Get Played - Pokémon Sleep

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

Heather, Nick and Matt discuss the new Pokémon mobile game Pokémon Sleep! They talk about their experiences gamifying their sleep, sleeping with your phone in your bed, Pokémon Go Plus + related injuries, and more! This month's We Play, You Play: Dredge! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Check out our premium series Get Anime'd on patreon.com/getplayed or on Stitcher Premium. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

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

and they say there's nothing sexier than confidence, and Blue Chew can help give you confidence where it counts. Blue Chew wants to help you have better sex. Discover your options at bluechew.com. Chew it and do it. And we've got a special deal for our listeners. Try Blue Chew free when you use our promo code GETPLAY to check out. Just pay $5 shipping. That's bluechew.com, promo code GETPLAY

to receive your first month free. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Blue Chew for sponsoring the podcast. Hey dudes. So I know we're talking about Pokemon sleep this week. We've all been playing it. I don't know if I'm going to say this on the pod,

but I'll just tell you before we start recording. I figured out how to get to the end game. I figured out how to beat this thing. To beat Pokemon sleep. Yeah. I think it's just, just track it. It's not like a, no, you, there's an ending. You can Pokemon Sleep? Yeah, I think it's just track it. It's not like a...

No, there's an ending. You can beat it. You can roll credits on this thing. You can roll credits on Pokemon Sleep? Yeah. Because I thought it was just going to be like an ongoing Pokemon Go style app where it's like you log in every day,

you play a little bit more, but okay, yeah, sure, dude. Tell us how. What is it? You got to sleep forever if you catch my drift you beat pokemon sleep when you die what wait first off how do you know this how How did you figure it out? Yeah. Okay, so I don't know if you all have heard of flatlining. Oh, no.

That's where you intentionally stop your heart for a moment before getting zapped back to life in that, like, 1980s and then remade movie Flatliners? Yeah, it was in a couple documentaries. So I was doing a, it like I was flatlining. Right. And I had my Pokemon sleep going and I just started to see the like the beginnings. What do you mean you were flatlining? You know, I just had a rig.

I was stopping my heart intentionally with electricity and had a little timer to sort of resuscitate myself after just a few minutes before my brain shut down. But as I was doing that, you know, like like everything goes to white. I was getting that DMT hit. I was seeing a bunch of, you know, childhood memories and stuff just flooding back. And then I started to just see an ending cinematic that's like congratulations. And my Snorlax is there and all my my sleeping Pokemon friends and they're all sleeping um they're like waving in their sleep uh and it starts to play for just a second I'm like oh my god I'm gonna get some closure on this thing and then you know I can't pop back to life

um so anyway what I'm saying is like to see the full movie you just gotta die for good I don't I don't know are you in are we in I'm not in I don't okay first off I don't know how to because I'm in

what do you mean you're no no wait Nick what are you doing I can't see this thing what are you doing don't go to that machine Nick don't go to that machine

don't do it right here flatline a little bit don't play right now don't do it don't do it Nick look I'll. Flatline a little bit. Don't play right now. Don't do it. Don't do it, Nick. Look, I'll just flatline a little bit, then we'll do the episode. You can just flatline a little bit.

Maybe I'll see the ending. Nick, don't do it. Oh, my God. I'm going to see the ending. Oh, my God. Wait. This looks like a rig he uses to jerk off. Wait, this looks like a rig he uses to jerk off.

So some people define flatline differently. We collect photographs of slumbering Geodudes and cook our Snorlax bean burger curry as we discuss sleep gamification mobile app, Pokemon Sleep, this week on Get Played. Get played! I'm David Sinclair. I've been thinking about trying a different voice for this, more akin to an NPR, Nick Weiger adjacent voice. Okay, sure. So let's try this. Huh?

I said I think that's fine and I also think you should keep this explanation in. Okay. All right, great. 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. Oh, hi there. That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca.

Hello, everyone! Can I even try. Just like two NPR hosts and a shock jock. That'd be a fun dynamic. No one's tried that yet in podcasting. It'd be funny. Hi, everyone. Hello, everyone.

And welcome back to the premiere video game podcast where this week we're talking about Pokemon Sleep. Wow. Which was an adventure. I gotta say, yeah. Yeah, guess who suggested this game? Look. Did I buy a peripheral?

Is this a way to sort of justify that purchase? Perhaps. I have the original. Well, we'll get into all this. And also, every sentence I talk about with games starts with me being like, So I have the original blister pack for the keychain accessory for Final Fantasy Online. Now you're doing a third voice. Who is this character?

That's me naturally. That's true, Heather. That's true, Heather. Every sentence more afraid. So do you... Okay, before we... There's so many cool things to talk about in this life, but talking about peripherals...

Is there? ...that you buy specifically... Yeah, there are. Although I got to get my boy out of jail. so many cool things to talk about in this life but talking about peripherals is there by specifically yeah there are um although i gotta get my boy out of jail looks like looks like he's gonna get that could be anybody i'm talking about the big dt he was indicted on another set of false charges i forgot yeah you moved to europe and everything sort of just changed a little bit for you yeah uh no uh before i forget so speaking of strange peripherals that you buy for a game peripherals peripherals that you buy for peripheral that's a weird word um one of my favorite strange peripherals i purchased was the official final fantasy 11 clock which was synchronized to earth and vanadil time the online the online clock which had its own moon phases and like months and there were specific bonuses that you would get say in fishing uh if you knew what moon

moon phase and like time of day you were fishing so it was a clock that had normal time and then indecipherable time. Like if you came over to my apartment, you'd be like, what the fuck is this clock? I recognize some of the numbers. And then it had, you could set alarms for moon phases and times in Vanadil. So you could set like, it would be like, like oh fuck the alarm's going off i gotta go fish wow was um one of my strangest how are you guys doing i mean i don't know to follow that i've never owned a special clock heather okay you win you have a regular clock sorry i don't know if i can find it i I wonder where it is. Actually, I did have the Taco Bell tie-in watch for the movie Congo.

So that was a cool watch I had. I had the Simpsons watches from Burger King. Okay, yeah. Yeah. So there you go. Someday I'm going to have that Final Fantasy Seiko watch. It's going to be great. Yeah.

That watch is cool. I feel like as time goes on time it becomes more attainable uh i feel like we checked in on it i feel like that feels like something we checked in on early in the show's run and we're like it's a thousand dollars that's insane and now it's like you can get it for like 250 bucks like you can you can get it wait we we checked in on that early in the show i feel like it's something we've like talked about a bit because i love this watch the last time we've definitely talked about it wasn't the first time i had heard about it that sounds correct god i

want that watch it's so pretty but you're wrong about it going down in price i think it's going up in price oh sheesh i was gonna say we should just get it and lure heather back to the u.s with it i did see a cool watch here in amsterdam at the got watches there they do they do uh at the fun museum uh they had a watch that was shaped the way that Van Gogh painted the watch. So it's all like warped and kind of floppy looking. And you could, but not too distressed. It wasn't like a Dali like melting clock. That's what I was thinking.

But just slightly oblong and like a little weird at the bottom. And the numbers were hand painted on the face. These painters, can I just say something real quick? They're like, they're twisted. They're sick. Paint it normal. Well, you know, there are some. It was like that came like later, I feel like in art history.

Like for a long time, people were trying to do their best to depict reality. And then the photograph comes around. And they're like, well, now what are we going to do? This is being aimed at my lunch. This is a dead art. What am I going to do? I'm aiming. I can't paint a photograph.

And they're like, well, let's come up with some weird shit. This is not a pipe. How about that? I'm going to paint a pipe and say it's not a pipe. Is your mind fucking blown? Jesus. Does everybody have a favorite painting? Yeah, I'm sure we do. The this is not a pipe how about that i want to paint a pipe and say it's not a pipe is your mind fucking blown does everybody have a favorite painting yeah i'm sure we do the this is not a pipe painting i really love blue boy that's a great painting oh yeah huntington library but i think i'm partly biased because i've seen it in person multiple times i look at that fucking thing how does

someone do that i took my mom to go see blue boy. I had never seen him before, and I saw it. And I go to the Huntington quite a bit, actually. And I was just like, look at this guy. Isn't this nuts? And she was like, yeah, it's all right. She didn't care. I like this painting by William Adolfe. I think it's Beaujereau called A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Love.

I like this painting. It's at the Getty in Los Angeles. You guys could probably look it up. A young girl defending herself against love. Oh, yeah. It's got like a little Cupid kid with like a bow or an arrow. And she's trying to. Huh?

