Get Played - Palworld

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Matt, Heather and Nick discuss the game everyone is talking about right now: Palworld! They talk about how it "rips off" Pokémon, it's immediate success, what it does well and more. This month's We Play, You Play: Baldur's Gate 3! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com. Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com. Check out our Anime watchalong podcast Get Anime'd and our complete Get Played, How Did This Get Played? and Premium DLC back catalogue only on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fm.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring the podcast. All right, guys, this is a really exciting time for our company. We've got, you know, Pal World has been a huge success and we are also a fledgling video game company and we're going to launch with a big new IP. So I've called this meeting today to make sure that you guys get a chance to voice your ideas for what that IP could be. But I want you to think big, grand experiences. I want you to whatever live services. Nothing is out of bounds. So, fellas, let me hear your ideas for brand new video games.

Okay, I do have something. I've been cooking. I've been thinking about this for a while. What if there is a sort of an outbreak of some kind a um you know a a pandemic of sorts that uh it starts from like a mushroom type fungus and it infects people and it stars this like sad like dad right and then uh and he sort of adopts this like young girl who's like a surrogate daughter right and she is immune and he has to take her smuggle her from point A to point B

basically and point B is like a medical facility of some kind and I think like that's just sort of like kind of what would happen in the game we obviously fill in more stuff and yeah there's like stealth combat and shooting and things like that this sounds awesome the only thing I'd suggest is uh can we just add uh like a base building like all that but also

you build bases okay yeah i mean it could have base building sure okay great um i think we should do that for sure that's great no wait hold on you're not running the meeting so i don't know why you would approve the idea uh what i thought thought we were just blue-skying in here. We're just brainstorming. You can say an idea is good. We are blue-skying, but I feel like maybe I was remiss in not clarifying exactly what it is we're looking for. Because what you've just described is the last of us. It's just the last of us. So, you know, and there are no wrong answers here, so I'll put it up on the board.

What? Matt went first. I don't see how he was the last of us. No, I see what's happened here. We can move past this. All right. I think we should get some other ideas. I think that's a great idea that Matt pitched.

I don't think we should kill it because it's too close to something that exists. We're not going to kill it. I'll put it on the board. But let's hear more new original IP. Okay. Here's what I'm thinking. kill it i'll put it on the board but let's let's hear let's hear more new original ip okay here's what i'm thinking what is more relatable than feeling like you're trapped feeling like you have no escape isn't that all of us today in society entrapped by our our governments by the news cycle by our jobs yes and we're also being pursued By multicolored ghosts

And there's nothing we can do But move forward And continue to consume The dots in our path As we wind through the corridors Just trying to survive Chomp, chomp, chomp Until finally

We get that power pellet That lets us turn the tables And eat back the ghosts This is really We have all that Plus base building And that's a game. I was going to say,

I think it's this, this is more apt for base building. I think this is good. I think that's really good. What bothers me about your pitch is that in the PowerPoint you just showed, you were using images of Pac-Man. I don't mean to sound frustrated. I'm going through a divorce.

So, you know, like I'm, I don't mean to bring that to work. Yeah. Yeah. We can tell Matt now. Heather and I are going through a divorce. Oh, God.

That sucks. That sucks so bad. Wait, who? You're all going through a divorce? Well, yeah, we're all getting a divorce. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's, oh, that sucks.

That's like, I mean, that kind of would make joel kind of like or you know if there was a joel type character oh yeah right maybe it's not that somebody died maybe that it's like a divorced guy maybe pac-man has divorced from ms pac-man yeah i want to just say uh-huh i i had to miss the custody hearing in order to be here like i you're really i thought you guys were coming with your with your what you're really not supposed to miss that one yeah well i had to because i we could have met on any day i'm thinking like a sports game but it's got every big sport in one baseball bowling tennis, and you use a special remote controller to simulate the swing of a bat

or like you're bowling a ball or like you're swinging a golf club. Stop. Yeah. Stop. With base building. Stop. Uh-huh.

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. All right Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Stop. You're pitching a system. You're pitching the Wii. I just want to tell you something. You cannot act like this in court. I just want to tell you something. You cannot act like this in court. We beat lambs with clubs and force them to work on our bases as we discuss viral early access potential IP theft bonanza Powell World this week on Get Played. welcome to get played your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premiere Video Game Podcast. If you are joining us for the very first time, me tell you we are three idiot friends who who just play some video games sometimes together yes sometimes alone and initially we were only playing terrible games but now we play every game and this week's game may fall somewhere in between again Again, we are idiots. We're going to say dumb shit.

Yeah. Yeah. We rarely ever make mistakes, but a lot of stuff we say is dumb. This is a yeah, we're talking pal world this week, which we'll get to in a second. This is a big thing that it kind of felt inescapable and i think it also kind of in various ways overlaps with all of our gaming interests so i feel like we should we had to cover it yes yeah uh yeah you know we'll get into this, but, you know, I like a Pokemon game. Sure.

Had their likes, like a sort of, like a Fortnite sort of like exploration sort of game. And Nick likes bad stuff. How dare you. I actually do like, the aspect of me, first off, is the Breath of the Wild aspect, which we'll talk about, but also just like the crafting and the building. Oh, yes. I love like building shit. I can't wait to talk about it. I do like the survival aspect.

We'll get to that. We should also, while we're talking about what we're going to talk about, we're here in February now, and we have our WePlay, YouPlay format, which is, you know, we were doing it monthly. I think we're maybe going to do it bimonthly or semi-regularly. We're not going to commit to doing it at the end of every month because that's a little onerous. But we are going to talk at length about one game for the final episode of February. I'm not sure if we set it in stone. We can talk it out here. But it felt like there were some strong leanings towards finally digging deep into

Baldur's Gate 3 7 remake oh I'll talk Final Fantasy 7 remake or rebirth when it's out but I honestly feel like we should wait till rebirth is out and we can talk at length about that game I think that makes sense no I think Baldur's Gate 3 is going to be great uh I We have talked about this offline. So I have dipped back in to Baldur's Gate 3 and I refuse to restart despite the long history of what I have done in the game.

I am plowing forward without save scumming or whatever it is so that we can chat Baldur's Gate 3, and that'll give us different takes also. Yes. Because we'll have very, very different experiences. 100%.

So that'll be coming the final Monday of February. That will be our BG3. Final Monday! It's the final Monday in February, and actually going forward, February will no longer have Mondays at that point too. That's actually a really crazy part of it. It's a weird

quirk in the calendar but I guess because it's a leap year they were like well after this one this will be a good final Monday for this February. Yeah. Next year we're back to 28 days and I guess we'll double up on Tuesdays. I don't think they're going to figure it out. It's so frustrating

because I have read a bunch about this. It doesn't make any sense. There's going to be two Tuesdays in the future in February. What is this bit? I, you know, can I say a conspiracy theory? Please. So I believe that the calendar, the natural calendar, as probably practiced by the early

hunter-gatherers, was probably 13 months instead of 12. Because if you divide 365 by 13, then every month has exactly 28 days, which also means that the moon cycles would line up with the months at the exact same time every month. So at a certain point, they just like someone made the executive decision. We're getting rid of Smarch or whatever. We're like, you know, that one 13th month is going to take a hike and we're going to shift these days around. Sort of like what they're doing again with the Monday. They're doing it.

Yeah, right. That's going to sequel to that. Which means that February is the lone holdover from the original calendar. I wonder if there's any because obviously there's all sorts of different,

you know, calendars and timekeeping systems around the globe that all kind of got standardized when we entered an era of global commerce and communication i i bet there's some truth to that and i bet there are some calendars that that are a little bit closer to the moon cycle i like as far as this theory as far as conspiracy theories go this one pretty benign i'll say some conspiracy yeah so i like it i think this one's good. I endorse it. I like it.

That's the official stance on the Get Played podcast. We believe there are originally 13 months. There was a 13th month. Yeah. I wonder when 9-11 would have happened

if there were 13 months and 28 perfect days. Right. Probably would have been in August. In Discord, it wouldn't have been. Depends on where that 13th month slots in.

Yeah, that's true, huh? I'm adding it to the very end, but pushing everything up. Right. August has its own origin in Augustus, right? Am I wrong? Is that where that's coming from? I don't know. Or is it vice versa?

I have no idea. I should know more about calendars. Yeah, maybe this year we get into calendars. I think that's pretty good for us. Yeah. We'll do an episode. Right, we'll figure it out. A lot of, but this is the thing, because, okay, if there's a game like Stardew Valley,

which is akin to kind of the survival-based building resource management day-night cycle game that we're going to be discussing at length, it's different, but it's the same sort of general bucket. When game systems have fictional calendars they do tend to standardize it they do tend to be like hey you know what we're not going to just take the existing like sort of dumb uh kludge system that we have that that exists because of path dependency we're going to instead sort of make it like yeah these are these are these seasons have an even number of days um and because that just makes more sense for everybody.

