimes you're like up in the corner watching him like run through the kitchen. It's great. It's great, great, great. That's right. Bokanu, Natsu Yasimi, two.

Shavon, what are you playing if there's anything beyond Lorelei these days? Yeah, I've been slowly working my way through Ghost of Yotai. I'm playing it on story mode, which is the first time I've ever done that for a game. But I was like tired and stressed out. and also my friend is the main character and I didn't want a killer. But it's such a beautiful game

and the writing is so good and I think the acting is excellent from everybody that playing it on story mode has just been like really soothing. Nice. And then there's a rusty lake, two-player rusty lake game that I'm looking up the name of it now

that I just played with my sister and then immediately deleted off my phone and now I don't remember the name. So one, second. Was I, did everyone, because I forget where everyone ended up being on Ghost of Yote. Heather, you finished it. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, I also finished it. I just started Act 3. So I'm like most of the way through. Rochelle, did you ever play Yote? I did start it. Yeah. But I didn't get very far.

Got it. I just thought it was so pretty. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's gorgeous. Beautiful. A lot of it is just like, let me just get on a horse and gasp every time I crest a hill. I mentioned this. the podcast before, but I had like a moment of clarity during the pandemic that genuinely led me

to change my life in a pretty profound way, which I was, I was playing Ghost of Sushima, and I was riding the horse, and I was looking at, I was scrolling on my phone. And I was like, why am I looking at my phone right now when I'm writing a horse in a video game? And it doesn't like, I'm, and it's beautiful and I'm having fun. Yeah, you could be playing your flute while riding the horse in your video game. Exactly. So like, following a fox around. After that, I genuinely changed my phone usage like for good. Like I started instituting. I read a book about getting off of a phone addiction.

And I still do phone free Sundays. And that was a practice that, again, was like instituted because of this, because of horse riding in a samurai game. I mean, it's just a beautifully, and for me, just the right level of open world in that the rail, you know where the rails are. Yes. You can see the rails and you can go back to them at any time. Like the subway train will come around again, you know?

Yeah, for sure. It's something like a fallout or a Skyrim. I've never finished either of those games because I'm just like, aimless and you can do too much. And then I'm like, I've got to adopt this child. But there's another child who, why am I only allowed to one child? So this Rusty Lake game is called The Past Within. And the reason that I particularly loved it is,

that you're playing it at the same time as somebody else. It is a mandatory to play a game. But you're not, like, logged in together. So you're playing at basically two different time periods and then giving each other the information over the phone. And I loved it. It was, like, really, like, I love all of the Rusty Lake escape room games. They don't make many things like Lorellides, like,

Maybe you get one a year. And so, like, I play a lot of puzzle games and the rusty, like, guys really churn those fuckers out. Complementary. I love every single one of them. I play all of them. But the PASS within was so fun just because you're doing the puzzles, but it's also about efficient communication. And being like, okay, if you turn left, I'm looking at a map. If you turn left, on the upper left quadrangle, it's that kind of stuff, which I think is really fun for me.

I don't know. There was a game, not a game, a TV show on the BBC when I was a little kid that was like a really primitive early version of like virtual reality RPG, which was awesome. It was children playing they lost every week. because it was written by adults for each other and then these children were playing it and just dying. It was great. But the game was run by, there was one kid with a helmet on where they could not see anything

in essentially just like a green screen room. And then their friends on the couch watching this kid who'd been like green screened or I guess blue screened at that time into a mystical fantasy castle. and they had to be like move two steps forward and then three steps to your right there's a table with bread on it

pick up the bread and break it in half and that's what playing this game felt like to me because it was about playing the game but it was also about sharing the experience with somebody else and you know you get a set of clues where you're like I have like

there's like three triangles that go up and then two that go down Is there anything in your room that looks like that? Yeah, interesting. It was really, really, really fun. And there's two versions of the game within the game. So you can play it twice. Oh, great.

And we did, and they're very different. Do you have, for someone who's new to the Rusty Lake Canon, do you have a particularly good jumping on point? I wish I could tell you the name of any of these games. It really makes a lot of them. Right. Yeah. And they're all fun and they all.

all are like thematically similar. They're just like a little, they're like a, you know, a very, to me as somebody who doesn't make video games, like it seems like pretty simply made like flash point and click video games. They're a little spooky. There's like recurring characters and tropes and themes

and like a spooky cube. Yeah. Oh, it's the cube and it's spooky. But they're all really fun and they don't have, there's no real starting point to them. There's not like, oh, you can't play 12 until you've played one through 11. You can jump it at any point.

I'm sure there's somebody online who's ranked the best Westy Lake games. I'm sure someone will chime in in our Discord. Sure, absolutely. And then somebody else will go, you idiot, that's your favorite. And then hopefully our mods will fan the flames as is their job.

As they should. That is what mods should be doing. But I don't know. I enjoy all of them and especially they take like 20 minutes to an hour each. So it's like a great like, oh, I have an afternoon. I would love to do some puzzles. Let me see what Rusty Lake games are out. Have you played, I mean, the main barrier of entry to this is that it requires a VR helmet,

but have you played the I expect you to die games? No. I don't have a VR helmet. And actually the VR escape room stuff. Yeah. It feels like everybody sort of got over VR. Yeah. But the escape room stuff was the one thing there was like,

like the fireproof games guys did a VR. I'm still heavily invested in VR. You're playing that laser. No, I'm a beat saver. I'm playing. I mean, like right now there is a new, there's a new update coming to the Vision. that allows you to stream Steam and G-Force games to it.

So it's going to be a whole new, whole new Vision Pro coming soon. I expect you to die. What? Well, that's the name of these games are. They're like spy, like not quite, James Bond, not quite Austin Powers. Sure. But like they're like, you get like a mission and then you have to go like, you're in like one space, but there's all these little like pieces of a puzzle that then you're solving to then stop

you know, like a room being filled with a certain gas or whatever. That seems really fun. They're really, really fun and they're very good for somebody like me who is not very smart. They're very easy little puzzles to solve. It's the one thing also, like I don't have a gaming PC. And most of the new point and click games, because I love. love a 32-bit, 64-bit sort of, you know, Monkey Island-esque situation. And it just ends up that I only play them when I'm at home with my sister because she has that setup. But it's the one

thing that I'm like, do I get a gaming PC just so I can play 64-bit games on it? This is so stupid. Why aren't these on Mac? Why aren't these on PlayStation? I know it's complicated, changing things over. But for me, please. Yeah, just for you. Just for me. I do. I'm a PC gamer. I do have a gaming rig, and I like those kinds of games as well, and I would, I think it is worth it.

And also, if you're trying to play something like... Why are you telling you that? If you like playing, like, indie point-and-client adventure games, you don't need a super-powerful rig. So, like, you're not going to necessarily break the bank. So, I mean, like, I think you get something mid-range and you'd be set. Yeah. Matt, what have you been playing? Well, y'all have been calling me the franchise?

Oh, my God. That's right. And this is because I previously had only ever played Resident Evil 4. That was my only Resident Evil game. Played Resident Evil 2, played Resident Evil 9 when it just came out. Love that. Went straight to Resident Evil 3 remake, okay? Yep.

I took it down. I'm done with it. Wow. And I would say... We also call you the Finisher. Yeah, you're not just a franchise. I'm not just a franchise. Mr. Gams, the Xbox game.

And you're calling him this or he's calling himself this? I think I did give myself Mr. Games. But that's it. If everyone's giving me one, I can give myself one. That's beautiful. Yeah. That's beautiful. That's self-care.

Yeah. I'm Mr. Games. I think for me, Resident Evil 3 is weaker than any of the other ones that I've played so far. All right. You know, I, because it's also, the stories are non-futable. sense. Like they're all kind of crazy, silly stuff. It's, I mean, it's not silly. There are sort of like intricate plots and there's always like a double cross of some kind or whatever. It's like very tropey, you know, very tropey sort of very heightened stuff. This one, to me, is not

that different from Resident Evil 2. It's like the same kind of shit where it's like it is sort of a prequel, midquil, sequel to Resident Evil 2, where it's like, things are happening before in the middle of it, and afterward, it's the same incident

where they're about to, like, bomb Raccoon City because there's all these zombies and stuff, but now there's an added addition of Nemesis, who, I'm sorry, sucks. I think Nemesis is a bad villain for these games. I don't like Nemesis.