I was going to say this is an unutilized meme format, but keep going. All the best paintings can be memes easily. Yeah. So can you description, Heather? I'm sorry to cut you off. No, it's just it's a it's a little cherub trying to stab a woman with his arrow so that she would fall in love with somebody. And she's kind of pushing it away playfully, but not too playfully. Her titties are out because, you know, it's a painting type.

Yeah. First thing I blocked. One of my one of my favorite things about the Getty uh collection online is that they also show you the back of the painting that is really cool so you can see the frame that it's in i guess i don't know back there yeah it is pretty fucked up back there but that's one of my favorite paintings i love my painting is more contemporary but there's just something about it that I really love. It's by David Hockney. Okay. And it's called A Lawn Being Sprinkled.

And it's just a lawn with sprinklers going, and that's all it is. But I just, I love it. I don't know why. I love it. That is a cool painting. Oh, that is a cool painting. There's something about it that just like,

I just like, I love it. It's just my favorite. You know what's cool because i i'm looking at this i'm really briefly skimming the history here but this is uh this is a created in 1967 yeah but it kind of looks like like very early computer art you know i mean it's this this kind of spare uh geometrical sort of presentation it looks like something that you would do in like a predecessor to to photoshop that's really cool yeah that's a really cool thing just look at just yeah we're all just a bunch of art freaks you know like it sounds like we don't really know a lot of stuff because we're talking about video games all the time but we're actually really cultured and we know about art.

So, yeah, I bet you didn't know that. Blue Boys by the English portrait painter Thomas Gainsborough. Just wanted to throw that name out there. Man, look at us. Look at us. This is what happens when we do an NPR voice at the top of the show. We end up talking about art. Yeah, yeah.

What else did we talk about on NPR? Lawyers. Lawyers. Lawyers. Lawyers. about art yeah yeah what else do we talk about on npr uh um uh um uh lawyers lawyers lawyers well we i feel like we've talked about we've talked about soup in the past that sort of like fits too i think i think that's like this on soup is on brand for yeah that's like look we're like listeners you're getting a tote bag people would fucking flip for a tote bag. People would fucking flip for a tote bag. Hmm. I'll see what I can do about it. But no, we're gonna talk about a different sort of art, as we usually do. The art of gaming. Yes, the new emerging

dominant art form video games. I think if museums had video games in it instead, they'd be cooler. Yeah, so it instead, they'd be cooler. Yeah, so it should be arcades. Take out Blue Boy and put in fucking Adam's Family Pinball. The Huntington Library.

Attendants would shoot up. If I had my... And I'm not going to get into the history of the Huntington Library. Look it up if you like. If I had my own version of that, it would just be like, this is his PlayStation 2 room. And this would be a is his PlayStation 2 room. And this would be a bunch of PlayStation 2 stuff.

You know, my New Year's resolution is to cut back on sugar and add more protein to my diet and stay on track with my fitness goals. And Magic Spoon makes that easier and more delicious than ever. Growing up, cereal was one of the best parts of being a kid. But as I got older, I had to watch out for sugar and empty carbs. And boy, let me tell you, I love cereal. So Magic Spoon has the amazing flavors you love, but high protein and less sugar. I've been drinking protein shakes and powder for years, but finally found a delicious way to get my protein before and after workouts. With Magic Spoon, you can get a variety pack of four flavors, and they are cocoa, fruity, frosted, and peanut butter. And something I like to do, folks, I like to mix them and match them. So I'm getting cocoa in my peanut butter,

I'm getting fruity in my frosted. I'm going crazy over there with the Magic Spoon. And these packs have zero grams of sugar, 13 to 14 grams of protein, and four to five grams of net carbs. It's only 140 calories per serving, folks. It's high protein, has zero sugar, keto-friendly, gluten-free, grain-free, and soy-free. Like I said before, I love cereal. That combination of chocolate and peanut butter, it's incredible. I highly recommend mixing them up because you're going to have a blast. Go to magicspoon.com slash getplayed to grab a variety pack and try it today. And be sure to use our promo code getplayed, that's G-E-T-P-L-A-Y-E-D, at checkout to save $5 off your order.

And Magic Spoon is so confident in their product, it's backed with a 100% happiness guarantee. So if you don't like it for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember, start the new year off right with a delicious bowl of high-protein cereal at magicspoon.com slash getplayed and use code getplayed to save $5 off. Thank you, Magic Spoon, for sponsoring this episode. 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, dietitian-approved,

and ready to go in just two minutes. You'll have over 35 different options to choose from every week, including CalorieSmart, Protein Plus, and Keto. Also, there are more than 60 add-ons to help you stay fueled up and feeling good all day long. Fuel up fast with Factor's restaurant-quality meals that are ready to heat and eat wherever you are. No prep, no mess meals, so there's no prepping, cooking, or cleanup needed. Get as much or as little as you need by choosing your meals every week. Plus, you can pause or reschedule your deliveries anytime. We've done the math. Factor is less expensive than takeout, and every meal is dietitian approved to be nutritious and delicious.

What are you waiting for? Head to factormeals.com slash getplayed50 and use code getplayed50 to get 50% off. That's code getplayed50 at factormeals.com slash getplayed50 to get 50% off. so we we are going to talk about games uh and we should talk about what we're playing now but before we do that i kind of think we should try to figure out what we're going to be talking about at the end of the month oh yes as uh we do this on the on the show sometimes where we kind of we kind of figure out live what we're going to talk about for we play you play that's our that's our one episode that we dedicate to talking about playing through one game or playing you know what what's that i thought we were going to do your fishing game that you loved well we didn't talk we didn't set we didn't lock it in we just like floated some options no

one was like hey we're gonna do this well then great would that be helpful if i just started to do that if i just started to be like hey this is what we're doing and like didn't make it a question i would love that but i'm just gonna say i mean i that that's the thing you realize when you're when you're like a little bit more of an adult it's just like how much of like oh people just want someone to make a decision and they don't want it to be them absolutely it's like yeah that's like people who are who are characterized as leaders really are just decisive, good or bad. They're just like, well, that person decided what we're going to have for lunch. So I'll just follow their lead.

OK, so here here's a few things. Nick, you're going to eat a hot dog for lunch. Man, way out of you. So it is morning. Yeah, I see a pack of empty hot dogs uh so okay the that that fishing game you like heather i believe you were talking about dave the diver which is a game i've been playing we i would i think it would be fun to do an episode about it that's one option we also could do another fishing game that people like that is very zeitgeisty right now is Dredge.

Dredge is like kind of a horror fishing game, which I like I've heard is really good. And it's just kind of like an interesting premise. And it's got like a lot of lore, which might give us something to talk about. And it's available on more platforms. Yeah, it's a little bit more. I think I think it's on Switch. What's it available on? It's on available on it's on everything it's on everything five yeah yeah switch uh pc playstation xbox so that's a i think a pretty good option too uh the big boy we could talk about uh and i don't

think we're going to commit to this but the big boy we could talk about is boulders gate 3 which is out today as of this recording. Now, that's a big honking RPG, and we just did a big honking RPG, so... And I think this is the biggest, most honkingest RPG of the year, it sounds like. They don't get much more honking than Baldur's Gate as a franchise.

Can you play... What is Baldur's Gate on? It's just on PC right now. I think it comes out of early access today as of this record well then that is not an option for me as i don't have a gaming pc here in amsterdam and you don't have your uh steam deck steam deck no i do not i had to pack light all right so we can rule out balder's gate three uh let's see what else we have uh there was something else i was thinking of. What if we

played Armored Core for 48 hours straight when it comes out and then we just cover that? Wait, what's the release date for Armored Core? 6. It comes out August 25th. Oh yeah, we would not be able to do that because we're recording that day, right? I think so, yeah.

Okay, yeah, so we can't we can't do armor core six uh uh so i think maybe uh i was i think dave the diver dredge dredge is maybe looking like the the favorite right now because it's uh i wish i've already talked to the audience like like saying yeah yeah or no no another i'm just gonna throw out a couple more um one is uh celeste which is a game i've played and love oh and that is just came to game pass uh that's been out for a few years but it's an awesome awesome platformer it's challenging it's got a great story. I think that would be that's one good option. And then the other one is a game that we talked that we touched on in the podcast, but that we never actually got to. But we did the original back in our old format Coffee Talk Episode 2.