I think let's adopt one of those. I'm sick of this shit. I'm sick of daylight savings time. And you know what? 13 months? Bet you we don't have daylight savings time anymore. I bet you it's gone. Here's my big thing.

Yeah, I agree. I don't like daylight saving time. Keep it as standard time year-round. By the way, it is one of those things where, and I do love to be pedantic in general, but I love to be pedantic about this. Is it daylight saving? It's daylight saving time. Everything sucks. There's no S. Daylight saving time.

Lose the S. Give us another month. Let's get this over with. But I have thought, could you do the equivalent of a metric calendar? equivalent of a metric calendar like could you have a 10 hour day of 100 minutes a 10 day week

that turns into like a 100 day year like could you make the math all kind of line up where it's all on the decimals I'm sure we could and then the US will be the only people that don't do it we like ours Fuck you It's worse So Baldur's Gate 3

Coming in the month That's right We'll talk about it then They have a 10 day week In the Baldur's Gate universe They keep talking about a 10 day That's the period of That's the week like period of time

I thought they were talking about Chance the Rapper's First mixtape Just looking at you blankly I time. I thought they were talking about Chance the Rapper's first mixtape. Just looking at you blankly. I have no idea what you're talking about. Rochelle knows what I'm talking about. Who the what?

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Thank you, Magic Spoon, for sponsoring this episode. Let's talk about some video games we're playing now. It's What Are You Playing? What Are You Playing? It's where we talk about the things that we're playing. That's right. I expected, he's been around lately, so I expected the Resident Evil. I kind of thought he would too.

I thought he might show up, but I honestly don't. Like I thought I saw his car parked outside. Yeah. What? I haven't, what kind of car does he drive? I haven't seen his car. Well, I saw like a burned out car outside. Okay.

And I thought like that's the kind of thing he would have. Yeah. He would have driven. Yeah. It's a blackened husk. But I guess that wasn't him. Yeah. Technically like the shape of a car, but it is just ash.

Yeah. Like, um, no. And I'm, you know, and it's, I don't think I'm, I don't think mentally I could handle it today. It'd be a lot. I'm sure. Yeah. Today's more of chill vibes.

It's chill vibes. He'd have his own take on the calendar system, which I don't need to hear. Every day is my birthday. Shut up. Come on, dude. Every day is your birthday? Come on.

Get over it. Every day. I really hope that he doesn't listen to the show. No, and if any of this did get back to him, I would be pretty upset, actually, because I wouldn't say this to his face. Do you think he knows how to listen to a podcast? For those of you that don't know who we're talking about, we're talking about, of course, the Resident Evil 4 merchant.

He stops by. He's a regular fixture on our show. Yeah, he'll pop in usually to introduce the segment. Well, he'll pop in often and irregularly to introduce the segment. Yeah. Not usually. To varying degrees of success, too, I would say. I will say more often than not, the segment is introduced.

But it's always at the expense of our time and the listener's time. Sometimes we learn a little too much about this guy. Not here today. We're just going to get into it. Matt, what are you playing? I'm playing Final Fantasy VII Remake. Wow.

I'm about 10 hours in. I'm in chapter 7 or something. And I got to say, I'm loving it. I talked about it a little bit last week. And I was saying that I was already more interested in it because I had already finished the original Final Fantasy VII. And that's still holding true. I love my guys. I love that squad.

That's a good squad so far. I'm really happy with everybody. Who are you partied up with at this point? Right now, I'm running around with Tifa and Barret. And I like that you can switch between... This type of game is a little more my speed because turn-based has never really been my favorite. Yes.

But, you know, it's sort of an action RPG. It's more really just an action game. The RPG elements are not really, like, front and center. Although there are still, like, menus. Yes, a lot of menus. And you can just like pause, like basically it's kind of real time with pause. Like you can kind of stop the action at any point.

But I do think they did an amazing job. I mean, that's what I like most about the game beyond just like it's kind of general like aesthetic majesty. But is just like, I thought they did a great job of hybridizing, you know, kind of old school slash MMO style combat with like a modern action game character action game and so it's very

playable but also very approachable if you're like coming from an RPG school and don't really play these games I was really lost in a lost in a good way in a in one of the weapon upgrade menus there's like these like clusters with like little stones on them or whatever and you can the materia yeah no not the materia though like where you can go into it's like it's a sub menu for the weapons and you can it's like stats for your right right right right i'm trying to remember what that was and i i was having a blast in there but you're not slotting materia into that. No, but you can slot materia into your weapons, but that's a different menu. Yeah.

This thing's got so many menus. I'm thinking maybe the Cheesecake Factory made this game. Right. But anyway, folks, what else? What else? I'm just kidding. But I'm really enjoying it and so far I haven't gotten to

because I know the full game hasn't been spoiled for me because I know that the full version the full remake hasn't been spoiled for me I know that some things are different and some things are

unique to this experience but i haven't gotten to any of that stuff yet so and we should just reiterate for anyone who missed it that you recently finished vanilla final fantasy 7 for the first time so i'm aware of that stuff and there are a couple things like there's a guy there's a complete guy in this in the remake so far that i was like this he's not in the other one. This is like a new guy. But he's like a weird sort of fancy motorcycle guy. I think he's new. I don't think he's in the original.

I can't remember what his name is. Yeah, you played him more recently than me. But I was like, I'll be seeing him again, I'm sure. Because you fight him and then he goes away. He doesn't die. But I'm playing that. And I did, i've put away prince of persia for now even though i was really zipping around loving that i got a bunch of new upgrades and stuff and so it's made traversal a little more fun a little more i'm getting into

some uh deeper places but i had to put it down for now because I'm focusing on, I would like to finish remake before Rebirth comes out. Which I think I'm on pace to do, but I just needed to guarantee that I would. So I had to put down Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown. I finished remake when it came out, and I was just refreshing my memory looking at this upgrade. I remember this now. It looks like the solar system. You've got all these cores that you're using, and it's just like which attributes of a of a the buster sort of what have you you want to upgrade exactly yeah so i was having a blast doing that

because i realized i had all these all these stats uh at least stat points i could spend that i hadn't spent yet i was like oh and that was making things a little easier what a great feeling that is this is great uh but i also just love how it looks it's a really beautiful looking game um it's so beautiful gorgeous it's so beautiful it's nuts like i really am looking forward to uh rebirth but i'm also like cloud is like buff in a way that i'm like could i do that could i become like shredded kind of like cloud right i i love a thin buff yeah like a wire yeah when i when i see cloud i have the same feeling i'm like could i become like a cloud type body could i like the lumberjacks on tiktok yeah the female lumberjacks on tiktok like i'm like is that is that achievable right he's he's really attractive in remit i was like if i looked like cloud i think everybody would like i think

everybody would like that puts on a dress too yeah it's great um the uh yeah i i definitely i i just don't have the body type where i could be that lean and wiry also like a famous short king like that's a big big part of that's what what I'm thinking. I might be able to do it. You could pull it off, but I feel like I'd have to bulk up and be like a Barrett type. I'd have to be like a little bit just pure body mass. Nick immediately starts sawing off his arm.

I was gonna do it. But I'm loving it and I can't wait to see what else. I can't wait to see where the... Because I don't even know this. I don't know where the story stops. Because I know it's... Yeah.

They're splitting this one game up into three games. So I'll be interested to see where it stops and what else is maybe a little different. But I'm loving it. That's it for me. I love that you're loving it that's that's it for me i love i love that you're loving it uh heather what are you playing uh so you know i'm playing this month's we play you play uh and i i don't want to save this for uh for the actual episode because i'm

going to experience a lot more uh after this but it's been so long since i've played the game after this, but it's been so long since I've played the game that I don't remember any of the characters or why they're upset at me. So diving back in where I am is the same as starting a playthrough of Disco Elysium. Like I am, I am confused about the dungeon I am or what my goal is in that dungeon. I don't remember how any of the menus really work either. So I'm like reorienting myself while also being attacked by like spiders and gremlins and shit. And then also, I don't know why one of my party members is dead in the dungeon because I don't remember the dungeon because it's been i

i think the last time i played it was the summer can you generally describe the dungeon so i like do you know where you are exactly in a dungeon no just like the the environment the atmosphere like what kind of dungeon it is don't all the dungeons in this game kind of look the same i think they're pretty i think they get pretty distinct i mean maybe in act one some looks similar rubble no i'm definitely in act one yeah but they're like bricks and rubble and ladders and candles what kind of enemies are around you're dealing with goblins they're all dead oh they're all the enemies are dead okay because i whatever i did last i killed everybody you maybe cleaned out the goblin camp that's maybe

what happened if I'm just guessing but I don't know goblin camp I don't know well I feel like that's not where I am okay I'm underground somewhere so maybe you're in the underdark you can get into the underdark pretty early. There could be spiders. You're dealing with spiders. There was a spider. Okay, yeah, that's probably where you're at. You're probably underneath the blighted village.