He's a little too, to borrow a phrase from your other, show, Ungapachka. Oh boy. He does too much stuff. He's got tentacle arms. He's ugly and nasty. He's big and fast.

He's everywhere. I'm like, no. I don't think so. Not for me. But the main thing that's happening in it at a certain point is, like, well, you're going around. One, you go back to the fucking Raccoon City Police Department. And then at a certain point, you're like, I got to go down to this underground

facility and get this vaccine. And then this bad guy gets the vaccine because he wants it. And that's the same shit that happens in the second one. It's the same story. And I'm just like, you can't, you can't do that. Maybe that's why four was such a big change. Yeah, four is so different. Yeah.

It definitely, I will say, as someone who's playing these games on PlayStation 1, I get to one later, but I played two and three as they came out, it had gotten a little stale by that point. I had not played the remake, though. I will say, you know, this match. Big talk from somebody who played all of Death Stranding and then played all of Death Stranding 2 and was like, this is a masterpiece.

They're very similar in some ways, but I think Death Stranding 2 is a better retread than Resident Evil 3 is to Resident Evil 2. But that said, I did start Resident Evil 7 biohazard and immediately think it's too scary. I can't play a single one of those games. They are so scary. Even like being in the same room as somebody playing, I'm like, I have to leave.

This is, I'm upset. Two is pretty scary. Three, I didn't find to be very scary. Four is like a mix of like, you know, you're Leon, so it's a power fantasy. So you're like, you're roundhouse kicking old Laplaga ladies. And like, and you're not very scared. I will say I'm something of a horror game coward, though I will play them. I don't find four scary at all.

It's just an action movie. It's just like fun. but this one is this one is like a big shift in the same way that four was a big shift where this is the first first person one and I believe I remember reading that they were like we were drawing more from Western horror than like what just like what they were doing before and like so it's like the first thing that I like the first big scare is like basically like a Blair Witch like style like scare where there's like a guy standing and like not facing you and you're like what the fuck's wrong with me standing completely still and you get closer to him and you like collapse and his face is all fucked up and nasty and I got scared and I turned it off it's the first thing I have there's going to be more stuff but I know there's like a mold mold is scary to me that's the one where you start with your you've just locked your car and you're walking up to a house yeah yeah yeah right see this is the tough thing about playing a scary video game for me because like I I am somewhat of a pussy just just

Generally. But you watch a horror movie and you're like, okay, it was scary, but there was catharsis at the end. Yes. You're playing a video game and it's eight, 12, 20, 60 hours of stuff. Do you play until there's a cathartic moment so you can sleep? Or are you like, well, I got to go to bed. But also, there are zombies.

I will sometimes, like, I think I had, I stopped. I stopped. I stopped Resident Evil 2 at one point, turned it back on and played it and had 30 minutes left to finish it. I was like basically at the very end of it. So I will, I'm just like, I will not even like shut down the game. I'll just like put it in rest mode and like put it away for another day. Like I'm going to pick it back up tonight and be as scared as I was when I stopped it last night. But I, the thing that's good. about these games though I think is that I feel like across the board the Resident Evil games are pretty short yeah they're not they're not too demanding so far I think I did Resident Evil 3 in like five hours or something like it's like pretty short that one is short anyway but like I think two and eight or two and nine were like 12 13 hour like I'm playing on easy too because I'm scared. Yeah.

Because the hard stuff is not fighting the stuff. The hard stuff is listening to the music that is scary for an extended period of time. Not Mr. X fucking wandering around with his fucking little outfit. And then you're spending your going out into your life. Like, whu! So that's what I'm playing. I'm excited to get into that one so then I can get to, you know, Reson Evil 8 and then essentially be caught up.

But I'm excited about. Rochelle Shann, our producer, Ranch. You have something you been playing. Yeah, I've been playing this game called Fear the Spotlight. I believe it was an indie game and then Blumhouse picked it up to distribute. But it's like a 2000s inspired retro horror adventure game and it's been really fun. Everybody playing horror adventure games. Wait, is that a multiplayer game?

No, but you do switch playing the two characters in it. What is, like what is the... Oh, I think I played this. Oh, yeah, it's like two high school girls. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. That's the one. Yeah.

So what's the premise? You're two high school girls, and you're trying to figure out the mystery of the school. And it, like, burned down. And it's very much, like, Phantom of the Opera's kind of storyline where I won't give it away. But you're trying, you, like, do a seance in the library late at night. And some weird things happen. And you get transported into a different reality. Are you streaming this at all?

Are you just playing a... Oh, just playing that myself. That's awesome. Oh, after a long day of work, I'm driving home. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. And then, uh-oh, hunger strikes. Me, Hungy. I drive all the way home. I open the dang fridge. There's nothing in there but ketchup in a roll of film. And I can't eat the ketchup and I won't eat the film again. So I open up an app on my phone. I'm about to spend $30 on a dang burrito like a fool. What the the hell? But for me, eating healthy wasn't a willpower problem. It was a setup problem. User error, they call it. That is, until I found Factor. With Factor, I'm hitting all my nutrition goals this season without the planning, grocery runs, or the cooking. For example, I mean all sorts of good stuff thanks to Factor. I'm meeting all sorts of good stuff with Factor. And my meals,

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Go save yourself some money. Let's talk about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, released on May 16th of 2024. The developer is, I'm not quite sure how to pronounce this. a Samogo or Semogo and is a Swedish indie dev that also made Sayonara Wild Hearts which is a very different game and very well regarded

I'll just read the the steam description to set the table a woman surrounded by an eccentric man to participate in a project in an old hotel somewhere in central Europe becomes embroiled in a game of illusions increasingly dangerous and surreal now you're invited to fall into the same rabbit hole

in a non-linear mystery with an immense amount of handcrafted puzzles constantly presenting you with new riddles to solve, each leading you closer to deciphering the enigma of Lorela and the Laser Eyes. So this game has been on my Steam wish list since it released because it was like, this is going to be extremely my shit, and I just never ended up getting it because it was never budgeted time for it.

So I am glad that this episode came about. How did you get into the game? My friends, Brian Murphy and Emily Oxford, were playing it, and just immediately were like everybody in the world. world must play this game. And I love a game where I have to take notes. It's a sickness. I unfortunately was exposed to Mist at a very early age and have never quite like, I have been searching for that high for the rest of my life. And yes, it is absolutely deeply my shit. It's just just the right level of scary for me where it's like, but I'm not like, I'm not

like running from zombies really. And the puzzles are genuinely hard. I will also say I love the fandom for this game because every time I've gotten stuck on something or I'm like, I feel like

I should have gotten the answer to this lock somewhere. Have I? If you search for it, there's no like there, I mean there are some like this is just the walk through but mostly it's people going, have you tried looking in this place or don't worry about that lock yet you'll get to it later you're just like too early in the game to know that answer yeah like

everybody's really polite nobody's spoiling anything um and you know it as with every puzzle sometimes your brain is just not going to be able to do it or at least that's my experience and sometimes just like one little hint will go oh it's this thing oh i remember all this book that i opened too early at the beginning to you know in a stack of six other books is actually where the answer to this is i i agree with you i like i like something that just like kind of nudges me in the right direction at times. This also is a game where my understanding is that the, you know, like there's a lot of numerical codes that you're that are solutions to puzzles.

They're all randomized per play through. So you can't just get a strict walkthrough that has like here are all the key codes to unlock everything. Heather, you're about to say something. I was about to say that about the fact that you can't do the straight up walkthrough because it is randomized. But I was also going to say, you know, up front, I wanted to praise the. aesthetics of the game. It's gorgeous.