So we could do Coffee Talk 2. I'm probably leaning Dredge, but I think there's some good options there. two i don't i i'm i'm probably i'm probably leaning dredge but i think there's some good options there well uh i'll also recommend yet again um killer seven which i think is out on switch let's see yeah what can we play killer seven on uh oh no killer seven was not brought to switch but it is on i mean it is on steam so it's on steam but then heather can't play again we gotta i'm always pushing for killer we will do it wait wait when can we what else can we don't you didn't bring your fucking gamecube or some shit what do you do do you have do you have no options i have switch ps5 and mac okay that's a lot of options pretty good well that's why that's like

dredge is probably the safest right now but then dave the diver is also an option because it's available on steam mac os what i like about what i like about killer 7 though is it's retro and i think one thing we kind of stopped doing with the WePlayYouPlay that we used to do more is play an older game, and playing a game from 2005 or whenever is just like,

that's cool. That's a cool use, I think, of the format. It doesn't just have to be whatever the new release is. Heather's going to be back. I probably cut this part, but Heather's going to be back. I could probably cut this part, but Heather's going to be back in September, right? What if we do Killer7 in September? Because there's not a big release, I think, in September.

Yeah, except fucking Starfield. Oh, shit. Fuck. And Armored Corps. Oh, shit. Armored Corps. Yeah, you're right. Armored Corps.

I don't think about Starfield because I can't. I can't think about it. Yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do with that. I also might still be like there's another world, I think, where we cover Baldur's Gate three in September. Yeah, you know, that's just a big meaty boy. But yeah, OK, OK. I kind of like fishing. I like fishing as an idea and i know this is maybe

like i don't i don't want to be i don't want to be the guy that's uh making a decision but it sounds like we have a lot of options and somebody needs to pick right so no why don't we say dredge dredge well dredge is great dredge is on everything and it's it's it came out this year and people really like it and i think it'll give us a lot to talk about. Let's do, okay, so I can say definitively, this month's We Play, You Play is Dredge. We will do a full episode discussing Dredge. That will release on Monday, August 28th. I do think we should slot in a Killer7 episode, though.

Okay. Even if it's just a, not just a, even if it's a game and tell well i haven't played it you've never played it i've played like the first like hour of it hold on i've played it for the first hour and i was like oh someday i'm gonna gotta put a lot of time into this like this is a fucking game and then never got back to it. So this podcast is the perfect opportunity for me to play Killer7. That makes total sense.

I think we could say, why don't we do it this year? We'll do it. If September doesn't make sense, we'll slot it in for October or November. We'll have Killer7 in the docket. That's huge. That's huge. Killer7's on thecket. That's huge. That's huge. Killer7's on the menu. I don't know what that is.

I think you were talking about meat's back on the menu. You just got lunch on the brain. I think that's what you're referencing. Get me some hot dogs, dude. So we're playing Dredge. We're going to do Dredge. Dredge.

Get it on your platform of choice. It should be on everything. And we're going to talk aboutge get it on your platform of choice it should be on everything and where we're gonna do we're gonna talk about that in a few weeks all right should we also read old man in the sea simultaneously honestly maybe i from what i know it's a little bit more lovecraftian like it's got like some horror some some distinct horror elements, but yeah, we should read Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Because we don't know Reddit all the way through. I'm just talking about video games.

We talk about all kinds of art now. That's the show. All right, let's get it. That's the show here on Get Played. Old Man and the Sea was first published in 1952. At a slim 127 pages, it barely qualifies as a novella, yet its impact is far greater than its page length. Fucking drag his ass.

Anyway, write a couple more pages, you bitch. You lazy bitch. Hey, guys. Should we start the show? Yeah, let's get into the show. It's time to talk about some video games we're playing right now it's what are you playing what are you playing okay i was just wondering what are you playing yeah i was wondering if he was going to show up i guess he didn't show up he's busy also in jail uh so who wants to start matt you start he. Heather, you start. Jesus.

I realized I needed to make a decision, and then you made one. So I have continued down the Final Fantasy XVI journey. Oh. I put in another 10 hours, I think, over the last week. I am now at a chapter, for those of you who've played all the way through called the last king. Um, my complaints about the game still stand, but not,

not unlike a book that you've spent a lot of time reading and you, you're like, well, I don't want to put down the book. Right. Even though I'm not enjoying myself, I am, I am going to finish it of old man in the sea i might as well see this through the end i so there is a a thing you unlock in the

game which are like combat challenges where you're only allowed one icon and you have to defeat these guys in under a certain amount of time and i know i like it's eye-rolly for me to be like the combat's too easy but at no point during any of these challenges did i was i ever like there's no i beat each one of them without having to strategize anything like and typically you get time bonuses when you pull off certain combos and i was like i don't want to fucking read these combos but natural the natural play style of the combat allows you to add time so you'd finish these challenges with more time than you started like five minutes instead of three um i really want this game to be good i really want it to be good it's so weird that it's not good it bums me out makes me sad anyway i'm at the last king i don't know how far I have left to go.

I was thinking gently about platinuming this game because it is pretty easy. But then I saw that one of the trophies you need in order to platinum it is to beat it twice. Yeah. And I was like, fuck that. Like, if you're not going to give me the Final Fantasy mode, don't force me to sit through all of these fucking cut scenes again. Some of the trophies are ultra specific that like, I got quite a few of them. Like I could obviously like,

just like a complete accident. It's like hit someone five times doing this particular thing. I was like, well, I would like never attempt to do that. Like I would just like, it would just, it would just happened on its own uh i would i don't think i would go i have the patience to go through and get a trophy in a specific way you know what i mean yeah yep so

anyway i i i played um i played final fantasy 16 um and that's what I've been playing. But I also want to take this moment to announce on the podcast the Get Played Get Together in Amsterdam. Wow. It will be at Blast Galaxy on August 12th. Oh, I should have done the World Warrior thing. I'll put it in. Okay, great. So, what, are you going to put it right here? Yeah.

Amsterdam! Okay, great. So August 12th, 2pm Blast Galaxy in Amsterdam. It's an arcade and bar. And the first 10 people to show up will get in free. After that, you got to pay your $15 to get in.

But all the video games are free to play after 15 bucks. It's one of those models. It sounds like a cool place. How do you get in for free? Do you say like, I'm here for the get played, get together? Yeah. Well, I bought 10 people tickets. Oh, that's nice.

So just if they see you. Well, yeah, I'll be at the. You'll be at the gate. I'll be at the gate. Do you work there? Or I'll tell. Do I work? I do have a job.

OK, got it. Now this is making sense. So you'll be at the door checking people's IDs and stuff. And, you know, I'll be in it. I'll be in like a little apron that'll look really official and like a stripy shirt.

Or I don't I don't know. I've never been to this place. I know it's free to play, but will you have one of those things on your belt that has like the quarter like dispensers on it and you can like...

Those things are cool. Yeah, except I'm going to fill it with Pringles. They're just going to crunch. There's going to be a bunch of crumbs in your hand afterward. So yeah. in your hand afterward uh so yeah um that's that's that and maybe just maybe you'll see nick there too is that true tbd no it's not wait Wait, what? Imagine Nick in a different country. No. I'm not going to cross the fucking ocean for this. If a sort of Pangea happened by the time this happened,

where that connected Europe to the United States in some way without an ocean, Nick's there. Yeah, I'm open to a rail journey across Pangea. That actually sounds awesome. On a bullet train across a supercont maybe you'll see brad pitt my my dreams uh matt what have you been playing okay i'm still playing final fantasy 4 and i'm enjoying it quite a bit i just got to the twins wow uh so still kind of in poor um right yeah that's right uh i feel like it's still pretty early i'm about five hours in i think um but uh i'm enjoying that quite a bit and uh i i i'm i'm pretty laser focused i was talking to you guys about this

i think off off pod uh if i sort of just ignore all the other releases that are coming out until october i think i can get through quite a few of these uh right if i just really set my mind to it but as it stands i don't know how possible that is um but we'll see uh but i i but i am enjoying them and i i don't plan stop, but I was and I was in the desert this last weekend avoiding death. And because, you know, it was in the triple digits and it was it was it was pretty hot. I think the hottest it got was one hundred and seventeen degrees. But I was in a place with central AC and that was nice. But I was in a...

Since we've established that we have listeners across the world, that's 48 degrees Celsius. That's a hot temperature. Yeah, pretty hot. Pretty hot. Santana and Rob Thomas, they'd have something to say about that. Man, it's a hot one. Got it.

That's all they'd have to say about it. That's the only thing they say. The rest of the song is about being smooth. I was in a desert with a bunch of my friends from high school and we were just having a get together and having a nice weekend together and my girlfriend was there and it was greatogether and having a nice weekend together. And my girlfriend was there.

And it was great. It was a lot of fun. I took something that we used to do together in high school with me. My entire rock band set up that I've had since then. And we had a fucking blast. It's still so good. It's such a fun thing to do in a group. I wish I had purchased a newer model when Rock Band 4 came out.