But isn't the underdark like avatar looking? It is. There's parts of it that are more avatari that have more like bioluminescence but also like the at the underdark is like this whole like it's like the the lower level of uh of tears of the kingdom where it's basically the depths yeah it's like this entire thank you matt it's like this entire like other biome and there's little chunks of it that you can get into in act one um but the end of act one is where you spend like the bulk of time there. I don't know. I have no idea. Could be. I don't know.

Does Rochelle have a guess? I've definitely been in the Underdark. I don't know if I'm in the Underdark currently because I was like, oh, my God. It's like the fucking glowy spaces in Elden Ring. I'm like, oh, this is crazy. And I do remember getting absolutely murked by like a floating head in the underdark uh which is not where I am currently like I'm not where the floating head killed everybody floating head the beholder the beholders I was the big one-eyed guy I don't know some kind of floating head just

like looked at me and like it like party wipe I think that's what looked at my me and party wipe. I think that's probably what it was. Looked at my party and party wiped me. And there were statues of frozen people. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. There's a big beholder you fight, giant one-eyed creature, and then there's petrified drow. Yeah, I'm not there. That's a different part.

Got it. I don't know what dungeon I'm in. Got it. Anyway, so that's... I dipped back into BG3. And of course, I'm playing Fortnite, which continues to be a delight. I have, from the Discord, realized a couple of things. One is the Discord that we have of our Get Played listeners.

And there is a subsection of that Discord, which is at discord.gg slash getplayed. The Fortnite subsection is, I've always referred to as the Battle Bus, but it is not. It is the Battle Buds. They're the Battle Buds. The Battle Bus is what we all travel on to start a battle royale right but the battle buds are the group so i i just want to say i want to extend my apologies for always calling it the battle bus which is what i thought it was called but it's battle buds battle buds but anyway yeah playing fort Fortnite, which is great.

There are no current collaborations beyond The Weeknd, who I think signed on to be like the spokesperson of the entire season. But his skin is not selling well. I saw a breakdown of The Weeknd's sales skin, and it was a few weeks ago and it was something like 2 000 sales uh which for a game as big as fortnight you'd be like oh my god um and now he is relegated to the bottom of the uh item shop like beneath cars and songs like he's way down at the bottom um you never really see him in game did he is this all like post the idol kind of like you know he's his stars fallen or did he like say something political or something or like what do we have is there any theorizing yeah i think i think he's maybe his star has fallen a little bit uh i'm not sure but the kids aren't playing as the weekend uh and neither am i kids

usually love the weekend because they're not at school matt's a great point you would think they'd be playing as him more i'm so fucking tired man i'm so tired heather and i we our old improv group was called the last day of school and And we had a Facebook page way back in the day. And at a certain point, I'd never looked at this thing, but our buddy, Drew DeFonzo Marks, who managed the page, was also on the team, part of the group, that performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in LA. He noticed at a certain point we started like just swelling in terms of followers and had like millions of followers. Really? That was like kind of not a common thing. Yeah. And we realized what was going on was that it was a bunch of children who were just liking the concept of the last day of school.

And so we'd have like a post about a show and then some like six-year-old would comment homework sucks that's it also was funny because because like we had our cast photos up yeah on on the on the which also still has millions and millions and millions of uh of likes and followers or whatever um we would have cast photos up and the comments on the cast photos would be who the fuck are these guys like that's excellent that's so good yeah uh yeah i do think he the weekend did say something I do think he the weekend did say something like bad yeah in some

or some article came out about him that he's like mean or something like that but I did go to Halloween Horror Nights a couple years ago and I go every year but a couple years ago his he was one of the featured mazes like the concept

of the weekend the artist was one of the mazes and it was very strange and at one point there's like a there's like a music video where there's like a bunch of him so there's like a you know a mirror room or whatever there's a bunch of guys like bandaged face and stuff that's like kind of scary whatever yeah but at inexplicably like at the end there's like a big bug okay there was like a big like praying mantis like bug and it was like, it's bigger than you're thinking. It was like a guy on stilts.

Like it was huge. It's like 12 foot big bug and we were just like, we weren't even scared of it. We were just like, what is this? Like what is this? Why did he do that? The artist ones are always so hit or miss because either they're super into it

or they have a horror angle already. They used to do it with more metal musicians. Ozzy Osbourne did one before. Slash had one. Right. There's more of a logical step into horror, a Rob Zombie one. But then The Weeknd, you're sort of like, I guess he's just kind of like a weird guy into horror, a Rob Zombie one. But then the weekend, you're sort of like, I guess he's just kind of like a weird guy.

Yes. Yeah. It doesn't really make any sense. But that's my answer. Nick, what are you playing? Did we ask you what you're playing? You did not. And I'm going to answer.

What I'm playing is Baldur's Gate 3, which I'll talk about today. And then I won't talk about it again until we do our We Play, You Play. I'm going to continue playing this campaign though, because I am basically on to Act 3. I know where I am on the story. I'm in the prelude to the final encounter. I won't give any spoilers there of the second act. First thing I want to bring up, I don't think I've talked about Shovel shovel yet i don't mean the shovel you use to dig with uh i mean the npc shovel who you find a scroll that you can summon that if you have a wizard in your party uh they can commit the scroll to memory and they can endlessly summon shovel the closet uh this little fiend who runs around and is the most i've uh just thought of a of a of a Heather Ann Campbell character just being in a video game.

Because she rather she is just a little misfit who runs around just like, yeah, fuck you. Just like this profane little like like like shithead who like wants you to get hurt and stuff and goes into combat and says, it's fisting time. Jesus Christ. I hadn't seen this person or this, this creature before. And I just Googled it. And it's exactly what I picture. It's great.

It's such a perfect, like a little gremlin has their own dialogue and everything. And is also like useful, which is another thing I think this game does well is when something is fun, it's also useful. It's like, you know, it thing I think this game does well, is when something is fun, it's also useful. It can turn invisible, can cast fear on enemies, so it's pretty useful and fun to just have around in the party. But I hope the two of you, in your respective playthroughs, or if you get back into it at all, do come across Shovel so we can talk about it a little bit uh in in a couple weeks um i am romancing gail on my current playthrough i have gone for gail let me tell you this gail's a little bit of a tough nut to crack um i thought at first like he's being very kind of

like flirty and you can kind of like banter back with him and And when you pick like kind of the, the sort of playful option, he, he tends to yes. And that, and that's like, it's like a fun way to interact with him. Uh, but there's a point pretty early on where he's showing you the weave,

which is like the magical energy that, you know, it's essentially the force, I guess, uh, it's an oversimplification, but it's basically that he's like showing you this magical energy that unites everything. Um, and as he's like showing you this magical energy that unites everything.

And as he's doing this, like you have a moment where you can choose to picture something. So I picture my character like kissing Gail. And I'm like, here we go. This is a big fat signal. I'm using semaphore here. Yeah. And Gail's like, oh, my goodness. A surprise to be sure but

a not unpleasant one no i simply must get back to the library like he's like get so like scared and so like like you go through this whole thing where it's like this really prolonged courtship period where like there's a point in you know there's a very there's a big triumphant moment in act one where you can have romantic scenes with a number of different characters, uh, depending on how you, you played the game up to that point. Uh, if you're going after Gail, your, your choices to, um, sit by yourself and think about Gail, like he's not even engaging with you. It's really one of those things where I'm like, I've developed a lot of empathy for

anyone who's ever tried to date me because it's like okay hey here's a I'm interested in you oh cool I'm gonna go lock the door to my dorm room yeah yeah I'm gonna go play Resident Evil 1 yeah yeah yeah so it's it's so all that said I'll eventually reach the point where I went to the next stage in our romance and I

I really do like that I did like how it progressed I found it like very satisfying and I think his character is really interestingly written. They're all interestingly written, but like contrasting that versus Laizel, who at the same time is like coming to me in the middle of the night and is like, I'm here to claim you.

I'm like, man, they are really completely opposite ends of the spectrum here. One small thing I missed on my first playthrough. That is an act two, which I really liked. I was like, oh, man, I'm really glad I'm just playing this again in kind of a similar sort of way because I just somehow just didn't come across this. They just overwhelmed by all the content that I didn't notice this thing.