Our dress is beautiful. It's so pretty and very simple. Yeah, it reminds me of a game that I've talked about on the show before, Killer 7, which is this sort of like reduced poly model like this look. This looks more polished than that game, but as soon as you turn it on, I was like, oh man, this looks like that. And that's nice. Yeah, it's just black, white, and red.

And that's it. And that's all you need. Yep. Yep. And I also really like the sound in it. It has extremely good clicks. When you type into a keyboard, it sounds chunky and real. I like a good, I like it when there's limited sound and the sound is given such elevated status.

Yeah. And there's good little haptics on the PlayStation remote. The PlayStation remote changes color with the, you know, you go into different rooms, which is like just small stuff, but it's nice. thoughtful. So when we asked you about coming on the show and you pitched this topic, were you actively playing it at that time

or was this also for you an excuse to find a place? So I had played about half of it previously and then just had gotten distracted by life and it's one of those games that you have to be actively playing otherwise because you have to keep so much shit in your head even though I am keeping notes and the game has a very good note keeping system

Yes. With a good sound. Yes. Yes, it's satisfying. It's a good like ASMR. Yep. I couldn't play it for a couple of weeks and then came back to it and went, I don't remember any of this shit. So it was like a really nice excuse to be like, okay, I'm going to dive in and hopefully finish the game, which again I did not.

But I'm at like 87.5%. Whoa. I'm so close to the end. Matt, you're like I, this is always a thing where. of like, I think this is a Matt game, but I'm never quite sure. I know this for sure is not a Heather game. But, like, I think this is a game for you.

It's definitely a game for me. Yeah, I, I'm enjoying the game. I think it is really, really good. The thing that... Look, I've said on the show before, these are, like, in general, these types of games, like, these, like, sort of adventure, sort of puzzle things.

Not... It's gonna... It's... every other one is, like, my favorite thing. Like, this one, I like, way more. It's such a different thing, but like the comparison I think does stand. This is what I wanted Blueprints to be like. Yeah, where like... Yeah, I played this and then I played Blueprints.

And everybody was talking about Blueprints and nobody was talking about Lorelei and I was like... I was like... I enjoyed blueprints. I just think Loreline is better. I do, yes. But like, and I've said on the show, I said it earlier. I was like, you know, not that smart guy. I'm a decently smart guy.

Yeah. But homework was not my like favorite thing. school is not my favorite thing. Sort of like a school sucks kind of guy. Oh, I changed schools so many times and none of them helped. But like, so like doing stuff like this in the game, like,

you know, I did have to like pull out pen and paper to do pretty, like sometimes pretty simple math. Yeah. Like on this thing. So I'm like, oh, it's a math puzzle. Or like, or it's like an angle puzzle. Yeah. Like, and I think that stuff is like really interesting.

But then like, you get a, you get a real satisfaction out of, out of solving the puzzle. Yeah. And then you get a little thing pops up on the bottom where like, because you'll have like this like this list of things that you'll encounter. And like you'll find a door that you can't open yet. And so you're sort of like your character is like writing this down as you're going along

and you see it pop up on like your list. And then when you solve something, it crosses it off. Yeah. And that to me. Yes. That's everything. It's very pleasing to have a to do list that somebody else has written for you. that you then get to go and tick off?

Yeah. Very, very different game, but Untitled Goose game has the same, like, the check. Which I also loved Untitled Goose game. And also the two-player version of Untitled Goose game is delightful as well. Oh, wow. But to the spooky aspect of it, I find it's in this sort of interesting spot because it's like, it's not horror. It's not, like, actual scares, but it is in this sort of like this lynchian, like, unsettling. area they think is that kind of fun.

Did you get to a point where one of the guys with the maze head starts chasing you around? Because that's scary. No, that sounds actually scary. That's actually scary. And that those guys can't kill you. I don't like those maze head guys. I don't like him either. They're fucking scary. I think for me

and especially like once you get gulp by one and you're like, okay, I get it now. But the first time you see one and they're just like slow chasing you through the house and you can't get away, awful. It's not It's not Silent Hill 2. No.

Silent Hill 2 also, also in terms of scares, but Silent Hill 2 also a game that's got a guy with a weird head. Yes. Like, I feel like I don't want the weird head guys. Get him out of here. Have a normal. If you're going to be scary? Have a regular head.

Regular head. What's the matter with you? I don't know. If there was a villain in a game and his name was regular head, I'd be terrified. That is pretty scary. It could be anyone. Which one of them is it? But there's like, there's my nickname in college.

That's my nickname in college. You know why. He just wants regular head. Well, Nick suddenly spawned a second pair of sunglasses. They're on his laugh. There's like a puzzle, but like there's like, you'll encounter these little monitors that are all fuzzy that you have to turn the dials on. And then something will just like be there.

you'll be like, oh. Yeah. Then you go, typically, in my experience thus far, about, I'd say, 34%. You go to where the guy would be, not even there. Something got left behind for you, a little clue. An interesting little clue that I can't wait to find out what it is.

You know why he's not there? Because the walk speed is so fucking slow in this game. Well, at a certain point, you can unlock getting in a cup of espresso. and then it speeds your walk speed up very slightly, but then you do also have to start going to the bathroom. No, fucking way. As soon as I found a bathroom, I was like, I better use this thing.

I don't know what's going to happen. Yeah, it might as well. But I also, yeah, I like the aesthetic and I like the, it also has like, not Alan Wake vibes, because Alan Wake is more horror to me. But it sort of occupies that same sort of like, what's going on here kind of world.

Yeah. I like that. I was actually going to have this in my notes. I was going to ask you this because, you know, I play the games. I sometimes watch other people playing. I'll watch some reviews. I'll read a bunch of about it just to try to get some different perspectives

and sort of see what the consensus is about this. But one review I watched was interesting, like compared it to control. Yes. And as the franchise, as a resident remedy had, did you like, did you also kind of feel like? You just mentioned Alan Wake too. Yeah, yeah, I was going to, yeah, mention control. It does have big time control vibes.

Yeah. But like, in control, you can, like, fly around and run. run around and Heather probably liked that a lot more. Yeah, I really did. So I got all the way to the final boss of that game and was like, I've seen enough. I love it. That's like, uh, I mean, I think Allen Lake 2 is my favorite of those, but, um,

God, Allen Lake 2 is so good. I haven't played any of these Allen Lake games. Like, you don't like horror games, so it, so it might be, uh, hello, Al-WIC 2 might be a tough look, but it's just like, as a writer, I think you would, you would love it because it's got such awesome narrative design. Yeah, I think you would really like control. Okay, good to know.

Control is, because, Control has some scares in it, but it is more manageable. And you can turn stuff on, like, unlimited ammo and, like, unlimited health. Like, it's like... Great. You can just blast through it and have a good time and experience the story. It's like a fun... It's like speculative fiction, sort of like...

Cool. Weird. With some really, really cool concepts in it. Yeah. Like, you'll be like, oh, wow! Yeah. That's a neat idea. Yeah.

A lot of, like, a lot of story that you get just from reading little papers you find and stuff. like that. It's good stuff. Love that. It's good stuff. Yes. Bioshock, but just the story. There's just the tapes. Just the tapes. The best post I saw when Trump posted himself as Christ. Uh-huh.

Allegedly. Was somebody being like, we were so hard on Bioshock Infinite and they got it right. Isn't it so annoying when it's like, wow, that really heavy-handed piece of of fiction actually was not heavy-handed enough. Like, I feel like at the time, you know, us fucking sophisticates were like, well, the Barbie movie was good, but it was pretty surface-level feminism. And then, well, yeah. Yeah, it's like you, like, M. Bison wasn't broad enough in terms of like the level of

villainy it occupies lovers of power. Yeah. The president just called the Pope gay. Yeah. Like, I'm like, I hope would be so sick actually. There's been so many gay popes.

Catch up. That's true. That's true. That's true. Wage your catechism. Catch up. I guess I'll be going back to church. I wish it was a knife pope.