Because my setup is working, but it's just janky. setup is working but it is it's just janky it's just a little janky from it being 15 years old or something like it's it's old uh so uh not 15 years 15 yeah i think so just about um but it is we had a lot of fun i took rock band 2 3, three, and the Beatles with me and my PS three. And I was, uh, texted, I texted in the group. My guitar wasn't working that much.

It was working. The fret buttons were working fine, but the whammy bar was damaged. And I like watched a YouTube video on like how to open the back of it. There's 16 screws on the back of the guitar. That's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah.

Yeah. And they're all like, they're long. they're like just in there like it's uh they really get them in there so that that honestly took longer than the repair itself screwing and unscrewing the uh the the screws but there was uh the whammy bar part has a spring in it that was damaged just from overuse and in several moves and so i took that out i was like oh i gotta replace this with something i don't have a extra screw lying around what am i gonna do what am i gonna find that has that sort of like that uh elasticity that that give and take and i had a rubber band nearby and i was like i'll just use this rubber band and i swapped it out for a rubber band and i had to like tie it up a little bit so that it would be the right sort of uh uh you know elasticity and and length and

it works great it worked just fine wow and worked all weekend wow wow yeah so that's that's me i played some rock band for the first time in a long time and my girlfriend uh had never played it before and was immediately great at it was was doing great didn't i didn't have to explain much at all she's like i get it the colors are coming and i hit the color when it hits when i get it that's cool as hell yeah it was really cool what about you nick nick thank you for asking uh so i i i've been kind of a light gaming week uh you know finishing up the the case of the golden idol dlc which i talked about last time and i don't feel like i need to talk about again because i don't really have any new thoughts outside of if you like this sort of game if you

like anything that involves uh puzzles and narrative and you have not checked out the case of the golden idol strongly recommended and if you did play the base game but you haven't yet played the dlc the dlc uh is more what you love about it definitely check out the dlc but i've mostly been clear in the decks gaming wise uh to create space for a game we already mentioned uh baldur's gate 3 which is out of early access as of today's record actually checked i wonder if it I wonder if it's up yet. I actually checked. It was still labeled as early access. No, it looks like this morning before we started,

but it looks like it's finally out of early access now. So official release today, August 3rd, on PC anyway, and I think it's coming to other platforms next month. So this is developed by Larian Studios. Larian made the Divinity franchise, Divinity Original Sin 2, a game I've stopped and started a few times. It's just extremely these dense,

layered, story-heavy RPGs. So I'm interested in their Take on the Baldur's Gate franchise because it is a franchise I really like. And it is one of those things that kind of hit me at a point in my life where it kind of like affected my tastes in gaming. You know, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, when those came out, these, you know, the games that put Bioware on the map and they just sort of were like RPGs. And I played a lot of PC RPGs at that point, but not ones that had just like so much story, so much dialogue, so much at least perceived player agency in terms of like how you could build your character an incredible uh like just one of my favorite

character creation uh systems ever and then just like you know the way you could sort of role play your character throughout and also just like really really well written dialogue and so from the balder's gate games uh came a icewind dale which was like more combat heavy and then planescape torment one of my favorite games of all time which was more story heavy and kind of background at the combat and that that in of that uh in of itself was like a big thing in terms of okay i see what i like about these sorts of games and what i like about this is just you know you get to like role play your character and i like that you get to like figure out uh who this character is in this it you're you're along you're you're on kind of this conveyor belt of narrative but you get to decide what direction

you're gonna you're gonna take things uh and you know and then i think like probably the best version of that is a game we've talked about at length on this podcast, a game that was influenced by Planescape Torment, Disco Elysium, where you see like, you know, again, the narrative is kind of going where it's going regardless, but how you role play your character. You have so many just distinct and completely different options. So that was very much the case with. completely different options. So that was very much the case with, but anyway, this is a rambling way of saying that I'm excited for Baldur's Gate 3 to see what Larian does with this existing property.

I honestly didn't read much about how it got rested away from Bioware exactly. So I should figure out some, I'll look in the background of that a little bit. But I don't know, that's kind of what I'm going to be playing, hopefully. And so I was just kind of clearing the decks for it. Yeah, I really want to play Baldur's Gate 3,

but there's just so much going on. There's so much going on. And I'm honestly like, I've got other stuff going on in my life that kind of, in a lot of ways, might preclude me playing committing to 100 hour RPG right now, except that I really want to see what they do with it. Yeah. And again, I just have like a history with the also Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, like those games, those were the action RPGs were like, I have a lot of fondness for those two. So I just kind of want to see what where they go with it and and also i think because it's been in early access for so long um i'm kind of anticipating it being a pretty

polished project uh product on release date yeah so and but yeah okay so it's weird horny too it oh it's overtly horny uh the original games are horny they just didn't have as they didn't didn't depict stuff graphically the way this game seems to be doing um matt like what you're saying i think this is going to be this is going to be an interesting game because if it's successful it will be like a witcher 3 or a grand theft auto 3 like a third entry in a franchise that kind of has a little bit more mainstream success um and i i like i again, I'll just be interested to see what the reception is. I first gave AG1 a try because I was tired of taking so many supplements every day and wanted a single solution that supports my entire body by filling in nutrient gaps daily. I need energy.

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

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

If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Try AG1 and get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3K2 and five AG1 travel packs with your first purchase exclusively at drinkag1.com slash getplayed. That's drinkag1.com slash getplayed. Check it out. so let's talk about this game let's talk about pokemon sleep that's the game that we decided what kind of doing a classic cartoon oh sorry. I just I fell asleep a little bit. Yeah. Pokemon Sleep was first announced way back in 2019. And it was during a press conference.

And I was so fucking hype. I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. A video game that you play by sleeping. A Pokemon game that you I'm a big metrics person. I love checking all of my metrics. I wear my Apple Watch religiously. I upgraded to the new one because it had a temperature sensor. And I was like, oh, I need that. I need to know what my temperature is all the time um but this game was not did not come out in 2020 as was expected and instead uh was pushed all the way to july 17th 2023 in a bunch of territories and then july 20th 2023 in japan and the United States. Which is really when it came on my radar. I didn't know this thing was happening until Matt was like, hey, Pokemon Sleep is out.

And I was like, okay. Really? Yeah. Not unlike Heather. I had not clocked this at all. I had been following the, well, not following the development, but I remember when they announced it and was like, what is that? I'll check it out when it's out.

And then just been wondering and wondering when it would be coming out until it finally did. And I was like, oh, here we go. Great. I remember it was maybe not the last it was it was right around when pokemon um scarlet and violet was coming out they had like a pokemon direct or something and they announced the um the peripheral the pokemon go plus plus which is, it functions as a, an auto catcher for Pokemon go.

Uh, and it's been, um, Pokemon, uh, poke stops in the game as well for you. If you have the app, if you have it synced and,

uh, you're doing it. And, um, I've been doing that a little bit too, just like as I'm out and about. And so I, so I have this thing,

I ordered it cause I was like, Oh, that'd just be like a funny thing to have when i saw that they were taking pre-orders for it like last year or something or you know earlier this year i was like i'll get that like so when it comes out i'll be ready for pokemon sleep if it ever comes out and if it doesn't i'll just have this thing that's kind of funny uh but i got this and so i had it a few days before the app came out and um i was using it to track my sleep because there was a quest in pokemon go that you can get a snorlax with a sleeping hat on if you if you finish the quest and i somehow got two of them i don't know if that's like allowed but i somehow got two um but this thing vibrates so goddamn loud and like violently like if it's just sitting

on a table or something or like if it's in your pocket while you're driving it's just like it's like gen one phone vibration and it's it's yeah i remember that i used to keep i when i kept a flip phone in my pocket, I would get like, when my phone was out of my pocket, I would just get like a muscle spasm in my quadricep from like where the buzzing used to be. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but this is the, this is the thing right here. I have it right here in my hands.

It's just, it's small, flat, kind of. It's not too substantial. I was kind of, it looks like a slider, about the size of a slider. Well, Nick, Nick's so hungry. It looks like a slider, about the size of a slider. Well, Nick's so hungry. It looks like a cookie. Yeah, maybe like a cookie. Like a cookie with kind of a meat patty in the middle. What the heck?

What the fuck? This guy, he's starving. But I have it, and my biggest complaints about it are it vibrates too loud you can't turn the vibration off if you have it on like sound mode it makes noise there's like a little Pikachu in there he makes little Pikachu noises

which is cute that is cute it looks like it's gonna it looks like when it vibrates it tells you your table's ready at Ruby it kind of is like that the center thing has a light in it, so it does sort of light up too. But it feels, I wish the build was a little nicer.