There is a drow in the Moonrise Tower who is specifically wants to be bitten by a starian and is like. So you encountered this. I did. Yes. Yes. And I had to go back and bring like yeah so you you encountered this i did yes yes and i had to go back and bring him with me well this is the thing and i like this about the game versus like something like you know in bioshock you have the choice where you can just pull one example you can harvest the little sisters or you can free the little sisters um but ultimately like the advantage you get from one choice or the another or the other is kind of like the same. It's like it's essentially neutral by the end game. So it's like you're not you don't actually have a moral dilemma there.

It's just however you want to play it here. In this game, there are actual kind of moral dilemmas or things where like you can get a clear benefit to gameplay. But what you're losing is you're either upsetting a character or you are like, for instance, there's another thing you can do where you can disfigure the player character, but get more advantage in combat. So like it's just like, am I trading off the aesthetics of looking uglier, for lack of a better term, for just being more powerful? And there's another one like that where a star in like does not want to be does not want to bite this weirdo. that where a starian like does not want to be does not want to bite this weirdo does does not want to feel like fetishized as a vampire does not want to be like like i know that i this just feels creepy to me don't make me do this um but if you do bite her she's going to she's going to give you a strength potion that will permanently boost your stat so that can be a significant advantage for one of your martial characters so it is like a real trade-off i chose not to do it um but i

think there's a there's a scenario where where I was maybe struggling with this game more or was playing on honor mode or something, and I might do that. I don't know. I just find that kind of interesting that there actually are situations like this where there's a clear advantage to choosing the worse option, you know?

Yeah, well, so now I'm remembering because when I encountered this character, Asterion was not in my party. So I was like, oh, I'll bring him over here so we can progress this conversation. And then I went back and he was very clearly like, I don't want to do this. And I was like, okay, we're not doing this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I brought you over here just to see what the option was. You're my guy, I'm not going to upset you. This horny drow. You can bite me at night. I'll let you bite me at night, the option was. I'm not going to upset you. This horny drow. You can bite me at night. I'll let you bite me at night. That's fine. You don't have to bite anybody you don't want to bite, buddy.

So no thank you. But what a... Man, I miss my guys, actually. I've got to get back in there. It's really cool because it's such a small... It could just be a throwaway interaction, but they make a meal out of it as they do everything in the game. Okay. I do want to get through a few...

Maybe I'll save these, actually. can be a lot of it is to do everything in the game um okay i do want to get through a few maybe i'll save these actually because i have some frustrations with the ux but that actually feels like something we can all dig into in the we play you play i'll save these thoughts for later i did also at one point romance gail on accident and like had the full like like we fucked yeah uh and then everybody well not everybody shadow heart was was really sad because we were also sort of like on our way to romance. And I did save Scum and like regretted it. And I felt so bad. I was like, Gale will never know, but all I always know.

So in my playthrough, I hooked up with Lae'zel because she just is like, let's go. I was like, all right, sure. But then Gale gets upset about that. And again, he's just there he's like so like mopey and like so unattractively like self pitying where he's like well I suppose I could have been more forward but I could only be myself I'm like dude come on

you fucking Frasier ass you bitch but he's also like he told me he loved me like right away yuck a lot of red flags with Gale But he's also, he told me he loved me like right away. Ugh. Yeah. Yuck. I know.

I was like, okay. A lot of red flags with Gale. Yeah. I had some interaction with Gale where he was like, do you want to try magic or whatever? And I was like, okay, sure. You know, because I'm playing just the most obnoxious straightforward selfish narcissistic thief yeah uh and um so we do it you know some magic scene and it gets kind of like sexy adjacent and afterwards he's like oh i did you feel that and i immediately selected yeah it was gross get away from me

yeah and uh and then from that point forward i was like i don't like or trust this guy and he told me his whole deal which i don't want to spoil yet because we're not there and i mean we maybe you have to save something for the actual episode. And he was like, so would you do that favor for me? I was like, absolutely not. So at this point in my playthrough, he is, I think, starving to death.

Oh my God. Which is going to leave me with only my party as my characters who are in my camp. Hey, everyone. You know, you want to eat healthy, you want to eat well, but you don't want it to be a pain to prepare. Well, let me tell you, eating better is easy with Factor's delicious ready-to-eat meals. Every fresh, never-frozen meal is chef-crafted, dietician-approved, and ready to go in just two minutes. You'll have over 35 different options to choose from every week,

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We've done the math. Factor is less expensive than takeout, and every meal is dietitian-approved to be nutritious and delicious. What are you waiting for? Head to factormeals.com slash getplayed50 and use code getplayed50 to get 50% off. That's code getplayed50 at factormeals.com slash getplayed50 to get 50% off. Let's get into Pal World. So Pal World, developed and published by Japan-based japan based pocket payer a little bit of a tongue twister uh it's an early access on steam and on game preview on game pass they are slightly different builds so there's a little bit of different content we all played on steam

um depending on if you're playing the game pass version or actually buying it on steam it is an open world survival game where you capture pals that are just Pokemon, but essentially, but you know, they're, they're, they're pals is what they're called in this game. And then you have them fight alongside you and or help build and support your base. And it is an instant, enormous hit. The biggest hit of the year so far. As of today, pocket pair, the developer posted as of today, this recording. It's been less than two weeks since Pal World was released. Thank you. Steam, 12 million copies.

Xbox, 7 million players. It reached the... So it'll be over 20 million players by the time this episode comes out. It reached the second highest number of concurrent Steam users ever. So number two in terms of number of Steam players at one given time. Does anyone want to guess what number one is?

Yeah, I know what it is. You know what it is. It's got to be PUBG. It absolutely is PUBG, Heather. You're correct. Number one with a bullet. And PUBG peaked at 3 million players, over 3 million players

on January 13th of 2018. But PAL World is, PAL World is significantly behind it at 2 million, but still a lot. The rest of the top 10, I just thought this was interesting. CSGO, Counter-Strike GO, Lost Ark, Dota 2, Cyberpunk 2077.

Wow. At the peak of its launch basically, even though everyone was mad at it. Elden Ring, New World. I forgot about new world or a new world no it was an mmo that was i think was maybe free on amazon prime or something they were really pushing it for a time and i think it was a kind of a flash the band thing uh hogwarts legacy and then finally balder's gate 3 pretty impressive for a single player uh game that can be played offline wow do you want to do you want to guess because fortnite

is not a uh a game that's on steam right so these statistics aren't available on steam because it's you know a separate play service do you want to guess at the peak number of players in a single day that fortnight had um pubg's at 3.2 million i'll go i'll say 6 million i'll say matt matt you gotta guess i'm gonna go 9 million okay in june 2021 according June 2021, according to activeplayer.io, Fortnite peaked with 31 million concurrent players. Fuck. That's staggering. And it's a total player count, like the total number of people who have played Fortnite over time is something like 240 million people it's really just i guess on a completely different level from everything else um yeah i don't know if pal world is going to get there when it's released retail but it certainly feels like one of the stronger

candidates we've had so far to just sort of like kind of take that sort that level of prominence um but then again maybe it won't have the staying power maybe it'll be a little bit more of a of a of a right now sort of thing i want to look up concurrent minecraft players yeah minecraft's its own i mean minecraft's probably the the actual champion uh the okay so speaking of minecraft this game borrows heavily from minecraft in terms of and other certain you know also like building survival games just in terms of resource gathering uh building a workbench using that to build tools using that to build other structures you know refining ores uh upgrading what you have one of the things you can craft is the pal sphere which

is essentially their pokeball and functions exactly like a Pokeball. Yeah, it's like one to one. And that's that's a big thing about this game, which it borrows heavily from Pokemon, not just that the PAL, the what they're what they call Pokemon, the PAL characters are designed very similarly and have very similar abilities to Pokemon, but also just like the way that PAL spheres work and the way that they're trapped in a sphere, the Pokemon, but also just like the way that PAL spheres work and the way that they're trapped in a sphere, the way, you know, like it's like all the elements

that surround it are also commonalities with Pokemon. The PAL box where they can be stored. Right, right, right, yes, yeah. The PAL decks that like logs them, like that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's all just like pretty straightforwardly just borrowed. And also I think just as much borrows

from Breath of the wild in terms of the gameplay uh the towers which are a big thing of it like you know just like that as landmarks in the and on the horizon something you can run to and use to unlock fast travel uh the font is very breath of the wild the map looks very breath of the wild and then also the music it's got like this sort of like tinkling uh jaunty piano that kicks in in combat encounters like this is just like straight up from breath of the wild yeah i will say that the music of pal world uh by the way we could we keep calling it a pokemon like and that's not the first time that has happened in history like Digimon is just Pokemon and it's like literally

I mean like even similar names like naming convention but um the thing about Palworld that illuminated something about Pokemon for me was the music in Palworld is not great and the music in Pokemon is so fucking good that like hearing it is rousing you know like totally even the news what do you totally agree is that what you said yeah yeah so i will say that of the things they've copped from other games i do wish that the as long as you're ripping stuff off and and again maybe i don't even know if we're talking about ripping off like if you make lies of p and people are like this is a souls like that's fine but if you make a pokemon like people are like i don't know about this well this makes me grumpy right i i think it's it's it's the

interesting thing because inspiration is such a huge part of creating any sort of artwork, anything creative. As you're drawing inspiration or something else, one of the first things that successful artists get to ask are, who are your influences? But I think there's kind of an unspoken thing, or maybe it is spoken, of just like, you're not supposed to be too obvious about it. You're supposed to be like, if you're making the souls like, you shouldn't call what you're gathering souls and have campfires that are your rest, you know what I mean?