Knife pope. Yeah, they should just be different types. Yeah. They should be like devils and chainsaw, man. They've all got different powers. I did a little deep dive into Renaissance Florence recently. just for shits and giggles. And I read a great book about the Medici's,

which was a book written by a very diligent and honest, but lightly homophobic historian. And every single fucking man who was in any way famous during the Medici periods of Florence was gay. Every single one of them. And it's just him going through this book going, unfortunately, Caravaggio, yes, he was gay. Unfortunately.

Yes, he was writing hate. Unfortunately, he's writing hate. poetry that he was yelling in the street about all of his ex-lovers. It's, I have to tell you because it's true, but I don't like it. It's so funny. Every single person, every single one of these men, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, all of the Medici's, every single one of them, very gay. Well, the Medici had a pope.

Is that what you started? The Medici's had multiple popes. Yes. And one of them was very gay. Yeah. Yeah. and bisexual so they're just like

they're not putting labels Yeah We're not putting labels on it Chiller Just like open and sexual I got really into Caravaggio when I was in When I went to Italy

Because I was like This guy's paintings are all fucked up And weird what's going I was like what's going on with this one They were like The plaque was like This was an apology for murdering a man Yes

Literally Caravaggio Absolutely doing fucking gangster rap On the streets of Florence So funny And you don't hear about this. They don't teach you this shit in school. Why aren't they teaching us that shit? Also because that's what would make it good.

You'd be like, oh shit, let's go. If they taught actual history, all kids would love history. We're basically at the point in Lynn Manuel Miranda's mind where he's like, actually history's pretty fucking cool. Think about it. I think that all of us, as millennials grew up in a time when they were teaching history of like,

we don't want to teach the great man of history. We're going to teach about grain and how that impacted normal people. And it's so fucking boring. And I know it's important. And they're like, and now we're living in a fucking great man of history where I'm like, if this guy wasn't the president,

none of this shit would be happening because for some reason they just let this guy do whatever the fuck he wants. And all through our childhood, they were insisting that the great man of history was a lie. Right, right. Simplification. I remember here, like, there was so much of like, oh, that's actually dead.

All these things are systemic. All these things have, you know, economic causes. There was so much stuff about the systemic economics of Germany during fucking 1920s and 30s. But so clearly you get one freak. Sometimes it's just this one freak that everybody's like, I guess we'll just do whatever this freak wants for a decade. It's a, wait, I'm just curious real quick because you mentioned this book and it's, it's homophobia, like, when was it published?

I think it was like late 90s, early 2000. So, like, pre-Obekafel, like, at a time when they were acknowledging that gay people existed, but really begrudgingly. Yeah, yeah. At least it wasn't 2026. Oh, it just came out. You, like, Matt, you're talking about this study. I mean, we're all talking about the aesthetic. And I think not just from the art direction standpoint, I just kind of like tonally that it's out of

time and it has that sort of feeling. I mean, it's a big thing more and more I like of just like, oh, this is a weird thing that looks like it's shot on VHS, but it also like people have modern technology. It's like it's like kind of like unmooring, you know what I mean? And I like that this is like, I can't really tell are these years, is this a year we're in? Is this the year the hotel was built? Is this like what exactly is going on?

Yeah, and it plays with that as well. It's very conscious and you're like, you're like, you. are sort of unstuck in time within the game. And as you go, you're like, am I time traveling? Is this a, what's happening? Where am I? When am I? Yeah.

In a way that I really enjoyed. Why am I moving so slow? It's time travel. You're moving through both space and time at the same time. You're fighting a current. Ye equals MC squared or something. Richel, did you get any time with Lorelei? I actually played this a while ago.

That's right. You mentioned this. Did you finish the game? Around the same time, I was actually playing Blueprint. Wow. Oh, wow. You were a puzzle making. I had notes for both.

And, yeah, never finished either. But it's really cool. Like, yeah, the aesthetic is so awesome. And I always, one thing that drove me crazy about it is, like, there's only one button. Yes, that did really annoy me as I came back to playing it. It's like, give me one of these buttons should just go to maps. Exactly. Like, I shouldn't have to.

hit like five different buttons just to get to the map. I want to say, just as an aside, we keep talking about games where you write stuff down. Mm-hmm. And Pocopia. Oh. Has enough of an element to it where you can write stuff down that Nintendo released official journal pages. Oh, that's cute. That you can print and put in your journal to keep track of what you need to do and what's happening in Pocopia and where you've put stuff.

Wait. It's a job. Yeah. Yeah. Is it pre-filled out? No. It's just blanks, but they are blanks with categories that would help you. So for example, it'll be like, it'll be like, here's a page for this area, here's a page for this area, here's a page of storage.

Here's where those storage items are located. Like it's a way for you to manage the different things that you're doing in Pocopia, but it's official Pocopia stationery that you can print at home. Are you using this or are you taking any notes as you're playing Bocopia? I have hit a point where I'm like, I can't, like, there's, what I find super pleasurable about it is that it is so indulgent for ADHD. Like I can literally just get hyper fixated on like a thing and then fucking forget about it and realize like four days later. Oh, right, I was clearing that building. Are these guys okay? And like go up and talk and one of them be like, hey, I made that.

lumber you asked me for. I'm like, I have no idea why I needed this from you or when I gave it to you. Like I'll be in like, and that doesn't stress you out? No, because it's, it's, it's just like, because you can just kind of do everything and anything all the time and, and, and really choose to get fixated. Great. It's, it's, it's the inverse of a puzzle. There is no solution. Uh-huh. And that's part of what's making it so addictive from me. It's like nobody's like, nobody's, I haven't got my switch to yet. I've sort of been. waiting for Zelda. You know, which may be a waiting for Godot situation at this point.

Like every few weeks I'm like, when you go when new Zelda? Google, when new Zelda? And it's like, oh, maybe 2028, which so maybe I'll never get a switch two. Or maybe I'll just cave. I don't know. I know that we were like, oh, we got to save the switch back in the day. Switch two. Yeah, we kind of did.

If Pocopio had been like a launch title, I would have been. and like that's the system seller. Yeah. It is still staggering to me that there's no Zelda announcement, no Mario announcement. No Star Fox announcement. No announcements of any of the big guys. Yeah. Especially on the heels of a major film.

Right. I think there's going to be, I mean, I think there's going to be a direct in like June. And that'll dictate what the rest of the years will. You think it's going to be an Odyssey Galaxy? I mean, I don't, I think they're going to, I think they did Star Fox on purpose. I think we're getting a Star Fox. I think Star Fox was a pitch from Illumination and we're not getting a Star Fox. I think they're going to announce like the Nintendo rug and we'll be like, what the fuck are they doing?

And it's a rug that sometimes will tell you how much you weigh. And you're like, sometimes. And then in three months we all got the rugs in her house. Like, why did I buy this fucking thing? It's cost me $150. God damn it. I did use ring fit. a lot in the during the pandemic.

Yeah. Ringit was great. It was great. It was great. And like a real workout. Yeah. It really is. Yeah. It like fucking tire me out. Yeah. Once I get my new setup all established, I fully intend to start doing Wii Fit again. Yeah. Because I loved it. Yeah. I really enjoyed it. Wow.

What? You're legit going to play Wii Fit. Yeah. Wow. I have the scale leaning against my wall ready for me to set up everything else because you can play Wii Fit on the Wii U. and then it'll be HDMIed into a modern TV. Wait, we didn't talk about this at all. I know I know we're in, we're in Lorelai now,

but you sent a text to group chat that we have not discussed, which is this, a NeoGeo, new piece of NeoGeo or hardware with an HTML out. Yeah, it's a new NeoGeo, not an emulator, an actual functioning Neo Geo, launching with, I believe, 23 games, and you can plug in old Neo Geo carts into the fucking thing. They're just bringing back the Neo Geo.