It feels a little cheap for what it is. It's a little clickety-clackety kind of it feels like. It doesn't feel like it's very sturdy. Isn't that kind of a feels like it doesn't feel like it's very sturdy um but isn't that kind of a general note for the pokemon company like i feel like everything that comes out pokemon is like i wish this was like a little less shitty yeah yeah i wish this was just like a little bit like more polished it's it's certainly like the form factor is fine if it was a little smaller i wouldn't be mad but also like i do you don't want to lose this in your bed because this is the thing about the app that

we'll get into but you do need to sleep with this in your bed somehow for it to track your sleep did you play the game both with your phone and and compare how it performed to the pokemon go plus um so i didn't do that but i did one night sleep with my apple watch on uh to compare the accuracy of the sleep tracking and it was it was pretty close it wasn't exactly it wasn't one-to-one but it was it was pretty it was pretty accurate for those of you at home who haven't played pokemon sleep here's what the basic game is it is a sleep tracker that unless you buy an accessory you open phone face down on your bed, charging, which... I think is dangerous.

Fire departments have asked us not to do. Yes. The phone tracks your sleep using both the microphone and the accelerometer in your phone. And then based on how much you sleep, you power up a Snorlax in the game, in the app. And the Snorlax and his sleeping power then attract other Pokemon to sleep nearby. And you can document those Pokemon's sleep habits while also continuing to raise and level up your Snorlax. There are also other features in the game.

For example, you have to cook a meal for your Snorlax three times a day. You get these ingredients by having these helper Pokemon who were attracted to Snorlax sort of gather ingredients and berries all day long. And then you combine those ingredients into the kind of dish that Snorlax wants to eat and then feed Snorlax. There are also missions and quests like unlock five more Pokemon level up your Pokemon five times just like this sort of it's gamification of gamification of your sleep like you're already gamifying your sleep um and that's the base it's a lot of tapping the phone and a lot of a lot it's kind of also vague like there's not a hand-holding tutorial at the beginning of this game it sort of drops you in and is like all right put your phone down put your phone down on its face and then go to bed well and so i so i never got to do it that way i did because like immediately once i had the the the peripheral once the app came out it was like

if you have this you compare it to the app and so I've just been using it straight forward from there so like Nick was asking initial setup questions we have sort of like different versions of the same game where like got it I have um like you I think on the main menu like on the main screen in the game it would say like go to sleep or whatever like or track sleep i do have a little icon that says pokemon go plus and i can connect to it and set like alarms and things like that with it uh which i don't use but i do um i've checked it every single day three times a day since i got it i did too for the purposes of this podcast. Yeah, me too. And I a few things I'd like to report one.

Gamifying my sleep made me so fucking anxious on the first day because I think of games as combat. So I was like, I have to sleep maximum yeah in order to play this game which then ruined my sleep and also i was like is it is it working is it tracking like i like i've slept one of the worst nights of sleep uh of my uh of my last few years was this wow first night of pokemon sleep so the second night i was like, I already sleep with my Apple watch on. Matt said that you can upload your sleep later. So I put the phone away and I use my Apple watch. The problem is the game is not designed to just accept sleep data. It is not, if you're using an Apple phone, like an iPhone, as if there's another Apple phone. It does not

synchronize with your health data, either receiving health data nor providing health data to your health app. So even though my watch is tracking my sleep and it has basically the same readout as Pokemon sleep, you can't transfer that data data so you have to enter it manually and if you do that you don't receive bonuses you don't get the pokemon unlocked you don't get sleep styles because the pokemon sleep styles are based on your sleep style if you're a deep sleeper you attract deep sleeping pokemon if you are a shallow sleeper you you unlock uh dozing yes pokemon um but yeah i got i was so fucking anxious when i was playing this game i had the exact same experience night one i had a miserable night sleep on the probably one of the worst night sleep of this whole year and i'm someone who has had a lot

of sleep problems i've been battling insomnia since I was 12 years old. And it is a thing that has really affected, you know, my professional and personal life in a lot of ways. It's been an ongoing struggle. I read a book this year called Hello Sleep by Jade Wu. It's the best book I've read on the subject. It's one of these new, like, you know, it's one of those wellness books that I feel like it really drills down the science of things. And then it, but then it also gives you some actionable steps you can take to improve your

own situation. And one of the things that book is very, is pretty stringent about is opposing any sort of sleep tracking. It's basically, first of all, it's saying like the technology doesn't work. Like it's just like a lot of it is just smoke and mirrors. A lot of it is complete bullshit. Any sort of Fitbit, Apple Watch, you know, phone face down in your pillow situation. It's just going to it's just pseudoscience.

You're not actually getting true data that you might get from a sleep lab that could actually, you know, affect things. But the other thing is what you were saying, Heather, is like it actually leads to anxiety. And if you're anxious, you're not going to get more sleep because you're worried like, oh, fuck, I didn't sleep well. I did a bad job at sleeping. And all of a sudden sleep becomes this task that you're trying to optimize instead of like a normal body function. You know, I mean, it's just like, like, like a normal part of being alive. So yeah, it, it put too much on too much stress on me for sleeping. And the PR the first night was really bad. The second night was also bad after that. I think just like general fatigue set me into more of a normal sleep pattern, but I really, I think I hated this experience. I really did not like Pokemon Sleep at all.

Here's the other thing about Pokemon Sleep, and you talked about this, Heather, is for a thing that is meant to gamify sleep tracking, there is a shocking amount of time you have to spend playing this game while you're awake. Yeah. Like, I was just like, all the time I would have been doing, like, you know,

like something, like, I don't know, I might have been doing, like, a language app or something like, I don't know, I had to like, I might have been doing like a language app or like fucking reading something. Instead, I was like on Pokemon sleep, trying to make sure I could cook a fucking meal for my Snorlax. I was like, Oh, I'm out of ingredients. I got to go to the store to get more ingredient tickets. You know what I mean? It's just like, it's, it's one of the, it's the problem of, of mobile game design is because they're designed, they're, they're all like these free to play games that they want to incentivize you to spend real money. They're all just like trying to get you in the app as much as possible, as frequently as possible, and to exhaust resources that you need to spend real money to replenish.

It's the same fucking format as all these exploitative games. And as such, I just like I found that part of it really really annoying i liked the music music's nice and gentle it's great you know what can i talk about one specific one really hyper specific thing yeah this is supposed to be a sleep tracker primarily right like that's the idea is pokemon sleep this is a thing that helps you sleep this is like for a thing that's a sleep tracker again yes you have to spend a lot of time awake but but playing it while awake but also if i if i'm going to bed i don't need like an update on what my snorlax is up to and that he leveled up and then now i have to like find candies or something for him right now it's like like okay no it's time to go to bed i need one button that i can press

is like sleep now and then that just takes me straight to the sleep screen. Yeah. And I can put my phone face down because otherwise now I'm in bed and I've got like fucking tasks to do. I've got like activities and like that's waking me up looking at my fucking bright screen in the dark. Yeah. While I'm while right now I'm just trying to wind down and shut my eyes. Well, and then that's where this little thing comes in handy because i don't have to open the app at all to go to sleep right like i just press i hold down on this button and put it i will let me just take

you on the journey i've been with this thing first of all please because as you see like i have a strap affixed to it and i at first the first couple nights i was like what do i how do i sleep with this in my bed like i don't i don't want to like accidentally push the button or something because i'm like i um when i was using it for pokemon go i had it off to the side like on my uh like nightstand and it only gave me like four hours because it's not actually tracking it can't track you from that far away um and it's like oh you got four I'm like, I didn't get four hours. I slept a normal amount, a good amount.

Uh, so I was taking that kind of personally, but yeah, you're waking up and you're fucking mad at your phone. Yeah. It's like, then my phone's a liar. I slept for seven hours.

This phone doesn't know me. Uh, but once I figured out, Oh, you do have to sleep with it in your bed. I was like, okay, I'll just like

strap it to my wrist and I'm like sort of like a hands under pillow kind of sleeper to begin with and it'll just kind of be fine out of there but that way it's if it's strapped to my wrist it's not going anywhere right it's untrue absolutely untrue I woke up one morning and my girlfriend said you smacked me with that thing in the middle of the night. Oh my God. Like I just like whipped it at her. Like when I moved around or something, cause I wasn't holding it, it was just strapped to my wrist and I just like beamed her with it.