It's like, all these things should change up a little bit so that like, you can see that the bones are there, but the specifics aren't what's borrowed. But here, there basically are just just pokemon who look or i'm sorry pals who look exactly like pokemon who are who are just very directly like this is this and i think that's what makes it feel like uh what's the what was the super mario brothers ripoff that was a lot super giada sisters like that's what makes it kind of feel like that but but i don't know but it's also to you but i i don't know if i mind it it's so weird i i said to you as we were playing together

last night that was something we did we did get together in the same server and played together that was fun pretty fun um but i and i do kind of feel this way of like this game rips like it's very fun it's really well designed it's super engaging and also it feels like the developers should be in prison like it feels like a crime but also maybe it's just maybe it's okay i don't know i i'm interested i mean it's kind of tough because obviously there's been a lot of Discourse about it online and like There's a lot of talk about one of the developers In particular I think mentioned like AI

As like a positive thing and so people kind of Glommed on to that and were like this game Was made with AI which there's no Evidence to suggest that that's True That sort of took over the discourse people were like The game's bad it's ai and then the other part of that was we don't know that that's true or not there's no yeah

they didn't say that uh so but it's also like even pokemon weren't like original like yes like that the way that they uh you know exist in the world of it all is like unique but like a lot of early pokemon designs share similarities with i guess uh like dragon quest monsters like uh like that's like everything is inspired everything comes from something you're sure yeah uh but i i don't know what my larger point is but it's it's interesting that this is the thing that like and it did get it came across nintendo's desk or a pokemon company's desk there uh they really they had to release a statement because so many people were being like are you gonna do something about this and their response is yes but probably not like it doesn't seem like it's like that big of a fish to fry to them. Well, OK, so we talked about this while we were playing.

I think, Heather, you might have brought this up that what Nintendo should do is buy this company. Yeah. And be like what the Pokemon company should do is buy, you know, this developer buyout pocket pair and be like, we're going to have you develop or use what this this is as a prototype for the next sort of Pokemon game. Nintendo is not going to do that because they're not that kind of company. But that's the kind of thing where it's just like, I think a big part of why this game is so successful right now

is that people who play Pokemon, Matt, you can probably speak, you can definitely speak to this most specifically, have kind of been starved for like a good new Pokemon game for so long. Yeah. And this is something that's actually trying something different

and is actually exploring the IP in a way that, you know, it's kind of in its own rut over under the Pokemon company's stewardship. And I, there is a hunger for exactly that. Yeah. For something, to take it into the next level, to, and I thought we were getting it. I thought that Pokemon Legends Arceus was going to be the thing that, like, we would be seeing going forward.

And it almost could be, but it's, they kind of took a step backwards with Scarlet Violet and went, a little sort of, it was more open world, sure, but it's like, it's bad.

It was like a bad version of it. This, I'm like, uh, I like, I like the idea of this it was very playable like right away is your ipad lock screen final fantasy 7 art yeah i love that you're ff7 pill i'm ff7 pill i'm getting all these notifications too uh i'm just blowing up everybody's trying to get a hold of me uh but i'm saying i i don't love a survival game I don't love like a crafting building thing I like if it's

part of it sure if it's like part of the game yes but you know maybe if I spent more time in pal world I would get to see that there's more to it than that but the start of it there's one we talked about this yesterday when we were playing not great onboarding for playing the game no it's pretty

it's there's a very I No, it's pretty, there's a very, I mean, again, it's an early access, so I'm sure some of this polish is coming, but yeah, it's if you're not familiar with how these games work, it's a little bit of trial and error to figure it out, and it has a tutorial with a bunch of

bullet points, but it's not very elegant. No, but I also, I will speak on that for a second, too, because Heather had to go when we were playing, and then Nick and I were playing very elegant. No, but I also, I will speak on that for a second, too, because Heather had to go when we were playing, and then Nick and I were playing for a little while, and I was, like, really focused on gathering materials, and I was just, like, getting materials and putting them in a storage box,

kind of running back and forth doing that for a little while, because I wanted to just build a lot of stuff at once. And then Nick kind of goes away for a little while and comes back, and he's like wearing clothes and has weapons. I was like, what did you do in the same, we had the same amount of time.

He fucking put, he built a house and had clothes. I was like, what are you doing? This is crazy. But it was, I could see, I understand the appeal of these types of games. I've never really played Minecraft. I've never played Roblox because I'm not six.

Yeah. But I understand the appeal because it was very calm. It was very meditative. I liked the sounds of making things. There's always a good... It does have good sound effects. But running around and seeing the pals i was like well i've seen this already kind of but i also i also kind of don't care that

they look similar that's not enough to me like some of them look pretty similar and like is like pretty like oh i don't know if they should have done that but it's not it's also not this like edgy sort of like because they everyone's advertising it as pokemon with guns and there are guns in the game but like which is jarring but i also like don't i don't know i don't care yeah i i i want to talk a little bit about sort of so minecraft and lego fortnite yes are the same they're the same fucking game right it's the same you go up and punch a tree until you have enough wood and then you build a bench and punch a tree until you have enough wood and then you build a bench and then you can make a pickaxe and then you can chop the tree and get

the wood faster etc etc etc etc and that's what pal world does too and that's like a whole genre of games and i have uh been thinking about the popularity of these games and the divorced structure of capitalism between labor and achievement. And I think the reason these games are popular is because people are doing things in the real world and seeing a full separation between that, the thing they're doing, and the goal that what they are doing is supposed to achieve. And I think that also like DIY people on TikTok are becoming sort of fetishized, off-grid living for millennials and like building farmsteads. Like all of this is a response to this alienation people feel when they do their job

and then nothing happens. Like you do a spreadsheet and you don't achieve the vehicle, right? Does that make sense? No, it does. It's a great observation and I think you're right. I mean, it's just like your work is intangible.

I mean, this is not exactly what you're saying, but I'm thinking of when I worked in game development, there was one of the programmers I worked with. It was an older person, and he'd worked for a bank, just developing bank software for like 20 years before like got into game development because he'd always loved video games and he was like a big part of why i like this is because there's an end point like i feel like i'm making something even when i'm making something i like i'm still like i'm like i'm i'm finishing something i come out at the end of this with something that i've worked on uh in the same that, yeah, in one of these games, it's like, you know, there are a lot of jobs that feel so intangible and insubstantial. But in one of these games, you are building things. You are constructing things. There are clear results for your labor.

I think that's a great point. Yeah, like the reason you would go home and relax by doing work on a video game is because you've spent all day hyper-normalizing the fact that you aren't really working. Right. You're like organizing as part of a huge,

you know, invisible conceptual conveyor belt towards product or even not even towards product, towards financial management of product, towards financial management of product, like financial management of somebody else's capital. So of course you'd come home and be like, holy shit, I can punch this tree,

get wood and make a bench. And I don't have the physical space capable of, I also think that that's why, and I won't speak about this because I don't like talking about other people that I work with, but I think that's why my boss, Dan Harmon, who's been on the show before, has graduated from Minecraft to physical woodworking. Because it was like, there's like a stage of experience that we're all lacking. And so we're like driven towards these games. Now I fucking hate Minecraft, Lego Fortnite,

and Pal World. Because what I'm missing is not the physical process of building something. When I want to like scratch that itch, I'll like build actual Legos or I'll like build actual model kits. What I'm missing is the sort of like explosive, joyful competition between people that you like and people that you admire and being able to lose to them or win to them or win over them. And I don't get any of that in,

in any experience in the real world. So I'm constantly refreshing battle Royale experiences because I'm like, this is what this is. I want, I want to run a race and, and have that physical experience of a race being run against people. And maybe they win. And at the end you high five them,

or maybe you win. And at the end you high five them, or maybe you win. And at the end they high five you. And, and none of that is, is happening in, in the modern world. It's, I don't,

again, I've been thinking about this a lot since we started playing pal world. Cause I was like, why do people like this? Cause I can't, I, I, the last fucking thing I want to do at the end of the day is go back to work on something.