I've always coveted a Neo Geo. That was like, you said the word grail earlier. I certainly didn't, that wasn't a vocabulary back in the day. But as a kid, I was like, well, that's the super expensive one I will never have. So of course, it's what I want. It's the one that costs $700 in like 1994 money. And, you know, games cost $100 a piece. It's like absurdly expensive.

Yeah. But I just like, I was so fucking cool. And because it's a possibility now, I'm like, Maybe I'll buy this fucking thing. Yeah, it looks cool. You should get it. I have no interest, but you should get it. It looks like it is. Go over to his house and play it.

You have a sleeper there. I won't be going over. Yeah, no. He's not coming over. Maybe bring it here. So it's 250 bucks for the NeoGeo plus the joystick. It launches with 10 games. I was wrong.

But all existing Neo Geo games will play on the device. pre-orders are open now and shipping will start November 12th, 2026. Do we have any, is there a list of games? Are there any on there? It's like a magician lord on there. Let's see. What the, Fiders, I imagine.

Some metal slugs. Games are going to tell you. I do like metal slugs. This one just fully passed me by as a kid. Yeah, I mean, it was like, no one had it. Yeah. Like, it was like. It's possible that it didn't even release in the UK because like, it just our, the shit that we got in the UK was different.

Did you ever have the, did you ever see the need to have a cabinets in your arcades? No, but I also, I don't know if there was an arcade in my town. Oh, wow, okay. Just like, I don't know, there was also not a comic book shop. Other people had Nintendo's, but we just had a PC, just. We had a PC. We were the family with the PC.

My mom had a computer science master's degree and got us on computers for so fucking cool. And so we were playing like monkey. Island and missed in the Disque World game. Either any of you played, you, I never played the, I never played the, I never played the The Disco World game. Fucks. I heard it was awesome. Awesome.

There's two of them and they're both great. Yeah, I never really, I never really stupid. Was a Terry Pratchett guy, but like, I always remember reading about those games and being like, oh, fuck, because I was also someone who, and Eric Idle is the main voice, which is really fun. I love when I bought that. I was, for me also, Secret of Monkey Island was such a formative game for me. And then I ended up, I got really, I played it.

every single LucasArts adventure in the 90s. Yeah. Here are the 10 NeoGeo game cartridges launching with the re-release of the system. Metal Slug, the King of Fighters, 2002, Garo Mark of the Wolves, big tournament golf, shocktroopers, samurai showdown v. Special, Paul Star, Twinkle Star Sprites, magician lord, and overtop. I'm going to get this fucking thing. Oh, my kidding. Nintendo Rug will have to wait. It's a business expense.

I know I said I wasn't interested in it. I'm going to get it. I should have, I kind of feel like we should have some sort of video game hardware console set up at the studio. Would that be insane? Would that be wasteful? Probably, I mean, yeah, we could do it. You have something we dick around with if it was here. Yeah, yeah.

We know nobody's going to steal it here because there's no one ever here. That's true. There's nobody ever here. Every time I come into this studio, I'm like, I guess one person works here sometimes. I think ranch the heart's working person here. And then end of list. I'm coming in first thing tomorrow. It'll be equally ghostly in here, I would imagine.

I work somewhere else and sometimes when I'm working from home, I'm like, should I go work from head? You should, by the way. Yeah, I'll come hang out. It's nice. It's a really nice office. It's a great office. Gossip.

Yeah. I, like, so here's the thing. Matt, I don't think you're a dumb guy. I will say I'm a dumb guy sometimes, but I, like, I understand. We got him. We got him. He admitted it. Wow.

But, but also, like, I know, I do understand that I'm like, not like a dumb guy. Like, I've known met actual dumb guys. But this game does make me feel stupid in the same way that blueprints make me feel stupid. Or return to the Oberdin, you know, these games that sometimes have these really obtuse sort of things where, because I, I hate the feeling. my least favorite feeling in games is when there's a puzzle that's not really a puzzle. I know exactly what I'm supposed to do and I see exactly how to solve it immediately. This is just a task. That's just like so dull for me.

That's just like a waste of time. The puzzles that you get in AAA games. I sort of wish with AAA games because you can change the hardness of the fighting. I wish you could up the level of the puzzles. Oh my God. Or delete them all together. Honestly, honestly I would rather delete them than play the easy puzzles.

Because sometimes they're really time consuming but very. straightforward. Yeah, it's like, and I'm just like, I don't, I know you're gonna put the three blocks in the fucking thing and it like, but then like the actual logistics of it is like sort of poorly designed and it takes too long to like align everything correctly. There should be a prompt that just says solve puzzle, press triangle. Yes. There's some pretty fun puzzles in the Resident Evil games actually. Like it might not be enough to get you in there. They are really scary, but the puzzles are fun. I'd need to have the sound off. Somebody else played the rest of the game for me. I just I'm brought in as a ringer just to do the puzzle.

Honestly, this sounds like a perfect situation for me, so if you ever want to do that shit. Absolutely, absolutely. We don't talk to each other at all. I just did another room with headphones on, reading my book. Yeah. So you just hear me in the other room go loud enough with your headphones.

You just hear, fuck this. So you get a controller into your brain. You got like a, oh, it's crystals, a chart. Great, great. Great. So, yeah, I hate it when I know exactly what to do and exactly how to do it, and I've just got to fucking do. It's a waste of time. But I, the sweet spot, of course, is knowing what you need to do, but like not how to do it.

But this game does do the thing where, and it can be effective, but it can always have to be exhausting. And again, I think it's kind of where my mental state is right now where I'm like, you know, I'm working in a writer's room. I'm going to record two podcast episodes and getting home at like 9.m. No, I'm just saying. I'm just like, get home to your beautiful wife. in a fucking great life. Jesus Christ. Covered in tattoos.

Everything's hard. He's wearing the shortest shorts anybody's ever wore. I have shorts with shorter in scenes. Anyway. I didn't even blast it. I think you took umbrae. It didn't even break out of the big guns for this one. What were talking about?

They should be called a little gun. You mean the small gun? From Matt Mice's perspective, though, it's just a t-shirt. Not Winnie the pooing it over here. I did see you get stuck in a tariff on your ear. That's unrelated. But like I think because I'm mentally fatigued, like the state when I'm like not knowing what to do. Yeah.

It's definitely a game that's like, is this a clue? Maybe you'll find out. Right. It could be. You want to write it down? Ooh. Might be a clue. There's a lot of that kind of stuff with this game, which I really enjoy.

But also if I was busy, I would piss me off. It does have big he-he-he energy. There is a little bit of he-he. Yeah. Because I was keeping a little book of notes while playing this, and it just says, fuck off, this sucks. It's shit. There's a puzzle.

I mean, it's like a... And then like, the gate sucks. The gate? That's the first thing you did. Like the ones, it's like you go to these, you get these shortcut doors, and then they, like, those are all, like, You get a book of all the puzzles. Yes.

And like that's, that is the type of game it is, right? You go to a library, there's just a book. Yeah. And you go, is this book relevant? There's 60 pages of book. Yeah. And then you get to one of these things and you're like, oh no, it is.

Let me go back. And then you like, but it's in your memory so you can like look at it. Yeah. Right. Like it was nice in this second play through remembering that that was what it was. Yeah. I could kind of get through it quickly. I still had to solve the puzzles,

but I knew what the puzzle was. Yes. Which a lot of this game, especially in the early stages, is like, the puzzle is figuring out what is a puzzle. Yeah, right, right, right. What is this dog want?

Yes, nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. That's not, what something. Everything in this game wants something from you. But I like,

I like that the, I like the photographic memory as a, as a device. Like, because every item you interact with gets stored basically in this memory. So you have a long list of things, and they're all broken up into different categories,

which I think is extremely helpful. It's kind of, it's kind of Alan Wakey. Is it the memory palace? What is the memory palace? Yeah, where you can kind of go into mind palace. Mind palace. You go to your own brain. But there was one puzzle that,

that weirdly gave me a hard time. And then when I figured out what it was, I felt dumber than I've ever felt ever felt in my life. Because it wasn't, it wasn't like a regular numbers puzzle. Uh-huh. It was one of the game consoles. Yes. There are these, like, they're not, it's, it's a, it's a directional input puzzle.