Um, and so she was like, you can't do that anymore. I was like, okay, you're right. Uh, but,

um, but I was like, but then shoot, what do I do? I need to sleep with this in my bed somehow. And I, I'm a, I'm a two pillow sleeper too. So I was like, I'll just put it inside the second pillow and that works fine that's that's

that's been tracking it fine i accidentally pressed the button to turn it off one time so it didn't track my sleep and that made me actually really upset um to the point where i'm thinking of if i keep doing this i might get a case for it that encloses around it so i can't press the button which is an extra step which i don't need to be doing shouldn't have to do that but uh i will say too i got the um there's like a free trial of this like premium pass that they have in the game because like there's there's there's multiple currencies in the game you can get there are there are way too many currencies by the way matt thank you i'll interject real quick thank you for bringing that up because you just reminded me i need to cancel

that right okay yeah yeah i canceled mine i i canceled mine immediately i always do this with any free trial i i get the free trial and then i cancel it the second i sign up for it so that i don't have to remember to uh turn it off uh because yeah did you still get the bonuses though you do it's like when i can use it until uh it's until the trial ends or whatever it's okay usually let you do that because mine because mine when i went to do it it said instead of like cancel subscription said end free trial and i was worried like oh is that going to mean i'm going to lose all my bones i thought the same thing too but i was like well if i don't get it i don't care i'll just do it like i don't care if i lose it or whatever and it was like oh you could still use it uh they i think they purposely

might have changed the language around that kind of thing to trick you into keeping it so that you don't uh you know cancel anything um i'm a fucking sucker that's what's yeah yeah you're a rube but um i i don't know like i don't like games on my phone at all but i've found the experience of playing this game pleasurable in a way that i don't quite understand um i like to see the pokemon sleeping i i think it's that's cute it's really cute that's that's really cute i do i like that i like i don't know um i missed out on changing locations the first time after the first week and i was mad so i was at the same location for a an additional week but now i'm at the beach now my snorlax is now a snorlax is sleeping on the beach and that's kind of fun and i thought it would be different pokemon at the beach there's not different pokemon here it's like the same guys

unfortunately you're supposed to get more water types on the beach i just unlocked the beach this morning you're supposed to get more water types i don't have any i haven't seen not a single water type i guess i have a psyduck in my party um but yeah i don't know like there's so many different things oh i was thinking about the currencies right so there's a lot of currencies there's um you get these like sleep points that you can spend in the store uh and you get a you know some of those every night or something and the now that i'm in the regular exchange program and not the premium exchange the premium exchange you can get them at like a discount for what you have but now that that's locked i'm seeing uh all the items in the regular store are sort of more expensive than

what they are in the in the premium store um but then in the general store you can spend diamonds and you get diamonds by unlocking certain things or like completing different tasks and and things like that or um logging different berries or encounters of with pokemon and stuff uh i have right now my snorlax likes to have these certain types of berries. So I've been switching out my parties to acquire those specific types of berries specifically so that my Snorlax can grow faster. Because when you give him the berries that he wants,

he grows more, I um and yes yeah but that changes because here's the other thing yeah you get a different snorlax every week yeah which i kind of was like but i want my snorlax yeah i don't want to keep swapping snorlaxes oh another benefit of this little device of the pokemon Go Plus Plus. Yeah. Everybody, every Pokemon party has, I think, five party members, right? Yeah, it's five. And you get a starter Pikachu to sort of help you through it. With this Pokemon Go Plus Plus, I have an additional helper. I have a Pikachu with a sleeping cap.

And he gets little berries uh ingredients for me as well uh so that's so i have a party of six instead of a party of five which is pretty cool um but you can't swap him out for other ones you can swap out anybody at any time for any for anyone um but yeah i don't know i i do sort of like it uh i think it's a little it's bad that the best version of it has a i guess 50 paywall right for the for the device because like the device is you don't want i don't think you should have to sleep with something in your bed as an adult like it's like it's hard like it's like that's like i hit my girlfriend with it and i didn't want to it was a complete accident um well and also like i think that just

speaks to again it's just like why is this thing a a plastic ball that you have this a disc that you have to set down somewhere it's like why isn't it shouldn't this be like yeah why is it why why isn't it soft oh well and also i was just gonna say like why isn't it like a this be like yeah why is it why isn't it soft oh and also i was just gonna say like why isn't it like a fitbit if we're gonna say like hey this is gonna be a sleep tracker why isn't this something you wear on your wrist well because i know that like the pokemon company i actually don't know who designed this it's for pokemon go and pokemon sleep both games are made by different developers uh start button does pokemon sleep and i think it's actually select select button not that it matters that much select button does sleep and and is it niantic or niantic

uh hey guys i think this election i'm gonna pokemon sleep to the polls thank you matt um but yeah it should be soft or something if it was like a plush or something even that i would that'd be better or if it was be soft or something. If it was like a plush or something, even that I would, that'd be better. Or if it was like a, like, like they were saying like a wrist thing. Cause the, there was a pedometer that came. You guys are really laughing still. I'm just kidding. I'll do my civic duty and vote.

What happened? What did you do? I'm sorry. I missed it. Did you just grunt? No, it was a combination of, first off, I like the joke, and then Heather was so upset by it that she sighed audibly, which I'm not sure if you heard.

I didn't hear it because I was going on and on. Even more. And then she started laughing. Because I saw you laughing. And then we got caught in the loop. and then she started laughing and then we got caught in the loop uh i what i was what i was gonna say was pokemon gold or heart gold and soul silver for the ds came with a pedometer that i think we talked about in the show in the past we did call it's it's of the pedometers you can get, one of the more accurate ones.

It's somehow so good. And so I would want this to be similar. Also, that one is a better size. It's like half the size of this. It's a little smaller. But I don't know why it's not soft or something. It should just be less ob obtrusive I shouldn't be able to whip it in the night many there's so many choices from the pokemon company that you're like

what what why why are you doing this guys what are you why are you doing yeah because if they if they put out a a good product not the best but like not broken in some visible way whether it be sleeping with a hard disc on your on your bed or your hot phone face down or uh the the pokemon the most recent pokemon game being as buggy and as sort of lackluster as it was yeah like if if they just if and especially when you compare that experience with the original pokemon experience where you're like, holy shit, there's 150 of these guys. Like I can, I can go around and find all these guys in a Game Boy game or in the, in the next one where it was like, holy shit, the entire original game and this game are all on the same cartridge. Like they were maximizing their reward to you, the player. and with the most recent pokemon stuff you're like what what do you do like they just i was i was pretty i was a pretty robust pokemon go player yes and then they removed the remote raid passes that would allow you to participate in raids that you weren't physically at and that to me was

like i was like why would you punish the people who want to play this game like yes why why would you do that to us um that i think oh sorry your thought. I will not be continuing on my Pokemon sleep journey because unlike the sort of masochism of continuing Final Fantasy 16, for me, there was no there like there are moments in Final Fantasy 16 where I'm like, OK, that was that was kind of nice. I got one shotted by a guy and I was like in Final Fantasy 16. I was like, oh, finally, I've died. That's great. Finally, I've died. That's great. Finally, I've died.

Well, that's part of my serotonin hit in a game is the struggle against death, right? Like if I can- 100%. If I can conquer death, then I get a serotonin bump and then I feel good. I am become death. And that's why Fortnite is so addictive to me.

It's because every encounter you have with a stranger is a fight against death. But in Pokemon sleep, not that you die in Pokemon games, but in Pokemon sleep, you don't. It's not good. It stressed me out. And because it stresses me, the human being out, it lowers my defenses against actual death. Yeah. Like if I'm tired from Pokemon sleep, I'm more likely to die in real life. So if I die in this game,

I die in real life. What were you going to say, Nick? Oh, well, I just, you were taught, one of your points you were making earlier is just about how, you know, you would think

that they would want to make something that, they want to make a Pokemon product for their fans, for their active users that they would be like engaged with and enjoy. And it just made me think of like the Pokemon sleep experience and I, and how it,

it related to my Pokemon go experience, which I did overall enjoy, but it is a very frustrating product. And if you look at the, I just brought it up, but you know, periodically I'll browse the Pokemon go subreddit just to see how people are, are reacting to it and it's always just like people complaining it's always just everyone's upset and we know fandoms complain fandoms love to complain but it feels like the pokemon go uh this fan base is particularly tormented it's all threads like whose decision was it to add this who the fuck verified this route uh you know i have no idea what i was getting in this quest. It's everyone's like that.