But also, I physically just want to be a writer. And all I have to do to achieve that is to type. And then the script is there. It's like a one to one experience. Like and beyond that, like the process and the production end of of writing for television is less important to me because i don't my goal is not to make tv shows it's to be the writer so i don't have that that that valley that i'm trying to fill up that chasm no i get that so i think that is a i think you're you are kind of in the uh to your to your earlier point in a semi

unique position where you have a job that you find satisfying like like both creatively and you know professionally my job exactly yeah and there are a lot of people who are yeah i've been reading this book um coincidentally by uh david graber who passed away um it's a great book called bullshit jobs i think is well known but it's all just about what's that david graber david graber also wrote um oh god the what is it called the beginning of everything what the fuck is he has a bunch of books he's about debt i can't remember what it's called but but yeah the one he's the one he the bullshit jobs uh is like all about the kind of, you know, management oriented or, you know, uh,

purely, uh, a superficial, uh, jobs that exist that a lot of people occupy of like, I'm just here to fill a chair because society has decided that I cannot be idle. And so I just have,

I'm given a task, even if this task is to no end. So from that standpoint, it's, it's, I, I do get the appeal of a game like this, but also I will just say, speaking personally, I really enjoy power world. I think it's great. And I love this type of game. I love building in games. I've always loved building stuff.

Uh, you know, I'd loved, I love playing with toys and building stuff as a kid. Uh, I loved any sort of video game, like any sort of simulation game or strategy game where you can build things. I still like those kinds of games. I like base building as a kid. I loved any sort of video game, like any sort of simulation game or strategy game where you can build things. I still like those kinds of games. I like base building as a mechanic. I like when there's an RPG and part of it is here's a town I'm building. I always love that shit. I always love those sub games. And I think this I think it's it's it's again, it's all stuff that exists in other games, just sort of like its own spin on it. But I think it's all well integrated here. So I absolutely get the appeal of this. And I'm going to have to uninstall this game

because I just, I'm going to play it too much. And I've got other things to do, like play Baldur's Gate 3. But it's like, this is absolutely a thing that got its hooks in me very like immediately. And I totally see the appeal and I get why people like this game. I want to go back to the character designs real quick.

Rochelle, I have this link. This is an IGN thing. This is a Pow World versus Pokemon comparison, just how similar are the designs. This is a little thing they compiled we're going to look at in the room here. But this is just, we'll see some of the side-by-sides of some of these characters.

And for a lot of these, as you're playing the game, you don't even need the side-by-side. You'll just see them. We're kind of going through these here. You know, we can just kind of click through the slideshow. I don't know which Pokemon that is, but this, the Pikachu, there we go. The Pikachu and this pal, the electricity pal, the electricity pal the electricity rat it's you know that's even not even one of the more obvious ones yeah the

the Charmander and the is it fire is it Foxfire what's his guy? Volpix Volpix yeah so yeah we see with the Charmander and the Volpix and then what whatever the pal equivalent of is which is kind of like a hybrid of the two of them and is also a fire type uh this one is like very this is just whatever their penguin is also i think

they're they also this is another thing they have like a they're they have a duck like a pal that is called like like flock it looks like it looks like fuck so it's just F-U-A-C-K And I just can't believe they just put that in a game The penguin is Pengullet And That kind of reminds me of magician Penn Jillette

That's another issue Doesn't the penguin look like Though doesn't the penguin look like a bomber man Type character I feel like There are other games Doesn't the penguin look like though? Doesn't the penguin look like a bomber man type character? I feel like there are other games like Bubble Bobble. Sure. That have very similar designs to this penguin. And though like it does, you can put it side by side with the Pokemon and be like, look,

they're kind of the same. But that penguin looks a lot more like like like an older like an 80s or 90s video game character design i think right and specifically yeah and also how many ways can you make a cartoon penguin that's what i was gonna say yeah i think it's like it's it looks like a penguin because it is yeah but but there are ones that are that to me are more similar like so like look at that look at this the snorlax alike which is like a sleeping cow and you see it has the exact same in expression and then also the only difference is that on the snorlax the teeth are upturned and on the pal cow a sleepy cow they're down the teeth are downturned

like that one it seems pretty blatant again i don't even think this is like necessarily the worst thing in the world maybe it helps it that you can completely understand is shorthand who it's supposed to be from a gameplay standpoint but i i don't know it is there at least it's i it's it's i think worth commenting on this this the meowth too is like kind of similar yeah the mouth is like it's pretty pretty close i guess i'm sort of like being mad about this is boring to me. Like, like I understand.

Yeah. Right. Like the concern and like on paper, why that's bad. Like if it's like, if they're stealing it, but if I think if they were stealing it, it was an issue.

We wouldn't even, we wouldn't have, we never would have seen it, I think, or it would be gone by now. Like if it, if it was like was an issue, we wouldn't even, we wouldn't have, we never would have seen it, I think, or it would be gone by now. Like if it, if it was like a big problem, Nintendo is so litigious,

they routinely take down fan projects that are being made for no money. So a game that is being sold digitally for $30, $30, they would like, they would totally send the clamps down on them. Maybe they will eventually, but I don't know. This is a little thing from gamesindustry.biz. They collected some quotes from lawyers just about this.

I'll read this real quick. Unfortunately, the line between influence and infringement is not as clear as gamers or developers might like. Absent a direct theft of assets, characters, textures, or similar, we're left asking whether the designs themselves are substantially similar in those areas which can be protected. So not vague shapes, colors, or even proportions, but specifics, which as you can imagine is largely going to be in the eye of the beholder. It's a gray area, but not one that really advantages the rights holder, especially if they don't want to run the risk of seeming like the bad guy or setting a bad precedent. So like, maybe this isn't actionable, but there's also an

element of when we're talking about rights and we're talking about IP, so often everything is set up to advantage large media companies over upstarts. And again, it's the kind of thing of like, I don't know, I tend to be a little bit, have a little bit more of a, let's say open mind, because that's the wrong use of it. But I just, I kind of have more of like a, give more leeway for something like this, just because I think it just, you don't want,

you don't want things to be too restrictive in terms of what someone can create. Yeah, like there will be, there will be other games that come out that will have similar mechanics to Pokemon and similar designs. It's just going to like, there's, I don't know. It's like a type of game. Yeah. It's like you see, it's, it's when you see like a, a pop star singing a Sue, another

pop star for having the same chord progression in a song. And it's just like, what level are we kind of like just limiting what people can do? You know, I don't know. It's, I don't fucking know. If it was like, if it was like, if there was like almost a one-to-one Pikachu and that Pikachu was saying like, fuck, and like had a gun and stuff, Nintendo would be mad. They would be mad. And I would think that's more interesting to me, too.

I'd rather have seen that. Like a Conker Pokemon? Yeah. But I liked my experience. I liked running around. I did eventually like building stuff. When I saw that you were putting up the house, I was like, I'll put this wall with the door here. That seems like a good spot.

No, we were collabing. That was fun. Yeah, that was really fun. We couldn't really figure out how to put the door here. Oh, yeah. That's a good spot. No, we were collabing. That was fun. Yeah, that was really fun. We couldn't really figure out how to put the roof on. So, yeah, well, I put the flat roof on. I couldn't figure out how to. So, some of the some of it's a little quirky. I couldn't figure out how to put the slant roof on it. But while we're talking about playing

this game and playing it together, so, Heather, when this starts off, Matt and I are kind of, like, near the starting area, and I'd played some on my own. But we're all playing together. We're all starting from scratch. Yeah, I would like to I'd like to clarify that I put in a significant amount of time on my own server or on my own island. Like built a bunch of fucking shit.

Yeah. Employed slash enslaved the pals and put them to work. Like Nick says this. i want to circle back to the thing that you just said yes yeah yeah uh so so like i the when i played with matt and nick i was like well i have different goals right now because i've i've played the game as it's meant to be played clearly filling out the chart of to do's on the corner, like upgrading my base to level seven, capturing 30 pal, like all that shit.

Like I did. Cause I'm like, okay, I want to be able to talk knowledgeably about the game. So, but when we joined our own server, I played as Nick is about to describe. Yeah.

So, and I played some on my own too, but we're all starting from scratch together in the beginner area. Matt and I are scouting out, this is a server with a bunch of other players. So own, too, but we're all starting from scratch together in the beginner area. Matt and I are scouting out. This is a server with a bunch of other players. So Matt and I, so some of the prime real estate is claimed for bases. So Matt and I are scouting out, like trying to find a place to set up a camp. Heather says, I'm going for that tower and just makes a beeline sprinting.

I think crafts a stick you can use to hit things with. A club. All right. I have a club. I'm going to the tower and just sprints for the furthest landmark on the horizon. And so Matt and I are just like, like, okay, I found some, uh, there's, there's some, there's some trees over here. You might want to set up, you know, set things up over here.