Yes, to unlock the gaming console. Exactly. So you find a sheet of paper with like a little, like, design on it that is just angles. And it's like, it's going, you know, one up, one to the right. And then there's like a long one and then, you know, right down. Yeah. And so you have to type that in on the game pad. what I didn't realize

because my first assumption was I was like oh a long one that's a long press Ah yeah As like just like somebody playing games Oh like that just kind of like makes a little more sense to me Like a more code situation Yes got it Then I was like oh it's not working

Okay okay okay okay I must have typed it in wrong I'm doing it a million times like And this is one that I took a picture of right from like looking at my phone I'm like I'm typing in exactly this And then I'm like I probably want to type press it press up twice to make the line longer. And then that is what you have to do.

And that was upset. It's like both satisfying and annoying when you figure it out. Yeah, very annoying. But the, when you get something wrong, it's very, at least not like, ha ha, you idiot. It's kind of like, it doesn't give you anything.

No, it gives you nothing. That is a he-he element. You're not being taunted. No. It almost is like, no. Maybe try again. Mm-hmm. Ooh, could be something else, could be something different.

There was, I will say, I looked at the design documents for this game, and apparently there was almost combat in it, and I feel specifically slighted by the fact that they took it out. There are guys later on that if you don't get the answer right, they'll shoot you in the head. You can be, you can die. So you can die, but it's no combat. But you can't fucking kill them. No.

No. Well, think about that next time maybe a little bit, guys. It's, you know. Yeah, think about that some next time, maybe a little bit sometime, guys. It should be fighting. Yeah. It's so funny because you're so cerebral in the rest of your life. And then the idea of a puzzle is like viscerally angering you.

Why do you want to escape? That's the only thing that I get to do that's not that. Well, but also like the meticulous way that you unravel a story and you have very specific like at page three line eight, this must happen. Like you live your life as a puzzle maker and then somebody else makes a puzzle for you and you're like, Give me a gun to shoot the puzzle. I heard Heather verbally describe a hypothetical movie to a room full of people

and everyone was riveted. This happened today. And yet when it comes to gaming, Heather's like, I need a club. It's something. It's just so funny to me though because too, even in the stuff that you watch, it's like, you know, all of it's like very interesting.

But like, have you seen a John Wick movie? Yeah. Do you like them? Yeah. Okay, never mind. They're great. Yeah, they're fucking awesome. They're sick as fuck.

I love John Wick, and also I saw when Hard Boiled came back to theaters, I saw Hard Boiled in the, I love combat in movies. No, you do love action movies. I know this about you. I fucking love it. That's what I was trying to get at. I was like, oh, are you a big action movies? I love action movies.

I love it, I love it. You'll like the odd game, like a game of this type will really connect with you, maybe not this one specifically. But like, on occasion, a story-driven game will be like, wow, this is for me. Yeah, for sure. Like there's no combat in Disco Elysium And it's my favorite of all time That's for real actually

Not like Fortnite being at the top of my list Because it has to be Because otherwise I'm disingenuous But like yeah I mean I don't need combat In order for a game to be engaging But I had a lot of trouble with this And I was like

Oh man I get it I want to I wish that I wasn't me It is No it is a masochistic enjoyment. I completely understand because it is like walking on pins but in a way that, you know what it feels like to me for my brain?

It feels like getting a really hard full body massage in that like when you're lying on that table, you're like, I have to accept that I'm going to get all of the pain for the next two weeks in this one hour and it's going to hurt so much. But for them for the next two weeks, I will not be in pain. Wow. That's sort of how for my brain this kind of puzzle feels to me

It's like it really It tickles something that needs to be tickled That I'm not getting anywhere I've described getting like a deep tissue massage To my wife as somebody's just beating me up In a very specific way Yes I need a full foot eight

Sixty five year old Thai woman To jump up and down on my back Yeah And that's what this game doing for my brain. Absolutely. It's interesting because you talked about like, you know, you're playing some,

some games with combat, some games with action on story mode, but then clearly you really are gravitate towards like, like challenging, like obtuse puzzles. Yes. I'm always fascinated by people who have like kind of their different segments of gamer brain, you know, there are different things that they're like,

their different strengths and weaknesses. It's just like, because I can, you know, I'm certainly not the gamer that Heather is when it comes to like combat, based games, certainly not with games where you have a gun, but, or driving games, like, that stuff.

But I can, like, I can't, I can do a platformer. I'm very, very capable of a precision platformer. And then, like, turn-based games, I feel like, like, this is extremely my shit. Yeah. I can, I can fuck up a strategy game. I think a big part of it is that I didn't grow up with any kind of, I didn't, you know, I didn't have a Nintendo or Sega anything. And we had a PC at home.

and my mom is a big, like, early adopter of, like, mud games and Zork and, you know, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and seventh guest and missed and Riven and all of these games. So, like, those are the games that were just in my house. And so I think playing those from a very early age just meant that by time that I'm now, I need something that's really hard. get that. Yeah. Yeah, I think for, and mud for our, for our younger listeners. Oh, yes, I'm ancient, by the way. I know for sure you're not as long as me. But I am old a shit. A multi-user dungeon. These were like text-based predecessors to MMOs, basically. Exactly. Text-based adventure games. I don't think they really had any combat in them exactly, although sometimes you could be like hit monster. Like, they were,

very specific commands. The famous one in Hitchhackers Guide to the Galaxy, which is one of those, like, urban legend, almost games of like, this is the hardest game ever written, is that the prompts were so specific that nobody could fucking finish the game. Like in Hitchhackers Guide, it starts off with like darkness, a blank slate and you have to type in, open your eyes. So for minute one, it's fucking with you? So for minute one, it's fucking with you. And this is why I'm like this. Yeah. You grew up playing these types of games. So to you, this is what video games are. Yes, exactly. So I can't play things like Smash Brothers because I did not grow up playing them. I, you know, I would go over to Friends houses and play Mario and Zelda and stuff,

but like this is not like a thing that I got to practice. Yeah. So even you playing Ghost of Yote, you're like, this is like a different type of game to me. Yeah. For me, I would say that that's like the most of the types of games that I play. Yeah, I will never be great at those games because I don't have the child muscle memory that a lot of my friends do. I'm fine at them. I'm not like... Yeah, you're playing them. You're doing it.

I played Fortnite with you. You're good. Thank you. But I'm not like good, good. You know, I'm... Yeah, it sounds like you're fucking around when you're playing. Yeah, I'm also fucking around when I'm playing, which doesn't help. But let's see if we can get this car under the second story of this house. Okay. And that's winning for me.

That's my win state. Winning can be anything. Setting your own win state is what you can do when you're playing games. And people don't talk about this enough. But, you know, like our good friend Zakoyama has like 100%ed Mary Odyssey when it came out. And I, there is no way, I could still be playing it if I was trying to 100% it. I don't have those skills. Zach's so cool.

He's so freaking cool. He can do karate. He's cool. He's cool. He's cool. Yeah. He's so cool. But he was also angry the whole time getting it to 100%.

There's those skipping games that you have to do to get stars. He was like, I'm going to die. Yeah. Doing these stupid skipping games for hours on end. I don't know why I've set this challenge for myself, but here I am stuck in it. There also is, like, this is, this is Mario specific, though there are other platformers that do this where it's just like the final sort of like bonus like level threshold. The last of the challenge levels is like this extraordinarily long gauntlet with no checkpoints that you have to get through in one go. And it's the sort of thing of just like, I did, I was like, this is a younger man's game.

When I'm at, there was a time in my life when I would, I would go through, go through all of this. And I would, I would make sure I get the, you know, the 100 percent. I'd get the achievement. And now I'm just like, I know I can do this. If I put enough hours, I just choose not to. I'd rather do something else. What's frustrating about those to me is how similar they hit my brain to a puzzle, which is that it's that like I know exactly what it is that I have to do

and I don't want to deal with the tedium of doing it. Yeah. And that's how I was playing Celeste, for example. Like so many of my friends were like, I love Celeste. And I died two times in Celeste. I was like, I'm done. And the whole point of Celeste, less is you die over and over and over again until you figure it out.