And I looked at the Pokemon sleep subreddit, which I hadn't yet. It's the same sort of thing. Everyone's just like the berry nerf feels terrible. Snorlax's favorite berries are not always random. We need more transparency about gameplay changes. Here's one. Do you think the game promotes oversleeping? Because here's one do you think the game promotes over sleeping because here's a this this person that's a fucking boss that somebody's like boss that's a ceo pose that sucks get the

shit out of it i think everyone's getting too much sleep fuck off well here here's the here's what i'll say the post is the post is arguing is like this person is hitting uh eight eight to eight and a half hours of sleep they're hitting 100 in the sleep rating because you get a sleep rating which again another source of anxiety oh fuck i got a 76 sleep rating what the fuck did i do wrong i did see that heather of the three of us because you can also share your uh your data with uh friends heather slept the best of us of the three today but also my still the best at this game too my my app crashed uh two nights ago oh god and uh i woke up and my phone had completely rebooted so i only got a sleep score of four out of a hundred and i was like getting like 90 95 98 and um you can't so then i was like well i'll just i'll input my actual

sleep data like my my sleep time from my apple watch but it kept saying for no reason at all you are uh you cannot enter this data because it overlaps with a pre-existing sleep that you were tracking, which like there was no, it was an extremely frustrating minor annoyance to not be able to get my score back to where it should be, which also threw off my entire metrics for the game for the week like it took my average sleep time from seven hours and 45 minutes down to four hours for the week and i was like fuck fuck you i should be able to delete yeah that'd be good yeah yeah just just a bunch of annoyances like that i had a similar thing where like i was like I felt I went to bed. I fell asleep. I was awake for like an hour. I was asleep for like an hour or two.

And then I woke up and then it was like awake for like two or three hours. And then when I went back to bed, it was like it was like you've already logged an activity. You like I like not enough time had passed since my last sleep that I could log another sleep. And I was like, but that was like me. That was like a fake sleep. And now I'm going to go to real sleep because my body is just working that way. And to finish what I was saying about the oversleeping post, this person's hitting 100, which which part of what happens when you sleep is that your Pokemon get their energy back, but still getting 100 scores. They Pokemon aren't really resetting to full energy. And that's because, again, the way this game is monetized, they are trying to sell

you incenses. And if you use a rest incense while you're sleeping or you give special candies to your Pokemon, that will boost their energy. But anyway, even if you're playing this game perfectly, playing it perfectly in terms of getting the right amount of sleep for the right amount of hours, you're still not getting your pokemon fully recharged you still are supposed to spend currency uh to to try to to boost them it just kind of fucking just everything about this it's another one of those things with mobile games that just feels so craven also getting as an adult in order to get a hundred percent you have to sleep eight and a half hours yes Which is fucking ridiculous. That's a lot. If you have a job and kids and et cetera. There's plenty of sleep studies also that show a correlation between seven and a half hours of sleep and longevity. And if you are going to encourage healthy habits in your player base, then you should also be using science to establish

those healthy habits. And I have never seen anybody be like eight and a half hours of sleep is what you're supposed to be getting as an adult. I've seen studies from the National Institute of Health, which say people who sleep for seven hours a night live the longest they're 12 they're if you sleep eight hours you're 12 more likely to die than if you sleep seven and a half or seven hours so like i don't know man it's there's a lot to be frustrated about this game yeah doesn't that isn't the eight hours of sleep one of those things that like it comes down to you know it that that's that's another thing that's just like derived from capitalism right like wasn't there a time where they were like eight hours to sleep eight

hours to work eight hours to do what you will like it was like dividing the day into thirds so that a third of it could be claimed by your employer i forget where that came from i routinely get about like six and a half hours of sleep is pretty normal for me uh and well here's the thing i don't feel good like i don't feel great all the time uh but that's like usually like enough if i can get more i get more but i don't uh try to like maximize like my my sleep in any sort of way i will say that this did cause me a little bit of stress in some nights because i would wake up feeling that i had pushed the button and was like oh shoot like i now i gotta fuss with this to put it back on or something uh or uh you know uh i don't think the start of my week i got a good amount of sleep but last night i felt like i i i don't i don't track it that i i'm not used to tracking it so like i

thought the data even if it's imperfect was like interesting at least i was like oh like that's i guess i do sort of move around a lot in the night. So maybe I'm not fully asleep at all times or whatever. Cause I am a pretty light sleeper. Like it doesn't take much to, to wake me up. But I don't know. I, I might keep playing it.

I, I, I, I like to see, I like to see them. I like, I, I,

I, I, I, and that's enough. And I haven't, if it gets to the point where it's like because i don't have the premium pass anymore that it becomes challenging to me somehow i'm out because i'm not gonna buy i won't buy anything in this game i just won't spend actual money i won't um but so if it

gets to a point where it seems like I have to do something like that, Pokemon dead, delete. Nice try. But as, as it stands right now, it's been sort of like a fun little thing to me to add to the routine. And, uh, it's only like one more extra thing I have to do before I go to sleep. Cause I don't have to look at the screen. I got it right. Once I'm phoned down, I'm phoned down.

But they really shouldn't make it so that you have to put your phone in your bed. That's really bad. That is annoying. That's that's my least favorite part of it. I don't I usually my phone. This is the first time my phone is like been in my bedroom in like, you know, a couple of years. Yeah.

So it's you have a phone that's also a vampire right you have to invite it in sleeps in the coffin uh during the day i think that i would have been more likely to continue using the app if you could use your apple watch yeah like you could sync it that way that'd be good if you could just sync it uh I think I would have probably stayed on board a little bit longer. But I I've deleted the app as of today. Wow. So that I because I was like, I don't I like Nick. I don't sleep with my phone in my bedroom.

If there's an emergency, I have my watch. Like I purposefully have been leaving my phone outside of the bedroom so that the only thing that I can like put into my brain is a book. Like something not, you know, activating. Yes. In order to get a good night of sleep. Because like Nick, I also have had a lifetime of difficulty sleeping. a lifetime of um of difficulty sleeping and uh the medication i'm on also is uh one of the side effects is insomnia so it's been like a focused driven like treating sleep as combat like perfecting my my uh my loadout before i head to battle is really important to me. Can I just say, as your guys' friend,

I'm sorry I made you guys do something that made your life worse for a little bit of time. That's podcasting, baby. Yeah. Oh, that's sweet. Matt, that's really sweet. Yeah, that's really sweet. I don't look kind of bad.

Nothing. No, no, no, no, no. You don't even feel bad't feel bad about it yeah no i'm glad we did this yeah all good all good is it i wouldn't have done this well no i totally would have done this for one night and then i would have been like i feel like i'm gonna go crazy so i'll stop but it was i love doing stuff for this show and hey good making our lives worse was the was the genesis of this show to begin with. That's true. That's true. That's a great point. So.

I have two more things to add before we wrap it up because I know we're getting towards the end here. But the first thing is when you're so each Pokemon each day you get a new sleep style or sometimes an existing one of a Pokemon. Either a new pokemon shows up or you know one of your guys is just like they're just just just taking a snooze uh so i got a cubone today nice uh and and the cubone is a slumbering type pokemon uh and he was doing a weepy sleep so like you know whatever it'll be like a a geo dude will be like face covering sleep yeah and here's the caption for weepy sleep or our pseudo widow uh would be like you know, whatever. It'll be like a geodude will be like face covering sleep. Yeah. And here's the caption for weepy sleep or our pseudo-wudo would be like, you know, tree sleep. Whatever.

He's sleeping like a tree. Weepy sleep. It's been found crying in its sleep. Perhaps the tears come because it's dreaming of its deceased mother. Oh, yeah. Well, that's I know that's part of the lore, but that is that's a bleak thing. It's so sad. Yeah, it's a bleak thing. It's so sad. Yeah.

It's such a bummer. It's a, it's a, it's like such a bummer. And also like such a, like funny thing that they like continue to hit every time Cubone's in a Pokemon game. Like, Oh,

he's like this because he's wearing his mom's skull. Like what? And he's dreaming about it. It sucks. Um, the, the other, the other thing I wanted to note is that uh

this is a heather ann campbell tweet from may 28th 2019 uh finally with pokemon sleep i can gamify my nightmares so this has been on your radar for a i think it was good we did it um i think it was you know it's like it came out it's like a it's uh it's something that a video game podcast would cover um and now we don't have to do it anymore we're done with it 100 i'm glad i will i probably will keep doing it but uh i because i because i because i i bought a thing right like i did buy the peripheral so i do feel like i probably will stick with it uh until i decide that i no longer want to do this or you know some other uh nighttime uh injury befalls uh my loved one um but uh give us updates on how it goes i will i will should we do it should we do a segment oh yeah let's do a segment

okay uh first i want to give credit to uh gator sacks 2010 in our discord for suggesting this they wrote this in uh on the discord and I thought it sounded like a fun idea, so I'm giving it a spin here. Can Heather and Nick guess the game based on a brief clip of a boss theme? It's time for Who's the Boss? Ooh. So what I'm going to do is...