You know, we're just kind of like talking logistics and Heather's like, I'm fighting a boss. Yeah. I, uh, yeah, I entered, I entered, uh, a boss. Yeah, I entered a tower, which is a gym. Like, it's just a Poke gym. Like, there's an introduction of a woman and her Pokemon, who is the Pikachu, Raichu-style Totoro fucking electric mouse thing. And you're in a, like an Elden Ring style arena with like, you know, places to hide

and this fucking Pokemon is running at you and she's riding on its back, which I appreciate. And it was blasting me with electricity and I was a level one naked lady with a club. Yeah. with electricity and I was a level one naked lady with a club and realized that it had 30,000 HP. And I had, when I had hit it and then run, I had done 30 points of damage to it. So I had a 10 minute time limit and there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to conquer this boss. But I played until I died, which I didn't know was a thing that you could

do in Pal world is that it finally hit me once and immediately executed me. And it was like, give up. And I was like, okay, yeah, I'll press X to give up. And my character just goes, okay, yeah, I'll press X to give up. And my character just goes, and like lays down prone on the ground. I was like, oh no, is that? And then you can respawn and start over again. But yeah, I get to see a boss fight and what that looks like.

And I assume, because again, you can carry pals, multiple pals with you, and then you would deploy them against a boss like this in order to help do damage alongside you. And I think it was four other people were allowed to be in that raid-style boss encounter. Since I won't be playing this game again, I'll never know what happens after you beat that boss.

The combat, and you know, I didn't fully explore using pals in combat, but I did unlock some things like there's a, I can't remember the name of it, but there's some specific items you can craft, some specific accessories that interact with specific pals. So for instance, there's one that basically it's like Pokemon style. You throw a pal ball, a pal sphere,

and then you can, yeah, you can have that companion fighting on your behalf and then you can recall them when they get low on health or it's fighting the wrong type and swap them out for someone else. But there's an item you can get where one of them is just sort of like, who's kind of like a, a,

you know, a dark unicorn who follows you around. We'll, we'll just like be out at all times. So you can have them just like kind of like floating around like a dark unicorn who follows you around, will just be out at all times. So you can have them just kind of floating around like a familiar and then toss out another pal at the same time. And so that adds to your moveset. There's also another one you can craft a harness

so you can ride the boar-like one around a mount. So there's some cool shit in here that just lets you explore the game in different ways. And I don't know how much of these things are in modern Pokemon games, but it certainly felt like it's like, oh, okay, these are adding layers to this relatively simple combat. There's no crafting in Pokemon. There's no, like, you can have one, like, walking around with you.

Like, that's sort of, like, a new feature. Or, like, there's, because now there's Pokemon in the overworld, so you can throw a Pokemon out and, like, You can have one walking around with you. That's sort of a new feature. Now there's Pokemon in the overworld, so you can throw a Pokemon out and have it battle while you're walking around and stuff. That's kind of fun. That's kind of it. You can ride one, but it's your key item, Pokemon, so it's not really in your party. Heather mentioned earlier that like you can put some of these you can put your pals to like work yes yes yes right

and I've seen a lot of people obviously talking about like oh well actually uh the world of Pokemon it's basically the same it's basically uh you know uh you're you're you're like their master and like you're putting them to work and you're you're making them fight and like that's that's bad, too.

It's just I just I think it's there's something really disturbing about. Punching a pal. Yeah, you can punch him in the back of the head. Right. You're not just fighting them with other pals. You actually can physically strike them with your your hands or other weapons. You actually can physically strike them with your hands or other weapons. And it took me a short amount of time before I realized that you could construct weapons.

And then I was like, oh, this is great. Axe, bow and arrow, let's go. So my first encounters with pals were, and I was playing with a controller, is running up and just punching them in a submission yeah and then it was like weak in the pal before you throw a pal sphere and i'm like okay i'm familiar with that mechanic what i didn't expect is that you can beat them to death yeah and then you can't capture them which also also you can feed pals to other pals so like you can get lamb mutton from the lamb pal cook it and then give it to a different lamb and it eats it and makes it happy and i'm like this world is dark. And the first NPC that you encounter also sort of echoes that. That NPC is like, this is a horrible world.

I've seen so many people die. I think she said, this place is hell. Yeah. And then you talk to her again later and she's like, I was dedicated to building a cemetery to my fallen friends but when i reached a hundred gravestones i stopped and i'm like what is what like it really leans into this sort of like um inferred darkness of pokemon and just puts it up front on display it's fucking yeah at. At least in Pokemon, like, once you make a Pokemon faint,

they, like, disappear off the screen. But pals, they just lay there dead. Yeah, their corpse is just ragdolled out. And then, yeah, maybe there's some, you know, wool and meat that's strewn about where their corpse is. Yeah, it does make it, just that, because that's the thing in Pokemon, I mean's there's like a slow poke tails or whatever but it's like you're just sort of you're not just kind of not dealing with the meat of it all but here it's

just sort of like the no these are animals we you know um make some fight on our behalf we make some labor on our behalf and others we kill and eat for sustenance. It's like, yeah, I guess it does kind of it is a stronger comment, I guess. Maybe I don't know how intentionally a stronger comment on our relationship with the animal world. I don't know that I'll spend more time with it. I would. There are things in it that I would like to see in other pokemon games i would like them to expand on the legends arceus format which is sort of like their breath of the wild format

kind of where it's you know you can throw pokeballs without going into a battle you could throw monster pokemon out on the field and they could just walk around and stuff. All that stuff's great. I love that. If they wanted to introduce crafting, if there was a need, a want for that, sure. Fine. I liked building stuff. That was pretty fun. Was it the Pokemon company

that released the statement? It was them, I believe. They were sort of like, we're looking into this, but it didn't seem like they were worried about it. Because otherwise. They were sort of like, we're looking into this, but it didn't seem like they were worried about it. Because otherwise they probably would have been like, we would have heard about that already. If they were going to actively be suing them or something, it'd be happening. I think they've realized they can just put out some chunk of sludge every year and it'll sell like gangbusters. They'll keep making money hand over fist.

So, yeah, that could be the reason for their just sort of laissez-faire attitude towards this. I'm gonna read this little- I mean, there is a possibility, and we talked about this while we were playing. There is a possibility that that can change. Like in the same way that nobody watches Looney Tunes cartoons anymore.

Nobody's like, oh, where's the next Bugs Bunny cartoon? You know, there was a series that was on for a short while that everybody loved, but generally speaking, it's not an IP that people are like, oh my God. Like, I don't even think Space Jam 2 was a success, or 3, whichever one it was. It was 2. Don't will a third into existence we don't need

another one so so there's a world where pal world could become so successful that it sort of like overshadows and eventually uh replaces pokemon i don't think that's going to happen but there is like a version of this where it's like kids could play a better version of Pokemon with more options and building and crafting and and, you know, multiplayer servers and all that shit. Yeah. And then they would go back to that stripped down experience on a switch and be like, I don't like this. 100%. I think there's a chance that anyone born after 2000, like all they know of Bugs Bunny is the Lord help me. It's, but it's time to go back to the old me meme.

But yeah, there was a point where Bugs Bunny was like as big as Mickey Mouse was like this huge icon. I want to read, I want to end my thoughts just by reading this a little bit from a Forbes piece, which I thought was, I don't know.

I think kind of just captured what a lot of, of, of people are thinking. Uh, this is the title is the Pokemon game I've wanted since 1999. I'm not especially sure how to review pal world in the traditional sense, given that it's an early access game with no development end date and site and very aspects are very clearly unfinished.

And yet it's one of the most fun games I've played in the last year, which yes includes all of 2023's bangers. The game has gone from the meme of Pokemon with guns to genuinely being the type of Pokemon game I've wanted to see out of Nintendo for 25 years and have never gotten. Wow. I mean... That's depressing.

Yeah, how long do you want something before you just give up? But it is interesting. I think people do want it. And obviously, people are playing it. So it is something that there is a demand for. So if there is a lesson to be learned from this, it would be really funny if this game that's being accused of stealing Pokemon, if Pokemon just like, we're just going to steal, we're just going to do that.

We'll just do what they did, but we'll do it. That'd be, that's, you know, probably the more likely thing to have happen, I think. I was here a little early and Marty from HeadGum like came up to me and was like, all right, Nick, what's the deal with Pal World? Like, it's like, I think it's enough in the zeitgeist where people are just like,

what is this thing? And you like, grabbed you by your shirt collar and pushed you up against the wall, right? You're still a new fish here. Tell me,

tell me what Pal World is right out the door. one meow, you bent over, it's spanking you. Tell me about Pal World. Rochelle, have you messed around

with Pal World? I watched a playthrough before this episode. You're a Pokemon fan, yeah? Casual. Did you have any thoughts? It looked fun. I do like those building games,

so I feel like I would be into it. What's your favorite of the genre? I've been really enjoying Lego Fortnite. Wow, there you go. I did get in there a little bit, but I like the way Lego Fortnite. Okay, so that's... Wow, there you go. I was... I did get in there a little bit, but I like the way the... I like the way Lego sounds.