Yeah. I have no interest in that whatsoever. Well, with these, sorry. Sorry. No, I get it, I get it. I also think that there's a difference between the elasticity of combat in Ghost of Yote and one of these, like, ultra hard, like the last few levels of Astrobot, which are just the challenge, the bonus levels. It's like there is only one real sequence of button presses that is going to get me through this experience. and there's extremely small amounts of adjustment along the way.

But most of it is if I were to program a robot to do these motions at this time, then you're going to get through that level, which makes it into a bit of a pattern puzzle. Whereas like with Ghost of Yote, every time you come at these guys on horses, they're going to split in different ways and you get to have a little bit more fun with it. I have much more fun at this point in my life, like fighting a Soulsborn boss and like figuring that out

versus like navigating one of these ultra long platforming levels as much as I love platformers and and but you know it's I am impressed by people love the dedication to yeah of course it's very impressive I'm not going to play Cuphead

and it's that's okay you don't have to do it who's making you do this? Nobody nobody nobody I'm going to do it thank you well what a gentleman you can't do that you can't make her do it I think you should do it

I do think that would be would be a real personal hell for me is playing Cuphead while people watched. Oh, yeah, for sure. I would, that's my like no exit level, like, oh, you have to live in this for the rest of your life because you did something profoundly evil. I finished Cuphead in the DLC twice and I still would not want to play it in front of an audience because I'm like, I'm going to fuck up and I'm going to embarrass myself and look like I don't know how to play video games. Yeah, we don't want to see what you're doing with Miss Chalice. it's on my own time how the shorts got short

I do have a I will just button up my thoughts on on Laurel I by saying that like I'm glad I'm glad we're playing and Shabana I thank you for for finally getting this game into my my catalog I am not going to finish this game

to my library I'm not going to finish this game right now but I'm going to return to this game at some point in the future when you're done when you're in hiatus yeah and I'm going to have like a long weekend just to sit in your own shit and spend one game. Ignore my beautiful way. We, like, I am going to play this game, and I bet I'm going to, like, I'm already, like, really appreciated,

but I bet it's going to really, I'm going to really connect with it when I can just buckle down. Because it's a very impressive design. And again, we've already talked about what an aesthetic Marvel it is. Yeah, I think, for me, like, it's something I want to keep playing. If I run into a roadblock, that might be it for me. I will again say the community online is so great and like very easy to search if you're stuck. I've been having a great time.

It is like it is scratching a particular itch. They were hugely helpful when I was like, what is the dog want? Should we do a segment? Let's do a segment. This is our video game Would You Rather segment? Would you blather? Wow. We know how would you rather?

works. I'm going to propose a series of would you rather scenarios and you can decide which one you'd rather do. That's kind of just all there is to it. Here we go. Would you blathers? Walk around an empty hotel aimlessly with no knowledge of what's going on. Like in Lorela I have to take these off. I can't read with them on.

You got the screen thing on it. You can see through water but also you can't see screens. No, my eyes are just like every other part of my body just starting to go. Welcome. Welcome. Yeah.

And I'm increasing the size subtly, like by pinching, zooming in right now. Here we go. I have glasses. All this stays in the episode. You've written any of them. This is all just him vamping. Absolutely panicking. Hoping that the ideas come into his head.

And you've got four of them, you said? Yeah, I wrote four. Here we go. Would you brothers have sunglasses or regular glasses? Would you blathers walk around an empty hotel aimlessly with no knowledge of what's going on like in Lorelei in the Laser Eyes or walk around a house aimlessly and every time you go into a room it's different than the last time like in blueprints? That's so easy. Are you kidding? Hotel. First of all, I love a hotel. And that is how I interact with a hotel. I don't know where I'm going. I'm wandering in a random rooms. Ooh, a salon. Did somebody book this?

Can I be in here? Oh, this is where the pool is. Yeah. It's an escape room, but like you want to, you don't want to escape. I also take hotel. I really like when I'm clearly on a floor I'm not supposed to be on. Like I'm like, like, oh, I'm on the conference room floor. And there's no conferences today.

But you know what? That restroom's open. Yeah. My friend John Timothy. Why? You know, John Timothy used to run a, for his birthday every year, he would have it at the Waldorf Hotel in New York. This is a dirtbag improviser who knows writes for CBS's ghosts. And it would, we would have fake conferences that we were attending and it was a scavenger hunt

to see who could get into the most shenanigans at the Waldorf Hotel. And there was a winning, you were in teams and there was a winning team. And it was things like anything from like get a business card from somebody at the bar to take a photograph in somebody's robe in their room. Wow. This has big key heat energy also. It was great. And the Waldorf at the time was not renovated so you could take the escalator and the

elevator up to any floor, which now you have to, I'm sure, like, key card into it, as you can't have to in most hotels. But it would end then you could break into the roof and have a party on the roof with like a full live band. It was sick. I don't, maybe I shouldn't be saying this because these are crimes that we all did. But I think the statute of limitations is probably over. This is like 15 years ago.

Yeah, it's, anybody's going to do. Anyway, those are great memories and that's what makes me. Yeah, also the president is a pedophile. I think I'm going to be okay. We're going to finally crack down with this very specific crime. It's okay. Heather, what's your answer? I think hotel, because there's, you can opt out of like doing any of the other

bullshit if you're in the host. Yeah. Whereas like in a house where every time you go in a different room, it's a different room, you're like, fucking God, like you wouldn't be able to be psychically upsetting to have it happen in real life. Like that's like do I, am I suddenly schizophrenic? Yeah. Let me make a case for a house for just a second. Okay. Great. In the scenario, you're a homeowner. Okay. That's huge. Okay. That's nice. You could have, you could be a homeowner in the other scenario. You could be a homeowner in the other scenario. But. You own this really crazy house. And there is this thing, like, you know, people say you shouldn't take the same way to work every single day just to, you know, keep those neural pathways going. So maybe going into a different room every day. Yeah, imagine you're watching television and you're like, I should probably go to the bathroom and you have no idea where it is. Or even if there is one. Yeah.

There might not be a bathroom this time. I got to go to work. Where's the garage? Man, didn't spawn today. I don't know. But I guess maybe I'll take note of this chess piece because that feels like it might come along late. You get a horny text from a significant other and you're like, I'm in this room. You're like, no, no, no.

I can't get into that room unless I spoiled the garden. Game of the year. Ranch, what say you? Oh, definitely hotel. I'd blow my brains out if I would like... Would you blathers be forced to remember the specific drink preferences of every customer that comes into your coffee shop, like a coffee talk? Or have to make random orders for your customers as fast as you can, like an overcooked. I will take the overcooked one

because I'm just gonna forget all those orders I'm just got like everyone's coffee or I mean I would playing coffee talk I would like fuck up their orders so like and also like if it's a sexy mermaid I'm like sorry I'm focused on something else right now I'm too busy going like this I'm talking about this before

but this is when I was streaming I streamed coffee talk and one of the first characters you meet is I is a character I believe is a, like a dwarf in the fantasy sense, um, a cop and he's, he tells you he's lactose intolerant and orders a specific drink.

And I would just ask the chat like what drink to make each time. And everyone say, milk, milk, milk, so I served this guy triple milk order after order after order. And he kept getting so sick. And that was a real cop to be like, he's trying to kill me. There's fentanyl in my coffee.

I think between the two scenarios, I would choose coffee shop because Overcooked is stressful and I don't want to try and chop vegetables after somebody's been screaming at me salad now, salad. I think it would be hard to memorize everybody's order. But like, I think if you start small, you learn the first three, you fuck up the fourth one. And then once you've got that pattern down, then you've been. started with the next three, you'd be okay. I've become a pretty bad guy when I play Overecooked.