Angela. Mona. Oh, no. Fucking sitcom that no one under 40 remembers. I remember it. That's why I call it that. But I don't know what it's about. But I know the name and I know Tony Danza.

Tony Danza. He lives with Angela and Mona and he's always saying their names. That's the show. So what I'm going to do. And you're wondering who's the boss in this household. And nobody actually knows. Right? That's the thing, yeah.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to play a brief clip of a boss theme, and you have to tell me what game it's from. Bonus point if you can tell me who the boss is. See, this is going to be, I'm already predicting this is going to be too hard. But I'm excited. Here's the thing about the games that I make. They could be too hard, make they could be too hard or they could be too easy that's why you have an opportunity to get two points here okay okay so why don't we play the

the first one here uh this might this might be who knows what this will be let's see oh this is so familiar heather heather super mario 3 heather has a point that was was from Super Mario Brothers 3. Can you tell me the boss for an additional point? Yeah, she can tell you the boss. It's one of the... I don't... If you had to take a guess...

I'm going to guess Bowser. Heather's right. Two points on the board for Heather. Wow. Okay. Let's do the next one. I have, by the way, I have beaten Super Mario Bros. 3.

I beat that on NES back in the day as a kid, and that is a boss fight that's, I feel like, typically anticlimactic for a Super Mario Brothers game you just kind of kind of avoid Bowser as he stomps through the bricks right that's the that's that's kind of like all of them that I feel like not until they get like not until like 3D Mario do like Bowser fights become like kind of interesting but even Super Mario 64 those I feel like the Bowser fights are fucking easy yeah you just loop around the guy, grab his tail, and spin. It's fun, but it's...

Make him look like an idiot, yeah. Yeah. All right, let's go on to the next one. Odyssey had a great final act. Oh, yes. With Bowser, that was awesome. Here we go, this is the next boss theme. This sounds very FromSoft. But maybe I'm being led in a different direction.

Heather. Is this a... Heather? Millennia. Goddess of Rot. That is incorrect. Fuck! But I... But...

Because remember, we're guessing the game first. Oh, shit. Well... I mean... Elden Ring. Okay, Heather gets one. But then Millennia. The boss is incorrect. I'll play a little bit more. I'm just going to guess Godric.

Is it Godric? That is incorrect. It is Margit the Fell Omen. Oh, it's the first big gatekeeping boss. Margit the Fell Omen. Definitely a track I heard a bunch of times. Yeah, I heard it 50 times probably. Let's go on to the

next one right here. Here we go. Heather. God of War. Oh yeah. That is incorrect. Uh, Heather. Heather. God of War. Oh, yeah. That is incorrect. Oh! That sounded like it.

Okay, we can play some more of it. Okay, so that chord there is sounding very Final Fantasy. Okay. I did think it was God of War, that first melody there. I'm going to guess... Would you do something this recent, though? I'll guess Final Fantasy XVI. That is incorrect. No, it's definitely not from that.

Is it a Final Fantasy? It is not a Final Fantasy game. What's the game? It is from Breath of the Wild. Oh, that's from Breath of the Wild. Wow. And it is Calamity Ganon's music. Oh, there you go.

That's what it is. Hmm. A banger. An absolute banger. But here, let's move. Another track I've heard a bunch. Let's move on to this one. Not that big of a match. Maybe you've heard a bunch let's uh let's move on to this one and

maybe you maybe you've heard this one a lot too oh okay okay okay okay i know what this is i'm gonna let it go for a little bit I'm gonna let it go for a little bit. Wyger. Nick. I was hoping it'll get to the bar. Here, just let it die, because it's gonna get took apart.

Uh, this is, uh... This is Chrono Trigger. Nick, that's incorrect. Okay, shit. Heather. Final Fantasy VI. Heather gets, shit. Heather. Final Fantasy VI. Heather gets a point. Fuck. I thought we were about to kick into the World Revolution part.

Chrono Trigger. You want to tell me who the boss was? No, I don't have any idea. It's been too long. I think it might be the first... It might be the first boss that you fight, but I don't know who that was. It's like an ice person.

That's incorrect. Nick, do you want to take a guess? I'll guess Kefka. Nick gets a point. Nick, finally, I'm on the board. Is this the final boss fight? This is the final boss fight in the game. Finally, I'm on the board. Nick's on the board. Is this the one? Now, is this the final boss fight? This is the final boss fight in the game. Okay, got it.

So a great tune. Yeah. Fucking great. So I at least had, all right, I'm getting shit-housed here, but I at least had a Super Nintendo RPG, which was pretty obvious. I'm seeing that man perform live. Yeah. Kefka?

No. I can't believe you'd Yeah. Kefka? No. Nobuo Oomatsu. I can't believe you'd go support Kefka. I'm going to a Norwegian video game conference called Retro Mesa in Sendefjord in Norway on, I think, August 19th. He's playing live. Like, he's playing. Wow wow which is pretty fucking hype and then i'm also seeing david wise who's the um donkey kong country composer that we love so that's this

i i somebody on twitter likened it to um as if you booked nobuo ametsu to your local pub because it's such a small that's cool yeah super excited all right let's get back it's still anybody's game nick just got one point but like there's a couple i have two more you could still pull pull out ahead here's the next one. All right. Liger. Nick. I mean, this is Metal Gear Solid 3. Okay. Who's the... Do you want to say who it's against? Uh... Which of the many Metal Gear Solid 3 bosses is this one played?

Uh, is it... Is it the end? That is incorrect. Damn it. Fuck, this fucking song is such a boss. It's really good. God damn. So good. Nobody has a guess about who the boss is

oh in metal gear solid 3 yeah i've only played it that once um the one with the eye patch that's also that's also the end okay. But that could be anybody also. It's... I tricked you. It's... It's the boss. You son of a bitch.

I should have just guessed that. Okay, one more. Here we go. Jesus Christ. Heather. Heather. Silent Hill 2? That is correct.

Pyramid Head. Yes. What? It's actually two Pyramid Heads, but I'll let you have it. Oh, okay. It's the song that plays with a Pyramid Head. You win anyway. And Heather's our winner for the very first Who's the Boss? Thanks, GatorSax2010.

I found that difficult. found it was pretty hard that was it was a pretty easy game for me i don't know about you guys by the way i put i put the chrono trigger uh last boss theme world revolution uh when you're fighting lavos i put that in the chat so i just i know it's a little bit more major key than the final fantasy 6 but it's similar i got it confused because of the same sort of like ramp up but then let's just's a little bit more major key than the Final Fantasy 6 one, but I got it confused because they're the same sort of like Ramp up, but then let's play a little bit because there's a part where it fucking hits Nick is smiling and bopping up and down in his chair and he looks like he's the happiest he's been all record. Here we go. Oh. That's extremely good shit.

Yeah. That's the track to play when you want to feel like you can do anything. Right before you go to sleep. I think I remember Boss The because it's the only time I'm actually excited in a game. Yeah. Like I'm waiting for the big fights. So I'm like,

oh, these are great. This is the best part of a game. Is there a game that's only boss fights? I guess that's Shadow of the Colossus. Yeah. Elden Ring is kind of, I mean, any FromSoft game's only boss fights? I guess that's Shadow of the Colossus. Yeah. Elden Ring is kind of... I mean, any FromSoft game is all boss fights, really, because you could die at any time.

Punch-Out!! is kind of all boss fights. Yeah, yeah. All right. I hear... Just hearing the Metal Gear Solid 3 theme, I can't wait to play it again. I can't wait to play it again. I can't wait. I love it.

Well, hey, is that remaster coming out this year? I don't think the remaster or the remake's coming out, but the collection is coming out, and I will buy it on Switch, and I'll play it on Switch. I will play that game again this year. Well, there we go. Hey, that's this week's Get Played. Our engineering is by Alex Gonzalez, Dead Era Alex G on Twitter and Instagram.

Also, we got Get Animated behind the paywall. And Heather, we're continuing our coverage of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Yeah, so the boys are on a journey. And what's that journey? It's the season two journey of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzzumiya where we are currently about to uh cover episodes 15 and 16 is that correct right of um of the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya uh and yeah you can watch along or you can listen to them get demoralized you don't have to watch the show you can just you can just listen to the boys get demoralized on patreon.com slash get played for all your get animated content the demoralization

has been relatively recent because overall i really enjoy the show it's just it has an interesting arc right now. Great. There we go. And guys? And then what? I, I, I'm just, I'm just, you know, I'm just a little tired. I think I might,

I might go back to Pokemon sleep. Okay. Well, Matt's enjoying a gentle night's sleep seems as if this week he got played oh guys I had the craziest nightmare what happened we were recording a podcast no that's been the last few years