Like, we were talking about sounds a little bit earlier. All the Lego game sounds are really good. They are. They are good. Yeah, they're so good. They're like some of the best

sounds in games. Unbelievable. All right, I'm gonna play Lego. It's good. I think you might like it. It's really good. Heather, your mom liked it, right? Your mom was playing it?

My mom plays lego fortnite so much that she is on on fortnite she is a higher level than me wow because your your account levels are sort of like universal so if you play lego fortnite all the time like she's like i think close to level 200 or some shit from playing fucking Lego Fortnite. And I play Battle Royale and the racing game, Rocket Racing. Yeah. And I'm level like 104. Wow. Like it's, for people who like that experience. It's a very good version of that experience. And I agree.

I think Nick would love it. OK, great. I'm going to do it. I'll report back. Shall we do a segment? Let's do a segment. Segment. I don't know what to call this, but I have a I have a placeholder name here and we'll see what we think about it. Yeah, Matt has a new segment that Heather and I don't know what to call this, but I have a placeholder name here,

and we'll see what we think about it. Yeah, Matt has a new segment that Heather and I don't know what it is, and any time this happens, I'm always terrified. Yeah, I think this one is like more, this one's normal. Okay. I think this is a normal one.

I'm going to say the name of a video game, and you're going to tell me if it's a real video game or a made-up video game from TV, movies, or games within games. Oh, that's fun. This segment is called real or fake. It's just called real or fake. That's what I came up with.

Okay. I don't have a better name than that. All right. Like they can be kind of just like the maybe the idea that gets us the idea. Yeah. That's what that's what I said. I was like, I don't we don't have to call it that. I was more focused on making sure that the concept of the game was normal.

Like fictional or fictional fictional. Yeah, maybe fictional or fictional fictional is better than real or fake. Like a nested fictional. It's something fictional within a work of fiction. So these are either real games or fake games from TV movies or games. So here we go. or fake games from TV movies or games. So here we go. The first game.

Tongue of the Fat Man. Weiger. I think this might be a real weird 3DO game or something. Heather, do you want to? Well, that's not fun. Fake. You want to... Well, that's not fun. Do you want to... Fake. You want to say fake? We can both... If we both guess for...

Then we can, like, you know, if we both get the same thing and we're both right, we can get a point or whatever. That's true. Okay. So it is a real game. It was for the Commodore 64,

DOS, and the Mega Drive. Wow. It came out in 1989. Tongue of the Fat Man. Do you have any context for what the gameplay was? No. I'm going to look it up gameplay was? No, I do not. I do not.

So Nick has a point. I'll get that there on the board. It's a great title. I wonder if it was a text adventure. Oh, I wonder. That is interesting. I'll let you look that up before I move on to the next one. No, you can keep going. I'll just give an update. The next game on my list here. Beat Man.

Beat Man. Beat Man. I'll guess that's from a work of fiction. I'll guess that's from a movie or TV show. I'm going to guess real. Okay. Nick is, again, correct. Nick, for an extra point, would you like to guess what it's from?

Beatman. Rugrats. It's not from Rugrats. It's from American Dad from the episode Stand Time. On Family Guy, they're often playing real video games is the thing. Yeah. It's interesting they fictionalize an American dad. I know.

I'm sure, but I can guarantee you. Have you ever seen the double dribble bit on family guy no that it's so funny it's just like Peter's playing a double dribbling like alright I think he's playing it's quagmire and quagmire where it's like you're not going to use the bug to score every time are you

like no of course not I'll play it straight up and then there's like a bug in the game where if you run to the corner and shoot a corner three like it goes in every time just so you hit it at a certain angle just like an automatic like a bug in the game where if you run to the corner and shoot a corner three, like it goes in every time. Just leave you hit at a certain angle, just like an automatic, like 100 percent field goal percentage. And so Peter just going like, no, I'm just going to play normally. Corner three. Peter.

Peter is so funny. Yeah, he's so good. This next here's the next one. I have killed Peter Griffin so many times. Jeez, Lois, this is the worst net time I got killed by Heather Ann Campbell on Fortnite. Tongue of the Fat Man was a fighting game.

Can you believe that? Wow. Never would have guessed that that's what it was. Yeah, so I guess kind of like a clay fighter, sort of like a tongue-in-cheek tongue-in-cheek, sort of like a cheeky sort of fighting game. All right, here's the next title. Looks like shit. Sorry, keep going.

Spanky's Quest. Spanky's Quest. Fake. Yeah, this feels fake. It's real. And it's from the Super Nintendo. It released in 1991. and it's from the Super Nintendo.

It released in 1991. This is one of those things that I've noticed about Matt's guessing games is that I can often finish them with zero points, which is statistically unlikely. Yeah, they're a challenge. Spanky was a little Hansei Zaru, Jiro-kun no Daibou-kun. Literal translation is Monkey

Reflections, but they localized it as Spanky's Quest. Here's the next title. It's a little ape kid running around. A little ape kid. Yeah. And Nintendo was like, sweetie, we have one of those. And his name's Diddy Kong. Put Spanky

away. This next one, if it moves, shoot it. Well, I know this is a book. I'm going to say this is a fake game. What do you think, Heather? If it moves, shoot it. Real. It is real, and it was for the Amiga.

Heather's on the board. Still anyone's game. Is it? Nick has two points, and you have one. I still have a few more here. If it moves, shoot it a shmup. Shoot them up for Amiga. Some of these Amiga games looked amazing.

It just had this really cool palette. Here's another title. Burger Boss. cool palette this uh here's here's another title burger boss ah god i keep saying fake but i think this one is fake real nick is correct burger boss is from an episode of bob's burgers titled burger boss all right uh here's another one Goblin City fake I'm gonna say real

Heather is correct Goblin City is from an episode of Yu Yu Hakushu episode 81 let the the Games Begin. Wow. Look at how cool this looks. If it moves, shoot it. That does,

that looks amazing. Yeah, that's really rad. Ooh. Last one. We can either tie it up or Nick can win. Attack of the Mutant Camels. Ah.

Um, I'll guess real. So I have to guess fake strategically because there's no, if we both get it right, then I, I still lose. Right. But if I get it right, then we can tie and I can go home with my pride. Yeah.

So I'm going to say fake. It is real. It released for the Atari in 1983. Nick is our winner. Wow. What was it called again? What are the, Attack of the Camel? Attack of the Mutant Camel. Attack of the Mutant Camel.

Attack of the Mutant Camel. I got to see what this looks like. Can you imagine a freakier looking camel? Those things look already insane. That's right. They're big humps smoking cigarettes. This game looks like shit. This is dog shit.

So that was, what did we land on it was fiction or fiction fiction okay there was a there was an atari 8-bit for the 8-bit computer uh that was that looked a little bit better had like some like i don't know if that's some early parallax or something like that but it kind of looks a has a little bit more it's still it's still crude but it looks a little bit more... It's still crude, but it looks a little bit better than the Atari 2600 version. I guess it was on Commodore 64, too. Either way, it looks like the gameplay is you are a camel and you walk from left to right.

And it costs $60. The original Strand game. Oh my god. Oh, well, that was real or fake or fiction or fiction fiction we'll come up with a title that's a great segment

we should do that again that was a lot of fun kind of fun yeah hey that's this week's get played our producer is Rochelle Chen

yard underscore underscore sard on social media our music is by Ben Prenti benprentimusic.com our art is by duckbrigadedesign

duckbrigade.com also check out our paywalled show get animated where we continue through the netflix series pluto we're watching pluto on netflix i'm just echoing what you said but normally you throw to me on on that so i felt like i i had to say something no i thought that i thought i thought maybe it would be kind of organic like i'd just say it and you could chime

in but yeah maybe i should have well how about this? How about I tell our listeners, you know, we were covering one episode. These are these are very thick episodes. So they are about an hour long each. So we're covering one episode per episode of Get Animated. And you can find Get Animated up on our Patreon, which is patreon.com slash get played. And that's also where you can find our entire back catalog of pre-HeadGum getplayed episodes. So you get both those things

either individually or as a bundle, patreon.com slash getplayed. And guys, I think this week we got paled. We did get paled. That was nice. Punch! Punch!

Punch! Punch! Punch! Ow! Ow! Ow! That was a HateGum Podcast.