My friends and I, we all like it. It's because we make each other laugh doing it, but I scared one of my friends one time. Incredible. Because I like paused it mid-run and looked at them and like, what the fuck's a matter with him? I saw a TikTok of somebody playing overcooked,

but they had one person on Expo, and I think that's really smart. It's one person who's not playing at all, They're just, like, telling everybody else what to do and, like, organizing everything. And that makes sense. I think I also will say coffee talk because overcooked is very stressful. Yes. But it's also, like, it's over quickly.

Like, a round of overcooked is three minutes max. Whereas coffee talk is somewhat unending. Yeah. Well, there's nothing in this scenario that says that you have to talk to them. It just says you have to remember their words. I left off a part. I left out of a part where you have to talk. You have to make conversation with the sexy mermaid.

Cinnamon latte. All right. See you later. Look at my phone. I'm talking to him in the overkick scenario too. I'm chopping up with everyone. This guy loves chatting. Which one you want to do?

Yeah, you can set yourself on fire and overcooked. I feel like a thriving overcook. Oh, wow. Okay. That is the kind of ranch character detail we'd get. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah, can run a line like a fucking general.

Would you blathers? Okay, hold on. I'm embarrassed about this one. You wrote four. I wrote four of them. And two of them were mad. This will, everyone's going to be mad at me when I read this one?

Okay, great. Would you blathers be a lonely ditto in a post-apocalyptic Pokemon world with no knowledge of what happened to your trainer and the world? Or be a ditto left in a Pokemon daycare forced to breed with the other Pokemon to make,

Clones with ideal stats, which is what people do with dittoes typically in a regular Pokemon game. They'll get a ditto and they're like, oh, great. I can, you know, min max, you know, my entire team if I just like breed or I can breed a shiny version of it too. So would you rather be alone forever or a sex slave? Is that it? That's your question.

I just said everybody was going to be mad at me. I at least can answer this one. It's easy for me. Put me out to stud. Give me some Ms. Chalice Rule 34, and I'm ready to go. Yeah, but you also have to fuck Mr. Mime. I could do that. You sort of know what he's going to want to do

because he's going to hack it out before. I saw a Pocopia build where people had caged the Pokemon that do tasks for you so you could just come and know exactly where they were and fucking, like, give them the stuff. I hate it. That's upsetting. Yeah, it's no good.

We'll just move on to the last one. I didn't answer. Polkopia. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I assume everybody's answer is Polkopia. It seems a little bit better. It seems like it. Yeah.

Finally, would you blathers have metaphorical laser eyes, like in Laurel Eye and the laser eyes? Or have actual laser eyes like Cyclops from X-Men? Give me the Ray Chase, baby. Yeah, give me those fucking laser eyes, baby. I don't know. He seems pretty miserable. It is tough. And he's like, he's the saddest jock in the world.

Right? Cyclops? I'm sad already. All the fucking laser eyes. And X-Men are sad. None of them are happy. You're telling me. Nightcrawler's the closest.

Yeah, sure. I could have laser eyes, cum gutters, be one of the X-Men. I'm in, baby. No, you don't get the cum-gutters. You wrote the hypothetical, and in that you didn't say cum-cutters. I get the whole deal, baby. Get the girl. John Wee.

I think part of what makes Cyclops, like, a hero, is the way he looks while also having laser eyes. I think, like, if I had laser eyes and I went outside, I'd get shot by the cops instant. Like, nobody would be like, that's a hero. They'd be like, that's the devil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm taking the laser eyes. I'll take, yeah, you have to be really hot in order to have something that tough.

Yeah. Get the cool visor. I don't want laser eyes. Wait, but we've asked, I've asked this before. Yeah. Can he see out of the laser eyes? He can see. Yeah, you can see.

He has vision. Everything, I believe, is red. Ugh. That's tough. That sucks. I think. He's constantly seeing beam, right? Yeah.

His glasses are just holding in beam. I mean, I mentioned this before. Somebody did correct us. They're not beams. They're portals to the punch dimension. Of course. So they're concentrated kinetic energy. I mean, but his whole reality, if he's viewing everything,

the punch dimension. The punch dimension. Pretty good. Whoever wrote that? It's probably Stanley himself. well I'm glad he's dead because you would have killed him under a lot of

yeah it's like punch dimension take less cocaine I can't it gives me my power I'm gonna take actual lasers ranch actual lasers

what did the metaphorical lasers give you I guess not having lasers yeah I mean I did sort of read what they were I don't know if it's a spoiler or not I'm gonna say metaphorical lasers because

I want to be able to take my glasses off. That kid killed his parents. He does. He's got a sad life. Wait, Cyclops killed his parents? Yeah, I think he burned his house. Like on the way out on the birth canal? No.

That's fucked. He performed his own seasetion. It's obviously different in every iteration. But my memory of it is he got his powers during puberty. Yes. And either zapped through his parents or set his own house on fire. depending on the version. And then like he's standing in the rubble of his house

and Professor X comes along and says, you want to go to boarding school? For me, I just wouldn't do that. Yeah, weird that you would. You just wouldn't kill your parents. Weird that you would have a moment where you had laser punch coming out of your eyes and your instinct wouldn't be to close your eyes

but rather look at people. Like wouldn't you just close your eyes and be like, ah, something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong, I'm going to look at the floor. I think it's hard for him to close his eyes. I think it hurts to, yeah, he has to. Because he's almost like being thrown back by the lasers. That's why every time he's doing it, he's like, fuck.

Yeah. He's, it hurts to close his eyes. Yeah. Because he's closing it against the punch. Yeah. Imagine how strong your eyelids have to be to close them against a fist. In the movies, though, when he loses his fucking glasses, he just closes his eyes. And he's in constant agony.

Yeah. Okay, so I guess I would choose that over looking at my parents with a blast. I'm picking the laser eyes still I'm sticking with laser eyes Ranch sticking with laser eyes Yeah that's right That's this week's get played Our producers Rochelle Chen

Ranch twitch.tv slash yard underscore underscore our music was by Ben Prenti Ben Prenti music.com Our art is by DeckRegade design deck brigade.com Get played merch at kinshipgoods.com And there's a bonus episode Every Wednesday on our Patreon

Get Played DLC Matt what are we doing this week? This week Heather and I a couple weeks ago did a arcade builder and this week it's a game room builder. We design our own

our own best game rooms and we have a lot of fun doing it. Yes, we do. And I can tease, we have something fun coming for May on the Patreon. We don't even get into it. We don't want to get into it.

Fun, in quotes. We don't get into it, but, you know, Justin Timberlake, get your ass ready to say your favorite little thing you say. What?

Is it going to ruin the tour? Crime me a river? What? He says it's, He says it's going to be me, but he says it like it's going to be me. And people, people memed it and it's not funny, but I said it. I liked it. Patreon.com slash get played.

And we understood that it was not funny. Shavon Thompson, you're the best. Thank you so much for joining us, spending you so much time with us. What an absolute joy. Anything you'd like to plug? Once again, we're crowdfunding to make this dang movie the greatest treasure in the world. So you can just search scene and spot. Greatest Treasure in the world, or go to b.it.l.ly, forward slash treasure film to find it or anywhere on social media that I am on.

There's links, baby. Yeah, we'll put it in the episode. We're slang in that shit. There you go. Oh, yeah. It's going to be everywhere. Very good. Everywhere.

I'm, I guess I'll do it. Go for it. I'm sorry, Chavon, but, um. Oh, no. You got played. Fuck! I'm sorry. Fuck!

I didn't want to do it, but I did. Shit. Sorry. That was a HeadGum podcast. Hi, I am Mandy Moore. Sterling K. Brown. And I'm Chris Sullivan. And we host the podcast, That Was Us, now on HeadGum.

Each episode, we're going to go into a deep dive from our show, This Is Us. That's right. We're going to go episode by episode. We're also going to pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors. Are we going to cry? Yes. A little bit. Are we going to laugh?

A lot. A whole lot. That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to that was us on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday.